China and the world: The challenge of ‘opening up’

Rebellions and Revolutions: China from the 1800s to the 1980s, by Jack Gray. Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York, Toronto, 1990. Ixix + 456 pp. £35.00 hardback, £11.95 paperback. ISBN0–19–913076–0 and 0–19–821576–2.

The Pride that was China, by Michael Loewe. Sidgwick & Jackson, London; St. Martin's Press, New York, 1990. xxiii + 312 pp., illus., maps. £20.00. ISBN 0–283–99648‐X.

Agents and Victims in South China: Accomplices in Rural Revolution, by Helen F. Siu. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1989. £30.00; $45.00. xxvi+378 pp. ISBN0–300–04465–8.

Asian Frontier Nationalism: Owen Lattimore and the American Policy Debate, by James Cotton. Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1989. vi+181 pp. £35.00. ISBN0–7190–2585–0.

China's Crisis: Dilemmas of Reform and Prospects for Democracy, by Andrew J. Nathan. Columbia University Press, New York, 1990. xi+242 pp. ISBN 0–231–07284–8.

The Spirit of Chinese Foreign Policy: A Psychocultural View, by Chih‐yu Shih. Macmillan, Basingstoke and London, 1990. xi+231 pp. £40.00. ISBN 0–333–51155–7.

Worlds Apart: Recent Chinese Writing and Its Audiences, edited by Howard Goldblatt. M. E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY, and London, 1990. x+253 pp. $39.95. ISBN 0–87332–502–8.

Changing Identities of the Southeast Asian Chinese since World War II, edited by Jennifer Cushman and Wang Gungwu. Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong, 1988. xi+344pp. ISBN 962–209–207–1.

Land Without Ghosts: Chinese Impressions of America from the Mid‐Nineteenth Century to the Present, edited by R. David Arkush and Leo O. Lee. University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1989. xvii+309 pp., illus. $25.00. ISBN 0–520–06256–6.     

Democratic institutions,political representation and women's empowerment: The quota debate in India

This article reflects upon the debate on quotas for women in representative institutions of government. It poses the question whether current debates about quotas for women are relevant to debates on women's empowerment. In doing so, it points to the bases upon which the arguments for and against quotas have been presented within the Indian political system, taking into account the historical debates on caste, the emergence of coalition politics, the strength of the women's movement, and the engagement of women's groups with the politics of difference. The central argument of the article is that unless the issues of class‐based and caste‐based differences are taken seriously by women's groups in India, the wider question of empowerment cannot be satisfactorily answered. The conclusion assesses whether the Indian example is of relevance to wider debates on quotas as strategies of empowerment.     

The Influence of National Parliaments over Domestic European Union Policies

This article presents survey results on Swedish and Finnish parliamentarians' perceptions concerning their influence over domestic decision making in European Union (EU) matters. In the literature the parliaments in Sweden and Finland are classified as powerful ones that can exert considerable influence over domestic EU policy making. Moreover, Finland and Sweden joined the EU at the same time. Therefore the overall expectation is that the parliaments should be equally powerful. However, the results from this survey indicate a significant difference in perceived influence between the two parliaments. It is obvious that Swedish parliamentarians perceive themselves as more marginalised in relation to the government than Finnish parliamentarians. After trying different explanations, it is concluded that the differences can be ascribed to the parliaments' different organisational set-ups for government oversight.     

Feminism,imperialism and orientalism: the challenge of the ‘Indian woman’

Abstract

This article examines the content and process of imperialist discourse on the ‘Indian woman’ in the writings of two North American women, one writing at the time of ‘first wave’ feminism, the other a key exponent of the ‘second wave’ of the movement. By analysing these writings, it demonstrates how the content of the discourse was reproduced over time ith different but parallel effects in the changed political circumstances, in the first case producing the Western imperial powers as superior on the scale of civilisation, and in the second case producing Western women as the leaders of global feminism. It also identifies how the process of creating written images occurred within the context of each author's social relations with the subject, the reader and the other authors, showing how an orientalist discourse can be produced through the author's representation of the human subjects of whom she writes; how this discourse can be reproduced through the author's uncritical use of earlier writers; and how the discourse can be activated in the audience through the author's failure to challenge established cognitive structures in the reader.     

Reviews

Jeffrey D. Sachs & Katharina Pistor (eds), The Rule of Law and Economic Reform in Russia. Boulder: Westview Press, 1997, ix + 214 pp., £16.00.

Igor Chernyshev (with a contribution by Guy Standing) Statistics for Emerging Labour Markets in Transition Economies: A Technical Guide on Sources, Methods, Classifications and Policies. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, xv + 171 pp., £45.00.

Soren Rinder Bollerup & Christian Dons Christensen, Nationalism in Eastern Europe. Causes and Consequences of the National Revivals and Conflicts in the Late‐Twentieth‐Century Eastern Europe. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, xx + 308 pp., £45.00.

