Informal Politics in East Asia

Political agendas are set and achieved in Asian countries as much by behind-the-scenes 'informal politics' as by formal politics conducted within the parameters of institutional, authoritative, legal structures. This book, first published in 2000, is a pioneering effort to develop some common theoretical principles about informal structures in East Asian political cultures.

The authors of Informal Politics in East Asia, first published in 2000, argue that political interaction within the informal dimension (behind-the-scenes politics) is at least as common and influential, though not always as transparent or coherent, as formal politics, and that this understudied category of social interaction merits more serious and methodical attention from social scientists. This book is a pioneering effort to delineate the various forms of informal politics within different East Asian political cultures and to develop some common theoretical principles for understanding how they work. Featured here are contributions by political scientists specializing in the regions of China, Taiwan, Japan, the Korean peninsula, and Vietnam. The authors apply to this dynamic region the classic core questions of politics: who gets what, when, how, and at whose expense?