Ahmad Amin and nationalism

With the breakup of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, three republics in the South Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan) achieved independence for the second time during the twentieth century. Their first experience was contentious and short-lived, had little or no support from the Western powers and was brought to end by the newly formed Soviet Union with the tacit approval of Turkey. While Georgian, Armenian and Azerbaijani national aspirations were quashed in the early post-First World War era, Zionism was given encouragement with the establishment of the Palestine Mandate. When Israel was established it was given immediate recognition by the Soviet Union, but most Jews from Georgia and Azerbaijan – Armenia's population was very small in comparison – only made their way to Israel during the last years of the Cold War. On the other hand, following the Second World War, some members of the Armenian Diaspora, including those in the Arab world, immigrated to the Soviet Union. While Soviet-Israeli relations had been strained since the Six-Day War, the end of the Cold War not only brought better ties between Russia and Israel, but it allowed Israel to establish relations with the other successor states of the former Soviet Union. Many of those countries sought ties with Israel (and the other Western states) to insure their continued independence from Russia, while, at the same time, Arab-Israeli relations improved and Turkey and Israel drew closer together. Iran was regarded with suspicion by Azerbaijan and along with Georgia, which wanted to enhance its ties with the West, drew closer to Turkey. Both countries have benefited from the transport of oil. Jews from Georgia and Azerbaijan have kept close connections with their former countries, where anti-Semitism was never the problem it was in Russia. Armenia has remained the closest to Russia with its conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno Karabakh and its distrust of Georgia. However, Armenians experienced genocide at the hands of the Ottomans and have sought support from Israel over that issue.     

后苏联空间国家的政治-法律设计--从后苏联空间政权合法化到国家规划探索

苏联解体后,在后苏联空间国家突然拥有国家主权的条件下,新政治精英需要建立一个新的政治-法律空间。对这些国家而言,设计与现实相适应的政治-法律制度、建立稳定的国家体制、制定和实施有效的国家政策的过程过于拖延,前景令人质疑,而且即将面临政治代际更替的全新挑战。后苏联空间非常复杂,但也因此是研究和政治设计的重要地区。20多年的实践表明,不应期待后苏联空间的快速转型。大多数后苏联空间国家未完成国家建设和制度建设,这使形势复杂化,可能导致巨大的变数,包括冲突和诉诸武力。但是,外部环境仍逼迫变革。对于后苏联空间国家而言,变革具有政治理性化和政治制度形式化的目的,包括以法律形式固定政治制度和强制政治设计者更多地在正式法律范围内行事,而达到上述目的的选择包括革命性变革或"自上而下的革命"。     

Endurance of the Soviet imperial tongue: the Russian language in contemporary Georgia

This article will examine the role of the Russian language on the periphery of the post-Soviet space by using multiple sources of data, including original matched-guise experiments, to examine the language situation in contemporary Georgia. This is one of the former Soviet republics in which the use of the titular language was most intensively institutionalized and that most ardently resisted Russification, and one that today for various reasons is most eager to escape the legacy of its Soviet past and to embed itself in the global community. In Georgia the cultural and political influence of the former imperial centre has been greatly reduced, and Russian has been challenged in functional roles by the new international lingua franca of English. The direction that the Russian language takes in a place like Georgia may be a useful bellwether for such transformations elsewhere in the post-Soviet periphery.     

Evolving structure of collective bargaining in Turkey (1990–2005)

ABSTRACT

Following the June 1967 Six-Day War, the Soviet Union and Britain invested significant efforts in rehabilitating their relations with the Arab countries, notably Egypt. While both supported the withdrawal of Israel from the Arab-occupied territories, the two countries differed over the nature of the settlement. Still, at the UN Security Council, the Soviet Union supported the British draft resolution for solving the Middle East conflict. Cold War interests and competition over influence in the Middle East, however, led the Soviets to launch a public campaign against British policy in the Middle East and prevented the two countries from joining efforts to bring about a breakthrough in the Arab–Israeli conflict.     

Soviet-South Korea economic cooperation following rapprochement

The establishment of diplomatic ties between the Soviet Union and the Republic of Korea appears to be not only a cornerstone for peace-keeping in the Korean peninsula but also a catalyst toward improving economic cooperation between the two countries. Unlike other advanced countries, Korea has been actively investing in the Soviet Union since Soviet-Korean rapprochement. But events have overtaken the pace of reform in the Soviet Union. Multiple Soviet problems such as the restructuring of the Union and Republic governments, reorganization of the New Economic Community, and severe discord within the political leadership regarding the approach to reform are entangled with power struggles between the center and the republics. The outcomes of democratization and marketization in the Soviet Union are not certain. Korea is deeply concerned about the success or failure of the Soviet economy because this will influence the extent to which the Korean economy will benefit or suffer.     

