Practical vs. identity regionalism: Australia's APC initiative,a case study

On 4 June 2008 Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced his ‘vision for an Asia Pacific community’ (APC). Though failing to win support among Asian countries, the initiative offers a useful case study. This article does not focus on the motives and interests of the various governments responding to the proposal but rather on the different (and sometimes conflicting) understandings of regionalism that underpinned those responses. In its diplomatic advocacy of the APC, the Australian government stressed ‘practical regionalism’ – emphasizing the capacity of such a new ‘community’ to deal with security, economic, environmental and other challenges faced in recent times in the Asia-Pacific region. The Australian campaign gave little attention, however, to the influence of cognitive and emotive factors in community planning: it neglected ‘identity’ regionalism. In particular, it did not seem to take seriously the possible role of non-Western perspectives in shaping the development of post-colonial inter-state relations. Through the investigation of key Asian-language terms – relating to the English terms for ‘region’ and ‘community’ – this article seeks to demonstrate the importance of the identity dimension in both policy development and academic analysis. It argues for an analytic and diplomatic skillset that goes beyond the disciplines of international relations and economics and draws upon expertise in linguistics and regional political cultures.     

Complex political emergencies and the state: Failure and the fate of the state

It is argued that an understanding of the role and nature of the state and of processes of state collapse are vital for understanding Complex Political Emergencies for various practical reasons and for drawing general lessons from particular experiences: CPEs are often rooted in prior state collapse; humanitarian assistance may have to contend with a fractured, ineffective or nonexistent state; part of post-conflict recovery will involve reconstituting the state. Such lessons can only be generalised where there is some degree of shared context and experience. As a tool for facilitating comparisons of like with like and for understanding the inter-relatedness of several factors, a typology of situations is drawn up on the basis of the state and its dynamics and of the origins, forms and trajectory of the CPE and of interventions into it.     

Evaluating US soft power in Asia: military,economic and sociopolitical relationships between Asia and the United States

The changing dynamics of international politics such as the expansion of the European Union, the growing importance of Asia, and the post-11 September environment have raised great concern about US soft power all over the world. At the governmental level, transpacific relationships may have encouraged military, economic and sociopolitical collaboration. The Asians' perceptions about US soft power at the individual level, however, may not be consistent with the governmental level. By using the 2003 AsiaBarometer survey, this article examines the factors that contribute to individuals' perceptions about US soft power in seven Asian nations – China, India, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Three main factors – military, economic and sociopolitical – are considered. Higher assistance by the US government engenders positive responses from the respondents. For causal relationships, economic and sociopolitical variables, rather than the military variable, enforce individuals' positive perceptions about US soft power, according to the multilevel estimates.     

Pushing the frontiers of state audit: political auditing by Israel's state comptroller

Israel's State Comptroller has audited the political behaviors of elected officials and private citizens, in what are departures from its own traditions and those of other state auditors. Political auditing seems likely to appear among other auditors, sooner or later. Auditing is likely to attract more attention from political scientists, and the politics of auditing is likely to become an increasing topic of inquiry, as politics becomes more prominent on the auditor's agenda. The criticism directed at Israel's State Comptroller can be read to suggest the problems inherent in this expansion of audit activity.     

Discussion: Building the Developmental State: Achieving Economic Growth Through Co-operative Solutions: A Comment on Bringing Politics Back I

Drawing on the insights of game theory and East Asian experience, this short note argues the importance of co-operative solutions in achieving economic development. To realise these, even genuine developmental states must convince a sceptical private sector of their commitment to economic development. Because of this, credibility should be added to the mix of ingredients necessary for a successful developmental state.     

Ashes from the phoenix: state terrorism and the party-list groups in the Philippines

An ongoing theme in Filipino history has been the exclusion of the left from electoral politics. Something that may provide an aperture facilitating left-wing participation are the provisions of the 1987 Constitution providing for the election, based on proportional representation, of representatives from traditionally marginalized sectors of society. Since the implementation of these provisions, six party-list groups have become the visible face of the left in Philippine politics. However, since 2001, the Philippines have experienced a wave of assassinations targeting leftists. These killings, an emulation of the Phoenix Program implemented by the United States in Vietnam, are designed to destroy organizations used as ‘fronts’ by the Communist Party of the Philippines and the progressive party-list groups have been specifically targeted. These killings, and the fear they generate, are an example of state terrorism and, eventually, will prove themselves to be flawed counterinsurgency doctrine because, by precluding left-wing participation in electoral politics, they force the left into armed opposition.     

