Thesis (M.A.)--University of Sydney, 1980. / Title from title screen (viewed July 22, 2009) Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts the Dept. of Government, Faculty of Arts. Includes bliographical references. Also available in print form.

This dissertation has two objectives: one, to dispel the “myth” and assumption that China holds on to an “absolute” view of sovereignty, and has arguably acted in accordance to this view; and two, to forward an alternative view of sovereignty as seen through Beijing’s eyes. This dissertation argues that China’s sovereignty is one which flexibly accommodates, at times voluntarily concedes, different mix of de facto rights according to each respective context and issue. This is attributed to China’s historical experiences with the concept, as well as its discourses. When “sovereignty” was introduced into Chinese thinking, the result is a “view” of sovereignty which juxtaposed Chinese previous understanding of “supreme authority” with an interpretation of the Western concept of sovereignty. “Sovereignty,” in this view, is essentially a de jure construct as its de facto component (or “right of governance”) is purposely and effectively detached from the concept to serve the political needs of the regime. It thus approximates one grounded on graded rings of sovereignty, where authority emanates from the core, but each “level of sovereignty” is entrusted to exercise different “right of governance.” As long as no overt challenge is posed to the idea that a single, de jure sovereignty— more specifically understood as a nominal “supreme authority”—resides in Beijing, this Chinese view of sovereignty is upheld. A “light” constructivist approach which explores the relationship between norms, ideational structures, agency and “discursive formations” is applied to the case studies of Hong Kong (and Macao) and Taiwan to support the arguments in this dissertation. Chinese discourses on “sovereignty” were examined in details through analysing a large sample size of Chinese academic writings from 1980 till 2008, in addition to policy documents and announced official positions of the Chinese leadership. This is further augmented by analyses of Beijing’s policy behaviours towards, in particular, Hong Kong’s autonomy and Taiwan’s international space.

This thesis engages in the debates on Japan’s foreign policy objectives and direction in the post-Cold War era by examining the case of Japan’s Myanmar policy with a particular focus on the question as to why Japan maintained its engagement policy line, although shifting to a more critical one, toward the Myanmar military government which was established in 1988. This thesis employs the analytical framework of neoclassical realism, recognizing international structure as the primary determinant of a state’s foreign policy while at the same time shedding light on domestic level factors, namely policy-makers’ perceptions, the government’s resource mobilization and the domestic policy-making system as intervening variables that incorporate international structural incentives into a state’s actual conduct of foreign policy. In conclusion, the empirical study reveals that Japan adhered to an engagement policy primarily because of Japanese policy-makers’ perceptions that it was the most practical and effective policy to promote Myanmar’s political and economic development, which would eventually contribute to regional stability and progress. This indicates a persistent feature of Japan’s foreign policy which can be described as ‘problem-driven pragmatism’, or Japan’s behavioural pattern of taking actions in response to concrete problems and pursuing practical problem-solving for bringing about incremental and pragmatic improvements in the problems by making necessary compromises with structural pressures and existing systems. This thesis makes a distinctive contribution from three aspects: providing new empirical evidence which fills the gap in conventional debates on Japan’s Myanmar policy objectives; proposing ‘problem-driven pragmatism’ as a new model of Japan’s foreign policy which addresses the shortcomings of existing arguments; and, affirming the applicability and efficacy of neoclassical realism for foreign policy analysis with the implication that it is necessary to examine multiple foreign policy agendas and multi-dimensional international structure in comprehending the critical tradeoffs that a state often faces.

