Spring 2016

JPI 

Spring 2016 

Journal of Political Inquiry 

Fall 2016 

New York University 

19 University Pl. New York, NY

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Modern US National Security 4 

Enduring Long-Term Core Objectives and Changing Short-term 

interests 

Doreen Horschig 

The Development of Indian National Identity 8 

What Was the Impact of the British Raj? 

Zainab Zaheer 

Human Rights 16 

An Overlapping Consensus among Realism, Liberalism, and 

Marxism? 

Brittany Stubbs 

Regime Type and Civil War Susceptibility 22 

Regime Type and Civil War Susceptibility 

Mark Sizwebanzi Mngomezulu 

Between Balance and Bandwagon 35 

Why the United States and Japan Are Best Friends? 

Kazumichi Uchida 

The Judicialization of Politics and the 

Independence of Constitutional Court 47 

The Case of South Korea 

Eunseong Oh 

War on Terror 61 

An Actual War or a Social Construct by the Bush Administration 

Sinan Zhang 

Born to Be Different 67 

The national identity and the other in the Russian Political Elite 

Discourse 

Anastasiia Vlasenko 

JPI: Spring 2016 Issue 2

EDITORIAL BOARD 

MIREIA TRIGUERO ROURA Editor-in-chief 

XING LU Deputy Editor 

JOSEPH LAVICKA Managing Editor 

JIMIN KIM Managing Editor 

CLARE CHURCH Managing Editor 

LESLEY CONNOLY Managing Editor 

BRITTANY STUBBS Managing Editor 

WILLIAM DE WOLFF Managing Editor 

HAORAN HE Editor 

DYLAN HEYDEN Editor 

ESME HELEN MONTGOMERY Editor 

DENA MOTEVALIAN Editor 

EUNSEONG OH Editor 

BRYNNAN PARISH Editor 

SUNGMI SONG Editor 

ZAINAB ZAHEER Editor 

DOREEN HORSCHIG Editor 

LAURA POWERS Editor 

PEI YU WEI Editor 

EDWARD ABLANG Editor 


Modern U.S. National 

Security 

Enduring Long-Term Core 

Objectives and Changing 

Short-Term Interests 

Doreen Horschig 

T 

his paper analyzes U.S. national 

security interests since 1987. While 

core objectives have not changed 

with various U.S. administrations over the 

past three decades, the fast-changing 

international environment has required an 

additional, small set of security interests 

that are more flexible and tailored to the 

situation at hand. 

The U.S. government spends more 

than $600 billion on its annual defense 

budget. 1 The question remains which 

national security interests the defense 

budget aims to protect and whether those 

interests have changed over time or 

remained static. The United States has 

pursued long-term core interests to 

safeguard the American people, territory, 

and way of life. In reaction to dynamic 

threats and risks, short-term, responsive or 

reactionary interests have been created 

alongside consistent core interests. In an 

age of global information, increasing 

international interdependence, and an 

unpredictable world economy, the U.S. 

government must remain flexible by 

creating temporary national security 

interests in response to current world 

events while still maintaining core interests 

in order to protect the United States and its 

people. 

This work analyzes the White 

House’s National Security Strategies (NSS) 

1 Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President 

on the Iran Nuclear Deal” (Washington D.C. 

August 05, 2015), Retrieved February 2, 

2016. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-pressoffice/2015/08/05/remarks-president-irannuclear-deal. 

since 1987 and finds three core U.S. 

national security interests: democracy, 

freedom, and security. This specific date 

was chosen because every strategy since 

1987 has followed a consistent format, 

allowing for more accurate comparison. 

The second part of this paper identifies 

areas and events that require changing 

national security interests, though core 

interests are never forgotten. The paper 

does not aim to give a detailed background 

on the chosen issues, but tries to exemplify 

the equally consistent yet shifting focus of 

U.S. national security interests more 

generally. 

CONSISTENT CORE INTERESTS OF 

DEMOCRACY, FREEDOM, AND 

SECURITY 

To understand the core interests of 

U.S. National Security since 1987, historical 

information regarding the strategies of 

different U.S. administrations must be 

highlighted. Core interests are understood 

as the key objectives that need to be 

protected in policies and grand strategies. 

In January 1987, Ronald Reagan 

pointed to U.S. core interests in his 

National Security Strategy. He stated that 

the U.S. aimed to survive as a nation, 

protect its economy, freedom, democracy, 

and to create a secure world. 2 Again, the 

themes of democracy, freedom, and 

security were central. George H.W. Bush 

and Bill Clinton mirrored these same core 

interests in their respective strategies 

throughout the 1990’s. Both sets of 

publications highlight the need to protect 

the United States as a free, independent 

nation, and the need to safeguard human 

rights, democracy, and economic freedom. 3 

2 White House, “National Security Strategy of 

the United States” (Washington D.C.: 

February 1987), 3-4, Retrieved February 5, 

2016. http://nssarchive.us/NSSR/1987.pdf. 


the United States” (Washington D.C.: 

February 1991), 4, Retrieved February 5, 

2016. http://nssarchive.us/NSSR/1991.pdf. 


Consistent throughout are the notions of 

the protection of freedom, democracy, and 

security. 

Turning to the 21 st century, the 

same three core interests remain. In 2002, 

following the events of 9/11, George W. 

Bush identified the interests and 

commitment to democracy and freedom. 4 

After September 11th, ensuring national 

security became increasingly important. 

Instead of deviating from core interests, the 

Bush administration confirmed and 

reiterated these same long-term security 

objectives for the United States. Naturally, 

after 9/11, Bush prioritized the physical 

safety of the U.S. population throughout 

his NSSs. 5 The Obama Administration 

argued in its NSS in 2010 and 2015 that 

U.S. core interests included “the security of 

the United States… [and] respect for 

universal values at home and around the 

world.” 6 Once again, the emphasis of the 

NSS is on freedom and security (perhaps 

even democracy, though to a lesser extent) 

and is consistent with core interests of 

former administrations. Democracy, 

freedom, and security are just as vital to 

U.S. national security policy as they were 

during the Reagan administration. 

In the midst of changing times and 

dramatic world events, Ronald Reagan, 

George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George 

W. Bush, and Barack Obama maintained 

the consistent national security interests of 

White House, “A National Security Strategy of 

Engagement and Enlargement” (Washington 

D.C.: February 1994), 5, Retrieved February 

5, 2016. http://nssarchive.us/NSSR/1994.pdf. 

4 White House, “A National Security 

Strategy of the United States of America” 

(Washington D.C.: September 2002), iv, 

Retrieved February 4, 2016. 

http://www.state.gov/documents/organizat 

ion/63562.pdf. 

5 Ibid, 7, 26, and 31. 

6 White House, “National Security Strategy” 

(Washington D.C.: February 2015), 2, 


https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/ 

docs/2015_national_security_strategy.pdf. 

democracy, freedom, and security of the 

American people. Reaganomics, the Iran- 

Contra Affair, the end of the Cold War, fall 

of the Berlin wall, the Persian Gulf War, 

and 9/11, though significant, have not 

altered the core interests of U.S. National 

Security. Understanding core national 

security interests is necessary to 

understanding the minor and more 

temporary interests that have changed with 

time and environment. 

EVOLVING AND SHIFTING INTERESTS 

The common core U.S. national security 

interests do not reflect the entirety of U.S. 

national security policy. Additional security 

interests have been added, and often later 

removed, in response to current events and 

according to the will of the politician in 

power. Global threats that were eminent in 

the 20 th century have become less 

significant when compared to modern 

threats. Secondary interests had and have to 

be adjusted to reflect a changing political 

and global environment and according to 

current U.S. administration policies. 

Containing and Restraining the Soviet Union 

While not a current matter of 

national security interest, containing and 

restraining the USSR was vital during 

previous administrations, prior to 1991. 

During the most intense period of the Cold 

War, the prevention of nuclear war (and 

conventional war with the USSR) was of 

the utmost importance to the United States. 

In 1987, during the final years of the 

conflict, Reagan described it as a matter of 

national security to “[seek] meaningful ways 

of working with the Soviet leaders to 

prevent war and make the world a more 

peaceful place.” 7 Interests were prioritized 

based on the presence of Soviet power, 

communist propaganda, and nuclear 

weapons. Reagan prioritized a peaceful 

relationship with the USSR alongside 

freedom and democracy. 


the United States”, 1987, 1. 


Reagan’s NSS was generally 

militaristic because of the threat of the 

Soviet Union. In response to a powerful 

USSR, the U.S. “undertook the Strategic 

Modernization Program in order to 

maintain the essential survivability and 

effectiveness of our own forces in the face 

of… the Soviet threat.” 8 The strengthening 

of the military to contain the USSR was a 

primary interest of the NSS in 1987. The 

end of the Cold War eliminated 

containment as an objective of national 

security interest. This reaction to a shifting 

global environment exemplifies that not all 

current national security interests are core 

to American policy and demonstrates that 

security interests are flexible enough to 

react to current events (such as current 

state relations, new administrations, and/or 

international events). 

Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Sanctions in Iran 

As some concerns dissipate, like 

restraining the USSR, new ones arise. One 

recent example is the nuclear deal with Iran. 

The U.S. government reached a milestone 

in limiting the expansion of Iranian nuclear 

program. As Obama stated: “[the 

agreement] achieves one of our most 

critical security objectives.” 9 The objective 

of nuclear non-proliferation serves the core 

interest of safeguarding the American 

people and territory as well as the 

secondary interest of preventing a nuclear 

arms race. 10 This has been an interest for 

the U.S. since 1945. However, the specific 

interest has changed. The U.S. objective is 

not only to prevent nuclear proliferation in 

Iran but also to prevent terrorists and other 

radical groups in the region from obtaining 

nuclear weapons as well. A few decades 

ago, major national security concerns 

focused on great power politics, such as 

during the Reagan administration. The 

threat of terrorists obtaining nuclear 

8 Ibid, 23. 

9 Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President 

on the Iran Nuclear Deal.” 

10 Ibid. 

weapons, or Weapons of Mass Destruction 

(WMD’s), was relatively small (if not 

nonexistent) compared to the threat of the 

Soviet Union, but has now become key in 

the Bush and Obama administrations. Nonstate 

actors play an important role in 

shaping American security interests. The 

psychological threat of terrorists obtaining 

nuclear weapons has been taken into 

consideration by U.S. national security as 

well. 

As per the Iranian nuclear 

agreement, the reduction of Iran’s stockpile 

of nuclear weapons will be followed by an 

easing of international sanctions. The EU 

and U.S. agreed to terminate “all nuclearrelated 

economic and financial 

sanctions...” 11 The removal of trade barriers 

allows for the expansion of U.S. economic 

ties. It is believed that with an expansion in 

trade, the U.S. will be able to promote 

freedom and democracy in Iran. The 

potential this, however, will depend on the 

flexibility of the regime in Iran, the 

institutions that are created, and the will of 

the people. 

Global Health 

Global health is yet another 

example of a dynamic interest that has been 

prioritized because of the current global 

situation, though it can be linked to the 

core U.S. interest of security. Typically, 

protecting the population of the United 

States is described as a defense of the 

population against threats and violence 

committed by state and non-state actors. A 

global disease pandemic could be equally as 

devastating as more traditional security 

threats. The spread of disease has long been 

present, however, and it has become a more 

pressing issue with simplified global travel. 

11 “Joint Statement by EU High 

Representative Federica Mogherini and 

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif 

Switzerland” (Bruxelles: April 2, 2015), 


http://eeas.europa.eu/statementseeas/2015/150402_03_en.htm. 


Diseases like Ebola or the current Zika 

virus can reach American territory in a 

shorter amount of time than ever before. It 

is now in the interest of U.S. national 

security not only to fight pandemics within 

the country or its neighbors, but also to 

pursue global health programs. 12 

Energy and Cyber Security 

An additional American interest 

that has arisen over time as a priority is 

energy security. The United States believes 

that it is in the interest of national security 

to create “buffers against the coercive use 

of energy...” 13 In reaction to the changing 

national environment, the Obama 

administration tackled the use of energy as 

a political weapon. For example, Russia is 

aware of the dependence of Ukraine and 

Europe on its energy resources. Obama 

explained that there is a need for more 

“diversification of energy fuels, sources, 

and routes” to create greater political 

independence. 14 The Bush administration 

mentioned the same interest in one of its 

NSSs. 15 In Reagan’s strategy, however, the 

issue of energy security was not expressed 

because the political environment did not 

require it. 

Future Capacity of National Security Interests 

Past administrations highlighted 

similar national security interests that 

together form a core of consistent U.S. 

national security interests. The next NSS 

will, in all likelihood, employ the protection 

of the same fundamental values: individual 

freedoms of the American people, 

democracy, prosperity, and national 

security. However, especially in a digital, 

interconnected age, a new government 

would be wise to shift U.S. national security 

interests according to current issues. This 

could include a larger emphasis on the 

“protection of intellectual property, online 

freedom, and respect for civilian 

infrastructure...” 16 This is just one example 

of acknowledging new interests related to 

modernization through digitalization. Other 

threats, like the acquisition of WMDs by 

terrorist organizations, global diseases, and 

the procurement of nuclear power by nonstate 

actors, will require a modernization of 

security interests as well. 

CONCLUSION 

The interest of protecting United 

States’ citizens, territory, and values has not 

and will not change under any U.S. 

administration. Each administration since 

1987 has maintained the U.S. national core 

interests of democracy, freedom, and 

security in their respective NSSs. At the 

same time, these presidents had to adjust 

short-term interests according to current 

global events. For example, the NSS of the 

Reagan administration did not show as 

much interest in preventing religious 

extremist groups from obtaining WMD’s as 

President Obama’s does. In 2016, the 

United States faces different threats than it 

did in previous decades. Cyberattacks, 

terrorism, counterintelligence, and weapons 

of mass destruction are contemporary 

concerns that will need to be addressed. 

Only the future will determine if the next 

administration will maintain these same 

core interests or reshape them for their 

own purposes. Any new administration 

should remain flexible in its National 

Security Strategy and in its response to 

challenges that arise when addressing and 

protecting these security interests. 

12 White House, “National Security Strategy”, 

2015, 14. 

13 Ibid, 16. 

14 Ibid. 

15 White House, “A National Security Strategy 

of the United States of America”,19. 

16 White House, “National Security Strategy”, 

2015, 13. 


The Development of 

Indian National Identity 

And the impact of the British 

Raj 

Zainab Zaheer 

T 

his paper will attempt to answer the 

question “How did modern-day 

Indian national identity develop and 

in what ways was it a product of the British 

Raj?” In order to do this, the essay will first 

trace the development of a unifying national 

identity in British India, and then tie this to 

key elements of national identity in the 

modern-day state. In order to explore the 

gradual formation of a distinct national 

rhetoric, this paper will briefly explore the 

work of both Mahatma Gandhi and 

Jawaharlal Nehru, and the roles they played in 

shaping Indian national consciousness. 

NATIONAL IDENTITY VS. NATIONALISM 

In order to define national identity, it 

is necessary to understand the closely linked 

but distinct concept of nationalism. This 

paper chooses to define nationalism as a belief 

in the significance of a geographical or 

demographical region and a conviction in that 

region’s right to independence in order to 

protect its culture or ethnicity. In contrast, 

scholars often define national identity as a 

sense of belonging to a state or nation, which 

is represented by a culture and language, and a 

variety of traditions. 17 

17 Richard D. Ashmore, Lee Jussim and David 

Wilder, Social Identity, Intergroup Conflict, and 

Conflict Reduction (New York: Oxford University 

Press, 2001), 74–75. 

According to academic Gianfranco 

Poggi, national identity is an essential 

ingredient of citizenship. Each nation-state is 

“made [a] historical reality… purposively 

constructed, functionally specific machine.” 18 

Each has a constant need to legitimize itself in 

the eyes of its citizens by providing a national 

ideology. The modern nation-state mobilizes 

commitment based on this idea of national 

identity. This commitment requires that 

Indian national identity be fluid, continually 

sustained, and able to change. 

The study of how these definitions 

apply to different states is vast, but for the 

purposes of this paper we will focus on Indian 

nationalism. 

FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO INDIAN 

NATIONALISM 

British India was ruled by centralized 

state and political institutions. By building this 

overarching administrative structure, the 

British would unknowingly ease the 

development Indian nationalism. During and 

after Indian independence, influential 

nationalist leaders would emphasize that both 

the beliefs and efforts of the Indian people 

would be best served if the unity of the 

imperial state were kept intact but was 

controlled by Indians. 

Unlike most colonial nationalist 

projects, Indian nationalists did not want to 

carve one piece of British India for 

themselves. Instead, they sought to claim the 

entirety of that empire, aiming to bring a land 

with fourteen major languages and over two 

hundred dialects under an overarching 

identity: India. According to Joya Chatterji, 

18 Gianfranco Poggi, The Development of the 

Modern State (Stanford: Stanford University 

Press, 1978), 95-101. 


“[t]he British in India were not in the business 

of promoting nationhood amongst their 

subjects: indeed, when challenged by critics 

claiming to speak for an Indian nation, their 

response was to declare that India was 

nothing more than a “geographical 

expression”. 19 This geographical expression 

did not consist of a community that identified 

itself as a nation or as a strong state that 

sought to create a sense of nationalism. Unlike 

other nationalist projects in the nineteenth 

century (such as the Egyptians against the 

Ottoman Empire or the Slavs against the 

Habsburg Empire) India did not face internal 

revolutions or external wars, both of which 

had proven to inspire modern nationalist 

movements in the past. 

After the War of Independence in 

1857, the East India Company’s rule was 

replaced by the British monarchy and new 

structures of government were established, 

including governors, presidencies and 

provinces. A system of civil servants and 

subordinates was created with the express 

goal of involving the “natives” in government, 

in order to create a sense of ownership among 

the population without truly devolving power 

to them. “This new apparatus of rule sought 

to recruit Indians in vast numbers into the 

service of a government capable of 

intervening more effectively than before in 

Indian life in areas that the East India 

Company—its reformist policies 

notwithstanding—had in practice left well 

alone.” 20 To bring stability and prevent any 

threat of revolt, several measures were taken: 

more white troops were stationed in India, 

19 Joya Chatterji, “Nationalisms in India, 1857- 

1947,” in The Oxford Handbook of the History of 

Nationalism, ed. John Breuilly (Oxford: Oxford 

University Press, 2013), 243. 

20 Ibid., 245. 

communications networks such as railways, 

roads, and a telegraph network were expanded 

in order to rapidly send troops across the 

subcontinent in case of rebellion, and 

irrigation projects were carried out throughout 

the Punjab (a geographical region in one of 

the northernmost parts of the Indian 

subcontinent). This transformation came at a 

huge cost. White troops were paid higher 

wages and taxes were raised and collected 

more efficiently in order to pay for 

widespread development. 

