Columbia International Affairs Online

CIAO DATE: 02/08

September 2007

• Sunset, sunrise: China and Russia construct a new relationship

  Peter Ferdinand

  This article argues that 2003–4 were decisive years in Russo-Chinese relations. Uncertainties over Russia's commitment to supply China with much needed energy revived deep-seated anxieties about the whole future of their relationship. However, by the autumn of 2004 they had launched plans for strengthening the partnership and widening mutual popular understanding. It also argues that this coincides with new efforts to view their foreign policies through the lens of constructivism, instead of realism. The article then looks at developments in bilateral economic relations and in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, before adumbrating their wider advocacy of multilateralism, linking this to converging relations with India. Finally, it argues that relations with the US will continue to have a significant impact on the direction and closeness of this bilateral relationship. It is still a partnership rather than an alliance. Russia and China may sometimes put a higher priority on their relations with the West rather than on each other. Yet they are also looking at other potential emerging powers and how they can bend that process of emergence to their advantage.

• The Russian economic puzzle: going forwards, backwards or sideways?

  Philip Hanson

  The question addressed in this article is whether the recent strong growth of the Russian economy is sustainable. The main difficulty is assessing the conflicting evidence. Developments since the financial crisis of 1998 are reviewed, including growth performance and macro-economic management. There is an analysis of the nature and extent of Russian economic dependence on exports of oil and gas and the direction towards state control since 2003 is described. The article reviews the interaction of competitive power politics among the political elite with economic policy and assesses factors favouring and factors working against continued rapid growth over the next five years. One conclusion is that informal rules operating in the economy differ across sectors, and Russian economic development is in part robust; but there are powerful influences working towards a slowdown in growth.

• Post-communist Russia: a historic opportunity missed

  Lilia Shevtsova

  This article analyses the nature of the current Russian system and its future trajectory. First, the continuity between the Yeltsin and Putin presidencies is made clear. The nature of the Russian system has, to a great extent, been influenced by Yeltsin, who strengthened demands not for independent institutions but for a new and more powerful authoritarian leadership. Putin has consolidated the system, based on personalized power. But despite signs of economic growth and outward stability there is evidence that the Russian system is unsustainable in the long-term. The current system is based on a modification of the petro-economy that reproduces the merger between power and business with the rentier class. Thus far, however, the model has not been able to solve social conflicts or stop the degradation of ‘human capital’. Nor is it likely to do so in the future.

• Political change in the Arab oil monarchies: from liberalization to enfranchisement

  Anoushiravan Ehteshami And Steven Wright

  The oil monarchies of the Persian Gulf region have typically been portrayed as patriarchal autocracies characterized by traditional tribal rule that have taken on the characteristics of a modern state. The historical debate on these rentier states has centred on how their substantial oil income since the 1970s has allowed them to pacify their citizenry from making demands for enfranchisement. Power was thus firmly able to rest with the elites. Since the end of the Cold War, winds of change flamed the desire for reform and the late 1990s saw significant political changes. The empirical data indicates that this pace has increased, albeit at differential speeds, within the context of the post-9/11 war on terror. Interestingly, this has been the case despite turmoil in Iraq and a shift to the right in Iranian politics. The fundamental drivers of reform in the Arab oil monarchies continue to be the ruling elites themselves, however. The character of the reforms does appear to be mainly liberalizing rather than democratizing, but developments in some oil monarchies suggest that this process can be viewed as an early or intermediate stage of a wider enfranchisement of civil society.

• UN transformation in an era of soft balancing

  Stephen John Stedman

  Between 2003 and 2006 UN Secretary General Kofi Annan pursued the most ambitious overhaul of the United Nations since its inception. This transformation effort aimed to make the UN more effective in addressing non-traditional threats and to persuade the United States to re-engage with the world body. Launched during a time that was unpropitious for achieving far-reaching change, the effort nonetheless produced some surprising agreements. Several factors prevented greater achievement: the episodic attention of the Bush administration and the personal agenda of John Bolton, the US permanent representative to the UN; the failure of the UN Secretariat to pursue a capital based strategy that engaged heads of state and foreign ministers; and the decision by many member states that they would rather have an ineffective United Nations than an effective one that furthered the interests of the Bush administration. Whether future efforts to transform collective security will fall victim to the same fate depends in part on the actions and words of a new American president in 2009.

• The empire writes back (to Michael Cox)

  M J Williams

  Some analysts contend that the future of the US is bleak and that its days as a superpower are numbered. While no one can ignore the very serious challenges that confront America at home and abroad, most analyses are dangerously onesided. First, they suffer from a short-term view that overlooks the strong structural underpinnings of American power. Second, naysayers of American power often play up America's faults while ignoring the very serious challenges rising powers must confront if they are to continue on their upward trajectory. Third, writers on America's decline fail to grasp the changing fundamentals of global politics and the shift within world politics that requires states to move away from zero-sum conceptions of international affairs. This response addresses these issues and the assertion by Professor Michael Cox that the US is in decline—again. It argues that that US will continue to be a pre-eminent global superpower and that this power can be extended if the US makes wise choices to expand global governance in its final years as the sole superpower.

• Review Article - The exorcist? John Gray, apocalyptic religion and the return to realism in world politics

  Nicholas Rengger

  This review article discusses John Gray's new book, Black mass: apocalyptic religion and the death of utopia, against the background of the evolution of Gray's thought and in the context of contemporary world politics. In particular, it examines his account of the role of apocalyptic religion in world politics and his claim that to manage this we need to revert to the insights of political realism in international affairs.

