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'The Great Game in West Asia' examines the strategic competition between Iran and Turkey for power and influence in the South Caucasus. These neighboring Middle East powers have vied for supremacy throughout the region, while contending with ethnic heterogeneity within their own territories and across their borders

This issue of the ( ) is the first in a series of biannual reports on economic and development issues in South Asia. The is a cooperative effort by the South Asia Department and the Central and West Asia Department of the Asian Development Bank. The aims to provide information to policy makers, academics, and ADB management and staff and highlights issues that help promote debate and foster appropriate policies and greater cooperation and integration in the region. The key messages of the are the following: • South Asia is on a high growth path. • Growth is primarily driven by domestic demand and the services sector, unlike in East and Southeast Asia. • Continued sound macroeconomic management, policy and institutional reforms, and targeted public investments in infrastructure are needed to sustain the high growth. • In macroeconomic management, the key areas of concern are inflation and increasing current account deficits. • With regard to policy and institutional reforms, there is a need to focus on improving regulatory quality and government effectiveness.

This issue of the ( ) is the first in a series of biannual reports on economic and development issues in South Asia. The is a cooperative effort by the South Asia Department and the Central and West Asia Department of the Asian Development Bank. The aims to provide information to policy makers, academics, and ADB management and staff and highlights issues that help promote debate and foster appropriate policies and greater cooperation and integration in the region. The key messages of the are the following: • South Asia is on a high growth path. • Growth is primarily driven by domestic demand and the services sector, unlike in East and Southeast Asia. • Continued sound macroeconomic management, policy and institutional reforms, and targeted public investments in infrastructure are needed to sustain the high growth. • In macroeconomic management, the key areas of concern are inflation and increasing current account deficits. • With regard to policy and institutional reforms, there is a need to focus on improving regulatory quality and government effectiveness.

Part 1 Nation, state and politics -- Contradictions in the development of Malay capital - state, accumulation and legitimation - Lim Mah Hui -- An undeveloped state - the study of modern Burma's politics, Robert H.Taylor -- The transformation of the state in Indonesia, Richard Robinson -- Part 2 Industrialization - capital and labour -- The state and capitalist development in Thailand, Kevin J.Hewison -- Peripheral intermediation - Singapore and the emerging international economic order, Hafiz Mirza -- Wage labour in West Malaysia - a study of five factories, Hing Ai Yun. -- Part 3 Agrarian differentiation -- Rice harvesting in Kali Loro - a study of class and labour relations in rural Java, Ann L.Stoler -- Strategies for control of labour in share-cropping and tenancy arrangements, Anan Ganjanapan -- Agrarian differentiation in the southern region of Vietnam, Ngo Vinh Long. -- Part 4 Production and gender relations -- Subordination of women and lack of industrial strife in West Java, Celia Mather -- Philippine domestic outwork- subcontracting for export-oriented industries, Rosalindo Pinedo-Ofreneo -- socialist transformation of agriculture and gender relations - the Vietnamese case, Christine Pelkzer White. -- Part 5 Culture and ideology -- Ideology and social structure in Indonesia, Joel S.Khan -- Toward a history from below, Reynaldo Clemena Ileto -- Rituals of compassion and social control, James C. Scott -- Ideological commodity production, Andrew Turton. -- Part 6 Ethnic histories and identities -- The interiorizations of a perennial minority group, Leo Alting von Geusau -- The Hmong - political economy of an illegal crop, Nicholas Tapp -- Kalinga history and historical consciousness, Esteban Magnnon -- Transformations of Iban Social consciousness, Motomitsu Uchibori.

The problems and prospects of democratic peace have attracted both scholars of international relations and policy makers in recent years. The main argument is that the promotion of democracy will lower the probability of war because democracies have not yet gone to war against each other. The promotion of democratic governance therefore became one of the cornerstones of the foreign policies in both the U.S. and the member countries of the European Union (EU) in the 1990s. South Asia can surely be regarded as a region where the benefits of democratic peace would be more than desirable. South Asia's image as a region of chronic instability was only to be seconded by U.S. President Clinton's remarks in March 2000 that the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir is the 'most dangerous place in the world'. The events following September 11 and the growing tensions between India and Pakistan after the attacks of Islamic militants on the Indian parliament in December 2001 have again increased the probability of a nuclear war in this part of the world. But the overall picture of the region is more complex. Besides the well-known conventional and nuclear security risks, South Asia is also among the poorest and least developed regions in the world according to international social and economic indicators. Despite these developments there are remarkable traditions of democratic rule at the same time. During most of the 1990s, South Asia was the biggest democratic region after the transition from authoritarian rule in Pakistan (1988), Nepal (1990) and Bangladesh (1990). Moreover, South Asia is the only region where western political institutions go hand in hand with a variety of non-western civilisations and where religion plays an active role in current politics. The only forms of Hindu and Islamic democracies are to be found in Nepal and Bangladesh, and Buddhism received a foremost place in the Sri Lanka constitution. In contrast to other Asian regions there is a strong commitment by South Asian countries to follow the ...