Showing papers in "World Politics in 1991"
TL;DR: In this paper, a distinction between private and public preferences is made between the East European revolutions of 1989 and 2011, and a theory of political revolutions is proposed to explain why uprisings easily explained in retrospect may not have been anticipated.
Abstract: Like many major revolutions in history, the East European Revolution of 1989 caught its leaders, participants, victims, and observers by surprise. This paper offers an explanation whose crucial feature is a distinction between private and public preferences. By suppressing their antipathies to the political status quo, the East Europeans misled everyone, including themselves, as to the possibility of a successful uprising. In effect, they conferred on their privately despised governments an aura of invincibility. Under the circumstances, public opposition was poised to grow explosively if ever enough people lost their fear of exposing their private preferences. The currently popular theories of revolution do not make clear why uprisings easily explained in retrospect may not have been anticipated. The theory developed here fills this void. Among its predictions is that political revolutions will inevitably continue to catch the world by surprise.
1,015 citations
TL;DR: In those areas where power was asymmetrically distributed and there was no agreement on basic principles and norms (radio broadcasting and remote sensing) no regime was formed as mentioned in this paper, although both principles and rules changed with alterations in national power capabilities.
Abstract: Regime analysis has focused on issues of market failure, the resolution of which depends upon knowledge and institution building. Global communications regimes, however, have been concerned either with issues of pure coordination or with coordination problems with distributional consequences. Outcomes have been decided by the underlying distribution of national power. In those areas where power was asymmetrically distributed and there was no agreement on basic principles and norms—radio broadcasting and remote sensing—no regime was formed. In those areas where distributional issues could not be unilaterally resolved—allocation of the radio spectrum and telecommunications—regimes were created, although both principles and rules changed with alterations in national power capabilities.
775 citations
TL;DR: Counterfactual argument has been widely used in comparative politics and international relations as discussed by the authors to evaluate causal hypotheses by referring to counterfactual cases where a hypothesized causal factor is supposed to have been absent.
Abstract: Scholars in comparative politics and international relations routinely evaluate causal hypotheses by referring to counterfactual cases where a hypothesized causal factor is supposed to have been absent. The methodological status and the viability of this very common procedure are unclear and are worth examining. How does the strategy of counterfactual argument relate, if at all, to methods of hypothesis testing based on the comparison of actual cases, such as regression analysis or Mill's Method of Difference? Are counterfactual thought experiments a viable means of assessing hypotheses about national and international outcomes, or are they methodologically invalid in principle? The paper addresses the first question in some detail and begins discussion of the second. Examples from work on the causes of World War I, the nonoccurrence of World War III, social revolutions, the breakdown of democratic regimes in Latin America, and the origins of fascism and corporatism in Europe illustrate the use, problems and potential of counterfactual argument in small-N-oriented political science research.
586 citations
TL;DR: The role of public opinion in the foreign policy-making process of liberal democracies is discussed in this article, where the authors analyze the public impact of public attitudes on foreign policy making process in four liberal democracies with distinct domestic structures: United States, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Japan.
Abstract: The paper discusses the role of public opinion in the foreign policy-making process of liberal democracies. Contrary to prevailing assumptions, public opinion matters. However, the impact of public opinion is determined not so much by the specific issues involved or by the particular pattern of public attitudes as by the domestic structure and the coalition-building processes among the elites in the respective country. The paper analyzes the public impact on the foreign policy-making process in four liberal democracies with distinct domestic structures: the United States, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Japan. Under the same international conditions and despite similar patterns of public attitudes, variances in foreign policy outcomes nevertheless occur; these have to be explained by differences in political institutions, policy networks, and societal structures. Thus, the four countries responded differently to Soviet policies during the 1980s despite more or less comparable trends in mass public opinion.
541 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate the role of federalism and the cadres of national-territorial administration in the rise of assertive ethnofederalism over the past three decades.
