Showing papers in "World Politics in 1995"
TL;DR: Li et al. as discussed by the authors proposed a special type of institutionalized decentralization that the authors call "federalism, Chinese style" which fosters competition, not only in product markets, but also among local governments for labor and foreign capital.
Abstract: China's remarkable economic success rests on a foundation of political reform providing a considerable degree of credible commitment to markets. This reform reflects a special type of institutionalized decentralization that the authors call “federalism, Chinese style.” This form of decentralization has three consequences. First, it fosters competition, not only in product markets, but also among local governments for labor and foreign capital. This competition, in turn, encourages local government experimentation and learning with new forms of enterprises, regulation, and economic relationships. Second, it provides incentives for local governments to promote local economic prosperity. Finally, it provides a significant amount of protection to local governments and their enterprises from political intrusion by the central government.
1,204 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the best way to think about transnational activist societal efforts is through the concept of "world civic politics" and draw an analogy between activist efforts at the domestic and international levels.
Abstract: Activist efforts within and across societies are a proper object of study and only by including them in transnational activist research can one render an accurate understanding of transnational activist groups and, by extension, of world politics. This chapter focuses on activist society-oriented activities and demonstrates that activist organizations are not simply transnational pressure groups, but rather are political actors in their own right. The main argument is that the best way to think about transnational activist societal efforts is through the concept of “world civic politics.” One can appreciate the idea of world civic politics by drawing an analogy between activist efforts at the domestic and international levels. When activists work to change conditions without directly pressuring states, their activities take place in the civil dimension of world collective life or what is sometimes called global civil society. Amnesty International, Friends of the Earth, Oxfam, and Greenpeace target governments and try to change state behavior to further their aims.
569 citations
TL;DR: The Peruvian case as discussed by the authors demonstrates that populism has been transformed rather than eclipsed during the neoliberal era and that it should be decoupled theoretically from any particular phase or model of economic development.
Abstract: Latin American populism is generally associated with the
developmental stage of import substitution industrialization; it is
thus widely presumed to have been eclipsed by the debt crisis of
the 1980s and the free market reforms of the neoliberal era.
However, the leadership of Alberto Fujimori in Peru suggests that
new forms of populism may be emerging despite the fiscal
constraints of neoliberal austerity. This new variant of populism
thrives in a context where economic crisis and social dislocation
undermine traditional representative institutions, enabling
personalist leaders to establish unmediated relationships with
heterogeneous, atomized masses. Political support can be
cultivated through populist attacks on entrenched political elites or
institutions, along with targeted but highly visible poverty alleviation
programs. This new form of populist autocracy complements the
efforts of neoliberal technocrats to circumvent the representative
institutions that are integral to democratic accountability. The
Peruvian case thus demonstrates that populism has been
transformed rather than eclipsed during the neoliberal era and that it
should be decoupled theoretically from any particular phase or
model of economic development.
564 citations
TL;DR: In this article, it is argued that the development trajectory of Japan will be replicated in a succession of sectors and countries, but this approach fails to capture the complexities of the contemporary regionalization of industrial production.
Abstract: Product cycle theory as expressed in the analogy of flying geese has become a widely accepted way of conceptualizing industrial diffusion across East Asia. As the product cycle is repeated for increasingly sophisticated products, so, it is argued, the development trajectory of Japan will be replicated in a succession of sectors and countries. This approach fails, however, to capture the complexities of the contemporary regionalization of industrial production. East Asian industrial production should not be seen as a tightly coupled process in which the rise of national economies parallels successive product cycles. Rather than Japan's development trajectory being replicated in country after country, industrial diffusion has been characterized by shifting hierarchical networks of production and partial diffusion into diverse politicoeconomic contexts at differing historical junctures. It has also resulted in a triangulation of the region's trade patterns that has generated large imbalances in trade both within the region and between the region and the United States.
374 citations
TL;DR: A review of recent events in Russia and demonstrates that future progress in developing private property rights will require not only sound economic policies but also more robust state institutions capable of carrying out economic transformation as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: This article reviews recent events in Russia and demonstrates that future progress in developing private property rights will require not only sound economic policies but also more robust state institutions capable of carrying out economic transformation. In January 1992 Russia's first postcommunist government launched a comprehensive economic program to transform the Soviet command system into a market economy. Privatization constituted one of the key components of this program. Two years later, however, privatization in Russia had failed to create real private property rights. By the summer of 1993 insiders had acquired majority shares in two-thirds of Russia's privatized and privatizing firms, state subsidies accounted for 22 percent of Russia's GNP, little if any restructuring had taken place within enterprises, and few market institutions had been created. Progress toward creating private property rights in Russia was impeded by the particular constellation of political institutions in place after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The set of political institutions comprising the first postcommunist Russian state was not capable of either dismantling Soviet institutions governing property rights or creating or supporting new market-based economic institutions regarding private property.
