This paper argues for a reappraisal of extant scholarship on delegation in the domain of financial regulation. Through an examination of Japan's experience with financial regulation between 1992 and 2003, it is demonstrated that crisis-induced institutional development entails a shift toward a more flexible, trustee-type bureaucratic structure. While the logic presented in this paper is far from a universally applicable theory of institutional change, it calls into question the relevance of more conventional approaches to the origins of delegation of authority, notably the approach that uses unified and divided government as a key variable. A renewed emphasis on the role of extra-political sources of transfers of authority inside the executive, and also between the legislature and the executive, therefore, is in order.

Political scientists generally consider that the incentive for legislators to switch parties lies in their desire to be re-elected. While some scholars attribute defection to the legislators’ popularity and strong connections with their constituents which enable them to be re-elected without relying on party labels, others assert that legislators switch if they perceive that staying put might threaten their chances of re-election. In this paper, we find that the two assumptions, to some extent, contradict each other. More surprisingly, the two contradictory hypotheses cohabit under the single non-transferable vote (SNTV) system. From an analysis of the switching in the Taiwanese Legislative Yuan, the empirical evidence shows that because of fierce intraparty competition in the multimember districts, not only barely elected but also top-ranked legislators switched party affiliation in order to avoid the loss in votes or even seats to their copartisans and to maximize their chances of re-election.

No theory seems to describe accurately and explain competently the new, unusual, and idiosyncratic Northeast Asian regional order phenomenon. It is because Northeast Asian specialists like the blind men have seen only one of the parts of the ‘Elephant’ or a part of what is taking place in Northeast Asia. This paper attempts to employ a new, more appropriate, more productive analytical tool to understand and navigate efficiently the Northeast Asian regional order. The main objective of this paper is ‘the rise of China and Northeast Asian regional order’, what it is and what is taking place in the empirical world when we say that something we call ‘the rise of China and Northeast Asian regional order’ is taking place.

Singapore's strategic play to secure international wealth management market share has been very successful. Serious questions, however, were raised in relation to this ascendency as the Global Financial Crisis (GFC, beginning in 2007) drove the European Union (EU) and the United States of America (US) to become proactive in clamping down on tax evasion and other areas deemed by them to be undesirable within the international financial system. This paper will examine the Singapore government's decade-long growth policy of its wealth management sector, and how it has been impacted upon by international regulatory responses. Further, it examines how in stark contrast to the EU and the US, Indonesia has been far less successful in its diplomatic efforts to have Singapore address financial diplomacy issues (tax evasion and ill-gotten gains from corruption) in relation to Indonesian citizens residing in Singapore. This article will argue, however, that Singapore's less than robust response to Indonesia's constant requests for action maybe to the long-term detriment of Singapore itself.

Economics is now a large part of foreign policy. (George Yeo, May 2005, then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Singapore)

Singapore Inc's new growth strategy in a whole range of services from real estate as a new asset class to lifestyle, taps millionaires and billionaires who value privacy, political stability, and sensitivity to money laundering implications. (Low, 2010: 171)

The ‘keep it simple, stupid’ slogan, or the KISS principle has been the basic guideline in agent-based modeling (ABM). While the KISS principle or parsimony is vital in modeling attempts, conventional agent-based models remain abstract and are rarely incorporated or validated with empirical data, leaving the links between theoretical models and empirical phenomena rather loose. This article reexamines the KISS principle and discusses the recent modeling attempts that incorporate and validate agent-based models with spatial (geo-referenced) data, moving beyond the KISS principle. This article also provides a working example of such time and space specified (TASS) agent-based models that incorporates Schelling's (1971) classic model of residential segregation with detailed geo-referenced demographic data on the city of Chicago derived from the US Census 2010.

Former Prime Minister Koizumi's surprising victory within the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 2001 and his subsequent popularity as prime minister led to increased interest in the study of populism in Japan. In addition to Ōtake Hideo's prominent contributions, several others have also employed populism as a prism to study Japanese politics. Compared to the major debates on populism and particularly on the populist radical right (PRR) in Western Europe over the last two decades, however, the study of Japanese populism seems to be at a less mature stage. Lessons may be learned from the European literature for the community studying Japanese populism. This paper first summarizes the studies on Japanese populism. Then, the main discussions and arguments presented in the academic literature on the PRR in Europe are discussed. Next, this study evaluates how arguments found in studies of European populism can be exploited in further research on populist politicians and parties in Japan. The author recommends further studies on conceptual definitions, on the classifications of politicians and parties, and on explaining the emergence and persistence of these parties and politicians. The findings in this paper encourage and support further research on populism in the Japanese political system.