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Global Economics （全球经济）
Economic globalization will clearly be one of the drivers of the longer-range human condition – for better or worse. There is a growing consensus that economic development is the best way to achieve improvements in personal income (and, from there, improvements in the human condition) and proponents argue that economic globalization is the best route to economic development. There are cogent counterarguments to the unalloyed good of economic globalization, which is what makes it an important topic to understand when thinking about the longer-range future. There are three books here on economic globalization, which is probably too many in a list of only 50 books. I could easily argue that Friedman’s book is covered by the books by Bhagwati and Stiglitz, so this may be an opportunity to include an additional book on the list of 50 without slighting economic globalization.
Globalization and Its Discontents - 2003
Joseph E. Stiglitz
《全球化及其不满》，机械工业出版社
约瑟夫•E•斯蒂格利茨（1993年开始成为克林顿总统经济顾问团的主要成员，并且从1995年6月起任该团主席。1997年起任世界银行副总裁、首席经济学家，2001他又获得了诺贝尔经济学奖，现任美国布鲁金斯学会高级研究员）
详细书讯，
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product ... =books&v=glance
Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winner in Economics, argues that economic globalization has been done wrong. He argues that the “Washington Consensus” (basically fiscal austerity, privatization, and market liberalization) enforced by the IMF structural adjustment policies has led to hunger and riots in many countries and he urges a reformation of the international economic architecture in order to “make globalization more humane, effective, and equitable.” Stiglitz makes detailed arguments against each of the three pillars of the Washington Consensus. He says the IMF has gotten away from its traditional Keynesian role as deficit financier, committed to maintaining economies at full employment, and “has taken the pre-Keynesian position of fiscal austerity in the face of a downturn.” He says that privatization requires significant preconditions before it can work and even then should be part of a more comprehensive program which entails, for example, creating jobs to offset the job destruction that often accompanies privatization. He says that capital market liberalization is a dangerous game and that even trade liberalization needs to be done carefully.
Stiglitz backs up his arguments with extended examples from both the East Asian monetary crisis and Russia. He then gives the examples of Poland and China, both of whom have taken a different path than the Washington Consensus and have done well. Finally he deals with how to fix things. He first sets out the non-economic goals of globalization: “[c]aring about the environment, making sure the poor have a say in the decisions that affect them, promoting democracy and fair trade.” The general problem to be fixed is market fundamentalism as the approach to economic globalization and the fix is global public institutions to prevent market failures. He then lays out several options, including changing the voting rights at the IMF and the World Bank. Several options are in line with the general longer-range problem of global governance for the purposes of ensuring global public goods.
In Defense of Globalization - 2004
Jagdish Bhagwati
《为全球化辩护》
贾迪什•巴格瓦蒂（出生于印度，目前定居在美国，是哥伦比亚大学的经济学教授，曾任“关贸总协定”总干事兼经济政策顾问）
详细书讯，
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product ... =books&v=glance
In his defense of the broader concept of globalization, Bhagwati begins by trying to understand the sources of anti-globalization and finds among them attitudes that are anti-capitalism, anti-corporations, and anti-Americanism. He finds fears that globalization will lead to “accentuation of poverty in both rich and poor countries, erosion of unionization and other labor rights, creation of a democratic deficit, harming of women, imperiling of local mainstream and indigenous cultures, and damage to the environment.” He then spends the better part of the book arguing that economic globalization is on balance socially benign – which he finds to have important implications for appropriate governance.
Bhagwati finds examples where trade led to less poverty (in the East Asian tigers), where child labor was reduced (increased incomes led to more children being sent to school), where women were helped (particularly in Export Processing Zones), where democracy was encouraged (through the rise of the middle class), where wages and labor standards improved (e.g., thanks to global pressure on multinational companies), where the environment has not degraded (e.g., due to a shift in the economy from primary production to services), where corporations were socially responsible (thanks to shareholder pressure), and so forth. He recognizes the downsides of each of these, but his argument is that economic globalization is what we make of it. His recipe for success is appropriate governance and, more specifically, promoting international labor standards, putting in place institutional mechanisms to cope with the occasional downsides, and managing transitions to globalization. Bhagwati thinks that the two great forces of the 21 st century are economic globalization and the growth of civil societies, and he feels that the latter can be harnessed in the service of governance over managing the former.
