Taiwan’s economic downturn and wealth gap, under the impact of the 2008 global financial crisis, spurred livelihood/redistributive questions to become electoral issues. This paper explores the linkage between the wealth gap and electoral campaigns, and points to a new political economy trend in today’s Taiwan: class mobilization has become the new driver of party politics, with identity mobilization played down.

The past year was a momentous one for India. The country navigated through the shoals of an unprecedented global financial crisis with only modest negative impact, and successfully continued the world's largest exercise in democracy. The 15th general election in April-May 2009 saw the venerable Congress Party return to power with a large mandate. On the external front, although ties between India and the Obama administration have been friendly, real concerns remain about the future trajectory of Indo-U.S. relations. Relations with Pakistan and China also remain testy.