215 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines recent works that investigate how ideas acquire influence over economic policy choice, concluding that ideas have a force of their own (independent of all interests) and the bolder thesis that they have no influence over policy.
Abstract: This article examines recent works that investigate how ideas acquire influence over economic policy choice. The revival of interest in the “material power of ideas” stems from discontent with the inability of rational interest-based models to explain particular policy outcomes, except by resorting to auxiliary assumptions. The works under review primarily apply “ideas approaches” as supplementary analytical devices to clarify the dynamics of policy choices. These studies succeed in illuminating the interpenetration of interests and ideas in order to plumb the problematic variability of interest formation and the degree of public influence over economic policy parameters. The bolder thesis that ideas have a force of their own (independent of all interests) is, however, misconceived and unproved.
211 citations
TL;DR: The Center of International Studies at Princeton University organized a symposium during 1993-94 on the role of theory in comparative politics as discussed by the authors, which helped elucidate the merits of competing theoretical approaches.
Abstract: The Center of International Studies at Princeton University organized a symposium during 1993—94 on the role of theory in comparative politics. Presented here is an edited and condensed version of the proceedings. In light of recent challenges posed by both rational choice and post-modern cultural approaches, the symposium helped elucidate the merits of competing theoretical approaches. A group of distinguished scholars presented a variety of views on the subject. In spite of recent intellectual developments, a diverse group of symposium participants adhered to a loosely defined “core,” or to what one participant characterized as the “eclectic center” of comparative politics.
189 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the emergence and evolution of security studies as a subfield of international relations is surveyed and the adequacy of the field for coping with the post-cold war world is assessed.
Abstract: The end of the cold war has generated numerous reflections on the nature of the world in its aftermath. The reduced military threat to American security has triggered proposals for expanding the concept of national security to include nonmilitary threats to national well-being. Some go further and call for a fundamental reexamination of the concepts, theories, and assumptions used to analyze security problems. In order to lay the groundwork for such a reexamination, the emergence and evolution of security studies as a subfield of international relations is surveyed, the adequacy of the field for coping with the post—cold war world is assessed, and proposals for the future of security studies are discussed. It is argued that a strong case can be made for reintegration of security studies with the study of international politics and foreign policy.
162 citations
TL;DR: The authors showed that variations in the degree of social democratic decline in nine European countries can be viewed in large measure as a product of two structural economic changes: (1) the shift to smaller units of production; and (2) the growth of private nonindustrial employment.
Abstract: Using a number of different quantitative measures, this article demonstrates that variations in the degree of social democratic decline in nine European countries can be viewed in large measure as a product of two structural economic changes: (1) the shift to smaller units of production; and (2) the growth of private nonindustrial employment. The article explores several causal arguments linking these variables to social democratic decline, and it marshals Swedish and British time-series data to show that the distribution of manufacturing employment by production unit helps explain both the rise and the decline of social democracy.
72 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined American public attitudes about military intervention and found that there may be important intransitivities in the ordering of public preferences at the aggregate level on policy choices such as those considered by American decision makers in the period leading up to the Gulf War.
Abstract: This article argues that the problems identified in the literature on public choice should critically affect our research on public opinion and our understanding of the impact of public opinion on foreign policy. While a robust literature has emerged around social choice issues in political science, there has been remarkably little appreciation for these problems in the literature on public opinion in general and on public opinion and foreign policy in particular. The potential importance of social choice problems for understanding the nature and role of public opinion in foreign policy making is demonstrated through an examination of American public attitudes about military intervention abroad. In particular, drawing on several common descriptions of the underlying dimensionality of public attitudes on major foreign policy issues, it is shown that there may be important intransitivities in the ordering of public preferences at the aggregate level on policy choices such as those considered by American decision makers in the period leading up to the Gulf War. Without new approaches to public-opinion polling that take these problems into consideration, it will be difficult to make credible claims about the role of public opinion in theforeignpolicy process.
70 citations
TL;DR: The authors reviewed three recently published books: Anderson's Imagined Communities, Liah Greenfeld's Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity, and Anthony D. Smith's National Identity.