It is expected that the ICTs can maximise the benefits for improved governance and electronic democracy in the information age. This study explores the impact of e-government upon citizens and demonstrates how this kind of electronic medium affects the quality of democracy in the context of the new democracies. Taiwan's peculiar characteristics, which combine a Confucian context, a new democracy and a leading performance in e-government, offers an interesting example of the conceptual diversity of e-government in itself, especially in relation to the level of democracy. Thus, this study uses the Taiwanese experience of developing, using and understanding e-government to identify the effect of e-governance in the new democracies. It integrates larger theoretical and empirical evidence, drawing upon several disciplines, including political science and public administration, communications studies, education and the sociology of technology. The research methods deployed are: documentary analysis, secondary analysis, content analysis and interview. The data are cross-referred and the analysis is presented in different sections. In this study, four themes are discussed: civil education, the policy initiatives, the public use and the public understanding of e-government. I first indicate that civic education in Taiwan has gradually paid more attention to the mode of participation, but the values supporting democracy have not yet been fully instilled. Secondly, the Taiwanese government has been more inclined to use e-government to reorganise itself than to incorporate more of the public in its operation. Thirdly, democratic participation has not yet extended in the public use of e-government in Taiwan. Fourthly, e-government in Taiwan has a modem format, but lacks political efficacy, since it lacks the mechanisms through which people can affect public policy. I conclude that e-government has been used as a modem means to rework authoritarianism. People suffer from a 'democratic deficit' in their understanding and use of e-government. The effects of e-governance have been constrained by the legacy of authoritarianism and the public's democratic deficit. Therefore, in the new democracies, the prospects of electronic democracy should not be overestimated. E-government may be over-rated as a weapon for consolidating democracy.

This thesis concerns the current ruling party, the AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi - Justice and Development Party) in Turkey. Its aim is to examine the emergence and consolidation of the AKP, as well as to determine whether or not this has shaped the evolution of the party system in Turkey. This research draws on a qualitative research approach, through interviews with 36 key informants from political parties, NGOs, grassroots organizations and through gathering data in the literature produced by parties and other statutory and voluntary agencies, as well as through the collection of descriptive statististics related to socio-economic structures, migration, occupational categories, macroeconomic indicators and collections of election surveys. The finding reveal that the AKP did not emerge as an Islamist party, but because of its promises of economic stability and growth, and of further integration into the EU and USA-led global order. The thesis shows that more so than its religious discourse, the AKP’s electoral success was based on the party’s adapting a hybrid, progressive and pro-EU position during its first tenure in government. Second, this research demonstrates how the political conjuncture up to 2002 and long-term economic factors provided favourable circumstances for the AKP’s emergence. The study’s findings also reveal that the consolidation of the AKP is mainly attributable to its economic and social agenda, and the utilization of the public purse and other state resources (e.g. social and health care benefits) as a means of catering for its target constituencies. In addition, they demonstrate that once AKP’s consolidation was completed (2010) the party’s discourse gradually became more conservative and nationalist, giving way to more authoritarian policies. Nonetheless, as long as economic performance and conditions remain unchanged, the AKP continues to appeal to its social base. Consequently, this thesis demonstrates that the gradual drift in Turkish society towards moderate Islamic and traditional values was not the main factor in the AKP’s rise to power. Rather, this shift can be viewed as the feedback effect of the consolidation of the AKP process into societal structures and norms. Hence, this work highlights the AKP’s impact on the structure of the party-system and the role of its policies in transforming Turkish society. Lastly, this study contributes to the foundation upon which further research on Turkish politics and the party system can continue, by exploring the dual effect of the AKP’s ruling tenure: factors leading to the AKP’s emergence and its feedback into Turkish society and politics.