More white men were brought to 

India to “develop” the Indian economy and 

local bodies were created to collect taxes. 

Local populations took the opportunity to call 

for self-government and to try to influence 

policy locally and at imperial centers of power, 

such as Calcutta and London. This process 

continued to escalate over the next several 

years, resulting in a situation where: 

[T]he very structures of the British 

Empire unwittingly generated the 

motor force that drove Indians 

operating in these different arenas of 

politics to forge new linkages and 

alliances. These alliances were the 

crucial adhesive that came to bind the 

local, the provincial, and the all-India 

arenas into a single, interconnected 

field of politics, matching the 

interconnected structures of 

government with which it aimed to 

engage. 21 

THE INDIAN NATION AS AN IDEA 

As the state developed in the 

nineteenth century so did civil society, public 

21 Ivi. 


awareness, and involvement. Religious, legal, 

and bureaucratic literati (those whose families 

had served British rulers for generations, 

including Mughals and regional nawabs) had 

learned English and understood European 

history. They began to question the 

disparaging “white man’s narrative” that 

explained how and why earlier rulers on the 

subcontinent had so easily been defeated. 

Convinced that it must be because Indians 

had lost their culture, some like Raja Ram 

Mohun Roy and Sayyid Ahmed Khan, called 

for modernization and reform by lobbying the 

British government to support educational 

initiatives (like Khan’s university at Aligrah) 

and to outlaw “backward” practices such as 

satti (the burning of widows). 22 Some scholars 

argue that these movements were early 

examples of India’s emerging constitutional 

liberalism because such reformers insisted that 

it was the government’s responsibility to 

provide for the common good. Later, the 

paper will argue that Indian nationalists only 

sought to gather power for the greater good 

of those who fit their definition of “Indian.” 

Towards the close of the nineteenth 

century, the idea of a nationalism began to 

come to the forefront on the Indian 

subcontinent. In 1893, Dadabhai Naoroji, one 

of the founding fathers of the Indian National 

Congress, said, “I am an Indian and owe duty 

to my work and all my countrymen. Whether 

I am a Hindu or a Mahommedan, a Parsi, a 

Christian, or of any other creed, I am above 

all an Indian. Our country is India and our 

nationality is Indian.” 23 This was became the 

INC’s central tenet, to influence policy issues 

22 Christopher A. Bayly, “Rammohun Roy and 

the Advent of Constitutional Liberalism in India, 

1800–1830,” Modern Intellectual History 4, 1, 

2007, doi: 10.1017/S1479244306001028. 

23 Chatterji, “Nationalisms in India,” 249. 

that concerned Indians, regardless of region 

or religion. By this time, all-Indian nationalism 

had spread beyond elitist circles, spurred by 

the increasing intervention of British 

administration and an increase in English 

education. This further catalyzed the creation 

of a “secular-intelligentsia” that pushed for 

nationalism. 24 

As more natives gained an English 

education and became involved in local and 

provincial government structures, they 

became increasingly aware of the enforced 

difference between themselves and the 

“whites.” The blatant racial discrimination 

they faced turned many “would-be 

collaborators” against their colonial masters. 25 

Their resentment needed an outlet; the 

number of printing presses owned by Indians 

increased dramatically. The content they 

produced challenged the government and 

included the Indian public in the conversation 

on the Indian nation. The desire for 

protection and justice from the state inspired 

a generation of lawyers and journalists. Slowly, 

the term “native” came to define one’s 

“Indian-ness”. The varied peoples ruled by 

the Raj came together under a unifying, 

territorially-defined sense of identity. 

THE ROLE OF THE INDIAN NATIONAL 

CONGRESS & GANDHI 

The Indian National Congress was a 

group of lawyers and journalists, educated 

elites with Western education, who sought 

greater native representation, freedom of 

24 Anthony D. Smith, Theories of Nationalism 

(London: Gerald Duckworth, 1983), xxii–xxiii. 

25 Rajat Kanta Ray, Social Conflict and Political 

Unrest in Bengal, 1875–1927 (Oxford: Oxford 

University Press, 1984); 

Sumit Sarkar, Modern India 1885–1947 (New 

York: Macmillan, 2000), 22–24. 


press, equal treatment, and economic 

opportunity. The Congress contributed 

significantly to all-India nationalism by 

providing a forum for conversation and 

organized all-India nationalism by fashioning 

“a secular critique of British rule.” 26 Their 

strategy was to appeal to the British 

government as imperial subjects and 

emphasize how the very liberal values the 

British sought to encourage were being 

damaged on the subcontinent. 

India paid a heavy price after World 

War I. Heavily-taxed merchants, peasants 

overwhelmed by price fluctuations and a lack 

of resources, and demoralized soldiers began 

to view the INC as a medium to express their 

discontent. In 1920, the British government in 

India responded with the concept of diarchy. 

They seduced moderate Indian politicians 

with the promise of influence in provincial 

councils in order to undermine the still fragile 

“all-India” political unity. 

In the years following WWI, Mahatma 

Gandhi arrived in India as a critic of the 

state’s ability to improve social conditions and 

as a social and religious reformer, rather than 

a political figure. Unlike Khan, Roy, and other 

intellectuals of the time, Gandhi believed that 

the British were successful in conquering 

India because Indians cooperated with British 

forces. Ghandi said that Indians had enabled 

the British by being seduced by materialism 

and western ideas of modernity. 

…we must refuse to submit to this 

official violence. Appeal to Parliament 

by all means if necessary, but if the 

parliament fails us and we are worthy 

to call ourselves a nation, we must 


refuse to uphold the Government by 

withdrawing cooperation from it. 27 

Gandhi encouraged the all-India 

Congress to demand full independence, or 

swaraj, and called for Indians to boycott 

promotions to the provincial councils 

promised under diarchy (the Act of 1920). He 

launched a non-cooperation movement, 

satyagraha, and claimed to speak for the 

ordinary people of India. It was this that won 

the INC a “more broad-based and disparate 

following” than ever before. 28 A masterful 

politician, Gandhi had recruited supporters 

powerful enough to mobilize the masses for 

local campaigns. These included “rich 

peasants in Gujarat, prohibitionists in 

Karnataka, and Khilafatists in Bengal and 

North India.” 29 

Ghandi spoke in a way that the 

common man could use and understand. Both 

symbolically and semantically, he sought to 

connect with the everyday Indian. He drew 

attention to the weavers, artisans, and 

craftsmen losing their livelihood under British 

rule by deciding to stop wearing clothes 

woven on British looms and to instead wear 

cloth he had made himself on a spinning 

wheel. “By his symbolic adoption of the 

spinning wheel and khadi (hand-woven cloth), 

Gandhi advertised to every Indian that British 

rule was amoral and illegitimate.” 30 In his 

book Imperial Power & Popular Politics, 

Chandavarkar argues that Gandhi inspired the 

masses because of his skill in turning “the 

27 Judith Brown, Gandhi’s Rise to Power: Indian 

Politics 1915-1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge 

South Asian Studies, 1974), 245. 


29 Ivi. 

30 Ibid, 256. 


landest metaphor and the most platitudinous 

axiom in a distinctly subversive direction…” 31 

Gandhi’s success was not without 

setbacks. Some INC members were alarmed 

by his mass movements. Satyagraha led to 

violence that eventually caused Gandhi to call 

off the movement because he was unable to 

control outbursts across the country. Many 

leaders abandoned non-cooperation and 

sought to join the provincial councils created 

by the British with the idea of working within 

the system to conquer it. Gandhi was able to 

push the INC through this period of 

instability by advocating for a new 

constitution for the party that would create a 

Working Committee, fifteen leaders who 

would exercise strong, centralized control 

over a loosely organized and divided party. 

Over time, it became clear that Gandhi’s 

ability to mass-mobilize supported the 

Congress’s ability to negotiate with the British 

over constitutional reforms. The looming 

threat of widespread revolt pressured the 

British to cooperate with the INC’s demands. 

The INC came to be seen as an effective 

vehicle that influenced the people and that 

represented the people. 

SEPARATIST SENTIMENTS TAKE HOLD 

The INC’s popular hold was not 

unchallenged. In the 1930s, its unifying 

message of all-India began to fragment with 

the Simon Commission, the Nehru Report, 

and Muslim spokesperson M. A. Jinnah’s 14 

Points. Opponents claimed that minority 

rights were being threatened and the INC was 

unable to address these fears satisfactorily. At 

the outbreak of World War II, Congress 

31 Raj Chandavarkar, Imperial Power and 

Popular Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge 

University Press, 1998). 

demanded an immediate share of central 

power and Jinnah, the self-appointed leader of 

Muslims in the subcontinent, passed the 

Lahore Resolution of 1940 calling for a 

separate state for Muslims. 32 The pursuit of a 

national Indian identity was complicated and 

INC control was threatened. INC leaders 

such as Jawaharlal Nehru denounced the 

Resolution and considered it insignificant, a 

mistake that fueled the fire for the movement 

for a separate Muslim nation. 

During World War II, Britain’s 

economy suffered and the new Labour party 

began to look for a quick exit solution. The 

Raj was soon no longer sustainable for Great 

Britain. With political unrest and mass 

violence looming, as well as famine and a 

declining economy, India had turned into a 

liability. Negotiating with the INC and 

Jinnah’s Muslim League proved difficult as 

both parties had reservations against the 

other, however. The INC was 

uncompromising towards Muslim demands. 

In the end, British India was divided into two 

unequal parts designed to “cut out the 

troublesome Muslim-majority districts in the 

west and east…” 33 Out of this negotiation, 

Pakistan was born. As Joya Chatterji says, 

[W]e have the final paradox of all- 

India nationalism encapsulated by the 

Congress: its determination to inherit 

the mighty imperial state constructed 

by the British in India led to the 

division of that empire. That partition 

was the outcome of a curious and 

covert political entente between the 

weak and unprincipled Viceroy of a 

32 "Lahore Resolution (1940)," History Pak, 

accessed May 06, 2016, 

http://historypak.com/lahore-resolution-1940/. 



declining imperial power, ‘civic’ 

nationalists in a hurry to achieve 

independence with a strong centre, 

Hindu cultural nationalists in Bengal 

determined to protect its unique 

‘genius’, and leaders of the Hindu 

right keen to purge Mother India of 

Muslim traitors. 34 

UNITING INDIA: NEHRU’S GOVERNMENT 

Different social, ethnic, and cultural 

groups in the newly-formed, independent 

Indian state interpreted nationalism 

differently. The inclusive idea upon which all- 

India nationalism had so far been based was 

fractured. Since 1947, successive governments 

“worked to bring about ‘the emotional 

integration of India’, precisely because ‘India’ 

never was wholly united behind its 

nationalism, and because ‘the nation’ was 

imagined by its people in many contradictory 

ways.” 35 The Constituent Assembly was 

divided ideologically between Ghandi and 

Nehru’s multicultural brand of national 

identity and a desire for a Hindu India. After 

Gandhi’s assassination by a Hindu nationalist 

less than two years after the Constitution was 

written, Nehru became the voice of a secular 

national identity. He aimed to create a 

pluralistic society and believed India’s strength 

lay in its multiculturalism. 36 Hindu nationalists 

aimed for Hindu domination and viewed 

Muslims as threats to national stability. As a 

result of Nehru’s influence during the 

Constituent Assembly debates, secularism 

became the official doctrine of the Republic 

34 Ivi. 

35 Ibid, 260. 

36 Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India 

(London: Penguin, 1946 and 1989), 50. 

of India. All religious communities were 

recognized equally and religious schools were 

eligible for state funding. 37 

Minorities received concessions, and 

Nehru sought to accommodate Muslims who 

had chosen to stay in India. 38 While a uniform 

civil code was proposed, Muslims were 

allowed to use Shariah law within their 

communities and freedom of religion was 

recognized as a fundamental right. 39 One of 

the building blocks of Nehru’s pluralistic 

vision for India was multilingualism. Hindu 

nationalists wanted the state language to be 

Hindi, but Nehru pushed for the Constitution 

in English as well. 40 In 1963, English became 

an associate official language. 

This commitment to plurality was 

made evident by the constitutional 

recognition of fifteen official languages and 

the reorganization of certain states based on 

linguistic boundaries. 41 Maharashtra and 

Gujrat, for example, were created due to 

public demand in 1960. Over the first few 

decades of India’s independence, the 

government showed great flexibility in 

accommodating regional and linguistic 

nationalisms by recognizing Punjabis, Nagas, 

and Mizos. To promote religious impartiality 

37 The Constitution of India, Article 25, accessed 

May 05, 2016, http://lawmin.nic.in/olwing/coi/coienglish/coi-indexenglish.htm. 

38 Sarvepalli Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru (London: 

Oxford India Paperbacks, 1984), 3 and 172. 

39 The Constitution of India, Article 25 

40 Christophe Jaffrelot, “Nation-Building and 

Nationalism: South Asia, 1947–90,” in The 

Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism, 

ed. John Breuilly (Oxford: Oxford University 

Press, 2013). 

41 "Language Provisions in the Constitution of 

the Indian Union." Site for Language 

Management in Canada (SLMC). Accessed May 

05, 2016. 

https://slmc.uottawa.ca/?q=bi_india_constitution. 


and a ‘Hindu-only image, “the Indian 

Republic drew upon Buddhism to adorn itself 

with symbols that could be both Indian and 

neutral: the official emblem replicates the 

lions of Ashoka, the great Buddhist emperor, 

for instance.” 42 

This federal flexibility was a product 

of Nehru’s secular ideology triumphing over 

that of the Hindu traditionalists, but it did not 

survive long. Neither his successors, nor the 

Hindu traditionalist local leaders were willing 

to follow through with his secularism. Hindi 

was declared the official language in the 

province in Uttar Pradesh. Despite the central 

government’s recommendation, there was 

great opposition to the instruction of Urdu in 

state schools. 43 Hindi was patronized through 

promotion of literature, the slaughtering of 

cows was banned, and violence against 

Muslims was carried out in Aligarh, Varanasi, 

etc. 

MODERN DAY VOICES IN INDIA 

The secular framework began to come 

undone in the 1980s during Indira Gandhi’s 

third term in office, after her administration 

began to exploit communal feelings. 44 After 

her assassination, Rajiv Gandhi continued this 

practice and eventually incited Hindu 

backlash, as an increasing number of Hindus 

felt treated as second-class citizens. Ever 

since, Hindu nationalists have played a much 

more dominant role in national politics. The 

42 Jaffrelot, “Nation-Building and Nationalism.” 

43 Bruce Graham, Hindu Nationalism and Indian 

Politics: The Origins and Development of the 

Bharatiya Jana Sangh (Cambridge: Cambridge 


44 "1980: Gandhi Returned by Landslide Vote," 

BBC News, January 07, 1980, accessed May 

06, 2016, 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/j 

anuary/7/newsid_2506000/2506387.stm. 

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or National 

Volunteer Corps, is the modern-day political 

representation of Hindu nationalism and is 

one of the largest organizations in India. 

The RSS grew increasingly influential 

over the next 60 years. In 1955, it formed the 

Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, also known as the 

Indian Workers’ Union, to promote Hindu 

nationalist ideology (and which is now the 

country’s largest trade union). 45 The union has 

helped to develop a school network, a 

religious framework, and has provided 

development assistance in impoverished areas. 

In addition, the RSS created the Family of the 

Sangh which lead to a weakening of 

secularism in India and the development of 

anti-Muslim feelings. 46 

Though once dominant, the Indian 

National Congress suffered a historic defeat in 

2014 (the country’s most recent election). The 

INC won only 44 out of 543 constituency 

seats in the lower house of parliament. The 

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which swept the 

election with 282 seats as well as complete 

control of four states, is a right wing party 

with close ideological and organizational links 

to the Hindu nationalist, Rashtriya 

Swayamsevak Sangh. 47 This recent turn of 

events developed out of a weakening of the 

Indian economy and the INC’s failure to 

45 "Welcome to Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh," 

Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, accessed May 05, 

2016, 

http://bms.org.in/pages/BMSATGlance.aspx. 

46 Christophe Jaffrelot, The Sangh Parivar: A 

Reader, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 

2005). 

47 "Election Results 2014: Historic Win for NDA 

with 336 Seats, 282 for BJP," Firstpost, May 17, 

2014, accessed May 05, 2016, 

http://www.firstpost.com/politics/election-results- 

2014-historic-win-for-nda-with-336-seats-285- 

for-bjp-1526377.html. 


effectively engage younger voters. In contrast, 

BJP leader, Narendra Modi, ran one of the 

most innovative and successful election 

campaigns that India has ever seen, making 

heavy use of social media, and taking 

advantages of the weaknesses of the thengovernment, 

such as corruption scandals. 48 

Modi’s victory has signaled a shift in 

Indian political development. His campaign 

focused more on ideology than his opponents 

and less on ethnicity, caste, language, and 

religion, though these factors were still visibly 

present. According to a Brookings article, “in 

2014 they took a back seat to punishing the 

party in power for presiding over falling 

growth rates, inflation, and a rupee that had 

lost up to 25 percent in value before 

recovering.” 49 This is not to say that religion is 

no longer a strong factor. Exit polls showed 

that less than 10% of the Muslim population 

voted for the BJP, meaning the largest 

minority religion is not represented by the 

party in power. 50 While there has been 

progress (there is less political corruption and 

fewer regional parties demanding 

representation, for instance), the Indian 

political system has a long way to go to before 

48 Narendra Modi, "Largest Mass Outreach 

Campaign in Electoral History of a Democracy," 

April 29, 2014, accessed May 05, 2016, 

http://www.narendramodi.in/largest-massoutreach-campaign-in-electoral-history-of-ademocracy-3136. 

49 Raj M. Desai, "India's Political Development at 

the Crossroads," The Brookings Institution, May 

19, 2014, http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/upfront/posts/2014/05/19-india-politicaldevelopment-desai. 

50 Sandipan Sharma, "Bihar Exit Polls Over; the 

Voters May Have Turned Smarter than Netas 

and Pundits - Firstpost," Firstpost, November 06, 

2015, accessed May 05, 2016, 

http://www.firstpost.com/politics/bihar-exit-pollshint-at-all-outcomes-voters-may-have-turnedsmarter-than-netas-pundits-2497084.html. 

becoming more institutionalized, transparent, 

and stable. 

CONCLUSION 

While India developed out of a push 

for an all-inclusive national identity, modernday 

India national identity emphasizes 

homogeneity. Minorities face what Jaffrelot 

calls “the growing Hindu-oriented 

xenophobia”. 51 Despite this, India’s 

multilingualism is still strong. The creation of 

linguistic regions helped diffuse tensions at 

the creation of the state and ethno-nationalist 

separatists were largely quelled. Of course, 

Ghandi and Nehru deserve a huge portion of 

the credit for India’s early success in 

inclusivity. Gandhi worked to make these 

values widely accepted and Nehru worked to 

incorporate them into the state structure. 

