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51. Les entreprises françaises et allemandes en Chine : des pratiques de management contrastées dans un contexte en mutation

Author:
Jean-Louis Rocca, Rémi Bourguignon, Solène Hazouard, and Martine Le Boulaire
Publication Date:
09-2011
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales (CERI)
Abstract:
Ce rapport constitue le troisième volet1 d’une série d’études consacrées à l’implantation des entreprises occidentales en Chine, un pays qui représente un environnement des affaires atypique, entre exploit et danger. Son rythme de croissance effréné et ses équilibres sociaux, son contexte politique et social apparaissent comme autant de défis. Pour les entreprises occidentales, notamment, il n’est pas possible de s’en remettre à un transfert pur et simple des pratiques managériales. Le présent rapport s’efforce d’enrichir et de compléter les observations antérieures par la prise en compte d’une dimension comparative. Cinq nouvelles entreprises seront spécifiquement étudiées, deux d’origine française et trois d’origine allemande, portant ainsi notre panel global à près de trente cas d’entreprises.
Topic:
Democratization, Globalization, Political Economy, Social Policy, and Multinational Corporations
Political Geography:
China, Asia, France, and Germany

52. Can Economic Reform Open a Peaceful Path to Ending Burma's Isolation? (Burmese edition)

Author:
Raymond Gilpin and Lex Rieffel
Publication Date:
07-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
After decades of domestic conflict, military rule and authoritarian governance, Burma's economy could provide a viable entry point for effective international assistance to promote peace. Doing so would require a detailed understanding of the country's complex and evolving political economy.
Topic:
Development, Political Economy, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
Asia

53. Rice Crisis Forensics: How Asian Governments Carelessly Set the World Rice Market on Fire

Author:
Tom Slayton
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
The world rice market was aflame last spring and for several months it looked as if the trading edifice that had exhibited such resilience over the last two decades was going to burn to the ground. World prices trebled within less than four months and reached a 30- year inflation-adjusted high. Many market observers thought the previous record set in 1974 would soon be toast. The fire was man-made, not the result of natural developments. While the governments in India, Vietnam, and the Philippines did not to set the world market on fire, that was the unintended result of their actions which threatened both innocent bystanders (low-income rice importers as far away as Africa and Latin America) and, ultimately, poor rice consumers at home. This paper describes what sparked the fire and the accelerants that made a bad situation nearly catastrophic. Fortuitously, when the flames were raging at peak intensity, rain clouds appeared, the winds [market psychology] shifted, and conditions on the ground improved, allowing the fire to die down. It remains to be seen, however, if the trading edifice has been seriously undermined by the actions of decision makers in several key Asian rice exporting and importing countries. In describing the cascading negative effects of these seemingly rational domestic policies, this paper aims to help policy makers in the rice exporting and importing nations to avoid a repeat of the disastrous price spike of 2008.
Topic:
Agriculture, Economics, Health, Humanitarian Aid, Markets, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Africa, India, Asia, and Latin America

54. The Political Economy of Heterogeneous Development: Quantile Effects of Income and Education

Author:
Marcus Alexander, Matthew Harding, and Carlos Lamarche
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Does development lead to the establishment of more democratic institutions? The key to the puzzle, we argue, is the previously unrecognized fact that based on quantitative regime scores, countries over the past 50 years have clustered into two separate, very distinct, yet equally-common stages of political development—authoritarian states with low levels of freedom on one side an d democracies with liberal institutions on the other side of a bimodal distribution of political regimes. We develop a new empirical strategy—exploiting exogenous world economic factors and introducing new panel data estimators—that allows for the first time to estimate the effects of development as well as unobserved country effects in driving democracy at these different stages of political development. We find that income and education have the least effect on democracy when authoritarian regimes are consolidated and that only country effects, possibly accounting for institutional legacies, can lead to political development. Ironically, it is in highly democratic and wealthiest of nations that income and education start to play a role; however greater wealth and better educated citizenry can both help and hurt democracy depending again on what the country's institutional legacies are. Far from accepting the notion that much of the developing world is cursed by unchanging and poor long-run institutions, policy-makers should take note that with democratization we also see country-specific factors that in turn condition the difference income and education make for democracy.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, Economics, Political Economy, and Third World
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, China, Asia, and Germany

