Stable instability: the Syrian conflict and the postponement of the 2013 Lebanese parliamentary elections

Given the morass of the Syrian civil war and Lebanon’s exposure to the consequences, this article seeks to explore how the intersecting dynamics of Lebanese domestic conflicts and the multiple implications of the bloodbath in Syria have influenced the behaviour of Lebanese political parties in their ongoing struggle over the formulation of a new electoral law, leading to a broad consensus among the country’s parties to postpone the 2013 parliamentary elections. The article argues that, while the usual attempts to profit at the expense of other groups in society are still present and external patrons still wield great influence, the decision to postpone the elections also demonstrates a degree of pragmatism and political development since, despite dire predictions to the contrary, Lebanon has not succumbed to the return of its own civil war. Instead a complex mixture of pragmatism, elision of interests and external influence, combined with local agency, has led Lebanon into a situation of stable instability.     

No humanitarian intervention in Asian genocides: how possible and legitimate?

Abstract

This article addresses an important empirical puzzle: why has the United States, without exception, chosen not to intervene in the six humanitarian catastrophes in post-war Asia, namely in Indonesia, East Pakistan/Bangladesh, Cambodia, East Timor, Sri Lanka and Myanmar? We use an eclectic approach that blends arguments about the international normative structure and geostrategic interests to examine what has made the absence of humanitarian intervention in Asia by the US possible and legitimate. Specifically, we focus on the paradox between calls for humanitarian intervention and the historically and geographically contingent social construction of the norms of humanity, national sovereignty and United Nations-backed multilateralism in conjunction with US and Chinese concerns over their regional geostrategic interests. The normative narratives about race, ‘communists’, ‘terrorists’, international order and inclusive multilateral processes, and the geostrategic interests of the US and China, combine to make non-intervention possible and legitimate.     

Institutional duration and growth in Africa

We argue that there are strong reasons to believe that continuous competitive, multiparty elections produce different growth dynamics than first competitive elections. We test this conjecture by looking at the effects of competitive elections and their endurance on growth rates in African countries from 1970 to 2001. We find that initial competitive elections do not offer a growth dividend over having no elections at all, although noncompetitive elections may result in a growth penalty. However, over time, countries that hold competitive elections slowly begin outperforming those without them—especially those that hold noncompetitive elections. Africa’s poor growth experience may therefore be related less to an unwillingness to experiment with democracy, than to an inability to consolidate democratic reforms once in place. Karen E. Ferree is assistant professor of political science at University of California, San Diego. She specializes in the study of elections in new democracies, especially those in Africa. Her work has examined the political economy of elections as well as the role of ethnicity in elections. Smita Singh is Special advisor to Global Affairs at the William and Flora Hewlett Foudation. Her research interests include the political economy of development and violence in Africa and Southeast Asia. We wish to thank Robert Bates for support and advice at all stages of this project. Thanks also to Macartan Humphries, Naunihal Singh, two anonymous reviewers, and the editors atStudies in Comparative and International Development for helpful comments.     

国际制度竞争、利益分配与国际秩序转型

国际秩序转型的动力、过程和方向是政策界与理论界关注的核心议题。历史上的国际秩序转型通常以暴力方式实现,旧的秩序被完全推翻,获胜大国及其集团围绕自身利益建立一套新的秩序安排。在当今时代,暴力方式难以为继,新兴大国只能通过一些相对和平的手段改变既有利益分配格局,以此推动秩序的渐进调整。进入21世纪以来,国际制度竞争成为国际秩序转型的核心动力,崛起国寻求提升在制度体系内的物质利益和规则主导权,守成国则试图利用制度体系内的优势地位维护既得利益。崛起国的制度竞争策略包括改革既有制度、创建新的包容守成国的制度和排斥守成国的制度,守成国针对崛起国的行动而制定相应的反制策略。双方的制度竞争通过改变既有利益分配的不同维度来决定国际秩序的转型模式。当前,中国通过改革既有制度和创建新的包容守成国的制度实现了物质利益和规则主导权的提升,中美两国在国际制度领域的持续互动将决定未来国际秩序转型的进程。     