Indian nation-building was 

strengthened in large part because of the early 

focus on mass political literacy and an 

institutionalized focus on plurality. It is 

important, however, to recognize that India 

has never been free of serious challenges in 

the form of regional nationalisms. India, the 

nation-state, survived through a process of 

continuous reformation, regeneration, and 

flexibility in order to win popular favor. While 

today’s India is in many ways similar to the 

India formed in 1947, modern-day India 

would be wise to revisit the multicultural 

foundations of the state. 

51 Jaffrelot, “Nation-Building and Nationalism.” 


Human Rights 

An Overlapping Consensus 

Among International Political 

Theories? 

Brittany Stubbs 

J 

ack Donnelly’s concept of an “overlapping 

consensus” among human rights is often 

quoted to explain the notion that modern 

human rights represent only those rights 

found at the convergence of all cultures, 

philosophies, and religions. 52 The same 

consensus does not exist among the most 

influential political theories in modern history, 

however. I first examine different perspectives 

on human rights as offered by liberalism, 

realism, and Marxism. I find that although 

liberalism and realism use human rights to 

further their arguments and objectives, 

Marxism remains adamantly opposed to the 

concept. While Donnelly has discovered an 

overlapping consensus for human rights 

among cultures, this same consensus cannot 

be found within international political theory. 

The paper will examine three theories as well 

as their popular descendants. These theories 

are chosen because they are the most 

prominent international political theories. 

After thorough examination, one finds that 

even among these three theories alone, a 

consensus for human rights is unattainable. 

THE UNITED NATIONS AND THE 

ESTABLISHMENT OF HUMAN RIGHTS 

In an immediate response to the 

atrocities of the Holocaust and the two world 

wars, 51 states committed to international 

cooperation and human rights through the 

creation of the United Nations. 53 Three years 

52 Jack Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in 

Theory and Practice, 3rd ed. (Ithaca: Cornell 

University Press, 2013), 57-72. 

53 "History of the United Nations," United 

Nations, accessed April 01, 2016, 

later, the United Nations published the 

Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To 

make the declaration legally binding, the 

United Nations produced and adopted two 

covenants that together reiterate and expand 

on the declaration: the International Covenant 

on Civil and Political Rights and the 

International Covenant on Economic, Social 

and Cultural Rights. Together the Universal 

Declaration of Human Rights and the two 

covenants form what is known as the 

International Bill of Human Rights and 

assume the definition of human rights 

provided by the United Nations, “Human 

rights are rights inherent to all human beings, 

whatever our nationality, place of residence, 

sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, 

language, or any other status.” 54 The United 

Nations Commission on Human Rights was 

established by the United Nations in 1946 to 

oversee the implementation of human rights. 55 

In 2006, the United Nations General 

Assembly replaced the commission with the 

Human Rights Council and granted the 

council greater powers. 56 

http://www.un.org/en/sections/history/historyunited-nations/index.html. 

The United Nations, Charter of the United 

Nations (1945), Chapter 1, Article 1, accessed 

November 27, 2015, 

http://www.un.org/en/charter-unitednations/index.html. 

(Emphasis added.) 

54 "What Are Human Rights," United Nations 

Human Rights: Office of the High Commissioner 

for Human Rights, accessed November 27, 

2015, 

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Pages/Whatare 

HumanRights.aspx. 

55 "United Nations Commission On Human 

Rights," United Nations Human Rights: Office of 

the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 

accessed December 02, 2015, 

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CHR/Pages/ 

CommissionOnHumanRights.aspx. 

56 "United Nations Human Rights Council," 

United Nations Human Rights: Office of the High 

Commissioner for Human Rights, accessed 

December 02, 2015,

REALISM 

If an overlapping consensus on 

human rights can be found in international 

political theory, it must include realism. 

Realism is arguably one of the oldest and 

most foundational international political 

theories. Classical Realism emphasizes the 

international realm as one of anarchy and 

assumes man is immoral and self-interested. 

Without the presence of an overarching 

sovereign power to reign in the desires of 

individual states, these states are assumed to 

be in a constant state of war of all, against all. 

States survive this brutal arena only through 

their own might and alliances with other 

states. According to Thucydides, “the strong 

do what they have the power to do and the 

weak accept what they have to accept.” 57 

From the realist perspective, human 

rights are the will of strong states imposed 

upon weak states. In the 21st century, strong 

states are usually considered those states in 

the West, the “developed” world, or the 

Global North. Whether or not strong states 

have, in fact, imposed human rights, or their 

version of human rights, on weaker states is 

up for debate. However, the Global South has 

expressed at times in the Human Rights 

Council that this is the case. According to 

realism, the only profitable response for weak 

states in an international organization is to 

form an alliance against stronger states. 58 This 

has indeed occurred within the Human Rights 

Council. In retaliation to the demands of 

strong states in the council, developing states 

have partnered together in an organization 

aptly named the Like-Minded-Group, a group 

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/ 

AboutCouncil.aspx. 

57 Chris Brown, Terry Nardin, and N. J. Rengger, 

International Relations in Political Thought: 

Texts from the Ancient Greeks to the First World 

War, Kindle ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge 


58 Rosa Freedman, The United Nations Human 

Rights Council: A Critique and Early 

Assessment (London: Rutledge, 2013), 90. 

that decries the imperialism within the 

International Bill of Human Rights as well as 

in administration of the Human Rights 

Council. 59 Rosa Freedman, author of The 

United Nations Human Rights Council: A Critique 

and Early Assessment, says of the Human Rights 

Council (HRC), “Surprisingly, weaker states 

have thus far politicized the HRC more 

frequently than stronger states. Weaker states, 

predominantly from the Global South, form 

alliances and use group tactics, such as bloc 

voting, to further common agendas.” 60 This 

does not, of course, mean that weaker states 

have been able to completely counteract the 

will of stronger states, only that the weaker 

states have used such alliances to express 

themselves in the council. 

Unlike its parent, neorealism does not 

take into consideration human nature. Instead 

neorealism focuses on how the structure of 

the international realm can impact sovereign 

behaviour. In neorealism, the international 

arena is again one of anarchy. Without a 

world government, there is no higher power 

to enforce safety or guarantee protection. For 

this reason, states must be powerful enough 

to protect themselves; there is no 

consideration of cultural differences. 61 

Neo-realism argues the stronger the 

state, the less vulnerable the state is in the 

international arena. 62 This is arguably true 

regarding the Human Rights Council as well. 

While Donnelly argues that “states are 

legitimate largely to the extent that they 

respect, protect, and implement the rights of 

their citizens,” a neorealist would argue that 

the more powerful a state is, the less likely 

59 Ibid, 30, 32. 

60 Ibid, 120-121. 

61 Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki, and Steve 

Smith, International Relations Theories: 

Discipline and Diversity (New York: Oxford 


62 Huseyn Aliyev, "Neo-Realism and 

Humanitarian Action: From Cold War to Our 

Days," The Journal of Humanitarian Assistance, 

May 16, 2011, accessed December 01, 2015, 

https://sites.tufts.edu/jha/archives/1173. 


weaker states will successfully reprimand the 

state on its human rights violations. 63 Many 

argue that the death penalty, the treatment of 

Native American and other minority 

populations, and the use of torture in 

Guantanamo Bay are all examples of 

violations of human rights committed by the 

United States. Yet in not one of these cases 

has serious international action been taken 

against the United States. China’s use of force 

in Tibet as well as Russia’s human rights 

violations in Chechnya and the North 

Caucasus are further examples of human 

rights violations committed by strong states 

with little to no repercussion. 64 

Neorealism further argues that states 

must gain power to protect and defend 

themselves against other states. It follows 

then that states would attempt to secure this 

power through the implementation and 

protection of human rights. Since the fall of 

the Soviet Union, strong states use the banner 

of human rights to justify humanitarian 

intervention. A neorealist would argue that a 

state does not engage in humanitarian 

intervention for the sake of human rights 

alone. Instead, a state would require further 

motivations to intervene. It could be argued, 

for instance, that humanitarian intervention 

was not undertaken during the Rwandan 

genocide of 1994, despite gross human rights 

violations. In 2013, humanitarian intervention 

was avoided during the onset of the genocide 

in Darfur, in part because there was little for 

states to gain from engaging in this conflict. 65 

LIBERALISM 

In the same way that realism 

encourages the implementation of human 

rights, so too does liberalism. In comparison 

to realism, however, the influence of 

liberalism on human rights is more direct. 

63 Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory 

and Practice, 62. 

64 Aliyev, “Neo-Realism and Humanitarian 

Action: From Cold War to Our Days.” 

65 Ibid. 

While liberalism also believes that man is selfinterested 

and concludes that the international 

realm is a dangerous place, liberalism 

emphasizes optimism and the possibility of 

international cooperation through 

international organizations and international 

law. Very simply expressed by Jack Snyder of 

Foreign Policy, “[liberals] foresee a slow but 

inexorable journey away from the anarchic 

world the realists envision, as trade and 

finance forge ties between nations, and 

democratic norms spread.” 66 Liberals who 

maintain democratic peace theory carry the 

expectation that democratic states will not go 

to war and instead assume that any conflict 

among democratic states will be resolved 

using peaceful diplomatic relations. 67 While 

democratic peace theory is not a required 

belief of all liberals, it is probably the “the 

most significant and also most politically 

influential version of liberalism in 

International Relations.” 68 One such example 

of liberal optimism is the famous “Golden 

Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention,” a 

theory developed by Thomas Friedman in 

1996 that states that "no two countries that 

both have a McDonald’s have ever fought a 

war against each other" (though this theory 

has since been disproven). 69 The creation of 

the United Nations, and the League of 

Nations before it, are both products of 

66 Jack Snyder, “One World, Rival Theories,” 

Foreign Policy, October 26, 2009, accessed 

December 2, 2015, 

http://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/26/one-worldrival-theories/. 

67 Snyder, “One World, Rival Theories”; 

Dunne, Kurki, and Smith, International Relations 

Theories: Discipline and Diversity, 97. 

68 Dunne, Kurki, and Smith, International 

Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity, 96. 

69 Daniel W. Drezner, "Is It Even Possible to Kill 

an International Relations Theory?," Foreign 

Policy Is It Even Possible to Kill an International 

Relations Theory Comments, July 28, 2011, 

accessed April 05, 2016, 

http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/07/28/is-it-evenpossible-to-kill-an-international-relations-theory/. 


international liberalism and a belief in the 

power of diplomacy. 

Neoliberalism, while very similar to 

liberalism, focuses more so on institutions and 

organizations in the international realm. 70 

Neoliberals acknowledge that there is not a 

world government to enforce international 

agreements. International organizations are 

highly valued in neoliberalism because they 

provide “forums in which states can mitigate 

collective-action problems that threaten stable 

patterns of cooperation.” 71 International 

organizations, within this theory, monitor 

compliance with international agreements, 

promote international cooperation, and 

encourage peaceable conflict resolution. 72 

Liberalism and neoliberalism, as 

opposed to realism, do not accept that human 

rights are the will of the strong imposed upon 

the weak. Instead, liberal and neoliberals are 

more optimistic. “Governments accept 

binding international human rights norms 

because they are swayed by the overpowering 

ideological and normative appeal of the values 

that underlie them,” argues Andrew 

Moravcsik of Princeton University. 73 Jack 

Donnelly’s “overlapping consensus” varies 

slightly from Moravcsik’s but offers an equally 

liberal approach: human rights are never an 

imposition; they are instead the set of rights 

shared by all major cultures, philosophies, and 

religions. 74 In regards to the slow liberal 

progression away from anarchy, human rights 

serve the purposes of liberalism and 

neoliberalism by creating norms of state 

behaviour. In both, states have an incentive to 

participate in international human rights 

instruments, even when required to sacrifice 

70 Dunne, Kurki, and Smith, International 

Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity,110. 

71 Ibid, 111. 

72 Ivi. 

73 Moravcsik, “The Origins of Human Rights 

Regimes: Democratic Delegation in Postwar 

Europe,” 225-229. 


and Practice, 57-72. 

an amount of sovereignty for the sake of 

human rights. Democratic peace theory 

concludes that established democracies have 

an incentive to promote human rights to 

newly formed democracies, and newly formed 

democracies have an incentive to implement 

human rights domestically, if only so that 

both parties avoid war with one another. 75 

While the International Bill of Human Rights 

does not explicitly demand democracy, it 

requires a government with free elections and 

universal suffrage: “the will of the people shall 

be the basis of the authority of government; 

this will shall be expressed in periodic and 

genuine elections which shall be by universal 

and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret 

vote or by equivalent free voting 

procedures.” 76 

MARXISM 

Though both realism and liberalism 

promote the implementation of human rights, 

Marx (and therefore Marxism) stands strongly 

opposed. Marxism is the international political 

theory that refuses a political consensus 

regarding human rights. Karl Marx himself 

directly addressed the “rights of man” in his 

works. However, a distinction must first be 

made between the “rights of man”, as 

discussed by Karl Marx, and the concept of 

human rights today. 

The subject of Marx’s critiques are the 

rights provided by the French Constitution of 

1793, more specifically, the right to “liberty, 

equality, and private ownership.” 77 The 

75 Moravcsik, “The Origins of Human Rights 

Regimes: Democratic Delegation in Postwar 

Europe,” 225-229. 

76 The United Nations, The Universal 

Declaration of Human Rights (1948), Article 21, 


http://www.un.org/en/universal-declarationhuman-rights/index.html. 

77 Marcel Van Herpen, Marx and Human Rights: 

Analysis of an Ambivalent Relationship, 07th 

ed., vol. 12, Cicero Foundation Great Debate 

Paper (Paris/Maastricht: Cicero Foundation, 

2012), pg. 8, 


constitution granted equality to all men, 

universal manhood suffrage, and abolished 

slavery. 78 These “rights of man” were a 

contributing factor in the progression towards 

human rights. Modern human rights, 

however, are far more broad and inclusive. 

The human rights of the International Bill of 

Human Rights guarantees the rights listed to 

all individuals “without distinction of any 

kind” and include political rights, civic rights, 

economic rights, social rights, and cultural 

rights. These include, but are certainly not 

limited to, the right to religious freedom, the 

right to education (including free, compulsory 

primary education), and the right to just and 

favourable conditions of work. 79 

Karl Marx’s criticisms of the rights of 

man are rooted in his belief that the rights of 

man are dependent upon the concept of civil 

society. According to Marx, there are two 

worlds: a political state and a civil society. 80 In 

the political state, man “considers himself a 

communal being.” In comparison, in civil 

society, man acts as “a private individual, 

regards other men as a means, degrades 

himself into a means, and becomes the 

plaything of alien powers.” 81 Marx views the 

http://www.cicerofoundation.org/lectures/Marcel_ 

H_Van_Herpen_Marx_and_Human_Rights.pdf. 

78 “Constitution of 1793,” Liberty, Equality, and 

Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, 

accessed November 25, 2015, 

https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/430/. 

79 The United Nations, Human Rights Office of 

the High Commissioner, International Covenant 

on Civil and Political Rights (1966), Article 18, 


http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pag 

es/ccpr.aspx. 

The United Nations, Human Rights Office of the 

High Commissioner, International Covenant on 

Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966), 

Article 7 and 13, accessed December 3, 2015, 

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pa 

ges/CESCR.aspx. 

80 Van Herpen, Marx and Human Rights: 

Analysis of an Ambivalent Relationship, 8. 

81 Karl Marx, “On The Jewish Question,” On the 

Jewish Question, Autumn 1843, accessed 

rights of man afforded by the French 

Constitution of 1793 as the response to the 

degradation of French civil society. 82 As such, 

Marx views the rights of man as “nothing but 

the rights of a member of civil society – i.e., 

the rights of egoistic man, of man separated 

from other men and from the community.” 83 

The rights of man, then, cause man to pursue 

his own selfish interests, separate man from 

his community, and therefore alienate man 

from his natural self. 84 

The rights of man as defined by 

France in 1793 are not direct equivalents to 

modern human rights. There is just reason to 

believe, though, that Marx would also criticize 

human rights as established and enforced by 

the United Nations. The very creation of the 

United Nations and the subsequent Universal 

Declaration of Human Rights was a direct 

reaction to the horrors of the Holocaust, just 

like that French Constitution of 1793 was a 

response to the degradation of French civil 

society. 85 Marx would therefore also view 

modern human rights as a method of 

alienating individuals from one another. To 

further prove this point, it should be noted 

that in the International Bill of Human Rights, 

human rights are granted to individuals rather 

than collectives (with the sole exception of the 

group right to self-determination). 

Furthermore, human rights are the 

product of sovereign deliberation rather than 

the demands of the masses. The United 

Nations, when contemplating the Universal 

Declaration of Human Rights, used as 

inspiration the rights afforded by often 

western constitutions. As a result, the 

demands of western citizens in their 

November 25, 2015, 

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/18 

44/jewish-question/. 


Analysis of an Ambivalent Relationship. 

83 Marx, “On The Jewish Question.” 


Analysis of an Ambivalent Relationship 


and Practice, 25. 


espective states (including, but not limited to, 

the United States, the United Kingdom, and 

France) for inalienable rights were 

subsequently coded into international law and 

made binding on states party to the two 

human rights covenants. There is an argument 

that “human rights” are, if not an invention of 

the West, at the very least defined by western 

ideals. In this light, human rights cannot be 

the product of the revolution of the working 

class or even to the benefit of the masses. 

According to Marxist theory, human rights are 

used by the arguably bourgeois states (the 

West), to enforce western civilization on the 

proletariat states (the Global South). 

CONCLUSIONS 

The question remains, then, whether 

or not there exists an overlapping consensus 

among international political theories and 

their interpretations of human rights. Not all 

international political theories were examined 

within this essay, yet even amongst these few 

theories, there is not an overlapping 

consensus in favour of human rights. Realism 

and liberalism each have reasons to favour the 

identification and implementation of human 

rights, though for different reasons. Realism 

favours human rights as a tool for strong 

states to gain power in an anarchical world. 

Liberalism perceives human rights as both the 

evidence of international cooperation and a 

mechanism towards international cooperation. 

Despite these fundamental differences, the 

two theories offer optimistic perspectives on 

the benefits of human rights instruments. 

An overlapping consensus in 

international political theory cannot be 

justified if Marxism is included in the analysis. 

Marx’s opposition towards the rights of man 

can be directly applied to Marxist 

interpretations of the modern human rights 

regime. Marxism refuses to accommodate 

human rights. According to Marx, human 

rights encourage men to pursue selfish 

interests and alienate one man from one 

another. Marxism, as opposed to realism and 

liberalism, does not focus on the state. 

Instead, Marx’s attention is set on the 

individual and his relationship with the 

community. In Marxist theory, rights prevent 

community and therefore must be avoided. 

