Patterns of culture and democratization in Kuwait

Conventional wisdom asserts that Islam and tribalism dispose the countries of the Arab Middle East against democratization. Yet the local culture in the region resembles those in the ancient world where democracy was first established, and neither resembles the pattern of political development that occurred in Western Europe, today’s democratic paradigm. Kuwait, a city-state that has enjoyed a high level of collective wealth throughout the period following World War II, displays many of the attributes of the “positive liberty” that Isaiah Berlin, Hannah Arendt, and others see as characteristic of ancient democracies. Vigorous participation in a range of public spaces acts as a check on runaway state power. Kuwait’s record on “negative liberty” is poor, which is why it diverges from the western European model. Population growth and its effect on political development is eroding Kuwait’s qualities as a city-state and pushing it toward mass politics. It is not possible at this stage to predict with any confidence whether these new trends will result in further liberalization or a more authoritarian polity. Mary Ann Tétreault is a professor of political science at Iowa State University. She is the editor ofWomen and Revolution in Africa, Asia, and the New World (1994) and the author ofThe Kuwait Petroleum Corporation and the Economics of the New World Order (1995). She is presently working on a monograph on democratization in Kuwait and, with Robin Teske of James Madison University, is preparing an edited volume on power and social movements.     

Rethinking political development: A look backward over thirty years,and a look ahead

The article analyzes the rise of the political development approach in comparative politics and the reasons for it. It traces the history of the political development literature and its emergence as the dominant paradigm in the field. It then presents and assesses the critiques, that have been levelled against political development. It also assesses the various alternative approaches that came to supplant political development. The article next presents the factors that have led to a renaissance in political development. It concludes by suggesting that while the political development approach was based on some erroneous assumptions in the short term, from a longer-term perspective that approach looks considerably better. Howard J. Wiarda is Professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst; associate of the Center for International Affairs. Harvard University; adjunct scholar of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research; and associate of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. This article is based on a paper presented at the Fourteenth World Congress of the International Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., August 28–September 1, 1988. A somewhat revised version of this article was presented at the Conference on “Comparative Politics: Research Perspectives for the Next Twenty Years,” sponsored byComparative Politics and the Ph.D. Program of the City University of New York, September 7–9, 1988. It will also be published under the title “Concepts and Models in Comparative Politics: Political Development Reconsidered-and Its Alternatives” in Kenneth Paul Erickson and Dankwart Rustow (eds.),Comparative Political Dynamics: Research Perspectives for the Turn of the Century (New York: Harper and Row, 1990).     

Growth with pollution: unsustainable development in Taiwan and its consequences

During the 1980s, economic development in Taiwan received much attention in development studies. The “Taiwan miracle” has made Taiwan rich and famous. This article examines an often ignored aspect of development—environmental quality—and argues that Taiwan has achieved “growth with pollution” that will not increase but decrease the welfare of the people in the long run. The root cause of Taiwan's environmental degradation rests on the obsession with fast economic growth at any cost by the powerful coalition between the ruling Kuomington and the capitalists. The article argues that the case of Taiwan is far from being a “model” for developing countries. Taiwan's experience of “growth with pollution,” on the contrary, should stand as a warning to other developing countries pursuing similar development paths. Chun-Chieh Chi received his B.A. in sociology from Tunghai University in Taiwan, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from State University of New York at Buffalo. He is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK 74104. His research interests include sustainable development in Taiwan and Kenya, indigenous people and the environment, and women and the environment in developing countries.     

Chainbuilding: A New Building for the New New School

Until a souring national and local economy led them to scale back their plans in 2008, The New School in New York City had been designing a new, 500,000-ft² “signature building” intended to embody what administrators were calling The new New School, a university committed to progressive, interdisciplinary, urban, global education. The building was to offer glimpses of the horizon of academic infrastructure and media and their potential impact—structural, pedagogic, and symbolic—on the university and its communities. Although the building will not be realized in the form presented to the public in spring 2008, the design deliberations that generated that proposal offer valuable insights into how a university might reembody its ideals in a time of intense globalization and mediatization. Complementing Robert Kirkbride’s paper on the pedagogical practice of chainmaking and its historical relationship to learning spaces, we examine in this paper how media can be instrumental in wayfinding, how they can help to organize a building into various “processual” paths that reflect different approaches to learning, and how their presence in learning spaces can enhance teaching and learning. We also discuss how the building can serve as a mediator within the community, reflecting the institution’s identity and its pedagogical philosophy.