State and local finance in a command economy: the case of the soviet union

Two aspects of Western public finance, the economic theory of federalism and public choice theory, have insights that, if adopted in the Soviet Union, could help improve its resource allocation to permit economic growth, mitigate the problems it has with its minorities, and aid the transition away from a centralized, Communist-Party-dominated State and society. The economic reforms proposed by Chairman Mikhail Gorbachev are briefly summarized and criticized in the context of a summary discussion of governmental decisionmaking in the Soviet Union. Lessons are identified from the U.S. historical experience that suggest certain steps to improve local government as necessary preconditions for improving Soviet economic efficiency. These are free local elections, a free local press, an independent judiciary with real authority to protect the integrity of the press and local elections, real decentralization of political power to the regions, steps toward equalization of fiscal capacity among the regions, increased citizen mobility, and adoption of actions to provide incentives for Western investment in local government capital formation. This last precondition requires a convertible currency. (To achieve a convertable currency may require other economic and political changes that are beyond the scope of this paper.) Aspects of the paper rely on information publically available through mid-1989.     

共同社会化与中国的国际秩序战略

国际秩序是由国家、国际组织等多种行为体构成的共同体,既包括确认秩序成员资格和调整成员互动的规范与规则,也包含反映秩序成员利益分配的地位或位置排序。共同社会化是崛起国与国际秩序成员共同调适,就秩序的规则与规范构成、利益分配份额以及崛起国在秩序中的地位与行为取得共识的过程。它具有调适过程的协商性、调适目标的共识性、调适结果的不确定性等特点。崛起国可从“改革+示善”两方面出发,实施共同社会化国际秩序战略。一方面,崛起国可主动改革国际秩序,加强治理能力,提升自身在国际秩序中的地位。另一方面,崛起国也需要以实际行动表明对改革秩序的善意,以获得外界的认可和支持。当今中国的国际秩序实践体现了共同社会化特点,既推动秩序改革,提升治理能力,提升中国在国际秩序中的影响力,又通过履行承诺展现改革的善意与效益。今后,中国可继续采用共同社会化的国际秩序战略,从有所作为地推进国际秩序改革、积极战略示善、理性处理对美关系、合理匹配成本与收益等方面出发,不断优化自身复兴的外部秩序环境。     

Online Participation Chaos: A Case Study of Chinese Government-Initiated E-Polity Square

The research examines a government-initiated online engagement program in China, mainly including its history, mechanism, and how netizens participated in it. To clearly address the participation scenario, a framework is proposed to further explore the quality of participation. The result shows that participation chaos is prevalent with poor-quality proposals. A government censorship exists all the time and changes with the popularity of the forum. It also implies that the purpose of a Chinese government-initiated online engagement forum may be varied, one for engagement and the other for maintaining stability, which partly attributes to the online participation chaos.     

Pacts,Parties and Elite Struggle: Ukraine's Troubled Post-Orange Transition

This article resuscitates some of the theoretical arguments of transition studies to shed light on the complex institutional and political developments in post-Orange Ukraine (2004 – 2007). In December 2004, Ukraine's elite agreed to embark on a complex transition involving power-sharing between the Rada (parliament) and the government on one side, and the presidency on the other. The new electoral law was to be based on a fully proportional system. In the subsequent period of 2005 – 2007, two consecutive proportional elections have been held, Ukraine has had several governments, and the Rada was incapacitated for a longer period. Rival elites engaged in a zero-sum game over reforms, and attempts were made to resolve differences by several pacts. This article analyses the post-Orange transition in terms of three variables: the effectiveness of pacts, the need to abide by the transition scheme, and the effect of elections. It is argued that Ukraine has failed to deliver on pacts and timetables, but has delivered on elections. This means that its political system may be considered a minimalist and electoral based one.     

Recalcitrant spoiler? Contesting dominant accounts of India’s role in global trade governance

India is frequently cast as a troublemaker and blamed for the breakdown of the Doha Round. This article provides a critical re-reading of India’s trade policy and its position in multilateral trade negotiations. It challenges the widespread characterisation of India as a recalcitrant spoiler, intent on derailing trade liberalisation at the WTO. It shows that with the emergence of its highly-competitive, export-oriented services sector, India became one of the leading advocates of global services trade liberalisation in the Doha Round. Yet, not unlike the traditional powers, India’s offensive trade interests are also combined with significant defensive concerns in agriculture.     

