Regime Type and Political Destabilization in Cross-National Perspective

In this article, we re-analyze the hypothesis that the relationship between the type of political regime and its political instability forms an inverted U shape. Following this logic, consistent democracies and autocracies are more stable regimes, whereas intermediate regimes (anocracies) display the lowest levels of political stability. We re-test this hypothesis using a data set that has not been previously used for this purpose, finding sufficient evidence to support the hypothesis pertaining to the aforementioned U-shaped relationship. Our analysis is specifically focused on the symmetry of this U shape, whereby our findings suggest that the U-shaped relationship between regime types and sociopolitical destabilization is typically characterized by an asymmetry, with consistently authoritarian regimes being generally less stable than consolidated democracies. We also find that the character of this asymmetry can change with time. In particular, our re-analysis suggests that U-shaped relationship experienced significant changes after the end of the Cold War. Before the end of the Cold War (1946-1991), the asymmetry of inverted U-shaped relationship was much less pronounced—though during this period consistent authoritarian regimes were already less stable than consolidated democracies, this very difference was only marginally significant. In the period that follows the end of the Cold War (1992-2014), this asymmetry underwent a substantial change: Consolidated democracies became significantly more stable, whereas consolidated autocracies became significantly more unstable. As a result, the asymmetry of the U-shaped relationship has become much more pronounced. The article discusses a number of factors that could account for this change.

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Indonesia-US Relations, 1949–1999

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.354 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Bradley Simpson

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Cold War ◽

Communist Party ◽

Political Stability ◽

Armed Forces ◽

Mass Murder ◽

Trade Relations ◽

The Republic ◽

Strategic Imperative ◽

The Cold War

The US relationship with the Republic of Indonesia has gone through three distinct phases. From 1945 until 1966 Indonesia’s politics and foreign policy were driven by the imperatives of decolonization and nation building, dominated by its founding President Sukarno and cleaved by bitter rivalry between secular political forces, regional movements, Islamic parties and organizations, the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), and the armed forces. In the aftermath of the September 30th Movement, an alleged coup by the PKI (the Indonesian Communist Party), under the leadership of General Suharto, launched a campaign of mass murder in which hundreds of thousands of alleged Communists were killed and Sukarno ousted. Suharto would rule Indonesia for the next thirty-two years (1966 to 1998). With the Cold War inside Indonesia effectively over and a staunchly anti-Communist and pro-US regime in power, US-Indonesian relations entered a long period of what one might call authoritarian development in which US officials focused on political stability, supported the military’s heavy involvement in politics, encouraged pro-Western investment and development policies, and sought to downplay growing criticism of Suharto’s abysmal record on human rights, democracy, corruption, and the environment. The end of the Cold War reduced the strategic imperative of backing authoritarian rule in Indonesia, and over the course of the 1990s domestic opposition to Suharto steadily built among moderate Islamic forces, human rights and women’s activists, environmental campaigners, and a burgeoning pro-democracy movement. The Asian financial crisis, which began in the summer of 1997, accelerated the forces undermining Suharto’s rule, forcing his resignation in May 1998 and inaugurating a third phase of formally democratic politics, which continues to the 21st century. Since 1998 US policy has focused on regional economic and security cooperation, counterterrorism, trade relations, and countering the growing regional power of China.

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From Seoul to Paris

positions asia critique ◽

10.1215/10679847-8315140 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 28 (3) ◽

pp. 575-602

Author(s):

Katri Kauhanen

Keyword(s):

Cold War ◽

South Korea ◽

Authoritarian Regimes ◽

National Council ◽

Women's Activism ◽

Korean Literature ◽

International Council ◽

South Korean ◽

Close Relationship ◽

The Cold War

The Korean National Council of Women, a women’s organization established in 1959, has received criticism in Korean literature for its collaboration with the authoritarian regimes that ruled South Korea for decades. This article, however, argues for a different kind of interpretation. The Korean National Council of Women came together to join the International Council of Women, a major international women’s organization that was looking for new affiliations in the recently decolonized parts of Asia and Africa in the midst of Cold War competition. Thus, we should view the existence of the Korean National Council of Women in the framework of transnational women’s activism and how the Cold War shaped it. After outlining the connections made between South Korean women and the International Council of Women, the article analyzes the projects proposed by the Korean National Council of Women under the anti-communist authoritarian regime. Based on archival research in South Korea and Belgium, this article argues that instead of following rules from above, the Korean National Council of Women negotiated a way to combine the advancement of women’s issues with the development of the nation. The International Council of Women, while criticizing communist women for their close relationship with the state, celebrated the achievements its South Korean affiliate made as a state-registered organization.

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International Organizations: Enablers or Impediments for Authoritarian International Law?

