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1. Rejuvenating Communism: Youth Organizations and Elite Renewal in Post-Mao China

Author:
Jérôme Doyon and Andrew J. Nathan
Publication Date:
03-2023
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
Working for the administration remains one of the most coveted career paths for young Chinese. Rejuvenating Communism: Youth Organizations and Elite Renewal in Post-Mao China seeks to understand what motivates young and educated Chinese to commit to a long-term career in the party-state and how this question is central to the Chinese regime’s ability to maintain its cohesion and survive. Jérôme Doyon draws upon extensive fieldwork and statistical analysis in order to illuminate the undogmatic commitment recruitment techniques and other methods the state has taken to develop a diffuse allegiance to the party-state in the post-Mao era. He then analyzes recruitment and political professionalization in the Communist Party’s youth organizations and shows how experiences in the Chinese Communist Youth League transform recruits and feed their political commitment as they are gradually inducted into the world of officials. As the first in-depth study of the Communist Youth League’s role in recruitment, this book challenges the assumption that merit is the main criteria for advancement within the party-state, an argument with deep implications for understanding Chinese politics today.
Topic:
Communism, Politics, History, Youth, and Elites
Political Geography:
China and Asia

2. Book Talk. Café Europa Revisited: How to Survive Post-Communism by Slavenka Drakulic

Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
The Harriman Institute
Abstract:
Please join the East Central European Center at the Harriman Institute for a book talk with Slavenka Drakulic, author of Café Europa Revisited: How to Survive Post-Communism (Penguin Books, 2021), an evocative and timely collection of essays that paints a portrait of Eastern Europe thirty years after the end of communism. This event is part of the Collective Memory and Democratic Backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe series organized by Harriman Institute Postdoctoral Fellow Čarna Pištan, and will be introduced by Aleksandar Bošković co-director of the East Central European Center.
Topic:
Communism, State Building, Post Cold War, Post-Soviet Space, and Anti-Communism
Political Geography:
Europe

3. A Conversation with Polish Basketball Legend Kent Washington

Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
The Harriman Institute
Abstract:
Join the East Central European Center at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University for a conversation with Kent Washington, the first African-American and first American to play professional basketball in Cold War Eastern Europe. Recruited into the top Polish league in 1979, Washington went on to play five seasons in the Solidarity-era communist country. His story told for the first time in his new memoir, Kentomania: A Black Basketball Virtuoso in Communist Poland, is unprecedented, weaving together professionalism, race, and politics in powerful and daring ways. Washington will appear in conversation with Columbia University Lecturer in Polish Christopher Caes.
Topic:
Cold War, Communism, Race, and Sports
Political Geography:
Europe and Poland

4. The PLO and Communist Albania: Cold War Relations

Author:
Klejd Këlliçi
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
This article examines Communist Albania’s support for the Palestinian cause and the relationships Tirana cultivated with the various groups comprising the Palestinian national movement. It explores the latter’s motivation for cultivating relations with Albania, a tiny Communist country that refused the logic of the bipolar world, both in its alliance with China and, later, through its disengagement from the East-West conflict and retreat into self-imposed isolationism. The article shows that, following Albania’s break with the Soviet bloc in the 1970s, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and specifically Fatah, was a more natural and logical choice for Tirana’s support than other, more self-avowedly left-wing Palestinian organizations. This study is based on primary sources from the archives of the Albanian foreign affairs ministry and the Party of Labour of Albania, as well as secondary sources such as accounts by members of the Albanian military who trained Fatah guerrilla fighters.
Topic:
Cold War, Communism, History, and PLO
Political Geography:
Middle East, Palestine, Albania, and Baltic States

5. The Chinese Communist Party’s Economic Challenge to the Free World

Author:
Miles M. Yu
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Hudson Institute
Abstract:
The Chinese economy and the philosophical roots of China’s system have greater implications for the United States economy than many assume. The one critical fact to understand about the People’s Republic of China is that it is a communist dictatorship ruled by a Marxist-Leninist party. The Party is dedicated to maintaining and strengthening its monopoly on all powers in the world’s most populous country and to mounting the most serious challenge to the free world since the Cold War. This policy memo will examine the Chinese economy’s distinct traits, how it operates, and why it thrives under a monopolistic government that exploits and challenges the global free market system, along with possible policy recommendations for the United States and its allies. Unlike most other communist countries, China has been afforded the benefits of a global free-market system and enjoys largely open access to international trade, capital markets, and advanced technologies. The paradox of a communist nation fully participating in a largely capitalist system has enriched and strengthened the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), to the point where Beijing poses a mortal threat to the United States and to the international free market economic system that has enabled the rise of the communist state. The West played a role in creating the current state of play. But too many conversations in the United States focus only on our own strategic thinking. In his historic speech at the Richard Nixon Library in July 2020, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo aptly described the situation and how we got here: “Our policies—and those of other free nations—resurrected China’s failing economy, only to see Beijing bite the international hands that were feeding it.” As President Richard Nixon admitted in his later years, his initiative to open up China in 1972 might have created a Frankenstein.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Communism, Economics, and Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and United States of America

6. A Light in the Window in Communist Times

Author:
Jonathan B. Rickert
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
Sometimes a Christmas tree is more than just a decorated evergreen. In connection with Christmas 1994, the last Yule celebration in Bucharest for me and my wife Gerd before our transfer back to Washington at the completion of our tour, we hosted a large holiday party for many of our Romanian friends. The lovely Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) residence on Strada Pangratti was richly decorated for the season. The focal point was the large Christmas tree standing in the living room next to the staircase leading to the second floor. The tree was well over twenty feet tall and beautifully trimmed, with electric lights and decorations from the United States, my wife’s native Sweden, Romania, and other countries where we had served. For us it was a delight to behold as it and the decorations held so many associations with family and Christmases past. Our guests all seemed to enjoy themselves, eagerly sampling the generous selection of seasonal goodies on offer, and we were pleased to have the opportunity to share our holiday with them. One guest even brought with him a group of a cappella singers, who enriched the festive atmosphere with lovely traditional Romanian colinde, or Christmas carols.
Topic:
Communism, Memoir, and Christmas
Political Geography:
Romania and United States of America

7. The COVID-19 Curtain: Can Past Communist Regimes Explain the Vaccination Divide in Europe

Author:
Inés Berniell, Yarine Fawaz, Anne Laferrere, Pedro Mira, and Elizaveta Pronkina
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS)
Abstract:
As of November 2021, all former Communist countries from Central and Eastern Europe exhibit lower vaccination rates than Western European countries. Can institutional inheritance explain, at least in part, this heterogeneity in vaccination decisions across Europe? To study this question we exploit novel data from the second wave of the SHARE (Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe) Covid-19 Survey fielded in Summer 2021 that covers 27 European countries and Israel. First, we document lower Covid-19 vaccine take-up amongst individuals above 55 years old who were born under Communism in Europe. Next, we turn to reunified Germany to get closer to a causal effect of exposure to Iron curtain regimes. We find that exposure to the Communist regime in East Germany decreases one’s probability to get vaccinated against Covid-19 by 8 percentage points, increases that of not wanting the vaccine by 4 percentage points. Both effects are quite large and statistically significant, and they hold when controlling for individual socio-economic and demographic characteristics. We identify low social capital -measured as voluntary work, political engagement, trust in people- as a plausible channel through which past Communist regimes would still affect individuals’ preferences for Covid-19 vaccination.
Topic:
Communism, Public Health, Vaccine, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Europe and Post-Soviet Europe

8. 30 Years Since the Collapse of the Soviet Union: Democracy, Community, and Russia

Author:
Jerzy Buzek
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
I am a man of Solidarity—Solidarność. That is the name of the mass social movement that began in Poland in 1980 and brought freedom and democracy to not only my country but to all of Central and Eastern Europe. 1989 marked the end of the Eastern Bloc, and 1991 brought the collapse of the Soviet Union. Back then, there was hope it would indeed be “the end of history” and that there would be no going back to the past. The fall of the communist empire seemed to be the ultimate proof for us in Poland and Central Eastern Europe, but also for the entire world, that there was no more place for authoritarian regimes and that oppressive governments would perish sooner or later. Such was the experi- ence of generations that lived through the twentieth century. Three decades prior, the air we breathed was full of democracy; we needed that air once more.
Topic:
Communism, Democracy, Community, and Post-Soviet Space
Political Geography:
Russia and Soviet Union

9. Inside Duterte’s Failed Response to the Philippines’ Communist Insurgency and the Appeal of New People’s Army among Indigenous Peoples

Author:
Jack Broome
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
On December 7, 2020, following speculation in the news, the Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte finally announced that the government would not offer a holiday ceasefire—as is tradition for this time of year—to the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). Duterte’s announcement came during his weekly address to the nation on the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but Duterte went one step further by declaring that peace talks are “dead” and there would no longer be any ceasefires for the remainder of his presidency (abs-cbn.com, December 8, 2020).
Topic:
Communism, Terrorism, Insurgency, Non State Actors, and Indigenous
Political Geography:
Philippines and Asia-Pacific

10. One Hundred Years of the Communist Movement in India

Author:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Publication Date:
09-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Abstract:
Dossier no. 32 provides a brief introduction to the history of the communist movement in India, which turns one hundred years old on 17 October 2020. Founded by a handful of Indian freedom fighters who were inspired by the October Revolution, the Indian communist movement has a history of glorious struggles and significant achievements. The communists in India have tirelessly worked to advance the rights of the working people, and to demonstrate the possibility of a future without the exploitation of human beings by human beings.
Topic:
Communism, Social Movement, Radicalization, and Activim
Political Geography:
India and Asia

11. People’s Polyclinics: The Initiative of the Telugu Communist Movement.

Author:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Abstract:
The Indian Communist movement has experimented with various forms of people’s polyclinics, which provide free or reduced-cost health care to anyone. The epicentre of this initiative has been in the Telugu-speaking region of India, where the Nellore People’s Polyclinic alone treats 1,000 patients per day at rates 40% lower than corporate hospitals and has trained over five hundred doctors who now provide health care across the region. Our Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research Dossier no. 25 focuses on the history of the polyclinics in this region.
Topic:
Communism, Health, Community, and Medicine
Political Geography:
India and Asia

12. Albania: The Longest Post Communist Transition Story

Author:
Alba Cela and Ledion Krisafi
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Development and International Relations (IRMO)
Abstract:
By the time Albania, alongside the Republic of North Macedonia, received the green light to proceed with accession negotiations, the enthusiasm for the decision was dampened by the growing coronavirus crisis. Albania had spent all its celebration reserves beforehand having expected a positive decision repeatedly in 2018 and then 2019. Having put in place an ambitious, comprehensive and even disruptive justice reform the country believed to have deserved the integration milestone earlier and blamed delays on the skepticism of certain member states. However, this does not tell the full story. Albania's track record has been blemished by a tagin conflict between political parties deeply rooted in old enmities of transition.
Topic:
Communism, State Building, Political Parties, and Transition
Political Geography:
Europe, Balkans, Albania, and North Macedonia