The power of place,or powerless places? Hybrid attitudes towards Soviet symbols in post-Soviet Georgia

This article explores the hybridity of commemoration by analysing people’s attitudes to three types of contested Soviet symbols in post-Soviet Georgia. I draw on 62 in-depth qualitative interviews conducted in 2012–2013 with Georgians in Tbilisi, Georgia. These interviews focused on what people thought about places of memory, Soviet symbols in public space, and memory politics and policies in contemporary Georgia. I examine their opinions of three different types of reminders of the Soviet past in public space: general Soviet symbols; street names; and the Stalin monument in Gori. This analysis reveals their diverse understandings of place and highlights the hybridity of their responses to the different elements of Soviet symbolism. This not only prevents one from creating ideal typologies when considering places of memory, but also highlights the impact of the form and location of the symbol. I also identify two ways that people conceptualize place, one that recognizes the power of place, and the other that perceives place as powerless.     

Visiting The Future: Australian (Fellow-) Travellers in Soviet Russia

A significant number of Australian testimonies still awaiting systematic and comprehensive study bear witness to the Soviet journeys of many key figures of the Left and help to define and characterise the successive phases of the encounter between 'progressive' Australia and the USSR. The article provides a chronological survey and detailed analysis of the most significant of these accounts from the early 1920s to the late 1960s, including Katharine Susannah Prichard's he Real Russia , Frank Hardy's Journey to the Future and Manning Clark's Meeting Soviet Man . Contextualising these accounts with reference to the contemporary situation in both countries, the paper considers the impact of these perceptions of Russia on Australian political and cultural life.     

哈萨克斯坦和乌兹别克斯坦独立以来的转型战略:悖论和前景

自苏联解体以后,中亚地区成了国际社会瞩目的焦点.作为曾经的苏联国家的一部分,目前该地区充满矛盾.地区内的两个大国--哈萨克斯坦和乌兹别克斯坦选择了不同的发展战略,导致了有趣而充满分歧的结果.取得独立后,哈萨克斯坦选择开放它的经济,而乌兹别克斯坦政府则专注于政治稳定和完全协调发展的经济.1990年代早期,乌兹别克斯坦的策略看上去更合理且更少痛苦,而哈萨克斯坦在那时遭受了严重的经济衰退.然而,到了世纪之交,哈萨克斯坦的经济表现远远超过了它的邻国.本文的目的是分析和比较哈萨克斯坦和乌兹别克斯坦独立早期所选择的两种不同的转型战略,以及评价未来几年里这两种战略的前景和它们所隐含的意义.     

1958年苏联从罗马尼亚撤军始末

1944年苏军进入罗马尼亚后,对其战后初期的政治、经济和社会都产生了很大的负面影响。1955年罗马尼亚首次要求苏联撤军,结果遭到赫鲁晓夫的强硬拒绝。经过不懈努力,1958年苏联终于同意罗方要求。苏联之所以同意撤军,主要是出于和平攻势的需要,也考虑到罗马尼亚处在一个不容易受西方国家攻击的地理位置,同时也是对罗马尼亚忠诚的"奖赏"。苏军的撤出为罗马尼亚以后独立自主政策的实施大开了方便之门。     

属灵的冲突来自属物的冲突--东南亚宗教冲突初探

宗教问题和民族问题将是21世纪困扰人类社会最复杂的问题,东南亚是一个多宗教的地区,婆罗门教、佛教、伊斯兰教、天主教都曾经在东南亚盛行一时,东南亚国家在独立以后,一些国家内部的宗教冲突一直连续不断,特别是20世纪60、70年代泰国南部地区穆斯林和佛教徒之间的冲突;70、80年代菲律宾南部的穆斯林和天主教徒之间的冲突和90年代末印度尼西亚马鲁古群岛穆斯林和基督教徒之间的冲突,导致社会的激烈动荡,带来了经济、文化等方面的重大损失.本文通过分析60年代到90年代在东南亚地区发生的不同宗教教徒之间的冲突,阐释产生冲突的历史渊源,并从制度的角度观察精神世界的冲突.笔者认为属于精神层面的宗教冲突在很大程度上来自一些制度层面的失误.因此,解决宗教冲突的关键并不是单纯地针对精神层面的因素,解决宗教冲突的外部原因比解决宗教的内部原因更为重要.     

