B015: Recent Evolution of State and Society in East Asia

Organizer(s)

• DM

  Dennis McNamara

  Georgetown University, United States

Chair(s)

• DM

  Dennis McNamara

  Georgetown University, United States

Paper Presenter(s)

• DM

  Dennis McNamara

  Georgetown University, United States
• SS

  Solee Shin

  University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, United States
• KL

  Kristine Li

  Brown University, United States

Discussant(s)

• GH

  Gary Hamilton

  University of Washington, United States

Session Abstract: Northeast Asia has emerged as the crucible for the contentious debate over global ties. Uncertainties dominate diplomacy, cross-border exchanges in culture and economy, and domestic politics. These crises of identity and institution provide a unique window on social change. Papers in this session look to precedent and prospect in the shaping of critical institutions for development, and in their response to emerging challenges of a global reset. Theories of state-society ties familiar in Japan, South Korea, China and Taiwan provide a frame for mapping and assessing change. More organic forms of cooperative governance in the corporatist mode distinguish state-society ties. We begin with local variations in socialist transformation in Revolutionary China, tracking the initial role of local state officials in organizing development projects. Moving from modern to contemporary society, we track evolution of production and consumption in the garment trade among the Northeast Asian nations, again highlighting how firms shape cross-border institutions. A third paper reviews China’s neighborhood grids as a corporatist response, consistent with an earlier urban organization into danwei or work-units . The papers move between precedent and prospect, polity and trade, to capture significant changes in the critical institutions of economy and state. Our goal is to better define the continuing evolution of organic, cohesive national institutions in the crucible of contested globalization. Regional institutional patterns, supported by interventionist states based on corporatist cohesion persist despite the rise of anti-globalist sentiments.

Presentations:

• Corporatist Legacies of Danwei Society in China’s “New Era”
  

  Paper Presenter: Dennis L. McNamara – Georgetown University
• Managing Risks in an Unstable World – Asia’s Garment Makers
  

  Paper Presenter: Solee Shin – University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
• Varieties of Socialist Transformation in Mao’s China
  

  Paper Presenter: Kristine Li – Brown University