John Glenn

Neorealism versus strategic culture

The debate between Neorealists and Strategic Culturalists centres on whether it is possible to explain/predict state behaviour without taking into account the particular characteristics of the state, such as its historical experiences, geographical context and cultural constitution. This informative debate is encapsulated in the first section of the book, which considers the theoretical issues raised by both Neorealism and Strategic Culture. These issues are then explored in the second section by assessing their relevance to six country case studies: Australia, Germany, India, Japan, Nigeria and Russia. Contents: Part I: Theoretical Overview: Introduction; Neorealism, John Glenn and Darryl Howlett; Strategic culture, Stuart Poore. Part II: The Case Studies: India, Marcus Kim; Nigeria, David Francis; Japan, Yuri Kase; Australia, Stuart Poore; Russia, John Glenn; Germany, Sameera Dalvi; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

Global Governance and the Democratic Deficit: stifling the voice of the South

Abstract This paper examines the democratic credentials of three key international institutions (the imf, World Bank and the wto) with regard to the majority of developing countries. In so doing the paper argues that we need to understand the democratic deficit of these institutions not only in terms of input legitimacy, but also in terms of output legitimacy and procedural fairness. The level and quality of these three aspects of democracy vary depending upon the international institution in question, but each of these institutions suffers from a democratic deficit in all three spheres. The paper therefore puts forward several reform proposals in order to overcome the problems outlined.

Welfare spending in an era of globalization: the North-South divide

This paper examines the assertion that economic globalization has led to the decline of welfare spending in recent decades. Although it is often argued that the increasing intensity of globalization has led to such a decline in the industrialized states, the paper finds that there has been little, if any, downturn in either levels of state expenditure in general or in levels of welfare spending in particular. However, the experience of the developing states has been rather different. In their case, the last few decades indicate that stagnation or a decline in welfare spending has occurred, particularly during the period of structural adjustment implementation. It is argued that the OECD countries still manage to provide a high level of social welfare to their populations that closely resembles the compensatory state model. In contradistinction, many of the states in the South have struggled to maintain their levels of social expenditure and therefore most resemble Cernys competitive state model. In order to explain these two divergent outcomes, the paper examines the way in which the behaviour of certain key international financial actors (investors, multinational companies, international financial institutions) differs with regard to these two sets of countries.

Epilogue: Nordic Strategic Culture:

Over the past decade there has been a resurgence of interest in the study of strategic culture. The articles in this special issue consequently address important aspects of this resurgence, especially the use of empirical case studies of specific countries and theoretical themes related to how we conceptualize strategic culture itself. Equally, the case studies in this volume examine Nordic strategic culture during changing times, while the theoretical article illuminates a novel means both for understanding the issue of change and how the concept of culture itself could be re-formulated. What is also a noticeable factor in these studies is that the end of the Cold War, although heartily welcomed, has generated new questions that have challenged the traditional strategies of the Nordic countries. These states thus provide an interesting array of conceptual and empirical issues related to strategic culture that are explored in this epilogue.

Uneven and combined development: a fusion of Marxism and structural realism

Although Justin Rosenbergs academic writings have from the very beginning attempted to provide an alternative to neorealism in the form of Trotskys theory of uneven and combined development (U&CD), his attempts at actually replacing it with a general theory of his own have been relatively recent. His initial attempts raised much interest and several responses. In his latest paper, ‘Basic problems in the theory of uneven and combined development, part II: unevenness and political multiplicity’ (Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 23:1, 2010, 165–189), Rosenberg acknowledges that in actual fact, despite his attempts to provide an alternative to neorealism, his own theory presupposed political multiplicity, and therefore in his latest article he has sought to rectify this by providing an account of the emergence of ‘politically fragmented space’ which is explicitly grounded in historical materialism (Pozo-Martin, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 20:4, 2007, 554). As such, it is to be welcomed. However, this article argues that if we are to accept Rosenbergs theory of the emergence of multiplicity then it must provide a better explanation than other competing accounts. By using an alternative explanation of the rise of the international, this article demonstrates that Rosenbergs paper has failed to do this, and instead argues for the existence of a transhistorical anarchic environment arising from social rather than political multiplicity. However, U&CD is then used to explain both the intra- and inter-societal stratifications (the latter in terms of distributional structure) that arise. Associated with these stratifications is the inextricable intertwining of the modes of production and modes of inter-state competition. From this combination emerges the general tendencies of societal development, which then need to be applied to the concrete circumstances of history. In so doing, we need to account for the different analytical registers of genesis, structure, epoch and conjuncture and the unique concatenation of factors that pertain for each of these (Callinicos, International Politics, 6:3, 2005, 362).

