Cultures of Authority in Asian Practice

Authoring Community and State: Political Culture in Asian Contexts
Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, Florida
October 23 - 27, 2002
Workshop website: http://home.eckerd.edu/~huasp/

Workshop Three focuses on political culture in Asia through an historical examination of protocols for just rulership, the institutions that mediate authoritative rule, and the ways in which these protocols and institutions have adapted through interactions with European and American models of governance. Just as it is often assumed that persons are conceived more or less identically in different cultures, it is often assumed that monarchic rule, bureaucratic organization, and political legitimacy are universal categories. This workshop aims to dispel such assumptions through a cumulative historical and critical study of representative political cultures from East, South, and Southeast Asia.

Ashis Nandy has said that "no understanding of the structures of Indian authority is possible without understanding the close symbolic links between power, legitimate authority, and gender." To the extent that this is true of other Asian societies, it follows that understanding any culture of authority must first acknowledge the interdependence of the 'private' and 'public' spheres and that the latter cannot be adequately understood in isolation from the former: the political and the personal mirror one another. Building on this insight, the workshop sessions will explore parallels between the dynasty and the family as political entities, between the institution of civil service examinations and the cultivation of personal virtue, between patron-client relationships in state-building and teacher-student relationships in community-building, and between the structure of political power and gender relations.