Jane I. Dawson, Eco‐Nationalism: Anti‐Nuclear Activism and National Identity in Russia, Lithuania and Ukraine. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996, xii + 221 pp., $49.95 h/b, $16.95 p/b.

Mehdi Mozaffari (ed.), Security Politics in the Commonwealth of Independent States: The Southern Belt. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, xlv + 234 pp., £42.50.

Fred Wehling, Irresolute Princes: Kremlin Decisionmaking in Middle East Crises, 1967–1973. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, 225 pp., £40.00.

Roland Dannreuther, The Soviet Union and the PLO. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998, ix + 222 pp., £45.00.

William T. Lee, The ABM Treaty Charade: A Study in Elite Illusion and Delusion. Washington, DC: Council for Social and Economic Studies, 1997, 165 pp.

Willie Thompson, The Communist Movement Since 1945. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998, 262 pp., £13.99.

Robert Service, A History of Twentieth‐Century Russia. London: Allen Lane, 1997, xxxiv + 654 pp., £.25.00.

R. W. Davies, Soviet History in the Yeltsin Era. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, viii + 264 pp., £15.99.

Paul R. Josephson, New Atlantis Revisited. Akademgorodok, the Siberian City of Science. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997, xxii + 351 pp., £27.50.

Andrei Sinyavsky, The Russian Intelligentsia. Translated by Lynn Visson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997, x + 98 pp.

Vera Tolz, Russian Academicians and the Revolution: Combining Professionalism and Politics. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, xiv + 236 pp., £45.00.

Peter Waldron, Between Two Revolutions. Stolypin and the Politics of Renewal in Russia. London: UCL press, 1998, viii + 220 pp., £40.00.

Aleksandr B. Kamenskii, The Russian Empire in the Eighteenth Century. Searching for a Place in the World, trans. David Griffiths. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1997, xii + 308 pp., $65.95 h/b, $24.95 p/b.

Mark Brzezinski, The Struggle for Constitutionalism in Poland. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998, xi + 254 pp., £45.00.

Anita J. Pra?mowska, Britain and Poland, 1939–1943: The Betrayed Ally. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, xi + 233 pp.

Mette Bryld & Erik Kulavig (eds), Soviet Civilization between Past and Present. Odense: Odense University Press, 1998, 193 pp., Kr. 225.00.

Graham Roberts, The Last Soviet Avant‐Garde: OBERIU—Fact, Fiction, Metafiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, xiii + 274 pp., £40.00.     

Gender and democratization: Or what does democracy mean for women in the Third World?

The article argues that the ongoing process of democratization in the Third World affects both men and women significantly, though differentially. It examines the two major strands of democratic theory, representative and participative, to emphasize that both of these take for granted the division between the public and the private spheres. This division inhibits the mass participation of women in politics and therefore in the democratic processes affecting them. It further analyses the arguments made in the name of cultural specificity of Third World societies and the dilemmas that these pose for women in their struggle for democracy. It draws upon various case studies to examine the contradictory and often painful options that women of the Third World are faced with in any process of political change, including that of democratization. Through the case studies the article underscores the complex relationship between the state and civil society in the Third World and how women negotiate the boundaries of both. It concludes that the process of political democratization, though not an unproblematic transition, creates new opportunities for women to mobilize in their own various interests.     

Creating the Islamic Republic of Iran: wives and daughters of martyrs,and acts of citizenship

This paper develops a notion of citizenship which accounts for interruptions of, and compliances with, routines in governance. It applies the concept beyond a legal status and electoral practice to decipher how everyday encounters with the state can lead to creative institutional reconfigurations. Focusing on the wives and daughters of martyrs from the Iran–Iraq war (1980–1988), this paper poses ideologically committed contestation and collaborations with national structures of power as acts of citizenship. With particular attention to temporality and constructive uses of memory, this discussion introduces a governing technique created and utilized by women to remake the state as they assert a self-determined citizenry status.     

The Geographies of Exclusion and the Politics of Inclusion: Race-based Exclusions in the Teaching of International Relations

In this essay, we argue that race has yet to be integrated as an analytical category shaping the study and teaching of international relations. We suggest that although the issues of race and gender are systematically coded into central concepts in the discipline, they are made invisible through a "series of ontological and epistemological maneuvers." Focusing on two concepts central to the discipline—sovereignty and the nation-state—we suggest that race can be better integrated into the teaching of international relations by focusing on the ways in which these maneuvers structure the geographies and politics of exclusion and inclusion in international relations. We conclude that raising questions about the ways in which race is taught in the academy is in itself critical—what we teach, how we teach, and who teaches are all questions that need repeated airing for achieving interpretative autonomy as well as a transformative politics.