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1771. Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Urban Dynamics in Chengdu, 1975–2002

Author:
Douglas Webster, Jianming Cai, Binyi Luo, Annemarie Schneider, and Karen C. Seto
Publication Date:
10-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan, has undergone rapid transformation during China's post-reform period between 1978 and 2003. One of the leading cities in southwest China, Chengdu is second only to Chongqing in population. Chengdu anchors one end of the Chongqing-Chengdu urban corridor, the fourth most populous urban cluster in China. Although the upgrading of Chongqing Municipality to the equivalent of provincial status in 1997 has increased the city's profile and potential as an administrative, land transportation, and manufacturing center, it is expected that Chengdu's regional and strategic importance as a service and high-tech center will increase in the future. With increased economic specialization among Chinese cities, it is expected that Chengdu and Chongqing cities will increasingly complement each other in terms of function, both enhancing their developmental prospects as a result. Further, the development of western China is a major objective of the Tenth Five Year Plan. The “Go West” policy was introduced in 1999.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
China, Asia, Chongqing, and Chengdu

1772. Sociological Dimensions of China's Economic Transition: Organization, Stratification, and Social Mobility

Author:
Andrew G. Walder
Publication Date:
04-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
Despite skepticism about official economic statistics, there is little doubt that China since 1978 has undergone an economic transformation of historic proportions. This outcome stands in stark opposition to arguments that were once widely accepted in several scholarly communities, and which are still highly influential even today. In the early 1980s there was wide agreement that “partial” reform, under a single party dictatorship that sought indefinitely to preserve public ownership, was a recipe for failure. China specialists, students of comparative economic systems, and economists who advised governments and international agencies about postcommunist restructuring in Eurasia were initially in broad agreement on this point.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
China and Asia

1773. Media Convergence, Diversity, and Democracy

Author:
Neil Shister
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
The complexity of democracy is both its defect and its virtue. As an idealized conception, democracy promotes equitable social order through the counter play of interests while the rule of law protects individual citizens from the arbitrariness of the state. In practice, matters are considerably more ambiguous. Contradictions exist between theory and action; the power and privileges of some people invariably make them "more equal" than hers—social equity being a relative term. Even so, belief that democracy renders "the greatest good for the greatest number" constitutes the orthodox faith of contemporary civil religion. "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all wise," noted Winston Churchill in his oft-quoted observation. "Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time."
Topic:
Politics and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

1774. The Prospects for Political Reform in China: Religious and Political Expression

Author:
Richard Madsen
Publication Date:
01-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
Religion is flourishing in China today. After being severely restricted in the first decade and a half of the Maoist era, virtually all forms of public religious practice were suppressed during the Cultural Revolution and replaced by a quasi-religious cult of Mao, complete with sacred texts (the Little Red Book), rituals, and claims of miracles. But the Mao cult imploded amid the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. After the death of Mao and the overthrow of his close associates, the Deng Xiaoping regime relaxed restrictions on religious practice; and the freedoms of an expanding market economy made the remaining restrictions easy to subvert. In this environment, hundreds of religious flowers began to bloom, some of them replications of pre-revolutionary religious forms, many others new mutations of the old. According to the government's own—almost certainly underestimated—figures, there are over 100 million religious believers in China today. The real number is probably several times as large.
Topic:
Politics and Religion
Political Geography:
China, Israel, East Asia, and Asia

1775. Russian Foreign Policy Think Tanks in 2002

Author:
Katri Pynnöniemi
Publication Date:
01-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
This report provides a general picture of research institutes working in the areas of foreign and security policy in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In the following, I will briefly discuss changes in research financing and the consequent reorganisation of the research community. After this, major changes in the study of international relations in Russia are also discussed. A list of the most important research institutes in Moscow and St. Petersburg is appended to the report. In addition, information is provided on the forums and publications of most importance in the foreign-policy debate.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Non-Governmental Organization, and Politics
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, and Moscow

1776. The emperor has some clothes on: fairy tales, scary tales and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Author:
Toby Archer
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The debate on the invasion of Iraq revolved around so-called “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (WMD). Thousands of lives were lost, hundreds of billions of dollars spent, alliances fractured, and international relations thrown into turmoil. The debates raged over whether WMD were there or not; whether the UN inspectors should have more time to find them or not; whether Iraq having or seeking WMD justified invasion or not, amongst other issues. There were a myriad of differing positions on the value of the war, but the idea that WMD are a distinct and special class of weapons has remained essentially uncontested.
Topic:
Politics, United Nations, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