13. Unexpected Guests? The Soviet Union and the History of Global Capitalism: An Interview with Oscar Sanchez-Sibony

Author:
Oscar Sanchez-Sibony
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The Toynbee Prize Foundation
Abstract:
Capitalism versus Communism. To many, the latter half of the twentieth history was deeply shaped by the confrontation between these two ideological and socioeconomic systems. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, capitalism's triumph was credited to its valorization of money and protection of markets, among other factors; and, as the story continues, Communists failed, in part, because they suppressed markets and globalization. Yet, how much of this historical picture holds true? To Oscar Sanchez-Sibony, a good deal of Cold War histories are founded on generally held misconceptions about the political economy of the Soviet Union. Not only do they ignore the intense engagements between the Soviets and the world, they often miss the mark by neglecting the larger financial and economic architecture that facilitated such exchanges and economic growth in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). There is a larger story to be told about the rise of global capitalism and the Soviet Union. These are the themes of Red Globalization: The Political Economy of the Soviet Cold War from Stalin to Khrushchev (2014). Making use of archival documents from Russian archives, Sanchez-Sibony provides a rich account of how a young Bolshevik state navigated through the world's economic crises, while seeking favorable trading partners in the West for investments. This interview also ventures into topics and figures such as Depression Stalinism, Anastas Mikoyan, and Soviet-Global South relations. This book provoked much debate, and will be a must-read for years to come for anyone interested in histories of the Soviet Union, global capitalism, and the global Cold War. Oscar Sanchez-Sibony is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Hong Kong, where he teaches and researches subjects in Soviet history, Stalinism, and capitalism. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago under the guidance of Sheila Fitzpatrick. Toynbee Foundation had the pleasure to talk with him about his career and the development of his research.
Topic:
Cold War, Communism, Globalization, History, Capitalism, and Global Political Economy
Political Geography:
Russia and Soviet Union

14. The Georgian Herald Samizdat Journal

Author:
Aleksandra Gryzlak
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Warsaw East European Review (WEER)
Institution:
Centre for East European Studies, University of Warsaw
Abstract:
From the very beginnings of Soviet rule in Georgia, the communists were not very popular throughout Georgian society and treated as occupants. Almost all active forms of resistance ceased to exist after the bloody suppression of the August Uprising of 19241. The massive purge of the Georgian intelligentsia that followed deprived the nation of its patriotic elites. Only after the death of Stalin and in the wake of Nikita Khrushchev’s famous speech in 1956, did the situation change. Khrushchev’s words of accusation and criticism, leveled at Stalin for his cult of personality and other mistakes, were treated in Georgia as an attack on their nation and an element of Russian chauvinism. It gave rise to a series of mass protests in Tbilisi in March 1956, that were brutally dispersed by the army. Approxi- mately 150 people died as a result2. During the 1950s and 60s, Vasilii Mzhavanadze was the leader of the Georgian Com- munist Party. In keeping with Khrushchev’s strategy of somewhat reduced control over the national republics, one could observe a consolidation of power by the ruling elite in Geor- gia3. This led to the spread of corruption, bribery and other illegal economic operations. Despite a weak economy, according to official statistics, the average Georgian’s savings in the 1970s were nearly twice that of the average Russian. Also, during this time, a very high number of educated specialists – who while graduating, did not take job assignments were still able to live reasonably well. Another phenomenon characteristic for the 1950s and 60s was a growing sense of nationalism. Symptoms of this included a relatively small number of national minority representatives able to gain access to higher education in the Georgian Republic, as well as clear-cut Georgian control over local and national party structures. The situation did not change after the fall of Khrushchev.4 Only in the early 1970s, did things start to change. In 1972, the key position of the First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party was passed to the former Minister of the Inte- rior – Eduard Shevardnadze, who began his rule with a broad campaign against corruption, overgrown bureaucracy, nepotism, and the so-called “second economy” (black market). Harsh administrative methods used in this campaign brought some positive effects – especially in the agricultural sector – but also resulted in a negative reaction from Georgian society5. Shevardnadze was also supposed to fight against growing Georgian nationalism. Campaigns, that condemned such things as reluctance to learn Russian lan- guage and promotion of national chauvinism in culture, were initiated. The teaching cur- riculum of the subject of history was also put under siege by the new authorities.
Topic:
Agriculture, Communism, Corruption, Human Rights, Nationalism, and Culture
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, Soviet Union, and Georgia

15. Introduction to the Round Table on Building a Modern and Robust Banking System: Poland’s Experience after 1989

Author:
Stefan Kawalec
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Warsaw East European Review (WEER)
Institution:
Centre for East European Studies, University of Warsaw
Abstract:
Poland was the first country of the Soviet bloc in which a non-communist government was created following the period of the cold war. This was the government of Tadeusz Mazowiecki called into being on September 12, 1989. The government announced imme- diately that the economic system would be changed. The government did not propose a third way. It said that a market economy would be introduced, based on private ownership with a freely exchangeable currency. After this transformation of the socialist economy into a capitalist economy was announced, the government acted very quickly to realize this goal. The change of the economic system entailed a great undertaking, consisting of the creation of a banking system adapted to the needs of a market economy. In the socialist economy, there was no money in the true sense of the word. Money served only a certain limited purpose related to the distribution of consumer goods, but not for all such goods. A significant portion of consumer goods were distributed through the use of ration cards, special coupons or through informal channels such as sales made under the counter. En- terprises had their inputs and outputs rationed. The simple fact that an enterprise had złotys on its account did not give the enterprise the right to buy the necessary goods, if the rights to obtain such goods were not included in the appropriate distribution list. Having złotys was also insufficient for purchasing goods from abroad. For that one needed foreign currency -- which also was rationed in accordance with the distribution lists.
Topic:
Communism, Democracy, Finance, and Banking
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, and Poland

16. The Rebirth of Polishness in the Baltic States as a Result of the Crisis and the Collapse of the USSR: The Case of Lithuania

Author:
Marcin Wakar
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Warsaw East European Review (WEER)
Institution:
Centre for East European Studies, University of Warsaw
Abstract:
In turn, the term glasnost’, that is transparency, referred to various areas of life, but above all to media policy. The top-down pressures as well as personnel changes in the leading editorial offices led to the disclosure of information that has been censored so far. However, as noted by Canadian historian David Roger Marples: “In general, more progres- sive reportages could be found in the central press rather than in individual republics, with a notable exception to the Baltic states”8. Although perestroika in the initial years contained processes with varying effects, it finally ended in defeat. The failure of perestroika cou- pled with the success of glasnost, therefore made it impossible to cover up the first one. Additionally, it all happened during a lack of political unity in the Kremlin9. What’s more, Gorbachev’s policy led to a situation in which: „A sense of national identity was growing significantly in each of the republics belonging to the USSR. It also had a huge impact on the mood of all groups of national minorities, reflected in the desire to revive and preserve their mother tongue and national traditions”10. Thus, an increase in the consciousness of belonging to a particular nation was, on one hand, a factor leading to the desire for independence by societies of individual republics, and on the other hand, had a decisive influence on the revival of the identity of national minorities in their territory.
Topic:
Communism, Nationalism, Minorities, and Transparency
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, Poland, and Soviet Union

17. India-China relations reconsidered: A realist perspective on India´s border dispute with its neighbour

Author:
Jayanta Kumar Ray
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Revista UNISCI/UNISCI Journal
Institution:
Unidad de investigación sobre seguridad y cooperación (UNISCI)
Abstract:
India’s relations with Communist China have evolved through various twists and turns. India’s lack of realist approach and naiveté about emerging global politics helped China in gaining an upper hand over India in achieving regional dominance particularly displayed through the bilateral disputes over the border determination. While the defeat of 1962 is a distant past, it has continued to wield great influence over India’s overall approach towards China. This article, thus, goes for a reappraisal of the border issues which have and still continue to influence Indo-China relations.
Topic:
Communism, History, Bilateral Relations, and Borders
Political Geography:
China, South Asia, India, and Asia

18. The Art of the Revolution will be Internationalist

Author:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Abstract:
This dossier traces the history of graphic production in post-Revolutionary Cuba, particularly through OSPAAAL. Cuba, once a darling of U.S. imperialism, would carve its own path towards socialism. Among the Revolution’s inheritances was a well-developed means of mass communication and a U.S.-trained labour force. Overnight these advertising experts and art school kids would turn into the graphic artists of the Cuban Revolution. Like the artists of the Cuban Revolution, it is the imperative of cultural workers of today to seize what we know in order to dream and to construct a world that is not only possible, but necessary.
Topic:
Communism, Imperialism, Arts, Culture, and Revolution
Political Geography:
Cuba and North America

19. India’s Communists and the Elections of 2019. Only an Alternative Agenda Can Defeat the Right-Wing.

Author:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Abstract:
Ahead of the 2019 elections in India — the largest exercise of electoral democracy in the world– Brinda Karat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) discusses the current political context in the country and the left-led resistance to the deepening assault on basic human rights led by India’s right-wing.
Topic:
Communism, Elections, Political Parties, and Leftist Politics
Political Geography:
India and Asia

20. Dictators and Leadership: Lessons from Stalin and Mao

Author:
Graeme Gill
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The accepted wisdom about dictators is that they rule their political systems in an essentially arbitrary and willful manner. Their leadership colleagues are said to live in constant fear of the dictator, always vulnerable to his will and always looking to defend themselves against him. The leadership is shown as a Hobbesian “war of all against all” as the leader rules with no real restraint. This paper challenges that view. It will explain why such a view of leadership politics in authoritarian systems is inadequate, and will illustrate this by looking at two of the most egregious dictators of the twentieth century, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong.
Topic:
Communism, Democratization, Politics, Governance, Institutions, and Political Parties
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Eurasia, and Asia

21. The impact of the 1949 Chinese Revolution on a Latin American Chinese community: shifting power relations in Havana’s Chinatown

Author:
Albert Manke
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional (RBPI)
Institution:
Instituto Brasileiro de Relações Internacionais (IBRI)
Abstract:
This article argues that, while initially constrained by U.S. Cold War policies both in the Americas and in Asia, China’s 1949 Communist Revolution could finally have a transformative impact on Latin American Chinese overseas community after the Cuban Revolution opened up new avenues for socialist influence in Latin America. By using new archival sources and interviews, we will analyze this changing impact by highlighting the intertwined layers of shifting power structures with a specific focus on the Chinese community in Cuba.
Topic:
Cold War, Communism, History, Diaspora, Revolution, and transnationalism
Political Geography:
China, Cuba, Latin America, and United States of America

22. Spring 2018 edition of Strategic Visions

Author:
Alan McPherson
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Strategic Visions
Institution:
Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy, Temple University
Abstract:
Contents News from the Director .................................. 2 Spring 2018 Colloquium ............................ 2 Cuba in War and Peace ............................... 3 Spring 2018 prizes ....................................... 3 TURF-CreWS Papers....................................4 Fall 2018 Colloquium Preview ................ 4 Final Words.....................................................5 Note from the Davis Fellow........................... 6 News from the CENFAD Community ......... 7 Profile of Dr. Eileen Ryan ............................... 9 The U.S. Military’s 2018 National Defense Strategy .............................................................. 12 Book Reviews .................................................. 17 Doyle, Don. H., ed. American Civil Wars: The United States, Latin America, Europe, and the Crisis of the 1860s.... 17 McAdams, A. James. Vanguard of the Revolution: The Global Idea of the Communist Party ....................................... 20 Judith L. Van Buskirk, Standing in Their Own Light: African-American Patriots in the American Revolution ................... 22 Burnidge, Cara Lea. A Peaceful Conquest: Woodrow Wilson, Religion, and the New World Order. ..................... 24
Topic:
Civil War, Communism, Diplomacy, Military Affairs, and Woodrow Wilson
Political Geography:
United States, Latin America, and Global Focus

