The East Asian miracle: Economic growth and public policy: By the World Bank. (New York: Oxford University Press for the World Bank, 1993. 389 pp. $19.95, paper.)

From a world history perspective, the most noticeable trend in the history of the late 19th century was the domination of Europeans over Non­Europeans. This domination took many forms ranging from economic penetration to outright annexation. No area of the globe, however remote from Europe, was free of European merchants, adventurers, explorers or western missionaries. Was colonialism good for either the imperialist or the peoples of the globe who found themselves subjects of one empire or another? A few decades ago, the answer would have been a resounding no. Now, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the more or less widespread discrediting of Marxist and Leninist analysis, and the end of the Cold War, political scientists and historians seem willing to take a more positive look at Nineteenth Century Imperialism. One noted current historian, Niall Ferguson has argued that the British Empire probably accomplished more positive good for the world than the last generation of historians, poisoned by Marxism, could or would concede. Ferguson has argued that the British Empire was a \" liberal \" empire that upheld international law, kept the seas open and free, and ultimately benefited everyone by ensuring the free flow of trade. In other words, Ferguson would find little reason to contradict the young Winston Churchill's assertion that the aim of British imperialism was to: give peace to warring tribes, to administer justice where all was violence, to strike the chains off the slave, to draw the richness from the soil, to place the earliest seeds of commerce and learning, to increase in whole peoples their capacities for pleasure and diminish their chances of pain. It should come as no surprise that Ferguson regards the United States current position in the world as the natural successor to the British Empire and that the greatest danger the U.S. represents is that the world will not get enough American Imperialism because U.S. leaders often have short attention spans and tend to pull back troops when intervention becomes unpopular. It will be very interesting to check back into the debate on Imperialism about ten years from now and see how Niall Ferguson's point of view has fared! The other great school of thought about Imperialism is, of course, Marxist. For example, Marxist historians like E.J. Hobsbawm argue that if we look at the l9th century as a great competition for the world's wealth and …

The New Imperialism

The Tragedy of Great Power Politics

The third way: the renewal of social democracy

The Limits to Capital

In the post-Cold War era, a voluminous literature has developed to define failed states, identify the causes and parameters of failure, and devise ways for dealing with the problems associated with state fragility and failure. While there is some theoretical diversity within this literature — notably between neoliberal institutionalists and neo-Weberian institutionalists — state failure is commonly defined in terms of state capacity. Since capacity is conceived in technical and ‘objective’ terms, the political nature of projects of state construction (and reconstruction) is masked. Whereas the existence of social and political struggles of various types is often recognized by the failed states literature, these conflicts are abstracted from political and social institutions. Such an analysis then extends into programmes that attempt to build state capacity as part of projects that seek to manage social and political conflict. Ascertaining which interests are involved and which interests are left out in such processes is essential for any understanding of the prospects or otherwise of conflict resolution.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2Fpalgrave.jird.1800120.pdf

Failed states or a failed paradigm? State capacity and the limits of institutionalism

This article draws attention to the transformation of statehood under globalisation as a crucial dynamic shaping the emergence and conduct of ‘rising powers’. That states are becoming increasingly fragmented, decentralised and internationalised is noted by some international political economy and global governance scholars, but is neglected in International Relations treatments of rising powers. This article critiques this neglect, demonstrating the importance of state transformation in understanding emerging powers’ foreign and security policies, and their attempts to manage their increasingly transnational interests by promoting state transformation elsewhere, particularly in their near-abroad. It demonstrates the argument using the case of China, typically understood as a classical ‘Westphalian’ state. In reality, the Chinese state’s substantial disaggregation profoundly shapes its external conduct in overseas development assistance and conflict zones like the South China Sea, and in its promotion of extraterritorial governance arrangements in spaces like the Greater Mekong Subregion.

/pdf/rising-powers-and-state-transformation-the-case-of-china-an1qp47dfg.pdf

Rising powers and state transformation: The case of China

'Non-traditional' security problems like pandemic diseases, climate change and terrorism now pervade the global agenda. Many argue that sovereign state-based governance is no longer adequate, demanding and constructing new approaches to manage border-spanning threats. Drawing on critical literature in political science, political geography and political economy, this is the first book that systematically explains the outcomes of these efforts. It shows that transboundary security challenges are primarily governed not through supranational organisations, but by transforming state apparatuses and integrating them into multilevel, regional or global regulatory governance networks. The socio-political contestation shaping this process determines the form, content and operation of transnational security governance regimes. Using three in-depth case studies – environmental degradation, pandemic disease, and transnational crime – this innovative book integrates global governance and international security studies and identifies the political and normative implications of non-traditional security governance, providing insights for scholars and policymakers alike.

Governing Borderless Threats: Non-Traditional Security and the Politics of State Transformation

In the post-Cold War years failed states have become a major security concern for policymakers. Prevalent scholarly approaches evaluate state building interventions in terms of whether they produce 'more' or 'less' state. In contrast, Shahar Hameiri argues that state building interventions are creating a new form of transnationally regulated statehood. Using case-studies from the Asia-Pacific, he analyzes the politics of state building and the implications for contemporary statehood and the global order. This book examines the effects of state building on the distribution, production and reproduction of political power: Who rules and how? What conflicts are engendered or exacerbated by state building, and how are they managed? What coalitions support the production or reproduction of power relationships associated with these interventions? It establishes that whether or not such interventions meet their objectives, they have led to the emergence of anti-pluralist forms of political rule within and between states.

Regulating statehood: state building and the transformation of the global order

Many observers of international politics detect a growing Chinese challenge to the rules-based, liberal international order. In particular, some saw Beijing's recent creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as a threat to existing organizations governing international development financing. This article broadly concurs with more sanguine accounts emphasizing the AIIB's similarity to existing multilateral development banks. However, we go further by arguing that the full extent of China's challenge to global governance cannot be understood without reference to the ongoing transformation of the Chinese party-state: the contested fragmentation, decentralization and internationalization of state apparatuses. These processes mean that the AIIB is just one institution among many in China's messy international development financing field-alongside policy and commercial banks, functional ministries, provincial governments and state-owned enterprises. Contestation among these agencies will shape China's real challenge to global economic governance, which will often be significant, yet unintended and non-strategic, in nature.

Shahar Hameiri

Papers

Failed states or a failed paradigm? State capacity and the limits of institutionalism

Rising powers and state transformation: The case of China

Governing Borderless Threats: Non-Traditional Security and the Politics of State Transformation

Regulating statehood: state building and the transformation of the global order

China challenges global governance? Chinese international development finance and the AIIB