This thesis looks into the relationship between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) since the PRC regained its IMF membership in 1980. It initially analyzes the China-IMF relationship with socialization theoretical framework, attempting to explore how the IMF has socialized China into accepting neoliberal international economic norms. The research borrows Alastair Johnston’s ‘microprocesses’ of socialization to assess the processes of IMF socialization via financial assistance, technical assistance, and surveillance and policy advice for China. The research shows socialization has taken place to a moderate degree, as IMF programs have had some impacts on China’s domestic economic and financial liberalization. Yet no evidence shows the IMF has convinced China to fully redefine its economic principles and norms. Socialization turns out to be an inadequate analytical approach to analyzing the China-IMF relationship in the long run. The research continues with a supplementary theoretical framework: principal-agent theory. Principal-agent theory overcomes some of the technical deficiencies in socialization theory, and helps us understand more thoroughly China’s role in the IMF and the governance of international financial economy in general in the long run. China is regarded as the principal, and the IMF as China’s international organization agent. Driven by its objective of acquiring a larger influence in the governance of international financial economy, China delegates several tasks to the IMF so that the Fund can accomplish these tasks more efficiently than if China took other cooperative or unilateral approaches. China-IMF interactions are assessed following a four-stage analytical approach based upon the key concepts of principal-agent theory. China’s and the IMF’s institutional features and functions are examined as important factors of the China-IMF relationship. They include China’s preferences regarding IMF operation, China’s role in IMF governance, and China’s impact among IMF staff. Based on this examination, the consequences of China’s delegation of tasks to the IMF are assessed. This dissertation indicates that the IMF plays a limited role in assisting China to access larger influence in the governance of international financial economy, because of the IMF’s westerndominated staffing rules, unbalanced governance structure, preference deviation from China, inadequate resources, and China’s incapability to facilitate strict controls on the IMF. The thesis contributes to the so far thin literature on the China-IMF relationship with selected case studies such as IMF Article IV Consultation for China, China’s role in IMF quota and voting share reforms, IMF staff with Chinese nationality, and so on. The research provides a model for analyzing the relationship between China and international organizations with a combination of socialization and principal-agent theoretical frameworks. Last but not least, it extends the research subject of principal-agent theory in international organization Studies to include an emerging market economy state as the principal, which correctly implies the increasing influence of emerging market economies in the governance of international political economy.

This thesis studies the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s capacity to rule in contemporary China by examining (a) its quest for popular legitimacy and (b) its search for party cohesion. In explaining the CCP’s ruling basis, a plethora of political science and economics literature has pointed to China’s economic growth. Conventional wisdom considers ideology to be obsolete and the political reform to be too limited to take any substantive effect in China. This thesis argues that ideological adaptation and the institutionalization of power succession play crucial roles in maintaining the CCP’s popular legitimacy and party cohesion. China’s economic success is certainly important, however, it also creates a fundamental dilemma of the CCP’s rule. If a communist party is not to deliver communism and class victory, why is it there at all? There is a potential contradiction between generating economic success by utilizing quasi capitalist economic policies on the one hand, and the fact that this is a communist party that supposedly justifies its rule by being the vehicle to deliver a communist society on the other. This thesis shows how the CCP has been constantly revising its ideological basis for justifying – if not legitimizing – its rule. By studying the CCP’s ideological discourses, the mechanism of ideological promotion, and their effectiveness, this thesis makes a valuable contribution to the relevant literature. In addition to ideology, the institutionalization of power succession is also crucial to the CCP’s rule. During Mao Zedong’s rule, an un-institutionalized power system had caused endless fierce power struggles within the party, which indirectly led to economic stagnation and social unrest. Thirty years of institutionalization has made leadership transitions in China more stable, transparent, predictable, and smoother now than ever before. By offering a large amount of first- and second-hand data on China’s leadership transition, this thesis shows how the institutionalization of power succession helps to maintain regime stability and legitimacy.

This thesis is an historical study of biopolitical relations between racism and biometric identification in Japan since the late nineteenth century to the present day. Adopting Foucault’s historical method, it challenges progressive accounts of the history of racism and that of biometrics. During the nineteenth century, practices of biometric identification emerged as constitutive of the knowledge of race wherein imperial power relations between superior and inferior races were enabled. Progressive accounts proclaim that colonial practices of biometrics were not scientific but politically intervened, which has since been discredited and replaced by a ‘true’ science of biometrics as individualisation. Contra progressivist claims on postraciality, the thesis concretely historicises the ways in which subjectification and control of race is conducted through the interplay between the epistemic construction of race and the technology of identification in each historical and geographical context. It analyses three modalities of racial government through biometrics in Japan: biometrics as a biological technology of inscribing race during Japanese colonialism; biometrics as a forensic technology of policing former colonial subjects in post-WWII Japan; and contemporary biometrics as an informatic technology of controlling a newly racialised immigrant population. The thesis concludes that despite a series of de-racialising reforms in the twentieth century, biometrics persist as a biopolitical technology of race. Neither racism nor biometrics as a technology of race is receding but they are continuously transforming in a way that a new mechanism of racial government is made possible. Race evolves, it is argued, not in the sense of social Darwinism but because the concept of race itself changes across time and space wherein a new model of racism is empowered. The thesis contributes to existing literature on the biopolitics of security and biometrics by extending the scope of analysis to a non-Western context, explicating historical relations between racism and biometrics, and problematising biometric rationality at the level of racialised mechanism of knowing and controlling (in)security. It also makes contributions to Foucaultian studies by advancing the analysis of biopolitical racism beyond Foucault’s original formulation and by offering a critique of rationality in the field of biometrics.