23. The Emancipation Policy During the Soviet Period in Azerbaijan

Author:
Shahla Kazimova
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Warsaw East European Review (WEER)
Institution:
Centre for East European Studies, University of Warsaw
Abstract:
The work focuses on the political history of the emancipation of women in So- viet Azerbaijan during the 1920s and 1930s. The author’s intention is to describe the forms and methods utilised by the communist regime to enforce the engagement of women in the socio- political, and economic life of the country.
Topic:
Communism, Gender Issues, Women, Feminism, and Equality
Political Geography:
Eurasia and Azerbaijan

24. Communist Parties In Russia, Ukraine and Moldova: Struggling with popular demands

Author:
Jussi Lassila and Ryhor Nizhnikau
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The appeal of left-leaning ideas is on the rise in Russia, Ukraine and Moldova. Nonetheless, the main left-wing parties, particularly the communists, remain stuck in the past and at odds with the interests of the electorate. The communists have gradually transformed from opposition forces and political competitors into conformists of the ruling elites. This new function dictates their key interest in maintaining the stability of the system, which also leads to growing dissent among the parties’ members. Embeddedness in the existing political system is preventing the Left from self-reforming and impeding their transformation into modern national social-democratic projects. Yet Moldova has shown that in the new political context old ‘Leninists’ can reinvent themselves and become the most popular political project in the country.
Topic:
Communism, Political stability, Political Parties, and Participation
Political Geography:
Europe and Moldova

25. Reminiscences of life under communism: Soviet Show trials

Author:
Norma Brown
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
It was early-1980s Leningrad, as St. Petersburg was known under communism, practically on the doorstep of the collapse of the Soviet Union, but so deep in the slough of communism that nobody would have considered it possible that a monumental change was in the offing. Bustling Moscow, where my then-future husband was serving at the same time, had a reasonable KGB to foreigner ratio. In the backwater of the one-time capital of the Russian Empire, the ratio was out of sight, more than 10-1. Still, it didn’t matter if you had five KGB thugs in black leather jackets dogging your footsteps or fifty. They always got what they wanted in the Soviet Union.
Topic:
Communism, Diplomacy, Courts, Surveillance, and Memoir
Political Geography:
Russia and Soviet Union

26. Party Education, Propaganda Instrument for the Collectivization in Romania. Case Study: Argeș Region (1950–1952)

Author:
Antonio Manuel Tudorache
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Hiperboreea
Institution:
Balkan History Association
Abstract:
Party education had an important role in the dynamics of the collectivization process in Romania. The enrolment and “education” of a large number of officers, who were willing to implement by any means necessary the policy of the party, were an essential factor in the success of the collectivization campaign. In the meantime, the progress of party education in the rural areas was used in many communities. As such, they were compelled to reorganise their own social and economic mechanisms so that they would correspond to the ones that the communist regime would accept.
Topic:
Communism, History, Medieval History, and Political Parties
Political Geography:
Europe and Romania

27. Diplomatic Experience That Never Fades

Author:
A. Yakovna
Publication Date:
02-2016
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
Success multiplied by intuition is behind many discoveries. This fully applies to British historian Prof. Gabriel Gorodetsky* who has written numerous scholarly works including The Precarious Truce: Anglo-Soviet Relations, 1924-1927, Stafford Cripps’ Mission to Moscow, 1940-1942, etc. Prof. Gorodetsky came across the diaries of Ivan Maisky,** Soviet Ambassador to London while preparing official Soviet-Israeli documents for publication and was immediately interested. Before him few historians had paid attention to this unique historical document. in fact, Stalin never encouraged officials to keep diaries; this explains why they are few and far between in soviet archives.
Topic:
Communism, Diplomacy, and History
Political Geography:
Israel and Soviet Union

28. Xi Jinping’s Maoist Revival

Author:
Suisheng Zhao
Publication Date:
07-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Democracy
Institution:
National Endowment for Democracy
Abstract:
After making himself one of the most powerful leaders in PRC history, Xi Jinping launched the largest ideological campaign that China has seen since Mao—a mixture of communism, nationalism, and Leninism that is meant to strengthen and discipline the CCP, reinforce its grip on power, maintain political stability, and (more nebulously) achieve the “China dream” of national rejuvenation. Xi’s ideological gambit now looks less like a show of strength than an embarrassing confession of regime fragility in a twenty-first century China buffeted by fears of economic slowdown, impatient liberals, and a public angered by rampant corruption.
Topic:
Communism, Nationalism, Fragile States, and Political stability
Political Geography:
China and Asia

29. ARAB STUDIES JOURNAL VOL. XXIV, NO. 1

Author:
Sherene Seikaly
Publication Date:
05-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Arab Studies Journal
Institution:
Arab Studies Institute
Abstract:
The Arab world and the broader Middle East offer profound lessons on the inextricability of knowledge and power. In the midst of civil war, foreign intervention, and ongoing occupation, those of us who study the Middle East or call it home confront two realities at once. On the one hand are the conditions of everyday life that range from the constrained to the unbearable. On the other are the increasingly confined possibilities of producing knowledge on these conditions. To grasp these two realities, we have only to glance at the kind of fire, sometimes live, scholars and students have come under in the last few months alone. In January, the Turkish Higher Education Council condemned a petition that scholars in solidarity with the Kurdish region signed as “terrorist propaganda.” University rectors immediately began taking punitive measures: launching investigations against and suspending scholars who were signatories. This is in addition to the prosecutions and criminal investigations scholars are facing for expressing their opinion on social media.
Topic:
Communism, Human Rights, Socialism/Marxism, Intellectual History, Transitional Justice, Feminism, Justice, Reconciliation, Leftist Politics, and The Press
Political Geography:
Middle East, North Africa, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia

30. The Romanian Journalistic Education–The History of a Polemic

Author:
Marian Petcu
Publication Date:
07-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Hiperboreea
Institution:
Balkan History Association
Abstract:
The present study introduces the reader to early approaches relating to journalists' education and accession to the journalistic profession. In Romania, the press was originally managed by writers, priests and teachers, who used to promote a rhetoric of talent, rather than one of competence in the trade of journalism. It was often said that talent was of prime importance here, and, since there was no vouching for talent in schools, journalism needed not to be taught in an educational format. However, Romanian intellectuals who had been schooled in Germany, France or elsewhere would plead for journalistic education. Unfortunately, all attempts in journalistic education failed in Romania until the communist regime came to power.
Topic:
Communism, Education, History, Journalism, and The Press
Political Geography:
Balkans and Romania

31. Revolution, Civil War, and the 'Long' First World War in Russia

Author:
Evan Mawdsley
Publication Date:
07-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
This essay has two related themes. The first is the causal link between the First World War and the Russian Revolution. The second is the periodization of Russia’s crisis; in particular the essay examines the ‘continuum’ between the First World War, the 1917 Revolution, and the Civil War of 1917-20 which formed, for Russia at least, a ‘long’ First World War. The link between war and revolution is important, especially as Imperial Russia was the only major participant in the Great War to fall victim to radical political overturn during the conflict, and the only one which continued to fight in 1917 after a drastic change of government. One of the most famous documents relating to the war-revolution link was a memorandum written by P. I. Durnovo to Emperor Nicholas II in February 1914, six months before the outbreak of the Great War. Durnovo had been Minister of the Interior during the 1905 Revolution; following his ministerial appointment he was one of the leaders of the State Council. The 1914 memorandum warned about the extreme danger of becoming involved in a war with Germany. [I]n the event of defeat, the possibility of which in a struggle with a foe like Germany cannot be overlooked, social revolution in its most extreme form is inevitable .... [I]t will start with the blaming of the government for all disasters. In the legislative institutions a bitter campaign against [the government] will begin, followed by revolutionary manifestations throughout the country, with socialist slogans, capable of arousing and rallying the masses, beginning with the complete division of the land and succeeded by a division of all valuables and property. The defeated army, having lost its most dependable men, and carried away by the tide of primitive peasant desire for land, will find itself too demoralized to serve as a bulwark of law and order. The legislative institutions and the opposition parties of the intelligentsia, lacking real authority in the eyes of the people, will be powerless of stem the popular tide, aroused in fact by themselves, and Russia will be flung into hopeless anarchy, the end-result of which cannot be foreseen.1 Durnovo died in 1915 and did not live to see how closely his fears would correspond to reality. However, since his Memorandum was published by the Soviet historians in 1922 it has been noted for its predictive quality; a recent Russian biography was published with the title ‘Russian Nostradamus’.2 Meanwhile, the notion of continuum has recently become an important theme in the study of early twentieth-century Russia, as the centenary of those events is reached. A major international research project, ‘Russia's Great War & Revolution’, is currently under development; it aims to ‘fundamentally transform understanding of Russia's “continuum of crisis” during the years 1914-1922’. The key phrase comes from the subtitle (Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914-1921) of a 2002 book by Peter Holquist’s on the Don region.3 To make more sense of both the link between war and revolution and the continuum, the period 1914-1920 can be divided into four periods - 1914-1917, 1917, 1917-18, and 1918-20.
Topic:
Communism, World War I, Revolution, and Russian Revolution
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Eastern Europe

32. Hungary under Orbán: Can Central Planning Revive Its Economy?

Author:
Simeon Djankov
Publication Date:
07-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
Since the promising start of its transition from a centrally planned economy to capitalism, Hungary has failed to join Western Europe in terms of living standards and democracy. The dominant political figure in Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, shares many features with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Both view the increasing role of the state as economically beneficial, and both consider the Western European economic model to be flawed. Hungary is headed towards centrally planned capitalism, demonstrated by the partial nationalization of the banking sector, the monopolization of some sectors of the economy, and the reversal of the pension reforms of 1998. Plagued by the most persistent budget deficit of any post-communist country, Hungary's greatest challenge is to establish a fiscally sustainable growth path.
Topic:
Communism, Economics, Politics, Governance, Authoritarianism, and Russia
Political Geography:
Hungary and Western Europe

33. Overcoming Barriers to U.S.-China Cooperation

Author:
Maral Noori, Daniel Jasper, and Jason Tower
Publication Date:
08-2015
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
In 2011, U.S. president Barack Obama announced plans to "pivot" toward Asia. In 2012, Chinese president Xi Jinping expressed his hope for "a new type of relationship" with the United States. A lack of strategic trust between the two countries, however, prevents critically needed productive cooperation. This Peace Brief addresses the misunderstandings behind this mistrust and a possible way to move beyond them.
Topic:
International Relations, Communism, Diplomacy, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
United States and China

34. Decoding the Soviet Press by Tom Kent

Author:
Tom Kent
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Harriman Institute
Abstract:
Every press has its goals. In the United States, reporters focus on the role of the press as a counterbalance to government power. In some cultures, the press can be tasked with advancing national or religious causes. In the Soviet Union, the press was about serving the interests of the Communist Party.
Topic:
Communism, Media, Journalism, The Press, Freedom of Press, and State Media
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, and Soviet Union

35. Insanity or Part of a Plan? Prospects for Changes to North Korean Domestic and Foreign Policy

Author:
Nicolas Levi
Publication Date:
01-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Polish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Ever since previous North Korean leader Kim Jong-il passed away in December 2011, concerns about the new North Korean regime have been growing. Although the international community has worried mainly about the country's foreign policy, especially nuclear and missile threats, recent news about a purge in the North Korean leadership has brought to the fore the question of the regime's internal stability. Kim Jong-un has been steadily building a new system of governance, giving more power to the Korean Workers' Party apparatus at the expense of the armed forces. He has also shown interest in boosting North Korea's economy. In foreign and security policy, however, in the short term, North Korea is likely to continue on its previous uncompromising course.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Communism, Economics, Nuclear Weapons, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
North Korea

