Challenging the view of Islamic extremists and critics of Islam, this book explores the very topical issue of Islam s compatibility with democracy. It examines:

• principles of Islam's political theory and the notion of democracy therein
• the notion of democracy in medieval and modern Muslim thought
• Islam and human rights
• the contribution of Islamic legal ideas to European legal philosophy and law.

The book addresses the pressing need for a systematic show of an Islamic politics of human rights and democracy grounded in the Qur an. The West wonders about Islam and human rights, and its own ability to incorporate Muslim minority communities. Many Muslims also seek to find within Islam support source for democratic governance and human rights.

Through careful historical and ethnographic research and extensive use of local scholarly works, this book provides a persuasive and careful analysis of the production of knowledge in Central Asia. The author demonstrates that classical theories of science and society are inadequate for understanding the science project in Central Asia. Instead, a critical understanding of local science is more appropriate. In the region, the professional and political ethos of Marxism-Leninism was incorporated into the logic of science on the periphery of the Soviet empire. This book reveals that science, organizes and constructed by Soviet rule, was also defined by individual efforts of local scientists. Their work to establish themselves 'between Marx and the market' is therefore creating new political economies of knowledge at the edge of the scientific world system.

Comparative in structure and covering an extensive number of transition countries in its survey, this comprehensive book overviews the development of the banking systems in Central and Eastern European since the communist era until the present time. Taking in a range of countries including Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Barisitz - an economist with the Central Bank of Austra - analyzes the evolution of legal foundations, banking supervision, banks' major sources of assets, liabilities, earnings and related changes, banking crises, restructuring, rehabilitation programs, the role of foreign-owned banks and FDI. A significant publication, it is fascinating reading for all those studying and working in the areas of transition economy, macro and monetary economy and economic history

Over the last twenty years the proportion of development cooperation resources earmarked for agricultural development has dwindled to between six and seven per cent of total bi- and multilateral Official Development Assistance. This is despite the fact that eighty per cent of the world's poor live in rural agricultural areas and that the poor are disproportionately affected when political, military and natural events lead to regional or global food shortages. Brandt and Otzen's key book fills a gap in current literature, undertaking a wide-ranging conceptual reorientation of development cooperation, criticizing the current orthodoxy and its bias towards urban areas, and arguing that in order to effectively alleviate poverty across the world, agricultural and rural development measures need to be implemented both by central and subnational governments, aid agencies and the private sector. The authors investigate the world food question, the current pressures it is under and its link to rural poverty, and set out the policies that need to be undertaken to reduce global poverty.

This is the first work available in English which addresses Zhuangzi's thought as a whole. It presents an interpretation of the Zhuangzi, a book in thirty-three chapters that is the most important collection of Daoist texts in early China. The author introduces a complex reading that shows the unity of Zhuangzi's thought, in particular in his views of action, language, and ethics. By addressing methodological questions that arise in reading Zhuangzi, a hermeneutics is developed which makes understanding Zhuangzi's religious thought possible. A theoretical contribution to comparative philosophy and the cross-cultural study of religious traditions, the book serves as an introduction to Daoism for graduate students in religion, philosophy, and East Asian Studies.

Although it is generally believed in China that socialism raised women's status and paid work liberated them from the shackles of patriarchy, the economic reforms of the last two decades of the twentieth century meant women workers were more vulnerable to losing their jobs than men. Unlike previous studies, which have focused on the macro-structural features of this process, this book makes the voices of ordinary women workers heard and applies feminist perspectives on women and work to the Chinese situation.

Drawing upon extensive life history interviews, this book contests the view that mobilizing women into the workplace brought about their liberation. Instead, the gendered redundancy they experienced was the culmination of a lifetime's experiences of gender inequalities. Setting their life stories against a backdrop of great social-political upheaval in China, the book suggests that the women of this 'unlucky generation' have borne the brunt of sufferings caused by sacrifices they made for the development of socialist China.

Political Reform in Japan argues that the quality of political leadership is the crucial determinant of whether parties in positions of dominance, like the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan, pass or reject policies such as electoral system and campaign finance reforms that could harm the party's future electoral chances.

By comparing successful reform drives led by Miki Takeo, Ozawa Ichiro and Koizumi Junichiro with unsuccessful reform efforts pursued by Kaifu Toshiki, Miyazawa Kiichi and Kono Yonhei, Alisia Gaunder forces a reconsideration of the structure versus agency debate in political science, and of the conventional wisdom on Japanese politics that consensus decision-making norms and factional power balancing produce little in the way of political leadership.