55. Eurasian Energy Security

Author:
Jeffrey Mankoff
Publication Date:
02-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
For two weeks in the freezing January of 2009, homes and businesses across Europe were left without heat, the result of a murky dispute over gas prices between Russia and Ukraine. When Moscow and Kiev failed to agree on a formula for calculating price and transit fees for the coming year, the gas simply stopped flowing. Europe, which gets a significant proportion of its gas through pipelines that transit both Russia and Ukraine, bore the brunt of this confrontation between the two feuding post-Soviet neighbors.
Topic:
Security, Energy Policy, Markets, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Ukraine, and Asia

56. The Political Economy of Successful Reform: Asian Stratagems

Author:
Dennis Arroyo
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
Major economic reforms are often politically difficult, causing pain to voters and provoking unrest. They may be opposed by politicians with short time horizons. They may collide with the established ideology and an entrenched ruling party. They may be resisted by bureaucrats and by vested interests. Obstacles to major economic reform can be daunting in democratic and autocratic polities alike.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
China, India, Asia, South Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, and Thailand

57. Political Economy of Government Responsiveness: Policy Choices and Rural Incorporation

Author:
Haroon Ullah
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
The literature of political development has long advocated the importance of integrating the rural countryside into mainstream political institutions. This paper argues that rural incorporation is best understood within the context of pro-peasant policy innovations targeting specific constituencies in an electorate. While there are important preconditions that set the stage for rural incorporation (legitimacy of the political party, party organization), rural incorporation is fostered when credible commitments are made to voter blocs. Combining case-study analysis and formal modeling, this paper focuses on the reasons pro-peasant policies lead to rural incorporation but not necessarily regime durability. Insights derived center on the importance of credible commitments to party dynamics, the path dependence of early elections, and the decision parameters of constituencies with limited information.
Topic:
Political Economy, Politics, and Political Theory
Political Geography:
Bangladesh, South Asia, and Asia

58. The transport infrastructure in Russia - From modernization to development: fact and fiction

Author:
Katri Pynnöniemi
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA)
Abstract:
During recent years, transport and infrastructure development has acquired the status of a 'topic to be mentioned by the president' and other high-level state officials in their public appearances. The rise of transport from almost complete oblivion into the sphere of state strategic interests has been rapid, and it is a subject which is likely to maintain a high profile in the years to come. Success in implementing the current plans for infrastructure development is considered critical in order to generate further economic growth. From the longer-term perspective, it will also be critical in ensuring the diversification of the economy and securing Russia's place amongst the most advanced economies in the world. The modernization of the transport infrastructure is also seen as a lever with which Russia can reposition herself as a power-house in Eurasia. In actual fact, Russia is not a bridge but the dead-end of Eurasia. The country is faced with the enormous task of modernizing its transport infrastructures and implementing structural reforms that have been postponed for years. This would pose a tremendous challenge even in the best possible external circumstances, never mind against the backdrop of inflation and uncertainty in the world markets which exists at present. Something which has changed is that Russia now has the resources and the appropriate legislation in place to carry out these tasks. Yet, even if considerable effort has gone into defining strategic priorities, infrastructure investments are still implemented in an ad-hoc manner. The country is in dire need of massive construction projects. If the quality of the state apparatus in managing government spending does not improve – and there are few signs of that materializing – infrastructure development will become the Trojan horse of the Russian economy.
Topic:
Development, Government, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

59. China's Economic Growth: Trajectories and Evolving Institutions

Author:
Jun Zhang
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper investigates the institutional reason underlying the change in the trajectory of economic growth in post-reform China, and argues that the trajectory of growth was much more normal during the period of 1978-89 than in the post-1989 era. In the former period, growth was largely induced by equality-generating institutional change in agriculture and the emergence of non-state industrial sector. In the latter period, growth was triggered by the acceleration of capital investments under authoritarian decentralized hierarchy within self-contained regions. Such a growth trajectory accelerates capital deepening, deteriorating total factor productivity and leads to rising regional imbalance. This paper further argues that the change in the trajectory of growth is the outcome of changes in political and inter-governmental fiscal institutions following the 1989 political crisis.
Topic:
Economics, Government, Industrial Policy, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
China and Asia

60. The “People” in the PLA: Recruitment, Training, and Education in China's 80-Year-Old Military

Author:
Justin Liang
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
On September 28, 2007, more than 60 leading experts on China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) convened at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, for a 2-day discussion on “The 'People' in the PLA: Re¬cruitment, Training, and Education in China's 80-Year-Old Military.” The 2007 PLA Conference, conducted by The National Bureau of Asian Research and the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, sought to investigate the 80-year-old military's human infrastructure, identifying trends in PLA recruitment, education and training, demographics, and historical perspectives.
Topic:
International Relations and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States and Asia