Economic interest or security concerns? Which affected how individuals in five Asian countries—Indonesia,Japan, Malaysia,the Philippines,and South Korea—viewed China in 2013?

With rapid economic growth, China has become its neighbours’ largest trade partner in the twenty-first century. At the same time, the growth of China’s military and its assertiveness are raising concerns among its neighbours that China’s rise will pose a threat to them. In this context, will China’s neighbours—Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and South Korea—view China positively or negatively? By using statistical analysis, this paper aims to explore whether individuals are more affected by their economic position or national security concerns when they view China. The findings in this article suggest that individuals’ security concerns have stronger associations with their attitudes toward China than economic conditions. Specifically, individuals’ views on China’s military growth and territorial disputes had negative effects on their attitudes toward China. On the other hand, economic interests had weaker associations with individuals’ views of China than security concerns.     

Soviet legacies,organized crime,and economic gangsterism: Russia, 1995–2010

In countries like Russia, where legal institutions providing political accountability and protection of property rights are weak, some elite actors accept the use of violence as a tool in political and economic competition. The intensity of this violent exposure may vary depending on the position the province had had in the Soviet administrative hierarchy. The higher the province's position before 1991, the greater the intensity of business violence one is likely to observe there in post-communist times, because the Soviet collapse left a more gaping power vacuum and lack of working informal rules in regions with limited presence of traditional criminal organizations. Post-Soviet entrepreneurs also often find it worthwhile to run for office or financially back certain candidates in order to secure a privileged status and the ability to interpret the law in their favor. Businessmen-candidates themselves and their financial backers behind the scenes may become exposed to competitive pressures resulting in violence during election years, because their competitors may find it hard to secure their position in power through the existing legal or informal non-violent means. To test whether Soviet legacies and Provincial elections indeed cause spikes in commerce-motivated violence, this project relies on an original dataset of more than 6000 attacks involving business interests in 74 regions of Russia, in 1991–2010. The results show that only legislative elections cause increases in violence while there is no firm evidence that executive polls have a similar effect.     

Anti-Russian and Anti-Soviet Subversion: The Caucasian–Japanese Nexus, 1904–1945

This article examines the little known history of political collaboration between Caucasian national groups and Japan directed against the Soviet Union in the 1930s. The collaboration, begun at the time of the 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese War, resumed in the 1920s and continued through World War II. The Caucasian groups (Haidar Bammat's ‘Caucasus Group’ in particular) and Japan worked together to pursue their common goal of dismembering the Soviet Union. Their anti-Soviet subversion was real yet achieved few results in the face of extraordinary Soviet security. Nevertheless, Stalin took no chances and terrorised anyone suspected of any possible link to the subversive activity.