The ESF Programme in Asian Studies
In Autumn 1997, the European Science Foundation decided to continue its programme in Asian Studies for another three-year period. Launched officially in 1995 and reviewed in 1997, this programme will continue to address research topics considered relevant to the relationship between Asia and Europe. It will in particular encourage disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences so as to study developments in contemporary Asia against their cultural and historical backgrounds. The most important goal of this programme is to acquire a better knowledge of developments in Asian countries and cultures and, to achieve this purpose, to strengthen the European research community dealing with Asia.By Max Sparreboom
In a recent strategy paper (1997), the Asia Committee, which was in charge of the Asian Studies programme during the past three years, presented a view across the field of Asian Studies, giving a broad indication of the issues that should be addressed in the future. Besides this, an external review panel has evaluated the work done in the first three years and made suggestions to the ESF for future activities, pointing out among other recommendations that more emphasis should be placed on contemporary issues of cultural, scientific, economic, and political relevance. The ESF Standing Committees for the Humanities and the Social Sciences endorsed the views expressed by the reviewers. The Asia Committee was asked to present three items: a statement on the research topics it was planning to address, a research prospectus serving as a mission statement, and a guide to the work of the second three-year period. This document aims to fulfil that purpose. Practical aspects of the Asia Committee's work, such as issues of membership, modes of operation and reporting arrangements, are dealt with elsewhere (arrangements for the second mandate period of the ESF Asia Committee, September 1997) and are not repeated here. The following sectionss focus on the academic themes at issue. The themes chosen are broad and general enough to allow creative and individual approaches to the topics from the work floor, on the other hand the themes are sufficiently specific for researchers and research councils to recognize an academic agenda of work to which researchers in the Social Sciences and the Humanities can contribute. Although most themes fall within these two fields, there are important connections to other disciplinary domains such as the Technical and Life Sciences. In the strategy paper, interdisciplinary approaches are labelled a strength of European research on Asia. Where useful, and if possible, such interdisciplinary co-operation will be pursued, but the choice of topics implies that, where these prove adequate, there is also room for mono and multi-disciplinary approaches. Throughout the range of subjects the idea is that researchers from Europe and Asia work together on topics of common concern.The central issue in the topics enumerated below is the regional shaping of globalization and its interaction with regional and local identities. In the West globalization is perceived largely as a process of Westernization, but is that what it is? What effect does this globalization have on the economies, on the political organization of the regions, on demography, and on the lives and cultures of minority groups? Another thread running through all the issues is the necessity to compare the European and the Asian perspectives and experiences. Whether this is in the area of state-building, management of the environment, or financial markets, the comparative aspect is of interest to researchers, politicians, and companies in both Asia and Europe. The selection of issues is therefore determined by considerations of European added-value and relevance to the understanding of developments in contemporary Asia.
A number of the topics listed below have been initiated in workshops for which proposals were submitted by researchers, responding to open advertisement. These themes (1, 3, 5, and 6) will continue to be addressed in the coming years by groups of European and Asian researchers. For the other themes (2, 4, 7, and 8) new initiatives will be started. A tender for workshop proposals is one good way forward to identify, select, and co-ordinate further initiatives in these areas.
1. Welfare systems and models of social security
Historically, East and Southeast Asian societies have been more egalitarian than often assumed, especially when compared with their counterparts in Africa and Latin America. Informal ways and means have developed to spread incomes and resources through patronage, kinship, village solidarity, and subtle restrictions on abuse of power. These age-old systems have now changed as a result of the rapid growth of Asian economies, resulting in the rise of new middle classes and new patterns of consumption. It is, however, a fairly small segment of the total population that has so far benefited from the expanding economy. Poverty has decreased, but since the beginning of the 1990s this decline has come to a halt or has even been reversed. The on-going process of privatisation implies that state-driven systems of social security have not shared in the expansion. On the contrary, the formal sector of the economy, with the concomitant security of employment and social provisions, seems to be decreasing rather than increasing. The costs of health, education, and housing have gone up. The absence of formal schemes of social security is particularly frightening for the very large segment of the work-force, both rural and urban, which has to survive on low wages. Informal systems of social security, based on kinship, religious, or localized networks are no longer operative. This problem, the decline of the formal sector, coinciding with the breaking up of local networks, needs to be tackled.