Nigeria’s federal system of government is grossly problematic. It is characterized by an inordinate concentration of powers and fiscal resources in the central government. Not only is this centralist division of powers antithetical to the idea of federalism, it also fosters the dictatorship of the central government vis a vis the other levels of government. Furthermore, it indirectly entrenches the domination of the minority ethnic groups by the larger ones. So centralized is Nigeria’s ‘federal’ arrangement that it is, perhaps, better described as a unitary contraption designed to perpetually establish the hegemony of the central government. As we shall later see in this thesis, the existing division of powers among the levels of government in Nigeria has been the source of protracted acrimony, conflict, and rancour threatening to tear the federation apart. Through theoretical analysis, this thesis examines the suitability of the existing power allocation structure for a country like Nigeria. The thesis argues that the ethnically diverse character of the Nigerian federation and the age-long clamour for autonomy by the constituent units of the federation make the existing division of powers absolutely untenable and unsuitable for Nigeria. This thesis thus proposes a complete abrogation of the existing constitutional framework for the division of powers among the levels of government in Nigeria, and its replacement with a restructured federal framework that is popularly designed by the Nigerian people and cognizant of the country’s diversity. Further to this, the thesis advocates a division of powers that entrenches state and local government autonomy without compromising the unity of the Nigerian federation. It is argued that only a framework such as this will conduce to the federation’s peace and stability, and help to stem the secessionist tide currently rocking the country.

A considerable amount of literature examines the impact of the Internet and social media on the practice of democracy in liberal democratic contexts and on the democratization process in nondemocratic contexts. However, little is known about the rise and implications of using the Internet and social media platforms for democratization process in a hybrid political system, like that of Iraqi Kurdistan, which combines elements of both democracy and authoritarianism. This study asks: how does the rise of the Internet and social media platforms influence democracy and democratization in Iraqi Kurdistan? To this end, the study assesses both the relationship between the use of social media platforms by citizens, politicians, electoral candidates, and political parties, as well as political participation and political communication, which are selected as important elements of democratization. It specifically examines the use of social media through three case studies: the Slemani protest movement in 2011; political discussion between citizens and party leaders of two political parties, the Patriotic union of Kurdistan (PUK), and the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU); and the 2013 parliamentary elections. The study is based on original qualitative interviews with activists, politicians, and party leaders, and an analysis of relevant social media content in the Kurdish language, especially on the social media platform, Facebook. The thesis finds that social media platforms facilitate political participation and political communication in terms of reducing the constraints for organizing and coordinating collective action. They also facilitate political discussion between party leaders and citizens, and provide more access to relevant information for citizens. Furthermore, they expand the scope of freedom of speech by providing opportunities to discuss political issues and other issues of common interest, and facilitate the dissemination of information by electoral candidates and reduce campaign costs. However, the thesis argues that the increasing ease of political participation and political communication, as a result of social media usage, should not be equated with democratization. This is because those in power also use social media but in ways that are counter-productive to democratization. For example, security forces use social media to monitor and gather information about citizens and social movement activists; Political parties and their leaders also use online and social media platforms to distribute pro-party propaganda and to launch online attacks on political rivals, spreading a culture of hatred, violence and nondemocratic values, rather than promoting the discussion of policy issues and government decisions. Election candidates use online resources primarily to win a seat in parliament and empower their campaign rather than engaging with voters in a way that generates productive, healthy, rational, and deep political conversation.