| Author's comment |
| What the reviewers said |
If the number and range of a combined total of eight reviews in two languages are an indicator, Globalization, Democratization and Asian Leadership has interested scholars from diverse disciplinary homes, epistemologies and professional commitments.
The book promises to continue stimulating lively dialogue and debate among historians, sociologists, political scientists and practitioners who differ among themselves on how best understand to refine, apply and critique democratic theory (especially, power sharing) as a heuristic for explaining success and failure at the interface of society and foreign policy making in Asia and elsewhere.
I am grateful to editors of eight journals for having assigned this book to be reviewed. And as the author of over fifty reviews, I sympathize with those who make the effort to meet the challenge. So, despite occasional profound differences over the relevance and applicability of democratic theory to explain success and failure in foreign policy making, let me thank my colleagues for taking the time to read and comment on this book — Vincent K. Pollard.
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Journal of Chinese Political Science
(2006) Democracy and Security
UNISCI Discussion Papers
Political Studies Review
Asian Affairs
Pilipinas
Crossroads
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• From the Journal of Chinese Political Science [中 國 政 治 學 刊]:
TOP OF THIS PAGE."[L]argely based on the author's Ph.D. dissertation on society and foreign policy making in the Philippines and Japan.....it reflects solid research work.
"The main theme of Pollard's thesis is to compare the social process of foreign policy in the presidential Philippines and parliamentary Japan. In both countries, Pollard shows that highly motivated non-governmental organizations (NGOs) sometimes become competing centers of influence inside, alongside and outside official governments; and that they have developed sophisticated power-sharing arrangements with one another in pursuing preferences beyond their respective countries' national borders. This focus on NGOs probably makes this volume attractive not only to academics, but also to activists, practitioners, journalists, etc.
"Analyzing foreign policy making on the part of government's side, the author tries to explain how effectively foreign policy makers in the Philippines and Japan have shared power since the 1960s. [T]racing the stories of power sharing...leads to a better understanding of the foreign-policy making processes of the electoral democracies in East and Southeast Asia.....
The author.....uses a number of detailed case studies to illustrate that the broad social process of foreign policy making is a meeting ground for those who emphasize the pull of the milieu (precedent) and those who value the push of executive innovation (initiative). These case studies attempt to reveal possible areas of reconciliation between 'environment-based' and 'process-based' theories of international relations. In each of the case studies, Pollard has defined the focused time frames to highlight developments likely to be overlooked or misunderstood if longer and shorter periods had been selected.....
"Pollard's analysis very often demonstrates that mass media served as the organizational glue in intermestic executive foreign policy making. It also shows how the power of mass communications media was used by relatively small groups of concerned citizens inside and outside government as they attempted to share power with others inside and outside their societies to achieve their objectives. However, their achievements often fell short of their preferences. In sum, while Asian foreign policy executives draw on resources of precedent and executive initiative in pursuing foreign policies in the context of globalization, opportunities for political change from below will continue to emerge"
— review of Globalization, Democratization and Asian Leadership: Power Sharing, Foreign Policy and Society in the Philippines and Japan, in the Journal of Chinese Political Science [中 國 政 治 學 刊], vol. 11, issue 1 (Spring 2006), pp. 99-101.
• From Democracy and Security:
"Dr. Pollard.....goes on to show that power sharing unlocks the door to foreign policy making processes of diverse Asian democracies.....[I]n Japan [Pollard's] paradigm is well supported by the enduring legacy of the people's deep-seated anti-militarism, which will continue to influence the policy of [the Ministry of Foreign Affairs].
"Without doubt the most compelling example to uphold [Pollard's] paradigm is Aquino's struggle to retain the US military bases in the Philippines.....The case is successfully made in Chapters 3-8 concerning the increasing role of the media in foreign policy decision-making in both the Philippines and Japan, albeit less so in Japan.
"This book does....successfully conduct a tightly-drawn thesis....suggesting a useful paradigm for the future, by way of exploring the changing and...developing face of foreign policy-making in the Philippines and Japan"
— "A Review of 'Globalization, Democratization and Asian Leadership: Power Sharing, Foreign Policy and Society in the Philippines and Japan'," Democracy and Security, vol. 2, no. 1 (January-June 2006), pp. 157-159. DOI: 10.1080/17419160600623475
• From UNISCI Discussion Papers:
"[Globalization, Democratization and Asian Leadership: Power Sharing, Foreign Policy and Society] constitutes a fundamental contribution to the study of foreign policy and its formulation insofar as it fills a void, that of the growing role that non-governmental organizations and civil society seem to be able to play in the space that has been considered, until quite recently, to be restricted to the politicians and high-level government officials responsible for the elaboration and direction of foreign policy. Consequently, reading the book should be considered all but indispensable by students and professionals of foreign policy, those involved in the process of foreign policy formulation, and even those involved in the formation of public policy in general"
— "CRÍTICA DE LIBROS" [translated from Spanish], review of Globalization, Democratization and Asian Leadership: Power Sharing, Foreign Policy and Society in the Philippines and Japan, in UNISCI Discussion Papers [Unidad de Investigación sobre Seguridad y Cooperación Internacional, Universidad Complutense de Madrid], nº 14 (Mayo/May 2007), pp. 203-204. (Download file, and open up within Adobe Reader. Or download full English-language translation.)
• From Political Studies Review:
"A well-documented, thoroughly researched and incredibly detailed investigation of elite decision-making in two disinctive Asian societies, with an impressive array of in-country investigation, interviews and use of original source material"
— review of Globalization, Democratization and Asian Leadership: Power Sharing, Foreign Policy and Society in the Philippines and Japan, in Political Studies Review, vol. 5, no. 2 (May 2007), pp. 313-314.
• From Asian Affairs:
"Pollard is onto an important theme of NGO and other public engagement in foreign policy of which we might hope to see many further studies"
— review of Globalization, Democratization and Asian Leadership: Power Sharing, Foreign Policy and Society in the Philippines and Japan, in Asian Affairs [Royal Society for Asian Affairs], vol. 38, issue 2 (July 2007), pp. 288-289. Full text of review accessible through EBSCO Host Research Databases.
• From Pilipinas:
"In other words, foreign policy making in Japan and the Philippines remained fairly elitist but was given a semblance of more pluralistic and democratic participation. Pollard cites the cultural and political differences in the two countries but concentrates more on their commonalities, found in the linkages of plural governance, power-sharing, democratization, and importance of foreign policy decisions"
— review of Globalization, Democratization and Asian Leadership: Power Sharing, Foreign Policy and Society in the Philippines and Japan, in Pilipinas [Philippine Studies Group, Association for Asian Studies], no. 45 (September 2007), pp. 77-80 — scroll down to Review #7.
• From Crossroads:
"Pollard offers here a timely, precise, and quite original book that should be taken as an example of rigorous research for other scholars of Asian international relations.....This is clearly not a book for newcomers in the field, but for scholars of Asian studies, diplomacy, military relations, and comparative politics"
— review of Globalization, Democratization and Asian Leadership: Power Sharing, Foreign Policy and Society in the Philippines and Japan, in Crossroads; An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies [Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Northern Illinois University], vol. 19, no. 1 (2008), pp. 205-207.
• From Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding:
In the essay "Liberalism and Democratization in East Asia," the reviewer's understanding of power sharing as an aspect of democratic theory differs from Pollard's. As a result, he is less willing to use the quality of power sharing to explain success and failure in foreign policy
— review of Globalization, Democratization and Asian Leadership: Power Sharing, Foreign Policy and Society in the Philippines and Japan (and two other books), in Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, vol. 3, no. 2 (June 2009), pp. 277-283.
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