Visualizing the invisible hands: the shadow economy in North Korea

Abstract

The outside world is well aware of the totalitarian side of North Korea. Much less well-known is the shadow economy of the country which has enveloped the everyday lives of ordinary North Koreans for the last fifteen years or so. Based on refugee testimonies, this article aims to shed light on this heretofore unexamined aspect of the country, by visualizing the invisible hands of the ever-growing shadow economy in North Korea. In particular, we will investigate who the main actors are (the agency question), how they obtain their items (the supply mechanism), how they move items from one place to another (the distribution mechanism) and who consumes these items (the consumer question) in contemporary North Korean society.     

The price of everything and the value of nothing? Unravelling the workings of Russia's ‘virtual economy’

The unprecedented reliance on non-monetary exchange (NME) in transactions among industrial enterprises is one of the most remarkable features of Russia's post-Soviet economic transformation. This paper argues that firms engage in NME in order to discount nominal prices which remain well above market-clearing levels. The mechanisms which prevent a convergence between formal and actual transaction values include asset valuation rules, depreciation schedules, tax regulations and an inadequate bankruptcy mechanism. These distortions to the price-formation mechanism effectively operate to sustain a subsidy regime which has hitherto shielded much of Russian industry from the rigours of the market. The analysis concludes with an examination of the 1998 financial collapse, arguing that the crash was rooted in the breakdown of the subsidy system just described, a process which was strikingly similar to the breakdown of the Soviet economic system a decade earlier.     

贵州小城镇发展对农村经济带动作用研究

小城镇发展是贵州实施城镇化带动战略的重要内容。大力发展小城镇可以转移农村人口,提高城镇化水平,拓展城乡市场,发展乡镇企业,优化产业结构,推进社会主义新农村建设。发展小城镇要科学规划、放宽准入、加大投入、强化管理,提升小城镇的品质。     

中国政治体制改革：必要性、方向与路径

政治体制的改革是当下中国面临的最大的一项课题。改革开放30多年来,中国特色社会主义市场经济体系的初步建立和完善,使中国发生了翻天覆地的变化,但是经济体制改革存在着一些潜在的问题和社会矛盾,反过来倒逼政治体制改革。中国现代化的转型不只需要经济体制的改革,更是要在市场经济的时代下进行政治体制的改革。政治体制的改革就是要建设一个成熟的民主和法治的现代化国家。为了实现这一目标,中国政治体制改革应该走一条既要有自上而下的推动,又要有自下而上的探索和实践的改革路径。     

Following the Grain: State Formation and Trans-local Grain-trading Networks in the Philippines

With respect to the major approaches of state-society relations and Chinese business networks in Southeast Asia, two knowledge gaps are identified. First, little is known about how two sets of dualistic conceptual entities may be connected in the often-contentious state formation process between: (1) the ruling minority and ruled majority; and (2) the nationalising state and grain-producing frontiers. Second, very little is known about the role that the Chinese business networks played and how they contributed to the state formation processes. Using a Philippine trans-local grain-trading network as a site of investigation, the paper seeks to fill these knowledge gaps by delineating an integrative approach – designated as rhizomatic political economy – which argues that Southeast Asian state formation may hinge on the instrumentalisation of Chinese business networks and what is identified as their rhizomatic power/knowledge system. They are not just business-brokers in the trans-local grain trade that connects the national capital and grain-producing locales, but also serve as political brokers to implement state measures in regards to food and interior security affairs.     

From Miracle to Crisis and Back: The Political Economy of South Korean Long-Term Development

This article analyses the process of economic development and associated political transformations in South Korea since the mid-1960s. It claims that, as in the rest of East Asia, capital accumulation in South Korea has revolved around the production of specific industrial goods for world markets using the relatively cheap and highly disciplined local workforce for simplified labour processes, as appendages of the machine or in manual assembly operations. This modality of accumulation resulted from changes in the forms of production of relative surplus value on a global scale through the development of computerisation and robotisation, and the concomitant transformation in the productive attributes of the collective worker of large-scale industry. The article identifies the main characteristics of the political and economic relations through which the structural transformation of the Korean society came about throughout the period studied, as a form of realising the global unity of the process of capitalist development. This analysis not only supports the claims made about the specific characteristics of the East Asian processes of capitalist development. It also shows the intrinsic unity of seemingly diverse political-economy processes, as forms of realisation of the transformations of Korean society.     

Russia's energy governance transitions and implications for enhanced cooperation with China,Japan, and South Korea

A Tokyo-based economist and a noted western economic geographer, both specializing in the hydrocarbon resources of Russia, apply the framework of governance studies in an effort to gain a deeper understanding of the recent changes in the country's energy policy-making. The authors argue that, unlike the international relations paradigm prevailing in studies of Russia's energy policy, the country's multiple roles in the international energy arena (as producer, consumer, exporter, importer, and transit state) warrant a more nuanced approach, reflecting Russian energy policy's flexibility over time and diversity across space. This paper endeavors, therefore, to apply a political economy and governance perspective to an understanding of the significant changes in Russia's energy policy-making regarding its dynamic energy relations with the Northeast Asia (NEA; China, Japan, and South Korea). In exploring the complex interactions between Russia's internal energy policy-making and its emerging energy relations in NEA, the authors addresses three key questions, namely: (1) how Russia's Asian energy policy corresponds to its domestic needs, (2) how much coherence in energy governance and cooperation exists between Russia and the Northeast Asian states at the institutional and organizational levels, and (3) the extent to which Russia's expectations for increased energy cooperation with the Northeast Asian states are likely to materialize.     

The contribution of Archie Mafeje to the debate on land reform in Africa

ABSTRACT

This article situates the election of Barack Hussein Obama as President of the United States of America within the current global political economy. It examines the major tenets of neo-liberalism, the founding ideology of this economy, and the policies by which neo-liberal ideology targeted and achieved a diminution of global state authority concomitant with a rise of market sovereignty. The consequences have been disastrous for the evolution of constitutional democracy and are at the root of the current economic crisis. As a critical factor that propelled Barack Obama's election, this article argues that Obama's presidency may offer a turning point away from a neo-liberal ideology and towards a strengthened commitment to constitutional democracy.     

The BRICS and global governance: China’s contradictory role

The impact of rising powers generally and the BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - in particular on the existing global order has become controversial and contested. Donald Trump’s nationalist foreign policy agenda has raised questions about the BRICS willingness and capacity to provide leadership in place on an American administration that is increasingly inward looking. As a result, the rise of BRICS poses potential normative and structural challenges to the existing liberal international order. Given its geoeconomic significance, China also poses a potential problem for the other BRICS, as well as the governance of the existing order more generally. Consequently, we argue that it will be difficult for the BRICS to maintain a unified position amongst themselves, let alone play a constructive role in preserving the foundations of ‘global governance’.