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2362. Drought Management Considerations for Climate Change Adaptation
- Publication Date:
- 10-2008
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- Cambodia is one of the most disaster-prone countries in East Asia, with its vulnerability to annual floods and droughts. One of the reasons why it is vulnerable to natural disasters is that the livelihoods of the majority of people depend directly upon natural resources, with a large proportion of its population occupied in agriculture and related sectors, including animal husbandry. Extreme poverty, which limits access to food, water, and other basic amenities, increases vulnerability. These characteristics heighten Cambodia's exposure to the impacts of climate change too. The Mekong region has recently been showing signs of climate change, as illustrated in our previous report on VietNam ('Drought-Management Considerations for Climate-Change Adaptation: Focus on the Mekong Region – Report (VietNam)', October 2007). There is evidence of greater climatic extremes: both declining rainfall in the dry season and more violent rainfall in the wet season, causing flash floods. Increasingly powerful typhoons also appear to be occurring.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Development, Energy Policy, Environment, and Non-Governmental Organization
- Political Geography:
- East Asia, Asia, Vietnam, and Cambodia
2363. Vietnam: Climate Change, Adaptation and Poor People
- Publication Date:
- 11-2008
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- Vietnam is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change. The government's impressive achievements in pulling millions of people out of poverty are seriously jeopardised by the likely increase in extreme weather events such as severe rainfall and drought, and by slow climate changes like sea level rises and warming temperatures. Poor men and women are particularly at risk.A team of Oxfam researchers travelled to the two provinces of Ben Tre and Quang Tri in May 2008 to take a snapshot of how poor families are experiencing the changing climate, and how they might deal with this in the future.
- Topic:
- Climate Change and Human Welfare
- Political Geography:
- Asia and Vietnam
2364. A Holistic Approach for Promoting the Rule of Law
- Author:
- Josef Bucher
- Publication Date:
- 09-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
- Abstract:
- The world has become smaller as a result of globalization tendencies, making the establishment of a global order more important than ever. Nations have become closer. Hence, the intensive relations between countries must be increasingly protected by legal security. In order to stabilise this global order, also intra-state relations must be subjected to the protection of the law. The rule of law has thus become a central element of successful globalisation on two different levels.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Civil Society, Globalization, Human Rights, Human Welfare, and International Law
- Political Geography:
- Asia
2365. War and Peace in Early Modern East Asia: Hierarchy and Legitimacy in International Systems
- Author:
- David C. Kang
- Publication Date:
- 10-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for International Peace and Security Studies
- Abstract:
- Between 1368 and 1841 – almost five centuries – there were only two wars between China, Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. These Sinicized states crafted stable relations with each other, and most of the violence and instability arose between these states and the nomadic peoples to the north and west of China and Korea. Building on the “new sovereignty” research in international relations, I argue that the status quo orientation of China and established boundaries created a loose hierarchy within anarchy that had much to do with the period of peace. Built on a mix of legitimate authority and material power, the China-derived international order provided clear benefits to secondary states, and also contained credible commitments by China not to exploit secondary states that accepted its authority. Korean, Vietnamese, and even Japanese elites consciously copied Chinese institutional and discursive practices to craft stable relations with China, not to challenge it. International systems based on legitimacy and hierarchy are not unique to early modern East Asia, and incorporating these insights into our theories of international society has implications for the contemporary world as well.
- Topic:
- Conflict Prevention, International Relations, Regional Cooperation, Treaties and Agreements, War, and International Security
- Political Geography:
- Japan, China, Israel, Asia, and Vietnam
2366. East Asian regionalism: Much ado about nothing?
- Author:
- John Ravenhill
- Publication Date:
- 12-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Australian National University Department of International Relations
- Abstract:
- In the decade since the financial crises, East Asia has become the most active site in the world for the negotiation of preferential trade agreements. Region-wide functional collaboration now goes substantially beyond trade, however, ranging across such areas as financial cooperation, disaster management, transborder crime, tourism, energy and environmental issues.
