Communitarian Politics in Asia

by Chua,Beng Huat

• ISBN13: 9780415334754
• ISBN10: 0415334756
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-05-10
• Publisher: RoutledgeCurzon

Summary

With the collapse of European socialism in the late 1980s, ascendancy of the liberal capitalist democracy and individual self-interest became prevalent in the West. In contrast, many polities in Asia, both by tradition and choice, have explicitly adopted communitarianism as a national ideology, for example Confucianism in Korea, Hong Kong and Japan, Islam in Malaysia and the Panca Sila in Indonesia. Here, communitarianism arguably informs public policies and political practices and the concept of the 'social' in terms of responsibilities and collective welfare is preserved. Communitarian Politics in Asia examines instances in Southeast and East Asian countries where communitarianism is both articulated as national ideology and embedded as the ethos of social life and assesses the relative merits of a set of practices in their respective local political context. The book not only augments existing international debate on liberalism and communitarianism but also provides empirical examples ofcommunitarian political practices that will substantiate and/or refute conceptual points, such as re-distributive justice and costs to individuals, in this ongoing debate.

Author Biography

Chua Beng Huat is Professor of Sociology at the National University of Singapore.

Table of Contents

List of contributors	xi
Acknowledgements	xii
1 Communitarian politics in Asia	1	(24)
CHUA BENG HUAT
2 Communitarian philosophy and East Asian politics	25	(21)
DANIEL A. BELL
3 Predicament of communality: lessons from Japan	46	(11)
TATSUO INOUE
4 The anti-communitarian family? Everyday conditions of authoritarian politics in South Korea	57	(21)
CHANG KYUNG-SUP
5 Communitarianism without competitive politics in Singapore	78	(24)
CHUA BENG HUAT
6 The ethics of care and political practices in Hong Kong	102	(20)
HO MUN CHAN
7 Shariah formalism or democratic communitarianism? The Islamic resurgence and political theory	122	(26)
ROBERT W. HEFNER
8 The failure of state ideology in Indonesia: the rise and demise of Pancasila	148	(14)
VEDI R. HADIZ
9 'Community in the East': towards a new human rights paradigm	162	(21)
ANTHONY WOODIWISS
Index	183