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The year 2012 saw rapid economic growth, resource development, and a young, dynamic population starting to change the face of Lao public life. The governing Lao People's Revolutionary Party was quick to claim across the board success. There remain, however, significant caveats: success has been moderate, and growth has come with human costs.

SUMMARYWe expect those who govern to do so in the interests of the governed. From an international institutional perspective on governance, derived from major international donor frameworks (IMF, WB, EU), good governance refers to efficiency in the provision of services and economic competitiveness. Increasingly, good governance has also come to mean accountability in the provision of services and in the generation and distribution of the collective good. Although even then, there are concerns regarding the impact on the extreme poor, cultural relativity and path dependency, as aggregate measurements of success are used, top‐down exogenous values and primarily Western standards are imposed and political rights are prioritised over other, perhaps more immediate, entitlement rights. This article returns to a fundamental conceptualisation of governance, arguing that the 'right' approach to public administration is that which provides for the basic human needs of all to the greatest extent, but in particular, provides for those of the most vulnerable sections of society. Poverty is one of the greatest challenges to human security and basic human needs, in particular, as addressed in this article, when it is linked to insecurity due to the impact and legacy of conflict. Thus, the article examines conceptual and policy problems related to the provision of 'safe havens' for the vulnerable, regardless of their citizenship status. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Preliminary Material /Brendan Howe and Boris Kondoch -- Introduction /Brendan Howe and Boris Kondoch -- Aggression, the Prohibition of the Use of Force and Northeast Asia /Boris Kondoch -- East Asian Values and Humanitarian Intervention /Brendan Howe -- Between Harmonious World and "War of Order": Chinese Meanings of Just War and Their Reemergence /Nadine Godehardt -- From Ideology to Pragmatism: China's Position on Humanitarian Intervention in the Post-Cold War Era /Jonathan E. Davis -- The Paradox of Non-use of "Use of Force" Option in Japan's Foreign and Security Policy Consensus /Toshiya Hoshino -- "The Crime of Aggression" and Japan /Madoka Futamura -- Questioning the Legality and Legitimacy of a Preventive Strike by the U.S. to Disarm North Korea of Nuclear Weapons /Dan Ernst -- Bibliography /Brendan Howe and Boris Kondoch -- Index /Brendan Howe and Boris Kondoch.

In this article, we address four common, often contradictory misconceptions concerning Japanese foreign and security policy. First, Japan's strategic "normalization" is dangerous. Second, Japan is incapable of having a "normal" policy. Third, Japan is about to become "normal." Fourth, foreign and security policy under the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) will differ radically from what it was for fifty years under the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). We contend that Japan is not a threat; that it has a security policy, but not one that fits well with Western models; and that Japan's security policy is changing, gradually not radically, and is not becoming just like the West's. (Asian Perspec/GIGA)

Traditionally, studies on democracy have focused on the orthodox so-called Northern models of democratic governance, and within this framework, the extent to which Southern models are considered democratic. Democracy in the South is the first truly international collaboration that draws attention to the complex problems of democratic consolidation across the majority world. Nine case studies, three each from Africa, Latin America and Asia, shed light on the contemporary challenges faced by democratizing countries, mostly from the perspective of emerging theorists working in their home countrie.