The two Koreas’ societies reflected in stamps

The stamp is “an arena for conveying every possible kind of message through pictures”. Since stamp motives are not chosen arbitrarily, this study considers what stamps issued by North and South Korea since their foundation in 1948 tell about these states. Firstly, the number of stamps made by each state from 1948 until 2002 is investigated. This time is divided into ten-year periods. Conclusions are drawn from the number of stamps made. Secondly, the motives are investigated in detail. Eight motives—commemoratives, history, famous persons, culture, politics, economics, nature and miscellaneous are identified. Quantitative data on the motives are presented in tables that are followed by facts about the issues. Thirdly, the main findings are presented on a general level and under the motives identified. Implications of the motives on North and South Korean stamps are discussed and similarities and differences are highlighted.     

中朝经贸关系发展的现状及未来走势分析

进入新千年后,中朝经贸关系出现了历史性的新发展,特别是2003和2004年连续取得突破10亿美元的最好业绩,使中国在朝鲜对外经贸关系中的重要地位再次得以凸现,使东亚各国对其今后的发展前景表现出极大的关注。随着朝鲜经济市场化改革的进展,中朝双边贸易未来几年还有进一步发展的余地。     

Anxiety and Diminished Hope: The Potential Impact of Trump’s Presidency on Security in the Pacific Islands Region

Abstract

The election of Donald Trump as the next president of the US has caused much international consternation and anxiety. Reactions have been based on distrust and rejection of Trump’s political ideology, behavioural disposition and unpredictable policy positions. His campaign speeches were filled with provocative utterances which were racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-environment and self-centred. This article examines some possible impacts of Trump’s presidency on the Pacific island countries (PICs). The first issue refers to how Trump’s proposed isolationist and militarisation policies may affect regional geopolitics. The two policies tend to contradict each other because while isolationism means pulling back on US economic and strategic presence in the Pacific, a reversal of the pivot to Asia-Pacific policy, militarisation implies greater strategic reach, regionally and globally. What does this seemingly contradictory approach mean for the PICs? Second, the article looks at the impact of Trump’s climate change denial stance and the responses by PICs, given the fact that climate change is the single most significant foreign policy and development initiative of the PICs since their independence. The third issue deals with the potential impact of Trump’s restrictive migration policies on remittance flow to the PICs and how these affect the small island economies and well-being.     

驻朝苏联军管机构与北朝鲜土地改革刍议

北朝鲜1946年土地改革是驻朝鲜苏联军事管制机构与北朝鲜临时人民委员会共同努力的结果。这次改革具有政治、经济双重意义。它推动了北朝鲜战后经济重建,巩固了当地民主化的基础。     

No ‘return to the state’: dependency and developmentalism against neo-liberalism

In the emerging ‘post-Washington Consensus’ era, neo-liberalism is searching for alternatives that once again emphasise the state. Yet neither Latin American dependencia nor East Asian developmentalism – two development models actually practised ‘on the ground’ – shares the basic assumptions of the liberal, rationalist state. First, there persists a significant ontological divide over the purpose of the state. Developmentalists and dependentists advocate deep, dynamic state agency rather than the hands-off, liberal, ‘night-watchman’ state. Second, development theory has unfolded within a modern liberal framework of science, democracy, the interests of US foreign policy, and increasingly a commitment to poverty alleviation. Dependency and developmentalism reject these neo-liberal benchmarks in the interests of state consolidation and autonomy. The persistence of dependentist and developmentalist understandings of the state precludes a uniform, post-neoliberal reversal in development theory back to the state.     