The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization - 2000
Thomas Friedman
《凌志车与橄榄树：理解全球化》
托马斯•弗里德曼（《纽约时报》专栏作家，曾三次获得普利策新闻奖，先后担任首席白宫经济新闻记者和首席白宫记者，2005年成为普利策新闻奖委员会的成员）
该书电子版的下载地址，
http://readfree.net/bbs/read.php?tid=94674&keyword=
This is a nice readable introduction to economic globalization from Pulitzer Prize-winner and New York Times columnist Friedman. He talks about a previous globalization in the last half of the 19 th and start of the 20 th century and contrasts that one with the new one. The previous one was built around falling transportation costs and was overseen by Britain. This one is built around falling telecommunications costs and is overseen by the United States. He argues that the enabling infrastructure of globalization is the Internet and that it was the democratization of finance, technology, and information that gave the Internet its power in this arena. He defines the “electronic herd” in capital markets that can move large amounts of money around the world with electronic speed. And it is the stampedes of the electronic herd that can trigger financial crises.
In a very colloquial manner, Friedman discusses the promise of globalization and what is required to become plugged into the process (e.g., “The Nine Habits of Highly Effective Countries”) and he discusses some of the potential problems of globalization (e.g., growing inequality through the “winner take all” nature of globalization, and environmental degradation). In general, however, he is a clear supporter of globalization and has an entire section on the wrong-headedness of the backlash against globalization. He says, “[M]y sense is that it is “almost” irreversible.” Some of his examples are already dated (such as the “relentless, coherent, well-funded and efficient business plans” of Enron), but his argument for the persistence of globalization is an important viewpoint in thinking about the longer-range future.
Economic Development - 2003
Michael P. Todaro and Stephen C. Smith
《经济发展》
迈科尔•托达罗，中国经济出版社
详细书讯，
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product ... glance&n=283155
This is the eighth edition of a popular textbook on economic development (with the 9th edition due out soon). The authors point out that development economics goes beyond traditional economics and political economics, and must also deal with the economic, social, political, and institutional mechanisms, both public and private, necessary to bring about rapid (at least by historical standards) and large-scale improvements in levels of living for the masses of poverty-stricken, malnourished, and illiterate peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.” (emphasis in the original) The book is split into four major parts. The first part covers the principles and concepts of economic development. It covers the common characteristics of developing countries and the limited relevance of Western economic growth for contemporary developing nations and it covers the classical theories of development and contemporary models of development and underdevelopment. The second part deals with domestic problems and policies, including poverty, inequality and development; population growth; urbanization and rural-urban migration; education and health; agricultural transformation and rural development, and the environment. Part three deals with international problems and policies, including trade theory; the trade policy debate; balance of payments, developing-country debt, and macroeconomic stabilization; and foreign finance, investment, and aid.
The fourth part covers possibilities and prospects. It begins by discussing the role of governments in development and the limited success that development planning has had in the last three decades. The section on finance and fiscal policy for development is equally guarded on prospects. It is only in the section on critical issues that some clarity comes to the problem of global economic development. The critical issues are the global environmental threat (greenhouse gases and ozone depletion), the economic crisis in sub-Saharan Africa, and globalization and international financial reform. The authors conclude with the observation that whereas three decades ago the interdependence between developing and developed countries was perceived primarily in terms of the dependence of poor nations on rich ones (with developing countries being the fastest-growing export market for developed countries), rising concerns about unpredictable energy prices and mineral scarcities, fears of global environmental damage, ethnic conflicts, and floods of illegal immigrants pouring across the borders of developed countries, that the future welfare of developed countries increasingly depends on the economic performance and social achievements of the developing countries.
