Politics and International Relations in Asia – serie

Constrained Expertise in India and China explores what kinds of knowledge and knowledge purveyors get mobilized and privileged, and what gets sidelined in policymaking in India and China. Through its detailed empirical studies in both countries, the volume illuminates a trend of increasing concentration of political authority which has frequently demanded that experts be aligned with the central government’s agenda. Spaces are shrinking for divergent and oppositional viewpoints, whether these come from the bureaucracy, academia, think tanks, or NGOs. The declining autonomy of experts has been exacerbated by institutional structures, since knowledge purveyors that directly contribute to policymaking typically have been embedded within bureaucracies or otherwise dependent on the state rather than occupying independent bases. Both countries face the challenge of how to build and sustain ecosystems of heterogeneous experts that are not simply echo chambers of executive authority. The edited collection represents a pathbreaking contribution to the study of expertise and governance in India and China.The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 International license.

This book tells the story of the negotiations between China, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries about the East and South China Sea disputes. Tapping into formerly classified and newly available primary sources, the book meticulously tracks these negotiations and their sudden U-turns. It is a story about the promises and perils of cooperation – as much about pragmatic, gradual and surprisingly resilient approaches to conflict resolution and ocean governance as it is about the expansion of states’ bargaining power through institutions. The book hinges on the question of when and why disputing parties reach agreement on joint oil and gas development, fisheries and codes of conduct, and when and why negotiations end in impasse. It is the first comprehensive and theoretically informed study of decades-long dispute settlement efforts in a central region of the Indo-Pacific where the expansion of China challenges the law of the sea and regional security.

This edited volume contributes to debates about China’s influence, and explores three specific themes in the context of global China: the effects of (un)intentional influence and influence externalities; the role of intermediaries, the sub-state and non-state actors that are conduits for influence; and the conditioning effects of host country institutions.The work advances conversation of public and academic interest by problematizing existing conceptualizations of China’s influence and offering a fresh approach. Existing research has paid surprisingly little systematic attention to how local, national, and global factors outside of China–and beyond its control–condition whether and how China’s investments in global influence bear fruit. A central claim of the book is that scholars need to pay more careful attention to how these external factors create unexpected consequences for influence-seeking states. This book explores three specific themes in the context of global China: the effects of (un)intentional influence and influence externalities; the role of intermediaries, the sub-state, and non-state actors that are conduits for influence; and the conditioning effects of host country institutions.This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Asian Studies, Politics, Regional Studies, and International Relations.The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 International license.

Constrained Expertise in India and China explores what kinds of knowledge and knowledge purveyors get mobilized and privileged, and what gets sidelined in policymaking in India and China.