The uses and misuses of uneven and combined development: an anatomy of a concept

A central concern of much contemporary Marxist scholarship in international relations (IR) is to internally relate global capitalism and the state system without reducing one of these systems to an epiphenomenon of the other. A recent attempt at this is Justin Rosenberg's reformulation of Leon Trotsky's idea of uneven and combined development (U&CD). This article examines the internal relations of ‘unevenness’ and ‘combination’ as presented by Trotsky and reworked by Rosenberg. From this anatomization of the concept, we focus on the problematic status of U&CD as a transhistorical general abstraction arising from the exchange between Callinicos and Rosenberg (Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 22:1 2008, 77–112) and suggest our own possible solution. We argue that while the uneven and combined nature of historical development represents a truly transhistorical phenomenon, its distinct causal determinations, articulated and expressed through inter-societal competition, are only fully activated under the specific socio-historical conditions of generalized commodity production. These theoretical points are illuminated through three specific historical examples (the Meiji Restoration, the ‘Eastern Question’ and the origins of the two World Wars). Finally, we illustrate some of the dangers of analytical overextension found in Rosenberg's own ambiguous use of U&CD.     

Soviet Cinema, 1929–41: The Development of Industry and Infrastructure

This article explores the development of the Soviet film industry in the 1920s and 1930s and argues that the rise of Soviet cinema as an industry was hampered by a lack of technical equipment and the know-how to produce this, and that the USSR struggled to achieve independence in the production of equipment for film production and demonstration throughout the 1930s. The article examines the technical and economic aspects of film production in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s. It explores the extent of ‘cinefication’, especially in terms of the lack of technology for sound film. It scrutinises the distribution and demonstration systems for films, making comparisons to the US industry. It argues that fewer films were produced in the USSR, thus offering a limited choice to Soviet audiences; at the same time new films were distributed with an insufficient number of copies, so that the rise of Soviet film as an industry was hampered. The article demonstrates the absence of an infrastructure and an industry to produce the technical equipment for film production and demonstration (film stock, cameras, sound equipment were all important) making the industry dependent on the West.     

A Large-Scale Meta-Analysis Relating the Hare Measures of Psychopathy to Antisocial Conduct

The present meta-analysis integrated effect sizes from 95 non-overlapping studies (N=15,826) to summarize the relation between Hare Psychopathy Checklists and antisocial conduct. Whereas prior meta-analyses focused on specific subdomains of the literature, we used broad inclusion criteria, incorporating a diversity of samples, settings, methodologies, and outcomes in our analysis. Our broad perspective allowed us to identify general trends consistent across the entire literature and improved the power of our analyses. Results indicated that higher PCL Total, Factor 1 (F(1)), and Factor 2 (F(2)) scores were moderately associated with increased antisocial conduct. Study effect sizes were significantly moderated by the country in which the study was conducted, racial composition, gender composition, institutional setting, the type of information used to score psychopathy, and the independence of psychopathy and transgression assessments. However, multiple regression analyses indicated that the information used to assess psychopathy did not have a unique influence on effect sizes after accounting for the influence of other moderator variables. Furthermore, racial composition of the sample was related to the country in which the study was conducted, making it unclear whether one or both of these moderators influenced effect sizes. We provide potential explanations for the significant findings and discuss implications of the results for future research.     

Why the Philippines Chooses to Import Rice

Embedded in the debate in the Philippines over food security and food sovereignty are three conventional reasons why the country is a longstanding rice importer: geography, exploitative international policy pressure predicated on the dictates of neoliberalism, and colonial history. This paper argues that these conventional reasons share two limitations. First, they attribute mono-causal reasons for perennial rice imports, either in the form of geography, exogenous power, or history. While these perspectives are not wrong, each on its own is inadequate. Multiple, contributing factors have and will continue to abound. Second, each of these arguments limits Filipinos' agency. Through a four-part argument, I show how Filipinos have had more say in the reasons for serial rice imports than these conventional accounts allow.     

Pursuing Post-democratisation: The Resilience of Politics by Public Security in Contemporary South Korea

This article analyses the disputed election of President Park Geun-hye and her administration’s confrontation of left-nationalist politicians and other social movements during her first year in office. We argue that the Park administration’s policies resonate with contemporary discussions of “post-democratisation,” a process whereby social rights are increasingly subordinated to market logics and state power insulated from popular challenges. Under the conservative governments of Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye, this process has been animated by a mode of confrontation known in South Korea as “politics by public security.” This politics targets social conflict and political dissent as threats to national security and has involved both illegal interventions by state institutions – such as the 2012 electoral interference by state agencies including the National Intelligence Service – and a cultural politics that affirms but revises the narrative of Korean democratisation by obfuscating the nature of the democracy movement and by attempting to restore the honour of conservative forces associated with former dictatorships. In order to better understand this conjuncture, we explore its origin within a tacit alliance between both former public security prosecutors-cum-conservative politicians and a movement of conservative intellectuals known as the New Right.