The End of Poverty - 2005
Jeffrey Sachs
《贫困的终结：当代经济发展的可能性》
杰弗里•萨克斯（享誉全球的经济学家，美国哥伦比亚大学地球学会主任，Quetelet讲座可持续发展教授，卫生政策与管理教授，美国国家经济研究局研究员，联合国秘书长特别顾问，负责联合国千年发展计划，该计划包括一系列扶贫项目。同时，他曾是国际货币基金组织、世界银行、OECD等国际组织的顾问）
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product ... glance&n=283155
Sachs is an economist and Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This book is a companion piece to the recently published “A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals” and reports from each of thirteen task forces looking at separate aspects of the MDGs. This book is basically an argument that we can end poverty by 2025. By poverty, he means ending extreme poverty (people living on less than $1/day PPP) and ensuring that all of the world’s poor, including those in moderate poverty, have a chance to “climb the ladder of development.” His approach is based on what he calls “clinical economics” to allow a differential diagnosis of what policies and investments each country needs to achieve the MDGs. Clinical economics treats a country’s economic situation the way a doctor would treat a sick patient – comparing symptoms against a checklist of diseases and coming to a diagnosis for that individual patient based on the patient’s symptoms. The heart of the book is extended examples of treating poverty in Bolivia, Poland, Russia, China, India, and a general look at Africa. Sachs finishes up with an argument for the feasibility of a poverty elimination project. He discusses on-the-ground solutions for poverty reduction, the six types of capital that the poorest of the poor lack (human, business, infrastructure, natural, public institutional, and knowledge), and the kind of “global compact” that would be required between developed and developing countries. He then does a rough calculation of what it would take to eliminate poverty by 2025 and finds it well within the amount of aid (.7% of GDP) that developed countries have already agreed to supply to developing countries. He finishes up his argument by tackling the common myths about why it isn’t possible to eliminate global poverty.
Culture（文化）
Culture can be a powerful driver of the human condition as witnessed by the relentless spread of “Western” culture over the last several decades. To attempt a thorough examination of all cultures that could plausibly have a significant impact on the longer-range future is beyond the capacity of our 50 book limit. If one presumes, however, that the spread of Western culture will continue into the indefinite future, the one arguable candidate alternative to a Westernized future at this point in history would have to center around the Islamic religion. For thinking about the longer-range future, Islamic terrorism does little more than emphasize the importance of understanding the fastest growing religion in the world today.
No god but God - 2005
Reza Aslan
《没有神却有上帝》
雷扎•阿斯兰
详细书讯
http://www.randomhouse.com/catal ... ?isbn=9781400062133
This book was written after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. It is a history of Islam with the intent to take a wider view of what is going on in the Islamic world. The history includes Muhammad’s life and the evolution of Islam both while he was alive and, more importantly, after he died. It describes the formation of the various sects and pays particular attention to the divergence between the Rationalist (roughly today’s Shi’as) and the Traditionalist (today’s Sunnis) schools. One fascinating passage that speaks both to today’s issues and to the longer-range future is Aslan’s comment that “it is practically impossible to reconcile the Traditionalist view of the Shariah [Islamic code of conduct] with modern conceptions of democracy and human rights.” The one attempt he sees in any Islamic state to fuse the traditional values of the Shariah with modern principles of democracy and human rights is in today’s Iran.
The history also includes other important Islamic actors including the Sufis, the more radical Wahhabis (what Aslan says we mischaracterize today as “Islamic fundamentalists”), and the Muslim Brotherhood. Aslan says the Muslim Brotherhood’s notion of Islamic socialism has proved to be “infinitely more successful than either Pan-Islamism or Pan-Arabism in giving voice to Muslim grievances.” Aslan concludes that what is taking place now is an internal conflict in the Muslim world, not an external battle between Islam and the West – who is merely a bystander. He suggests that, like the Thirty Years’ War that took place during Christianity’s internal conflict, it could be violent well into the future.
Geographic Regions （地域）
In thinking about the future, it is impossible to account for each of the 6 billion people on earth, let alone for the almost 200 countries into which they are grouped. Yet those people and countries are not a homogeneous mixture and it is useful to understand something about the differences among them. Fortunately for a list of 50 books, it is possible to learn something about the important differences by grouping them into geographical regions of roughly similar characteristics. For the purposes of this inaugural list, the regions that seem important to understand when thinking about the longer-range future are: the European Union, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, China, India, and Russia. The latter three, of course, are individual countries, but represent large land masses and large populations.
Understanding the European Union: A Concise Introduction - 2002
John McCormick
《理解欧盟：一个简单的介绍》
约翰•麦考密克（印地安那大学政治学教授）
详细书讯，
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product ... glance&n=283155
In the aftermath of two World Wars (and the Cold War), there have been several experiments in regional integration as a means of reducing tensions that can lead to international conflict. None of these experiments is as important at this point as that represented by the European Union. As McCormick says, “Some argue that the European Union could provide a model that might eventually lead to the breakdown of the state system, and to its replacement by a new community of bigger political and economic units and networks.” At the least, as a stepping stone toward global governance, this could pave the way toward providing global public goods for the betterment of the global human condition.