Abstract: This article reviews three recently published books: Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities, Liah Greenfeld's Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity, and Anthony D. Smith's National Identity. It examines these books in search of clues that explain the enigma of nationalism: What are the sources of the mysterious vitality of nationalism? Why does nationalism provide the most compelling identity myth in the modern world? Why can it motivate individuals more than any other political force? This inquiry reveals an irony attendant upon the study of nationalism: the more we learn about the emergence of nationalism, the less credible is the nationalist pretense that nations are natural, continuous communities of fate. Yet it is precisely this image of nationalism that nurtures the unique power of nationalism. The power of nationalism thus seems to be embedded in self-deception.
TL;DR: This article argued that social citizenship is inextricably linked to redistributive political conflict between in-groups and outgroups and depends upon state capacity to raise revenues and to police entitlement.
Abstract: This article argues that it is a fallacy to regard “social citizenship” as granting social rights equivalent to civil rights and suffrage. The argument is based partly upon a textual analysis showing that in formulating his influential “trinity” of citizenship, T. H. Marshall obfuscated differences between the distributional logic of redistributive policy and political and civil rights. The second part of the argument is based upon an empirical discussion of how social citizenship arguments have been applied to create comprehensive social reform.The Scandinavian welfare states play a central role in the discussion as examples of the inclu-sionary benefits of social citizenship. Three instances of welfare state expansion are discussed: the passage of legislation establishing flat-rate retirement benefits, the institution of supplementary earnings-related retirement benefits, and feminist mobilization in the 1980s for a “woman-friendly” welfare state. It is shown that claims to social citizenship are used by out-groups to demand inclusion in electoral coalitions aiming at welfare state expansion.The article concludes that social citizenship is inextricably linked to redistributive political conflict between in-groups and out-groups and depends upon state capacity to raise revenues and to police entitlement. A key difference between social rights and political and civil rights is that consumption of the former hinges on both the consent of the community and the willingness of others to pay for such consumption, while consumption of the latter does not impose direct costs upon others.
TL;DR: In the post-Mao era the radical reformers led by Deng Xiaoping have favored rapid growth, even at the expense of stability as discussed by the authors, while the conservatives surrounding Chen Yun consider stability the paramount goal, believing that it should override considerations of growth.
Abstract: The informal dimension has always been important in Chinese politics, due to a traditional bias against legalism and favoring the sentimentalization of personal qualities. We contend that it remains so still, albeit in altered form. Rather than being oriented solely to personal or in-group security, factionalism in the context of the more secure bureaucratic environment of the reform era has come to embrace policy goals and material interests as well. Thus, informal politics proliferates, and factional fortunes tend tofluctuateaccording to the patterns of China's political business cycle.In the post-Mao era the radical reformers led by Deng Xiaoping have favored rapid growth, even at the expense of stability. The conservatives surrounding Chen Yun consider stability the paramount goal, believing that it should override considerations of growth. The synchronization of reform and business cycles, plus the appearance of periodic social movements whenever the growth rate slumps, makes reformers and conservatives vulnerable to charges of mismanaging the economy for their respective policy preferences. As long as the business, reform, and movement cycles coincide, wide policyfluctuationsdriven by a politics of blame are inevitable.
TL;DR: In this article, a review article examines four recent volumes on the European Union, each of which takes as its substantive and theoretical starting point the relaunching of the European Community in the mid-1980s around the single market initiative.
Abstract: This review article examines four recent volumes on the European Union, each of which takes as its substantive and theoretical starting point the relaunching of the European Community in the mid-1980s around the single market initiative. Taken together, they provide a comprehensive account of the momentous events leading up to the Maastricht summit. They also present an accurate reflection of the current state of the subfield. Their basic research agenda, a continuation of traditional approaches in Community studies, revolves around the “big bangs” of integration and the conventional models of neofunctionalism and intergovemmentalism. This scholarly continuity generates unwelcome consequences for the selection of research puzzles and for the robustness and reach of the findings. As a remedy, several strategies—some methodological, others theoretical—are outlined for generating new insights into the growing complexity of the European Union.
TL;DR: The extent to which international institutions facilitate cooperation among senders of sanctions is likely to depend on the domestic politics of members, the type of institution being used for this purpose, the nature of the strategy being pursued, and the distribution of power among members.
