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Political institutions and cultures

Political institutions are not only interesting objects of study from the point of view of legislation, decision-making processes, power struggles, economic redistribution, or international diplomacy. They are also, eo ipso, inherent carriers and producers of cultural histories, “local knowledge”, civilisational assumptions, and identitarian trajectories at both national and regional levels - manifestations, in other words, of often very different political cultures. They embody specific visions of what constitutes the good life, the right kind of morality, and the most appropriate forms of education and socialization in any given social order. Whether we think of governments, judicial or electoral systems, public bureaucracies, social welfare institutions, environmental policies, or educational organizations, they all act as "path-dependent" caretakers of socially desirable identities, rights and duties, worldviews, and interactions between citizens and state.

Differences of this nature are highly pertinent to the analysis of Asia in its complex relations with other regions of the world. For example, Asia and Europe have distinctly different political cultures with regard to defining such concepts as power and authority, leadership and loyalty, rights and duties. Furthermore, political institutions and governmental practises depend on local settings, on the institutionalization of civil society, as well as on civil law, the political regulation of business activities, and the constitutional legal framework. One obvious area that merits thorough scholarly attention is related to perceptions of democracy and human rights, which have globally achieved a status as recognized developmental goals with regard to the organization of society and its civic culture, but are very differently interpreted and practiced in Asia and Europe - both in an inter-regional and intra-regional perspective. Thus this research theme, being explicitly comparative, invites timely projects of an inter-disciplinary nature, where researchers from the social sciences, the humanities, and law can contribute different insights, theoretical templates, and empirical data.