36. Islam and instability in China's Xinjiang

Author:
Nick Holdstock
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
Abstract:
On March 1st 2014 a knife-wielding group of ten people attacked passengers and passers-by in the railway station in Kunming, capital of China's south-western Yunnan province. Twenty-eight were killed and 113 injured. By the following day the government was describing the incident as a "separatist" attack perpetrated by "terrorists from Xinjiang". The attack in Kunming is the latest in a series of violent incidents in China that the government attributes to radical Islamist organisations that aim to promote what it calls the "Three Evils" of "terrorism, separatism and religious extremism". These acts have predominantly occurred in China's far western Xinjiang region, most recently in January and February 2014. Incidents in other parts of China have been attributed to the same forces.
Topic:
Political Violence, Communism, Economics, Human Rights, and Islam
Political Geography:
China and Asia

37. Cosmos, chaos: finance, power and conflict

Author:
Harold James
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
A spectre is haunting the world: 1914. The approaching centenary of the outbreak of the First World War is a reminder of how the instability produced by changes in the relative balance of power in an integrated or globalized world may produce cataclysmic events. Jean-Claude Juncker, the veteran Prime Minister of Luxem-bourg and chair of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, started 2013 by warning journalists that they should take note of the parallels with 1913, the last year of European peace. He was referring explicitly to new national animosities fanned by the European economic crisis, with a growing polarization between North and South. Historically, the aftermath and the consequences of such cataclysms have been extreme. George Kennan strikingly termed the 1914–18 conflict 'the great seminal catastrophe of this century'. Without it, fascism, communism, the Great Depression and the Second World War are all almost impossible to imagine.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Communism, Economics, Politics, and War
Political Geography:
Europe

38. Georgia’s Local Government Reform: How to Escape from the Soviet Past (and How Poland Can Help)

Author:
Adriana Skorupska and Konrad Zasztowt
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Polish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
If Georgia is to remain the leader among post-Soviet countries in terms of successful democratisation, it must conduct an effective decentralisation of power. During its nine years in power, President Mikheil Saakashvili’s United National Movement rather oversaw a consolidation of power. The transfer of power to the Georgian Dream coalition in 2012 raised hopes that real decentralisation might happen. Poland has been engaged for years in the transfer of know-how and best practices in the field of local democracy building to its Caucasian partner. It should continue its support to the government in Tbilisi. This, however, should be combined with a constructive critique of Georgian reformers’ actions.
Topic:
Communism, Reform, and Democracy

39. Assessing the People's Liberation Army in the Hu Jintao Era

Author:
Roy Kamphausen (ed.), David Lai, and Travis Tanner
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
The 2012 PLA (People’s Liberation Army) conference took place at a time when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was making its leadership transition from Hu Jintao to Xi Jinping. The conference discussion focused on the developments in China’s national security and in the PLA during the Hu Jintao Administration from 2002 to 2012. Key observations are presented in this volume. The most significant ones are Hu Jintao’s promulgation of the new Historic Missions for the PLA, and Hu’s complete handover of power to his successor. The former has turned on the green light for the PLA to go global. The latter is a milestone is the CCP’s institution building.
Topic:
Security, Communism, Politics, History, and Military Affairs
Political Geography:
China

40. The Politics of Cuban Transformation – what Space for Authoritarian Withdrawal?

Author:
Vegard Bye
Publication Date:
06-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The Cuban society is undergoing deep changes, more than fifty years after the Revolution and the same number of years with a Castro government. The focus of study is mostly on economic reforms. But economic transition also has great impact - gradually manifesting itself - on the entire political system. The direction of these changes is still quite unclear. In this Working Paper, "The Politics of Cuban Transformation - what Space for Authoritarian Withdrawal?", NUPI Research Fellow Vegard Bye analyzes the choice of direction and some scenarios in the political transformation process.
Topic:
Communism, Economics, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Cuba, Latin America, and Caribbean

41. Orville Schell: 'A Dream for a Strong and Respected China'

Author:
Orville Schell and John Delury
Publication Date:
07-2013
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Asia Society
Abstract:
New York, July 16, 2013 - China scholars Orville Schell and John Delury discuss how the "Chinese Dream" has evolved to encompass facets of the American Dream while still retaining a traditional, communal character as regards acquiring wealth. (1 min., 45 sec.)
Topic:
Communism, Development, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
China, New York, East Asia, and Asia

42. Searching for Peace with North Korea

Author:
Bill Richardson and Donald P. Gregg
Publication Date:
07-2013
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Asia Society
Abstract:
New York, July 11, 2013 — Former Governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson and Ambassador Donald P. Gregg, former U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea, analyze the present North Korea threat and discuss how it might be resolved. ABC News International Editor Jon Williams moderates the discussion. (1 hr., 18 min.)
Topic:
Communism and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
East Asia, North Korea, and Mexico

43. Productive Power and Policy Change in Global Finance: An Analysis of China's Financial Policy Framing in the Bretton Woods Institutions

Author:
Sandra Heep
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Against the backdrop of China's increasingly influential role in global finance and the debate on the emergence of a “Beijing Consensus,” this paper examines whether the ideology that China promotes in the Bretton Woods institutions is conducive to the initiation of financial policy change at the international level. Drawing on Barnett and Duvall's (2005) conceptualization of productive power, Snow and Benford's (1988) framing theory and Freeden's (1996) understanding of ideology, the paper develops a theoretical framework for the analysis of international policy framing. Following an overview of China's rise in global finance, it identifies the core elements of the ideology that has been promoted by Chinese government officials in the Bretton Woods institutions since the onset of the global financial crisis. The paper argues that China's ruling elites will only be able to initiate a shift in the global consensus on acceptable financial policies if the frames that they propagate succeed in striking a balance between ideological continuity and change.
Topic:
Communism, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Monetary Policy
Political Geography:
China and Israel

44. Informal Institutions in Autocracies: Analytical Perspectives and the Case of the Chinese Communist Party

Author:
Patrick Köllner
Publication Date:
08-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Analyses of the shape and functioning of systems of political rule need to address informal institutions, which exist alongside and can relate to formal institutions in various ways. In this paper, I first discuss some analytical foundations of the study of such institutions. I then suggest that a focus on political regimes – understood as the configuration of formal and informal institutions shaping and reflecting the access to and the exercise of political power – can be particularly useful for analysing the shape and functioning of autocracies. Finally, I use such a regime focus to study the Chinese Communist Party and its leadership succession process, which is characterised by increasing institutionalisation and complementary as well as substitutive relations between formal and informal institutions.
Topic:
Communism, Political Economy, Political Theory, and Governance
Political Geography:
China and Israel

45. Patient Copayments, Provider Incentives and Income Effects: Theory and Evidence from China's Essential Medications List Policy

Author:
Brian K. Chen
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
How do demand - and supply - side incentives interact, when there are potentially large provider income effects? We develop a simple model and empirically test it with data from China's Essential Medications List (EML) policy, which reduced patient copayments and changed provider incentives by removing a large source of revenue from primary care providers: drug dispensing revenues. Using a panel of patient - level spending and clinical data for Chinese patients with diabetes or hypertension over two and a half years, we find evidence of strategic provider response that dampened the impact of patient copayment reductions. Resource use and patient out - of - pocket spending did not change, when taking account of patient utilization outs ide primary care.
Topic:
Communism, Health, and Governance
Political Geography:
China and Israel

46. The Korean Dispute over the Northern Limit Line: Economics, International Law, and Security

Author:
Terence Roehrig
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Security on the Korean Peninsula often focuses on North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles along with deterrence along the demilitarized zone. Yet an equally likely candidate for starting a conflict is a disputed maritime boundary called the Northern Limit Line (NLL) drawn in the Yellow Sea (West Sea). Indeed, since 1999, there have been numerous clashes along the NLL, most notably in 2010 with the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan and shelling of Yeonpyeong island, that have come close to sparking a broader conflagration. This seminar examined the roots of the dispute, the economic, international law, and security dimensions of the issue and explores possible solutions to the problem.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Communism, and Territorial Disputes
Political Geography:
Korea

47. Colonial Origins of Maoist Insurgency in India: Long Term Effects of Indirect Rule

Author:
Shivaji Mukherjee
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for the Advanced Study of India
Abstract:
In this dissertation I try to answer the puzzle of why the Maoist insurgency in India, which is considered to be the most important internal security threat to the world's largest democracy, occurs in certain districts in India and not others. To restate the puzzle described in the Introduction Chapter, why did the insurgency emerge and consolidate along certain districts in the central-eastern part of India and not in other areas? Why are certain districts affected by the insurgency and not others? Is it as Fearon and Laitin (2003) would argue, purely because of opportunities for rebellion being present in some areas of India in the form of forest cover or mountainous terrain? Is it because of the fact of rebellious tribes or oppressed lower castes facing horizontal inequalities living there as theorized by Murshed and Gates (2005)? Is it as Gurr (1970) would argue because these areas are poorer or with higher levels of economic inequality than others? Yet there are other areas of the country which have similarly high forest cover, poverty, and socio-economically deprived ethnic groups like dalits (lower castes) and adivasis (tribal people), and yet have no Maoist insurgency. Is it as Teitelbaum and Verghese (2011) have recently argued because of colonial direct rule setting up the caste structures and poor quality civil services leading to Maoist insurgency in India? But the Maoist insurgency occurs in certain districts of states like Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Orissa where there was indirect rule through native princes, rather than direct rule. None of these existing theories can fully explain the spatial variation in Maoist insurgency in India. There must be some other omitted variable which explains the full extent of this unusual spatial variation.
Topic:
Security, Communism, Post Colonialism, Armed Struggle, and Insurgency
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

48. China's leadership: handover The changing of the guard

Publication Date:
10-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economist Intelligence Unit
Abstract:
On November 8th this year China will begin the once-a-decade process of changing its leaders, with the launch of the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This will, by coincidence, come just two days after the US presidential elections. Both events will have momentous repercussions, both for the countries involved and for the world, but they will mark a study in contrasts. Unlike the US, China's succession battles are being waged in near secrecy, yet observers are already sure who the next president and premier will be. Less clear is what exactly China's new leadership will stand for. This report will examine their backgrounds and policy positions, asking what we can expect from the incoming administration.
Topic:
Communism, International Trade and Finance, Political Economy, and Governance
Political Geography:
United States and China

49. Turkey's Kurdish Impasse: The View from Diyarbakır

Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
As Turkey's biggest Kurdish- majority city and province, Diyarbakır is critical to any examination of the country's Kurdish problem and of the insurgent PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party). The armed conflict has deteriorated in the past year and a half to its worst level in over a decade, with increased political friction and violence leading to the deaths of at least 870 people since June 2011. While as many Kurds live in western Turkey, particularly in Istanbul, as in the south east, grievances that underlie support within Kurdish communities for the PKK's armed struggle are more clearly on display in predominantly Kurdish areas like Diyarbakır: perceived and real discrimination in the local government and economy, alienation from central authorities, anger at mass arrests of political rep- resentatives and frustration at the bans on the use of Kurdish in education and public life. Yet Diyarbakır still offers hope for those who want to live together, if Ankara acts firmly to address these grievances and ensure equality and justice for all.
Topic:
Civil War, Communism, Development, Ethnic Conflict, Islam, and Armed Struggle
Political Geography:
Turkey

50. Consumption boosts China's resilience but risks of a property bust still loom

Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
With the outlook for exports subdued and investment weak, we expect industrial output growth to slow further in 2012H1. But consumption is taking up the slack and fiscal policy is set to be supportive. As a result, we only expect a relatively modest slowing in growth in 2012 to 8.4% from 9.2% in 2011. But with house prices still falling in December, we remain concerned about the risk of a sharp slowing in the property market leading to strains on local government finances and a hard landing for growth, particularly with the external environment weak. However, central government finances are strong and fiscal transfers could provide a significant cushion in the event of a property bust.
Topic:
Communism, Economics, Government, International Trade and Finance, and Global Recession
Political Geography:
China and Israel