Instead, Marx believes that collectively, the 

working class should institute a new world 

order. Individual rights, according to Marx, 

only serve to patch up the holes in a failing 

system. A new world order, established by a 

revolution of the working class in Marxist 

fashion, would favour the working class and 

encourage community among men. 

While Jack Donnelly may argue that 

there is an overlapping consensus on human 

rights in regards to cultures, philosophies, and 

religions, there is not an overlapping 

consensus in international political theory. 

Marxism, as it was originally intended by Karl 

Marx, is far too opposed to the concept of 

individual rights. Both realism and liberalism, 

however, are in agreement regarding the 

potential benefits of human rights. Although 

Marxism strongly protests human rights, this 

opposition seems to have done little to harm 

the human rights regime altogether. 

Proponents of Marxism have certainly failed 

to abolish the human rights regime outright. 

Despite this lack of consensus, human rights 

enjoy near universal approval. Where states 

vary, however, is in their application and 

enforcement of human rights depending, in 

part, on their school of international political 

thought. 


Regime Type and Civil 

War Susceptibility 

The Case of Tanzania and 

Mozambique 

Mark Sizwebanzi Mngomezulu 

S 

ome literature on civil war has described 

specific authoritarian regime types as 

more susceptible to civil war onset than 

others. It is argued that certain institutional 

configurations of some of these regimes 

present more opportunity to rebel, whereas 

others can keep in check the opportunity to 

rebel. Of all the authoritarian regimes 

mentioned by Gurses and Mason 86 , for 

example, single party regimes are considered 

least vulnerable to civil war because of their 

ability to monopolize power and the political 

space in a country. Against this backdrop, 

this paper seeks to answer the question: why 

has the single party state in Mozambique 

experienced a civil war, while that of Tanzania 

has not? 

Mozambique and Tanzania are one of 

the few countries in Africa that openly 

pursued socialist strategies after independence 

with power largely concentrated on the ruling 

parties—Frente de Libertação de 

Moçambique (FRELIMO) and the 

Tanganyika African National Union (TANU, 

now known as Chama Cha Mapinduzi), 

respectively. Also both parties have remained 

in power to this day. 

The paper argues that the relative 

strength of the Tanganyika African National 

Union’s (TANU) structures in Tanzania, the 

less significance of foreign intervention in the 

post-independence politics, and the lack of 

colonial violence preceding independence 

86 Mehmet Gurses and T. David Mason. “Weak 

States, Regime Types, and Civil War,” Civil 

Wars 12, no. 1 (2010), 140 – 155. 

accounted for its ability to avoid civil war. 

Whereas in Mozambique, the weakness of 

FRELIMO’s bureaucratic structures, the high 

level of foreign intervention in the country’s 

post-colonial politics and the high level of 

violence preceding independence increased 

the country’s chance of being mired in civil 

war after independence. 

The structure of the paper is as 

follows: I begin with a brief survey of the 

literature on authoritarian regimes, with a 

specific focus on the single party variant and 

its manifestation in post-colonial Africa. A 

methodology section follows that provides 

key operational definitions of concepts and 

establish theoretical parameters for the 

argument, then the detailed case studies of 

Mozambique and Tanzania. The discussion 

section will then synthesize the findings in 

both cases as uncovered by the explanatory 

model, and take stock of other possible rival 

explanations. Lastly, the conclusion section 

will reiterate main points and discuss the 

implications of the study. 

LITERATURE REVIEW 

Political regimes are defined by 

Bratton and van de Walle as, “sets of formal 

procedures…that determine distribution of 

power. These rules describe who may engage 

in power and how.” 87 In theory, democratic 

regimes have political platforms open to a 

wider range of interests than authoritarian 

regimes. Pointedly, Geddes classifies regimes 

as “authoritarian if opposition parties have 

been banned or subjected to serious 

harassment or institutional disadvantage, or if 

the ruling party has never lost control of the 

executive and has controlled at least two- 

87 Bratton, M and Van de Walle, Democratic 

Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in 

Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University 

Press, London, 1997), 93. 


thirds of legislative seats in all elections.” 88 

However, authoritarian regimes also differ to 

the extent in which the political platform is 

open to opposition. Some disproportionately 

rely on brute force to curb opposition politics, 

while others balance force and other soft 

methods of rule. Consequently, authoritarian 

regime configuration affects its ability to avoid 

civil war. 

Geddes develops a typology that 

differentiates regimes into personalist, 

military, single party regimes and hybrid 

regimes. 89 Of these, personalist regimes— 

where a leader has concentrated political 

power on himself or herself at the expense of 

institutions—are the most vulnerable to civil 

wars, whereas single party regimes are least 

vulnerable. The single party regime can be 

loosely defined as a regime that proscribes the 

legal operation of opposition parties. This is 

different from dominant party systems where 

opposition may legally operate but be unable 

to ascend to power. 90 

Single party regimes are seen as least 

vulnerable to civil war because the states’ 

disproportionate amount of power allows it to 

deal harshly with opposition at its nascent 

stage. 91 This regime also attempts to strike a 

balance between the main interests of the 

ruling clique, namely to remain in power, and 

to provide outlets for political expression 

which are not harmful to its overall survival. 

As a general rule, an increased reliance on 

violence signifies a failure in that balance of 

88 Barbara Geddes, Paradigms and Castles: 

Theory Building and Research Design In 

Comparative Politics (University of Michigan, 

Ann Arbor, 2003), 71. 

89 Ibid.,71 – 77. 

90 Beatriz Magaloni and Ruth Krichel. “Political 

Order and One-Party Rule,” Annual Review of 

Political Science, 13 (2010),123–143. 

91 Mehmet Gurses and T. David Mason. “Weak 

States, Regime Types, and Civil War,” Civil 

Wars 12, no. 1 (2010),141. 

interests. Civil war becomes a culmination of 

that failure. 

It is also argued that the resilience of 

the single party state stems from the 

constraints that elites face in the initial stages 

of the formation of the party. Facing stiff 

opposition from other organizations vying for 

power may propel an organization to mobilize 

on a broad basis. However, faced with weaker 

constraints, the party may form elite coalitions 

instead of tapping into an inclusive peoplecentered 

constituency. 92 In short, the power 

base of a single party is of utmost importance 

to its survival. 

The foregoing argument is important 

because it suggests that the single party’s 

longevity is not necessarily connected with the 

single party per se, but that its internal 

mechanics play a significant role in its 

survival. This distinction is of essence since 

these regimes have shown different levels of 

longevity and ability to avoid civil war. This 

theory has substantial explanatory power as 

we examine FRELIMO’s and TANU’s 

organizational origins in the case study 

section. If the institutional base on which a 

specific single party forms itself is firm, it can 

increase its ability to co-opt rivals, further 

weakening opposition. 93 

The single party regime in the early 

post-independence years in most African 

countries was justified as the only way of 

carrying out the common good—that is 

broad-based development for the benefit of 

all. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana was one of its 

notable proponents. 94 Indeed most 

92 Benjamin Smith. “Life of the Party. The Origins 

of Regime Breakdown and the Persistence of 

Single-Party Rule.” World Politics. 57 (2005), 

422. 

93 Jason Brownlee, Authoritarianism in an Age of 

Democratization. Cambridge: (Cambridge 

University Press: Cambridge, 2007), 33. 

94 See: Kwame Nkrumah, I Speak of Freedom: A 

Statement of African Ideology (Oxford University 

Press, London, 1962),117. 


independence leaders saw opposition parties 

as divisive and hurtful to the development 

process of countries. 95 And it was on this 

basis that many single-party states ascended to 

power in Africa. 

However, others have criticized the 

idea espoused by these leaders and other 

scholars that single party regimes are more 

stable than other types of regimes. They argue 

that the stifling of opposition and other 

political freedoms especially in de jure singleparty 

regimes might sow the seeds of its own 

destruction. This is because a zero-sum game 

of politics arises which only presents violence 

as the only option to voice political opinion. 96 

If the law stipulates that opposition is banned, 

then violence is the only viable option. Others 

have suggested that in practice, the one-party 

state in Africa was able to stem destabilizing 

separatist causes that are often the political 

ticket of opposition. 97 Thus, this view has 

insisted on the utility of this regime type 

especially in political environments 

characterized by diversity. Yet even then, the 

record of this regime type in Africa has been 

far more ambiguous. How does one account 

for the overthrow of some of the earliest 

single-party regimes such as Nkrumah’s 

Convention People’s Party (CPP) in 1966, and 

the resilience of other such as that of 

Tanzania? 

Against this backdrop, this paper 

tackles the puzzle of occurrence of civil war in 

some single-party regimes in Africa and not in 

others. Focusing on Mozambique and 

Tanzania, it argues that the relative stability of 

a single party regime hinges on the strength of 

the party’s structures, the role of foreign 

intervention in the post-independence 

95 Benyamin Neuberger, “Has the Single Party 

Failed in Africa?” African Studies Review. 17, 

no. 1 (1974), 173. 

96 Ibid, 174 - 175. 

97 Ibid, 174 – 175. 

domestic politics of a country, and colonial 

violence preceding independence. 

METHODOLOGY 

Operationalized definitions of the 

above independent variables are as follows: 

firstly, “strength of the party’s structures” 

refers to the extent to which the party can 

marshal support country-wide. The 

understanding is that the more it has support 

throughout the country the less chance for 

rebellion against it, and less risk of civil war. 

This is because the ruling party aims to 

dominate the political space, leaving little or 

no room for opposition to operate. Secondly 

the role of foreign intervention in the postindependence 

domestic politics of a country 

refers to the extent to which foreign 

governments support, through finances and 

armaments, opposition groups in that country. 

Lastly, “colonial violence preceding 

independence” refers to the intensity of 

fighting among different groups vying for 

power, five to ten years before independence, 

so that higher levels of fighting in this 

stipulated period presents a greater chance of 

fighting in the newly-emergent order. 

This is a small-N comparative study 

that mainly relies on qualitative data and the 

comparative historical approach. To that end, 

it focuses on mid-level theorizing using Mill’s 

method of difference—similar origins, 

different outcomes—to answer how countries 

of similar regime types have had different 

results vis-à-vis civil war vulnerability. Both 

Mozambique and Tanzania 98 were ruled by 

colonial authorities; the Portuguese and the 

98 This case study excludes the island of 

Zanzibar in the analysis of Tanzania, and 

focuses on the mainland—Tanganyika. This is 

because Zanzibar has had a slightly different 

political experience stemming from Oman 

sultanate rule that precedes any other Western 

colonial power. That makes it almost a separate 

case. 


British prior to their independence in 1975 

and 1961, respectively. Both states had ruling 

parties that pursued variants of socialist 

policies and were ruled, de facto, (and later de 

jure) by single party regimes. 

It traces the set of causal processes 

operationalized above to account for the 

difference—civil war in one case 

(Mozambique) and non-occurrence in the 

other (Tanzania). The period to be focused on 

is post-independence up to the early 1990s, 

the latter date demarcating roughly when both 

states opened the political platform to other 

parties. 

Conceptually, civil war is understood 

using Small’s and Singer’s definition: “any 

armed conflict that involves a) military action 

internal to the metropole, b) the active 

participation of the national government, and 

c) effective resistance by both sides” 99 … “and 

state violence should be sustained and 

reciprocated and that the war exceeds a 

certain threshold of deaths (typically more 

than 1,000)” 100 This is the most commonly 

accepted definition of civil war by scholars 

and policy organizations. 

MOZAMBIQUE: COLONIALISM AND VIOLENCE. 

Portuguese presence in Mozambique 

dates circa 1498, and had been mainly limited 

to the coastlines. From this period up the 

1800s, the Portuguese faced stiff opposition 

to their attempt to control many parts of the 

country, especially, the inland. Physical 

confrontation and “diplomacy” were part of 

the strategies African polities used in resisting 

99 Melvin Small and David Singer, Resort to 

Arms: International and civil war, 1816 -1992 

(Cage, Beverly Hills, 1982), 210. 

100 Nicholas Sambanis. “What Is Civil War? 

Conceptual and Empirical Complexities of an 

Operational Definition. The Journal of Conflict 

Resolution 48, no. 6 (2004), 816. 

colonial occupation. 101 The Ngoni ethnic 

group from the south waged one of the 

earliest notable wars against the Portuguese in 

1895, and were eventually vanquished. 102 The 

Correlates of War Project has coded this 

episode as the “Portuguese Gaza Empire War 

of 1895”; an extra-state war. 103 

This defeat signaled the growing 

power of Portugal, which by the start of the 

20 th century had spread all over southern 

Mozambique. 104 The growing power of 

Portugal in the country was accompanied by 

forced conscriptions of indigenous people 

into workforces and stringent tax 

requirements on a level hitherto unknown 

amongst the people, which resulted in a 

growing resentment towards the authorities. 

The rise of the António de Oliveira Salazar 

regime in Portugal in 1932, further centralized 

the colonial structures in a bid to facilitate 

easier resource extraction to the benefit of the 

Portuguese economy. 105 Even in this early 

period, there were daily resistances of colonial 

authorities. Yet they remained sporadic and 

uncoordinated. These resistances were largely 

organized along lines of regions, ethnic 

groups, and specific production sectors. These 

divisions were also one of the biggest issues 

that FRELIMO faced even after 

independence. This problem that partly 

101 Barry Munslow, Mozambique: the Revolution 

and its Origins (Longman, New York, 1983), 53. 

102 Ibid, 53. 

103 

“An extra-state war involves fighting by a 

state system member outside its borders against 

the armed forces of an entity that is not a 

member of the interstate system.” See; Meredith 

and Wayman, Resort to War: 1816 – 2007 (Q.C 

Press, Washington D.C, 2010) Available: 

http://www.correlatesofwar.org/data-sets/COWwar. 

104 Allen Isaacman and Barbara Isaacman, 

Mozambique: From Colonialism to Revolution, 

1900 – 1982 (Westview Press, Colorado, 1983), 

27. 

105 Ibid, 27. 


enabled the operation of its arch-rival 

RENAMO after independence. 

The systematic brutality of the 

Portuguese colonial regime against natives 

became the rallying cry of the nascent 

nationalist movement from the 1930s 

onwards. At the front of this new wave of 

resistance were the so-called assimilado. 106 This 

group, with the help of the little education 

they had received, began to question the 

contradictions and double standards of the 

colonial state. They detested their separation 

from ninety-nine per cent of the population 

who were not educated. This was a classic 

strategy the colonial authorities had devised to 

bar any form of dialogue between the 

educated and the uneducated, the former who 

were mostly in urban areas and the latter in 

rural areas. 107 Standing against this division, 

early nationalism was born in Mozambique at 

the core of which were the mestizo 108 and 

assimilado. 

Organizationally, the nationalist 

movement first manifested itself in three 

groups: “UDENAMO (National Democratic 

Union of Mozambique), MANU (the 

Mozambican-Makonde Union), and UNAMI 

(National African Union of Independent 

106 The assimilado were an “indigenous pettybourgeoisie… 

(constituting) a tiny minority of the 

wider African population. To become an 

assimilado one had to fulfil certain legal criteria. 

One had to swear loyalty to the colonial state, 

speak only Portuguese at home, adopt 

‘European’ habits, abandon ‘heathen’ beliefs 

and have a Portuguese official vouch for their 

character.” See: Sumich and Honwana, ‘Strong 

Party, Weak States: Frelimo and State Survival 

through the Mozambican Civil War: An Analytical 

Narrative on State-making Crisis States 

Research Centre (2007), 6. 

107 Funada-Classen Sayaka, Origins of War in 

Mozambique, A History of Unity and Division 

(ZAF, Cape Town, 2013) at 145. 

108 Mestizo are generally those who were a 

mixture of Portuguese and Bantu/black 

parentage. 

Mozambique).” 109 However, these groups 

had narrow interests that reflected ethnic and 

regional biases and this hindered their 

mobilization capacities. Later, with 

negotiations brokered in Tanzania by Julius 

Nyerere, these organizations reluctantly 

agreed to form a united movement against the 

Portuguese colonial authorities. So in 25 June 

1964, FRELIMO was born “under the 

leadership of Dr. Eduardo Mondlane.” 110 

Evidently, from the beginning the structure of 

FRELIMO was rather rickety; a compromise 

necessitated by the desire to be rid of a 

common enemy. 

After a long debate on the modus 

operandi of the new movement—centering 

on the use of armed resistance or peaceful 

demonstration—coupled with a series of 

failed negotiation attempts with the 

Portuguese government, FRELIMO finally 

launched an armed struggle against the 

colonial authorities after September 1964. 

“Groups had already been sent for training in 

Algeria soon after (the party’s) first 

congress.” 111 Thus, “in the dead of the night 

on 25 September 1964, FRELIMO soldiers, 

with logistical assistance from surrounding 

population, attacked the Portuguese 

administrative post at Chai in Cabo Delgado 

Province…and the guerillas were able to 

damage the post and kill one policeman and 

wound several.” 112 

This attack set off a chain of events in 

which the Portuguese government hunted 

down the insurgency’s network and arrested 

109 Allen Isaacman and Barbara Isaacman, 

Mozambique: From Colonialism to Revolution, 

1900 – 1982 (Westview Press, Colorado, 1983), 

80-81. 

110 Ibid, 81. 

111 Barry Munslow, Mozambique: the Revolution 

and its Origins (Longman, New York, 1983) at 

84. 

112 Isaacman and Isaacman, Mozambique, 84. 


about 1500 FRELIMO sympathizers. 113 The 

colonial authorities tried to limit FRELIMO’s 

advances by “relocating peasants to strategic 

hamlets” and heavily patrolling the “Tanzania 

and Malawian borders,” where the insurgents 

were most active. 114 Among the most brutal 

strategies of counter-insurgency was the 

resettlement of peasants in new villages 

encircled with barbed wire. It became clear 

that the war would last for a long time. In 

1965, Salazar allowed for the repatriation of 

foreign capital out of Mozambique at 100 per 

cent rate, a policy that had lasting 

ramifications on the Mozambican economy. 

He also increased cooperation with NATO 

and the white minority regimes of South 

Africa and Rhodesia, and increased the 

number of Portuguese forces to fight the 

guerillas in the country. 115 

After long years of intense fighting, 

resulting in the growth of liberated zones 

under FRELIMO, coupled with the military 

coup in Portugal that toppled the Salazar 

dictatorship, FRELIMO gained power in 

September 20 1974. 116 The war resulted in 

“more than 33,000 casualties.” 117 It was in 

this context of a violent pre-independence 

struggle that the party came to power in 1975. 

With the defeat of the common enemy, its 

unity and exclusive rule in the country was to 

face major challenges. 