The Salvadoran elections of 1982–1991

Criticisms of the elections of the Salvadoran transition of 1979–1992 assume an external staging capacity notoriously absent from processes of regime change. An analysis of possible causal determinants of voting turnout in the elections of 1982–1991 suggests a much more complex picture, characteristic of social processes shaped by multiple conjuctural causation. It is not the machinations of the Reagan administration and of the Salvadoran Right, but a complex interaction of legal requirements, contextual nuances, and factors related to party competition, that emerge as more relevant determinants of the nature and outcomes of those elections. Whatever “demonstrative effects” may be attributed to them, one cannot ignore their impact on a domestic audience of ordinary citizens and political leaders who eventually came to understand their, limitations as well as their ultimate efficacy. In 1971 ENRIQUE A. BALOYRA, received his Ph.D. at The University of Florida and joined the Department of Political Science at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became full professor and director of the Institute of Latin American Studies. In 1985 he joined the Graduate School of International Studies of the University of Miami, serving as associate dean until 1991. His early work was on electoral participation and public opinion in Venezuela. In 1982 he publishedEl Salvador in Transition (The University of North Carolina Press) and followed this with a dozen articles and chapters on the dynamics of the Salvadoran civil war and regime transition. This fall, The University of New Mexico Press is publishingContradictions and Change in Cuba, an anthology which he co-edited and to which he contributed three chapters. His current project is a Boolean analysis of regime transitions.     

How irresponsible are rising powers?

Rising powers like Brazil, China and India have recently made significant gains in their capabilities as states. Therefore many IR scholars are claiming that these powers must now contribute more to the provision of global public goods like a clean environment, free trade and human rights. This article will argue that reasonably democratic international political discourses are another global public good whose greater supply is sorely needed and that rising powers are having a positive impact on the creation of such discourses. Thus rising powers are not behaving as irresponsibly as many IR scholars assume.     

试论新世纪前十年中国统筹两个大局的成就与挑战

统筹两个大局是充分利用国内国际联系和协调内外矛盾关系的决策方法,是科学发展观的重要内容。统筹两个大局的思想植根于中国传统的整体主义思维方式、辩证唯物主义认识论以及中国历代领导集体驾驭内外关系的实践。新世纪前十年,中国党和政府提出的"两个判断"和"两个意识"、"走出去"和"互利共赢"战略、和平发展观以及"睦邻、安邻、富邻"的周边政策方针均体现了统筹两个大局的思想。中国在外交实践中保持了维护利益与承担责任以及维权与维稳之间的平衡。统筹两个大局面临的挑战主要包括:意识薄弱、机制不够健全以及能力有待提升等。     

The elephant in the room: offshore companies,liberalisation and extension of presidential power in DR Congo

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, donors promoted rapid liberalisation and presidential elections in the aftermath of the war, and after two terms, President Kabila has not left office. This article engages with the question of how liberalisation and elections are connected, and how they are related to the extension of presidential power. It finds that the international market for minerals has shaped the domestic political economy but its nature has effectively been ignored in the formulation of donor policy; efforts at regulating trade have been concentrated on due diligence of origin in Congo but have not addressed the secrecy of international trade. Liberalisation has removed control of economic resources from Congo, provided returns for elite politicians and funded violence to control the disenfranchised population. The offshore companies are the elephant in the room; without acknowledging them, analysis of the liberalisation and its interaction with presidential tenure lacks assessment of the opportunities, interests and power that shaped the processes.     

Comparative growth in India and the people’s Republic of China 1950–1988: A reappraisal

Growth records have been employed to argue that authoritarian forms of government are more efficient at achieving economic growth, welfare, and equity than democracies. This assessment is based on imperfect data; World Bank data on rates of growth of GNP in India and China fail to agree with World Bank data on their achievements in terms of per capita GNP. This article, considers the nature of this anomaly and its implications for current assessments of the relative efficiency of these forms of political and economic organization. The comparative records of China and India during 1950–88 are examined within the context of the growth-democray incompatibility hypothesis while focusing on an aberration in the data employed: the contradiction between the high rates of growth experienced by China and the equality of its per capita GNP with that of the supposedly slower growing India. In attempting to resolve this discrepancy, data on standards of living and degree of structural change are analyzed in order to verify either hypothesis regarding these two economies. Overall, the secondary data fail to suggest that both countries performed poorly. There is no evidence supporting equality of per capita incomes; there is an abundance of evidence confirming the higher growth rates reported for China. The overriding conclusion, however, is that the data are flawed and it is premature to employ them for assessing the efficiency of authoritarian governments at achieving growth, equity, and welfare. Vibha Kapuria-Foreman is an assistant professor of economics at The Colorado College and holds a doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests include the history of economic thought, economic development, and economic history. She is currently examining the nature of causality between population growth and economic development.     

