The North Korean model: Gaps and questions
Abstract North Korea has articulated a comprehensive strategy for economic, political, military, ideological and cultural independence, with sustained high growth ( juche ). Self-reliance, not self-sufficiency, is the stated goal and has been achieved to a high degree, especially in food, machines-tools and energy, in spite of the country having no oil. The political system is highly authoritarian and male-dominated, with special emphasis on the cult of Kim II Sung. The regime is highly secretive and information is unsystematic. There are exceptional methodological problems in evaluating the evidence. Korea is probably the most successful economy in any post-revolutionary society, but the relationship between authoritarian politics (in extreme isolation) and social and economic achievement is obscure. Important lessons can e learnt from the Korean ‘model’ but the problem is how to learn them.
The anti-dependence strategy of development : an evaluation of the theories and the strategy with reference to Tanzania 1961-1981
This thesis first discusses the views of dependence theorists, focusing on Frank, Amin, Cardoso and dos Santos. Frank asserts that relations of production in Latin America and the rest of the Third W orld are capitalist, and that capitalism does not generate development in those countries, since it has not done so during the long time it has structurally dom inated them. Therefore reforms within this dependence structure will bring neither autonom y nor development. Only a socialist revolution may effect any real change. U n d erstan d in g the problem s of underdevelopm en t and dependence in terms of the logic of the worldwide accumulation process, Amin concedes that capitalism can be a source of developm ent in the 'centre' and in the 'periphery', but in reality only a limited and skewed form of development occurs in the latter. This is because of the Third W orld's lim ited control over the accum ulation process. Only a significant disengagem ent from current global arrangem ents of production and distribution can bring perm anent benefits. Industrial production of essential goods, as opposed to the export of primary goods, will help greatly but will not be enough. C ardoso argues that although the structure of dependence is primarily economic, it can be changed qualitatively by social forces and political actions. In addition the structure is continually modified according to time and place, and therefore there is no reason to think that it can never change. Though skeptical of current Third World industrialization, he believes that real changes are possible through industrialization, dos Santos sees the inflexibility of social and political, rather than economic forces at both the local and global level as the major obstacles to change, and thus his solution, like that of Frank, focuses on a socio-political revolution. Critics of dependence are also discussed, showing in particular that empiricist critiques of dependence fail to conceptualize the problem, and that others, such as Warren, paint an erroneously rosy picture of capitalist development in the Third World. A particularly interesting critique of dependence through the "merchant capital" thesis of Kay is also rejected, mainly for blaming the problems of Third W orld developm ent on a form of capital which ceased to operate globally a long time ago, and for ascribing to capitalism only a faultless progressive mission. Some of the critics of dependence, however, rem ind us all in the process that the vital ingredients required for development are capital and industrialization. This is acknowledged, and it is combined with the awareness within the dependence framework, of global structural constraints which also m anifest them selves locally, to m ap out w hat anti-dependence programmes may look like. Programs of an anti-dependence strategy may differ from each other, and must be expected to be modified by the circumstances of each country. But they m ust focus on industrialization, and on a capital goods sector as the vital ingred ien t in a process of developm ent which underm ines dependence. The general measure of achievement for a country pursuing an anti-dependence strategy is whether that country has set in train a process that is reducing dependence and is more likely than not to eliminate it altogether. The pre-independence situation in Tanzania fits the theoretical thesis of the global incorporation and subordination of a Third W orld country, as well as dem onstrating a case of original underdevelopm ent, which the incorporation did not change and
The Internet and the Changing Beijing-Taipei Relations: Toward Unification or Fragmentation?
Information and its technologies facilitate the exercise of what has been called “soft power,” a concept that differentiates information from the conventional dimensions of “hard power,” which is mainly associated with military force and economic influence. Soft power, according to Nye, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense of the United States, means that “A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries want to follow it, admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness. In this sense it is just as important to set the agenda in world politics and attract others as it is to force them to change through the threat or use of military or economic weapons.”1