FORMATION OF FRELIMO: A COMPROMISE 

Although FRELIMO had managed to 

wage a successful war of independence, “its 

early years (1962 – 1989) were filled with 

113 Munslow, Mozambique, 87. 




117 

Data Appendix for Monica Duffy Toft, 

Securing the Peace: The Durable Settlement of 

Civil Wars (Princeton University Press, 2010). 

https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/sites/www.bsg.ox.ac.u 

k/files/documents/MTcodebook2010_0.pdf 

factionalism and purges.” 118 This had a lasting 

impact on the popularity of the party and its 

structures countrywide. Because the ruling 

elites came from the north and south of the 

country, the vacuum left at the center was 

capitalized upon by those who lost out in the 

early power struggles within FRELIMO, and 

this region became the stronghold of rebelarmed 

factions. 119 Crucially, other scholars 

have suggested that the factionalism that 

bedeviled FRELIMO at its early stages did 

not necessarily revolve so much around 

ethnicity, as it did around the strategy to be 

used in confronting the colonial government. 

Some supported negotiation with Portuguese 

authorities, and other cited the violence of the 

regime as evidence that it would not 

relinquish power peacefully. 120 Indeed those 

of the latter opinion were to be proven right 

when in 1961 colonial military forces were 

increased from 3,000 to 12,000.” 121 

The faction that supported armed 

struggle dominated the executive committee 

of the party and was able to push the agenda 

of armed struggle with began in earnest in 

1974. 122 Those who had lost out formed 

splinter groups which severely threatened 

FRELIMO’s grip over the country after 

independence. As the armed struggle 

continued, the party faced another internal 

crisis relating to the administration of 

liberated zones, “military strategy and tactics 

to be pursued, the emancipation of women, 

education and the very definition of the 

enemy.” 123 Here we see that even in the early 

118 Jason Sumich and Joao Honwana, “Strong 

Party, Weak States: Frelimo and State Survival 

through the Mozambican Civil War: An Analytical 

Narrative on State-making.” Crisis States 

Research Centre (2007) at 6 and 7. 

119 Ibid, 7. 


121 Ibid 83. 




period of the party, policy was highly 

contested and divisive. Also, the party lacked 

a solid foundation and popular support from 

the ordinary people. 

So when independence was gained in 

Mozambique, the party and the country were 

in a state of shambles. Even excepting the 

factionalism within FRELIMO, the party 

faced the daunting task of reconstructing and 

uniting a country that had been ravaged by 

pre-independence civil war. Finnegan captures 

the situation aptly: 

Frelimo was left to run an effectively 

bankrupt country with virtually no 

trained people. The illiteracy rate was 

over 90 percent. There were six 

economists, two agronomists, not a 

single geologist, and fewer than a 

thousand black high school graduates 

in all of Mozambique. Of 350 railroad 

engineers working in 1975, just one 

was black and he was an agent of the 

Portuguese secret police. 124 

The leadership was faced with the 

challenges of rebuilding the nation from 

scratch and dealing with the internal problems 

of the party. This dearth of human resource 

and an economy abandoned by the 

Portuguese who emigrated en masse, led the 

party to nationalize companies and pursue 

interventionist strategies at a pace they had 

not anticipated. In 1977, the leadership 

declared the party as Marxist-Leninist 

pursuing scientific socialism. 125 The 

subsequent failure of socialist policies, 

124 William Finnegan, A Complicated War: The 

Harrowing of Mozambique (University of 

California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 

1992) at 30. 

125 Sumich and Honwana, “Strong Party, Weak 

States: Frelimo and State Survival through the 

Mozambican Civil War: An Analytical Narrative 

on State-making,” 7. 

coupled with the suspicion that socialism 

raised in Mozambique’s white-ruled neighbors 

(especially in Rhodesia and South Africa), 

made the country vulnerable to the outbreak 

of another civil war. 

The spectacular failure of the 

country’s policies led to a shortage of goods 

and food. Also, as an unintended 

consequence, these policies benefitted wealthy 

peasants who could exploit party connections, 

to the detriment of the majority. Furthermore, 

the party’s abolition of traditional practices 

such as lobola (bride wealth), polygamy, and 

religious associations, 126 isolated some 

sections of the peasantry from the party who 

were against these new decrees. Although 

Isaacman and Isaacman suggest that the party 

had implanted itself fairly securely in most of 

the country, its dominance in the north and 

south, and the increasing unpopularity of its 

socialist strategies were to be the pretext on 

which foreign intervention and attendant 

destabilization of the country were to be 

primarily based upon. 

FOREIGN INTERVENTION: GEOPOLITICS OF 

SOUTHERN AFRICA AND THE COLD WAR. 

The geopolitics of Southern Africa 

from the late 1970s onwards may have been 

one of the most important contributing 

factors to the occurrence of civil war in 

Mozambique shortly after independence. With 

the threat posed, “by the creation of a 

socialist, black majority-run state in their 

immediate vicinity, [South Africa and 

Rhodesia], with implicit approval from 

Western, capitalist countries, aided and 

abetted the formation of a counterrevolutionary 

movement, RENAMO, in the 

late 1970s.” 127 A left-leaning black majority 

126 Ibid at 10. 

127 Mary H. Moran and M. Anne Pitcher, “The 

'Basket Case' and the 'Poster Child': Explaining 

the End of Civil Conflicts in Liberia and 


state in their midst meant friendly territory for 

insurgent movements that South Africa and 

Rhodesia faced at the time. 

Indeed, FRELIMO had earlier openly 

pledged to support the “front line states” in 

their cause to rid southern Africa of the 

remaining white-minority regimes. 128 To that 

end, independence in Mozambique brought 

with it a growing base of Zimbabwe African 

National Union (ZANU) and Zimbabwe 

African Patriotic Union (ZAPU) insurgent 

movements from Rhodesia, and also that of 

the African National Congress (ANC) and 

Pan-African Congress (PAC) inside 

Mozambique. 129 

Initially, foreign intervention in 

Mozambique was executed through 

Resistencia Nacional Mozambicana 

(MNR/RENAMO) “set up by the 

Rhodesians to be a fifth column inside 

Mozambique. Its members were men from 

various Portuguese special forces units who 

fled to Rhodesia in 1974…these then 

increased their numbers by raiding FRELIMO 

re-education camps…and recruiting people 

with no vested interest in FRELIMO.” 130 

This counter-insurgency group assisted the 

Rhodesian government in hunting down 

rebels of the Zimbabwean African National 

Liberal Army (ZANLA) and implementing its 

own agenda of destabilizing the newly-formed 

socialist government. 131 

With the independence of Zimbabwe 

in 1980, “South African military intelligence 

took over the MNR,” and established 

Mozambique,” Third World Quarterly 25, No. 3 

(2004) at 510. 


129 Ibid, 174. 

130 Joseph Hanlon, Beggar Your Neighbours: 

Apartheid Power in Southern Africa (Catholic 

Institute for International Relations, London 

1986), 139. 

131 Alcinda Honwana, Child Soldiers in Africa 

(University of Pennsylvania Press: 

Pennsylvania, 2006), 8. 

operation bases near the South-African 

Mozambican border. 132 South African 

government’s funding of RENAMO made 

FRELIMO helpless in stemming the growth 

of the new insurgent movement. The 

consequence was the civil war that broke out 

in 1979. 

Hanlon notes that, “for an 

organization with no historic roots, the MNR 

was very effective….the main important 

factor (for its success) was force—armed 

bands would simply kidnap hundreds of 

young men (and women)…those escaping 

were killed.” 133 And “by mid-1983, the rebels 

were operating in eight of the country’s eleven 

provinces.” 134 Besides receiving support from 

their South African patrons, they also 

capitalized on the frustration of peasants on 

the failure of the “new development 

projects”. 135 

Moran and Pitcher note that “by the 

mid-1980s the…war had destroyed hundreds 

of schools and health clinics, disrupted rural 

trading networks, undermined food security, 

killed thousands of people and dislocated 

hundreds of thousands more to camps in 

more secure areas of Mozambique or across 

borders in Zimbabwe and Malawi.” 136 The 

foreign-funded insurgency obviously dealt a 

serious blow to a country still attempting to 

rebuild on the ruins of the war of liberation in 

1975, and further undermined its institutional 

structures all over the country, especially in 

central Mozambique, the stronghold of 

RENAMO. 

The harsh economic conditions 

created by the drought of 1983, and increasing 

attacks from the insurgents led FRELIMO to 

132 Hanlon, Beggar Your Neighbours, 140. 

133 Ibid., 141. 



136 Moran and Pitcher, “The 'Basket Case' and 

the 'Poster Child': Explaining the End of Civil 

Conflicts in Liberia and Mozambique,” 510. 


egin courting the West, and managed to 

secure food aid. Under pressure from the 

rebels, the Mozambican state also signed the 

Nkomati non-aggression pact in 1984 with the 

South African government, hoping that the 

latter would stop funding the rebels. 

However, this accord turned out to be useless, 

as the South African government never 

stopped funding the insurgents. 137 By this 

time, the government had lost full control of 

the state and was battling for survival. 

FRELIMO could not defeat 

RENAMO in battle because its resources had 

been dissipated by the long-drawn conflict. 

However, in the 1980s RENAMO’s resource 

tap dried out as apartheid South Africa 

channeled its energy to quelling disturbances 

at home. 138 This resulting stalemate facilitated 

the brokering of peace talks led by the 

Catholic Church, 139 and after several months 

of negotiations the two warring parties signed 

the “General Peace Agreement in Rome in 

1992.” 140 This devastating civil war left an 

estimated 1,000,000 people dead. 

TANZANIA: AFRICAN SOCIALISM 

This section argues that unlike 

Mozambique, Tanzania had a peaceful 

transition to independence, and its postindependence 

politics were characterized by 

little or no foreign involvement. Also, the 

strength and popularity of TANU around the 

country effectively stifled viable opposition. 

An intersection of these variables is a 

sufficient cause of non-occurrence of civil war 

in Tanzanian post-colonial politics. 

137 Hanlon, Beggar Your Neighbours. 


139 Moran and Pitcher, “The 'Basket Case' and 

the 'Poster Child': Explaining the End of Civil 

Conflicts in Liberia and Mozambique,” 511. 


History of Colonial Tanzania 141 

Colonial rule in Tanzania began with 

the Germans in 1885 to 1920. Thereafter the 

British ruled the country under a League of 

Nations mandate from 1920 to 1961. 142 While 

the Germans discriminated African 

populations, they did not create stratified rule 

among the different ethnic groups. 143 

Nonetheless, their rule weakened traditional 

structures of rule among indigenous ethnic 

groups replacing them with those in line with 

colonial interests. 

A notable resistance in this period was 

the Maji Maji movement waged by stateless 

ethnic groups, from 1905 to 1907. The 

Germans severely crushed this resistance, 

resulting in an estimated 75,000 deaths and 

three years of famine. 144 The Correlates of 

War Project codes this rebellion as an extrastate 

war. 145 This was the only notable 

episode of physical resistance against a 

colonial power in Tanzania’s colonial 

experience. Lindermann and Putzel argue that 

this defeat may be one explanation why 

opposition towards the British later was 

largely peaceful. 146 The crushing defeat of the 

rebellion lingered in the minds of the people 

so that it influenced their subsequent 

approaches toward resistance. 

141 Before independence, mainland Tanzania 

was referred to as Tanganyika. 

142 Stephan Lindemann and James Putzel. State 

Resilience in Tanzania – Draft Analytical 

Narrative, 1. Available from online at 

www.lse.ac.uk/internationalDevelopment/researc 

h/crisisStates/download/seminars/PutzelLindem 

annTanzaniaApr30.pdf [Accessed 13 May 

2016]. 

Ibid at 3. 

144 

Andrew Coulson, Tanzania: A Political 

Economy, (Oxford Scholarship Online, 2013) at 

56. 

145 Sarkees and Wayman. Resort to War: 1816 – 

2007. 

146 Lindemann and Putzel, State Resilience, 5. 


British colonial rule in Tanganyika 

emphasized indirect rule. The consequence 

was the invention of traditional chiefs within 

ethnic groups that traditionally did not have 

them. However, Lindermann and Putzel argue 

that relatively speaking, the British never 

pursued an open policy of divide and rule 

among the ethnic groups even though there 

were imbalances in army recruitment. 147 Thus 

during British rule there was no physical 

confrontation between the ethnic groups of 

Tanganyika and the colonial authorities. 

To echo an earlier point, Omari 

argues that the Germans had already brutally 

pacified the warring ethnic tribes in 

Tanganyika, so that the British found a much 

more conducive environment. 148 Whatever 

the reasons for lack of confrontation, it is 

clear that this non-violent approach paved a 

smoother path toward independence. The 

discontinuity of violence associated with 

German colonialism and the Maji Maji 

rebellion, and the relatively peaceful period 

under British rule may have influenced, to a 

certain extent, the less violent politics of postcolonial 

Tanganyika. 

ORIGINS AND STRUCTURE OF THE 

TANGANYIKA AFRICAN NATIONAL UNION 

(TANU) 

One of the remarkable things about 

TANU was its ability to marshal broad-based 

support for its cause during the British 

colonial era, and its popularity after 

independence as the ruling party of Tanzania. 

Generally speaking, the nationalist movement 

in Tanzania was an amalgamation of three 

bodies representing African interests in the 

147 Ibid at 5. 

148 Abidallah Omari, “Civil-military relations in 

Tanzania,” in eds. Rocky Williams, Gavin 

Cawthra and Diane Abrahams, Ourselves to 

Know. Civil-Military Relations and Defence 

Transformation in Southern Africa. (Pretoria: 

Institute for Strategic Studies, 2002), 93. 

colony: the Tanganyika African Association 

(TAA), “the trade union movement”, and the 

cooperative movement that had its base in the 

rural areas. 149 Thus from its founding TANU 

enjoyed a geographical and class spread that 

most nationalist movements in Africa could 

only hope for. Unlike Mozambique’s 

FRELIMO, these organizations that came to 

constitute TANU were not based on ethnic or 

regional interests, but on occupation, an 

obstacle that was relatively easier to supplant. 

Under the leadership of intellectuals 

recruited mainly from the TAA, TANU 

worked to produce a united front against 

British colonialism through co-opting chiefs 

in the rural areas and other agricultural-based 

tribal organizations fighting unfair colonial 

laws. 150 After its successful consolidation, the 

new party presented its explicit goals 

including: the end of British colonialism, 

opposition to all forms of tribalism, the 

formation of branches in all the regions of 

Tanganyika to work hand-in-glove with the 

central committee of the party. 151 From the 

beginning, the leadership invested on the local 

population and in the formation of 

representative structures. Instead of alienating 

traditional authorities, these were 

incorporated into party structures, and in 

decision-making processes at the local level. 

The increasing popularity of the party is 

reflected in the following numbers. Between 

1954 and 1957, TANU membership grew 

from 15,000 to 200,000” 152 managing to not 

only to be a coalition of elites but mobilizing 

the peasantry as well. 

Consequently, when the party rose to 

power as Tanzania gained independence in 

1961, it was in a position of relative strength. 

Its post-colonial political discourse was 

characterized by three features, namely; 


150 Ibid, 8. 

151 Ibid, 9. 

152 Coulson, Tanzania: A Political Economy, 151. 


“egalitarianism, mass participation in politics 

at all levels, and anti-elitism.” 153 Its 

commitment to ensuring broad-based 

development led to its relative popularity in 

most sectors of the society. Encouraging mass 

participation, the party sought to “narrow the 

mass-elite gap and to create a sense of 

responsibility on the part of citizens.” 154 This 

kind of broad-based one-party state system 

was carefully calibrated to give individuals a 

sense of belonging while at the same time 

acting to curb elite corruption within the 

party’s structures. 155 

Even though Tanzania has a diverse 

ethnic community, the party managed to 

promote inter-ethnic cooperation and this 

helped to reduce the politicization of 

ethnicity. 156 Malipula argues that inter-ethnic 

cooperation was one of TANU’s key 

strategies even before independence. As a 

result, the nationalistic bent of the party, its 

institutionalization in Tanzanian society from 

an early period increased its popularity among 

the people. This popularity further squeezed 

recruitment base of rival parties. Opposition 

was dealt a final blow when it was officially 

outlawed by the Arusha Declaration of 1967. 

The Arusha Declaration of 1967 

outlined the party’s policy position and its 

commitment to serve the common people. 

Incidentally, it was this document that 

officially designated Tanzania as a single-party 

state, pursuing African socialism. Part of this 

declaration stated that “every citizen is an 

integral part of the nation and as the right to 

take an equal part in government at local, 

153 Patrick J. McGowan and H. K. M. Wacirah. 

(1974). “The Evolution of Tanzanian Political 

Leadership." African Studies Review. 17, no. 1 

(1974), 179. 

154 Ibid,179. 

155 Lindemann and Putzel, State Resilience, 

11. 

156 Mrisho Malipula. “Depoliticised Ethnicity in 

Tanzania: A Structural and Historical Narrative.” 

Afrika Focus. 17, (2014), 51. 

regional and national levels” 157 Consequently, 

the structure of the party allowed a degree of 

autonomy at the local level. 

In following a position the party had 

stated before independence, TANU 

nationalized white settler farms and 

distributed land to peasants in a bid to 

counteract the power of free-hold farmers in 

the country. 158 In part, the Arusha 

Declaration argues “every TANU and 

government leader must be either a peasant or 

a worker, and should in no way be associated 

with the practices of capitalism or 

feudalism.” 159 This and the above-mentioned 

systematic processes strengthened TANU’s 

rule in the post-independence period. The 

policy of balancing the political needs of 

sectors of society, and the corporatist 

structure of the party, in effect, left small 

space from which opposition could recruit. 

Also, the party was able to absorb counterelites 

into its political program. 

That said, single-party state’s 

structures were not without its detractors. For 

one, the party often formulated policies from 

the top, and regional structures did not have 

much influence on policy. 160 The villagization 

program (ujamaa vijijini) was a case in point. 

Peasants were relocated to “newly constructed 

settlements in order to promote efficient 

agricultural production and to facilitate the 

equitable delivery of basic services” without 

their consent. 161 The success of this project is 

157 Arusha Declaration. Part 1 c) Available online 

at 

https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/nyerere/1 

967/arusha-declaration.htm [Accessed 13 May 

2016]. 


159 Arusha Declaration. Part 5 a) 

160 Howard Stein, “Theories of the State in 

Tanzania.” Journal of Modern African Studies. 

23, no. 1 (1985), 109. 

161 Paul J. Kaiser. “Structural Adjustment and the 

Fragile Nation: The Demise of Social Unity in 


ambiguous, although it is largely considered a 

failure. As Kaiser shows, “in the final years of 

the ujamaa era, basic consumer goods were 

rarely available, the transportation 

infrastructure was collapsing, and the 

government was unable to provide many of 

the basic health-care and education services 

that were promised immediately following the 

Arusha Declaration.” 162 This was a result of 

the declaration’s shunning of foreign 

investment and emphasis on self-reliance, 

which resulted in a severe foreign exchange 

deficit. 