Experiences of captivity in Japanese-occupied Asia varied enormously. Some prisoners of war (POWs) were sent to work in Japan, others to toil on the 'Death Railway' between Burma and Thailand. Some camps had death rates below 1 per cent, others of over 20 per cent. While POWs were deployed far and wide as a captive labour force, civilian internees were generally detained locally. This book explores differences in how captivity was experienced between 1941 and 1945, and has been remembered since: differences due to geography and logistics, to policies and personalities, and marked by nationality, age, class, gender and combatant status. Part One has at least one chapter for each 'National Memory', Australian, British, Canadian, Dutch, Indian and American. Part Two moves on to forgotten captivities. It covers women, children, camp guards, internee experiences upon the end of the war, and local heroines who fought back. By juxtaposing such a wide variety of captivity experiences - differentiated both by category of captive and by approach - this book transcends place, to become a collection about captivity as a category. It will interest scholars working on the Asia-Pacific War, on captivities in general, and on the individual histories of the countries and groups covered.

The Sanskrit Mahabharata is one of the greatest works of world literature and pivotal for the understanding of both Hindu traditions and wider society in ancient, medieval and modern South Asia. This book presents a new synthesis of philological, anthropological and cognitive-linguistic method and theory in relation to the study of narrative text by focusing on the form and function of the Mahabharata in the context of early South Asia.

Arguing that the combination of structural and thematic features that have helped to establish the enduring cultural centrality of religious narrative in South Asia was first outlined in the text, the book highlights the Mahabharata's complex orientation to the cosmic, social and textual past. The book shows the extent to which narrative is integral to human social life, and more generally the creation and maintenance of religious ideologies. It highlights the contexts of origin and transmission and the cultural function of the Mahabharata in first millennium South Asia and, by extension, in medieval and modern South Asiaby drawing on both textual and epigraphic sources. The book draws attention to what is culturally specific about the origination and transmission of early South Asian narrative and what can be used to enrich our orientation to narrative in human social life more globally.

This book addresses the growing academic concerns of the market-religion convergences in Asia.

Bringing together a group of leading scholars from Asia, Europe, Australia and North America, it discusses multiple issues regarding religious commodifications and their consequences across Asia's diverse religious traditions. Covering key issues in the anthropology and sociology of contemporary Asian religion, it draws theoretical implications for the study of religions in the light of the shift of religious institutions from traditional religious beliefs to material prosperity. The fact that religions compete with each other in a 'market of faiths' is also at the core of the analysis. The contributions show how ordinary people and religious institutions in Asia adjusted to, and negotiated with, the penetrative forces of a global market economy into the region's changing religio-cultural landscapes.

An excellent contribution to the growing demands of ethnographically and theoretically updated interpretations of Asian religions, Religious Commodifications in Asia will be of interest to scholars of Asian religion and new religious movements.

The history of Chinese medicine hinges on three major turning points: the formation of canonical theory in the Han dynasty; the transformation of medicine via the integration of earlier medical theories and practices in the Song dynasty; and the impact of Western medicine from the nineteenth century onwards. This book offers a comprehensive overview of the crucial second stage in the evolution of Chinese medicine by examining the changes in Chinese medicine during the pivotal era of the Song dynasty. Scholars often characterize the Song era as a time of change in every aspect of political, social, intellectual or economic life. More specifically it focuses on three narratives of change: the emperor's interest in medicine elevated the status of medicine in the eyes of the elite, leading to an increased involvement of intellectuals and the literary elite in medicine government officials systematically revised, printed, and promulgated earlier heterogeneous medical manuscripts belonging to various traditions the government established unique imperially sponsored medical institutions to handle public health and other aspects of medicine. As the first book to study the transformation medicine underwent during the Song period this volume will appeal to Sinologists and scholars of the history of medicine alike.

Eight years after the second Palestinian uprising, the Oslo accords signed in 1993 seem to have failed. The reasons for the failure continue to fascinate students, politicians, researchers and policymakers alike. This book explores one of the major aspects of the bilateral peace process the composition and behaviour of the Palestinian negotiating team, which deeply impacted the outcome of the negotiations between 1991 and 1997. It focuses on the dynamics between the PLO leadership outside the occupied Palestinian territories and the grassroots leadership within the areas under Israeli control that led to conflicts of interest at the time of the final agreement. As the author was a part of the Palestinian leadership in the occupied territories, and was present during the negotiations process in Madrid and Washington DC, the book contains original, unpublished accounts, including those of the Washington bilateral negotiations and crucial internal Palestinian meetings. It is an excellent resource to gain an understanding of Palestinian behavior during peace talks, deterioration in peace-making efforts, the resulting radicalization, and the growing tendency towards violence.

Drawing on first-hand materials collected from the Chinese and Japanese literature as well as interviews with more than twenty filmmakers and scholars Kinnia Shuk-ting Yau provides a solid historical account of the complex interactions between Japanese and Hong Kong film industries from the 1930s to 1970s.