War of words: the impact of Russian state television on the Russian Internet

How effective is Russian state television in framing the conflict in Ukraine that began with the Euromaidan protests and what is its impact on Russian Internet users? We carried out a content analysis of Dmitrii Kiselev's “News of the Week” show, which allowed us to identify the two key frames he used to explain the conflict – World War II-era fascism and anti-Americanism. Since Kiselev often reduces these frames to buzzwords, we were able to track the impact of these words on Internet users by examining search query histories on Yandex and Google and by developing quantitative data to complement our qualitative analysis. Our findings show that much of what state media produces is not effective, but that the “fascist” and anti-American frames have had lasting impacts on Russian Internet users. We argue that it does not make sense to speak of competition between a “television party” and an “Internet party” in Russia since state television has a strong impact in setting the agenda for the Internet and society as a whole. Ultimately, the relationship between television and the Internet in Russia is a continual loop, with each affecting the other.     

On the Razor's edge: The liberation tigers of Tamil Eelam

Throughout the summer of 2000 United Nations officials, both military and civilian, toiled long and hard to establish "The Blue Line" between Israel and Lebanon. The author, a former UN Military Observer who was part of that process, casts a critical eye over the manner in which the "withdrawal line" was delineated and examines its potential to endure. He concludes by arguing that regional pressures may well conspire against the long term survivability of the Blue Line project and suggests that the time is ripe for the UN to undertake a re-evaluation of its operations in the region.‐     

Playing the regional card: why and how authoritarian gravity centres exploit regional organisations

The evidence of regional authoritarian clustering across different world regions goes together with the finding that after the end of the bipolar world regional patterns of interaction became more important. Especially in the 2000s a process of revitalisation of regional organisations and even the creation of new regional organisations took place. Interestingly, these newly founded organisations consist predominantly of authoritarian regimes. Due to the emergence and resilience of authoritarianism in the world, the question arises: To what extent do regional organisations (ROs) play a role in this phenomenon? We argue that authoritarian protagonists which we call authoritarian gravity centres (AGCs) constitute a force of attraction for countries in geopolitical proximity – and use ROs as a transmission belt and a learning room for disseminating autocratic elements. In a cross-regional comparison, based on extensive field work, we provide empirical analysis on two AGCs (Saudi Arabia and Venezuela) within their respective ROs Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA-TCP) and tackle the questions of why and how autocracies decide to move forward multilaterally within the RO.     

Authoritarian legality and informal practices: Judges, lawyers and the state in Russia and China

To participate in the global economy authoritarian states are pressed to offer international business a legal order that protects the interests of investors, customers, and sellers, but the creation of a modern legal order threatens to undermine the leaders’ control of public life. An increasingly common way to resolve this dilemma, I argue, is developing formal legal institutions that appear to meet world standards, while using informal practices to maintain control over the administration of justice when needed. In this paper I show how the governments of post-Soviet Russia (with its hybrid or competitive authoritarian regime) and the fully authoritarian People’s Republic of China as well, have used this approach in their relations with judges and defense lawyers in their respective countries. The analysis underscores the utility of investigating informal practices along with the reform of formal legal institutions, especially in the context of transition.     

A comparative analysis of the impact of the 1997 Asian crisis and the contemporary global economic crisis on the Korean political economy

The 1997 Asian crisis created a political space for neo-liberal reformers within the Korean state to advance a set of policies that had previously been frustrated. This agenda is widely seen to have stalled following an initial burst of neo-liberal reform in the post-crisis period. Several scholars have argued that a partial reconstruction of an economy dominated by a closed nexus between the state and leading domestic firms is taking place in contemporary Korea. Compared to the 1997 crisis the macroeconomic impact of the contemporary crisis on Korea has been limited. However, Korea initiated the largest fiscal stimulus (in relation to GDP) in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. In terms of the policy environment the impact of the contemporary crisis has been considerable. This paper argues that key aspects of the Korean state's response to the crisis represent a selective limited retreat from neo-liberalism, the significance of which should not be overstated.     

The annulled Tax state: Schumpeterian Prolegomena to the study of postcommunist fiscal sociology

How was a new infrastructure of revenue-collection instituted after the collapse of Soviet-type regimes in Eastern Europe? This article suggests that currently available answers to this question are unsatisfactory. Building upon insights derived from the literature on fiscal sociology and from Joseph Schumpeter’s analysis of modern “tax states,” it outlines a new approach to the study of various phenomena related to revenue-collection in postcommunism. More specifically, I examine a set of empirical and theoretical issues related to the reemergence of a taxpayer as having a cultural role, the reconfiguration of the bureaucratic apparatuses bequeathed by the old regime, and the recreation of trustworthy national currencies. Having identified important gaps in our understanding of the transformative processes that engulfed the region after 1989, the paper introduces a more comprehensive research program focused on the context-specific challenges inherent in the attempt to re-establish tax states in the formerly communist countries.     