Overcoming the past: De-communization and reconstruction of post-communist societies

In several of the central and eastern European nations, the fall of Communism has initiated a new round of political intolerance that threatens to destroy the foundations of their fragile democratic regimes. Campaigns of lustration (political “cleansing”) have imposed ideological tests for employment and political participation in the Balkan countries and in parts of the former Soviet Union. The small, poor nation of Albania has been especially seriously impacted by this atmosphere of vengeacean against ex-Communists and their families. Justified by the principles of destructive entitlement—reminiscent of ancient cultural rituals of blood retribution—journalists have been arrested, members of the opposition have been imprisoned, and University programs have been suspended. In response to Albania’s plight, and to a similar pattern of civil rights abuses in neighboring countries, social scientists have begun to analyze the powerful role played by the “past-in-the-present” in current reconstruction efforts. As Jurgen Habermas, Adam Michnik, Seymour Martins Lipset, and others have noted, a new “culture of forgiveness” may well be a necessary condition for the development of stable and authentic democratic societies in the region. Fatos Tarifa is currently at the Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Tirana in 1985. He is director of the New Sociological Research Center (NSRC) in Tirana, Albania, and is the author of several books and journal articles, including a 1991 bookIn Search of the Sociological Fact (published in Albanian). Jay Weinstein is a professor of sociology at Eastern Michigan University. He has travelled widely in the Third World and in Central and Eastern Europe. Author of numerous books, journal articles, and chapters, he is currently working on a volume entitledSocial and Cultural Change: Social Science for a Dynamic World (forthcoming in 1997 by Allyn & Bacon Publishers).     

Financial mobilization and allocation: The South Korean case

There are two major competing views on how financial resources may best be mobilized and allocated to accelerate economic growth of developing countries. One emphasizes the importance of competitive financial markets; the other stresses the role of the developmental state. This study examines one of the world’s fastest-growing economies during the past few decades, that of South Korea, focusing on its experience with financial resources mobilization and allocation. It finds that a state-centered approach provides a better, albeit imperfect, account of the South Korean postwar experience, in which the state has assiduously influenced the access to, and cost, of, available financial resources, going far beyond merely “getting the prices right.” Lawrence Chang is assistant professor of political science at Kean College of New Jersey. His publications include articles on Chinese politics inChina Spring and the political economy of East Asian development inMid-American Journal of Politics. He is currently completing a study of direct foreign investment in the People’s Republic of China.     

The end of green gold? Comparative development options and strategies in the Eastern Caribbean banana-producing islands

Bananas were the basis of the political economy of Dominica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent during the 40 or so years from their establishment as a crop in the 1950s to the beginning of their decline in the 1990s. Because of successive shifts in European Union policy and successful challenges within the World Trade Organization to the protectionist regime that banana production in these islands enjoyed throughout this period, these three small Eastern Caribbean countries are being pushed inexorably into the “post-banana” era. Their efforts to find a new niche within the global political economy are being led in each case by new, modernizing, labor party governments that won elections and came into office during a brief four-year period between 1997 and 2001. Each government faces the same broad development challenge, but employs different resources, leadership skills, and political style. At the same time, each can be said to be pursuing what is best described as a kind of “managerial populist” development. The range of development options faced by these islands is narrow in the extreme, but they have shown that they can still exercise some limited room to move forward into the post-banana era. Anthony Payne is professor of politics, at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom. He was the managing editor of the journalNew Political Economy from 1996 to 2005. He is the author of several books and articles on the Caribbean and on development and globalization. The most recent includeCharting Caribbean Development (University Press of Florida, 2001), co-authored with Paul Sutton;The Global Politics of Unequal Development (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); and, as editor,Key Debates in New Political Economy (Routledge, 2006). The author would like to thank the Nuffield Foundation for supporting fieldwork in Dominica, St. Lucia, and St., Vincent in July 2004.     

A rebirth of “moderation” in China?

Based on interviews conducted with the Chinese elite, ranging from intellectuals to ex-army officers, this article examines Chinese society between 1978 and 1988, the 1988–89 period of crisis, and China's future prospects. The author analyzes the relative performance of the agricultural, rural-industrial, and heavy industrial sectors as well as the special economic zones over this period of time. China's debt problem, recent splits within the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the Communist Party's loss of legitimacy, and the rise of new interest groups are examined. The author concludes that present socio-economic trends indicate China with return to a program of economic liberation and political decentralization after the dealth of Deng. William McCord is professor of sociology at the Graduate Center and City College of the City University of New York, New York, NY 10031. His most recent books includePaths to Progress (1986),Voyages to Utopia (1990), andThe Dawn of the Pacific Century (1990).     