Human Security and the Disaffected of Central Asia

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Central Asia has witnessed a precipitous decline in the population’s welfare. This article argues that in order to ensure stability within the region, the human security of the peoples of Central Asia must be improved. To achieve such an outcome, it is argued that a Marshall Plan for contemporary times is required. Such a plan would involve the implementation of two major strategies. First, the policies of the international financial institutions and the trading practices between the Central Asian states and the industrialized countries should return to the principles of ‘embedded liberalism’ that guided the post-Second World War international economy for three decades. Second, the debt of these countries should be substantially reduced and, at the same time, welfare provision by these states should be raised as a result of this debt relief.

Nations and nationalism: Marxist approaches to the subject

It is well known that the universalist predilection of Marx and Engels’ writings led them to predict the eventual dissolution of nations and their replacement by a community of humankind. This essay argues that despite this universalist bias their writings do provide at least partial explanations of both nationalism and the rise of the nation‐state. It is argued that Marx and Engels provide four perspectives on the subject; two on nationalism and two on the nation‐state. The contribution therefore examines the instrumentalist and uneven development accounts of nationalism and the technological and social class explanations of the nation‐state.

Fragile states and the evolution of risk governance: intervention, prevention and extension

Following the plane crashes into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, Ulrich Beck claimed that the West would need to pursue ‘border-transcending new beginnings’ towards a more cosmopolitan world. Rather than any radical transformation along cosmopolitan lines, however, this paper maps a process of incremental reform and policy bricolage, where the post-cold war politics of intervention, and the securitisation of development, have been extended to encompass international terrorism in three overlapping phases. Although these overlapping phases – intervention, prevention and extension – are reflexive moments, they constitute a strengthening of the prevailing rationalities and technologies of risk rather than a radical rupture.

Imperial governance, sovereignty and the management of chronic instability in Africa

An important political consequence of the crisis of capital in the 1970s has been an increasing intensification of informal imperialism within Africa. This paper argues that the advanced capitalist countries again confronted the endemic problem of overcapacity alongside a decline in the rate of profit and that the major neoliberal reforms foisted upon the African continent were part of the spatio-temporal fix that followed. The quotidian management of many African states was not an intended consequence of structural adjustment, but the subsequent perturbations that beset many developing countries after following such policies has led to such a degree of institutional instability that a new form of imperial governance has come into being. Juridical sovereignty has been maintained, but political sovereignty has been severely compromised through the emergence of this neo-imperial governance. Today an array of external actors is embedded in the sinews of these states, setting the general parameters of state policy to such an extent that one can no longer speak of these countries as possessing de facto independence. The rise of these so-called ‘governance states’ and the new emphasis on ‘governance with government’ constitute a new non-territorial, political form of imperialism.

Contemporary Central Asia

The achievement of independence by the Central Asian States as a consequence of the disintegration of the Soviet Union has predictably led to a cultural renaissance within the region and a reassertion of their pre-Soviet cultural roots. Following on in the wake of independence the leaders of these states reaffirmed their common historical ties by renaming the region Central Asia (Tsentralnaya Azia) thereby refusing to recognise the Soviet imposed separation of Kazakhstan from the other four states which were grouped together and known collectively as Middle Asia (Srednyaya Azia).1 Even before the break-up of the Soviet Union a cultural renaissance had begun, with calls for the re-establishment of the primacy of the national language and the re-interpretation of the ‘blank spots’ of Central Asian history so that key figures of the Alash and Jadid movements could be rehabilitated.2 The post-Soviet period has witnessed the attendance of Kazakhs from around the world at a Kazakh Kurultai held in Almaty which resolved to make the return of the Kazakh diaspora a primary objective.3 At the same time efforts are under way to document the family trees of all Kazakhs in order to create a definitive catalogue of their ancestry. In 1996 Uzbekistan celebrated the 660th anniversary of Timurlane, and is building a State Museum of the Timurids which will endeavour to collate and collect all significant artifacts of the period.4 Likewise, in 1995 the Kirghiz celebrated the millenial anniversary of their epic poem, Manas, and in a similar fashion Turkmenistan has promoted the celebration of its reknowned national poet Makhtumkuli.