Yet, the country managed to weather 

this crisis and the subsequent IMF imposed 

Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) of 

1981 to 1995 without disintegrating into civil 

war. In fact, no party has yet managed to pose 

as viable opposition to TANU. The party’s 

institutionalization in Tanzanian society and 

its ability to reinvent itself in times of crises 

and change, accounts for relative stability in 

the country’s post-colonial period, and the 

lack of civil conflict. 

NEOCOLONIALISM IN TANZANIAN POST- 

INDEPENDENCE POLITICS? 

Literature suggests that there was no 

systemic involvement of foreign governments 

in the domestic affairs of Tanzania to the 

extent seen in the Mozambican case. The 

British colonial administration attempted to 

create a rival party in 1956 called the United 

Tanganyika Party (UTP) “composed of 

disgruntled chiefs and white settlers,” 163 but it 

was too weak in the face of TANU’s 

popularity. When a split occurred in TANU 

leadership, there emerged “the African 

National Congress (ANC) that represented 

Africans only and thereby challenged TANU’s 

Tanzania.” The Journal of Modern African 

Studies. 34, no. 2 (1996), 229. 

162 Ibid., 231. 

163 Lindemann and Putzel, State Resilience, 9 - 

10. 

ideology of unity and equality.” 164 However, 

this party’s divisive and partisan ideology did 

not sit well with the people of Tanzania who 

had already internalized the ideology of unity 

of all Tanzanians regardless of ethnicity and 

religion, propagated by TANU. 

From a geo-political and Cold War 

politics standpoint, one might argue that 

unlike Mozambique, whose declaration as 

socialist directly threatened the survival of 

South Africa and Rhodesia as white-minority 

ruled states, TANU’s socialism could be 

tolerated because Tanzania’s geographical 

location did not threaten the West’s 

calculations of balance of power in the region. 

Yet even taking this into account, it can be 

said with relative confidence that the colonial 

history of Tanzania, the commitment of the 

party to build local infrastructure and garner 

wide support had substantial influence of the 

longevity of its single party regime, and the 

lack of any civil war episode in the country’s 

post-independence period. 

Ultimately, Tanzania’s single party 

regime hinged on the relatively peaceful 

transition, a strong party base and structures, 

and the relative lack of foreign involvement in 

the domestic affairs of the country through 

arming and funding opposition groups. 

DISCUSSION 

This paper has traced three processes 

in the case studies reviewed, and the findings 

are largely consistent with the initial 

hypothesis—that civil war occurrence, or lack 

thereof, in Mozambique and Tanzania was a 

product of the intersection of these factors: 

violence preceding independence, structures 

and institutionalization of parties, and foreign 

intervention in domestic politics. 

Of note is that in the Mozambican 

case, violence preceding independence, 

coupled with the re-involvement of the 

Portuguese in the country’s politics under the 

164 Ibid, 10. 


auspices of RENAMO, and later, South 

African involvement, were the two most 

important factors that account for relapse into 

civil war in 1979. It seems that even though 

FRELIMO did not have strong institutions in 

all of Mozambique, civil war would not have 

been possible without foreign power 

involvement. 

In contrast, the extent of rural 

mobilization and support TANU had, even in 

times of crisis, is singularly intriguing. So was 

its ability to fight politicization of ethnicity in 

its structures and around the country. This 

and its official ban on opposition had the 

effect of casting all opposition in the eyes of 

the people, as divisive and therefore 

undesirable. TANU possessed a remarkable 

ability to reinvent itself in times of crisis, a 

rare quality amongst many single-party 

regimes in Africa. 

An interesting finding was the 

involvement of TANU in the formation of 

FRELIMO, and its support for its insurgency 

during the war of liberation. It begs the 

question therefore, as to what extent 

Mozambique learned from the lessons of its 

neighbor in terms of the implementation of 

socialism. Whatever the case may be, it seems 

that the African socialism of Nyerere was 

much more homegrown than that of 

FRELIMO which has been interpreted by 

some scholars as more “scientific” and 

Leninist. 

In spite of all of this, a self-criticism is 

in order. Cold war realities in Southern Africa 

loom larger in Mozambican postindependence 

politics, than they did in 

Tanzania, and this analysis has not delved 

deeply into this variable. The foregoing does 

not falsify the argument presented by the 

paper, but only highlights another potential 

avenue of research. For one, further research 

could focus on the role of the Cold war 

powers in propping up single party regimes in 

Africa. Also, some have credited the stability 

and popularity of TANU to the leadership 

skills of Julius Nyerere. This analysis has 

largely eschewed the leadership argument and 

focused mainly on structural analysis of the 

parties. No doubt leadership does play a role 

in organizational capacity. 

CONCLUSION 

This paper argued that the ability of a singleparty 

to avoid civil war is largely influenced by 

internal and external dynamics. This 

proposition was tested on two single-party 

regimes in Africa, and the results showed that 

colonial violence preceding independence, 

weak institutions and foreign intervention 

increase the susceptibility to civil war. The 

findings open up the “black-box” that is the 

single-party, and call for further research on 

the nature of this regime type. 

The single-party state should not be assumed 

to be stable at face value. Studying closely its 

internal dynamics, policymakers and scholars 

can come to understand the real basis of 

stability or lack thereof of this regime type. 

This understanding can lead to sound 

recommendations on the political stability of 

this regime type and the chance of civil war 

onset. Thus the contribution of this study is 

largely heuristic. It has traced three processes 

and found compelling evidence to support its 

hypothesis. It therefore behooves other 

researchers to test this hypothesis on other 

cases, or come up with rival explanations 

linking this regime type to civil war onset. 


Between Balance and 

Bandwagon 

Friendship of the US and Japan 

Kazumichi Uchida 

U 

nder what conditions do states 

adopt a balancing policy, and under 

what conditions do they adopt a 

bandwagon policy, if threatened by 

a challenging state? Given the rise of China in 

recent years, the United States is 

strengthening its security cooperation with 

Japan and other allies through initiatives to 

improve the capacity of its allies and to 

enhance their cooperation with the US forces 

in order to secure US military presence and 

constant access to the Asia-Pacific region. 165 

At a US–Japan summit meeting in 2014, both 

countries reached an agreement that they 

would oppose any attempt to change the 

status quo through coercion and 

intimidation. 166 The United States recognizes 

the role of Japan as a primary ally that 

promotes security in the Asia-Pacific region as 

it proceeds with its rebalancing policy. 167 

However, is Japan really trustworthy? 

In the past, Japan decided to ally with Nazi 

Germany and deprived Great Britain and The 

Netherlands of their interests in South-East 

Asia. If Japan decided to side with the rising 

China today, it would significantly damage the 

United States’ interests in the Asia-Pacific 

165 The National Institute for Defense Studies, 

Japan, East Asian Strategic Review 2015, 27, 

http://www.nids.go.jp/publication/eastasian/pdf/eastasian2015/eastasian_e2015.pdf. 

166 The White House, “Joint Press Conference 

with President Obama and Prime Minister Abe 

of Japan” (April 24, 2014). 

167 J. Berkshire Miller, “Battle-Ready Japan? - 

The Real Story behind Tokyo’s First National 

Security Strategy,” Foreign Affairs (January 

2014). 

region, given their advanced technologies 

combined with the plentiful human resources 

available in China. In previous studies, many 

scholars have analyzed the effects of the rising 

China on the bilateral relationship between 

them and the Unites States. 168 However, few 

have analyzed them based on the trilateral 

relationship between the United States, China, 

and Japan, even though the trilateral 

relationship has a significant impact on the 

interests of the United States. In this study, I 

examine the reason why Japan has adopted a 

balancing policy with the United States, in 

particular after the Cold War ended, by 

clarifying the conditions that apply to both the 

balancing and the bandwagon policy. 

In what follows, I begin by outlining 

the arguments of neorealism, because both 

balancing and bandwagon are logically 

deduced from them. In the theoretical analysis 

section, I demonstrate that microeconomics 

enables us to simplify these arguments and 

formulate the conditions by simply examining 

the military productivities of each of the three 

countries. Just by seeing their military 

productivity, we can examine whether one of 

them will balance or bandwagon. In the test 

section, I demonstrate that the trilateral model 

can predict precisely what happened in East 

Asia in the post-Cold War era. 

LITERATURE REVIEW 

How do states behave when faced 

with a rising power, like how Japan is 

currently facing the rising power of China? 

With regard to the behavioral tendency of 

states when faced with a rising power, many 

scholars have argued from a variety of 

168 For example, Liff and Ikenberry argued the 

issue from the viewpoint of the security dilemma. 

See, Adam P. Liff and G. John Ikenberry, 

“Racing Toward Tragedy? - China’s Rise, 

Military Competition in the Asia Pacific, and the 

Security Dilemma,” International Security, Vol. 

39, No. 2 (Fall 2014): 52-91. 


perspectives, including both defensive and 

offensive realism. In general, we can 

categorize their arguments into two schools of 

thought: balancing and bandwagon. The 

balancing school argues that states prefer to 

balance against a rising power with the help of 

other states; the bandwagon school argues 

that states prefer to bandwagon with a rising 

state to get a small share of their gains. 169 I 

will review below each school’s points by 

providing representative arguments for each 

school of thought. 

Balancing School 

One of the most famous scholars of 

the balancing school of thought is Stephen 

Walt. In the past, both balancing and 

bandwagoning had been solely defined by 

states’ capabilities such as military ones. 

However, in The Origins of Alliances, Walt 

demonstrates that by focusing on states’ threats 

deduced from their neighbors’ aggressive 

intentions as well as their capabilities, we 

could better explain the Middle Eastern states’ 

behaviors during the Cold War. He argues 

that states prefer balancing to bandwagoning 

because they are sensitive to both the 

capabilities and intentions of their 

neighbors. 170 Moreover, he maintains that this 

theory is more applicable to regional states 

because they can do little to affect the global 

balance, and other regional states present 

much more immediate dangers. 171 In other 

words, the benefit of balancing against 

neighbors’ threats outweighs the benefit of 

changing the global balance for them. This 

169 The defensive realists argue for balancing 

policies while the offensive realists argue for 

bandwagon policies. See, Eric J. Hamilton and 

Brian C. Rathbun, “Scarce Differences: Toward 

a Material and Systemic Foundation for 

Offensive and Defensive Realism,” Security 

Studies, Vol. 22, No.3 (2013): 444-45. 

170 Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances 

(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), 178- 

180. 

171 Ibid., 164-165. 

might be applicable to Japan because Japan is 

also a regional power in East Asia, and it is 

threatened by the rising power of China. 

No matter how influential it is 

worldwide, the shortcoming of this theory is 

that it does not consider the possibility that 

states could have an uncertain attitude toward 

balancing and bandwagoning. During the 

Cold War, all states were supposed to adopt a 

certain attitude toward the United States and 

Soviet Union. No state was allowed to hold an 

uncertain attitude. However, since the Cold 

War ended, regional states could afford to 

hold more obscure attitudes, thereby gaining 

the support of great powers. For example, 

Japan might hold an uncertain attitude in 

order to simultaneously gain security benefits 

from the United States, and economic 

benefits from China. Regional states might 

adopt such a strategy just to gain more 

benefits. 

Bandwagon School 

The bandwagon school argues that 

states prefer bandwagoning to balancing and 

that bandwagon has a pacifying effect on the 

international system. Randall Schweller (1994) 

argues that states have options and decide 

whether they should adopt balancing or 

bandwagon policies on the basis of their 

preferences. 172 He also argues that a 

bandwagon sometimes has a positive 

influence on the stability of the international 

system, and dispelled the negative image of a 

bandwagon. 173 Sweeney and Fritz (2004) 

argue that bandwagon is more common than 

balancing among great powers because great 

powers tend to consider their interests, not 

the distribution of power, when they form 

172 Randall Schweller, “Bandwagoning for Profit: 

Bridging the Revisionist State Back In,” 

International Security, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Summer 

1994): 72-107. 

173 Ivi. 


alliances. 174 They gave specific examples of 

these interests, such as the similarity of states’ 

dispositions and non-security issues like gold 

or prestige, that encourage great powers to 

form bandwagon alliances. 175 Amanda Licht 

(2007) argues that bandwagon produces 

strong systemic pacifying effects. 176 She 

maintains that bandwagon is helpful for all 

states to achieve lasting peace. This is because 

great powers pursue a strategy of “selfbinding” 

under the bandwagon alliances. 177 

Great powers are not supposed to threaten 

other smaller states once they reach any kind 

of agreement with them. Moreover, she 

indicates that bandwagon alliances should be a 

means to maintain a satisfied community and 

channeled through institutions. 178 For 

example, once small states form bandwagon 

alliances with great powers, the great powers 

share information about security with the 

smaller states, which discourages other states 

from attacking them. 

The shortcoming of both studies is 

that they solely define bandwagon by military 

capability, and have never considered the 

aggressive intentions of states. 179 With their 

definition, during World War II, Japan’s 

policy should have been a balancing with Nazi 

Germany, not bandwagon with them, because 

both Germany and Japan were overwhelmed 

174 Kevin Sweeney and Paul Fritz, “Jumping on 

the Bandwagon: An Interest-Based Explanation 

for Great Power Alliances,” The Journal of 

Politics, Vol. 66, No. 2 (May 2004): 429. 

175 Ibid., 434-435. 

176 Amanda Licht, “Ensuring a Smooth Ride: 

Regional Hegemons and the Choice Between 

Bandwagoning and Balancing Dynamics,” 

Conference Papers in American Political 

Science Association. 2007 Annual Meeting, p. 

22. 

177 Ibid., 9. 

178 Ibid., 9. 

179 Sweeney and Fritz, “Jumping on the 

Bandwagon,” 430; Licht, “Ensuring a Smooth 

Ride,” 8. 

by US’ military capability. Moreover, if we 

adopt their definition, we would not be able 

to examine the causal relationship between 

foreign policies such as military expansion and 

systemic effect. More specifically, we cannot 

predict the outcome of the foreign policies, 

whether defensive or offensive, of a rising 

state, if there is a much stronger hegemony in 

the world, because all foreign policies between 

smaller states are put together to balance 

against the great powers. 

In order to address the shortcomings 

of each school, we need to define each foreign 

policy based on both capabilities and 

aggressive intentions. Then, we need to 

modify each theory so that we can apply them 

to post-Cold War era when regional states can 

afford to hold an uncertain attitude toward 

balancing and bandwagon. In the section 

below, I propose that we deduce each foreign 

policy from structural realism, which enables 

us to examine how states’ foreign policies 

interact with each other. 

THEORETICAL ANALYSIS 

In order to deduce both balancing and 

bandwagon from the neorealism theories, I 

begin the analysis by organizing the arguments 

from Kenneth Waltz’s Theory of International 

Politics (hereinafter, referred to as “Theory”) 

and John Mearsheimer’s Tragedy of Great Power 

Politics (hereinafter referred to as “Tragedy”). 

The former is representative of defensive 

realism, while the latter is representative of 

offensive realism. In most previous studies, 

the two schools have differed in the scarcity of 

security. 180 The former describes security as 

abundant so that no states need to expand in 

order to survive, while the latter describes 

security as scarce so that all states need to 

180 Eric J. Hamilton and Brian C. Rathbun, 

“Scarce Differences: Toward a Material and 

Systemic Foundation for Offensive and 

Defensive Realism,” Security Studies, Vol. 22, 

No.3 (2013), 440-42. 


expand in order to survive in the system. 

However, in this study, I regard these 

arguments as a process from the static model 

to the dynamic model within the framework of 

structural realism. The former was static 

because it was established under the Cold 

War, while the latter was dynamic because it 

was designed to adjust the new world in the 

post-Cold War era. 

Structural Realism 

In 1979, Waltz wrote the Theory, in 

which he insists that, in an international 

system dominated by the principle of selfhelp, 

all foreign policies automatically lead to 

a repeating balance of power. 181 In the Theory, 

Waltz argues that a structure is defined by the 

arrangement of its parts. 182 To define a 

structure requires ignoring how units relate 

with one another (how they interact), and 

concentrating on how they stand in relation to 

one another (how they are arranged or 

positioned). 183 Now, international systems are 

assumed to be decentralized and anarchic, and 

states are assumed to seek to ensure 

survival. 184 Hence, we can say that states are 

alike in the tasks they face, though not in their 

abilities to perform them. 185 Therefore, a 

variation of structure is defined only by 

distinctions of states’ capabilities to perform 

the task. 186 In that fashion, Waltz discards all 

attributes of a structure except capability. 

States’ function is now uniform and applicable 

worldwide. The next issue is how to refine the 

rigid model so that it could be adjusted to the 

new world. 

Dynamic Model 

181 Kenneth N Waltz, Theory of International 

Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979), 

116-123. 

182 Ibid., 80. 

183 Ibid., 80. 

184 Ibid., 88, 91. 

185 Ibid., 96. 

186 Ibid., 98. 

In 1981, Robert Gilpin’s War and 

Change in World Politics points out that the 

distribution of capabilities and the ways in 

which the distribution of capabilities changes 

over time are the most significant factors 

underlining the process of international 

political change. 187 States differ in their rates 

of growth, and thus, the distribution of 

capability among them changes. Therefore, he 

argues that states’ foreign policies vary 

according to the changes in the distribution of 

capability. 188 The foreign policies include not 

only the maintenance of the status quo, but 

also the expansion of their territories. This 

was how Gilpin broke down the rigid model 

established by Waltz. Thus Waltz formulated 

the simple relationship between foreign 

policies and balance of power while Gilpin 

made it dynamic to adjust to the post-Cold 

maximize that power. Now, power 

become a 

War era. 

Gilpin starts off his argument by 

refining the definitions of a state and power. 

He describes the relationship between the 

growth of the power of a state and its control 

over the international system. 189 If a state 

acquires more resources, it can gain more 

economic power, which in turn encourages it 

to acquire more resources. In other words, he 

defines a state’s power by its economic output 

and argued that a state’s purpose is to 

function of a resource. Then, he formulates 

that a state will seek to change the 

international system until the marginal costs 

of further change are equal to or greater than 

the marginal benefits. 190 This enables us to 

187 Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World 

Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University 

Press, 1981), 86. 

188 Ibid., 93. 

189 Ibid., 106. 

190 Ibid., 106. 


express the distribution of capability by a 

resource variable as shown below. 

