People's Assembly Research Articles

Economic Reform And Structural Change In Laos

The year 1988 marked a watershed in the tempo of reform in the Lao People's Democratic Republik (LPDR). Mid-way through the second five-year development plan (1986-90) of the LPDR, the government of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP) introduced bold initiatives in the economy, international relations, and domestic politics. These reforms elaborate upon the approach initiated at the fourth party congress of 1986, when a decisive change was made to the centralized, bureaucratic approach to economic development planning. In its place are the beginnings of a new economic management system characterized by state enterprise autonomy and market incentives.1 Prior to 1986, ideological orthodoxy was reflected not only in a commitment to central planning but also in political isolation from the non-socialist world. Both of these tenets appear to have been abandoned. It is no coincidence that the reform process in Laos takes place alongside similar developments in Vietnam and the Soviet Union, with which Laos has close ties. Laos has experienced low productivity, weak industry growth and a lack of export diversification. This has been accentuated by a fall in the level of economic growth, which in retrospect makes the second five-year plan targets appear over-ambitious. The policy initiatives in 1988 are an acknowledgement of this poor economic performance and the role of policies based on the orthodox approach in this failure. The pace of political change in 1988 was set by two events: the February Plenary Session of the Supreme People's Assembly (SPA); and the extraordinary session of the SPA in April which promulgated bold new legislation. Both of these events will be discussed later.

North Korea in 1986: Strengthening the Soviet Connection

While the People's Republic of China carted away the largest number of gold medals from South Korea during the tenth Asian Games and the Seoul stadium displayed an amiable Chinese panda bear promising reunion in 1990 in Beijing, North Korea not only boycotted the games but also staunchly denounced the competition in Seoul. North Korea seemed to be frustrated over its inability to influence the rapid change that is taking place in Sino-South Korean relations. Kim II Sung's creed of self-reliance-the idea of chuch'e-notwithstanding, North Korea significantly strengthened its ties with the Soviet Union in 1986. In view of the fact that the content of improved Soviet-North Korean relations seemed to be primarily economic and to a lesser degree military, North Korea's frustration seems to come from its inability to make rapid progress in economic development and the painful realization that it needs to acquire advanced technology from abroad. The end of 1986 marked the second year that North Korea had not launched a national economic plan. It also suffered a setback in the eighth summit conference of the nonaligned movement in Harare, Zimbabwe, and there was little progress in inter-Korean relations in 1986. In November, South Korea spread a rumor that Kim I1 Sung had been assassinated and that a military coup had occurred in North Korea. On the domestic front, North Korea celebrated the completion of the Namp'o Barrage and conducted a national election in late November to convene the Eighth Supreme People's Assembly in December.

Burma´s Third Four‑Year Plan: Half‑way to Socialism and Industrialization?

current moderate flurry of interest in Burma on the part of the West is a product of both greater Burmese involvement in foreign eco nomic relations and the growing international understanding of advances in the Burmese economy over the past half decade. Although this titillation is still muted compared with the interest in many other nations of the region, it varies markedly from the relative neglect of that country since the military coup of 2 March 1962. This isolation was fostered by the military Revolutionary Council, which engaged in a massive programme of nationalization in the 1960s to speed Burma along The Burmese Way to Socialism.1 Two important and interrelated events, that were largely ignored in the West, brought about structural changes in both the Burmese political and economic spheres. first was the Congress of the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) in June-July 1971, which was the culmination of the transformation of the party from a cadre to a mass organization. second was the promulgation of the Con stitution of 1974. This document transformed the administrative structure of the state, if not the underlying traditional nature of Burmese society. It reformulated administrative control, establishing a Pyithu Hluttaw (People's Assembly) in which sovereignty titularly resides, designated administrative means by which a successor to Ne Win as Head of State could be chosen, declared Burma to be a unitary state in which the minorities would effectively play a less prominent role than in the civilian period, and enfeoffed the BSPP as the single legal political entity that was to lead the nation.2 It did all this while still ensuring military control through the party process. In economic terms, however, the critical event was not the Con stitution, but the Party Congress. It ratified important economic policies that were designed to rescue the stagnant, centralized Burmese economy from the rigidity of Marxist orthodoxy, as tempered with Buddhism, if not from Marxist rhetoric.3 It did this through the 1