The concept of civil society in Georgia,Thailand and South Africa

There is a strong case for a policy of conceptual scepticism about ‘civil society’ given the wide range of uses of the term and the ideological reasons which have led to its reintroduction to the study of politics. However, consideration of the idea of civil society remains an extremely useful exercise to the understanding of political change provided that we do not lose sight of its ambiguities and limitations. Civil society is weak in Thailand, extremely weak in Georgia, but strong in many respects in South Africa; these differences are both exemplified and magnified when we consider the nature and range of sporting organisations in the three countries.     

Civil society in Georgia: expectations versus reality

Academic analysts, political commentators and activists in Georgia are almost unanimous in their assessment that the public in Georgia is generally passive, civil society is weak, and that this may be one of the key reasons why Georgia – despite numerous democratic openings – keeps failing to consolidate its democratic institutions. In order to measure the strengths and weaknesses of Georgian civil society, the present article uses interviews with respondents from the Georgian non-governmental organization sector and academia on two areas: (a) citizen participation: to what extent is civic participation in the public sphere aimed at advancing shared interests and (b) influence on policy-making: to what extent is Georgian civil society able to foster popular influence on political and economic developments. This paper applies the concept of delegative democracy to contemporary developments in Georgia, and argues that one of the major factors which contribute to this trend in Georgia is a weak civil society and, therefore, a lack of intermediary institutions to safeguard democratic norms.     

An Empirical Analysis of Soviet Economic Relations with Developing Countries

Soviet trade with the developing countries is analyzed using formal statistical techniques. Soviet imports of primary products are found to grow more rapidly but to be no more stable than imports of these products by market economies. Evidence is found of Soviet price discrimination in trade in favor of LDC members of the CMEA and against LDCs with which it has bilateral clearing agreements (BCAs). BCAs are correlated with greater trade volumes, relatively diverse export structures and more stable LDC exports to the Soviet Union. No evidence exists that Soviet aid deliveries are linked systematically with later Soviet imports. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 124, 421, 443     

多边主义与东亚高政治合作

中国在国际关系中积极倡导多边主义,充分体现了中国外交与时俱进的精神和当代中国外交文化的先进性内涵.推动东亚政治合作是面向21世纪中国奉行多边主义外交战略的重要步骤,它事关东亚能否崛起为世界重要一极.中国在东亚的多边主义战略目标是构建一个和谐的东亚政治经济和安全环境.由于传统和历史的原因,东亚国家一直比较重视在"低政治"领域展开合作,但对"高政治"领域的合作却畏首畏尾,显得比较缓慢和迟钝.其实,东亚国家在战后初期就存在着大国主导"高政治"领域合作的空间.东亚虽然是世界主要的文明发祥地、战后各主要国家也先后实现了经济的起飞,但是政治上的作用却未能很好发挥出来.相反,东亚却成为霸权主义和强权政治轻易得手和随意操纵的地方,特别是由于政治合作意愿淡薄,直接导致了东亚大国政治上的分散化和政治问题的频繁发生,进而也威胁到经济社会发展领域,中日关系就是一个突出的例子.解决朝核问题的多边主义模式应该机制化,这是东亚"高政治"合作的重要起点,而中国应该成为该机制化过程中的主导力量.     

Surplus transfer and economic development in Taiwan and Shanghai

Abstract

We learn by comparing. Yet reality present us with few clear-cut comparisons. There are almost always mitigating factors. Nowhere is this more evident than in the comparison of economic and political systems. For example, the average citizen of the Soviet Union is poorer and politically more inhibited than a counterpart in the United States; but is this the inevitable consequence of Marxism(-Leninism), or is it because the Soviet citizen lives in a system descended from czarist serfdom, always relatively poor, always oppressed?     

