Oil,Coalitions, and Regime Durability: the Origins and Persistence of Popular Rentierism in Kuwait

While the canonical literature on oil wealth suggests that hydrocarbon windfalls encourage repressive despotism, Kuwait provides a case of an oil-rich autocracy governing instead through popular rentierism—that is, through a broad coalition of social forces, one that furnishes enduring loyalty from below while constraining abuses of state power from above. This paper provides a theoretically guided explanation for this exceptional outcome. I argue that the Kuwaiti regime’s coalitional bargains originated in the pre-oil era, when domestic opposition and geopolitical constrictions compelled it to forge new social alliances at the dawn of modern statehood. This inclusionary strategy mediated the subsequent effect of oil rents, which the regime used to institutionalize its mass base with costly material and symbolic side payments. Such popular incorporation bound large constituent classes to the regime’s survival, precluding the need for widespread repression. After 50 years, these coalitional bargains have also proven remarkably resilient, as social actors have continued to endorse the autocratic leadership despite economic crisis and wartime defeat.     

Dominance and change in the global computer industry: Military, bureaucratic, and network state developmentalisms

This article examines the conditions under which firms in different economies were able to emerge as significant actors in the global computer industry during different time periods. To achieve this, the article divides into three periods the history of the industry in terms of the three major policy regimes that have supported the dominant firms and regions. It argues that these policy regimes can be thought of as state developmentalisms that take significantly different forms across the history of the industry. U.S. firms’ dominance over their European counterparts in the 1950s and 1960s was underpinned by a system of “military developmentalism” where military agencies funded research, provided a market and developed infrastructure, but also demanded high quality products. The “Asian Tigers”—Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea—in the 1970s and 1980s were able to eclipse their Latin American and Indian rivals due in large part to the significant advantages offered by a highly effective system of “bureaucratic developmentalism,” where bureaucratic elites in key state agencies and leading business groups negotiated supports for export performance. The 1990s saw the emergence of a system of “network developmentalism” where countries such as Ireland and Israel were able to emerge as new nodes in the computer industry by careful economic and political negotiation of relations to the United States, reestablished at the center of the industry, and by more decentralized forms of provision of state support for high-tech development. Finally, the conditions under which new regimes can emerge are a consequence of the unanticipated global consequences of previous regimes. While state developmentalisms have been shaped by existing global regimes, they have promoted further and different rounds of industry globalization. Seán ó Riain is professor of sociology at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. His research has been primarily on the political economy of high-tech growth in Ireland and elsewhere, and on work and class politics among software developers. He is the author ofThe Politics of High Tech Growth: Developmental Network, States in the Global Economy (Cambridge, 2004).     

Medical technology in combatting terrorism

State‐sponsored terrorism is a form of coercion, backed up by the threat and use of violence, to achieve political ends. These terrorist tactics also involve signaling of intentions and responses between the terrorist sponsor and those whom it targets. Accordingly this study examines Iranian state sponsorship of anti‐U.S. terrorism in the period of 1980–1990 as an example of political communication aimed at manipulating U.S. policy through the threat and use of violence. Official Iranian media are quantitatively content‐analyzed to demonstrate their systematic use of threat‐projections as warnings and indications to the U.S. in this period.     

Labor Standards and Labor Market Flexibility in the Middle East: Free Trade and Freer Unions?

This paper examines how two, potentially opposing trends—pressure to adhere to international labor standards and movement toward greater labor market flexibility—have affected labor market characteristics in the Middle East. Focusing on 13 countries, the paper presents indices of de jure and de facto labor flexibility and standards in the region. The paper makes two main contributions. First, it develops a typology of post-independence Middle Eastern political economies based on oil dependence and political regime type (including oil monarchies, low-income republics, and low-income monarchies) to explain widely divergent sub-regional trends in labor flexibility and standards. Second, it argues that different actors have spurred changes in labor flexibility and standards in distinct sub-regional political economy groupings. In the low-income countries, the state and domestic business were most instrumental in driving increased flexibility, although unions were able to win concessions in countries where the political system permitted some voice for labor. In the oil monarchies, international pressure, particularly through negotiations over trade agreements with the USA, spurred a trend toward increased labor standards, while domestic programs to indigenize the workforce account for a trend toward decreased flexibility.     