AJIL Unbound ◽

10.1017/aju.2020.45 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 114 ◽

pp. 226-231

Author(s):

Cassandra V. Emmons

Keyword(s):

Cold War ◽

International Law ◽

International Organizations ◽

Elections and Political Regimes

Government and Opposition ◽

10.1017/gov.2015.11 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 50 (3) ◽

pp. 446-468 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Jennifer Gandhi

Keyword(s):

Cold War ◽

Political Change ◽

Authoritarian Regimes ◽

Political Liberalization ◽

Post Cold War ◽

Historical View ◽

Electoral Authoritarianism ◽

Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽

The Cold War ◽

Authoritarian Elections

Post-Cold War autocracies appear novel in their use of multiparty elections, attracting the attention of scholars and policymakers alike. A longer historical view, however, reveals that what is unique is not electoral authoritarianism after 1989, but rather the electoral inactivity of autocracies during the Cold War period. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, authoritarian regimes have held multiparty elections. The prevalence of these elections begs the question of whether they have any effects on political liberalization and democratization. But the study of authoritarian elections in processes of political change faces a number of theoretical and empirical challenges that can only partly be surmounted with existing approaches.

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Tales of Antifascism: International Survivors’ Organizations during the Cold War

Fascism ◽

10.1163/22116257-09010009 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 (1-2) ◽

pp. 244-271

Author(s):

Maximilian Becker

Keyword(s):

Cold War ◽

Nazi Germany ◽

The Political ◽

Transnational Actors ◽

Transnational Memory ◽

Fault Lines ◽

National Perspective ◽

The Cold War ◽

Resistance Veterans

Abstract During the Cold War, international associations of resistance veterans were important transnational actors. Split along the political fault lines, an ‘antifascist’ stance was crucial to them, both in their memories of resistance against Nazi Germany and in their involvement in the propaganda campaigns of the Cold War. Due to its manifold activities, the pro-communist Fédération Internationale des Résistants (fir) was the most important of these international associations. Liberal and anti-communist organizations, like the Fédération Internationale Libre des Déportés et Internés de la Résistance (fildir), formed the counterpart to the fir. These organizations will serve as a point of comparison. This study transcends the prevailing national perspective, instead investigating the transnational memory of the survivors. It goes on to examine the consequences of the political changes in the ussr after Stalin’s death in March 1953, and Khrushchev’s ‘secret speech’ as well as the Hungarian Uprising and its suppression in 1956.

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Engaging the Evil Empire

10.7591/cornell/9781501751691.001.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Simon Miles

Keyword(s):

Cold War ◽

Soviet Union ◽

Political Stability ◽

Ronald Reagan ◽

The United States ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

History Of ◽

The Cold War ◽

Breathing Room ◽

Key Events

In a narrative-redefining approach, this book dramatically alters how we look at the beginning of the end of the Cold War. Tracking key events in US–Soviet relations across the years between 1980 and 1985, the book shows that covert engagement gave way to overt conversation as both superpowers determined that open diplomacy was the best means of furthering their own, primarily competitive, goals. The book details the history of these dramatic years, as President Ronald Reagan consistently applied a disciplined carrot-and-stick approach, reaching out to Moscow while at the same time excoriating the Soviet system and building up US military capabilities. The received wisdom in diplomatic circles is that the beginning of the end of the Cold War came from changing policy preferences and that President Reagan, in particular, opted for a more conciliatory and less bellicose diplomatic approach. In reality, the book demonstrates, Reagan and ranking officials in the National Security Council had determined that the United States enjoyed a strategic margin of error that permitted it to engage Moscow overtly. As US grand strategy developed, so did that of the Soviet Union. This book covers five critical years of Cold War history when Soviet leaders tried to reduce tensions between the two nations in order to gain economic breathing room and, to ensure domestic political stability, prioritize expenditures on butter over those on guns. The book shifts the focus of Cold War historians away from exclusive attention on Washington by focusing on the years of back-channel communiqués and internal strategy debates in Moscow as well as Prague and East Berlin.

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The Effects of U.S. Foreign Assistance on Democracy Building, 1990–2003

World Politics ◽

10.1017/s0043887100020876 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 59 (3) ◽

pp. 404-439 ◽

Cited By ~ 161

Author(s):

Steven E. Finkel ◽

Aníbal Pérez-Liñán ◽

Mitchell A. Seligson

Keyword(s):

Cold War ◽

Statistical Models ◽

Foreign Assistance ◽

Causal Effects ◽

Democracy Promotion ◽

Data Set ◽

Democracy Assistance ◽

The Cold War ◽

Democracy Building ◽

Program Information

Democracy promotion has been an explicit doctrine of U.S. foreign policy since the end of the cold war. Between 1990 and 2003 resources for democracy programs increased by over 500 percent. Has this policy worked? Prior research has been inconclusive, relying either on case studies or on quantitative efforts that have not distinguished overall foreign assistance from democracy promotion. The authors answer this question using a new data set that includes program information for 165 countries for the years 1990–2003. The analysis distinguishes between direct and indirect causal mechanisms and employs a variety of statistical models that allow the authors to control for the unique democratization trend in each country when assessing causal effects, as well as for the potential endogeneity of U.S. democracy assistance. The analysis shows that democracy assistance does indeed have a significant impact.

