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Departing from existing literature on state building, this book proposes a novel theoretical approach that looks beyond the confines of state borders. Instead of looking at state building as a process determined by domestic factors, such as war preparation, political institutions, and geographic and demographic variables,
Asymmetrical Neighbors argues that we should conceptualize state building as an interactive process heavily influenced by a "neighborhood effect." Ultimately, this book tells the story of the success and failure in state and nation building across the common borderland area between China, Myanmar, and Thailand.
List of contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Notes on Transliterations and References
- Chapter 1: Introduction
- Chapter 2: The Neighborhood Effect of State and Nation Building
- Chapter 3: The Historical Pattern of State Formation in Upland Southeast Asia
- Chapter 4: Spill-over of the Chinese Civil War and the Militarization of the Borderland
- Chapter 5: Communist Revolutions at the Borderland
- Chapter 6: Dynamics of Trans-boundary Economic Flows
- Chapter 7: Comparative Nation Building across the Borderland Area
- Chapter 8: Continual Contestations at the China-Myanmar Border
- Chapter 9: Conclusion
- Notes
- Chinese Bibliography
- Thai Bibliography
- Burmese Bibliography
- English Bibliography
- Index
About the author
Enze Han is Associate Professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong. His research interests include ethnic politics in China, China's relations with Southeast Asia, and the politics of state formation in the borderland area between China, Myanmar, and Thailand. He is the author of Contestation and Adaptation: The Politics of National Identity in China.
Summary
Is the process of state building a unilateral, national venture, or is it something more collaborative, taking place in the interstices between adjoining countries?
To answer this question, Asymmetrical Neighbors takes a comparative look at the state building process along China, Myanmar, and Thailand's common borderland area. It shows that the variations in state building among these neighboring countries are the result of an interactive process that occurs across national boundaries. Departing from existing approaches that look at such processes from the angle of singular, bounded territorial states, the book argues that a more fruitful method is to examine how state and nation building in one country can influence, and be influenced by, the same processes across borders. It argues that the success or failure of one country's state building is a process that extends beyond domestic factors such as war preparation, political institutions, and geographic and demographic variables. Rather, it shows that we should conceptualize state building as an interactive process heavily influenced by a "neighborhood effect." Furthermore, the book moves beyond the academic boundaries that divide arbitrarily China studies and Southeast Asian studies by providing an analysis that ties the state and nation building processes in China with those of Southeast Asia.
Additional text
Enze Han's book is a must-read for anyone who is interested in the complexities and contradictions of border demarcation wherever the border may be. In this case, the focus is Myanmar's borders with China and Thailand, and Han combines scholarly research with personal notes, which will appeal to specialists as well as a more general audience of educated readers