1777. Strategic Reactions to American Preeminence: Great Power Politics in the Age of Unipolarity

Author:
John G. Ikenberry
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
American global power – military, economic, technological, cultural, and political – is one of the great realities of our age. Never before has one country been so powerful and unrivaled. The United States began the 1990s as the world's only superpower and its advantages continued to grow through the decade. After the Cold War, the United States reduced its military spending at a slower rate than other countries and its economy grew at a faster pace. The globalization of the world economy has reinforced American economic and political dominance. No ideological challengers are in site. More recently, in response to terrorist attacks, the United States has embarked on a massive military buildup. In the recent National Security Strategy, the Bush administration has articulated an ambitious and provocative global military role for the United States in confronting new-age threats. Overall, American power advantages are multidimensional, unprecedented, and unlikely to disappear any time soon. The world has taken notice of these developments. Indeed, the post-Cold War rise of American power -- what might be called the rise of American "unipolarity" -- has unsettled world politics. Governments everywhere are worried about the uncertainties and insecurities that appear to flow from such extreme and unprecedented disparities of power. The shifting global security environment – triggered by the terrorist attacks of September 11th –also has conspired to upset old relationships and expectations. The American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have put American power on display and raised far-reaching questions about the use of force, alliances, weapons of mass destruction, sovereignty and interventionism. The world is in the midst of a great geopolitical adjustment process. Governments are trying to figure out how an American-centered unipolar order will operate. How will the United States use its power? Will a unipolar world be built around rules and institutions or the unilateral exercise of American power? This global worry about how a unipolar world will operate – in which the most basic questions about the character of world politics are at stake, namely, who benefits and who commands – is the not-so-hidden subtext of all the recent controversies in America's relations with the rest of the world. The question posed in this report is: how are the major countries around the world responding to American global preeminence? Overall, strategies and policies are mostly still in flux around the world. Responses up to now have been mostly ad hoc. Governments are learning, adapting, negotiating, and reacting – thus it is not possible to identify fixed "strategies of response." This report seeks to help us understand these evolving responses in two ways: first, it will provide conceptual tools to identify and track strategic responses by major states to American preeminence, and second, it will offer some preliminary characterizations of the patterns of response, particularly by Western Europe, Russia, and China. This report might be seen as a sort of "field guide" to global reactions rather than a definitive theoretical and empirical statement on the subject. I begin by offering a summary of the findings. After this, I look at the rise of American unipolar power and the variety of ways that American power is "experienced" around the world. In the next section, I survey the deeper sources and multifaceted character of American unipolar power. Next I explore the limits of the basic strategies of response to concentrated power – balancing, bandwagoning and binding. In the next section, I explore some of the emerging strategies that are appearing among the major countries. Finally, in the conclusion I return to the issue of unipolar power and rule-based order.
Topic:
International Relations, Politics, and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
United States and America

1778. Between a Rock and a Hard Place: How the US-EU Battle over Article 98 Played Out in Croatia and Macedonia

Author:
Kristina Balalovska and Mieczyslaw P. Boduszynski
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
In the first half of 2003, postcommunist East European countries became pawns in two disputes between the European Union (EU) and the United States (US). The first, broadly covered by the Western media, was the clash over the US-led invasion of Iraq. The second was over the jurisdiction of the newly established International Criminal Court (ICC). Although the latter skirmish was less noticed in the wider world, it was in many ways the more significant of the two. In both cases, the small states of East and Central Europe were forced to choose between the conflicting demands of the EU and US. Unlike the battle over the Iraq war, EU member states were united on the point of not granting the US immunity in the ICC. Moreover, it was impossible to walk a tightrope between Europe and the US in the ICC case because it required decisive action, whereas on the question of whether or not to invade Iraqi, some postcommunist countries were able to lend tacit support to both sides. Finally, a lot more was at stake in the ICC issue, since both the US and the EU threatened defecting countries with concrete sanctions.
Topic:
Government, International Organization, Politics, War, and Sanctions
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Europe, and Macedonia

1779. From Moi to Kibaki: An Assessment of the Kenyan Transition

Author:
Johnnie Carson
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
An Introduction from Howard Wolpe: As the new Director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center's Africa Program, I am pleased to present the first of a series of “occasional papers” of interest to those concerned with Africa, and with American policy toward Africa. “From Moi to Kibaki: An Assessment of the Kenyan Transition” provides a remarkably clear and incisive analysis by one of the U.S. Foreign Service's most distinguished Africa specialists.We felt that Ambassador Johnnie Carson's public lecture deserved a wider audience, and was an ideal vehicle for the first of our series of occasional papers.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
Africa

1780. Intelligence Practice and Democratic Oversight - a Practitioner's View

Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF)
Abstract:
Democracy is founded on every citizen's right to take part in the management of public affairs. This requires the existence of representative institutions at all levels and, as a cornerstone, a parliament in which all components of society are represented and which has the requisite powers and means to express the will of the people by legislating and overseeing government action.
Topic:
Democratization, Economics, Government, and Politics