Beyond Barriers: My Fulbright Experience
Collection of essays by Singapore participants in the Fulbright educational exchange program.
Buddhism, Power and Political Order
Weber’s claim that Buddhism is an otherworldly religion is only partially true. Early sources indicate that the Buddha was sometimes diverted from supra-mundane interests to dwell on a variety of politically related matters. The significance of Asoka Maurya as a paradigm for later traditions of Buddhist kingship is also well attested. However, there has been little …
Colonial Archaeology in South Asia: The Legacy of Sir Mortimer Wheeler
This book discusses the practice and institutionalization of the discipline of archaeology under British Rule and its current manifestations. Using Sir Mortimer Wheeler’s tenure as the Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India (1944-48), it assesses the extent to which colonial intervention shaped the nascent discipline in South Asia. The study investigates two important areas …
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Critical Perspectives on Global Governance: Rights and Regulation in Governing Regimes
In this innovative study Jean Grugel and Nicola Piper aim to link theories of liberal global governance and rights-based development in a way that explores how rights can be made real. The authors analyze the scope and effectiveness of rights-based governance in attaching a rights framework to emerging governance regimes and discourses as well as …
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WPS 99 Narratives of Faith: Buddhism and Colonial Archaeology in Monsoon Asia
In this paper, largely based on archaeological data, I argue that colonial intervention in 19th – 20th century South and Southeast Asia, a region that the French scholar Paul Mus termed Monsoon Asia, not only altered our understanding of monuments, essentially religious structures, from being abodes of god to objects of artistic and aesthetic appreciation, …
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Elections as Popular Culture in Asia
Conventional political science depicts legitimate elections as rational affairs in which informed voters select candidates for office according to how their coherently presented aims, ideologies and policies appeal to the self-interest of the electorate. In reality elections, whether in first world democracies, or in the various governmental systems present in Asia, can more realistically be …
Global Body Shopping : An Indian Labor System in the Information Technology Industry
How can America’s information technology (IT) industry predict serious labor shortages while at the same time laying off tens of thousands of employees annually? The answer is the industry’s flexible labor management system–a flexibility widely regarded as the modus operandi of global capitalism today. Global “Body Shopping” explores how flexibility and uncertainty in the IT …
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History in Uniform: Military Ideology and the Construction of Indonesia’s Past
Under the New Order regime (1967-98), the Indonesian military sought to monopolise the production of official history and control its contents. The goal was to validate the political role of the armed forces, condemn communism and promote military values. In this detailed examination of the Indonesian military’s image-making efforts, Katharine E. McGregor explores the formulation …
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Islamic Legitimacy in a Plural Asia
A global debate has emerged within Islam about how to coexist with democracy. Even in Asia, where such ideas have always been marginal, radical groups are taking the view that scriptural authority requires either Islamic rule (Dar-ul-Islam) or a state of war with the essentially illegitimate authority of non-Muslims or secularists. This book places the …