Domestic Political Development Research Articles

China's rise: challenges and opportunities

China has emerged as an economic powerhouse (projected to have the largest economy in the world in a little over a decade) and is taking an ever-increasing role on the world stage. China's Rise: Challenges and Opportunities will help the United States and the rest of the world better comprehend the facts and dynamics underpinning China's rise--an understanding that becomes more and more important with each passing day. Additionally, the authors suggest actions both China and the United States can take that will not only maximize the opportunities for China's constructive integration into the international community but also help form a domestic consensus that will provide a stable foundation for such policies. Filled with facts for policymakers, this much anticipated book's narrative-driven, accessible style will appeal to the general reader. This book is unique in that it analyzes the authoritative data on China's economy, foreign and domestic policy, and national security. * The expert judgments in this book paint a picture of a China confronting domestic challenges that are in many ways side effects of its economic successes, while simultaneously trying to take advantage of the foreign policy benefits of those same successes. China's Rise: Challenges and Opportunities from The China Balance Sheet Project, a joint, multiyear project of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Peterson Institute, discusses China's military modernization, China's increasing soft power influence in Asia and around the world, China's policy toward Taiwan, domestic political development, Beijing's political relations with China's provincial and municipal authorities, corruption and social unrest, rebalancing China's economic growth, the exchange rate controversy, energy and the environment, industrial policy, trade disputes, and investment issues.

Panama lost?: U.S. hegemony, democracy, and the Canal

Sanchez tells the story of how Panama, though one of the smallest Latin American countries, played the largest symbolic role in America's ascent to world power status, particularly during the almost century-long U.S. occupation of the Canal Zone from 1903 until December 31, 1999. The United States would undoubtedly have become a great power without the Isthmus of Panama, but more than any other country in the hemisphere, Panama has served as a critical outpost for U.S. power and as an instrument for U.S. military and economic might. Sanchez argues that the policies of the United States toward Panama - motivated principally by the goal of preserving its hegemony in Latin America - produced a formidable barrier to developing democratic politics in Panama. Examining key events and personalities in Panama's political history from the 1850s to the present, this comprehensive survey analyzes U.S.-Panamanian relations through the 1989 removal of General Manuel Noriega by U.S. armed forces and the return of all canal-related lands to the Panamanian government. This book is foremost a study of power relationships, demonstrating how domestic political development cannot be understood fully without taking power at the international level into consideration. Combining theory, case study, and policy relevance, this volume makes significant contributions to both comparative politics and international relations theory, showing that domestic and international politics are two sides of one coin.

The EU's policy towards China and the arms embargo

Since the rise of the “Middle Kingdom” in recent years most European leaders consider this major Asian power as the most important opportunity and challenge in the years to come, not only economically and commercially but also politically and strategically. The EU's China policy is promising, and EU–China ties have been smooth and comprehensive despite bilateral trade and human rights disputes. Concerning Cross Strait relations the domestic political development in Taiwan has a strong impact on the peace and stability in the region because Beijing has never renounced the use of force against the island in case of its formal independence. Given its large bilateral trade deficit, the EU's potential arms exports to China remain significant to the European countries. But this prospect aroused great concern from the US, Russia and Japan. Nonetheless, the Anti-Secession Law from Beijing against Taiwan in mid March 2005 and the likely change of government in the German elections in autumn 2005 on top of the failures of the constitutional referenda in France and the Netherlands in June 2005 will affect the EU decision on the embargo.

The Domestic General Development (Dgd) Toolbox Indices

This research paper presents a new method of analysis to study the evolution of the development process of any country from a General perspective. This new method of analysis is called the Domestic General Development Toolbox Indices (DGD-Toolbox Indices). However, its application is not limited to the study of a special group of countries. It is not constrained by issues about the region or countries that are interested in apply DGD-Toolbox Indices. There are four basic phases in the implementation of DGD-Toolbox Indices. The first phase is the design of the multi-input database table. The second phase is the measurement of each Domestic General Development Index (Xi), which included the Domestic Political Development Index (X1), Domestic Social Development Index (X2), Domestic Economic Development Index (X3) and Domestic Technological Development Index (X4). The third phase is the measurement of the Domestic General Development Area of Coverage (DGD-Area). The last phase is the measurement of Domestic General Development Stage Index (DGD-Stage Index). These indices can be classified in two groups there are head-Index (or final Index) and sub-indices (different indices are used to measure the head-Index.)