51. The Foundation of China's Future Stability

Author:
Peter Mattis
Publication Date:
02-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
The recently ended standoff between the villagers of Wukan in Guangdong province and local government officials has refocused attention on China's future stability. The more than 100,000 officially reported incidents of unrest each year gives observers the false impression that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Beijing barely holds the country together. Pressure may be building, but China's stability is like a champagne bottle. Until the cork pops, the bottle and its contents are stable. The question is how much pressure is building and how much wine is spilt when the cork flies out.
Topic:
Communism, Democratization, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
China

52. The Emerging Strategic Dynamic in Southeast Asia

Author:
Marvin C. Ott
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
Southeast Asia, long quiescent in a turbulent international environment, has suddenly become the focal point of what promises to be the signature strategic contest of the 21st century—between the United States and China. But the evolving dynamic is far more complex than a simple binary face-off between an established superpower and an emerging rival. The overarching backdrop is the profound and ongoing economic transformation of Asia. Three centuries of global economic, political and military domination by the industrialized West has given way to a fundamentally new configuration. Economic modernization that began with Japan has spread to the Sinicized populations of the region and beyond, including Southeast Asia. The global center of economic gravity has shifted westward across the Pacific—and economics is the foundation of power. The world has entered the oft-touted “Asia-Pacific Century.”
Topic:
Cold War, Communism, and Power Politics
Political Geography:
United States, China, America, and Southeast Asia

53. The Last Living Fossil of the Cold War The two Koreas, the Dragon and the Eagle: towards a new regional security complex in East Asia?

Author:
Erik Beukel
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
The divided Korean peninsula is a flashpoint in the regional security complex in East Asia. The central issue is the threat posed by North Korea and how to meet it. After a review of North Korea as an international actor and of two important incidents in 2010 (the sinking of the South Korean naval ship Cheonan and North Korea's shelling of the South Korean coastal island of Yeonpyeong), the rationality underlying the country's military efforts is considered. South Korea's Nordpolitik is reviewed and the rise and decline of its sunshine policy and the role of its alliance with the United States is described. Two non-Korean great powers, China and the United States, are important actors in the region, and their relations with North Korea, goals and priorities, and implementation strategies are outlined. The report concludes with reflections on the potential for changing the present security complex, which is marked by a fear of war, into a restrained security regime, based on agreed and observed rules of conduct.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Foreign Policy, Cold War, Communism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
United States, China, Israel, East Asia, Korea, and Island

54. Supersized cities: China's 13 megalopolises

Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economist Intelligence Unit
Abstract:
The rise and decline of great cities past was largely based on their ability to draw the ambitious and the restless from other places. China's cities are on the rise. Their growth has been fuelled both by the large-scale internal migration of those seeking better lives and by government initiatives encouraging the expansion of urban areas. The government hopes that the swelling urban populace will spend more in a more highly concentrated retail environment, thereby helping to rebalance the Chinese economy towards private consumption.
Topic:
Communism, Demographics, Development, Economics, Migration, and Urbanization
Political Geography:
China and Israel

55. Turkey: The PKK and a Kurdish Settlement

Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Turkey's Kurdish conflict is becoming more violent, with more than 700 dead in fourteen months, the highest casualties in thirteen years. Prolonged clashes with militants in the south east, kidnappings and attacks on civilians suggest hardliners are gaining the upper hand in the insurgent PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party). The government and mainstream media should resist the impulse to call for all out anti-terrorist war and focus instead, together with Kurds, on long-term conflict resolution. There is need to reform oppressive laws that jail legitimate Kurdish politicians and make amends for security forces' excess. The Kurdish movement, including PKK leaders, must abjure terrorist attacks and publicly commit to realistic political goals. Above all, politicians on all sides must legalise the rights most of Turkey's Kurds seek, including mother-language education; an end to discriminatory laws; fair political representation; and more decentralisation. Turkey's Kurds would then have full equality and rights, support for PKK violence would drop, and the government would be better placed to negotiate insurgent disarmament and demobilisation.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Communism, Ethnic Conflict, Terrorism, and Armed Struggle
Political Geography:
Central Asia, Turkey, and Kurdistan

56. China's Communist Youth League 90 Years On

Author:
Paul Nash
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
fter 90 years, China’s Communist Youth League is still going strong. Much has happened in that time. The nation has experienced political revolution, foreign invasion and a bloody civil war. It has experimented on a large scale with its economy, and its social structure, with devastating results. Then it reintegrated into global capitalism with astonishing success. And all along the Youth League has grown bigger and better organized. It seems to thrive on change, and always manages to find a curiously subtle way of militating against the pernicious influences thought to be imperilling the nation’s young people. Today, however, its members face something of a moral dilemma: what to make of Apple’s iPad. The Xinhua news agency and People’s Daily, the two principal media outlets representing the views of the Communist Party, have run a series of editorials assailing the American company’s practices in China. They have uncovered the “Five Sins of Apple.” The top three would sound agreeably familiar to an American Christian if they were not joined to an ideology perceived to spurn religion: hypocrisy, indifference, and impurity. According to these articles, the “bright Apple Inc.” flouts the copyrights of Chinese authors even as the United States condemns China for not protecting foreign intellectual property; Apple is indifferent to the pollution its local manufacturers produce; and the company allows erotic content to be propagated on its devices in flagrant violation of China’s strict anti-pornography laws. The Youth League jury, it seems, is still out—but not because it is torn between the iPad’s desirability and the evidence against Apple. Its members have become wary of such media campaigns sponsored by the government, recognizing their potential, or their intent, to divert public attention from more pressing domestic problems. If they approve their moral thrust, they also feel obliged to consider their message in full context, which includes the motives of their origination. After all, the league encourages it members to “seek the truth from all the facts.”
Topic:
Communism, Youth Culture, Youth, and Morality
Political Geography:
China and Asia

57. Korean Futures: Challenges to U.S. Diplomacy of North Korean Regime Collapse

Author:
James J. Przystup and Ferial Ara Saeed
Publication Date:
09-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
There is no shortage of plausible scenarios describing North Korean regime collapse or how the United States and North Korea's neighbors might respond to such a challenge. Yet comparatively little attention has been paid to the strategic considerations that may shape the responses of the United States, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Japan, China, and Russia to a North Korean crisis. These states are most likely to take action of some kind in the event the North Korean regime collapses. For the ROK (South Korea), North Korean regime collapse presents the opportunity for Korean reunification. For the other states, the outcome in North Korea will affect their influence on the peninsula and their relative weight in Asia. This study identifies the interests and objectives of these principal state actors with respect to the Korean Peninsula. Applying their interests and objectives to a generic scenario of North Korean regime collapse, the study considers possible policies that the principal state actors might use to cope with such a crisis.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Communism, Diplomacy, and Regime Change
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Israel, South Korea, and North Korea

58. Paradox of Power: Sino American Strategic Restraint in an Age of Vulnerability

Author:
David C. Gompert and Phillip C. Saunders
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Book
Abstract:
The United States and China each have or will soon have the ability to inflict grave harm upon the other by nuclear attack, attacks on satellites, or attacks on computer networks. Paradoxically, despite each country's power, its strategic vulnerability is growing. Particularly since September 11, 2001, Americans have sensed this vulnerability. The extent to which the Chinese sense it is unclear. Vulnerability to nuclear attack is familiar to both countries. But the United States and China are also becoming exposed to damage in space and cyberspace because of their growing reliance on those domains for their prosperity and security, as well as each side's increasing antisatellite (ASAT) and cyber war capabilities. For China, economic integration, production, and commerce-and thus, sustained growth and perhaps political stability-depend vitally on data sharing, making networks and satellites as strategic as they are for the United States. All three strategic domains are "offense dominant"-technologically, economically, and operationally. Defenses against nuclear, ASAT, and cyber weapons are difficult and yield diminishing results against the offensive capabilities of large, advanced, and determined states such as the United States and China. Nuclear weapons are patently offense dominant because a single explosion can destroy a city. Moreover, it is easier and cheaper for China to improve the survivability of its strategic missile launchers, to multiply deliverable weapons, and to penetrate U.S. missile defenses than it is for the United States to maintain a nuclear first-strike capability. Though it has yet to admit it, the United States cannot deny the Chinese the second-strike nuclear deterrent they are determined to have. Satellites are inherently vulnerable: conspicuous, easy to track, and fragile. Destroying them or degrading their performance is easier than protecting them. ASAT interceptors are much cheaper than satellites. Likewise, defending computer networks becomes harder and more expensive as the scale and sophistication of the attacker increase. The woes of the cyber defender are compounded by integrated global markets and supply chains for digital components and equipment-in which U.S. and state-affiliated Chinese corporations are leading competitors-increasing the potential for strategic degradation of network infrastructure and disruption of services. In general, strategic offense dominance gives each country an incentive to invest in offense, which in turn spurs the other to keep pace. Apart from offense dominance, the advance of technology has slashed the costs in lives and treasure of strategic attack, as capabilities have graduated from mass invasion to heavy bombing to nuclear weapons to ASAT and cyber war. If one ignores possible deaths resulting from disruption of public services, ASAT and cyber war might even be considered "nonviolent." As the number of expected casualties from strategic attack options drops, so could international opprobrium and the inhibitions of decisionmakers. Absent deterrence, thresholds for war in space and cyberspace could become perilously low as offenses improve.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Security, Foreign Policy, Communism, Intelligence, Nuclear Weapons, Science and Technology, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Asia

59. Strangers at Home: North Koreans in the South

Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
As the number of defectors from North Korea arriving in the South has surged in the past decade, there is a growing understanding of how difficult it would be to absorb a massive flow of refugees. South Korea is prosperous and generous, with a committed government and civil society, and yet refugees from the North almost all fail to integrate or thrive. Part of this is the change in the people coming; it is no longer just senior officials and fighter pilots who were useful and privileged propaganda tools. Nowadays many are women who have endured terrible deprivation in the North and abuse on their way to the South. Reconfiguring programs for defectors to take account of this change is essential if new defectors are to find a place in their new home.
Topic:
Communism, Human Rights, and Refugee Issues
Political Geography:
North Korea

60. Toxic Legacy: Hunger, Oppression, Migration, and Health in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

Author:
Leonard S. Rubenstein
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
During the 1990s, economic mismanagement, political oppression, natural disaster, and loss of external subsidies after the end of communism led to a calamitous decrease in food production in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). The public health infrastructure, including water and sanitation systems, drug distribution and supply chains, and local clinics and hospitals, also deteriorated. At least half a million people died of starvation and millions more suffered acute or chronic malnutrition. Malnutrition increased vulnerability to disease at a time when the health system was incapable of effective response. Fifeen years later, neither health nor the food systems have recovered as the economy persistently stagnates. Health continues to be a low priority for the government. The availability of food is insufficient to meet population needs, hospitals and clinics are significantly ill-equipped, the medical workforce lacks appropriate training, and corruption in drug distribution is pervasive. Malnutrition and anemia, as well as diseases associated with poor sanitation, remain widespread. Over the last few years, DPRK has begun to accept international assistance to address health system needs, most notably to vaccinate children. Although these initiatives address some infrastructure needs, the continued centralized control of health and the lack of open discussion about key issues renders the possibility of reforms sufficient to meet the health needs of the people of North Korea dim. During the economic crisis, tens of thousands of North Koreans migrated to China despite harsh measures imposed by both governments to restrict border crossing and a refusal by China to give legal status to the migrants. To a limited extent, migration ameliorated the health impact of the crisis by stimulating illicit cross-border trade and informal markets that increased some North Koreans' access to food. Even after a disastrous effort by the DPRK government to shut the markets down in 2009, they are re-emerging. China's encouragement of these markets, along with regularizing the status of migrants in China, could advance its own economic interests as well as contributing to improving the health of North Koreans.
Topic:
Communism, Economics, Health, Markets, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
China, Israel, and North Korea