This book gives the history and progress of the European Union, including the logic of integration itself. The idea of European unity is not new (and was undermined with the rise of the state system), but was reinvigorated beginning with the European Coal and Steel Community in 1952. The biggest steps since then have been 1986 Single European Act that (among other things) created a single market and opened the borders among participants, and the 1992 Treaty on European Union (or Maastricht treaty) that paved the way for a common currency. Rejection of the European Constitution in May, 2005 was a backward step and emphasizes the uneven progress that has been made. This is a good discussion of the issues and tensions surrounding full integration and membership in the European Union and whatever its outcome, it will be an important chapter in the evolution of global integration.
The Rise of China - 1993
William H. Overholt
《中国的崛起：经济改革是怎样创造出一个新的强权国家来的》
威廉•H•欧佛（兰德公司亚太政策中心主管，中国问题专家）
详细书讯，
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product ... glance&n=283155
This book, written in 1993, argued that China’s economy would continue to grow because of “superior strategies in four areas: economics, politics, administration, and financial markets.” In economics their strategy gave priority to industries and sectors where limited government investments would produce rapid growth, they encouraged foreign investment, and they gave priority to light and medium industry. In politics, contrasted with Russia’s strategy of making economic reforms all at once, China’s strategy carefully sequenced the reforms; in administration, China also moved slowly to build up institutions that would enable it to control inflation; and in financial markets, China’s encouragement of bond markets provided a mechanism for soaking up excess money that threatened inflation. Overholt argues how each of these strategies (and other factors, including the crucial role of Hong Kong) contributed to China’s success up to that point and why they were likely to continue to fuel a growing economy in future years.
One of Overholt’s important conclusions for thinking about the future is the notion that economic reform should precede political reform. China appears to be unique both in taking that path and in achieving a modicum of both. There are also interesting chapters on the tensions that China’s economic advance have produced with its regional neighbors and with the United States. Finally, there is a chapter on risks to China’s continued progress (none of which have yet surfaced). This book is interesting not only because of its insights into China’s economy, but also both because of its success in foreseeing at least 12 years into the future and because it presents details of an approach to development that is different than the “Washington Consensus” that had prevailed for so long as the most appropriate means for helping developing countries reform their economies.
China’s Second Revolution: Reform After Mao - 1987
Harry Harding
《中国的第二次革命：毛泽东以后的改革》
何汉理（乔治华盛顿大学埃略特国际关系研究院院长，中国问题专家）
详细书讯，
http://www.brookings.edu/press/books/chinassecondrevolution.htm
This book addresses the origin, content, accomplishments, implications for the international community, and prospects of the reforms that have been and are taking place in China since the days of Mao Zedong. Harding argues that China has followed “a strategy of starting with programs that were likely to produce dramatic increases in production and standards of living, delaying measures that would have the most disruptive impact on the economy, and launching reforms on a nationwide scale only after they have proved successful in local experiments.” In a first set of reforms between 1978 and 1984, Harding describes economic reforms that have “expanded opportunities for private and collective ownership in both agriculture and urban services, offered greater autonomy to enterprise managers, given economic incentives to both peasants and workers, and assigned market forces a greater role in the production, circulation, and pricing of commodities.” In the areas of foreign trade, reforms “allowed foreign investment within restricted organizational formats and established special economic zones along the coast of southeast China to attract export-processing enterprises from abroad.” In the political sphere reform was characterized by “an explicit repudiation of the principal ideological tenets of the Maoist period, greater freedom and predictability in the daily lives of ordinary Chinese citizens, greater creative latitude in scientific and academic pursuits, and greater pragmatism, institutionalization, and consultativeness in national policymaking.” Subsequent reforms have expanded these initial reforms and, in Harding’s opinion, “even if reform should falter, the main outlines of China’s current international orientation will probably continue throughout the rest of the century and beyond.” Written in 1987, the century he referred to was the 20 th century, but his prognosis has not been invalidated in the years since.
As for the longer-range future, while admitting other plausible scenarios, Harding suggests that “[A] return to Maoism is implausible, as is the revival of a highly centralized economic system or a tightly controlled political order. Increasingly, the choice for China is whether it is possible to stop at moderate reform or whether it will be necessary to move toward further economic and political liberalization.”
