The top-heavy shape of authoritarian bureaucracy: evidence from Russia and China

2021 ◽  
pp. 002085232110588
Author(s):  
Tao Li ◽  
Zhenyu M. Wang
Keyword(s):  
Steady State ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Rent Seeking ◽  
Tournament Theory ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Public Sector Reforms ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Heavy Structure ◽  
Theory Framework

The prevalence of top-heavy bureaucracies in non-democracies cannot be explained by the theories of Parkinson, Tullock, Niskanen, or Simon or by classical managerial theories. When bureaucracy positions carry rents, the competition for promotion becomes a rent-seeking process. Borrowing the career-tournament theory framework from managerial scholarship, we argue that top-heavy bureaucracy resembles a tournament with too many finalists. When rent is centralized at the top (i.e. power centralization), as is the case in many non-democracies, the optimal bureaucracy should be top-heavy, accommodating and encouraging relatively more finalists at the top to compete for the final big prize. We provide suggestive evidence by analyzing ministry organizations in China (1993–2014) and Russia (2002–2015). After some fluctuations, the shape of Russian ministries eventually converged with that of China. In the steady state, their ministry shapes are far more top-heavy than what is prescribed by managerial theories. At the micro-level, ministry power centralization, measured by the perceived influence of the ministers, is correlated with ministry top-heaviness in Russia. Points for practitioners Our theory suggests that a top-heavy authoritarian bureaucratic structure naturally follows from a back-loaded sequential career tournament and an effort-maximizing bureaucratic leader. Our findings also suggest that Chinese and Russian ministries both converge to a highly top-heavy structure in the long run. We demonstrate that the top-heavy structure first arose during the planned-economy experiment in the Soviet Union. Our research sheds new light on public-sector reforms that aim to reduce bureaucracy top-heaviness in autocracies.

Reagan’s Military Buildup

2019 ◽  
pp. 40-58
Author(s):  
Beth A. Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
Foreseeable Future ◽  
The West ◽  
High Ranking ◽  
Military Buildup ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Long Run

Did President Reagan launch a military buildup so as toforce the USSR to collapse, as triumphalists claim?In this view Reagan sought to entice Moscow into an arms race that it could not afford, thus forcing it into bankruptcy. This argument rests on two assumptions. The first is that Reagan officials believed the Soviet Union to be so fragile that it could be nudged to collapse. The second is that the administration intended to force the USSR to implode. This chapter finds both assumptions wanting. Although the president believed the USSR was unsustainable in the long run, virtually all of his advisers disagreed. They viewed Moscow as a formidable adversary that would continue to challenge the West for the foreseeable future. Moreover, high-ranking officials in the Reagan administration have rejected the claim that they sought to force the USSR to collapse.The objective was to pressure the Soviets to agree to arms reduction. President Reagan sought to eliminate nuclear weapons, and officials mistakenly believed that Moscow would not agree to reduce its arsenal until confronted with a strong and menacing adversary. Paradoxically, the buildup was intended to lead to arms reductions.This policy was called “peace through strength.”

Castro and “New Thinking” in Latin America

1990 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Kline
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Latin American ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Long Run ◽  
New Thinking

This article will argue that general agreement between Cuba and the Soviet Union on their foreign policy toward Latin America is likely over the long run, despite (a) Fidel Castro's condemnation of perestroika and glasnost, and (b) his obvious attempt to embarrass Soviet Secretary-General Mikhail Gorbachev during the latter's state visit to Cuba in April 1989. Serious obstacles — such as differences over Cuban domestic policy and Castro's personal ambitions — remain to be overcome, but foreign policy disagreements between the two countries are likely to prove less intractable than is frequently assumed.This article will start with (1) an overview of Cuban Latin American foreign policy since the 1970s; then proceed to (2) an interpretation of Soviet “new thinking;” and finally (3) argue that this particular interpretation of “new thinking” is consistent with, and not contradictory to, Castro's foreign policy.

An attempt at a reconciliation of the Sraffian and Kaleckian views on desired utilization

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-77
Author(s):  
Reiner Franke
Keyword(s):  
Steady State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Strategic Complementarity ◽  
Functional Specification ◽  
Long Run ◽  
State Position ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Rate Of Profit ◽  
Increasing Function ◽  
Empirical Material

This paper derives firms’ desired rate of utilization from an explicit maximization of a conjectured rate of profit at the micro level. Invoking a strategic complementarity, desired utilization is thus an increasing function of not only the profit share but also the actual utilization. Drawing on recent empirical material and a straightforward functional specification, the model is subsequently numerically calibrated. In particular, this ensures a unique solution for a steady-state position in which the actual and the endogenous desired rates of utilization coincide. On the other hand, it turns out that the anticipated losses of firms by not producing at the desired level are rather small. Hence there may be only weak pressure on them to close a utilization gap in the ordinary way by suitable adjustments in fixed investment. It is indicated that this finding may serve Kaleckian economists as a more rigorous justification for viewing their equilibria as pertaining to the long run, even if they allow actual utilization to deviate persistently from desired utilization.

Religion under Communism

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Madsen
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Communist Countries

Lenin began and Stalin completed the organizational structures and the repertoire of strategies and tactics that would be used as a model by almost all subsequent communist movements for suppressing religion. This model was primarily constructed to overcome the challenges posed to the revolution by a powerful Russian Orthodox Church. As such it did not fit the religious circumstances of other communist countries. It was poorly adapted to the decentralized patterns of religious practice in Asia, and it was unable to eliminate resistance from the Roman Catholic Church in Eastern Europe, especially when that church was connected with nationalism. Even though the Stalinist model initially seemed successful in eliminating political opposition from religion in the Soviet Union, it was in the long run a failure on its own terms.