Urban growth in India: Demographic and sociocultural prospects

This paper explores some of the complexities of India’s urban growth since its first post-Independence census of 1951. Two levels of analysis are pursued as they affect one another: numerical or demographic changes, on one hand, and changes in living conditions, or sociocultural trends, on the other. The general conclusion of the study is that a process of “erosion” of traditional society is occurring, but it is occurring slowly— as a population more than twice the size of the entire United States continues to live in the countryside (and to increase at about twice the U.S. growth rate). Moreover, the sociocultural change is occurring in a non-linear fashion, as much that is traditional endures along side of the modern—rather than being replaced or obliterated by it. Finally, while the growth is occurring in cities of all sizes, the intermediate, regional capitals like Hyderabad and ahmedabad—rather than the largest cities such as Bombay or Calcutta—are experiencing the most rapid growth. Jay Weinstein is a professor of sociology and faculty research fellow at Eastern Michigan University. He has also taught at the University of Iowa (1972–77) and Georgia Institute of Technology (1977–86). He has been involved in comparative development studies for over twenty years, beginning with his Ph.D. fieldwork in India in 1971. His current interests include Canadian Studies and Eastern Europe. He visited Bulgaria in February–March, 1991 as a member of a U.S. Information Agency Citizen Exchange Project.     

Persuasion and Predation: The Effects of U.S. Military Aid and International Development Aid on Civilian Killings

ABSTRACT

Powerful states frequently employ foreign aid to pursue international security objectives. Yet aid's effectiveness will be undermined if it exacerbates the effects of conflict on civilians within recipient states. This article investigates how international development aid and U.S. military aid influence recipient governments' incentives and ability to target civilians. U.S. military aid has a persuasion effect on state actors, which decreases a recipient state's incentives and necessity to target civilians. Development aid flows, however, trigger a predation effect in some environments, exacerbating civilian targeting. An analysis of aid flows in 135 countries on civilian killings between 1989–2011 provides support for both the persuasion and predation effects associated with aid.     

Political power in Puerto Rico: bankers,pharmaceuticals and the state

Puerto Rico is characterized by a high degree of structural economic interdependence between state, corporate, and financial actors. This article argues that the structural interdependence was engineered by United States and Puerto Rico government officials to bolster the island’s economy and the government’s creditworthiness, using U.S. corporate investments, both fixed and financial. Following a critique of the relevance of the literature on structural analyses of state, corporate and financial alliances to the Puerto Rican case, the article defines, identifies, and quantifies the major components of this structural economic interdependence in Puerto Rico. The article concludes that the depth of structural economic interdependence of state, corporate and financial actors has seriously constrained the possibilities of economic and political pluralism. The local government has become bound to a relatively limited range of policy options and, thus, a particular development path is forged. In this case, the policies have resulted in the marginalization of local industry, and the privileging of the financial sector to the detriment of domestic capital formation. Sara L. Grusky has taught at Howard University and Catholic University in Washington, D.C. She has recently contributed to21st Century Policy Review andThe Caribbean in the Global Political Economy (Lynne Rienner Publishers). Professor Grusky is currently undertaking two research projects in El Salvador. The first is focused on rural health policy and the second examines the Salvadoran political discourse onel estado de derecho.     