China’s economic strategy, in particular, has been based on growth of the internal Chinese market and thus in sharp contrast to the export-led growth strategy followed by other East Asian tigers (and promoted by the “Washington Consensus”). As such, China’s strategy is an important example in thinking about economic globalization.
India: Emerging Power - 2001
Stephen Philip Cohen
《印度：成型中的强权》
史帝芬•柯恩
详细书讯，
http://www.brookings.edu/press/books/india.htm
“This book examines the proposition that India is becoming a major power.” “It is not yet a dominant military or economic power, although its capabilities in these spheres are rising. Rather, it is a state with great cultural and civilizational influence and an increasingly skilled political and strategic leadership that is learning to exploit India’s strengths. It also has a diaspora that constitutes a potential asset for the Indian state.” Cohen says, “India most closely resembles China in its current reemergence as a major state, although it trails far behind in many respects.”
Cohen goes back through two thousand years of India’s history to detail its generally bureaucratic mindset and its remarkable ability to absorb and assimilate its various conquerors over its long history. He points out that a generation ago, India bet on the Soviet Union (during the Cold War), economic autarky, and military might. It lost all three bets and is still recovering from those losses today. The book details India’s ongoing domestic disturbances (arising from its 20 language groups, 50,000 castes, and 500,000 villages), its remarkable economic growth over the last few years, its continuing conflict with Pakistan over the Kashmir region, its status as a nuclear power, its relations with neighboring countries (especially China), its emergence as a well-educated, high-technology power, and its growing relationship with the United States. In all, Cohen believes that from the Indian perspective, the ideal world would consist of many great powers, each dominant in its own region, and pledged to avoid interference across regions and India, of course, would be the great power in its region. He can also see that these hopes are achievable with the right decisions in a few critical areas.
Modern Latin America - 2005
Thomas E. Skidmore
《现代拉丁美洲》
托玛斯•E•斯基德摩
详细书讯，
http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/ge ... t&ci=019517013X
As did most areas of the earth, Latin America had its colonial phase, but most Latin American countries gained their independence (primarily from Spain and Portugal) in the early 18 th century – well before most other countries. Skidmore describes five post-colonial phases in the transformation to modern Latin America. The first two phases (1880 – 1900 and 1900 – 1930) were characterized by import-export growth leading to significant prosperity for some and to growth of large-scale cities. The Great Depression hit the Latin American countries hard, led to a number of military coups and to a period (1930 – 1960s) of import-substituting industrialization (ISI). In the fourth phase (1960s – 1980s), stagnation in ISI due primarily to continued dependence on imported capital goods led to government changes and several highly repressive regimes. Skidmore says the current phase (1980s – 2000s) has been characterized by economic crisis (primarily due to oppressive debt burdens), neo-liberal reform, some economic recovery, and increasing democracy. Case studies of Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Cuba, the Caribbean, and Central America are used to explore each of these phases to identify similarities and differences among Latin American countries. In the Epilogue, Skidmore explores what these similarities and differences might bode for the future.
Skidmore says one of the most important factors in determining the future is the size and growth of Latin America’s populations. Unless it can get population growth under control he feels the prospects for economic growth are not good, though he sees continued urbanization as a force for population control. In economics, he sees a growing and healthy skepticism of the neo-liberal approach, but nothing yet to replace it. He notes that no major political shifts in Latin America have been directly brought about by the workers and the possibility of peasant revolts is difficult to measure. The middle classes have tended to side with the upper class in crises and he says the tendency is “to favor coups in a crisis but elections when the dust clears.” The church bears watching because the Catholic monopoly on Christianity in the region has been undermined by the rapid inroads of Protestantism, led by well-organized Evangelicals. The military in the 1990s has withdrawn (primarily with the end of the Cold War) and Marxism has lost its appeal across the entire region. As for capitalism, Skidmore notes it’s checkered history in Latin America and its not clear that the current capitalists in this most inequitable region are interested in improving the social welfare of their societies. He concludes that, as in the past, the fate of Latin America will depend largely on its relationship to the centers of international powers.
An interesting appendix has an analytic framework that is useful for comparative analyses of patterns in Latin America, along with several sample comparisons.