Abstract: Central among recent changes in the Soviet Union is an expanding and increasingly public politics of federalism. The Soviet developmental strategy assigned federalism and the cadres of national-territorial administration a central role in its response to the “nationalities question.” This strategy offers a key to three questions about the rise of assertive ethnofederalism over the past three decades: Why have federal institutions that provided interethnic peace during the transition to industrialization become vehicles of protest in recent years? Why have relatively advantaged ethnic groups been most assertive, whereas groups near the lower end of most comparative measures of socioeconomic and political success have been relatively quiescent? Why have major public demands—and the most important issues of contention between center and periphery—focused to such a large degree upon the details of the Soviet developmental strategy and upon federalism in particular
432 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a theory called omnibalancing is proposed to explain Third World alignments as a consequence of leaders seeking to counter internal and external threats to their rule, which is relevant to the Third World.
Abstract: Many argue that balance of power theory is as applicable to the Third World as it is to other states. Without substantial modification, however, balance of power theory cannot explain Third World alignments, because it ignores key characteristics of Third World states that determine alignment. The author develops a theory, “omnibalancing,” that is relevant to the Third World and that repairs these defects. Rather than balance of power's emphasis on states seeking to resist threats from other states, omnibalancing explains Third World alignments as a consequence of leaders seeking to counter internal and external threats to their rule. The superiority of omnibalancing over balance of power in making Third World alignments understandable is related to the Third World in general and to the alignment decisions of two key Third World states in particular. The author concludes by discussing why an understanding of the Third World, including Third World alignment, is central to the study of international relations.
372 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the political domination of Social Democrats in Denmark and Sweden beginning in the 1930s was stabilized by the absence of intense opposition by capital to reformist programs aggressively opposed by business and the Right elsewhere in the world.
Abstract: The political domination of Social Democrats in Denmark and Sweden beginning in the 1930s was stabilized by the absence of intense opposition by capital to reformist programs aggressively opposed by business and the Right elsewhere in the world. This quiescence was not a symptom of weakness or dependency; rather, it was a product of a class-intersecting, cross-class alliance behind institutions of centralized industrial relations that served mutual interests of sectoral groupings dominating both union and employer confederations. Well-organized and militant, and backed by Social Democrats, employers in the two countries used offensive multi-industry lockouts to force centralization on reluctant unions. Analysis of these cross-class alliances and their pay-distributional objectives is used to challenge a widely held view that centralization and Social Democratic electoral strength are sources of power against capital. It also occasions a reassessment of conventional understandings of farmer-labor coalitions and the decline of industrial conflict in Scandinavia in the 1930s. According to the alternative view presented here, capital was included rather than excluded from these cross-class alliances, and industrial conflict subsided dramatically in part because employers achieved politically what they had previously tried to achieve with the lockout.
326 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the applicability of the concept of security as traditionally defined in the Western literature on international relations to Third World contexts, the domestic variables affecting the security of Third World states, the impact of international systemic factors on Third World security, the effect of late-twentieth-century weapons technology on the security, and the relationship between the security and developmental concerns of Third world states.
Abstract: This article reviews some recently published volumes on the subject of Third World security and, in the light of the analyses presented in these books, attempts to discuss a series of major issues in the field of Third World security studies. These include (1) the applicability of the concept of security as traditionally defined in the Western literature on international relations to Third World contexts; (2) the domestic variables affecting the security of Third World states; (3) the impact of international systemic factors on Third World security; (4) the effect of late-twentieth-century weapons technology on the security of Third World states; and (5) the relationship between the security and developmental concerns of Third World states. The author concludes that while international and technological factors have important effects on the security of Third World states, the major variables determining the degree of security enjoyed by such states at both the intrastate and interstate levels are related to the twin processes of state making and nation building that are at work simultaneously within Third World polities.
171 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that a focus on patrimonial aspects of the Philippine state will not only bring a greater sense of coherence to many disparate aspects of Ferdinand E. Marcos's rule, but will also lead to a clearer understanding of enduring characteristics of the Philippines political economy.
Abstract: Five years after the downfall of Ferdinand E. Marcos, scholars of Philippine politics have yet to achieve even minimal consensus on the proper characterization of his authoritarian regime. More importantly, scholarship has failed to account for fundamental continuity, across regimes, in the way in which dominant economic interests interact with the Philippine state. The author argues that a focus on patrimonial aspects of the Philippine state will not only bring a greater sense of coherence to many disparate aspects of Marcos's rule, but will also lead to clearer understanding of enduring characteristics of the Philippine political economy. Throughout the postwar years, political administration is often treated as a personal affair, and the assignment of privileges granted by the state is largely determined by the personal discretion of those oligarchs currently holding official position. The article explores factors that help to explain why there has been no effective pressure from either domestic or external forces to undermine the patrimonial features of the state, and suggests that future research should analyze why patrimonial features have persisted in the Philippines despite enormous change, yet elsewhere seem to have subsided in the face of change.