Foreign capital in Korea’s economic development, 1960–1985

The relationship between foreign capital and state autonomy is investigated in the rapidly developing South Korean economy. The changing composition and the sectoral distribution of the different types of foreign capital, the role of the Korean state in the acquisition and distribution of foreign capital, and the implications of foreign capital on the autonomy and capacity of the state are studied. The findings show that public loans and state-guaranteed commercial loans in the 1960s and 1970s have supported and strengthened state autonomy, while direct foreign investment (DFI) and commercial loans in the 1980s could potentially undermine it. Significant changes in the 1980s—rapid increase of Japanese DFI in hotels, commerical loans behaving more like DFI, and changing industrial orientation of the Korean economy toward more high-technology sectors—suggest that the types of foreign capital which are more independent of state control and more keen on market signals will increase in the future. This has importnat implications for future Korean economic development. Eun Mee Kim is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Southern California. Kim has been conducting research on various topics of economic development and political development in South Korea and East Asia, and has published inPacific Focus, andThe Journal of Developing Societies. Kim’s current research includes the industrial organization and growth of the “chaebol” (business conglomerates) in Korea; the political economy of MNC investment by U.S. and Japanese corporations; and economic liberalization and political democratization in Korea and Taiwan.     

Precluding Nonviolence,Propelling Violence: The Effect of Internal Fragmentation on Movement Protest

Scholars often overlook that an adequate explanation of why a movement uses violent means of protest requires an account of why it does not instead use nonviolent means. This essay argues that while paths to violence are multiple, there is one prevailing path to nonviolent protest—that which opens when a movement is politically cohesive. Cohesion approximates a necessary condition for nonviolent protest because such protest requires coordination and collective restraint. Conversely, fragmentation generates incentives and opportunities that increase the likelihood that protest will become violent. This argument, specified in terms of composite mechanisms and demonstrated by overtime variation in the Palestinian case, critiques the assumption that movements can be treated as unitary actors. It also shifts attention from movements’ motivations to their organizational configurations.     

BRINGING STRUCTURES BACK IN: THE ‘GOVERNANCE NARRATIVE’, THE ‘DECENTRED APPROACH’ AND ‘ASYMMETRICAL NETWORK GOVERNANCE’ IN THE EDUCATION AND SPORT POLICY COMMUNITIES

We reflect upon the ‘governance narrative’ as a means of conceptualizing recent developments in the British state. Recent public administration research has advocated a ‘decentred approach’ that would reject the linear narrative of a shift from hierarchical to network governance. We seek to build on ‘decentring’ theorists' critique of existing governance literature by offering case studies of the education and sport policy communities, arguing that the ‘new’ governance form is present in these sectors, but only as an element of a state strategy, the effect of which is to reduce autonomy and increase dependence on the centre among actors outside the core executive. We use the case studies to reflect back on the utility of the decentred approach and suggest that the range of questions it might tackle could be expanded by allowing for a greater role for structures and institutions in explanation, alongside the ideas, culture and belief of actors.     

Democracy and Development in a Globalized World: Thinking About Latin America from Within

The choice among paths that countries should follow has been a staple of political debates in Latin America and, over the past 40 years, Fernando Cardoso has brought his analysis to bear on these debates. This article summarizes and then assesses Cardoso’s argument about the choice of paths faced by Latin American countries, the consequences for democracy and development of following different paths, and the political position that is supported by this analysis of choices and their consequences. Though Cardoso explicitly supports the path of globalized social democracy over an anti-globalization option in the current period, I suggest that the current state of knowledge does not offer unequivocal support for the argument that choosing to follow the path of globalized social democracy—or that of anti-globalization—is the best political option for all countries in Latin America. Different countries might very well be doing what is best for them, given their circumstances, by following different paths.     