Populism and Peasant Iconography: Turkish painting in the 1930s

The Six Day War is renowned for its impact on the shaping of the Middle East. In the last few decades, much research examining the reasons for the outbreak of the Six Day War, its development and its ramifications has been published. Most of the research has focused on an examination of Israeli government policy before and after the war, on the Egyptian regime's hatred of the ‘Zionist entity’ and on the involvement of the superpowers during and after the war. Some research has also touched on Syria's role in the outbreak of the war. Researchers such as Eyal Zisser and Moshe Maoz have shown Syria's decisive role in initiating the war and suggest that various factors, such as a lack of government stability in Syria, precipitated the conflict. This research continues, to a great extent, in the line of those researchers: indeed, it points to Syria as being the main factor behind the outbreak of war through an examination of the changes that occurred in the character of its government from 1966. However, unlike other research so far, this attempts to show that the unique character of the neo-Ba'ath regime is what brought war to the region and that, had the Ba'ath coup not occurred in 1966, it is doubtful whether Syria would have entered the conflict. This article seeks to emphasize that the Syrian regime went blindly into the war despite military unpreparedness and a lack of political and military cooperation with other Arab countries and with the Soviets. It also exposes, for the first time, the state of the Syrian troops on the front and in the cities, as well as the feelings of the senior officers on the eve of the war, and reveals documents about the military and political cooperation between Syria and Egypt that would eventually force President Nasser to enter a war he did not want to get involved in. Moreover, the research exposes the deep rift – which many believe pushed Syria to take rash independent measures –between the Soviet leadership and the Ba'ath regime before the war. And, finally, the research exposes the atmosphere in Syria following the war, and the administrative and military steps the Syrian regime took immediately after the defeat in order to consolidate its power.     

Beyond the Deficit Model: Social Welfare in Post-Soviet Georgia

Two researchers examine several crucial features of the transformation of Soviet welfare provision in post-Soviet Georgia. Institutional analysis and household surveys in two industrial cities in Georgia are used to identify determinants of distribution and access to three sectors of social welfare: water, heat, and education. The data are used to develop a multidimensional conceptional framework for change.     

Indigenous Parties and Democracy in Latin America

In recent years, important indigenous parties have emerged for the first time in Latin American history. Although some analysts view this development with trepidation, this essay argues that the indigenous parties in Latin America are unlikely to exacerbate ethnic conflict or create the kinds of problems that have been associated with some ethnic parties in other regions. To the contrary, the emergence of major indigenous parties in Latin America may actually help deepen democracy in the region. These parties will certainly improve the representativeness of the party system in the countries where they arise. They should also increase political participation and reduce party system fragmentation and electoral volatility in indigenous areas. They may even increase the acceptance of democracy and reduce political violence in countries with large indigenous populations.     

‘Conflict and confrontation’: A comparison of the effect of trade embargoes on executive‐legislative relations in the USA during the Truman and Reagan years

This article examines the conflict between the American Congress and Presidency in US trade embargo policy during the Truman and Reagan years. After reviewing two cases of legislative‐executive confrontation over trade embargoes against the Soviet Union in the late‐1940s and early‐1950s and South Africa in the 1980s, it concludes that Congress has been successful in modifying presidential policy‐making that it believes does not serve the national interest. This is due to its powerful position in the American political process as the initiator of legislation. Its law making powers have allowed it to review executive foreign policy decisions forcing the Presidency to change its approach to particular policy concerns.     

苏联改革的两面性:从改革走向崩溃

在毫无征兆的情况下,苏联突然解体了。苏共领导人戈尔巴乔夫的改革把苏联带入了一场典型的革命性进程之中。苏联的政治经济体制改革的起步非常谨慎,随后逐步扩大到政治层面,并升级为激进的政治诉求和改革,进而持续升温成为一场革命性的大动荡。旨在恢复社会秩序、实现社会稳定的苏联版"热月政变"由此出现。实际上,前苏联的这场改革并不像当下一些政客抑或是戈尔巴乔夫本人所讲述的那样,是一场有计划的、有组织性的,旨在实现民主化、西方式的民主社会类型和市场经济的改革。苏联的解体也并非因为灾难性的经济危机,事实上,苏联的经济早已是一潭死水。苏联之所以会走向解体,主要在于其一系列旨在解决严重的社会经济问题的改革准备既不充分,信息也不全面。历史上不乏各种经意和不经意的结果,这场改革将苏联整个社会推入了政治经济不断沉沦的漩涡,引起权贵阶层尤其是苏联加盟共和国中执政者的不安。这反过来又催生了一股压力,要求迅速纠正这些意料之外的结果。从本质上说,苏联解体是这场自上而下改革的结果,这场改革的开始是由于部分苏联精英利用了苏联上层社会对激进改革以及加盟共和国的民族主义的诉求,然而却以整个社会体系的改变而告终。