埃及北部三角洲城市走廊探析

城市走廊是在经济全球化迅猛发展的背景下,城市化速度加快、城市空间大型化过程中形成的一种城市空间形态。埃及城市化进程深入以及区域经济的发展,导致北部三角洲城市走廊形成,并在发展过程中呈现出较强的通达性、土地利用复杂化和节点城市间引力差异明显等特征。三角洲城市走廊已成为该区域重要的基础设施带、区域发展的核心以及国家区域规划的主要目标。从世界范围看,三角洲城市走廊发展尚处于初级阶段,面临着城市沿走廊无序蔓延、协调机制不完善和地价飞涨等问题。尽管如此,三角洲城市走廊跨国化发展已成趋势。     

建国前夕刘少奇对新中国政权建设的重大贡献

中国共产党在新中国成立前后的政权建设方面,有两大历史创建：建立了人民代表大会制度,成立了中央人民政府的雏形──华北人民政府。当时先后担任中共中央工委书记和华北局书记的刘少奇,直接指导了华北临时人民代表大会的召开工作;并创造性地提出和直接领导了华北人民政府的成立,为新中国国家机构和政府体制的建立打下了坚实基础。     

Public Administration in the Middle East and North Africa

ABSTRACT

This article highlights the objective of the special issue which is to understand the status of public administration in six profiled countries – Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Turkey – in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The special issue explores public administration as a concept—the diversity of guiding general principles that determines how governments administer the affairs of state in the context of their governance frameworks—and as praxis—the diversity of public administration structures, procedures and practice, and reform initiatives. It is evident that the countries profiled have adopted a mode of public administration and governance that mirrors its history, and its cultural, geo-political, socio-economic, and conflictive environments. In this context, the editors hope that the articles presented in this special issue will contribute to advancing the public administration literature in MENA.     

Following in China's footsteps? The political economy of North Korean reform

Since the coming to power of Kim Jong Un in 2012, the North Korean government has recently announced, and to some degree has implemented, a new set of economic management policies known as the June 28th measures in 2012 and the May 30th measures in 2014. Both of these sets of measures seek to build upon the abandoned reforms of the early 2000s through restructuring North Korea's highly inefficient collective farm and state-owned enterprise management system. In addition, the government has intensified ongoing efforts at building special economic zones for the purpose of attracting foreign investment. As such, the country is attempting to emulate the reforms adopted by China in the late 1970s. Although the success of these efforts is by no means guaranteed, they do serve to question mainstream analyses that suggest that Juche Self-Reliance or S?n'gun Military First Politics ideologies will inhibit any genuine attempt at economic reform in North Korea. We argue, in contrast, that ongoing changes to North Korean state and society mean that, a cyclical stop and start rhythm to the reforms notwithstanding, such attempts at economic reform are likely to continue. However, we also argue that while the contemporary reform drive resembles and may indeed reproduce some of the successes of the Chinese experience, North Korea faces significantly greater challenges, including the greater decline of North Korean industry, local resistance to reform, and the dangers of inflation. Furthermore, North Korea faces a highly challenging external security environment that undermines the ability of the regime to attract investment and by extension the political standing of reformist elements within the country. Given this contrast with the international environment surrounding China's own reform experience, our analysis emphasises the importance of geopolitical context in shaping experiences of economic reform and of development more broadly.     

North Korea's hegemonic rule and its collapse

Ideological leadership through the Party was at the core of the North Korean leaders’ hegemonic rule over the people, which resulted in the great popularity of Kim Il-sung. Marketisation in the wake of the economic crisis, however, significantly impaired the mechanism for rule by consent, especially by triggering the influx of outside information and undermining the Party's ideological education activities. The economic crisis led the state to adjust the mechanism of consent and coercion in such a way that the state's control over society could be restored by relying more on rule by force, which was demonstrated by the much stricter penal system, bloody purges and, most of all, military-first politics. This, nonetheless, was a temporary measure because, in Guha's terms, ‘dominance without hegemony’ would not be durable in the long term. The regime can sustain itself in the long-term only through the reinstatement of the consent mechanism, which disintegrated owing to the marketisation. However, as the marketisation, being beneficial to those who have power as well as ordinary people, is irreversible in North Korea today, the reestablishment of hegemonic rule would not be attainable.