Hence, the state-run social welfare arrangements in Western European societies, which were established to create social peace and stability during the industrialization process, are at present being carefully studied by Asian countries. In Europe, on the other hand, there are strong voices heard urging the need to dismantle the costly welfare institutions and state insurance systems in favour of privately organized security arrangements and Asian-style kinship and familism.
These two contrasting approaches to social security are seemingly melting together in the globalization process. The direction of the fusion is of the utmost importance for the way the world will be organized in the future, and an urgent field for joint Asian-European research at both macro and micro levels.
2. Demographic change
Asian cities are growing in size and population numbers at an unprecedented rate. Whereas in 1950 one in six Asians lived in cities, by the year 2000 it will be one in three; and while in 1950 most of the million cities were found in Europe and North America, at the end of this century most mega-cities (with over 10 million inhabitants) will be in Asia, including Tokyo-Yokohama, Shanghai, Bombay, Jakarta, and Manila. Net immigration from rural areas has usually been a greater contributor to urban growth than natural increase. The opportunities Asian cities offer to its residents are different. Many rural migrants find it difficult to make a living in poorly paid and uncertain industrial jobs or the self-employed informal sector, but, in contrast, businessmen and professionals can afford a luxurious life. In lay-out and architecture the cities both follow global trends and yet have various indigenous Asian models based on old traditions.
The extremely rapid urban development offers a wide range of research topics. One cluster of questions concerns the globalization of architectural trends, the applicability of European models of city planning in Asia, and the international competition between cities for investors through the creation of imaginative, high-quality urban space. An ongoing issue within particular cities is the conflict over space between various actors, public and private, big and small. Attention paid to this conflict over urban space can revitalize the study of the survival strategies of the uprooted masses. Finally, the urban environmental problems, in particular of the mega-cities, growing ever more pressing. These problems include traffic congestion and air pollution, ground-water extraction exceeding natural refilling, solid waste, and industrial pollution of surface water.
Besides the study of urbanization processes, other kinds of demographic change can also be fruitfully studied through European-Asian co-operation. The problem of ageing, which exists in big cities but in Asia is most pressing in the rural areas, can be approached usefully from a comparative perspective. This item is closely linked to that on social security (Theme 1).
3. Security and regionalization
The competition for resources such as oil, gas, water, and wood takes on new forms in the face of the predicted population growth in some areas, notably China. Examples are the problems in the South China Sea and the investments of big companies in Central Asia or in Irian Jaya. Another example is the Japanese policy of monopolizing Southeast Asian markets and securing its trade. Asia looks rather askance at Europe with its long history of forming and breaking regional political, economic, and military alliances. What will be the future role of organizations such as ASEAN and SAARC (not to mention APEC and ASEM)? By what kind of regional agreements is stability and security served best?
European and Asian approaches towards security differ, and so does the scientific conceptualization of security in the wider sense. In contrast to a specifically European approach towards security, developed in the context of détente, the different political, social, economic, and security structures of Southeast and East Asia have engendered a new approach towards security which has become widely known as comprehensive security. It recognizes that stability in the region does not rely only on a legally underpinned balance structure, but is also contingent on the overall social, political and economic stability which in turn must take into account the discontinuous diversity of history and culture of societies in the region.
4. Value systems and cultural heritage
Asia is the birthplace of a number of world religions and value-systems such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Taoism and Confucianism. Religions and value-systems from the West are also widely spread in Asia. The co-existence of these systems has been unproblematic in many instances but there have also been violent clashes between adherents of the different creeds, especially between Hindus and Muslims. A range of research questions relevant to present day society can be formulated on the basis of this.
