Organizations such as ASEAN and EU were formed to promote economic growth, social progress and cultural development among their members. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the ...transformation which the newest members of ASEAN (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Laos) and the newest members of EU (ten new Members from Baltic, Central and Eastern Balkan regions) have experienced during the last two decades (1990-2010). It throws light on the different social, economic and political causes which support these historical changes.Emerging markets such as the Mekong region and Central Europe where new forms of capitalism are flourishing have been captured in this book. Their policies in privatization, regionalization, industrial growth that support a new and deregulated form of capitalism have been mentioned in detail. The author stresses upon the capacity and strengths of these two hitherto "weak states" to face worldwide and regional challenges.
The limits of partnership Stent, Angela; Stent, Angela
2014., 20140119, 2014-01-01, 2015-03-29
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The Limits of Partnershipoffers a riveting narrative on U.S.-Russian relations since the Soviet collapse and on the challenges ahead. It reflects the unique perspective of an insider who is also ...recognized as a leading expert on this troubled relationship. American presidents have repeatedly attempted to forge a strong and productive partnership only to be held hostage to the deep mistrust born of the Cold War. For the United States, Russia remains a priority because of its nuclear weapons arsenal, its strategic location bordering Europe and Asia, and its ability to support--or thwart--American interests. Why has it been so difficult to move the relationship forward? What are the prospects for doing so in the future? Is the effort doomed to fail again and again?
Angela Stent served as an adviser on Russia under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and maintains close ties with key policymakers in both countries. Here, she argues that the same contentious issues--terrorism, missile defense, Iran, nuclear proliferation, Afghanistan, the former Soviet space, the greater Middle East--have been in every president's inbox, Democrat and Republican alike, since the collapse of the USSR. Stent vividly describes how Clinton and Bush sought inroads with Russia and staked much on their personal ties to Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin--only to leave office with relations at a low point--and how Barack Obama managed to restore ties only to see them undermined by a Putin regime resentful of American dominance and determined to restore Russia's great power status.
The Limits of Partnershipcalls for a fundamental reassessment of the principles and practices that drive U.S.-Russian relations, and offers a path forward to meet the urgent challenges facing both countries.
Thinking through Transition is the first concentrated effort to explore the most recent chapter of East Central European past from the perspective of intellectual history. Post-socialism can be ...understood as a period of scarcity and preponderance of ideas, the dramatic eclipsing of the dissident legacy (as well as the older political traditions), and the rise of technocratic and post-political governance. This book, grounded in empirical research sensitive to local contexts, proposes instead a history of adaptations, entanglements, and unintended consequences. In order to enable and invite comparison, the volume is structured around major domains of political thought, some of them generic (liberalism, conservatism, the Left), others (populism and politics of history) deemed typical for post-socialism. However, as shown by the authors, the generic often turns out to be heavily dependent on its immediate setting, and the typical resonates with processes that are anything but vernacular.
This book traces the shifting meanings of security and geopolitics in Central European states that acceded into the EU or NATO in 2004. The author examines assumptions that shaped these debates and ...influenced policy-making, combining fresh theoretical approaches from international relations and political geography with rich empirical material from Central Europe. This book provides the first in-depth analysis of security discourse in the region.
"We want neither gods nor emperors", went the words from the Chinese version of The Internationale. Students sang the old socialist song as they gathered in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in the Spring ...of 1989. Craig Calhoun, a sociologist who witnessed the monumental event, offers a vivid, carefully crafted analysis of the student movement, its complex leadership, its eventual suppression, and its continuing legacy.
The Soviet Union's dramatic collapse in 1989 was a pivotal moment in the complex history of Central and Eastern Europe, and Ivan Berend here offers a magisterial new account of the dramatic ...transformation that culminated in ten former Soviet Bloc countries joining the European Union. Taking the OPEC oil crisis of 1973 as his starting point, he charts the gradual unravelling of state socialism in Central and Eastern Europe, its ultimate collapse in the revolutions of 1989, and the economic restructuring and lasting changes in income, employment, welfare, education and social structure which followed. He pays particular attention to the crucial role of the European Union as well as the social and economic hurdles that continue to face former Eastern-bloc nations as they try to catch up with their Western neighbours. This will be essential reading for scholars and students of European and economic history, European politics and economics.
