Recent progress in the data collection and typological classification of bronze drums of northern Vietnam and its surroundings have made it possible to recognize the geographical distribution and chronology of bronze drum types (Pre-Heger I to Heger IV). All types show a limited distribution range and some have been played an important role as a ritual or prestige good in several ethnic societies. Therefore, combining archaeological advances with ethnography, historical documentation, and legend can provide a key to understanding the formation of present-day ethnic groups. The Heger I type of Dong Son tradition drums (2nd century BC to 1st century BC), which were cast in the local Dong Son cultural sphere, are almost all concentrated on the hilly area and lower plains to the south of the Red River. Furthermore, the distribution of the later Heger II type (3-4th to 8-9th century AD) and Pseudo Heger II type (11th to 15-16th century AD), some of which are still used by the Muong ethnic group, overlaps with the distribution of the former type in the mountain range. Heger II were cast in Guangxi and Pseudo Heger II were very possibly cast in the Thang Long or surrounding lowland area of the Red River Plain on behalf of mountainous ethnic groups. Although the area and people that produced bronze drums were changed in its long history, the people that used the drums remained the same in the Northern Vietnam. Furthermore, while the Viet-Muong ethnic group have a long-term tradition of using bronze drums, the Thai and Tay, the major Thai ethno-linguistic groups of northern Vietnam, have not retained such a continuous tradition. This is one contrast between the Thai/Tay and Viet/Muong groups. Another ethnic group that has retained a long term tradition of bronze drum usage is the Lo Lo (Tibet-Burma) of the northernmost area of Vietnam.

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This essay examines the financial organization of the Six Departments (Luc Phien) established by the Princely Court of Trinh at the beginning of the 18th century, which corresponded to the Imperial Court's six Ministries of Personnel, Revenue, Rites, War, Justice, and Works. First, it is shown that although each department carried out the business of its corresponding ministry, it had its own financial organization for doing so, making for a characteristic situation. The essay then examines the personnel composition of the Six Departments, using personal titles rubbed from stone monuments, to show that eunuchs filled important posts and played critical roles in the finances of the Princely Court. Significantly, most upper level bureaucrats of the Six Departments served concurrently as commanding officer of the army, while lower level bureaucrats actually worked in the garrison with the title of local government official. This examination indicates that the financial and military organization of the Princely Court was unified in the rank and file of the local administration and explains the activities of eunuchs as both financial bureaucrats and military men in the Le-Trinh government. It is argued that such a situation occurred because the Princely Court expanded its financial organization, using its own military organization, with no distinction between “inner court” and “outer court.”

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Following the promulgation of the 1991 constitution in Lao P.D.R., the organizational structure of local administration became more centralized. But since 2000, when some authority over planning and budgeting management was decentralized, governors have been granted new powers.
 This study of the planning processes at the central and provincial levels examined a case study of the project making process in Vientiane Province. The major findings were: First, the party adopted decentralization in order to promote local development and maintain security after the Asian financial crisis. Second, the central government retains the authority to approve and permit each provincial project, while the provincial party and governor have the authority to make their own projects and propose them to the central government. Third, a single member of the central party committee is appointed by the politburo to hold both the post of secretary of the provincial party and provincial governor in order to control the provincial issues. Fourth, governors have the authority to propose projects with political aims, such as those regarding security issues and minority issues. Fifth, while governors have the authority to make decisions in the provincial party committee, vice-governors are better informed on provincial issues and are actually the ones who manage the policy making process with regard to local issues as their main priority. As a result, the central level of the party supervises the local party committee and controls provincial political issues and minority problems through governors in order to advance local development, as well as maintain security across the whole country.

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This paper examines the evolution and transformation of mosque-centered Muslim communities in Metro Manila against the background of the changing politico-economic situation in the Philippines since the American colonial regime. It has long been recognized that the Muslim heartland in the Philippines lies in Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan. However, some of the Muslim population of these core regions have migrated to various destinations both inside and outside the country since the Second World War, and now a large number of Muslims are concentrated in Metro Manila. Currently there are more than 80 mosques in the capital and estimates of the Muslim population there range from 60,000 to 120,000. During the 1970s, the various Muslim ethnolinguistic groups in Manila mainly lived side by side in a few “primary communities” close to their places of work. Since the 1980s, however, some moved out of the primary communities and established “secondary communities” that tend to include fewer or even a single ethnolinguistic group among their residents. The secondary communities also include non-residential, “job-centered communities” whose members commute to them from surrounding primary or secondary residential communities. In the process of this transformation, the mosques have come to embody multiple meanings in the lives of Muslims in Manila. They symbolize strong religious, economic and cultural ties between the Manila Muslims and some Middle Eastern countries which have helped in the construction of some of the mosques; they safeguard the establishment and continuation of Muslim communities against municipal authorities who are sometimes eager to evict “Muslim squatters and slum dwellers”; they function as a litmus test for community leadership since those who are instrumental in the construction and/or management of mosques are highly regarded; they constitute an information and network hub of the community which helps community members survive everyday life in the Christian-dominated capital city; and, in a broader sense, they stand for the resurgence of Islamic influences in the Philippine capital which, they claim, was once controlled by Muslim rulers before the arrival of the Spanish.

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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the management structure used by farmers in a large-scale muang fai irrigation system in northern Thailand in developing, managing, operating, and maintaining their irrigation system. A qualitative analysis of empirical data on the historical development, physical conditions, water distribution and maintenance practices as well as the organizational management of the Soprong muang fai group revealed that this system uses a participatory management structure. In order to cope with the large number of irrigation water users and widely dispersed irrigation areas, social organization, based on a village representation system, precedes hydraulic manipulation. Village irrigation delegates are nominated by village irrigation water users and endorsed by their village headmen to participate in inter-village irrigation management planning and to take charge of irrigation management within their villages. The effectiveness of this management structure hinges on the skills of the delegates and the muang fai manager, who is directly elected by members and thus accountable to all irrigation members regardless of their villages, in building a consensus on a practical inter-village irrigation management plan. The existence of a forum in which the delegates meet reduces information asymmetry across villages regarding water requirements and availability as well as physical and human conditions, and any issues that may cause distrust can be worked out. The common goal of the forum is to treat every village irrigation group and irrigation user equally by providing all of them with necessary irrigation water and with a clear, common water management, maintenance and cost-sharing plan. This plan, subsequently announced publicly by the muang fai manager as the agreement of the muang fai group, frames how each village irrigation delegate should organize the water management and maintenance in their respective villages and contribute to the Soprong group. The status of village irrigation delegates is such that they can use social sanctions against potential violators of the agreement with support from the muang fai manager and village headmen as needed. The peculiar distribution of canal maintenance costs in this system points out the delicacy needed in applying the principle of equality in large-scale systems.

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