Hopes and Realities in Relations Between Russia and Japan: Is a Breakthrough Possible?

During the last 5 years, Russia and Japan have been able to widen and deepen bilateral ties in many spheres, including politics, economics, and culture. At the same time, the further qualitative improvement of bilateral relations is hampered by strong influence of an enduring negative historic memory of Japanese society toward Russia mostly due to the so-called Northern Territories syndrome. The formation of Russia’s image in Japan is also strongly influenced by a number of time-limited factors, such as the state leader’s popularity, single-moment events, empiric experience, and others (Streltsov 43). In this paper, the author traces the recent history of the territorial dispute between two countries and then attempts to evaluate the influence exerted by four time-limited factors: the triple disaster in Japan (as an example of the implications of natural disasters), the two leaders’ political aspirations, mutual trust, and popularity at home (as related to the personal features of President Putin and Prime Minister Abe), on the two countries’ approach toward signing a peace treaty and solving the territorial dispute. According to the author’s hypothesis, the strategic vision of Putin and Abe and their trustworthy relationship are playing the key role in improving ties between the two countries. Moreover, due to its importance for these ties, this paper considers the geopolitical environment of the Russo–Japan relations and the current state and perspective for bilateral energy cooperation. Finally, the author turns to an evaluation of whether a long-overdue compromise on the territorial dispute could be reached anytime soon.     

Seeking a New Role: Japan’s Middle East Policy under Shinzo Abe

With his frequent travels to the Middle East, more than all other Japanese leaders in the past, Shinzo Abe had been destined to ineluctably play a distinctive role in redefining his country’s foreign policy approach toward the region. Essentially, when Abe returned to power for a second time in late 2012, he succeeded to subsequently establish a relatively stable and long-term government which strived to critically reappraise some highly contentious elements of Japan’s internal and external policies. Reassessing Japan’s conventional low-profile orientation to the Middle East was particularly a major objective of the Abe government because the region had turned out to be closely and dubiously connected to some pivotal political and security reforms which Abe had long pursued to achieve domestically. By primarily doubling down Japan’s political engagement in different parts of the Middle East, therefore, Abe took advantage of what his country had capitalized in the region in more recent times to especially accelerate the accomplishment of some other political and security he favored ardently.     

Parteiendemokratie im Wandel — Reaktionsstrategien von politischen Parteien

Ohne Zusammenfassung Rezension zu: Peter Mair, Wolfgang C. Müller und Fritz Plasser (Hg.): Parteien auf komplexen W?hlerm?rkten. Reaktionsstrategien politischer Parteien in Westeuropa. Wien: Signum 1999, 403 S., DM 88,-.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory , by Bhikhu Parekh
Multicultural Questions , edited by Christian Joppke and Steven Lukes
Peoples, Cultures and Nations in Political Philosophy , by Paul Gilbert
Race and Ethnicity in Modern Britain , by David Mason
Citizenship and Immigration in Postwar Britain , by Randall Hansen
The Ashdown Diaries , vol. 1: 1988–1997 , by Paddy Ashdown
Diaries: Into Politics , by Alan Clark
Life in the Jungle: My Autobiography , by Michael Heseltine
Left Behind: Lessons from Labour's Heartland , by Peter Kilfoyle
Ann Widdecombe: Right from the Beginning , by Nicholas Kochan
William Hague: In His Own Right , by Jo-Anne Nadler
Factionalism in Chinese Communist Politics , by Jing Huang
Cadres and Corruption: The Organizational Involution of the Chinese Communist Party , by Xiaobo Lu
Late Victorian Holocausts: El Ni·o Famines and the Making of the Third World , by Mike Davis
Going to the Wars , by Max Hastings
Governing with Judges: Constitutional Politics in Europe , by Alec Stone Sweet
No Place Like Home: A Black Briton's Journey through the American South , by Gary Younge
Parliament under Blair , by Peter Riddell
New Labour in Power , edited by David Coates and Peter Lawler
New Labour and Thatcherism , by Richard Heffernan
The Retreat of Social Democracy , by John Callaghan. Manchester University Press
Labour's First Century , edited by Duncan Tanner, Pat Thane and Nick Tiratsoo
The Labour Party: A Centenary History , edited by Brian Brivati and Richard Heffernan     

Adaptive governance as a reform strategy

This article expands research on adaptive governance in natural resource and climate change policy into other policy areas and the larger context of reform. The purpose is to clarify adaptive governance as a reform strategy, one that builds on experience in a variety of emergent responses to the growing failures of scientific management, the established pattern of governance. Emergent responses in information technology, national security, development aid, and health care policy are reviewed here. In these cases, factoring a large national or international problem into many smaller problems, each more tractable scientifically and politically, opened additional opportunities for advancing common interests on the ground. The opportunities include simplification of research through intensive inquiry, participation in policy decisions by otherwise neglected groups, and selecting what works on the basis of practical experience rather than theory. What works can be improved incrementally in the context at hand, diffused through networks for voluntary adaptation elsewhere, and used to inform higher-level decisions from the bottom up. Adaptive governance is a promising strategy of reform. The open question is whether it will be used well enough to sustain a once-progressive evolution toward fuller realization of human dignity for all.     

FDI and the costs of contract enforcement in developing countries

This article examines the relationship between foreign direct investment and host countries’ contracting institutions, the rule systems which govern commercial transactions between private actors. Given their liability of foreignness and costly exit options, we suggest that multinational corporations have incentives to influence the formal contracting environment in host countries. Further, host governments are more likely to respond to multinationals’ wishes when they are more dependent on foreign capital markets. We draw on the World Bank’s Lex Mundi dataset (Djankov et al. 2003) on micro-level contracting environment for private actors. Our analysis of a cross section of 98 developing countries suggests that FDI is associated with lower contract enforcement costs, particularly when the host country is more indebted.