Managing economic crises: The role of the state in Bahrain and Kuwait

Bahrain and Kuwait adopted sharply divergent responses to the economic crisis in the Gulf during the 1980s. The Bahraini government reduced the level of state intervention in the local economy, opened up opportunities for private investment and relied on the operation of the unregulated market; Kuwait's government, on the other hand, imposed a greater degree of state supervision over domestic economic affairs and expanded central planning to allocate resources to the most profitable enterprises. Two influential bodies of neo-Marxist writing on the state—the state-derivation school and the writings of Claus Offe—have difficulty accounting for these differences. A more adequate explanation for Bahraini and Kuwaiti policy can be formulated in terms of the strength of each country's indigenous rich merchant community relative to that of the ruling family/central administration and the political activities of the labor movement in each amirate. Fred H. Lawson is associate professor, Department of Government, Mills College, Oakland, CA 94613. He received his Ph.D. from UCLA in 1982 and has also taught at the University of North Carolina and Smith College. His most recent publications include “Political-economic trends in Ba'thi Syria: a reinterpretation,”Orient 29 (December 1988) and “Libéralisation économique en Syrie et Irak,”Maghred/Machrek 128 (April–May 1990). He is currently exploring the connection between class conflict and foreign policy in contemporary Syria and Iraq.     

Trade and development policies in Colombia: Export promotion and outward orientation, 1967–1992

As developing democracies implement programs of economic adjustment and trade liberalization, we need to examine the relationship between the state and society in the making of foreign economic policies. This article examines trade and development policies in Colombia, one of Latin America's more institutionalized democracies. Colombia was one of the first countries in Latin America to begin a major reorientation away from full dependence on ISI as a strategy of development. The research shows that domestic political institutions and actors have had a decisive impact on the character and direction of foreign economic policies. The study also illustrates how state capacity for economic management is enhanced by bureaucratic insulation and institutional reform. Carlos E. Juárez is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on the politics of trade liberalization in Latin America, government-business relations in developing democracies, and comparative political economy. He was a visiting researcher and lecturer at theUniversidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia from 1991–1992. For 1993–1994 he will be a visiting research fellow with the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of California, San Diego.     

“Time is money,efficiency is life”: The transformation of labor relations in China

The past twenty-five years of economic reform have seen the transformation of labor relations in China, with the widespread adoption of capitalist labor practices by firms of all ownership types. This transformation has occurred in the absence of both large-scale privatization and political change, but was part of a gradual yet dynamic liberalization and “opening up” to foreign trade and investment that occurred across both regions and across types of firms. The first half of this paper details this process of dynamic liberalization that has spawned competition and change in labor practices, including marked increases in managerial autonomy and labor flexibility. This explanation goes beyond the regional emphasis to also examine changes across types of ownership; the gradual liberalization of labor policies and convergence with capitalist practices can only be understood as part of a more general trend ofownership expansion, through the introduction of new types of firms, andownership recombination, which is the fusing of the public and non-state sectors through novel forms of organization. The much-needed panacea to this shift to capitalism—a state regulatory and legal regime that is capable of mitigating its excesses and effective organizations to represent labor—is not yet well established. The second half of this paper explores two institutions, the labor contract system and the official trade union organization, to show how labor relations have shifted dramatically toward flexibility, insecurity, and managerial control. The author would like to thank those who offered comments and criticisms, including Mark Frazier, Jaeyoun Won, Bill Hurst, Jacob Eyferth, Elizabeth Remick, Mark Selden, Ruth Collier, and two anonymous reviewers.     

Evangelical violence: Western Christianity and the use of force against the Third World

Abstract

Recognising the impact of religion on state action, this article identifies two variables that interact to affect the type and level of violence employed by Western states against Third World targets. First, variation in the degree to which the prominent Christian denominations and organisations within these states view evangelisation as either an individual-level or national-level process – Christian individualism vs Christian nationalism – has determined church support for using violence as a tactic. Second, the level of influence that churches and missionary organisations have over their home states affects the ability of Christian actors to directly impact state actions. Western violence against Third World peoples is expected to be lowest when churches and Christian organisations view evangelisation in primarily individualistic terms and have significant influence over the state. The article examines the relationships between concepts of evangelisation, Christian influence over state policies, and levels of violence against the Third World by examining British, French and German colonialism during the late colonial period of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.     

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.     