How do these religions and value-systems react to a changing economic environment? How does this impact upon the attitudes and behaviour of the adherents of the different religious communities? What is the role attributed to these beliefs and cultural values in the perception of identities? Does economic growth promote secularization and is this identical to loss of traditional values? Can the rise of various kinds of fundamentalism be predicted, and if so, what are the developments in society that kindle these anti-modernist movements? What conditions govern the peaceful co-existence of different beliefs? What is the role played by religions and value-systems in the redefinition of new cultural identities?
The exchange of cultural goods between Asia and Europe predates the colonial period. Texts and ideas, arts and crafts have always flowed in both directions. Europe is a vast repertory of cultural goods from Asia. Here rests an important responsibility of European research, to make accessible to research and for the wider public, what is stored in European museums, libraries, and archives.
Asian archives also contain valuable European source materials on the local histories of Asian countries. Only through a jointly ventured Eurasian effort can these historical, art-historical, and archaeological sources be made fully available.
5. Changing labour relationships in Asia
One of the effects of the trend towards globalization is a rapid change in labour relationships. The basic question here is whether the Asian countries have chosen or will choose trajectories similar to or different from the Western economies. At a macro-level the debate has focused on the East Asian countries. But the cultural and religious contexts in the different regions are very diverse, giving rise to different trajectories in the global market, currently under severe pressure from global financial institutions and the ever more transnationalized large companies.
Labour relations are changing radically in Europe. Labour and its collective organizations are under pressure, labour market legislation has opened up, unemployment is growing. European and American industry see this as a means to increase global competitiveness and refer to the hitherto successful models of East and Southeast Asian industrialization, which have been inspired by the West but built upon endogenous cultural, social, and political dynamisms, challenging existing theories on labour relations and working life, which so far empirically rest only on studies of Western Europe, North America, and Japan.
Systematic comparative research is needed to address contemporary as well as historical perspectives and link macro and micro levels of analysis. Five interrelated themes seem to be of strategic importance: the labour process, labour mobility, labour consciousness, labour legislation, and the gendered nature of labour relations. The theme is clearly related to Theme 1 on 'Welfare systems and models of social security' and Theme 8 on 'Asianization of politics, democracy and human rights.'
6. Knowledge systems, environment, and transmission of technology
This theme focuses on the role that East-West relations play in global environmental issues. What is the structure and content of environmental relations between Asia and Europe / North America, and what are their impacts on the global ecosystem? How are global environmental issues affected by -- and in turn affect -- relations between Asia and Europe/North America? Over-exploitation of natural resources threatens global biodiversity. It has forced millions of people to leave their homelands, creating a new category of environmental refugees. And it is increasingly responsible for political conflicts. Many of these problems are transnational in origin and are especially acute in Asia. For example, some of the most important marketers of tropical timbers, and defenders of the trade, are found in Southeast Asia; whereas some of the most important timber consumers, and critics of the trade, are found in Europe and North America. In these and other issues, the most strident disagreements are those between the nations of Asia and Europe/North America. These environmental issues not only impact both East and West, they are constituted as issues by East-West relations. Topics to be addressed are: 1) the political-economic study of the international trade and industry for East-West environmental relations, the role of international aid agencies and bankers in these relations, East-West green marketing and eco-tourism; 2) how do ideas about nature and environment flow between East and West? How is environmental and political legitimacy created? What is the role of indigenous knowledge versus modern science?; 3) the study of natural resource management and conservation, the relations between gender and the environment and the quality of urban life and 4, the comparative cross-cultural study of perceptions of nature and cultural constructs of environmental danger and sustainability.