The author describes in detail how Japan s efforts during the 1930s and 1940s to produce a "Greater East Asian cinema" led to many different kinds of collaborations between the filmmakers from China, Hong Kong and Japan, and how such development had laid the foundation for more exchanges between the cinemas in the post-war period. The period covered by the book is the least understood period of the East Asian film history. Filling the gaps surrounding one of the most important but least understood periods of Asian film history this books discusses facts and resources once obscured by controversial issues related to wartime affairs with new insights and perspectives.

This book is an invaluable source of information for understanding how the current East Asian film networks came into existence by looking beyond conventional single-case studies and adopting a transnational perspective in tracing the connections between different film industries.

The end of communism and accession to the European Union have had a huge impact on Poland. This book provides an overall assessment of the post-1989 transformation in Poland. It focuses in particular on four key themes: economic transformation and its outcomes; the heritage of the past and national identity; regional development in Poland including the implications of EU accession for regional development; and political developments both before and after EU accession. In addition the book shows how changes in all these areas are related, and emphasises the overall common themes. The book is in memory of George Blazyca, of the University of Paisley, whose work on the political economy of transition in Poland is highly regarded, and who did a great deal to support the work of Polish academic colleagues and to promote the work of young scholars.

The dissident voice in US culture might almost be said to have been born with the territory. Its span runs from Roger Williams to Thoreau, Anne Bradstreet to Gertrude Stein, Ambrose Bierce to the New Journalism, The Beats to the recent Bad Subjects cyber-crowd. In this new study, A. Robert Lee aims to explore those counter-seams of modern American writing that sit outside, or at least awkwardly within, agreed literary canons. Specifically, Lee analyses three recent literary branches in the tradition: a re-envisioning of the whole Beat web or circuit; a consortium of postwar "outrider" voices Hunter Thompson to Joan Didion to Kathy Acker; and a latest purview of what, all too casually, has been designated "ethnic" writing.

Since the early 1990s and the end of the Cold War, the implications of China's rising power have come to dominate the security agenda of the Asia-Pacific region. This book is the first to comprehensively chart the development of Southeast Asia's relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC) from 1949 to 2010, detailing each of the eleven countries' ties to the PRC and showing how strategic concerns associated with China's regional posture have been a significant factor in shaping their foreign and defence policies. In addition to assessing bilateral ties, the book also examines the institutionalization of relations between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China.

The first part of the book covers the period 1949-2010: it examines Southeast Asian responses to the PRC in the context of the ideological and geopolitical rivalry of the Cold War; Southeast Asian countries' policies towards the PRC in first decade of the post-Cold War era; and deepening ties between the ASEAN states and the PRC in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Part Two analyses the evolving relationships between the countries of mainland Southeast Asia - Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia - and China. Part Three reviews ties between the states of maritime Southeast Asia - Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Brunei and East Timor - and the PRC. Whilst the primary focus of the book is the security dimension of Southeast Asia-China relations, it also takes full account of political relations and the burgeoning economic ties between the two sides. This book is a timely contribution to the literature on the fast changing geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific region.

Throughout the twentieth century Taiwan was viewed as a model - whether in terms of a model colony, a model China or a development model. This perception was based on the notion of Taiwan undergoing an economic miracle and political developments. Yet much of Taiwan's history is unique and may not be readily replicable elsewhere.

Written by an impressive line up of contributors from the US, UK, Taiwan, France and Hong Kong, this book analyzes Taiwan's economic and political achievements, and asks whether it is possible to identify through the experience of a single nation - Taiwan - the makings of a replicable model.

This book will appeal to students and scholars of Taiwan, political economy, and Asia-Pacific regional development issues.

Private enterprises have contributed significantly to China's recent economic growth and will play a key role in achieving China's goal of building a comprehensively well-society. But how can private enterprises help China mitigate its macroeconomic problems such as unemployment, income inequality, financial disintermediation, and an unhealthy economic cycle? And what are the main obstacles to private enterprise development? Private Enterprises and China s Economic Development answers these questions by identifying the range of cultural, political and financial challenges confronting China's private enterprises, and assessing their performance and potential. Contributors also analyse the experiences and lessons of other countries, and propose strategies and policies to help China promote private enterprise development.

Using the most up to date research on private enterprises, including detailed econometric analysis and national representative data, authors including economists, policy-makers and academics from the USA, China, Singapore and Canada comprehensively address the most important aspects of China s private enterprise development. As such this book will appeal to students, scholars and policy-makers alike with an interested in the Chinese economy, economic growth, comparative economics and transitional economics.