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.     

Democratization in Namibia: Soft state,hard choice

Independent Namibia’s struggles to create a functioning democracy have made great strides, including a successful regional and local election process in 1992. Soft state problems such as external dependence, weak state capacity for development, and penetration of the state by particularistic class and ethnic interests threaten at independence. In Namibia’s case the economic dominance and potential for military intervention by South Africa restricted the options available to the new SWAPO government. The intimidation and sabotage in the UNSCR 435 election left the government fragmented and weakened its effectiveness in redressing past injustices. Despite adopting moderate economic and progressive social policies, the rewards from trade and investment have been minimal. The independence honeymoon and modest improvements have bought the government time, but a soft state situation limits success and has created openings for new class formations. William A. Lindeke is Associate Professor and Chair of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, 1 University Ave., Lowell, MA 01854. He is currently writing a book on Namibia’s independence period. His recent publications have appeared in the inaugural issue ofJournal of African Policy Studies, Africa Today andNew Solutions.     

Postcommunist divergence: A comparative analysis of the transition to capitalism in Poland and Russia

This article critiques the dominant neoliberal transition paradigm. The implementation of neoliberal reforms in the postcommunist world has fostered the creation of two different types of capitalism. Rather than enabling a transition to Western European-style capitalism, these reforms have produced divergence within the postcommunist world. This article uses comparative firm-level case studies from Russia and Poland to construct a “neoclassical” sociological alternative to neoliberal theory that can explain this divergence. In this account, intra-dominant class structure (the pattern of alliances between the Party bureaucracy, the technocracy, and humanistic intellectuals) at the time of the transition produces different “paths to capitalism,” or policy regimes, which, in turn, have different effects on the ability of firms to restructure. In Russia, this creates a system of “patrimonial capitalism” that will produce long-term economic stagnation. In Poland, a variety of modern rational capitalism emerges. This latter system is distinguished by its very high levels of dependence on capital imports in comparison to the advanced capitalist countries. As a result, this type of economy will be quite vulnerable to economic shocks. Lawrence King is an assistant professor of sociology at Yale University. His book includeThe Basic Features of Postcommunist Capitalism in Eastern Europe (2001) andAssessing New Class Theory (with Ivan Szelenyi, forthcoming). He is currently working on a book entitledPostcommunist Capitalisms. I am grateful for a Yale Junior Faculty Research Fellowship, and the support of the Yale Center for Comparative Research, the Social Science Research Fund at Yale, and the Yale Center for International and Area Studies. I would also like to thank Aleksandra Sznajder and Evgenia Gvozdeva for their invaluable research assistance, and Ivan Szelenyi, Andrew Schrank, Hannah Brueckner, Alison Pollet, and the editors and anonymous reviewers atStudies in Comparative International Development for their comments and suggestions.     

The public costs of private blessings: Fundamentals of the economic role of government

The main thrust of this overview is to demonstrate how the shift of government authority over time—from a defense of the realm against foreign intruders to an adjudication of conflicting citizen claims—has created a new set of problems and challenges for the modern state in search of development. It is argued that the power of the state expands as traditional forms of economic rivalries and class claims weaken, and as recourse to legal decision-making becomes widely accepted by all social and economic sectors. Government has proven better able to satisfy existing claims than at initiating new forms of social relations. Experiences in a variety of economic structures thus argue for a continued interplay of public and private, federal and personal claims. Irving Louis Horowitz is Hannah Arendt Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Political Science at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08933. Among his major works on development theory and practice areThree Worlds of Development: The Theory and Practice of International Stratification (Oxford University Press, 1965, 1972), andBeyond Empire and Revolution: Militarization and Modernization in the Third World (Oxford University Press, 1982). He was founding editor ofStudies in Comparative International Development.     