For simplicity, assume that there are 

two states in the international system: state A 

and state B. The international system consists 

of a limited amount of resource, K. By the 

definition shown above, the range of their 

power is expressed by the limits on each 

state’s production capacity. Now, we should 

notice that the tangential line between the two 

stands for the distribution of capability of the 

two states. A change in the production 

possibility limits leads to a change in the 

distribution of capability, which is defined as a 

systemic change in his book. 191 

FIGURE 1 DYNAMIC MODEL AND 

DISTRIBUTION OF CAPABILITY 

Power 

State B 

State A 

This is how Gilpin made Waltz’s 

theory dynamic so that it could adjust to the 

new world. He also argues that hegemony 

changes as time passes. 192 Hegemony stops its 

expansion at the point when its marginal cost 

equates with its marginal benefit. 193 However, 

its economic power declines as its defense 

cost increases. The more it expands, the more 

it needs to spend on defending its territory. 194 

When the hegemon fails to restore the 

equilibrium in the system, a rising power 

changes the system in accordance with the 

K 

Tangential Line stands for the 

Distribution of Capability 

Production possibility frontier 

new international distribution of power. 195 A 

new hegemony appears and another 

equilibrium emerges that reflects the new 

distribution of power in the world. 

Trilateral Model 

In this section, we will see how the 

distribution of capability between two states 

changes if a challenging state emerges in the 

system. The international system stabilizes 

only when all resources in the system are 

distributed in the best manner possible, 

whether states balance or bandwagon, so that 

states no longer have an incentive to 

destabilize the prevailing order. 

The two figures below show how 

states A and B react when threatened by a 

challenging state C. We assume that all 

resources in the system are distributed to state 

A and B, while state C gets nothing in the 

beginging. Now, we focus on how state B 

reacts. State B has two options. The first one 

is to ally with state A, and the second one is to 

ally with state C. The priority of state B 

should be the survival of the stability of the 

entire system. This is because it is only 

when the entire system is stable that no 

state has an incentive to attack it. Thus, 

when state B needs to react to the 

challenging state, it first considers which 

course will stabilize the entire system. 

Now, we can think about two cases. 

The first case is the one in which the entire 

system stabilizes if state B allies with state A, 

while the second case is the one in which the 

entire system stabilizes if state B allies with 

state C. In both cases, the slopes of two 

tangential lines in the figures below are 

parallel with each other so that all resources 

are distributed in the best manner possible. 

191 Ibid., 42-43. 

192 Ibid., 198. 

193 Ibid., 146. 

194 Ibid., 168-175. 

195 Ibid., 197-198. 


FIGURE 2 BALANCING MODEL 

State B 

State C 

Threat 

State B allies with 

State A Balancing 

distribution of capability between state B and 

state C parallel with that of the entire system. 

In this case, the entire system stabilizes, and 

state B can prevent both state A and state C 

from attacking it. 

From the settings above, we can 

deduce several propositions regarding the 

behavior of state B when faced with the rising 

power of state C. 

State A 

l 

This is the case in which state B allies 

with state A and the entire system can 

stabilize. Threatened by state C, state B tries 

to cope with state C by making the 

distribution of capability between state A and 

state B parallel with that of the entire system. 

In this case, the entire system stabilizes, and 

state B can prevent both state A and state C 

from attacking it. 

FIGURE 3 BANDWAGON MODEL 

State A 

State B 

State B allies with State C 

Bandwagon 

This is the case in which state B allies 

with state C and the entire system can 

stabilize. Threatened by state C, state B tries 

to cope with state C by making the 

l 

State C 

Threat 

l’ 

l’ 

Proposition 1: 

When both state A and state C become 

powerful, state B is likely to adopt balancing 

policies. 

Proof: See Appendix. 


When both state A and state C lose power, 

state B is likely to adopt balancing policies. 



When both state A and state C become 

powerful, state B is likely to adopt bandwagon 

policies. 



When both state A and state C lose power, 

state B is likely to adopt bandwagon policies. 


What implications can we deduce 

from these propositions? The propositions 

above imply that both balancing and 

bandwagon take place either when two of the 

states grow in power at the same time, or 

when two of the states decline in power at the 

same time. For example, when state A and 

state C grow in power at the same time, state 

B adopts either balancing or bandwagon. 

When state A and state C declines in power at 

the same time, state B also adopts either 

balancing or bandwagon. In either case, the 

entire system stabilizes so that all states in the 

system are guaranteed security. However, 

when state A grows in power while state C 


declines, state B does not adopt either policy, 

which destabilizes the entire system. 

Paradoxically, even if state A grows in power 

rapidly, it is not yet secure if state C declines, 

and thus state B does not adopt either of the 

policies designed to stabilize the entire system. 

Offensive Realism 

The model above is also applicable to 

the argument of offensive realism. John 

Mearsheimer argues that states are rational 

and therefore they maximize not absolute 

power, but relative power. 196 He argues that 

states motivated by relative power are likely to 

forgo large gains in their own power if such 

gains give rival states even greater power, for 

smaller national gains that nevertheless 

provide them with a power advantage over 

their rivals. 197 This is how Mearsheimer 

relates the offensive realism to the balance of 

power. 

The trilateral model above is 

consistent with his argument. State B is likely 

to forgo bandwagon if that gives state C 

greater power, while state B is likely to forgo 

balancing if that gives state A greater power. 

In either case, state B is concerned about its 

relative power, not absolute power that might 

give rival states greater power. Mearsheimer 

also argues that all states are inclined to alter 

the balance of power in their favor. 198 In the 

trilateral model above, state B alters the 

balance of power either by balancing or 

bandwagon so that no state any longer has an 

incentive to disrupt the prevailing order. 

TEST OF THE THEORY 

196 John J. Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great 

Power Politics (New York, London: W. W. 

Norton and Company, 2001), 36. 

197 Ibid. 

198 Ibid., p. 3. 

The theory above will be tested according to 

two criteria. 199 First, what predictions can be 

inferred from the above theory? Second, how 

much history does this theory explain? 

Predictions and Tests 

The theory’s predictions are derived 

from its primary hypothesis, namely, that in 

the trilateral system if the capability of two 

states are same, the other state adopts either 

balancing or bandwagon, if the capability of 

the two are different, the other adopts neither 

of the policies. The following two predictions 

are tested in case studies of the relationship 

between the United States, China and Japan in 

the period 1990-2015. The outcomes vary 

sharply across time, creating a good setting for 

multiple within–case comparison tests that 

contrast different periods within the same 

case. 200 

I. When the United States is powerful 

while China is powerless, Japan is not 

allied with either of them closely. 

II. 

When both the United States and China 

are powerful simultaneously, Japan is 

allied with the United States closely. 

III. When the United States is powerless 

while China is powerful, Japan is not 

allied with either of them closely. 

The graph below shows the growth rates of 

both the United States and China, which I 

took from the IMF website. 201 The vertical 

199 Stephen Van Evera, Guide to Methods for 

Students of Political Science (Ithaca, NY: 

Cornell University Press, 1997); Stephen Van 

Evera, “Offense, Defense, and the Causes of 

War,” International Security, Vol. 22, No. 4 

(Spring 1998): 22-23. 

200 Stephen Van Evera, Guide to Methods for 

Students of Political Science, 58-63. 

201 “IMF Report for Selected Countries and 

Subjects: Gross domestic product,” last modified 

May 2016, 

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2015/02/ 

weodata/weorept.aspx?pr.x=82&pr.y=7 

&sy=1990&ey=2015&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=cou 


16 

14 

12 

10 

8 

6 

4 

2 

0 

-‐2 

-‐4 

1990 

line of the graph shows the growth rate in 

percentage, and the horizontal line shows the 

year. 

In the case studies discussed below, I will 

focus on three terms. The first term is from 

1992 to 1999, when the US economy grew 

constantly, while China’s economy stagnated 

due to the economic sanctions after the 

Tiananmen incident and because of the Asian 

currency crisis. The second term is from 2001 

to 2007, when the economy of both the 

United States and China grew together after 

the temporal shock of the September 11 

attacks. The third term is from 2007 to 2010, 

when the United States fell into recession due 

to the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, while 

China minimized the damage by authorizing 

prompt measures against it. 

In the context of the United States’ 

and China’s growth rates, two factors, military 

threat and economic interests, have 

determined the attitude of Japan toward 

China. 202 The first factor, military threat, is 

related to the growth rate of China; the more 

China grows, the more Japan feels threatened. 

The second factor, economic interests, is 

related to the growth rate of the United States; 

the less the United States grows, the more 

Japan relies on China. 

FIGURE 4: GROWTH RATES OF THE US AND 

CHINA, 1990-2015 

ntry&ds=.&br=1&c=924%2C111&s=NGDP_RPC 

H&grp=0&a= 

202 

天児慧著『日中対立習近平の中国をよむ』 

(ちくま新書 2013)p. 54. 

92 

94 

96 

98 

2000 

2 

4 

6 

8 

10 

12 

14 

With regard to military threat, since 

1991, the growth rate of China’s military 

expenditure has been a two-digit figure, which 

has always threatened Japan. In 2007, China’s 

military expenditure rose to 60 billion dollars, 

which far exceeded Japan’s 40 billion 

dollars. 203 With regard to economic interests, 

Japan has emphasized trade with China. In 

2007, the total amount of Japan’s trade with 

China exceeded 236 billion dollars (2.78 

trillion Yen), when China took the lead in 

Japan’s trade. 204 In 2003, Japan came out of 

its long recession owing to its trade with 

China. 

The relative values of the two factors, 

military threat and economic interests, have 

thus determined the relationship between 

Japan and China since the 1990s. I will 

examine in detail below how the two factors 

have interacted with each other. 

[Term I: 1992-1999] Alliance Adrift 

Neither military threat nor economic 

interests mattered during this term; Japan did 

not rely on the US military forces because 

China had not yet pursued military expansion, 

and it did not rely on the Chinese markets 

because Japan had exported its products to 

the US markets. The US-Japan Security 

Alliance thus did not have a purpose in this 

term. This alliance was concluded in 1951 to 

oppose the threat of the Soviet Union during 

the Cold War. In that era, it worked well in 

East Asia considering that the Soviet Union 

never attacked Japan. However, soon 

after the Soviet Union collapsed and the 

203 “Stockholm International Peace Research 

Institute, Military Expenditure Database,” last 

modified May 2016, 

http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/ 

China milex_database. 

204 “Trade Statistics of Japan Ministry of 

US 

Finance,” last modified May 2016, 

http://www.customs.go.jp/toukei/srch/indexe.htm 

?M=27&P=1,,,3,105,1,,,,,,1992,2016,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,20. 


Cold War ended in 1989, the alliance lost its 

goal. Due to the economic sanctions after the 

Tiananmen incident, China’s capability was 

still low; therefore, neither the United States 

nor Japan could specify any threat that the 

security alliance was supposed to target. 

Moreover, Tokyo’s contribution to the Gulf 

War effort, over 13 billion dollars, won little 

acclaim in Washington. On North Korean 

matters, Washington was apt to deal bilaterally 

with Pyongyang and “consult” afterwards 

with Tokyo, pressuring Japan to accept 

arrangements already agreed upon. By the 

mid-1990s, US-Japan security relations were at 

a nadir. 205 

Meanwhile, several conflicts broke out 

in East Asia in this term. In 1993, the North 

Korean nuclear crisis erupted after North 

Korea left the Non Proliferation Treaty 

(NPT) and conducted ballistic missile tests. In 

1996, the China–Taiwan crisis also broke out. 

Just before the presidential election in Taiwan, 

China conducted missile launch exercises in 

the Taiwan Strait and the United States 

decided to dispatch the Seventh Fleet to the 

strait. Tensions therefore rose rapidly in East 

Asia. 

In 1997, in order to cope with these 

issues and to improve the reliability of the 

US–Japan Security Alliance, both countries 

held discussions and established the guidelines 

for Japan-US Defense cooperation. They 

redefined the goal of the alliance as dealing 

with emergency contingencies in areas 

surrounding Japan as well as an armed attack 

against Japan. 206 In 1998, a series of laws 

against situations in areas surrounding Japan 

205 Joseph N. Franz, “Tightening the Helmet 

Strings: The Future of the U. S. -Japan Security 

Relationship,” U. S. Army War College Strategy 

Research Project (2000), 6-7. 

206 “The Guidelines for Japan-U. S. Defense 

Cooperation,” last modified May 2016, 

http://www.mod.go.jp/e/d_act/anpo/19970923.ht 

ml. 

was submitted to the Diet, and in 1999, they 

were approved in the Diet. This is how both 

the United States and Japan attached new 

significance to the US-Japan Security Alliance. 

The alliance has started fulfilling the new 

function of the preservation of order, not only 

in Japan, but also in East Asia as a whole. 

[Term II: 2001-2007] Alliance Strengthened 

In this term, the military threat factor 

mattered, while economic interests did not; 

Japan needed to rely on the US military forces 

to prepare for Chinese military expansion, but 

did not need to exclusively rely on the 

Chinese markets because the US economy 

grew in this period. Soon after terrorists 

attacked the United States in September 2001, 

the US economy was temporally shocked, but 

it improved soon. In this period, the unity of 

the United States and Japan was strengthened 

through a variety of joint military operations. 

One of the most fruitful results was the 

collaboration to take military actions after the 

September 2001 terrorist attacks. 

Since 2001, Japan’s Self Defense 

Forces had refueled US and its allies’ vessels 

in the Indian Ocean to support the US-led 

effort in Afghanistan under Anti-Terrorism 

Special Measures Law. 207 The operation was 

carried out until 2006, and they refueled 132 

million gallons. 208 The US Secretary of 

Defense Robert Gates said that the Japanese 

refueling had contributed to a broad 

207 Sayuri Umeda, “Japan: Refueling Mission in 

the Indian Ocean Extended,” Library of 

Congress (December 2008), 

http://www.loc.gov/law/foreignnews/article/japan-refueling-mission-in-theindian-ocean-extended/. 

208 Eric Talmadge, “Japan to Resume Its Mission 

in Indian Ocean,” The Washington Post, January 

12, 2008, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2008/01/11/AR20080111033 

78.html. 


international coalition trying to bring freedom 

to Afghanistan. 209 

[Term III: 2007-2010] Triangular Relationship 

In this term, both military threat and 

the economic interests mattered; Japan 

needed to rely on the US military forces to 

take measures against Chinese military 

expansions, and simultaneously needed to rely 

on the Chinese markets to overcome the 

economic recession caused by the bankruptcy 

of the Lehman Brothers in 2007. In this 

period, the Chinese economy also stagnated, 

but the Chinese government successfully 

minimized the damage by authorizing prompt 

measures against it, and thus many western 

countries came to rely on the Chinese markets 

to get out of the recession. Moreover, the gap 

between the wealthy and the poor was 

widening in Japan, and thus the US-type 

growth model was not attractive to Japanese 

people in those days. In terms of that, we can 

say that China’s economic power was 

relatively stronger than the United States’. 

Hence, we can predict that the unity of the 

United States and Japan weakened 

significantly in this term. 

In Japan, criticized for the failure to 

take measures against the economic crisis, the 

Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the biggest 

political party in Japan, lost in the general 

election in 2009, and the Democratic Party of 

Japan (DPJ) leader Yukio Hatoyama took 

office as the prime minister in the same 

year. 210 From the outset, he proposed that 

Japan should consider a significant policy shift 

away from the United States, toward a more 

209 Thom Shanker, “Gates Urges Japan to 

Accept Global Security Role,” The New York 

Times, November 8, 2007, 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/world/asia/0 

8iht-gates.1.8245771.html?_r=0. 

210 Shoichi Itoh, “After the Election: Will Japan 

be Different?,” Brookings, September 2009, 

http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/200 

9/09/japan-election-itoh. 

independent foreign policy. 211 In other words, 

he tried to establish a triangular relationship 

between Japan, the United States, and China, 

wherein Japan maintained distance from the 

United States and closeness to China. The 

issue of the relocation of the military base in 

Okinawa was in particular significantly 

affected. In the 2009 election campaign, he 

promised that he would find another place 

outside Okinawa Prefecture. However, he 

could not find a place as promised, and thus 

failed to relocate the US Marine air base out 

of Okinawa in the end. 212 Both the United 

States and Okinawa Prefecture were 

disappointed by this clumsiness. This is how 

the negotiations reached a deadlock, and this 

issue is still a source of trouble between the 

United States and Japan. 

CONCLUSION 

In this study, we saw that in a trilateral 

relationship a state tends to adopt either a 

balancing or a bandwagon policy if two of 

them grow or decline simultaneously. In 

previous studies, many scholars have 

examined either balancing or bandwagon 

policies, however, few have considered the 

possibility that states hold an uncertain 

attitude toward them. In order to consider the 

possibility, we deduced the trilateral model 

from the arguments of neorealism. 

211 John Pomfret, “U.S. Concerned About New 

Japanese Premier Hatoyama,” The Washington 

Post, December 29, 2009, 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2009/12/28/AR20091228022 

71.html. 

212 Tze M. Loo, “The Okinawa Question,” The 

New York Times, June 10, 2010, 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/opinion/11ih 

t-edloo.html; Yuka Hayashi, “Okinawa Timing: 

It’s Complicated,” THE WALL STREET 

JOURNAL, May 11, 2010, 

http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2010/05/11/o 

kinawa-timing-its-complicated/. 


Then, in order to test the credibility of 

the model, we examined the post-Cold War 

era in East Asia. When China’s economy 

stagnated while the US’ economy grew 

constantly after the Tiananmen incident, the 

US-Japan Security Alliance lost its purpose. 

As a result, several conflicts broke out in East 

Asia in the 1990s. In contrast, when both the 

United States and China grew in power in the 

2000s, Japan decided to adopt a balancing 

policy against the rising power of China. As a 

result, the unity of the United States and 

Japan was strengthened again, that enabled 

the US troops to carry out operations around 

the Indian Ocean. However, after the 

bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers in 2007, 

the US-type growth model attracted less and 

less Japanese people, and the Japanese 

government tried to maintain distance from 

the United States. 

The reason why the United States and 

Japan have been best friends is precisely 

because of the simultaneous facts of the 

growth of China and the continuance of US 

power in the post-Cold War era, especially 

after the terrorists attacked the United States 

in September 2001. The model shows that if 

China’s economy stagnated due to economic 

sanctions, paradoxically, the United States 

would also get damaged even if US’ economy 

grew. Therefore, the political implication of 

this model is that the United States should 

adopt an engagement strategy that encourages 

China’s economy to grow within the existing 

framework instead of squeezing it through 

economic sanctions. 

Appendix 

Proof of Proposition 1 and 2 

When state A and state B balance against state 

C, the distribution of capability between two 

states is supposed to be equal to that of the 

entire system, known as Pareto Optimum. 

Let the power of state A be F k , let the 

power of state B be G k , let the power of 

state C be H k . 

For simplicity, we assume that F k = a ∙ k ! ! , 

G k = b ∙ k ! ! , and H k = c ∙ k ! 

! 

The coefficients a, b, and c reflect the 

productivities of each state. 

If the number increases, the state can turn 

their resources into military armaments, and 

become more powerful. 