160 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors assess the capacity of civil society to rebound in post-communist Eastern Europe by considering the fact that East European dissent, and a civil society of sorts, survived under communism not just as an underground political adversary but as a visible cultural and existential counterimage of communism.
Abstract: Communism has collapsed in Eastern Europe because the regimes, no ionger justified by their Soviet hegemon, lost confidence in their “mandate from heaven.” Domestically and internationally discredited, East European regimes had traditionally shielded themselves behind a principle of legitimation from the top that saw communism as the global fulfillment of a universal theory of history. Once the theory became utterly indefensible, a crippling legitimacy vacuum ensued. Reacting against that theory, East European dissent, and a civil society of sorts, survived under communism not just as an underground political adversary but as a visible cultural and existential counterimage of communism. This fact must be given proper weight when assessing the capacity of civil society to rebound in postcommunist Eastern Europe.
153 citations
TL;DR: The authors make a case for viewing the politics of regime transition in communist states as a subcategory of the more generic phenomenon of transition from authoritarian rule, drawing on case studies from Latin America and Southern Europe and from the more theoretical literature on postauthoritarian transitions that those cases have generated.
Abstract: This article makes a case for viewing the politics of regime transition in communist states as a subcategory of the more generic phenomenon of transition from authoritarian rule. Drawing on case studies from Latin America and Southern Europe and from the more theoretical literature on postauthoritarian transitions that those cases have generated, the article reexamines the politics of reform in the Gorbachev-era USSR. This comparative approach shows that the dynamics of the liberalization process in the USSR adhere to a model of political change previously manifested in other parts of the world. Specifically, it provides a clearer understanding of the initial vitality and subsequent disintegration of Gorbachev's centrist reform program, as well as a new perspective from which to reevaluate Gorbachev's often-criticized program of regime democratization.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the process of economic modernization would result in the decline of ethnic political activity throughout the world and that modernization brought previously isolated ethnic groups into conflict.
Abstract: Until the early 1970s many scholars believed that the process of economic modernization would result in the decline of ethnic political activity throughout the world. This melting pot modernization perspective failed on both theoretical and empirical grounds. After its collapse, scholars promoted a new conflictual modernization approach, which argued that modernization brought previously isolated ethnic groups into conflict. Although this approach accounted for the origins of ethnic conflict, it relied too heavily on elite motivations and could not account for the behavior of ethnic political movements. In the last five years, scholars have tried to develop a psychological approach to ethnic conflict. These scholars see conflict as stemming from stereotyped perceptions of differences among ethnic groups. This approach fails to analyze the tangible group disparities that reinforce these identifications and that may serve as the actual catalysts for ethnic political conflict. The conflictual modernization approach is reinvigorated by applying it to the cases of ethnic conflict in Canada and Belgium. In both of these countries the twin processes of economic modernization and political centralization intensified ethnic conflict while stripping ethnic movements of the romantic cultural ideologies and institutional frameworks that could provide these movements with some long-term stability. Thus, by integrating the modernization approach with a resource mobilization perspective we can develop theories that can account for ethnic conflict throughout the world.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors apply recent economic research on games with incomplete information to the calculus of deterrence and show how strategic players signal a reputation for strength from the perspective of an internally consistent equilibrium model.
Abstract: This chapter applies recent economic research on games with incomplete information to the calculus of deterrence.1 We do not attempt to provide a complete theory of rational deterrence. The focus is on the role of reputation and signaling in establishing deterrence. We show how strategic players signal a reputation for strength from the perspective of an internally consistent equilibrium model.
TL;DR: The authors synthesize histories of national groups living under Soviet rule in order to provide a coherent model of nationality politics and propose an "elite incorporation model" of political mobilization, which accounts for different sources of national protest.