The Germans were a very substantial minority in Russia, and many leading figures, including the Empress Catherine the Great, were German. Using rarely seen archival information, this book provides an account of the experiences of the Germans living in the Soviet Union from the early post-revolution period to the post-Soviet era following the collapse of communism. Setting out the history of this minority group and explaining how they were affected by the Soviet regime s nationality policies, the book:

• describes the character of the ethnic Germanic groups, demonstrating their diversity before the execution of the policy of systematic deportations by the Stalinist authorities from 1937 to 1947
• argues that there was not one but several episodes of deportation within this period
• considers the different dimensions of this policy, including the legal and economic structures of, and everyday life in, the Soviet special settlements
• investigates the women s dimension of deportation, especially the role of women in the preservation of ethnic identity among the afflicted groups
• explores the long term consequences of Soviet deportations and exile on the identity of the Soviet Germans.

This volume examines Muslim societies across Europe, North Africa, Central Asia and South Asia from the eighteenth century to the present, providing fresh insight through comparison. Movements and populations covered include the nineteenth century North African Sansusi movement and its relationships to Sufis and Arabs of the region, Soviet and Chinese Central Asia, Muslim-Hindu relationships in South Asia, Muslims in Syria and Muslim immigrants in Europe.

Ever since the terrorist incident of September 11th a general understanding seems to have arisen among people that the challenges posed by Islam have now acquired human and global dimensions.

Popular Movements and Democratization in the Islamic World contains case studies of people s movements in diverse areas and periods, and it seeks to develop a comparative view of Islam and democracy that goes beyond the usual stereotype of Islam being incompatible with democracy. Unravelling the complexities that have arisen between Islam and democracy is the principal task of Islamic scholars, and this book will undoubtedly prove a starting point for all such endeavours.

While primarily intended for students and scholars, this timely and important text will prove of interest even to general readers with interests in Islamic studies.

Examining the role of dramatized narratives in Russian television, this book stresses the ways in which the Russian government under Putin use primetime television to express a new understanding of what it means to be Russian, answering key questions of national identity for modern Russians in dealing with their recent history: What really happened to us?' and, accordingly, Why?' The book covers important issues in Russian television today, including: * the reworking of new national' on-screen heroes * its relationship with classic literature * the revisionist portrayal of a romantic portrait of life in the Soviet era * the role of thematic elements such as love, fidelity, humour and irony * the particularly pressing problem of crime and its representation on screen as Mafia or police adventure, and its political usage by the Putin administration. This book provides a detailed account of the critical issues in contemporary Russian television, relating them to broader social and political developments in Russian society.

Using case studies, interviews, and empirical sources, this book analyzes the strategies and impact of Internet use by civil society actors and asks how useful it is for their work - does the availability of Internet tools change the way citizens' groups work, does it influence their effectiveness, and does it do so differently in Japan from other countries?

Four fascinating studies take a closer look at the role of the Internet during the history textbook controversy; strategies of small citizen's groups; comparisons between internet use in Japan, Korea and Germany; and how the internet is used as a platform to discuss the dispatch of Japanese troops in Iraq.

Isa Ducke has produced an original work that will be of interest to students and scholars of Japanese politics, media and information technology and civil society.

International trade continues to expand robustly in East Asia and elsewhere, but global trade negotiations have collapsed and globalization is widely criticized. In this book, the participants of the thirtieth Pacific Trade and Development Conference--including the then-Director General of the World Trade Organization, and leading government officials, academics and executives from a dozen major Pacific Rim economies--debate whether global negotiations have ended once and for all, or are suffering temporarily from 'globalization fatigue;' whether East Asia's new regional partnerships will advance or undermine the global trading system; and whether the region's trade tensions with the United States will intensify or subside. They provide new empirical evidence on how trade affects the distribution of income, the location of pollution-intensive industries, the causes of 'outsourcing, ' the structure of the intellectual property regime, and international security. And they probe the implications of adjustment to globalization: how can countries reap the benefits of trade while controlling the risks faced by the poor and, perhaps more importantly, the politically strong? Challenges to the Global Trading System is an invaluable resource for students and scholars of Asia-Pacific studies, international relations and development studies, as well as those with a more general interest in Asian studies.

This much-needed work on ethnicity in Asia offers a major sociological analysis of Hui Muslims in contemporary China. Using both qualitative and quantitative data derived from fieldwork in Lanzhou between March 2001 and July 2004, it looks at the contrast between the urban life of the Han people, the ethnic majority in the city of Lanzhou, and the Hui people, the largest ethnic minority in the city, and assesses the link between minority ethnicity and traditional behaviour in urban sociology and research on ethnic groups of China. In-depth interviews and survey data provides a fresh perspective to the study of ethnic behaviour in China, and offers a rich account of Hui behaviour in seven aspects of urban life: neighbouring interaction, friendship formation, network behaviour, mate selection methods, spouse choice, marital homogamy, and household structure. Contributing to the global discourse on Islam, religious fundamentalism and modernity, this book will be invaluable to anyone interested in Chinese society, Islam, religion, development, urban studies, anthropology and ethnicity.