Burma´s Foreign Relations since the Third Indochina Conflict

The principles and practices of foreign policy that allowed Burma to remain outside of the first two Indochina conflicts has also made it possible for the country to avoid embroilment in the third. However, to the degree that the third conflict has involved the extension of the Sino-Soviet dispute directly into mainland Southeast Asia, Burma has had to take account of new circumstances. Burma's policy-makers have long held that great power rivalry should be excluded from South and Southeast Asia because such rivalry can only be detrimental to regional stability and peace. For Burma, the linking during the 1970s of the Sino-Indian conflict on its west to the Sino-Soviet dispute posed problems similar to those resulting from the current Indochina problem on its east, and thus the present conflict is seen as an intensification of a familiar but seemingly intractable policy dilemma. Burma's rare public statements on world affairs between 1979 and 1982 indicated that in Rangoon's view, conflict in South and Southeast Asia had reached a new and more intense level because of further extra-regional linking of neighbouring states' bilateral conflicts to superpower rivalries. But while the Vietnamese alliance with the Soviet Union after 1978 has not, in the view of Burma, been beneficial to peace in the region, the improvement of relations to the level of an incipient informal alliance between China and the United States, coupled with their support for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), has somewhat lessened Burma's security problems. These new circumstances have not, however, led to any radical rethinking of Burma's foreign policy possibilities. Because Burma lies at the divide between South Asia, Southeast Asia and China, and the government has chosen to pursue a socialist, mainly self-reliant, development strategy, Burma's foreign policy requirements have been different from those of the communist and capitalist states of Southeast Asia. Non-alignment and political, military and economic independence are principles the government has attempted to follow to their logical conclusions, and the country is free of military and political commitments to intraand extra-regional powers. In practice, Burma's foreign policy is based upon a search for friendly bilateral relations with all countries and reliance upon the United Nations for the setdement of general global issues. As the Council of Ministers reponed to the Pyithu Hluttaw (People's Assembly) in March 1982,

Liberation ideology and national development strategy in Mozambique

At the beginning of 1980 Mozambique's President Samora Machel declared that the coming decade would be ‘the decade of Mozambique's victory over under‐development’. By 1990 the country would be well on its way to advanced socialism. Speaking on the same issue before the People's Assembly in December 1979 Samora Machel had said: To win this war we must fully and consciously assume the values that we gained during the national liberation struggle’. These two statements set the tone for this article. Looking ahead to the aims of national development strategy in the 1980s Machel refers the people of Mozambique back to the values gained during the national liberation struggle before 1974. The focus of this article is precisely on the process of transforming liberation ideology into national development strategy underway in Mozambique since 1975. Objective and subjective factors, the colonial legacy and liberation ideology, are of relevance in analysing the process. The article begins by briefly outlining the colonial legacy as the point of departure and the material foundation of Mozambique's development after independence. It then turns to the ‘values gained’ during the armed liberation struggle from 1964 to 1974, and discuss theoretical issues which were raised during that period and which related to the perspective of Mozambique's post‐independence development. Finally, it looks at the new phase of national development after 1975. Dealing with the key areas of political mobilisation and organisation, the state sector and rural development, the focus here is on the political‐administrative and socio‐economic problems of transforming the values gained, the experiences made, the political line developed during the preceding 10 years into a national development strategy. The article is based on a dialectical relationship, whereby the colonial legacy, liberation ideology and post‐independence development strategy can be looked upon as thesis, antithesis and synthesis. This framework of analysis is considered to be helpful in understanding the complex and contradictory process of development which Mozambique has been undergoing since independence.

Professional Syndicates in Egyptian Politics, 1952–1970

In recent years the political roles of the People's Assembly, the Arab Socialist Union, town and village councils, labor unions, and other Egyptian governmental structures have been analyzed. Interestingly enough, most observers would probably agree that the Egyptian parliament is for the most part a rubber stamp; that Egypt is a partyless and not a one-party state; that it lacks a viable system of local government as distinct from the prevailing system of provincial administration; and that labor unions are official but not truly behavioral entities. In short, the Egyptian policy is dissected with conceptual tools borrowed from traditional institutional analysis, while it generally is recognized that Egyptian politics are not institutionalized, or, to use Moore's term, are ‘unincorporated’. This contradiction merits comment.