A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East - 1989
David Fromkin
《一次和平终结所有和平：奥士曼帝国的衰落以及现代中东的形成》
戴维•弗罗姆金
详细书讯，
http://www.holtzbrinckpublishers ... .asp?BookKey=461168
To understand the Middle East, this book may seem an odd choice, but as one reviewer said, “No book published in recent years has more lasting relevance to our understanding of the Middle East.” Fromkin’s book covers the period from 1914 to 1922 and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. As the book jacket says, “Fromkin reveals how and why the Allies came to remake the geography of the Middle East, drawing lines on an empty map that eventually became the new countries of Iraq, Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon. Focusing on the formative years of 1914 to 1922, when everything – even an alliance between Arab nationalism and Zionism – seemed possible and oil was not a political issue, Fromkin shows how the choices narrowed and the Middle East began along a road that led to the endless wars and the escalating acts of terrorism that continue to this day.”
At the beginning of World War I, Europeans thought the war would be over in a matter of weeks, that the Ottoman Empire would finally collapse, and that it would be divided up among the Great Powers to conclude “the Great Game.” With access to archives of previously secret documents and private papers, Fromkin shows how those ideas changed as the war wore on and the Ottoman Empire proved more resilient than expected. In the end, the remnants of the Ottoman Empire became the only “spoils” of World War I, so arguments over the division of the Empire became much more intense. In addition, the European thirst for dominion slackened severely among the general population. The result for the British was that by 1922 when they committed to the program for remaking the Middle East – they no longer believed in it. By destroying the old order in the region irrevocably and taking a half-hearted approach to reform, Fromkin says the Allies left the 20 th century Middle East in a situation similar to Europe’s in the 5 th century and “[I]t took Europe a millennium and a half to resolve its post-Roman crisis of social and political identity: nearly a thousand years to settle on the nation-state form of political organization, and nearly five hundred years more to determine which nations were entitled to be states.”
Russia in Search of Itself - 2004
James H. Billington
《俄罗斯：找寻自己中》
詹姆斯•毕林顿（美国国会图书馆馆长，比林顿博士曾获得30余项荣誉学位，1992年普林斯顿大学的伍德罗•威尔逊奖、1999洛杉矶加利福尼亚大学奖和2000年国际语言和文化教师协会设立的普希金奖。还获得格鲁吉亚第比利斯大学（1999）和莫斯科俄罗斯国立大学人文学荣誉博士学位（2001）。比林顿还当选为俄罗斯科学院院士并获得法国艺术文学勋章、德国骑士十字奖章和韩国的光华勋章。比林顿长期担任《外交》与《今日神学》编辑顾问委员会及外国学术委员会成员，根据富布赖特-海斯法案负责世界范围的学术交换。比林顿还是约翰•肯尼迪表演艺术中心和美国哲学学会及美国艺术与科学院成员）
详细书讯，
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/inde ... e&book_id=58483
Billington is the U.S. Librarian of Congress and an expert on Russia. Rather than look at the economic arc of post-Cold War Russia he has chosen to look at the internal cultural dialog that is taking place in Russia. At this point Communism has been largely discredited and the appliques of democracy and capitalism are running into cultural resistance. Billington, however, notes that Russia has something of a history of being able to adapt significant changes abruptly, as they did with Byzantine religious and artistic models a millennium ago and Communism in the early part of the 20 th century. Further, he argues that “no nation ever poured more intellectual energy into answering the question of national identity than Russia and he implies that we won’t really know how Russia will settle out until today’s Russians have settled that question.
Billington has been privy to a good deal of the debate about national identity that has been raging since the early ‘90s. Unlike the past, he says that this debate has neither been driven from the top down nor has it been set by an intellectual giant such as Andrei Sakharov or Alexander Solzhenitsyn. An indication of the confusion among the Russian people was a poll in which some 80% of the population “completely agreed” that democracy was important. At the same time over 70% also “completely agreed” that strong authoritarian rule was important. For people interested in the longer-range future, Billington speaks of three provisional conclusions that emerge from his study: 1) “the range of distinctly possible future identities for Russia should include alternatives that are both far better and far worse than any presently anticipated,” 2) “the balance of probabilities points toward an eventual outcome considerably better than is generally thought possible,” and 3) “an enduring positive identity will be possible only if Russians are able harmoniously to synthesize Western political and economic institutions with an indigenous recovery of the religious and moral dimensions of their own culture.”