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The Security of Panama and the Canal: Now and for the Future

Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs ◽

10.2307/165972 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 35 (3) ◽

pp. 151-172

Author(s):

Max G. Manwaring

Keyword(s):

Cold War ◽

Political Stability ◽

Panama Canal ◽

Bottom Line ◽

New Approach ◽

Economic Progress ◽

The Future ◽

Future Challenges ◽

The Cold War ◽

Year 2000

The old certainties of the Cold War, and the conventional attrition-type war implicit in it, have gone. In their place we now have a world of dangerous uncertainty and ambiguity in which old concepts of security are no longer relevant. The present security and future of Panama and the Panama Canal after the year 2000 is a case in point.This article will take a look at the issue of Canal security within the context of the contemporary “new world disorder” and develop the argument for a new approach to deal with current and future challenges to Panamanian and international security interests.The bottom line is this: the security of Panama and the Panama Canal — or any other point of strategic interest, now and for the future — will not depend so much on conventional military strategies as it will depend on international and domestic policies that provide for political stability, economic progress, and social justice.

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The sources of Russian conduct: understanding Russian foreign policy

Review of International Studies ◽

10.1017/s0260210500002497 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 27 (2) ◽

pp. 249-263 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

PETER SHEARMAN

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

Cold War ◽

International Politics ◽

The United States ◽

Structural Features ◽

Political Regime ◽

Russian Foreign Policy ◽

Soviet Foreign Policy ◽

The Cold War ◽

Material Power

Theory, politics, and the Cold War In this review I examine academic study on Russian foreign policy since the end of the Cold War, with special emphasis on relations with the United States. It is common, when discussing the study of international politics during the Cold War, to refer to the ‘dominance’, or ‘hegemony’, of Realism, and then to argue that the unanticipated end of the ‘bipolar’ conflict demonstrates the failure of the theory for not having been able, due to its focus on structural features of material power, to foresee its peaceful conclusion. Although there is much wrong with Realism as a theory in explaining international politics at this time, it should be noted that there were other contending approaches that also got the Cold War wrong. Similarly, those specialists writing on Soviet foreign policy who shared realist assumptions, and hence constructed their analytical frameworks on the basis of geopolitics and the pursuit of the national interest, were also unable to conceive of an end to the bipolar conflict. Others, who did perceive change on the basis of alterations in the relative power capabilities between the two major powers, predicted that this would lead not to a peaceful resolution of the Cold War, but to violent conflict. This was the view of Edward Luttwak, who suggested in 1983 that the weakness of the Soviet economy would lead to declining faith in the political regime and ultimately to a greater willingness to engage in military adventures.

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Dynamics of democracy aid allocation : from democratic donors to authoritarian regimes

10.32469/10355/88128 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Dongjin Kwak

Keyword(s):

Cold War ◽

Authoritarian Regimes ◽

Strategic Choices ◽

Economic Interests ◽

Aid Allocation ◽

Promotion Policy ◽

Types Of Democracy ◽

Allocation Patterns ◽

Theoretical Mechanism ◽

The Cold War

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze democracy aid allocation mechanisms between Western donors and authoritarian regimes in recipient countries. The theoretical mechanism explains how strategic choices of donors and recipient countries based on their interests affect the composition of democracy aid. As a part of democracy promotion policy, Western donors have increased democracy aid after the end of the Cold War. They provide various types of democracy aid targeting the advancement of democratic institutions, practices, and norms in authoritarian regimes. I classify democracy aid into two types: regime-compatible democracy aid and regime-incompatible democracy aid based on authoritarian regimes' preference regarding democracy aid. Then, I discuss that donors' strategic choice based on security and/or economic interests changes the shape of democracy aid patterns. The empirical findings from the analyses of U.S. democracy aid toincreased regime-compatible democracy aid to their client states. Moreover, authoritarian regimes secure more regimecompatible democracy aid using their leverage over the U.S., when they have a higher political instability. The findings suggest that the strategic choices of donors and recipient countries affect decisions on types of democracy aid and shape the democracy aid allocation patterns.

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