Modelling peruvian debt rescheduling in the 1980s

International debt rescheduling has continued to be a crucial issue in the international political economy. This article develops a political-economic model to examine debt rescheduling between private banks and debtors. The model provides a means of developing bargaining games by allowing the analyst to deduce game payoffs based on actors' “individual situations” as defined by their overall capabilities, their debt-specific resources, and their coalitional stability. Based on these games, it predicts the likely bargaining outcomes in terms of the degree to which banks will make lending concessions and the degree to which debtors will agree to adjust their economies. The model is operationalized based on written sources and interviews and then applied to four periods of rescheduling between the banks and Peru from 1982 to 1990. It proves successful in predicting bargaining outcomes in these cases, and we argue that it should prove helpful in investigating other debt bargaining episodes. Vinod K. Aggarwal is associate professor of political science and affiliated professor in the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author ofLiberal Protectionism: The International Politics of Organized Textile Trade (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press),International Debt Threat (Berkeley: Institute for International Studies), and articles on the politics of trade and finance. His forthcoming book is entitledDebt Games: Strategic Interaction in International Debt Rescheduling Maxwell A. Cameron is assistant professor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University. He is the author ofDemocracy and Authoritarianism in Peru: Political Coalitions and Social Change (New York: St. Martin's Press, forthcoming), as well as a number of articles on Peruvian politics. He recently coeditedThe Political Economy of North American Free Trade (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993) with Ricardo Grinspun.     

The institutional logic of small-firm economies in Italy and Taiwan

This article compares the small-firm economies of Taiwan and Italy, utilizing an institutional oganizational approach in the analysis of economic structures. It is divided into three sections. First, there is a presention of the main features of the Italian and the Taiwanese economies to draw out their distinctive similarities. The second part identifies a set of institutional factors which help us understand the similarities observed in the two economies, and classifies them along two analytical headings: individual values and social structure. The third section explores the significance of the author's crossnational comparison of small-firm economies for improving the status of an institutional theory of economic structures. By, emphasizing the role of institutional factors and the social embeddedness of economic activities in Italy and Taiwan, the article provides a corrective to the unilateral emphasis on an East versus West model of economic action and shows the obvious inadequacies of restrictively cultural, political, or economic interpretations of national economies. Marco, Orrù is assistant professor of sociology at the University of South Florida. Recent publications include “Patterns of Inter-Firm Control in Japanese Business” (Organization Studies, December 1989, 549–74) and “Organizational Isomorphism in East Asia” inThe New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis P. Dimaggio and W. Powell, eds., (University of Chicago Press, 1991). Dr. Orrù's research has also appeared inThe British Journal of Sociology, Sociological Forum, Japan'sFinancial Economic Review, and other professional journals. He is currently working on a monograph,Patterns of Asian Capitalism, co-authored with Gary G. Hamilton and Nicole Woolsey Biggart.     

Citizenship,equality, and urban property rights in Latin America: The Peruvian case

Research on liberal democracy in newly developing countries has been hampered by the view of civil society as a bounded realm; by insufficient attention to power, class, and legal-juridical institutions; and by too limited a conception of social movements with democratic potential. In this study of urban migrants’ struggle for property rights, the migrants’ political action is found to be associated with a capitalist social movement. The legal changes that the movement helped institute and the means that it employed have enhanced democracy by extending property rights to the poor and by opening up policy processes to public debate and input. Insofar as liberal reform involves the law and its administration, it requires a positive, facilitative state, in spite of liberalism’s broadly antistatist commitments. The study also reveals that liberal reform can have a popular content even if supported by elites. The findings suggest that the realization of full citizenship rights is, for now, at least as crucial to the future of Latin American democracy as the narrowing of economic inequalities. David G. Becker is associate professor of government at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755. He is the author ofThe New Bourgeoisie and the Limits of Dependency (Princeton University Press, 1982); a counthor ofPostimperialism (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1987); and the author of “Beyond Dependency: Development and Democracy in the Era of International Capitalism,” in Dankwart A. Rustow and Kenneth P. Erickson (ededs.),Comparative Political Dynamic (HarperCollis, 1991), in addition to many other articles on aspects of political development. Becker’s current research centers of the nature of constitutionalism and democracy in Latin America. He is preparing a book-length treatment of the rule of law in Latin America, along with an edited book on postimperialism that will present new case studies of a variety of countries and world regions.     