7. Institutional frameworks for industrial development in Asia
Industrial development never proceeds independently of its specific institutional and historical context. That is as true of Asian industrialization as it was true for industrial development experiences in Europe. Therefore, no 'normal' pattern of industrial accumulation is given. Instead, the challenge is to identify a multitude of industrial pathways or trajectories, each of which is embedded in the national socio-cultural and socio-political context. By means of comparative analysis it is possible to come up with generalizations about the relationships between policies, selected institutions, and development patterns and specify the conditions under which these bounded generalisations are valid. The overriding aim would be to acquire a better and more systematic understanding of the interaction between the institutional frameworks for policy formulation and implementation and economic growth and the various patterns of industrial transformation or stagnation observed in the Asian high and lower-performing economies. A long-term perspective will be necessary to grasp the significance of the various types of state-led and market-led industrialization strategies that are pursued. It would be of particular interest to focus on the political and institutional preconditions for the sustained high growth rates in some of the East and Southeast Asian countries and compare these with the conditions obtaining and the results achieved in other countries such as India. The types and modes of government intervention are indubitably worth considering. Developments in China would need to be treated as a special case in this context. With the recent difficulties faced by several of the high-performing Asian economies, the research agenda is likely to shift from the macro-economic policy framework and the general institutional arrangements for policy implementation to a special consideration of the role of the financial markets and the institutions and other factors affecting capital flows. There are lessons to be learned for other Asian countries from both the past successes of the high-performing economies and from the financial crises these countries have recently faced. Pertinently, studies of the global repercussions of past growth and present crises in parts of Asia are likely to reveal basic features of international economic and financial processes which also impact upon the European economies.
8. 'Asianization' of politics, democracy, and human rights
During what has been called 'the third wave of democratization', plural liberal polities have been established in many parts of Southern and Eastern Europe, Africa, and Latin America. But only few gains have been made by the liberal ideas in Asia. Constitutional democracy prevails in Japan and India. South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and Thailand have established, or re-established, multi-party systems and reasonably free elections, but their political systems leave much to be desired in terms of transparency and division of powers, before they can be classified as democracies in the Western sense. Demands for more political openness have been suppressed by force, most notably in China, Indonesia, Burma, North Korea, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Singapore and Malaysia have authoritarian political systems with rigid restrictions on the party system and elections have up to now been largely ritual. From a Western perspective, Asia is the least democratic of the world's six continents. In Asia there has been an intensive discussion, reinforced by the current financial crisis, on the applicability of Western models of democracy. In many quarters, there has been a rejection of these in favour of Asian versions of governance and human rights, built on the community rather than the individual, on consensus rather than opposition, on strong government rather than pluralism and decentralization. These ideas and visions have been promoted through various avenues, including the joint Asian declaration at the Vienna conference, the Bangkok declaration, and the Committee for a New Asia.
Asian countries have been claiming to provide an alternative to Western ways to modernity and prosperity. As a result of some of these countries' enormous economic success, combined with the rapprochement between socialist and non-socialist regimes after the end of the cold war, these achievements have been studied and seen as examples in other parts of the world. History has witnessed 'the first wave of Asianization of politics', unfolding in the part of the world in which the majority of mankind is living and to which the centre of economic gravity has been moving for more than two decades.
For the future, it is of great importance to understand and try to predict the political effects of the current financial crisis in East and Southeast Asia. Will it promote the development of a more transparent and democratic rule that is claimed to be necessary for financial adjustment, or, alternatively, will the Asian economies come out of the crisis economically and industrially more competitive than before, with polities intact?
It is important for Social Science theory on global processes that Asian polities and their reactions to Western democracy and human rights are studied from a comparative perspective. To investigate these requires a multi-disciplinary and combined Asian-European approach, including studies of the different historical trajectories, the various institutional frameworks, case studies of local political values and practices, and conceptual and semantic analyses.
Timing of operations
A new Asia Committee will be constituted for the execution of the research agenda outlined above. The Research Organizations which are member of the European Science Foundation, have been approached with a request to nominate scholars for this Committee. These organizations are also being asked to contribute financially to the work of the Committee from 1999 onwards. The budget targetted for the coming three years amounts to FF 2,940,000 per year. Countries which did not participate fully or contribute financially in the previous mandate period (Italy, Spain, Portugal, East European countries), are also being approached for participation. The budget will be spent on programme development, by providing short-term grants for pilot studies; on international workshops and on other activities, to be decided by the new Asia Committee. Hopefully the renewed Asia Committee can start work in October-November this year. Further announcements will be published in the next issues of this Newsletter.