61. Getting Beyond Taiwan? Chinese Foreign Policy PLA Modernization

Author:
Michael A. Glosny
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
Since the mid-1990s, China's military modernization has focused on deterring Taiwan independence and preparing for a military response if deterrence fails. Given China's assumption of U.S. intervention in a Taiwan conflict, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has been developing military capabilities to deter, delay, and disrupt U.S. military support operations. The 2008 election of Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, however, has contributed to improved cross-strait economic and political cooperation and dramatically reduced the threat of Taiwan independence and war across the Taiwan Strait. Cooperation has included full restoration of direct shipping, flights, and mail across the strait, Taiwan's participation in the World Health Assembly, regularized cross-strait negotiation mechanisms that have already reached several agreements, and the recent signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Arms Control and Proliferation, Communism, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
United States and China

62. The Imbalance between Patient Needs and the Limited Competence of Top-Level Health Providers in Urban China: An Empirical Study

Author:
Qunhong Shen, Liyang Tang, Yilin Feng, and Jenny Tang
Publication Date:
11-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
The increasing importance of patient satisfaction is a common trend for the global health delivery system. This development is one of the consequences of wider social movements toward consumerism (Sitzia and Wood 1997) and also is the result of the new public management (Christoffer 2002).
Topic:
Communism, Development, Government, and Health Care Policy
Political Geography:
China

63. In Search of Legitimacy in Post-revolutionary China: Bringing Ideology and Governance Back In

Author:
Heike Holbig and Bruce Gilley
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
The contemporary politics of China reflect an ongoing effort by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to claim the right to rule in light of the consequences of economic development, international pressures, and historical change. China stands out within the Asian region for the success the regime has achieved in this effort. By focusing on the changes in China elite discourse during the reform period and particularly during the last decade, this paper aims to elaborate on the relative importance of various sources of legitimacy as they shift over time, as well as on their inherent dilemmas and limitations. There is evidence of an agile, responsive, and creative party effort to relegitimate the post-revolutionary regime through economic performance, nationalism, ideology, culture, governance, and democracy. At the same time, the paper identifies a clear shift in emphasis from an earlier economic‐nationalistic approach to a more ideological-institutional approach.
Topic:
Communism, Development, Economics, and Politics
Political Geography:
China and Asia

64. Happy News: Censorship, Nationalism, and Language Ideology in China

Author:
Susan D. Blum
Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This article examines aspects of China's language ideology regarding the exposure or concealment of negative news and the promotion of positive news, focusing especially on the 2008 riots in Tibet and the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Censorship may have many appearances and rationales; in this case the permission to criticize or expose depends on the speaker's identity and the anticipated consequences of the revelation. Strong preference, supported by nationalistic identification and policy, favors the promulgation of “happy news” and seeks to suppress and repress any contrary messages. The intersection of nationalism and a concern for a unified, uplifting message result in what is arguably some of the world's most intense censorship.
Topic:
Communism, Human Rights, and Mass Media
Political Geography:
China, Beijing, and Asia

65. La construcción de la nueva imagen china a través de los medios: análisis de la ceremonia de inauguración de los Juegos Olímpicos de Beijing y el desfile del 60 aniversario de la República Popular China

Author:
Daniel Lemus Delgado
Publication Date:
08-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
CONfines de Relaciones Internacionales y Ciencia Política
Abstract:
El presente artículo analiza la ceremonia de inauguración de los XXIX Juegos Olímpicos de Beijing y el desfile conmemorativo del 60 Aniversario del establecimiento de la República Popular China. Estos eventos son parte de la estrategia del gobierno comunista para construir la imagen de una "Gran China". Este análisis parte de un enfoque constructivista de las Relaciones Internacionales. Por lo tanto, se asume que las identidades colectivas son importantes, porque contribuyen a moldear las estructuras materiales del escenario internacional. Así, estos eventos mediáticos fortalecen la identidad colectiva del pueblo chino y con ello, la posibilidad de que el Estado chino tenga cada día un rol más importante en la arena mundial.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Communism, and Mass Media
Political Geography:
China, Israel, and Asia

66. Vulnerable Communities and Community Ownership in Scotland: A review of literature, policy and practice

Author:
Malcolm Sayers and Eddie Follan
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
The ownership of assets by communities has gained increasing prominence in recent years as a practical way by which local services can be owned and/or managed by local people. Proponents of community ownership argue that the development of such models contributes to increased community cohesion and confidence, community regeneration and enhanced sustainability through the development of income-generating initiatives.
Topic:
Civil Society and Communism
Political Geography:
Europe and Scotland

67. Final Report: Limited Assessment Mission to the March 2010 Villagers Committee Elections in Yunnan Province, China

Publication Date:
05-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
One of the most important democratic experiments of the last 25 years has been the movement in more than 600,000 villages across China toward open, competitive elections, allowing 75 percent of the nation's 1.3 billion people to elect their local leaders. For over a decade, at the invitation of the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs and the National People's Congress, The Carter Center has worked to help standardize the vast array of electoral procedures taking place in this new democratic environment and foster better governance in local communities. Since 1996, The Carter Center has observed numerous village elections, provided training to local government officials on electoral procedures, and helped conduct a nation-wide survey on villager self-governance.
Topic:
Communism, Democratization, and Governance
Political Geography:
China and Asia

68. In Their Own Words: PKK Leaders on Peace, Dialogue, and the United States

Author:
Soner Cagaptay and Ata Akiner
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
Intent on resolving its ongoing Kurdish problem, Turkey launched a peace initiative last spring that includes measures to disarm the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a group listed by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization. But does the PKK want peace? The following statements by top PKK leaders provide insight into the group's intentions, the prospects for peace, and the implications for the United States.
Topic:
Communism, Peace Studies, Terrorism, Armed Struggle, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
United States and Turkey

69. The Rise and Fall of KEDO: A Case of Multilateral Engagement with North Korea

Author:
Joel Wit, Robert Carlin, and Charles Kartman
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
When the South Korean fast ferry Hankyoreh sailed out of North Korean waters into the cold wind and waves of the East Sea on the morning of 8 January 2006, it carried a sad and somber group of South Korean workers, ROK officials, and personnel from the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO). These were all that remained of a decade long multinational effort transforming what in 1994 had been only a paper notion into a modern construction complex of steel and concrete. KEDO's profile on the North Korean landscape was unmistakable, its impact on Pyongyang profound. Yet, real knowledge and understanding about the organization in public and official circles in South Korea, Japan, and the United States was terribly thin at the beginning, and rema ins so to this day.
Topic:
Communism, Diplomacy, International Cooperation, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, South Korea, and North Korea

70. Shades of Red: China's Debate over North Korea

Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Pyongyang's latest round of provocations has prompted Beijing to reconsider its North Korea policy. A rocket launch, the withdrawal from the Six-Party Talks, and the 25 May nuclear test all deepened doubts in China about its policies towards its neighbour. This series of escalating gestures coincided with reports that Kim Jong-il was seriously ill, which set in train succession plans. Together, the nuclear tensions and succession worries drew out an unusually public, and critical, discussion in China about its ties with North Korea. The debate took place between those proposing a stronger line against North Korea (“strategists”) and others advocating the continuation of substantial political and economic cover for China's traditional ally (“traditionalists”). Beijing ultimately supported a strongly worded UN Security Council presidential statement and a resolution mandating a substantial sanctions regime, albeit one focused on missile and defence programs that would not destabilise the economy. Although many in the West have pointed to this debate as a sign of a policy shift, Beijing's strategic calculations remain unchanged. As one high-level Chinese diplomat said, “Our mindset has changed, but the length of our border has not”. North Korea's attempted satellite launch and nuclear test generated significant domestic and international pressure on Beijing, while its withdrawal from the Six-Party Talks stripped China of its primary strategy for dealing with the nuclear crisis. Chinese policymakers began to question whether North Korea's nuclear ambitions and desire for recognition as a nuclear power by the international community were in fact negotiable. Beijing was angered by the latest escalation and was ready to reprimand the North, but in a controlled way that would protect Chinese interests.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Communism, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and North Korea

71. North Korea: Challenges, Interests, and Policy

Author:
James J. Przystup
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
North Korea poses two distinct but interrelated challenges. The first is external: the challenge posed by its nuclear weapons program and the threat of proliferation off the Korean Peninsula. The second is essentially but not wholly internal: the challenge posed by the pending transfer of power in Pyongyang and potential for instability as the process plays out. This complex reality underscores the need for balance and strategic patience if the twin dangers of proliferation and instability on the peninsula are to be successfully managed.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Communism
Political Geography:
North Korea and Sinai Peninsula

72. Security Sector Reform: Post-conflict Integration

Author:
Mark Knight
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform
Abstract:
This research paper was commissioned by GFN-SSR as part of a help-desk support to inform HMG to report on its engagement in the context of Nepal. The query asked for illustrative examples and lessons of integration; in particular, examples of integration into armies, integration into non-military forces (police, armed police, intelligence, etc), and creation of new security structures (industrial security forces, border police, etc) into which ex-combatants are then integrated.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Communism
Political Geography:
Asia and Nepal

73. Europeanisation and the reform of the State: The influence of the European Union in the reform of the Czech public administration (1993-2004)

Author:
Magdaléna Hadjiisky
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Political Sociology
Abstract:
The question of the status of public administrations–outwardly a technical one–appears as an important political issue in the post-communist context. The form and place of the State is one of the main issues (political and scientific) raised by post-Sovietism in East European societies. The administration of the former regimes, along with the Communist Party, has embodied the Soviet type of centralized state control. It constitutes a particularly relevant context to evaluate the evolution of the form and action of the State in these new democracies. The administrations in socialist countries were based on the explicit rejection of the separation of powers. Administrative staff organization was based on partisan selection and on the management of civil servants, as well as on the denial of a statutory identity specific to the civil service. The debate on the status of civil servants and services provided by the State has allowed for the redevelopment of a fundamental aspect from the former system: partisan intervention in the selection and management of personnel, and consequently, a degree of political autonomy for the administrative staff. More generally, the treatment of civil servants is important evidence of the conception of the State that prevails at any given moment in history.
Topic:
Cold War, Communism, and Democratization
Political Geography:
Europe

74. Sociology of a new field of knowledge: gender studies in postcommunist Eastern Europe

Author:
Ioana Cîrstocea
Publication Date:
02-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Political Sociology
Abstract:
A new research field named “gender studies” or “feminist studies” has emerged during the 1990s in East-European and post-Soviet countries. The scientific productions in that field often function as experts' studies and aim at contributing to improve women's condition. Established by agents who simultaneously act in several social spaces (scientific, associative or political), feminist studies are at the crossroads of academic and activist, national and international dynamics. Therefore, we consider them as a new discipline at the core of the social and political programmes of recomposition after the collapse of communist regimes, and as an indicator for the rebuilding of social sciences, the emergence of new academic topics, the international circulation and importation of scientific concerns, the reconstruction of intellectual elites in the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CCEE). The paper offers some guidelines for a sociology of this new field of knowledge production.
Topic:
Cold War, Communism, Democratization, Gender Issues, and Political Theory
Political Geography:
Europe