The world views of export processing workers in Northern Mexico: A study of women,consciousness, and the new international division of labor

Data on women in export processing plants and service occupations in northern Mexico are used to assess the character and social roots of attitudes and world views of women working within the new international division of labor. The data show the predominant world view of these women includes a sense of personal autonomy, attitudes favoring gender equality and political participation for women, and commitment to one’s family. Analyses of hypotheses from developmental, class analytic, and feminist theories suggest the utility of each perspective in clarifying the social roots of this world view. Consideration of the international system suggests that both economic and cultural/institutional dimensions of the world system helped produce this world view, largely by setting in motion intra-societal processes. Robert Fiala and Susan Tiano are both associate professors of sociology at the University of New Mexico. Fiala’s recent publications and research include cross-national studies of educational ideology, income inequality, child homicide, and labor force change. Tiano is currently finishing a book on maquila industries in Mexico. Recent publications include a book on women along the United States-Mexico border (with Vicki Ruiz), and articles examining various aspects of the lives of women working in export processing plants.     

Foreign investiment in socialist Cuba: Significance and prospects

In February 1982, Cuba’s Council of State approved legislation that authorized some forms of foreign investment in the island. The legislation was largely ignored by foreign business that for nearly a decade showed scant interest in investing in Cuba. However, in the 1990s, foreign investiment in socialist Cuba has increased rapidly. The first part of the article gauges the economic significance of foreign investment in the context of the financial needs of the country. The second part touches on a number of issues that have a bearing on the further growth of foreign investment in Cuba. The article concludes with some general observations on the impact of foreign investment on the Cuban economy and prospects for the future. Jorge F. Pérez-López is an international economist with the Bureau of International Labor Affairs, U.S. Department of Labor. His writings on international economics issues— especially on the Cuban economy—have appeared in professional journals and several edited volumes. He is the author ofThe Economics of Cuban Sugar (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991),The Cuban Second Economy: From Behind the Scenes to Center Stage (Transaction Publishers, 1995), and editor and contributor ofCuba at a Crossroads (University Press of Florida, 1994). He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the State University of New York at Albany. The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone.     

Divergent Outcomes of Labor Reform Politics in Democratized Korea and Taiwan

This article seeks to explain the conditions that determine the divergent fates of union actors under democratic governments by examining union activism around four labor reform episodes (union rights recognition, wage increases, workweek reductions, and job protection/anti-privatization) in democratized Korea and Taiwan. This study first describes that labor reform politics in these two new democracies involved contrasting processes and produced divergent outcomes. Korean unions that have resorted to contentious mobilization have been more successful in areas where their sheer mobilizing strength matters (such as company-level bargaining of wages and other material benefits), but less successful in national policy reforms. On the contrary, Taiwanese unions have been more effective in securing labor policy concessions, while obtaining less drastic changes at the company-level gains. This article contends that these divergent outcomes for unions’ gains would not have been possible without the differences they faced in the degree of permeability within their respective formal political institutions and partisan interests that draw these unions into these labor reform politics.

The economics of surplus squeeze under peripheral socialism: An Ethiopian illustration

The article explores the question of appropriate development strategy for the so-called peripheral socialist countries using Ethiopia as an example. Based on the economics of surplus and the nature of industrialization in late-socializing countries, the Ethiopian regime's “surplus squeeze” strategy is critically examined. It is shown that such a strategy, whatever its short-term goals, is detrimental to the long-term generation of sizable economic surplus and the provisioning of basic needs. It is then argued that a viable alternative is the New Economic Policy (NEP) model of a mixed economy where the state, cooperative, and private sectors grow side by side for a while on the basis of labor accumulation. NEP will eventually have to be phased out as it exhausts its economic potential and threatens the goal of building a self-reliant, egalitarian society. College of William and Mary     

The Day the Sun Rises in the West—Ethnography of a Peace Process

Both politicians and academic researchers have focused on the Oslo peace agreements, generally emphasizing the “New Middle East” and “Transnationalism.” Less attention has been paid to social and economic changes affected by the process of peace-making. This paper examines the reality that was created from below and asks what the peace process meant to migrant Palestinian workers in Israel. Three years of ethnography challenge accepted theories of borders and borderland in the case of Israel and Palestine by asking what can be learned about the cultural identity of people from the ways they cross, understand, and move between geopolitical and cultural boundaries. In the last years of the Oslo Agreements, it became clear to the workers that “peace” meant preserving national borders: it involved a policy of separation, whereas their very livelihood depended on their ability to move between Tel Aviv and the Gaza Strip. Torn between their national identity and their class–cultural identity, they formulated a demand for a dialectical reorganization: a state without borders. This demand stood in opposition to the national aspirations of Israel and the Palestinian state-in-being alike.