- Topic:
- International Relations, International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, Regional Cooperation, and Treaties and Agreements
- Political Geography:
- Israel and Asia
2367. Institutionalising Northeast Asia: The energy market
- Author:
- Stuart Harris
- Publication Date:
- 12-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Australian National University Department of International Relations
- Abstract:
- Interest in more comprehensive institutional arrangements for Northeast Asia have been given a fillip by the suggestions emerging from the Six Party Talks on North Korea's nuclear program. The following paper looks at regional interactions on energy and related policies. It asks whether the regional actors see conflicts emerging within the region in their individual attempts to solve their energy security concerns, or whether they envisage cooperative ways for resolving such problems. In the light of this, it asks whether there could be a functionalist basis arising from energy cooperation for a wider process of community-building in Northeast Asia.
- Topic:
- Energy Policy, Regional Cooperation, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Political Geography:
- Israel, Asia, South Korea, and North Korea
2368. Incentives in China's Healthcare Delivery System
- Author:
- Karen Eggleston
- Publication Date:
- 10-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- The economic approach of comparative and historical institutional analysis (Aoki 2001, Greif 2006) has virtually never been used in theoretical studies of healthcare incentives. This paper seeks to help fill this gap by exploring the explanatory power of such an approach for understanding incentives in China's healthcare delivery system. It focuses on positive analysis of why China's health system incentives evolved the way they did. The first section analyzes the institution of physician dispensing (MDD) and reforms toward separation of prescribing from dispensing (SPD), in historical and comparative perspective. It shows, for example, how MDD was a self-reinforcing institution; the longer a society remains under MDD, the higher the associated costs of supplier-induced demand can be before implementing SPD becomes the efficient self-enforcing social institution. Rapid technological change and adoption of universal coverage are likely to trigger SPD reforms. The second section seeks to explain the pattern and impact of price regulation and hospital payment reforms in contemporary China, which also reflect the legacy of MDD.
- Topic:
- Government, Health, and Human Welfare
- Political Geography:
- China, Israel, and Asia
2369. The Effect of Informal Caregiving on Labor Market Outcomes in South Korea
- Author:
- Young Kyung Do
- Publication Date:
- 12-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- Embedded in traditional culture perpetuating family-centered elderly care, informal care is still viewed as a family or moral issue rather than a social and policy issue in South Korea. Using newly available micro data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging, this study investigates the effect of informal caregiving on labor market outcomes in South Korea. By doing so, this study provides evidence to inform elderly long-term care policy in South Korea, and also fills a gap in the international literature by providing results from an Asian country. Empirical analyses address various methodological issues by investigating gender differences, by examining both extensive and intensive labor market adjustments with two definitions of labor force participation, by employing different functional forms of care intensity, and by accounting for the potential endogeneity of informal care as well as intergenerational co-residence. Robust findings suggest negative effects of informal caregiving on labor market outcomes among women, but not among men. Compared with otherwise similar non-caregivers, female intensive caregivers who provide at least more than 10 hours of care per week are at an increased risk of being out of the labor force by 15.2 percentage points. When examining the probability of employment in the formal sector only, the effect magnitude is smaller. Among employed women, more intensive caregivers receive lower hourly wages by 1.65K Korean Won than otherwise similar non-caregivers. Informal care is already an important economic issue in South Korea even though aging is still at an early stage.
- Topic:
- Demographics, Health, and Markets
- Political Geography:
- Israel, Asia, and South Korea
2370. Leading Without Followers: the Political Economy of Japan's ICT Sector
- Author:
- Kenji E. Kushida
- Publication Date:
- 12-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
- Abstract:
- Despite global leadership by Japanese firms in sectors such as automobiles, precision equipment, and various high tech components, Japanese firms in the ICT sector have followed a persistent pattern of leading without followers. While leading the domestic market to ever-high levels of sophistication, sometimes beyond that of most other advanced industrial countries, Japanese ICT companies have retreated dramatically from international markets. Moreover, in technology after technology, Japanese ICT firms invest heavily, undertake extensive R, and for network technologies, deploy infrastructure rapidly, only to find that global technological trajectories shift in a different direction. While globally successful Japanese industries were able to use their domestic market as a springboard into international markets, Japan's ICT sector became decoupled from global markets, trapping Japanese firms in the domestic market.
- Topic:
- International Trade and Finance and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- Japan, Israel, and Asia