Authoritarian constitutionalism in Putin's Russia: A pragmatic constitutional court in a dual state

This article analyzes the successful adaptation of the Russian Constitutional Court (RCC) to an increasingly authoritarian regime under President Vladimir Putin. It argues that the key to its success lay in its pragmatic approach, whereby the Court decides cases that matter to the regime in a politically expedient way, while giving priority to legal and constitutional considerations in other cases, thereby recognizing the reality of a dual state. Over the years the RCC has taken a pragmatic approach in its reaction to changes in the rules of its operations, in its personnel, and in the policies of the popular political leader, including reducing the country's subordination of European legal norms. In so doing, the Court and its skillful chairman Valerii Zorkin achieved considerable autonomy in pursuing its own legal vision on many issues and even improved the implementation of its decisions by other judges and political bodies alike (previously a big problem). In short, the RCC developed its own version of “authoritarian constitutionalism”, which may serve as a model for constitutional judicial bodies in other authoritarian states.     

Church–state conflict in Moldova: the Bessarabian Metropolitanate

The article’s main focus is the relationship between the re-established Bessarabian Orthodox Metropolitanate and the government of the post-Soviet Republic of Moldova. The article demonstrates that the Moldovan government refused recognition to the nascent church until 2002 primarily for two reasons: first and foremost, the Moscow Patriarchate opposed the idea of another Orthodox Christian church in Moldova outside of its jurisdiction; second, the government feared that the newly independent Republic of Moldova would fall under the influence of neighboring Romania, whose Orthodox Church offered patronage to the Bessarabian Metropolitanate. After a historical overview of the Orthodox Church in the Republic of Moldova, the article first presents and analyzes the history of the conflict between the Bessarabian Metropolitanate and the post-Soviet Moldovan government, and second, the European Court of Human Rights verdict ordering the government to recognize the Metropolitanate, before verdict’s implementation, and reactions to it. All these are done with an eye on intra-national relations among Moldova, Romania, and Russia, as well as those between the Romanian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church in connection with this conflict.     

Mapping Organizational Units in the State: Challenges and Classifications

The article discusses possible answers on three key questions for attempts at mapping the pattern of state organizations:

1. What constitutes a state organization?

2. What constitutes one state organization?

3. What constitutes different types of state organizations?

The main focus is on structural relations within and between organizational units, but the article also draws upon other classifications of units from the academic literature in organization theory and public administration. As an illustration, the article also outlines how these questions have been handled in the development of the Norwegian State Administration Database.     

Soviet conspiracy theories and political culture in Ukraine: Understanding Viktor Yanukovych and the Party of Regions

Conspiracy theories in Ukraine draw on inherited Soviet political culture and political technology imported from Russia where such ideas had gained ascendancy under President Vladimir Putin. Eastern Ukrainian and Russian elites believed that the US was behind the 2000 Serbian Bulldozer, 2003 Georgian Rose and 2004 Orange democratic revolutions. The Kuchmagate crisis, impending succession crisis, 2004 presidential elections and Orange Revolution – all of which took up most of Leonid Kuchma’s second term in office – were the first significant domestic threats to Ukraine’s new, post-communist ruling elites and in response Ukraine’s elites revived Soviet style theories of conspiracies and ideological tirades against the US and Ukrainian nationalism. Opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko became the focal point against which the conspiracies and tirades were launched because his support base lay in ‘nationalist’ Western Ukraine and he has a Ukrainian-American spouse. The revival of Soviet style conspiracy theories has become important since Viktor Yanukovyc’s election as Ukrainian president in 2010 because this political culture permeates his administration, government and Party of Regions determining their worldview and influencing their domestic and foreign policies.     

Comparing political futures: the rise and use of scenarios in future-oriented area studies

The predictive ability of scholars of politics has long been a subject of theoretical debate and methodological development. In theoretical debate, prediction represents a central issue regarding the extent to which the study of politics is scientific. In methodological development, much effort and resource have been devoted to a diverse range of predictive approaches, with varying degrees of success. Expectations that scholars forecast accurately come as much from the policy and media worlds as from the academy. Since the end of the Cold War, scenario development has become prevalent in future-oriented research by area studies scholars. This approach is long due critical re-assessment. For all its strengths as a policy tool, scenario development tends towards a bounded methodology, driving the process of anticipating futures along predetermined paths into a standardised range of options, and paying insufficient attention to theoretical and contextual understandings available within the relevant scholarly disciplines.     

State terror in the Philippines: the Alston Report,human rights and counter-insurgency under the Arroyo administration

The human rights agenda of the United Nations has faltered over recent years. An examination of conditions in a country such as the Philippines highlights some of the reasons. The appallingly high number of political killings in that country was investigated by Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, early in 2007. Following a well-defined process of review, he spent a short but difficult time examining the situation. His report condemned repressive elements of the Philippine state and directed specific criticisms at the armed forces, noting the omnipresent role of counter-insurgency. He found that a culture of impunity prevailed within the military and that the Arroyo administration had not done enough to address the problem or to protect the rights of its citizens. Alston's visit provided an insight into both the Philippine government's inadequate human rights record and the failure of UN mechanisms established to redress such poor performance.