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AbstractIn profiling Asian societies, such classical authors as Hegel, Marx, and Wittfogel have had considerable influence on the subject. They adopted power-centered approaches in characterizing Asian societies. This manuscript adopts the evidence-based approach with a bottom-up angle in constructing a people-centered typology of Asian societies. People's daily life satisfaction in 29 Asian societies is factor-analyzed with varimax rotation, society by society. Using the first two dimensions of factor analysis for each society, five types of Asian society are constructed: Ab, Ac, Ba, Bc, and Ca, where A means materialism in the primary, b means postmaterialism in the secondary, B means postmaterialism in the primary, a means materialism in the secondary, c means public sector dominance in the secondary, and C means public sector dominance in the primary. Ab societies include: Afghanistan, Indonesia, Japan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Ac societies include: China, South Korea, Taiwan, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Mongolia. Ba societies include: Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Kyrgyzstan. Bc includes Brunei, the Philippines, Bhutan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Kazakhstan. Ca societies include: Singapore and the Maldives. Responses to questions about lifestyle priorities are also provided to corroborate and reinforce the above typology. Applicability of this method is open to non-Asian as well as Asian societies.

"Theoretical Underpinnings of a Global Social Contract" published on by Oxford University Press.

This article describes the emergence of comparative politics in Japan in the new millennium. Applying Lipset's American exceptionalism as a negation of comparative politics to the oft-used Japanese uniqueness and particularism, I characterized a newly-born comparative politics Japanese style as: 1) metamorphosis of standard comparative politics; 2) dramatic rise of cross-national survey research; and 3) bringing area specialists and comparativists together. Some pronounced conceptual, theoretical, methodological, and empirical issues that remain to be tackled are discussed. In conclusion, the non-exceptionalist comparative politics based on conceptual clarity, methodological sophistication, and narrative persuasiveness is the line along which Japanese comparative politics should be evolving.

Two lines of argument seem to stand solidly without seeing eye to eye with each other about the current world order. Steven Pinker, the American psychologist, writes about the steady reduction in human violence in settling disputes among humankind (Pinker, 2012). John Mearsheimer, the American political scientist, writes about the structurally almost inevitable conflicts of interest between great powers in the early twenty-first century in his analysis of hegemonic competition between the United States and China (Mearsheimer, 2005). It is not necessary to note that their arguments are made looking at conflicts of interest and use of violence from very different angles and time ranges. Yet their differences are stark and clear. Pinker says that the future is bright and shining due to the non-use of violence. Mearsheimer says that the future is dark and potentially devastating due to the consequences of the high tensions surrounding the conflicts of interest. The question posed at the outset is thus: Is the current era one of peace or war?

The Vientiane Action Program, issued in 2013, declared that the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) will enhance integration, focusing on connectivity of member states by 2015. One of the policy tasks included in the Vientiane Action program, under the heading of Society, includes health and the environment. This special issue examines how ASEAN citizens evaluate their quality of life and environmentalism in order to help ASEAN achieve its goal of improving health and the environment by 2015 and beyond.

This article describes the ups and downs and complexities of Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's "Abenomics" and "Abegeopolitics," political approaches designed to revitalize Japan's economy and restore its national pride and strength, respectively.

Japanese foreign policy is at a crossroads. A global power transition is under way; while the United States remains the leading global power, across the globe non-western developing states are on the rise. Within Asia, China is a growing presence, wielding expansive claims on islands and maritime rights, and embarking on a defence buildup. As power shifts across Asia and the wider world, the terms of leadership and global governance have become more uncertain. Japan now finds itself asking basic questions about its own identity and strategic goals as a Great Power. Within this changing context, there are three foreign policy approaches available to Japan: (1) a classical realist line of working closely with the US in meeting China's rise and optimizing deep US engagement with China by pursuing a diplomacy focused on counterbalancing and hedging; (2) a transformative pragmatist line of rejuvenating itself through Abenomics and repositioning itself in East Asia; and (3) a liberal international line of pursuing a common agenda of enhancing global liberal-oriented norms and rules through multilateral institutions along with the United States and the Asia-Pacific countries. Current Japanese foreign policy contains a mix of all three approaches. The article argues that a greater focus on the second and the third lines would enhance the current approach; it would ensure that Japan is more in harmony with the global environment and help it work positively for global and regional stability and prosperity, thus enabling Japan to pursue an 'honorable place in the world' (as stated in the preamble to its constitution). (International Affairs (Oxford) / SWP)

The rise of China was not an issue in 1971 or 1972. Therefore, neither the United States nor Japan thought about the consequences of US–China and Japan–China rapprochement in the early 1970s (Kissinger, 2011). The diplomatic normalization between Japan and China took place in 1972 as an appendage of the United States–China rapprochement in 1971, at least in American eyes. At this time, the United States was waging war in Vietnam, while the Cold War was still at the heyday of massive nuclear buildups by the United States and the Soviet Union. China was in the midst of domestic turmoil called the Cultural Revolution, while facing the hostile Soviet Union. To ease their burdens, both countries concluded the surprising rapprochement. It was a great surprise to Japan because it had not been notified about this rapprochement even a couple of days before. In 1971, China entered the United Nations. Japan went ahead of the United States and had achieved diplomatic normalization by 1972. Japan wanted to develop a new market in China when its economy was booming whereby Japan wanted to alleviate the extreme of 'leaning to one side' (to the United States). China wanted to alleviate security threats coming from the Soviet Union ('anti-hegemonism') and to have Japan involved in the development of the half-frozen economy, especially with the massive Japanese official development assistance. On the disputed islands called Senkaku Islands/Diaoyu Islands, the Japanese government wanted to settle the issue, but the Chinese government saw no immediate urgency to do so. In 1978, both the United States and Japan consolidated their ties with China, again with Japan going ahead of the United States. In December 1978, Deng Xiaoping came back into power, paving the road to 'economic reform and the opening to the world'. His famous sentence, yangguan taohui (keep low profile, nurture strength), was propagated as the new Chinese policy line, both internally and externally (Vogel, 2011). He focused on economic development while keeping peace on all borders. China started to grow in the 1980s in a strident fashion, although voices for political reform were also on the rise. Such voices culminated in 1989 after the death of former Secretary General Hu Yaopang, a reformist who was dismissed from office in 1987 by Deng Xiaoping. On 4 June 1989, large numbers of demonstrators assembled in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, demanding more freedom and democracy. Deng Xiaoping ordered the all-out suppression of the dissidents. The Tiananmen Square massacre led to embargos by the West and by Japan. The embargos were lifted in 1991. Both Japan and Europe were keen on this. The Chinese economy then registered a two digit annual growth rate for two decades until 2011. Meanwhile the terms of the Japan–China Friendship Treaty of 1978 − that is China forgiving Japan for not paying indemnity − became known in China, giving rise to opposition to the Friendship Treaty in the 1990s. The United States was preoccupied with anti-terrorism after 9/11 in 2001, and the thought of growth in China in the 2000s scarcely came to mind. But by 2011, the growth of China was visible and tangible; a fact that no one can deny is that China is expected to surpass the United States in terms of Gross National Product sooner or later.

This article describes Japanese Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko's policy-focused struggles in an environment where voters swing, then swing away soon.