From ‘communism’ to ‘democracy’ in Cambodia: a decade of transition and beyond

This paper examines 10 years of political transition in Cambodia. It is particularly relevant because Cambodia has just passed through a third stage of transition in the form of national grass roots elections to dilute elite power. The scope of the paper covers the three elections in the period 1991–2002 and is located in Dankwart Rustow’s transition theory. I conclude that while basic elements of the theory hold true, qualifications are required in relation to the length of the ‘acceptance’ phase for the elites, and the extent to which, even after 10 years, habitually normalised democratic processes are still unreliable at best, and violent at worst.     

Globalizing Corporate Environmentalism? Convergence and Heterogeneity in Indian Industry

What explains the recent emergence of corporate environmentalism in developing countries? Why have certain firms surpassed others in greening their activities? This article situates the uneven dynamics of corporate greening within a theoretical framework of convergence, firm specificity, and heterogeneity. Through a comparative analysis of firms in three sectors—automobiles, steel, and power—of the Indian economy during the past two decades, I show that corporate greening is rooted in processes of growing international political engagement, market integration, and transnational social communication. Together, these processes have unleashed various economic and sociological convergence dynamics, which have led firms in India to adopt more environmentally sound innovations and performances increasingly similar to those found in many developed countries. Yet firms’ connectedness to external pressures fostering “upward” convergence varies, as do their internal capabilities to respond to them. Heterogeneity in these internal and external variables, and the firm-specific strategies linking them, accounts for much of the unevenness in patterns of corporate environmentalism observed in India.     

Re-thinking Myanmar's political regime: military rule in Myanmar and implications for current reforms

The Myanmar military has long dominated national politics as well as the state apparatus since first coming into power in 1958. Despite a series of challenges to its rule, the military has been able to constantly re-invent itself while re-asserting its dominance over society. Cycles of popular protests and dissatisfaction with military rule have not led to regime change nor weakened the military as a unified institution. The latest incarnation of the nominally civilian government has introduced a series of liberalising reforms that have dramatically opened more socio-political space for opposition and non-state actors to participate in national politics. Despite the somewhat optimistic outlook of a more liberalised Myanmar in the future, the institutional design and historical legacy of the military's role in state-building have ensured that it has enough ‘reserve domains’ to maintain its prominent role within any foreseeable future governments in Myanmar. By tracing the historical development of the Myanmar military regime, this paper argues that current reforms were introduced as a strategy for the military to ensure its continued survival as the primary political actor in Myanmar.     

The Social Shaping of Participatory Spaces: Evidence from Community Development in Southern Thailand

Critical analysis of participatory community development has claimed that such approaches serve as a vehicle for social control and co-option by external actors. Drawing on a case study from Southern Thailand, this article argues that we need to take a less deterministic perspective, and pay more attention to the ways in which community members themselves manipulate or subvert participatory processes. The article shows how this may result in hybrid participatory practices and institutions that contain elements of both local and external interests, and which play a key role in defining the way power is constituted in local participatory spaces.     

“Three disconnects” and China's rural election: A case study of Hailian Village

With the case study of the local elections in a poverty-stricken, largely illiterate and isolated village in the remote and mountainous Yi minority village, this article is intended to address the so-called “three disconnects” phenomenon in the development of China's rural election. They refer to the disconnect between economic development and democratic elections, the disconnect between democratic elections and democratic consciousness, and the disconnect between direct local elections in the rural areas and the higher level elections in urban regions. The article examines the political reasons and institutional logic behind this unique development of rural democracy in China as well as the existential value of the three “disconnects.”     

Between willing and reluctant entrapment: CEE countries in NATO's non-European missions

The article focuses on Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries' experiences related to Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, three non-European theatres of Western military operations, in predominantly Muslim lands, in the decade between 2001 and 2011. CEE countries readily became involved in two of these foreign missions (Afghanistan and Iraq) because of their deep ties to Western politico-economic structures, without direct security interests compelling them to do so, but not without normative convictions regarding what were seen by them as virtues of the two missions. In Libya, however, they were reluctant to join the Western intervention. In light of this, the article is interested in examining how political elites within the region relate to the generally constrained security policy agency that they have. A key argument advanced is that such agency may be located in how external hegemony is mediated in elite discourses of threat and legitimacy construction. This as well as the three case studies outlined in the article show that the seeming changes in CEE countries' behaviour in fact boil down to a simple set of rules guiding their behaviour. Having identified this “algorithm” as an implicit pattern of CEE foreign policy behaviour, originating in the intra-alliance security dilemma within the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the article formulates its conclusions about the alliance policy of these countries largely within a neorealist framework.