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The World Today
December 1998
The arrest of General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte in the London Clinic last month has brought to the fore various debates about the juridical, ethical and political legitimacy of inter-state prosecutions. The almost exclusive focus in the international press on the complications surrounding this particular case, however, has meant that little attention has been paid to the story behind the arrest of the former dictator. The episode reveals a lot about the successes and failures of Chile’s attempt to redress past injustices in its transition from authoritarian military rule to democracy.
Dr Alexandra Barahona de Brito was a researcher at the Institute for Strategic and International Studies, Lisbon and at the Institute of European-Latin American Relations, Madrid. Her book Human Rights and Democratisation in Latin America: Uruguay and Chile is published by Oxford University Press, 1997.
The Russian devaluation and default of 17 August set off global economic turmoil, in a shockwave powerful enough for the IMF, in its authoritative World Economic Outlook, to move the ‘epicentre of world financial pressures’ there from Asia. What does the present situation mean for those much closer to this epicentre, the population of Russia? Are the implications as dire as they seemed, judging by the media coverage from Moscow?
Dr Judith Shapirois Chief of the Transition Economies Section, Economic Analysis Division at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. The article represents her personal views.
The economic crash in Russia in August has intensified long-running debates over the uniqueness of the economic transition there and the roles of Western institutions and advisors. One side argues that the Russian economy is no different in essence from any other capitalist one and that the effective implementation of universal market-oriented policies with minimal state intervention will revive it. Critics claim that it is a unique system, that many policies advocated by Western advisors have been mistaken, and that aid programmes have been ideologically biased, tinged with corruption, and ineffective. These criticisms have become increasingly accepted by centrist and leftist elites in Russia.
Dr Christopher Davis is the Lecturer in Russian and East European Political Economy at the University of Oxford. He has studied the Soviet and Russian economies for 25 years.
This month sees the publication of the third Chatham House Forum report. The first, Unsettled Times, in 1996, described the changes in the world which could lead to three very different futures. The second report, Navigating Uncharted Waters, discussed how one of the futures — the Post-Industrial Revolution — might evolve. The latest work, entitled Open Horizons, updates the descriptions and dynamics of the futures in light of the changes in the economic and political environment in the last few years.
Gill Ringland is Group Executive at ICL and author of Scenario Planning - Managing for the future, published in 1997 by John Wiley.
After eighteen months of paralysis in the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, the signing of the Wye Memorandum in Washington on 23 October injects hope among Palestinians and brings expectations of future progress. Such hopes and expectations may however, be short lived.
Khalil Shikaki is an associate professor of political science at Al-Najah University and director of projects at the Centre for Palestine Research and Studies in Nablus.
Mark A. Heller is Principal Research Associate at the Joffee Centre for Strategic Studies, Tel-Aviv University.
Many people believe that the President of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, is part of the Balkan problem rather than part of its solution. But how might he leave the stage and are there lessons to be learned from the departure of authoritarian leaders elsewhere?
Dr Ognjen Pribicevic is a Research Fellow in the Institute of Social Sciences at Belgrade University.
Western governments believe a quick Japanese revival is vital to contain economic ‘contagion’ from East Asia. But their prescriptions risk worsening Japan’s depressive effect on the world economy and deepening its regional isolation. Despite a $195 billion stimulus package announced in November, a more sustainable rescue, recognising new collective consumption challenges, depends on curtailing a long-held faith in corporate citizenship, and trusting extra responsibility to the same state institutions discredited by the present slump.
Alan Shipman is a freelance economic analyst and researcher at the Judge Institute of Management Studies, Cambridge
‘Time for a new Bretton Woods Conference. Time for a new Bretton Woods Conference.’ The calls grow louder by the day. This is not surprising: in each period of turbulence in international markets, one hears calls to do what the United States, the United Kingdom and 42 other nations did in 1944: convene a conference to create a new framework for international financial cooperation. Nor is it surprising that the impulse now is exceptionally strong, the current crisis posing, as President Bill Clinton has aptly put it, ‘the biggest financial challenge facing the world in half a century.’
Barry Eichengreen is Professor of Economics and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley and author of Toward a New International Financial Architecture: A Practical Post-Asia Agenda (Institute for International Economics, forthcoming).
A video producer in Cairo summed up his frustration at the broadcasting monopoly held by the state-run Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) in a deft one-liner. Someone in government, he said, thinks that whoever runs the ERTU runs Egypt.1 Sadly for that producer and others like him, most Arab governments still think the same. State control of terrestrial broadcasting remains the norm in the Arab world. In satellite television however, things are changing.