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Article Excerpt
Religious Organizations and Democratization: Case Studies from Contemporary Asia. Edited by Tun-Jen Cheng and Deborah A. Brown. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2006. Softcover: 306pp.
There has been a wide variety of studies documenting how nonreligious social organizations espousing social welfare, minority rights, and gender equality have succeeded in making an imprint on "normal politics" in contrast to studies on religious organizations in this area. Hence, the editors argue for the necessity of this volume (Cheng and Brown, pp. 3-4). The book is a welcome contribution as it covers a discussion of all the major religions within Asia. There are two articles on Buddhism in Taiwan and Thailand; four articles on Christianity in Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and the Philippines; and two on Islam in Indonesia and Malaysia. There are also two separate articles discussing the Falun Gong in China (Ching, pp. 41-54) and the Soka Gakkai in Japan (Metraux, pp. 267-85). However, despite this extensive coverage, there is no definitive conclusion as to whether religion has played a distinctive role in the establishment or hindrance of democracy in Asia.
The editors have...
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More articles from Contemporary Southeast Asia
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