Showing papers on "Westernization published in 1990"

The State, Political Party and Society in post-1983 Turkey

Abstract: IN TERMS OF THE HISTORICAL CATEGORIES FORMULATED BY S. N. Eisentadt, the origins of the Ottoman-Turkish polity were imperial-bureaucratic rather than imperial-feudal or patrimonial. The regime was not patrimonial because the centre had its own distinctive normative system; the values of the centre were just a pale reflection of those of the periphery. The regime was not imperial-feudal for the centre did not have to face civil societal groups able to challenge it and impinge upon it. The members of the periphery could not develop horizontal loyalties; instead they competed among themselves for a limited number of privileges such as tax-farming rights or quotas for import or export which the centre granted. The Ottoman-Turkish peripheral elements did not develo into an aristocracy or a bourgeoisie with political influence. Consequently, the efforts towards modernization initiated during the nineteenth century took on a particular twist. Modernization meant Westernization, which in turn was perceived from the perspective of Enlightenment tradition. Informed by a ‘cast-iron theory’ of Islam ,the state's salvation was seen to lie in substituting reason for religion as the basis of public policy-making. The military and the bureaucratic elites came to see themselves primarily as the guardians of raison d'etat.

The Foreign Policy of Thailand

Abstract: Central to an understanding of Thai foreign policy are a number of historical factors which stem from the Kingdom’s role within the larger international political-economic system as well as from internal forces unique to Thailand. As the only nation of Southeast Asia never to be formally colonized, Thailand has not shared the xenophobic traditions of its neighbors. This first historical factor helps explain the remarkable assimilative character of the Thais. The lack of colonial experience allowed the Thais to adapt and adopt those aspects of Westernization which they deemed appropriate to their traditional culture. Thus Thailand’s evolution from a traditional to a modern society has been relatively smooth.

Singapore in 1989: Progress in a Search for Roots

Abstract: Domestic Politics National ideology. The search for shared roots and a national, communitarian ideology dominated the effort to consolidate 30 years of People's Action Party (PAP) government. An orderly, prosperous, and quality society remained the objectives of this rule. At the January 9 opening of Parliament, President Wee Kim Wee laid out a proposed set of common values intended to pertain to all communal groups. "These core values include placing society above self, upholding the family as a basic building block of society, resolving major issues through consensus instead of contention and stressing religious tolerance and harmony.1 The cabinet had obviously considered how to balance individual initiative and community norms; the essence of what would be the national ideology was determined but its integrative role and its format are still being widely discussed. It will be a personal set of values, not a constitutionally mandated political ideology. Its objective is to inculcate Asian values and fend off negative aspects of "Westernization" intruding on this global city-hedonism, materialism, and self-centeredness. Promoting creative traditionalism that eschews despotism and nepotism, strengthening the national identity and integrity, and all the while remaining at the center of the international economy are not easily reconciled into behavior axioms. But Prime Minis-

The Metaphysics of Translation and the Origins of Symbolist Poetics in Meiji Japan

Abstract: Japanese modernity is often equated with Westernization, and the cross-cultural link is restricted to the Western influence on Japan. The translations of Western philosophy and poetry in the Meiji period (1868-1912), however, relate to native symbolist poetics, in a way that has earlier parallels: Japan's alchemical cultural interaction with China in the transformative cultivation of Zen in the medieval period and its complex responses to Neo-Confucianism in the Tokugawa period (1603-1868). The consistent metatextual dynamics suggested by these parallels cannot be adequately described through influencebased comparative methods. This essay defines Japanese modernism as a creative conflict stimulated by the introduction of transcendence-based texts into fundamentally immanence-grounded aesthetic, epistemological, and semiotic systems.