Abstract: Recently published histories of national groups living under Soviet rule provide a rich secondary literature on the various paths taken by these groups to be incorporated into the Russian empire and the Soviet state. Social scientists who want a differentiated understanding of political mobilization among the various nationalities should not ignore these important contributions. This review essay attempts to synthesize these histories in order to provide a coherent model of nationality politics. Proposing an “elite incorporation model” of political mobilization, the essay accounts for different sources of national protest. The model weight not only the pressures for national autonomy and republican sovereignty but also the pressures that provide support for the Union.
TL;DR: In this paper, the specific factors model was modified to include the concepts of diversification and investment capital flows, and it was shown that diversified interests contributed to the free-trade policy outcome.
Abstract: Whereas the Ricardo-Viner specific factors model implies that owners of land and capital stood diametrically opposed to one another on the issue of free trade in nineteenth-century Britain, studies in the economic history literature posit that the economic interests of these two groups of factor owners were not mutually exclusive but rather overlapped as a result of rapid economic changes in the 1830s that intensified landowner diversification into nonagri-cultural ventures. Hence, the former views the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 as capital gaining the political upper hand over the landed elite, whereas the latter implies that landowners with diversified portfolios stood to gain from, or simply became indifferent to, free trade in grain. This paper alters the specific factors model to include the concepts of diversification and investment capital flows. It then tests the political implications of diversification, hypothesizing a positive correlation between constituency diversification and parliamentary voting on repeal of the Corn Laws. Both individual and aggregate sets of data confirm that diversified interests contributed to the free-trade policy outcome.
TL;DR: In this paper, a survey of local elites in India showed that certain forms of protest behavior, used in conjunction with conventional forms of participation such as contacting bureaucrats and political leaders at higher levels, might actually contribute to greater legitimacy of the state by providing an alternative channel of participation, extending the political agenda, and contributing to the recruitment of new and previously powerless social forces.
Abstract: The intuitively plausible relationship between protest behavior and political instability is empirically supported by a large number of studies. Statistical evidence in support of this conjecture is provided by the correlation between indicators of protest behavior such as the presence of extremist parties and groups or the salience of an antisystem dimension and the rapid rise and fall of governments. The theories of writers such as Huntington, Gurr, and Davies suggest that when social and political mobility overtake the rate of economic growth, die result is radical challenge to the system by extremist parties and protest movements, leading to political instability and the loss of legitimacy. The main argument of this article is that the relationship between protest behavior and legitimacy may be more complicated than that, particularly when state responsiveness under the impact of popular protest and redistributive economic policies is seen as an intervening factor. By drawing on a survey of localelites in India, the article shows that certain forms of protest behavior, used in conjunction with conventional forms of participation such as contacting bureaucrats and political leaders at higher levels, might actually contribute to greater legitimacy of the state by providing an alternative channel of participation, extending the political agenda, and contributing to the recruitment of new and previously powerless social forces.
TL;DR: In the past thirty years, the comparative study of communism as conducted in the United States has rested on two conceptual pillars: Weber's theory of routinization and Spencer's notion of progress through industrialism.
Abstract: In the past thirty years the comparative study of communism as conducted in the United States has rested on two conceptual pillars: Weber's theory of routinization and Spencer's notion of progress through industrialism. This article points out some of the limitations of these theories and then develops a more comprehensive framework for comparisons. One of the keys to the understanding of communist politics is the model of a “military society,” also formulated by Spencer but generally ignored by contemporary social science. In terms of this model, communism is presented as a militant geopolitical response to international inequalities, the initial logic of which has been undermined by technological developments in the period following World War II.