Civil Defense—the New Debate

Worldview ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 22 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 43-43
Author(s):  
John C. Bennett
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Civil Defense ◽  
The Other ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
Persian Wars ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Long Run ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Nuclear Arms

Before our government embarks on the proposed forms of civil defense I hope that the following reasons for not doing so will be taken very seriously.Preparations for the evacuation of cities in a society as free as ours would involve such drastic actions that they would be more of a signal than we would intend of our readiness for nuclear war. Combined with any build-up of strategic nuclear arms that suggested a first-strike capability to the other side, they would be more provocative than appears to us, to whom they would seem innocent and defensive. This reminds me of the account by Thucydides of the great pains the Athenians took to conceal from the Spartans the fact that they were rebuilding their walls after the Persian wars. What could be more innocent and defensive than a wall!Greater account must be taken of the fears of the Soviet Union. In the long run they may fear China more than the U.S. We are their powerful adversary, who for decades expressed, more unofficially than officially, hostility to the Soviet Union.

The Politics of Foreign Aid: Impact of Superpowers’ Economic Assistance on India and Pakistan during the Cold War

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-79
Author(s):  
Surinder Mohan ◽  
J. Susanna Lobo
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Economic Assistance ◽  
Industrial Base ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

This article traces the impact of superpowers’ foreign aid on India and Pakistan during the early decades of the Cold War. It shows how the American policy-makers have drawn their initial strategies to bring India under the Western fold and later, when the Indian leadership resisted by adopting the foreign policy non-alignment, charted a new approach to keep it at an adequate distance from the Soviet influence—particularly by exploiting its food insecurity and inability to complete the five-year plans. In contrast, the Soviet Union extended project-aid to India which assisted it to build much required large industrial base and attain self-sufficiency in the long run. By adhering to the non-aligned doctrine, India not only managed a negotiable balance with the superpower politics but also extracted considerable benefits for its overall development. On the other hand, aligned Pakistan had shown least enthusiasm with regard to self-sufficiency and pursued policies imbued with militarism which ended up it as a rent-seeking dependent state.

The Soviet Union as a Great Power: The Need for Reform

1992 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas G. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Western World ◽  
Economic Decline ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
Soviet History ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Political Sector ◽  
Military Expenditures

The reforms of perestroika took the western world by surprise. However, the application of economic analysis to the last half century of Soviet history reveals a country in economic decline. Additionally, while the country contracted economically, the Soviet political sector insisted upon increased military expenditures to preserve the nation as a great power. I propose that this combination was impossible to sustain in the long-run, and that perestroika is evidence that some members of the Soviet government have recognized this fact. I then examine the prospects of perestroika, in present form, curing the Soviet Union's economic and military woes.

Long-Run Economic Growth: Stagnations, Explosions and the Middle Income Trap

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-458
Author(s):  
Robert C. Shelburne
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Historical Time ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Economies In Transition ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Long Run ◽  
The World ◽  
Middle Income Trap ◽  
Additional Point

This paper explores the empirics of long-run economic growth by studying the pattern of growth for every country in the world between 1950 and 2015. Special emphasis is placed on ascertaining how the pattern of growth has changed over the last 65 years and how growth is related to the level of development. The analysis identifies historical time periods when growth stagnated or exploded and the levels of development where growth has a tendency to either stagnate or explode. Studying these growth episodes provides a number of insights into the question as to whether or not there is such a thing as a middle income trap. Although there are economies at every level of development that have stagnated for long periods, this study finds no evidence that this is systematically or uniquely related to middle income economies. An additional point of emphasis of this study is to highlight how the inclusion or exclusion of the former planned economies of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union affect these results; and likewise how China’s exceptional performance affects these results. Generally it is found that because of the size and extraordinary performance (both good and bad) of China and the Economies in Transition (EiT), that excluding them from the sample has a quite significant effect on estimates of global long-run growth and trends regarding growth over time and by income level.

Le relazioni fra Italia e Urss nella prima fase della distensione

2009 ◽  
pp. 113-154
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Negative Attitude ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
European Security ◽  
Economic Diplomacy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Political Effects ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time

- The relations between Italy and the Ussr, almost absent after WWII began to grow during the years of détente. Their development offers useful insight on the long-term cleavages which led to the fall of the Soviet Union. The documents, published here for the first time, come from Rgani (State Archive of Contemporary History of the Russian Federation) and offer an outline of the crucial period in the mid-1960s. From them, it is possible to grasp the main elements of the Ussr's foreign policy towards Italy: the central role of an explorative diplomacy; a negative attitude towards the center-left governments; the close relations with the large Italian industrial groups; the lasting centrality of the political link with Pci; and, above all, the firm belief of the Kremlin leadership that the economic and cultural détente would have, in the long run, deep political effects. They were right; what they weren't able to predict is that they would be the losers.Key words: Cold War, Détente, European security, economic diplomacy, Center left governements, Cpsu/Cpi.Parole chiave: guerra fredda, distensione, sicurezza europea, diplomazia economica, governi di centrosinistra, Pcus/Pci.

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