The New Commons vs. The Second Enclosure Movement: Comments on an Emerging Agenda for Development Research

The relationship between property rights and development has always been a central concern for both theorists and policy makers. The growing role of information and communications technology in the economies of both North and South intensifies the salience of this issue. This commentary extends the discussion of the two visions of property rights that are introduced by Weber and Bussell (2005). In one, property rights are restructured along the lines pioneered by the open-source software community to create a “new commons” of productive tools; in the other, Northern corporations successfully defend their politically protected monopoly rights over intangible assets and even extend them through a “second enclosure movement” to an ever larger set of ideas, information, and images. Currently, the second enclosure movement remains dominant, but which of these visions is likely to predominate in the longer run depends on the interests and potential power of key actors and on the possibilities for alliances among them—not just Northern corporations, but Southern states and private entrepreneurs, as well. Peter Evans is professor of sociology and Marjorie Meyer Eliaser Chair of International Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. His research has focused on the comparative political economy of developing countries, particularly industrialization and the role of the state, as exemplified byEmbedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995). He has also worked urban environmental issues, producing the edited volumeLivable Cities: Urban Struggles for Livelihood and Sustainability (University of California Press, 2002). His current interest in the politics of globalization is reflected in his chapter, “Counter-hegemonic Globalization: Transnational Social Movements in the Contemporary Global Political Economy,” forthcoming in theHandbook of Political Sociology (Cambridge University Press).     

Rectification at three: Impact on the Cuban economy

Since 1986, Cuba has been engaged in a national effort to redirect its polity and economy; this effort, spearheaded by President Castro, is generally known as the “rectification” campaign. Although occurring at roughly the same time as reforms in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the Cuban process—which emphasizes dismantling market-oriented mechanisms and enhancing economic centralization—differs radically from the others. An impressionistic assessment of the economic effects of rectification after its first three years (focusing on the behavior of macroeconomic indicators and of the construction sector) suggests that rectification has not turned the Cuban economy around. Moreover, it is questionable that rectification could do so in the medium term, considering the reforms that are taking place in Cuba's main trading partners, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Jorge F. Pérez-López is an international economist with the Bureau of International Labor Affairs, U.S. Department of Labor. This article presents only his personal views. He has written on different aspects of the Cuban economy, including economic growth, the sugar industry, international trade and energy balances. His book,Measuring Cuban Economic Performance, was published by the University of Texas Press in 1987.     

Critical barriers to joint production: datu politics and insurgent fragmentation in Southern Philippines

Abstract

In understanding how groups overcome collective action problems of mass mobilisation in civil wars, a joint-production explanation was put forth in the civil war literature. According to this explanation, collective action can be successful when leaders at the centre tie the public good – violence towards the overall goal of the movement – inextricably to private interests of actors at the peripheral levels of the conflict. It is through this logic of joint production that we can understand the failures of the Islamic insurgencies in Southern Philippines and the spiralling levels of violence. Where other movements cohered under a common identity, the Islamist insurgency in Southern Philippines saw high degrees of fragmentation. In this paper, I argue that cleavages of regionalism created by colonial disruptions of land and social relations became a critical barrier for insurgent joint production. Furthermore, interactions between these identities and the state can pose further collective action problems. In Southern Philippines, insurgent leaders are unable to cut across these cleavages, resulting in increasingly fragmented movements and protracted conflict. Therefore, I argue that a joint-production approach to understanding civil wars can be especially promising when culturally and historically situated to explain why collective action often fails in civil war.     

Winning the Battle of Ideas: Propaganda,Ideology, and Terror

Propaganda is at the heart of the struggle between Al Qaeda's strain of militant Islamism and the governments of the United States and United Kingdom. In an ideological struggle, propaganda is critical in shaping outcomes. Both Al Qaeda and the U.S. and U.K. governments recognize this, and have devised propaganda strategies to construct and disseminate messages for key audiences. This article considers the key elements in the Al Qaeda propaganda narrative, and the means through which it is disseminated. On the other side, it assesses the U.S. and U.K. governments’ response, focusing particularly on the British effort to define and propagate a narrative centered on British values.