|
RESEARCH CYCLE ARCHIVE
As a complement to the work of existing area programs, PBRC elected to concentrate on the policies that governments and other organizations had adopted in order to advance their public values. This approach enabled it to present comparative studies of political, economic, and religious institutions of the region, as well as to consider how they made these choices. Their policies would be interpreted as expressions of a “preferred future” of these organizations, and the programs linked to it were presumed to be efforts to bring it about.
By definition, these “preferred futures” reflected their intention to “create value” in their societies, and thus, like the aspirations that lie at the heart of Buddhist doctrine, they would express the obligations that they had accepted. They would thus provide a standard by which to appraise the operations of the public and private organizations that dominate life in the region.
The topics of PBRC’s research included contemporary problems of human rights, such as obstacles to a search for peace, cooperative behavior among social groups, and responses to the dual challenges of globalization and localization, all of which would benefit from careful documentary analysis and field work in their respective contexts.
Once it had identified its research priorities, the PBRC inaugurated a program of fellowships and research grants that would be open to competitive proposals from other scholars and centers. It examined the incoming proposals with the help of a small committee of scholars from Soka, Harvard, and other universities. Within the first few years PBRC had made a series of grants and were able to extend links to other organizations. Seminar-conferences were held which further consolidated the research topics and methodologies and planned the publication of the Center's findings. These exploratory seminars provided a prototype for future PBRC operations. Meetings were held in Bangkok, Hong Kong, Malta, and Berlin as well as at Harvard and Soka University of America.
The PBRC conference in Hong Kong produced the book Values in Education, Social Capital Formation in Asia and the Pacific, which presented the findings of an international group of scholars who analyzed how educational systems have built social capital by giving institutional expression to the values of their society. Half of the chapters analyzed the substance, content, measurement, transmission, or perseverance of values in Asia, and the other half examined how educational systems in the region have embodied them.
Four major research cycles included studies of “great policies” in the region; analysis of positive supports that governments gave to human rights; the infrastructure of cooperation within them that provided their “social capital”; and the responses that governments are making to the challenges of globalization as they seek to defend their sovereignty. In all, four other volumes resulted from these efforts:
Of the 85 grants made in aid of this research, 26 scholars explored the “Great Policies” theme, 23 worked on “Positive Policies in Human Rights,” 23 participated in the “Social Capital” project, and 13 engaged in the “Sovereignty” studies, together applying a comprehensive range of methodologies in the region’s diverse geographic settings.
This research produced some reassuringly unexpected findings, some of which may be recited briefly to illustrate the nature of the work.
|
