Revisiting Russian and Polish elite value orientations: Are the elites still committed to the original goals of post-communist transitions?

2006 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Levintova

This article investigates the extent of continuity and discontinuity of the original political, economic, and foreign policy value orientations of Russian and Polish post-Communist elites. I conclude that during the post-Communist period the Russian elite shifted the priorities from pro-democratic to authoritarian positions, engaged in a debate over the most desirable foreign policy course, and ultimately chose a pragmatically independent direction, but remained loyal to original beliefs in the free market. In Poland, with its cyclical rotation of governments, original pro-democratic and pro-Western elite value orientations survive to this day, while the issue of preferred economic model is contested and highly sensitive to electoral cycles.

Author(s):  
Artem Kosheliev

The article discusses the social and economic prerequisites for the formation of a “biographical culture” in the United States during the XX – beginning XXI centuries. Under the term “biographical culture”, the author understands the process of creating biographical narratives. Also, this term includes social-economic conditions in which biographical narratives influence the creation of the image of a certain personality in the collective consciousness. Using the comparative method, the study analyzes the socio-economic systems of the two states, within which were formed various “biographical cultures”. The article defines three criteria for the development of the state and society, which directly affect the creation of this culture. The first criterion is the presence or absence of a free market in the state. The second criterion is the existence of censorship in the state. The third criterion is the degree of development of the infrastructure for the distribution of biographical works and the level of its state`s dependence. The analysis based on the thesis that active and passive societies exist in different countries. Their development depends on the political, economic and ideological conditions. Based on the study, the author concluded that US society is classified as active. This means that it can produce and distribute biographical works independently without pressure from the state. Accordingly, the images of personalities created in biographical works in the USA reflect the preferences and value orientations of American society. Social values, which are reflected in the way of creating the image of a biography`s hero, develop and transform organically, but not under the pressure of a state machine.


Author(s):  
Alexandr S. Levchenkov ◽  

The article analyzes the influence of the concepts of the Intermarium and the Baltic-Black Sea Arc on the formation of Ukraine’s foreign policy in 1990 – early 2000. The use of these concepts in American, European and Ukrainian geopolitical thought, which historically included the idea of opposing Russian influence in the region, contributed to the increase in tension and was aimed at further disintegration of the Western flank of the post-Soviet space. The article proves that the design of the Euro-Atlantic vector of Ukraine’s foreign policy was already active under the first two Ukrainian presidents – Leonid Kravchuk (1991–1994) and Leonid Kuchma (1994–2005). One of the concrete attempts to implement the idea of forming a common political, economic, transport and logistics space of the Black Sea-Caspian region with a promising expansion of the cooperation zone to the whole of Eastern Europe and the Eastern Baltic during the presidency of Leonid Kuchma was the foundation and launch of a new regional organization, Organization for Democracy and Economic Development, better known as GUAM (composed by the initial letters of names of member states – Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova; when Uzbekistan was also a member of Organization for Democracy and Economic Development, the name of the organization was GUUAM), which is an alternative to Eurasian projects with the participation of Russia.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (10-2) ◽  
pp. 176-184
Author(s):  
Dmitry Nechevin ◽  
Leonard Kolodkin

The article is devoted to the prerequisites of the reforms of the Russian Empire of the sixties of the nineteenth century, their features, contradictions: the imperial status of foreign policy and the lagging behind the countries of Western Europe in special political, economic relations. The authors studied the activities of reformers and the nobility on the peasant question, as well as legitimate conservatism.


Author(s):  
Mark I. Vail

This chapter analyzes the development of French, German, and Italian liberalism from the nineteenth century to the 1980s, giving particular attention to each tradition’s conceptions of the role of the state and its relationship to groups and individual citizens. Using a broad range of historical source material and the works of influential political philosophers, it outlines the analytical frameworks central to French “statist liberalism,” German “corporate liberalism,” and Italian “clientelist liberalism.” It shows how these evolving traditions shaped the structure of each country’s postwar political-economic model and the policy priorities developed during the postwar boom through the early 1970s and provides conceptual touchstones for the direction and character of these traditions’ evolution in the face of the neoliberal challenge since the 1990s. The chapter demonstrates that each tradition accepted elements of a more liberal economic order while rejecting neoliberalism’s messianic market-making agenda and its abstract and disembedded political-economic vision.