Abstract: Economic sanctions have long occupied the attention of both scholars and policy makers. Despite the widespread use of sanctions, many observers have concluded that the inherent problems associated with imposing sanctions involving multiple senders substantially limit their effectiveness. This article reviews two books that analyze the factors that influence cooperation among senders of multilateral sanctions. These books indicate that international institutions can do much to promote cooperation of this sort. However, this essay argues that the extent to which international institutions facilitate cooperation among senders of sanctions is likely to depend on the domestic politics of members, the type of institution being used for this purpose, the nature of the strategy being pursued, and the distribution of power among members. Although these books make significant contributions to our understanding of the factors that promote cooperation among senders of multilateral sanctions, they examine the factors that promote the effectiveness of sanctions in only a peripheral manner. One potential influence on the effectiveness of sanctions that are organized by an international institution, however, is the likelihood that the institution will be captured by member states or by interest groups within them. Additional research that investigates the conditions under which international institutions are likely to be captured and the implications of institutional capture for their performance may therefore prove useful to scholars of international relations and economic statecraft.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine administrative and technical elites in France and Germany in the 1980s and identify characteristics that enable these elites to implement policy in some cases but not in others.
Abstract: Most comparative studies of public strategies for competitiveness focus on the links between public agencies and industrial sectors. This paper argues that the professions—or knowledge-bearing elites—that animate these organizational links are equally significant. For public policies to promote technological advance, the visions and self-images of knowledge-bearing elites are particularly important. By examining administrative and technical elites in France and Germany in the 1980s, the paper identifies characteristics that enable these elites to implement policy in some cases but not in others. France's “state-created” elites were well positioned to initiate and implement large technology projects, such as digitizing the telecommunications network. By contrast, Germany's state-recognized elites were better positioned to facilitate framework-oriented programs aimed at the diffusion of new technologies throughout industry. The linkages between administrative and technical elites also explain why French policymakers had difficulty adapting policy to changing circumstances over time, whereas German policymakers managed in many cases to learn more from previous policy experiences and to adapt subsequent initiatives accordingly.
TL;DR: In this paper, a two-stage asymmetric escalation game is developed to explore the connection between stage credibility and deterrence stability, and inferences are drawn about the viability of limited war options and various competing flexible response deployment policies.
Abstract: A two-stage Asymmetric Escalation Game is developed to explore the connection between stage credibility and deterrence stability. There are two players in the model: Challenger and Defender. Challenger may initiate or not. If Challenger initiates, Defender may do nothing, respond in kind, or escalate; Challenger may then escalate or counterescalate, and so on. Each player is uncertain about the other's intentions at the final stage of the game. Escalation represents a choice that both players believe is qualitatively different from other available responses. Thus the model applies to any situation in which Defender may respond by crossing a threshold, thereby inducing a (psychologically) distinct level of conflict.The Perfect Bayesian Equilibria are identified and interpreted, and inferences are drawn about the viability of limited war options and various competing flexible response deployment policies. In general, the model reveals that substrategic deployments add little to overall deterrence stability. Under certain relatively rare conditions, a policy called no-first-use in the super power context offers Defender advantages that might conceivably warrant the deployment stance associated with it. But a war fighting deployment never benefits Defender. Within the confines of the model, therefore, limited or substrategic wars are possible but unlikely.
TL;DR: The first three words in the title of this essay identify the convergence of theme among the three books considered here as discussed by the authors. Despite very important differences, that convergence is manifest; each word deserves emphasis in distinguishing the books from conventional works in the tradition of structural realism.
Abstract: THE first three words in the title of this essay identify the convergence of theme among the three books considered here. Despite very important differences, that convergence is manifest; each word deserves emphasis in distinguishing the books from conventional works in the tradition of structural realism. To begin with the last of those words-choice is essential. States, or their decision makers, choose strategies from a set of possible alternatives. They are not deterministically constrained by the structure of the international system to go to war or to submit to coercion. Skipping back to the initial word, processes is important in the plural, in two senses. First, choices are made through a domestic political process of decision making. Decision making within the government interacts with other domestic political actors, notably the opposition, in the form sometimes captured in game-theoretic formulations of two-level, or nested, games.' The process may vary with the international context (contemporaneous and historical) in which decisions are being made.
TL;DR: A review of six recent books on modern Iranian politics as discussed by the authors suggests that Iranian politics can be analyzed from the perspective of four basic traditions and models: monarchical, liberal nationalist, religious, and leftist.
Abstract: This essay reviews six recent books on modern Iranian politics. It suggests that Iranian politics can be analyzed from the perspective of four basic traditions and models: monarchical, liberal nationalist, religious, and leftist. Each model abstracts the essential elements of the political system and demonstrates the dominance of a certain perspective. The first three of these models have been implemented in post—World War II Iran, and even the left has had an impact. The essay concludes by stating that current Iranian domestic politics can be better understood by paying attention to five enduring features: historical continuity of the nation-state, steady increase in state power, persistence of patrimonialism, intense interaction between domestic and foreign policies particularly as it relates to control over oil, and the vitality of civil society even under the Islamic Republic.