75. Stepping Back From Democratic Pessimism

Author:
Thomas Carothers
Publication Date:
02-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Pessimism about the progress of democracy in the developing and postcommunist worlds has risen sharply in recent years. Negative developments in a variety of countries, such as military coups, failed elections, and the emergence of antidemocratic populist leaders, have caused some observers to argue that democracy is in retreat and authoritarianism on the march. A broad look at the state of democracy around the world reveals however that although the condition of democracy is certainly troubled in many places, when viewed relative to where it was at the start of this decade, democracy has not lost ground in the world overall. The former Soviet Union is the one region where democracy has clearly slipped backward in this decade, primarily as a result of Russia's authoritarian slide. The Middle East has also been a source of significant disappointment on democracy but mostly in comparison with unrealistic expectations that were raised by the Bush administration. In most of the rest of the world good news with respect to democratization is found in roughly equal proportion to bad news and considerable continuity has prevailed as well.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Cold War, Communism, Democratization, Development, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, and Middle East

76. Liberalisierung in Zeiten der Instabilität: Spielräume unkonventioneller Partizipation im autoritären Regime der VR China

Author:
Günter Schucher
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Unkonventionelle Partizipation in autoritäre n Regimen wird in der Regel als Bedrohung für das politische System und als Beitrag zu se iner Demokratisierung gesehen. Diese Sichtweise vernachlässigt allerdings, dass Proteste nicht unbedingt gegen das System gerichtet sind und dass die politische Führung nicht nur reagiert, sondern auch selbst Möglichkeiten hat, Legitimität zu generier en. Sie kann z. B. die Beteiligungsmöglichkeiten erweitern, ohne Entscheidungsmacht abzugeben, oder au ch die Verantwortung für die Lösung von Konflikten auf die lokale Ebene verschieben, um so Schuldzuweisungen für negative Folgen ihrer Politik zu vermeiden. Eine Auswert ung von Protestereignissen in China zeigt, dass es der chinesischen Führung mit diesen Stra tegien bisher gelungen ist, ihre Position zu stabilisieren.
Topic:
Civil Society, Communism, and Government
Political Geography:
China

77. North Korea, Inc.: Gaining Insights into North Korean Regime Stability from Recent Commercial Activities

Author:
John S. Park
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Assessing regime stability in North Korea continues to be a major challenge for analysts. By examining how North Korea, Inc. — the web of state trading companies affiliated to the Korean Workers' Party (KWP), the Korean People's Army (KPA), and the Cabinet — operates, we can develop a new framework for gauging regime stability in North Korea. Insights into the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) regime can be gained by examining six core questions related to the DPRK state trading company system. First, what are DPRK state trading companies and how did they emerge? Second, how do DPRK state trading companies operate? Third, what roles do they play? Fourth, why are DPRK state trading companies important? Fifth, what major transformations are taking place in the DPRK state trading company system? Sixth, what are the implications of the manner in which this system is currently functioning?
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Communism, International Security, and Governance
Political Geography:
North Korea

78. EU Administrative Conditionality and Domestic Downloading: The Limits of Europeanization in Challenging Contexts

Author:
Arolda Elbasani
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
Abstract:
How and to what extent have European ideas transformed the political-administrative institutions in the candidate countries in the East? Which conditions work to mitigate and undermine the impact of the European Union (EU) in these contexts? Research on post-communist transformations, by and large, holds EU enlargement as a successful attempt of institutional transfer in the candidate countries. However, while the EU proved to be successful in the first wave of enlargement in the East, we know much less about its effects in 'borderline' cases that lack the will and/or the capacity to pursue required reforms, thus posing a real challenge to EU enlargement strategy. The paper aims to trace the effects of enlargement in challenging domestic environments focusing on public administration reform in post-communist Albania. Differently from the classic Europeanization literature, the bottom-up approach used here, seeks to bring to the fore the crucial role of domestic agency to download and sometimes mitigate European transfers in the national arena. Evidence from the case study shows that governing actors have used EU enlargement as a means to further their strategic goals – they have preferred to talk the talk of reform in order to reap the benefits associated with EU integration and broader external assistance, but also resist implementation of new rules that curtail the political control of the state and the ongoing system of spoils built throughout the post-communist transition. The EU's broad thresholds on administrative reform and the weak association between monitoring of progress and rewards have left ample space for the governing actors to merely pay lip service to the EU prescriptions, while getting full control of a poli-ticized administration.
Topic:
Cold War, Communism, Debt, and Democratization
Political Geography:
Europe

79. Economic Aspects of the Cold War, 1962-1975

Author:
Richard N. Cooper
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
US objectives during the Cold War were to prevent Soviet attacks on the United States and its allies and to prevent the spread of communism as a political and economic system to other countries, whether by force or by threat, subversion, persuasion, or bribery. The principal instrument to prevent attack was an extensive build-up of defensive and retaliatory military forces, combined with political and military alliances that extended US protection to other countries in exchange for their engagement and support. The principal instruments for preventing the spread of communism by non-military means involved building an international economic system conducive to economic prosperity; engaging in persuasion, providing incentives, and occasionally imposing economic sanctions; and, not least, promoting a robust US economy that could serve as a stimulant to others and as a beacon for the benefits of a free, enterprise-based, market-oriented economy.
Topic:
Cold War, Communism, Economics, and Markets
Political Geography:
United States

80. Access to Secret Police Files, Justice, and Vetting in East Germany since 1989

Author:
Gary Bruce
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
German Politics and Society
Institution:
German Politics and Society Journal
Abstract:
In order to situate the current debate on whether the Federal Commission for the Files of the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic (the Stasi Archive) should cease to be an autonomous institution in the larger context, this article traces the history of the Stasi Archive and of the Stasi Files Law since 1989. Key to understanding the Stasi Archive and access to its files is the 1989 revolution which saw demonstrators demand access to information gathered by the secret police. Although the research quasimonopoly that the Stasi Archive enjoys would be ended by integration into the federal archives, file access for Stasi victims—the raison d'être of the archive—would be jeopardized. Calls for the dismantling of the Stasi archive are, therefore, premature. Some criticism can be directed at the vetting and trial process in East Germany since 1989, but it is important to remember that the Stasi Archive acted only in a support capacity for those activities.
Topic:
Security, Communism, Corruption, and Law
Political Geography:
Germany

81. We Acted as Though We Were in a Movie—Memories of an East German Subculture

Author:
Lutz Kube
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
German Politics and Society
Institution:
German Politics and Society Journal
Abstract:
Leander Haußmann (Sonnenallee), a theater and film director with East German roots, contributed the documentary Die Durchmacher to the television series Denk ich an Deutschland. In his documentary, Haußmann interviews some of his old friends who in the late 1970s formed a group in East Berlin and presents their stories about the time. This paper explores the image of the German Democratic Republic that is created by the memories of the participants and their presentation through Haußmann. An important element of the memories is the perspective from which they come: out of a subculture that tried to escape East German reality with only limited success. This article also examines how the ambiguity and unreliability of memories are presented in the film. The documentary is put into the context of a debate on the concept of "Ostalgia" (Ostalgie), arguing that this can still be a productive means to communicate East German experiences without idealizing them.
Topic:
Civil Society and Communism
Political Geography:
Germany

82. State-Owned Enterprises: Post-Conflict Political Economy Considerations

Author:
Zoë Cooprider and James Wasserstrom
Publication Date:
03-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Participants at a recent USIP working group meeting on infrastructure development in conflict environments discussed the viability of revitalizing State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in Iraq. The meeting, held on February 1, 2007, focused specifically on Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Business Transformation (BTA) Paul Brinkley's effort to revitalize a selection of the nearly 200 SOEs that once produced consumer and durable goods, but which have been shut down since the beginning of the stabilization and reconstruction (S) effort in 2003. Brinkley is attempting to rescue what is salvageable through this controversial SOE revitalization project. In January 2007, after eight months of research and investigation, Brinkley announced that ten factories had been selected to initiate his SOE revitalization project and would be open within two to three months.
Topic:
Communism, Economics, Political Economy, and Politics
Political Geography:
Iraq

83. Security Sector Reform in Liberia: Domestic Considerations and the Way Forward

Author:
Dorina Bekoe and Christina Parajon
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Security Sector Reform (SSR) is one of the four major objectives pursued by the Liberian government as it rebuilds after the fifteen-year civil war. The innovative approaches and framework employed by the government of Liberia and the international community to reform the Liberian security sector after the civil war were discussed at a meeting of the Liberia Working Group, an initiative of the United States Institute of Peace. The meeting, which took place on February 21, 2007 featured Ambassador Jacques Paul Klein, former United Nations special representative of the secretary general in Liberia (UNSRSG), and Andy Michels and Sean McFate, co-founders of Interlocutor Group. The panelists provided an overview of the policy framework used for security reform in post-conflict Liberia and the challenges facing Liberia in rebuilding its security services. This USIPeace Briefing highlights the central points of the meeting and summarizes recommendations for the way forward. Most of the discussion during the working group meeting centered on the reform of the army, although key points on police reform are also noted.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Communism, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, and Liberia

84. Nepal's Maoists: Purists or Pragmatists?

Publication Date:
05-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Nepal's Maoists have changed their strategy and tactics but not yet their goals. In 1996 they launched a “people's war” to establish a communist republic but ten years later ended it by accepting multiparty democracy; their armed struggle targeted the parliamentary system but they are now working alongside their former enemies, the mainstream parties, in an interim legislature and coalition government. Their commitment to pluralistic politics and society is far from definitive, and their future course will depend on both internal and external factors. While they have signed up to a peaceful, multiparty transition, they continue to hone alternative plans for more revolutionary change.
Topic:
Communism, Development, and Government
Political Geography:
Asia and Nepal

85. Making and Unmaking Money: Economic Planning and the Collapse of East Germany

Author:
Jonathan R. Zatlin
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies (IES), UC Berkeley
Abstract:
This paper locates the collapse of East German communism in Marxist- Leninist monetary theory. By exploring the economic and cultural functions of money in East Germany, it argues that the communist party failed to reconcile its ideological aspirations - a society free of the social alienation represented by money and merchandise - with the practical exigencies of governing an industrial society by force. Using representative examples of market failure in production and consumption, the paper shows how the party's deep-seated hostility to money led to economic inefficiency and waste. Under Honecker, the party sought to improve living standards by trading political liberalization for West German money. Over time, however, this policy devalued the meaning of socialism by undermining the actual currency, facilitating the communist collapse and overdetermining the pace and mode of German unification.
Topic:
Communism and Economics
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, Germany, and West Germany

86. 'Voice of the Malayan Revolution':The Communist Party of Malaya's Struggle for Hearts and Minds in the 'Second Malayan Emergency' (1969-1975)

Author:
Ong Wei Chong
Publication Date:
10-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
This Working Paper series presents papers in a preliminary form and serves to stimulate comment and discussion. The views expressed are entirely the author's own and not that of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies.
Topic:
International Relations, Communism, and Government

87. Who Builds Civil Society? Civil Society, Mass Media and Democracy in Post-Communist Countries

Author:
Dušan Reljic
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF)
Abstract:
Media are often acclaimed as the "fourth power" in a democracy. They are hailed as the "watch-dogs" of democracy. As an integral force of civil society, the mass media is expected to play a prominent role in controlling the parliament, the government and the judiciary, in investigating whether private industrial and financial interests respect the law, sounding the alarm if the environment is polluted, and engaging in conflict prevention and resolution. Mass media are omnipresent in modern times. Perhaps, therefore, people expect omnipotence from the media.
Topic:
Security, Civil Society, Communism, and Democratization