The Angry Roar of the Egyptian People

The Egyptian People's Assembly on March 15 approved a bill, officially abrogating the Egyptian-Soviet "treaty of friendship and cooperation" which was signed in May 1971 to be valid for fifteen years. This resolute decision of great significance dem -onstrates the Egyptian people's fervent aspirations and firm determination to safeguard their national independence, state sovereignty, and dignity, and shows that the Egyptian people are a heroic people with strong backbone who cannot be intimidated or subdued by any force. The decision has greatly heightened the morale of the Egyptian people and other Arab people as well as the people of the Third World as a whole and has greatly deflated the arrogance of the Soviet social-imperialists. It is acclaimed by justice-upholding people throughout the world. The Chinese people resolutely support the Egyptian people's just struggle and firmly believe that their struggle is bound to win new victories continually.

The Growth of the Rubber Economy of Southern Thailand

In 1934 the Siamese Council of Ministers agreed to participate in an international rubber control scheme without understanding either the dynamics of the expansion process or the extensiveness of the planting of small stands of rubber trees in peninsular Siam. The area estimates and export statistics available in Bangkok caused the government to believe that the quota offered by the International Rubber Regulation Committee was generous, and they consequently signed agreements with the producers' organizations and cooperating countries subject only to the ratification of the People's Assembly. The State Councilors were so confident of perfunctory approval of what appeared to be a technical issue that they delayed submitting the proposal until three months after the effective date of the agreement. But when the debate opened the representatives from the South sharply challenged the government estimates for failing to account for the areas of immature trees or to recognize that low prices had depressed production below current capacity. Neither Premier Bahol's plea that negotiations with countries “which are already civilised require something substantial in the way of evidence, such as statistics,” nor the need to honor the government's commitment dissuaded them.1 A minor political crisis was precipitated as the Assembly rejected the proposal and Siam's first constitutional government resigned.

An Estimate of North Korea's National Income

I orth Korea is one of the most secretive countries, even by communist standards. Consequently, most of her published economic data, which are scant to begin with and have become progressively scarcer since 1964, are in rates and percentages with no references to absolute figures. Notable exceptions to these practices have been the annual revenue and expenditure of budget and state investment for capital construction, which are disclosed in North Korean wons. Of course, there had been no way of estimating the ratio of budget or fixed investment to gross output value of social production (GVSP) or to national income. A ray of hope was thrown on the possibility of estimating national accounts in absolute levels by a disclosure of North Korean Premier Kim Il-sung in December 1967. In a speech at the Supreme People's Assembly he claimed that national income per capita of North Korea in 1966 was 500 wons-1.2 times the per capita national income of 1962.' The purpose of this paper is to estimate national income and GVSP in North Korean wons between 1946 and 1966 on the basis of Kim's disclosure and published indices of these national accounts. Not only will this enable us to compare the published budget sizes and fixed investments with our computed national accounts, but also furnished some insight into the absolute levels of the components of national accounts such as output values of industry, agriculture and other sectors. In this study we shall also discuss

Recent Trends in the Mongolian People's Republic

The Number Two man in the Mongolian power-hierarchy has fallen. Luvsantserengiin Tsende was removed as Politburo Member, as Second Secretary of the Party, and as a member of the Central Committee of the Party, by a Central Committee meeting on December 22, 1963, and as Chairman of the Great Khural (Mongolian People's Assembly) by a Khural session on December 24. The Party resolution denouncing him charged that:

The Foreign Policy of North Korea

On October 23, 1962, Premier Kim Il-song outlined the foreign policy of his government before the Supreme People's Assembly, meeting in Pyongyang. His lengthy speech, entitled “Immediate Tasks of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea,” ranged over both domestic and foreign policy issues. To set forth the major themes of that speech is a convenient method of introducing the foreign policy of North Korea.

Reorganisation of Local Government in Yugoslavia

by Nikola StjepanovicThis article is a quasi-statistical analysis of local government structure in Yugoslavia as it appears after the September 1955 reform. The inter-relations between the municipa...