The cold war and after Trachtenberg, Marc
2012., 20120312, 2012, 2012-03-12, 20120101, Letnik:
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What makes for war or for a stable international system? Are there general principles that should govern foreign policy? InThe Cold War and After, Marc Trachtenberg, a leading historian of ...international relations, explores how historical work can throw light on these questions. The essays in this book deal with specific problems--with such matters as nuclear strategy and U.S.-European relations. But Trachtenberg's main goal is to show how in practice a certain type of scholarly work can be done. He demonstrates how, in studying international politics, the conceptual and empirical sides of the analysis can be made to connect with each other, and how historical, theoretical, and even policy issues can be tied together in an intellectually respectable way.
These essays address a wide variety of topics, from theoretical and policy issues, such as the question of preventive war and the problem of international order, to more historical subjects--for example, American policy on Eastern Europe in 1945 and Franco-American relations during the Nixon-Pompidou period. But in each case the aim is to show how a theoretical perspective can be brought to bear on the analysis of historical issues, and how historical analysis can shed light on basic conceptual problems.
In the contemporary context this book can be considered as an untimely but salient defense of market capitalism and liberal democracy. Celebrating transition today is tantamount to upholding the ...decidedly superior values and achievements of a market system over a non-market one and that of a democratic system over a non-democratic one. It is definitely not to deny the failures, shortcomings or imperfections of market economy and democracy. Neither do I take the survival of market capitalism and liberal democracy for granted. On the contrary, by highlighting the glorious and painful process of transition and making an attempt to understand its economics and culture, I wish to contribute to the once again badly needed theoretical (academic) and practical (political) defense of Western civilization.
Capitalism from Outside? Zentai, Violetta; Kovács, János Mátyás
2012, 20120620, 2012., 2012-06-10
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Does capitalism emerging in Eastern Europe need as solid ethnic or spiritual foundations as some other “Great Transformations” in the past? Apparently, one can become an actor of the new capitalist ...game without belonging to the German, Jewish, or, to take a timely example, Chinese minority. Nor does one have to go to a Protestant church every Sunday, repeat Confucian truisms when falling asleep, or study Adam Smith’s teachings on the virtues of the market in a business course. He/she may just follow certain quasi-capitalist routines acquired during communism and import capitalist culture (more exactly, various capitalist cultures) in the form of down-to-earth cultural practices embedded in freshly borrowed economic and political institutions. Does capitalism come from outside? Why do then so many analysts talk about hybridization? This volume offers empirical insights into the current cultural history of the Eastern European economies in three fields: entrepreneurship, state governance and economic science. The chapters are based on large case studies prepared in the framework of an eight-country research project (funded by the European Commission, and directed jointly by the Center for Public Policy at the Central European University and the Institute for Human Sciences) on East-West cultural encounters in the ex-communist economies.
The disappearance and formation of states and nations after the end of the Cold War have proved puzzling to both theorists and policymakers. Lars-Erik Cederman argues that this lack of conceptual ...preparation stems from two tendencies in conventional theorizing. First, the dominant focus on cohesive nation-states as the only actors of world politics obscures crucial differences between the state and the nation. Second, traditional theory usually treats these units as fixed. Cederman offers a fresh way of analyzing world politics: complex adaptive systems modeling. He provides a new series of models--not ones that rely on rational-choice, but rather computerized thought-experiments--that separate the state from the nation and incorporate these as emergent rather than preconceived actors. This theory of the emergent actor shifts attention away from the exclusively behavioral focus of conventional international relations theory toward a truly dynamic perspective that treats the actors of world politics as dependent rather than independent variables. Cederman illustrates that while structural realist predictions about unit- level invariance hold up under certain circumstances, they are heavily dependent on fierce power competition, which can result in unipolarity instead of the balance of power. He provides a thorough examination of the processes of nationalist mobilization and coordination in multi-ethnic states. Cederman states that such states' efforts to instill loyalty in their ethnically diverse populations may backfire, and that, moreover, if the revolutionary movement is culturally split, its identity becomes more inclusive as the power gap in the imperial center's favor increases.