2018 ◽  
Vol III (I) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Muhammad Amir ◽  
Muhammad Rizwan ◽  
Saira Bano

The present study is an effort to analyze the mode and intensity of Chinese interests in Pakistan. By examining the policy of pursuit in finding another market in the region, the study aims to understand the current warmth of the relationship between China and Pakistan. Although maintaining a perpetually friendly relationship with China has always been a cornerstone of Pakistan’s foreign policy, yet strengthening this relationship into a structured partnership remained a gradual process in the light of their mutual interests. In the politics of international relations, the relationship between countries is a complex interaction of pragmatic national interests, which are multifaceted and could take an alternate course with changing regional and international scenarios. As both Pakistan and China share many common political, economic and strategic interests due to which both are giving their utmost priority to protect their interests related to the other. This paper will investigate the situation where it is commonly believed that China is inevitable by avoiding the vice-versa. No doubt common threats and challenges faced by both the nation is the major cause to unite them in terms of security, political, economic and strategic fronts.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fábio Santino Bussmann

Esse artigo analisa o poder explicativo da Teoria da Autonomia de Hélio Jaguaribe em relação aos momentos indubitavelmente autônomos da Política Externa Brasileira (PEB). Isso foi feito mediante o estudo de caso, em forma de teste de teoria, da Política Externa Independente (PEI) do governo Jânio Quadros, que é representativa desses momentos. O estudo de caso foi realizado por meio da análise de conteúdo no programa de pesquisa Nvivo. O argumento resultante da análise realizada é o de que a Teoria da Autonomia tem o potencial de explicar de forma mais precisa e estruturada os momentos de autonomia da PEB do que arranjos conceituais usados atualmente no estudo dos referidos momentos da PEB, já que a PEI, de forma representativa, evidencia objetivos referenciados a uma visão estrutural-hierárquica do cenário internacional, no campo político-econômico.Palavras-chave: Teoria da Autonomia, Política Externa Independente, Política Externa Brasileira.ABSTRACT:This article analyzes the explanatory power of Helio Jaguaribe's Theory of Autonomy in relation to the undoubtedly autonomous moments of Brazilian Foreign Policy (BFP). This was done through a case study, in the form of a theory test, of the Independent Foreign Policy (IFP) of the Jânio Quadros government, which is representative of these moments. The case study was conducted through content analysis in the Nvivo research program. The argument resulting from the analysis is that the Autonomy Theory has the potential to explain in a more precise and structured way the moments of autonomy of the BFP than the conceptual arrangements currently used in the study of the referred moments of the BFP, since the IFP, in a representative way, shows objectives referenced to a structural-hierarchical vision of the international scenario, in the political-economic field.Keywords: Autonomy Theory, Independent Foreign Policy, Brazilian Foreign Policy.Recebido em: 29 jan. 2019 | Aceito em: 03 dez. 2019. 


2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 428-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olusola Ogunnubi ◽  
Adeoye Akinola

This article examines the viability of mainstream neo-realist international relations scholarship for understanding regional power dynamics within Africa by offering a critical evaluation of the categorization of South Africa as a hegemonic power on the continent. Using the theoretical framework of hegemonic stability theory, it argues that there is a somewhat weak link between South Africa’s foreign policy character and its hegemonic disposition in Africa. The South African state, which is the driving force for political, economic and foreign policy processes, is itself subordinate in relation to international capital and lacks the influence expected of a regional hegemon. Despite South Africa’s development, the article demonstrates that its dependency provides the theoretical construct for understanding the country’s ambiguous hegemonic projection. This analytical framework captures the crux of the “hegemonic debate” as well as other conversations in relation to the adaptation of the concept of hegemony to Africa. Therefore, any application of the hegemonic discourse to South Africa necessarily requires a deeper understanding that takes cognizance of the fact that country’s regional hegemony operates within the orbit of a dependent-development paradigm in the global economic order, a neo-liberal order that continues to deepen Africa’s dependency syndrome. Dependency, as well as other complexities, impedes the reality of South Africa’s hegemonic ambitions in Africa.


2020 ◽  
pp. 195-257
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Hewitt

This chapter concentrates on the relationship between eighteenth-century political economic theory and chattel slavery in the Americas. It begins by explaining how British, French, and American economic theorists asserted the inefficiency of slave labor even as the institution was sustained within the global market. This orthodox belief in the incompatibility between the free market and the legalization of slavery was crucial both to abolitionism and economic liberalism, inoculating capitalism from the moral degradations of slaveholding and slave trading. A very different economic argument emerges in the narratives of Black Atlantic authors who construct their life stories as “it-narratives,” precisely designed to reveal the mutualism between the global capital economy and the slave trade. The chapter provides close readings of the narratives of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, Venture Smith, and Boyrereau Brinch, emphasizing their work as economic treatises and not autobiography.


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