• Review Article - The hospitality of war

  Alex Danchev

  In considering some of the issues raised by the troubling and troublesome thesis of ‘the barbarization of warfare’, this review article reflects briefly on civilization and barbarism on the battlefield, and in the imagination, calling in aid an unholy alliance of Joseph Conrad, Norbert Elias, Basil Liddell Hart among others, and pitting the idea of a ‘civilizing process’ against a barbarizing one. From 2003 to 2006 UN Secretary General Kofi Annan pursued an agenda that went far beyond budget, personnel and management issues, and included proposed changes to existing institutions in peacebuilding, disarmament and non-proliferation, human rights, and counterterrorism. The overhaul was prompted by fear that in the aftermath of its invasion of Iraq, the United States might walk away from the United Nations. By showing that the UN system could be strengthened to address the new threats of the twenty-first century, Kofi Annan hoped that the United States could be convinced to re-engage. Despite polarization and mistrust among member states, the effort created new intergovernmental organs to address key problems, gained universal endorsement for the responsibility to protect, and established new offices in the Secretariat to make it more effective. That more was not accomplished was a result of spotty American engagement and the performance of the US ambassador, as well as hesitation among many member states that would rather have an ineffective UN than an effective one that advanced the goals of American primacy.

• Review Article - Should we allow terrorists to terrify us?

  David Wedgwood Benn

  These two books focus not on terrorism as such, but on its psychological impact on society. Stuart Croft traces the formation of American public opinion on terrorism in the aftermath of 9/11. He argues that public opinion might have followed a different course, but stresses that attitudes to terrorism were formed not just by government or the media, but were linked to other forces such as fundamentalist religion and were even reflected in works of fiction. John Mueller asks which is the greater threat: terrorism or our reaction to it? He cites numerous cases in the past where Americans overreacted to perceived dangers; and points out that terrorism causes far fewer deaths than, for example, road accidents. He ends by suggesting that the best way to disarm terrorists is to persuade Americans to stop worrying about them—while conceding that this advice is unlikely to be followed. Critics of this book may object that it implicitly underrates the terrorist threat. But this in no way invalidates the message of both these books—namely that a genuine, or genuinely perceived, threat can sometimes lead to a disastrous response. Therefore, reports of alleged threats require more careful scrutiny by both politicians and the media.

• Book Reviews

  • International Relations theory
    • Bounding power: republican security theory from the polis to the global village. By Daniel Deudney.
    • The price of peace: just war in the twenty-first century. Edited by Charles Reed and David Ryall.
    • The sovereignty paradox: the norms and politics of international statebuilding. By Dominik Zaum.
    • Human rights and ethics
    • Bitter chocolate: investigating the dark side of the world's most seductive sweet. By Carol Off.
    • International law and organization
    • Global justice: the politics of war crimes trials. By Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu.
    • Human security and the UN: a critical history. By S. Neil MacFarlane and Yuen Foong Khong.
    • From Pablo to Osama: trafficking and terrorist networks, government bureaucracies and competitive adaptation. By Michael Kenney.
  • Foreign policy
    • Between ally and partner: Korea-China relations and the United States. By Jae Ho Chung.
    • Conflict, security and armed forces
    • Peacekeeping and the international system. By Norrie MacQueen.
    • International organizations and peace enforcement: the politics of international legitimacy. By Katharina P. Coleman.
    • The risk society at war: terror, technology and strategy in the twenty-first century. By Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen.
    • Asymmetric warfare: threat and response in the twenty-first century. By Rod Thornton.
    • Political economy, economics and development
    • The bottom billion: why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it. By Paul Collier.
    • Bad Samaritans: rich nations, poor policies and the threat to the developing world. By Ha-Joon Chang.
    • All politics is global: explaining international regulatory regimes. By Daniel W. Drezner.
    • Does foreign aid really work? By Roger C. Riddell.
  • Energy and environment
    • The international politics of genetically modified food: diplomacy, trade and law. Edited by Robert Falkner.
  • History
    • Dark side of the moon: the magnifi cent madness of the American lunar quest. By Gerard DeGroot.
  • Europe
    • The foundations of Europe: European integration ideas in France, Germany and Britain in the 1950s. By Thomas Hörber.
  • Russia and Eurasia
    • Russian foreign policy in the twenty-first century and the shadow of the past. Edited by Robert Legvold.
    • Chechnya: the case for independence. By Tony Wood.
  • Middle East and North Africa
    • Hizbullah: a short history. By Augustus Richard Norton.
    • Failing peace: Gaza and the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. By Sara Roy.
    • The Iraq crisis and world order: structural, institutional and normative challenges. Edited by Ramesh Thakur and Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu.
    • Hamas: unwritten chapters. By Azzam Tamimi.
    • Everyday jihad: the rise of militant Islam among Palestinians in Lebanon. By Bernard Rougier. Translated by Pascale Ghazaleh.
  • Sub-Saharan Africa
    • You must set forth at dawn: a memoir. By Wole Soyinka.
  • Asia and Pacific
    • Fortifying Pakistan: the role of US internal security assistance. By C. Christine Fair and Peter Chalk.
    • Perfect hostage: a life of Aung San Suu Kyi. By Justin Wintle.
    • Rising star: China's new security diplomacy. By Bates Gill.
    • China's security interests in the twenty-first century. By Russell Ong.
    • The minimum means of reprisal: China's search for security in the nuclear age. By Jeffrey Lewis.
  • North America
    • Imperial life in the emerald city. By Rajiv Chandrasekaran.
    • Rumsfeld: an American disaster. By Andrew Cockburn.
    • Seeing the elephant: the US role in global security. By Hans Binnendijk and Richard L. Kugler.
  • Latin America and Caribbean
    • Democracy after Pinochet: politics, parties and elections in Chile. By Alan Angell.

• Other books received

• Index of books reviewed