Taiwan's Identity Challenge

Taiwan's geo-strategic position and its domestic political development have been in conflict throughout its modern, post-Chinese civil war history. Taiwan's geo-strategic position, defined by its oppositional relationship to China, has ensured that Taiwan and the cross-strait relations have remained a global flash point for close to 60 years. For the first 40 years, Taiwan's goal to reclaim China has underpinned the authoritarian Kuomintang party-state and its domestic program of enforced Sinification. Since the end of the Cold War, Taiwan's democratization has fundamentally changed Taiwan's political identity and unleashed an irreversible nation-building process. Taiwan's nation-building is moving the country away from reunification with a rising China. Unfortunately, this decision compromises its already vulnerable geo-strategic position and external support.

Reactionary Globalization: Local, Regional and Global Implications of the New “Japan Problem”

If the old “Japan problem” was largely economic, the new one closely links economics with power politics. The nature of this emerging geopolitics, however, will depend largely on the course of Japan's domestic political development. Here there is cause for hope as well as alarm. The good news is that, without its economic miracle, Japan's Liberal Democratic Party machine finds itself in danger of losing its purchase on legitimacy. The bad news is that Koizumi's new LDP may find salvation in globalization. In that case it could forfeit, along with the current domestic reform dynamic, any chance of a progressive IR role.

Economic Scenarios

Since the early 1990s, economic relations between mainland China and Taiwan have developed rapidly. Total accumulated investment in mainland China by Taiwanese reached $25 billion by the end of August 2000, and trade across the Strait amounted to $30 billion in 1999. The trend toward economic integration across the Strait and its effects on the future of Taiwan has attracted the attention of many scholars and policy makers. The first section of this paper provides a brief description of the trend toward economic integration and the driving forces behind this trend. The second section analyses the asymmetric effects of this trend on the policymaking processes in Taiwan and China. On the one hand, it has put great pressure on Taiwan's policy makers; on the other hand, neither Taiwan investors nor their mainland partners will have such an influence on the policymaking process in the mainland. Such an asymmetric nature of relations will not change until mainland China undergoes a process of democratisation. Based on an analysis of the asymmetric effects of the economic integration, the third section of this paper argues that the role of economic integration in promoting peaceful unification will be limited. The author then discusses some decisive factors that affect the prospects for relations across the Strait and their interaction with economic integration, including Sino‐US relations and China's domestic political and economic development.

THEORIES OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT REORGANIZATION: AN EMPIRICAL EVALUATION

Local government reorganization has been widespread throughout Europe in the postwar era. Three broad types of theory have set out to explain this phenomenon in a cross‐national context; a welfare state perspective, a functional revolution perspective and a political perspective. The validity of these theories is assessed in the specific context of Belgium. The evidence suggests that none of the prevailing theories can make much headway in explaining the timing and form of reorganization. More promising explanations are to be found through examining broader values, and beliefs and more specific political constellations. The claim or implication that the major local government reorganizations of the postwar era were, in the different countries that experienced it, independent events produced by a common pattern of domestic social, economic or political development has the trappings of scientific theory without its true substance – the ability to explain.

Classes, Sectors, and Foreign Debt in Latin America

Since 1965 international financial conditions have become a major factor in economics and politics within the less developed countries (LDCs). The impact of international finance on the LDCs provides an excellent opportunity to analyze the relationship between external events and LDC domestic economic and political development. There was in fact great variation in the response of LDC debtors to similar international financial circumstances. Some liberalized their trade and investment policies as they borrowed; others tightened them. Some used borrowed funds productively; others experienced enormous capital flight. The 1982-1984 financial crisis saw the rise of new democratic regimes in some countries and the consolidation of authoritarianism in others.