88. Ensuring Equal Rights in the Elections Process

Author:
Marcin Walecki
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
The collapse of the Soviet Union marked a fourth wave of regime change – to democracy and autocracy. The only certain outcome of this transition is the abandonment of Communism, and not, as expected, the ultimate establishment of the liberal democracy. Most of the post-Communist states are still hybrids, mixed polities or consolidated autocracies - only some can be classified as consolidated democracies.
Topic:
International Relations, Communism, and Democratization
Political Geography:
Russia

89. The Unique Evolution of the State in the Turkic Republics of the Caspian Sea

Author:
Mert Bilgin
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Abstract:
Post-Soviet countries are either passing through a transition period, or have already completed it, as an outcome of the neoliberal pressures of international actors. The attempts have focused on reconstruction of the state because of its being conceived as an impediment in front of political and economic liberalization. The states of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan resemble other transition economies in the sense that they share a similar Soviet legacy. Nevertheless, they deviate from the rest by the virtue of natural resources which endow the state the ability to re-produce itself. The state of Azerbaijan has liberated itself from the society by using the natural resource rents, which in turn outmode taxation as an instrument of revenue. Despite Kazakhstan's discernible progress in launching economic reforms, the state has politically kept its solid structure. The Kazakh state has preferred to allocate the natural gas revenues for economic transformation with no political liberalization. Under an autocratic regime, the Turkmen state has strengthened its positioning vis-à-vis the society with no economic and political transformation.
Topic:
Communism, Development, and Economics
Political Geography:
Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Soviet Union, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan

90. Explaining Labor Quiescence in Post-Communist Europe: Historical Legacies and Comparative Perspective

Author:
Stephen Crowley
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Studies on the changing labor relations in post-communist countries have flourished in recent years, such that a review and analysis of what has been reported is overdue. Yet, interestingly, these studies have not reached a consensus on what they seek to explain. Indeed, some of the main questions remain under contention. First, is labor in post-communist societies weak, or (in at least some countries) strong? What should the referent be in determining strength or weakness? To the extent labor is weak, what would explain this weakness? If labor's power varies throughout the region, what would explain this variation? There have been a number of answers posed to these questions to date, but not a thorough testing of rival hypotheses. This paper will demonstrate, using a variety of measures, that labor is indeed a weak social and political act or in post-communist societies, especially when compared to labor in western Europe. This general weakness is rather surprising when one examines it against the now considerable economic and political diversity that exists in the post-communist world. The paper will then examine a number of hypotheses that have been proposed to explain labor's weakness, concluding that the institutional legacies of post-communist trade unions, and the ideological legacy of the discourse of class, best explain this overall weakness. However, the concept of legacy is itself found wanting, since it is unable to account for the extent of this weakness or the trends that have occurred in the region over time.
Topic:
Communism and Government
Political Geography:
Europe and Eastern Europe

91. National Security Decision Making, Formal vs. Informal Procedures and Structures: Case Study 1 - The Former Soviet Union, Russia and Ukraine

Author:
Yuri Nazarkin
Publication Date:
08-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF)
Abstract:
The current Russian security decision-making system represents a particular interest, because Russia today is at a crucial stage of its development. There are a number of factors that are shaping its system: new security dimensions and requirements, traditional and innovative approaches towards security, political interests of various groupings, economic interests of big corporations, politicians' personal ambitions. At the same time the past experience puts a noticeable impact on the current decisionmaking mechanisms. That is why I am going to start with the Soviet period.
Topic:
Communism, Development, and Economics
Political Geography:
Russia, Ukraine, and Soviet Union

92. Local Governments and the Chinese Stock Market

Author:
Mary Comerford Cooper
Publication Date:
04-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
This paper examines a key aspect of the politics of stock markets in China—the distinct differences in interests between central government leaders and local governments. Central government leaders have a powerful incentive to promote macroeconomic stability and good performance of the stock market. Local leaders, for their part, are less concerned with the overall performance of the stock market than with gaining access to the stock market for companies under their own jurisdiction. The paper demonstrates that company listing brings tangible economic benefits to municipalities. Listed companies are associated with higher levels of gross domestic product (GDP), budgetary revenue, and industrial and commercial tax revenue. Therefore, it is not surprising that local officials put substantial effort into lobbying for the right to list additional companies on the national stock exchanges.
Topic:
Communism, Democratization, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
China and Asia

93. International Organizations and Democratization: Testing the Effect of GATT/WTO Membership

Author:
Mary Comerford Cooper
Publication Date:
04-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
Does the World Trade Organization promote democracy? A large part of the heated and protracted debate over China's application for WTO membership revolved around this question. Prior to China's WTO accession in December 2001, this debate had dragged on for nearly fifteen years. While one side argued that WTO membership would promote democratization in China, others argued that the wealth generated through economic integration would provide the resources to maintain authoritarian rule. Only time will tell whether WTO accession will contribute to pressures for democratization in China. In the meantime, however, this paper examines the empirical basis for these competing claims about the effects of GATT/WTO memberships on domestic political systems. Based on statistical analysis of a global data set, this paper concludes that members of the international trade regime are more likely than nonmembers to be democracies. However, there is little evidence that WTO membership in itself can promote democratic transition. Instead, it appears to be the case that democratic countries are more likely to seek to join the WTO.
Topic:
Communism, Democratization, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
China and Asia

94. Politics and Property in Transitional Economies: A Theory of Elite Opportunity

Author:
Andrew G. Walder
Publication Date:
04-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
Command economies gave communist-era elites administrative control and material privilege but severely restricted money income and private wealth. Markets and privatization inject new value into public assets and create unprecedented opportunities for elite insiders to extract incomes or assume ownership. These opportunities vary with the extensiveness of regime change and the barriers to asset appropriation. Within these limits, they further vary with the concentration and form of economic assets and structural changes induced by reform. Elite advantages are smallest where regime change is extensive and barriers to asset appropriation are high, and in small-scale economies that grow rapidly. In China, there has been no regime change and privatization has been delayed and slow. In the rural economy, elites keep their posts as a source of economic advantage, while low entry barriers to household enterprise and rapid growth have created new entrepreneurial elites. After two decades, rural officials nonetheless enjoy large net income advantages that grow along with the expansion of labor markets and private entrepreneurship. These are not generic outcomes of market reform, but the product of market reform in distinctive political and structural conditions.
Topic:
Communism, Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
China and Asia

95. Globalization and the Development of Welfare States in Post-Communist Europe

Author:
Mitchell Orenstein and Martine R. Hass
Publication Date:
02-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
How has globalization influenced welfare state development in postcommunist Europe? We focus on the leading East-Central European accession states, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, and show that these states have experienced radically different welfare state developments since 1989 from their neighbors in the former Soviet Union. The first pa rt of the paper proposes that these divergent paths can be explained by a “Europe effect”. We argue that the effects of globalization have differed greatly, depending on a country's position in the international economy and geopolitical relations. We demonstrate that countries closer to the European Union have used welfare state programs to compensate citizens for the traumas of system transition and economic openness, while the welfare systems in the former Soviet states have collapsed to a far greater extent, in terms of spending and effectivness.
Topic:
Communism, Globalization, and Government
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, Poland, Soviet Union, Hungary, and Czech Republic

96. Political Office, Kinship, and Household Wealth in Rural China

Author:
Andrew G. Walder and Litao Zhao
Publication Date:
12-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
For more than two decades after the demise of Maoist collectivism, a resurgent market economy has deeply transformed the social structure of rural China. By the mid-1980s, peasant households had already returned to historical marketing patterns of agricultural produce and other sidelines and services. By the turn of the century, almost 140 million individuals, or 30 percent of the rural labor force, earned regular incomes from wage labor outside agriculture. Twenty million rural households had registered individual family enterprises, and two million of them had already grown into substantial private firms. A massive rural industrial sector grew up under public ownership in the 1980s, employing more than 80 million at its height. It was then extensively privatized in the 1990s, and is now less than half its former size. While these developments have been widely noted in studies of rural industrialization and income inequality, it is still far from clear how they have altered the structure and wealth of village political and economic elites.
Topic:
Communism, Economics, and Politics
Political Geography:
China and Asia

97. Privatization and Elite Mobility: Rural China, 1979-1996

Author:
Andrew G. Walder
Publication Date:
07-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
The ideal types that motivate research on transitional economies have led to a neglect of the varied mechanisms that generate social change. One example is the implicit treatment of privatization as a single process whose initial impact will become more pronounced through time. Privatization in fact occurs via distinct mechanisms that have different consequences across types of assets and through time, as shown in an analysis of career trajectories over two decades in rural China. During the first decade, when privatization proceeded via the rapid expansion of household enterprise, ordinary individuals with nonagricultural work experience were the most likely to become private entrepreneurs. Village officials, their relatives, and public enterprise managers did not enter the private sector at rates higher than others. However, during the second decade the privatization of public enterprises began to transfer collective assets to individual ownership. During this period, public enterprise managers and the relatives of cadres emerged as the most likely to become private entrepreneurs. Private entrepreneurs, however, have yet to move into cadre posts, and cadres have yet to move into private entrepreneurship, at rates higher than others. Administrative elites have therefore proven resilient in the face of private-sector expansion, and the benefits of privatization have gradually shifted in their favor.
Topic:
Communism and Economics
Political Geography:
China and Asia

98. Fear, Security and the Apocalyptic World View: The Cold War's Cultural Impact and Legacy

Author:
Paul S. Boyer
Publication Date:
03-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues
Abstract:
In 1967, Louis Halle published a book called The Cold War as History. If that title seemed jarring and premature in 1967, it would simply appear obvious and conventional today. The Cold War is receding from our collective consciousness with breathtaking rapidity. Cold War encyclopedias are appearing; an Oxford Companion to the Cold War will doubtless arrive at any moment. To the college freshmen of 2000 — seven years old when Ronald Reagan left the White House — the Cold War is merely a chapter in a textbook, an hour on the History Channel, not lived experience.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Cold War, and Communism
Political Geography:
Russia and United States

99. Moldova — Communist Government

Author:
Caspar Fithin
Publication Date:
03-2001
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxford Analytica
Abstract:
The Party of Moldovan Communists (PCM) has won full control over parliament following the February 25 general election. The decisive result has broken the country's political stalemate and allows the PCM to select the president, premier and parliamentary speaker without needing to form a coalition in the chamber. However, uncertainties over the PCM's economic policy and political priorities persist. While the PCM has a monopoly on power, this could be undermined by continued economic decline, internal party splits and a nationalist backlash against its pro-Russian orientation. The PCM will seek allies in domestic politics, and will seek to find the external partner, whether Russia or the IFIs, best able to assist in the long-term revival of the economy.
Topic:
Communism, Government, Political Economy, and Politics
Political Geography:
Moldova and Eastern Europe

100. The Internet and State Control in Authoritarian Regimes: China, Cuba, and the Counterrevolution

Author:
Shanthi Kalathil and Taylor C. Boas
Publication Date:
07-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
It is widely believed that the Internet poses an insurmountable threat to authoritarian rule. But political science scholarship has provided little support for this conventional wisdom, and a number of case studies from around the world show that authoritarian regimes are finding ways to control and counter the political impact of Internet use. While the long-term political impact of the Internet remains an open question, we argue that these strategies for control may continue to be viable in the short to medium term.
Topic:
Communism, Government, Science and Technology, and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
China and Asia