Free Speech: Plato and The Communist Manifesto
Introduction Free speech, the freedom to express ones opinion, is currently highly in vogue. Its most liberal form is currently found in the western world: a place where censorship is quite limited compared to other regions of Earth and in which a wide variety of opinions are expressed. There is however a trade-off between variety […]
LDP and the Uncommon Democracy of Japan
Abstract Japan had all the formal institutions of democracy, though one party was able to dominate politics for half a decade. I will propose and test two explanatory hypotheses, one resting on LDP[1]´s socioeconomic track record and the other on east-west (collectivism-individualism) cultural differences. Factors used to test these hypotheses are LDP´s pro-business, pro-bureaucracy, clientelism […]
Dealing with War Crimes: On Historical Narratives
Abstract The purpose of this research paper is to answer weather Japan should begin to work towards reconciliation with its offended neighbors by apologizing for the war crimes it perpetrated during WWII. Two competing hypotheses are tested, with one arguing that apology would reduce geopolitical tension while the other argues that it would be destabilizing. […]
The Emergence of East-Asian Regional Multilateralism
Abstract Post-war regional multilateral institutions where long absent in east-Asia, and it’s of interest to answer why they suddenly began to flourish when the cold-war iron curtain was lifted. Neo-realists and neo-liberals differ in their view on the value and nature of multilateralism, with statism being a central feature of neo-realism. Success of institution building […]