African Politics and Society: A Mosaic in Transformation - 2004
Peter J. Schraeder
《非洲政治和社会：转型中的马赛克》
彼得•J•斯川德
详细书讯，
http://www.wadsworth.com/cgi-wad ... iscipline_number=20
Schraeder describes Africa as a “rich mosaic of diversity” and emphasizes the point by noting that “African leaders have employed capitalism, Marxism, socialism, and Islamic revivalism as the bases for creating a wide variety of political regimes, including monarchies, military dictatorships, Islamic republics, and liberal democracies.” He includes North Africa in his study and begins with the past by describing three broad historical periods – the precolonial era (prior to 1884), the colonial era (1884 – 1951) and contemporary independence (1951 – present). The main feature of the precolonial era was that (apart from the slave trade) the continent was doing pretty well, fueled from the 11 th century on by a growing trans-Saharan trade network. All that came to a screeching halt during the colonial era, characterized importantly by resource extraction and the imposition of arbitrary nation-state boundaries. Although Africa is still impacted today by its colonial history, it is also impacted significantly by its legacy from the Cold War as an ideological battlefield for proxy wars between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The book covers the sociocultural environment in Africa, including the roles that ethnicity and class play and the role of ideology in the politics of development. Governance is covered, including the ongoing tension between state power and underdeveloped but growing civil societies, the prominent role that militaries have played, and the growing number of democratic experiments being carried out. Also covered is the role that foreign relations have played, especially the ongoing role that foreign powers play, both directly and indirectly. Most interesting from the longer-range standpoint, however, is a section on theoretical perspectives. Here, Schraeder covers the two main competing theories – the liberal tradition and the critical tradition. The former holds the vision of the development of free-market democracies in Africa and has undergone significant evolution in the face of ongoing failures on the continent. The critical tradition questions the long-standing liberal tradition and, in its most extreme form, emphasizes that true development will occur only after revolutionary struggles and the creation of populist regimes throughout the continent. Without suggesting how Africa will progress, Schraeder sees reason for optimism: “For every military coup d’etat there exists a transition to civilian rule, such as in Benin, where 19 years of military dictatorship (1972-91) were replaced by democracy (1991-present). For every civil war there exists a case of conflict resolution, as in Mozambique, where a peace accord signed in 1992 ended nearly 30 years of guerrilla warfare. For every ethnic conflict there exists a well-meaning attempt to create multi-ethnic cooperation, such as South Africa’s democratization under the leadership of president Nelson Mandela … and his successor.”
State Legitimacy and Development in Africa - 2000
Pierre Englebert
《国家合法性以及发展在非洲》
皮埃尔•安格尔伯特
详细书讯，
http://www.rienner.com/viewbook.cfm?BOOKID=1107&search=
“The historical endogeneity of the state, its congruence with underlying political institutions and norms of political authority – in a word, its legitimacy – is a crucial variable in understanding the choice of policies that rulers of developing countries adopt and the quality of the overall governance they provide. Both, in turn, are important factors contributing to economic development.” Englebert arrives at this conclusion through regression analysis that is aimed at describing both economic success and failure among African states. His measure of state legitimacy applies throughout the world and his regressions are run across data worldwide (except Central Asia because of their recent independence). They are of particular interest in Africa because most of Africa’s states qualify as nonlegitimate. The analysis shows that Africa’s relative lack of state legitimacy leads to its weak economic performance compared to other developing regions and it shows how variations in state legitimacy among African countries also account in large part for differences in state capacity and economic performance across the region.
Regression analysis also shows that state legitimacy is robust in the face of other more common potential explanatory variables such as terms of trade, commodity dependence, rates of population growth, ethnic heterogeneity, tropicality, access to the coast, and occurrences of civil wars. This strongly suggests that economic policies in poorly performing African states follow the noneconomic logic of their leaders’ quest for political hegemony. Further, it suggests that the ability of some states to incorporate necessary economic reforms may actually depend on something the African states have thus far been unalterably opposed to – territorial redefinition of some African political structures. This latter thought suggests that the boundaries of nonlegitimate African (and other) states may more malleable in the longer-range future than they are today. |
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发表于 2005-12-6 19:48:09
发表于 2005-12-10 04:02:34