TL;DR: The consequences of giantism on India are discussed in terms of management of the economic system decentralization and markets; human resource dimensions such as personnel training; and the international sphere of trade governance and foreign aid as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The consequences of giantism on India are discussed in terms of management of the economic system decentralization and markets; human resource dimensions such as personnel training; and the international sphere of trade governance and foreign aid. The Indian case supports the notion that population size leads to large economies which are cumbersome and function with hierarchical systems and that size handicaps effective functioning. Managers have limited horizontal reach or span of control over subordinates. There are more virtical chains of command. The population ends of delivery systems are larger than in smaller countries. Additional layering in the hierarchy is not trivial addition. It impedes operational communications hence operations themselves. Adding a 10th or 11th bureaucratic level in moving from a country of 8 million to 800 million is not an arithmetic increase in % but an exponential increase in distortions delays and misunderstandings. The coping mechanisms available are to speed up management decision making by delegation of political and administrative decision making downward hierarchically and sideways. Sometimes labor saving devices such as self adjusting servomechanisms generate socially acceptable decisions without continuing day to day intervention by officials. Pluralism and policy experimentation in general may be encouraged. Growth and productive efficiency can be enhanced by greater reliance on well framed markets to lead the ordering of economic decisions. Internal competition must not supercede the importance of export trade which supports the imports of technology and goods. There is an association of poverty with a low propensity for trading. An advantage of large numbers is the enormous pool of talent from which to draw the top leaders. The training of elites and professional cadres is facilitated. The quality of training is a function of the size of the centers and their programs. A critical mass of professionals is easily reached and brain drain is not a problem such as in Bangladesh. Big countries have diminished representation in multilateral councils and bilateral development assistance is apportioned with less per capita aid to larger countries. Regional development banks have more agreeable arrangements.
TL;DR: Democratization in Latin America took place throughout the 1980s within a context of acute economic crisis, thus posing a sharp challenge to established theory as mentioned in this paper. But it is argued that the political impact of the debt crisis differs for the short, medium, and long terms.
Abstract: Democratization in Latin America took place throughout the 1980s within a context of acute economic crisis, thus posing a sharp challenge to established theory. This essay examines alternative explanations-economic, political, institutional, international-for this paradoxical outcome. It is argued that the political impact of the debt crisis differs for the short, medium, and long terms. The analysis also devotes considerable attention to the concept of “democratization” and to the quality of Latin American democracies, which tend to contain pervasive authoritarian features. Careful reading of these phenomena can lay the foundation for new and enduring theoretical frameworks about the relationship between macroeco-nomic transformation and political change.
TL;DR: The concept of social contract is useful in understanding the process of reform currently under way in the former Soviet Union as discussed by the authors, and it can be used to understand why the current reform process in the Soviet Union is beneficial to the less educated, blue-collar workers.
Abstract: The concept of “social contract” is useful in understanding the process of reform currently under way in the Soviet Union. The social contract “concluded” by Khrushchev and Brezhnev provided the population with economic guarantees but deprived it of any political power. Their contract was geared primarily toward less educated, blue-collar workers. During the past seventy years Soviet society has become industrialized, urbanized, and educated. Gorbachev has understood that the well-being of the Soviet economy will in the future rest on the labor and know-how of skilled and educated professionals. He must therefore conclude a new contract that will be advantageous to this sector of society in order to ensure its participation in his efforts to reform the economy.
TL;DR: This article explored the effect of the "nuclear winter" thesis on the strategic debate and argued for limited nuclear options, strategic modernization, environmentally sensitive weapons, and strategic defense, while the "pragmatic center" argued for mutual assured destruction, arms control, and/or global disarmament.
Abstract: This essay explores the effect of the “nuclear winter” thesis upon the strategic debate. Both “hawks” and “doves” responded to the nuclear winter thesis in an ideological manner, illustrating the theological nature of the debate on nuclear strategy. Hawks used the nuclear winter data to argue for limited nuclear options, strategic modernization, environmentally sensitive weapons, and strategic defense. Doves used the same information to argue for mutual assured destruction, arms control, and/or global disarmament. Another group of analysts, the “pragmatic Center,” exhibited a more flexible, subtle understanding of the nuclear dilemma.
TL;DR: In this article, three shortcomings of state theories are evident: they underestimate the impact of individual leaders, discount the content of ideology, and lead, disturbingly, to moral neutrality, and the books that should be the most insightful, because of the theoretical ambitions of the authors, often disappoint because they obfuscate politics with abstract discussions of the state.
Abstract: Recent scholarship on Ethiopia describes the central oudine of events in the aftermath of the country's 1974 revolution. But the books that should be the most insightful, because of the theoretical ambitions of the authors, often disappoint because they obfuscate politics with abstract discussions of the "state." Three shortcomings of state theories are evident: they underestimate the impact of individual leaders, discount the content of ideology, and lead, disturbingly, to moral neutrality.