Social comparison theory maintains that people think about themselves compared with similar others. Those in one culture, then, compare themselves with different others and standards than do those in another culture, thus potentially confounding cross-cultural comparisons. A pilot study and Study 1 demonstrated the problematic nature of this reference-group effect: Whereas cultural experts agreed that East Asians are more collectivistic than North Americans, cross-cultural comparisons of trait and attitude measures failed to reveal such a pattern. Study 2 found that manipulating reference groups enhanced the expected cultural differences, and Study 3 revealed that people from different cultural backgrounds within the same country exhibited larger differences than did people from different countries. Cross-cultural comparisons using subjective Likert scales are compromised because of different reference groups. Possible solutions are discussed.

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What's Wrong With Cross-Cultural Comparisons of Subjective Likert Scales?: The Reference-Group Effect

Introduction: states and industrialization in the global periphery Part I. Galloping Ahead: Korea: 1. The colonial origins of a modern political economy: the Japanese lineage of Korea's cohesive-capitalist state 2. The rhee interregnum: saving South Korea for cohesive capitalism 3. A cohesive-capitalist state reimposed: Park Chung Hee and rapid industrialization Part II. Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Brazil 4. Invited dependency: fragmented state and foreign resources in Brazil's early industrialization 5. Grow now, pay later: state indebted industrialization in modern Brazil Part III. Slow but Steady: India: 6. Origins of a fragmented-multiclass state and a sluggish economy: colonial India 7. India's fragmented-multiclass state and protected industrialization Part IV. Dashed Expectations: Nigeria: 8. Colonial Nigeria: origins of a neopatrimonial state and a commodity-exporting economy 9. Sovereign Nigeria: neopatrimonialism and failure of industrialization Conclusion: understanding states and state intervention in the global periphery.

/pdf/state-directed-development-political-power-and-1ccxx48asu.pdf

State-directed development : political power and industrialization in the global periphery

This book is unique in its depth of perspective. It uses a comparative approach to explain why China’s role in the world economy has changed so dramatically in the last thousand years. It concludes that China is likely to resume its natural role as the world’s largest economy by the year 2015, thus regaining the position it had held until the end of the nineteenth century.
The study provides a major reassessment of the scale and scope of China’s resurgence over the past half century, employing quantitative measurement techniques which are standard practice in OECD countries, but which have not hitherto been available for China.
Written by the author of many studies on comparative economic history, including two best sellers for the OECD Development Centre, this book is essential reading for all those who seek to understand the role of China in the world economy, in the past, as well as in the present and the future.

Chinese economic performance in the long run

This study explores the donor side of debates revolving around the
 proper role of foreign assistance as a foreign policy tool, by
 empirically testing for the aid determinants of four industrial
 democracies: France, Japan, Sweden, and the United States. A
 pooled cross-sectional time-series design is employed to assess
 the impacts of six sets of variables on aid flows to thirty-six African
 states during the 1980s. Three sets of these
 variables--humanitarian need, strategic importance, and economic
 potential--are constructed using data traditionally employed in
 empirical foreign aid studies. Three additional sets of
 variables--cultural similarity, ideological stance, and region--are
 constructed from data that regional specialists consider to be
 important in the foreign aid equation. Although no two cases are
 alike, one can nevertheless draw some tentative conclusions about
 the nature of the foreign aid regime of the final cold war decade of
 the 1980s on the basis of several cross-national patterns. In short,
 the results (1) contradict rhetorical statements of northern
 policymakers who claim that foreign aid serves as an altruistic
 foreign policy tool designed to relieve humanitarian suffering; (2)
 confirm the expected importance of strategic and ideological factors
 in a foreign aid regime heavily influenced by the cold war; and (3)
 underscore the importance of economic, particularly trade, interests
 in northern aid calculations.

Clarifying the foreign aid puzzle: a comparison of American, Japanese, French, and Swedish aid flows

The paper discusses the role of public opinion in the foreign policy-making process of liberal democracies. Contrary to prevailing assumptions, public opinion matters. However, the impact of public opinion is determined not so much by the specific issues involved or by the particular pattern of public attitudes as by the domestic structure and the coalition-building processes among the elites in the respective country. The paper analyzes the public impact on the foreign policy-making process in four liberal democracies with distinct domestic structures: the United States, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Japan. Under the same international conditions and despite similar patterns of public attitudes, variances in foreign policy outcomes nevertheless occur; these have to be explained by differences in political institutions, policy networks, and societal structures. Thus, the four countries responded differently to Soviet policies during the 1980s despite more or less comparable trends in mass public opinion.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0043887100019729

Public Opinion, Domestic Structure, and Foreign Policy in Liberal Democracies

１ Ｔｈｅ Ｓｅｔｔｉｎｇ ２ Ｈｉｓｔｏｒｉｃａｌ Ｂａｃｋｇｒｏｕｎｄ ３ Ｓｏｃｉｅｔｙ ４ Ｇｏｖｅｒｎｍｅｎｔ ａｎｄ Ｐｏｌｉｔｉｃｓ ５ Ｂｕｓｉｎｅｓｓ ６ Ｊａｐａｎ ａｎｄ ｔｈｅ Ｗｏｒｌｄ

Edwin O. Reischauer

Papers

The Japanese Today: Change and Continuity

East Asia: The Great Tradition.

East Asia: The Great Tradition

East Asia: The Modern Transformation

East Asia: Tradition and Transformation