In equilibrium, ∂F ∂k ! 

= ∂G ∂k ! 

Thus, 2a ∙ k ! = 2b ∙ k ! 

Now, let us assume that the total amount of 

resources in the system is 1. 

Thus, k ! + k ! = 1 

Therefore, 2a ∙ k ! = 2b ∙ 1 − k ! 

(a + b) ∙ k ! = b 

∴ k ! = b a + b , k ! = a a + b 

∴ ∂F ∂k 

= ∂G 

! ∂k 

= 2a ∙ b 

! a 

+ b 

The formulation above indicates the 

distribution of capability between state A and 

state B. 

In equilibrium, the distribution of capability 

between them equates to that of the entire 

system. 

Thus, 2c ∙ k ! = 2a ∙ b 

a 

+ b 

∴ c = a ∙ b a + b ∙ 1 k ! 

Now, all the resources in the system are 

distributed between state A and state B. 

Thus, k ! → 0 

∴ c = a ∙ b 

a + b 

The formulation above is the condition of the 

balancing policy. State B decides to adopt the 

balancing policy if the above condition is met 

in the system. 

Now, from the condition equations above, we 

can deduce the formulations below. 

I. If a ≥ b b − 1 

i.e. a is sufficiently 

large, c = a ∙ b a + b ≥ 1 

This implies that when both state A 

and state C become powerful, state B 

is likely to adopt balancing policies. 


II. If a 

i.e. a is sufficiently 

small, c = a ∙ b a + b < 1 

This implies that when both state A and state 

C lose power, state B is likely to adopt 

balancing policies. Q.E.D 

Proof of Proposition 3 and 4 

When state B bandwagons with state C, the 

distribution of capability between the two 

equates with that of the entire system, known 

as Pareto Optimum. 

In the same fashion as Balancing, we can get 

a = b ∙ c 

b + c 

This is the condition of the bandwagon 

policy. State B decides to adopt the 

bandwagon policy if the above condition is 

met in the system. 

Now, from the condition equations above, we 

can deduce the formulations below. 

I. If c ≥ b b − 1 

i.e. c is sufficiently 

large, a = b ∙ c b + c ≥ 1 

This implies that when both state A 

and state C become powerful, state B 

is likely to adopt bandwagon policies. 

II. If c 

i.e. c is sufficiently 

small, a = b ∙ c b + c < 1 

This implies that when both state A and state 

C lose power, state B is likely to adopt 

bandwagon policies. Q. E. D. 


The Judicialization of 

Politics and the 

Independence of 

Constitutional Court 

The Case of South Korea 

Eunseong Oh 

S 

ince its establishment in 1988, the 

Constitutional Court of Korea (CCK) 

has been functioning as the final and the 

ultimate authority to interpret the constitution 

and adjudicate constitutional disputes in 

South Korea. The CCK emerged from a 

compromise between the former ruling party 

and the country’s opposition parties. It was an 

attempt to secure a check and balance system 

against the arbitrary exercise of the executive 

branch’s power during the period of 

authoritarian rule (and in parallel, the national 

legislature’s having been incompetent in 

curbing the executive branch). Its design 

concentrates on protecting the fundamental 

rights of the citizen against unjust legislation 

of the majoritarian parliament forced through 

by the ruling party or the overzealous exercise 

of executive power. 

The decision to establish the 

Constitutional Court inherits Kelsenian 

tradition. When the traditional threat of the 

ancient regime on citizens’ rights and liberty 

was replaced by the new threat of 

democratically-elected fascist regimes that 

began to emerge in 1920s Europe, the idea of 

parliamentary sovereignty declined and the 

constitutionalism escalated. There was a 

growing need for institutions to protect 

fundamental rights and liberty against the 

authoritarian state. In response to the need, 

Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt proposed 

different solutions through the argument on 

the guardian of the constitution. 213 Schmitt 

defined the character of democracy to be the 

identity of the ruler and the ruled. Schmitt 

contended that the president (executive), 

whose authority is to be combined with the 

constituent power, should be the guardian of 

the constitution. As he wrote in 1934, “The 

leader protects the law.” 214 Kelsen’s idea was 

to establish the constitutional court as the 

final authority to interpret the constitution 

through adjudication. The constitutional court 

would keep the balance among governmental 

powers and safeguard citizens’ rights and 

liberty through judicial review. 

It was only recently that the 

constitutional court, once believed to be “the 

least dangerous branch” 215 , attained greater 

authority at an alarming rate. After the World 

War II, there emerged a phenomenon called 

judicialization of politics, which is “the 

reliance on courts and judicial means for 

addressing core moral predicaments, public 

policy questions, and political 

controversies” 216 . It has become increasingly 

prevalent worldwide, emerging out of 

Western and Southern Europe and later 

sprawling to post-communist states in Central 

and Eastern Europe. Since the end of the 

Cold War, judicialization of politics has spread 

to post-authoritarian regimes in Latin 

America, Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa 217 . 

213 Lars Vinx, trans., The Guardian of the 

Constitution: Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt on 

the Limits of Constitutional Law (Cambridge: 

Cambridge University Press, 2015). 

214 Carl Schmitt, “Der Führer schützt das Recht”, 

Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung, no 39 (1934), 946 

215 Alexander M. Bickel, The Least Dangerous 

Branch. (New Haven: Yale University Press 

1986). 

216 Ran Hirschl, “The Judicialization of Politics”, 

in The Oxford Handbook of Law and Politics, ed. 

K. E. Whittington et al. ( New York, NY: Oxford 


217 Tate, C. N., and Vallinder, T. The Global 

Expansion of Judicial Power. (New York: New 

York University Press, 1995) 


In modern democratic countries, the 

judiciary has expanded its realm of oversight 

from a passive locus for the interpretation and 

application of statutes to active functions of 

legislation 218 . Though implemented in 

different political, legal and cultural contexts, 

this phenomenon has come with the 

emergence of the constitutional adjudication 

system. The rise of constitutional 

adjudication 219 , whether by the U.S. Supreme 

Court or various European constitutional 

courts, has put pressure on political 

institutions to correspond to the constitution, 

and therefore, to be under the jurisdiction of 

the courts 220 . 

There are three patterns of 

judicialization: limits on the authority of the 

legislative branch imposed by the judiciary, 

the participation of the courts in 

policymaking, and the courts’ regulation of 

what constitutes permissible political 

activity 221 . The first involves the courts’ 

increasing influence on the legislature, 

John A. Ferejohn and Pasquale Pasquino. 

“Rule of Democracy and Rule of Law,” in 

Democracy and the Rule of Law, ed. J. M. 

Maravall et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge 

University Press, 2003) 242-260. 

218 Ibid. 

219 In this essay, constitutional adjudication, 

judicial review, and constitutional review are 

used interchangeably, with an intention to refer 

to the adjudication process by the constitutional 

court justices on the constitutionality of statutes. 

If found unconstitutional after constitutional 

adjudication, a statute is to be nullified and 

replaced by new legislation. 

220 John A. Ferejohn and Pasquale Pasquino. 

“Constitutional Courts as Deliberative 

Institutions: Towards an Institutional Theory of 

Constitutional Justice,” in Constitutional Justice 

East and West, ed. W. Sadurski (The Hague: 

Kluwer Law International, 2002) 21-36 

221 John A. Ferejohn. “Judicializing Politics, 

Politicizing Law,” Law & Contemporary 

Problems, 65(3), (2002): 41-68. 

Hirschl, “The Judicialization of Politics.” 

especially with the introduction of judicial 

review: the elected officials’ legislative agendas 

are subject to review where the constitution is 

the supreme and fundamental law of the land. 

The second reflects the growing role of the 

courts as policymakers. Not only are there 

cases where public policies are made in the 

courts, but administrative review both before 

and after the judiciary weighs in also 

demonstrates the courts’ substantial influence 

over the executive branch. This aspect of 

judicialization has become more and more 

prominent in modern welfare states and 

international tribunals since 1945. In the third 

pattern, the courts even come to regulate the 

conduct of political actors in electoral 

processes or in the executive branch taking 

charge of nationwide political decisionmaking. 

All of these roles influence other 

political actors to consider judicial reactions to 

their agendas more deeply than they had in 

the past. 

Traditionally, discussions of 

judicialization focus on “the countermajoritarian 

difficulty” 222 . At the center of this 

debate is the process of judicial review, where 

unelected justices are able to nullify the dulyenacted 

legislation of elected officials by 

ruling it unconstitutional. For critics of these 

actions, it is considered illegitimate for the 

judiciary, which lacks democratic 

accountability, to intervene in the business of 

representative institutions. This tradition 

stems from the classical theories on separation 

of powers 223 . In the Lockean and Rousseauian 

tradition of parliamentary sovereignty, the 

authority to conduct a constitutional review 

222 Bickel, “The Least Dangerous Branch,” 16- 

23. 

223 Ferejohn and Pasquino, “Rule of Democracy 

and Rule of Law,” 242-260. 

Tom Ginsburg, “The Constitutional Court and 

the Judicialization of Korean Politics,” in New 

courts in Asia, ed. A. Harding, et al. (New York: 

Routledge, 2010). 


elongs exclusively to the legislature. Thus the 

parliament, as the representative of the 

people, is the only branch that can legitimately 

exercise constitutional review, which thus in 

nature a priori and abstract. In light of the idea 

of parliamentary sovereignty, judicialization is 

undemocratic in that the judiciary exercises its 

power to thwart the will of democratically 

elected officials. 

Similarly, the tradition of 

Montesquieuian separation of power also 

forms a basis for rejecting constitutional 

review by the judiciary. Montesquieu argued 

that governmental power should be separated 

horizontally and distributed among three 

branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. If 

the judiciary retains legislative and executive 

power, then power will be exercised arbitrarily 

over the life and liberty of the citizenry, 

resulting in despotism: judicial review, where 

the court intervenes the legislative and 

executive activity, is therefore seen to be in 

conflict with the exercise of democracy. 

Countries that inherited traditions of 

parliamentary sovereignty and 

Montesquieuian separation of powers adapted 

constitutional review according to their 

respective traditions. The Republic of Korea, 

as it transitioned from authoritarian rule to 

liberal democracy in the 1980s, adopted the 

Kelsenian model of the constitutional court 

based on the Montesquieuian tradition. 

Even in the context of judicialization, 

however, guaranteeing judicial independence 

has been a more serious concern than the 

judiciary overstepping its authority to 

intervene against democratically-elected 

officials’ legislation, when considering the 

focus of the institution on rights protection 

from its birth. The paradox lies, rather, in that 

the judicialization of politics also coincides 

with the undermining of judicial 

independence in the Korean case, resulting in 

politicization of the CCK 224 . As the realm of 

jurisdiction expands into politics in the 

context of judicialization, the CCK is also 

subject to influence from politics. The very 

political nature of the CCK has opened a 

channel for political power to encroach upon 

the judiciary’s independence. This manifests 

itself in both formal and informal ways, the 

latter of which are difficult to measure but 

pervasive within the judiciary at all levels. 

In this paper, I examine whether the 

CCK is an independent guardian of liberal 

democratic constitutionalism that is free from 

political pressure. First, I explore the political 

and historical context in which the CCK was 

created, as well as its structure and function in 

Korean politics. In order to answer the first 

part of the question – if the CCK is 

independent – I examine the judicial 

independence of the CCK both on the de jure 

and the de facto level. I trace the career of CCK 

justices since their mandatory retirements in 

order to find out if political pressure has been 

exercised in any form. In addition, records of 

constitutional adjudication on the “purely” 

political cases I discuss provide insight into 

the politicization of the CCK. Finally, whether 

the CCK is a guardian of constitutional 

democracy or not is addressed by examining 

the court’s role as a guardian of the 

constitution, specifically the role of the CCK 

in complementing Korea’s liberal democracy. 

Because South Korea is only a nascent 

democratic country, it is still in a precarious 

stage that occurs before the stabilization of 

constitutional democracy and the 

entrenchment of the role of constitutional 

institutions. Therefore, the case of the 

Constitutional Court of Korea offers valuable 

224 Jongcheol Kim and Jonghyun Park. “Causes 

and Conditions for Sustainable Judicialization of 

Politics in Korea,” in The Judicialization of 

Politics in Asia ed, Dressel, B.,(New York, NY: 

Routledge, 2012), 37. 


insights into understanding possible threats to 

judicial independence in post-authoritarian 

societies. In addition, it will also provide 

grounds to evaluate the contribution of the 

constitutional court as an institution in 

modern democratic politics. 

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT OF KOREA 

THE POLITICAL CONTEXT OF THE 

CONSTITUTIONALISM IN KOREA 225 : BEFORE 

THE 1987 CONSTITUTION 

The first written constitution of 

Korea was promulgated in 1899 by the king, 

when the Joseon Dynasty changed its name to 

the Empire of Dai Han. During the Japanese 

colonial period (1910-1945), the provisional 

government of Korea—then in exile— 

embraced Western traditions of modern 

constitutionalism based on the principles of 

popular sovereignty, parliamentarianism, the 

separation of powers, fundamental rights and 

the rule of law. All were enshrined in émigré 

declarations on the future character of the 

Korean nation issued between 1919 and 1948. 

Yet these aspirational values had little impact 

on affairs in Korea proper until 1945, when 

the Japanese evacuated the country. Even 

then, these precepts fell short of reality with 

the formation of separate occupation zones 

trending towards authoritarian rule, whether 

aligned with “capitalist” or “communist” 

production systems, and the outbreak of fullscale 

civil war three years later. 

The weak basis for Korean 

constitutionalism when independence came 

meant that the supreme law of the land 

underwent nine distinct reforms in a 60-year 

period from 1945. The constitution not only 

underwent relatively frequent reforms as a 

written and rigid constitution, but its content 

also underwent radical changes varying across 

the parliamentary government to the 

presidential system, and from the bicameral 

225 Kwon, Y. Constitutional Theory. (Seoul: 

Beopmunsa, 2010) (available only in Korean). 

parliament to the unicameral National 

Assembly. These reforms can be summarized 

as the repeated destruction of constitutional 

order and the subsequent movement to guard 

democratic constitutionalism 226 . The First 

Republic (1948-1960) amended the 

constitution twice, first to secure President 

Syngman Rhee’s reelection by changing 

electoral and parliamentary rules, and second 

to allow his reappointment. Both reform 

procedures violated the constitution. 

The third reform came after the “4.19 

Revolution” in 1960, which led to the 

resignation and exile of President Rhee 

following mass protests against his rigged 

reelection campaign. The third and fourth 

reforms aimed to restore the democratic 

constitutionalism under opposition leader 

Chang Myon by installing the first 

constitutional court and retroactively 

penalizing anti-democratic practices under 

Rhee. These efforts, however, were aborted 

by the “5.16” military coup d’état of President 

Park Chung-hee, which led to the fifth and 

the sixth reforms, leading to the imperial 

presidency of Park Chung-hee and the 

abolition of term limits. President Park 

continued to carry out the seventh reform in 

1972, known as the October Revitalizing 

Reform, or the “Yushin Constitution” that 

suspended the previous constitution. The 

authoritarian era reached its peak with the 

imposition of martial law that year. 

After President Park’s assassination in 

1979, another military coup d’état followed, 

led by President Chun Doo-hwan, and saw 

the eighth reform, which also maintained the 

existence of a powerful presidency. 

Throughout the nine reforms and six 

republics, the Korean Constitution had been 

at the center of repeated battles between 

prolonged one-man rule and efforts to 

provision for a democratic constitution. 

226 Ibid.,100 


THE 1987 CONSTITUTION AND THE 

CONSTITUTIONAL COURT OF KOREA 227 

The long period of authoritarian rule 

culminated in the “6.10 Democratic 

Revolution” in 1987. As a result of the “June 

Revolution,” the ninth Korean Constitution 

was adopted and the CCK was established, 

based upon popular sovereignty and liberal 

democracy as its fundamental ideologies. 

Eight representatives from the ruling party 

and the opposition parties drafted the 

document. Since these eight each represented 

one of the promising candidates for the 

upcoming Presidential election (including the 

eventual winner, the ruling party candidate 

Roh Tae-woo), the discussion was mainly 

concentrated on term limits and other 

restrictions on the power of the presidency. 

The reform was reviewed and approved by 

the special committee on constitutional 

reform in the National Assembly to be sent to 

a plebiscite that year, which ratified the new 

constitution with 93.1 percent of the votes 

cast in favor. 

Considering Korea’s experience with 

authoritarianism and the distant, ephemeral 

democracy practiced by the provisional 

government in exile, it is not surprising that 

the eight delegates and the special committee 

decided to adopt the Kelsenian model of a 

constitutional court. In the special committee, 

there had been discussion on whether the 

Supreme Court or the constitutional court 

should exercise constitutional review. Both 

parties’ primary concern was to effectively 

protect citizens’ fundamental rights and liberty 

from unjust legislation or executive 

arbitrariness. It was the ruling party’s idea to 

227 “Twenty years of the Constitutional Court of 

Korea,” The Constitutional Court Library, last 

modified 2008, 

http://library.ccourt.go.kr:8080/vlsvr/search/Sear 

chViewC.jsp?barcode=VL00000282027&search 

Val=search_empty&productCd=007. (available 

only in Korean). 

insulate the Supreme Court from partisan 

politics and install a committee for 

constitutional adjudication, while the 

opposition parties insisted on the transfer of 

this authority to the Supreme Court. In the 

past, during the fifth reform of the 

constitution (in 1962), the government had in 

fact vested the Supreme Court with the 

authority to conduct judicial reviews. 

However, for twenty years the court’s 

authority to conduct a judicial review 

remained virtually dormant, with only two 

cases of statutes being ruled unconstitutional 

before the bench. Even after the 

constitutional committee was reinstated, the 

authoritarian regime restricted the right to 

judicial review only to the Supreme Court. At 

last, having been granted the condition to 

institutionalize constitutional complaints, the 

opposition parties agreed to install a 

constitutional court rather than transfer the 

power to the Supreme Court (The 

Constitutional Court of Korea, 2008). 

Thus, not only was it a political 

decision to establish the CCK, but the 

decision also aimed to impact political actors 

and the democratic system through the CCK. 

The primary function that people expected of 

the CCK was restoring and honoring the 

liberal democratic constitutionalism the 

provisional government had imagined for the 

country in 1919, that successive presidents 

had breached by rigging elections, banning 

members of the opposition from running for 

office and using extrajudicial measures to 

suppress political activism. So, the CCK was 

born as the guardian of the constitution 228 . 

This role required the CCK, as a “fourth 

power,” to stay independent from the 

legislature, the executive, and even the rest of 

228 Yi, Y. “Judicialization of Politics, is the Crisis 

of Democracy? Focusing on the Principle of 

Habermas’s Democratic Constitutional State 

Theory”. Peace Studies, 20(1) (2012): 71-103 

(available only in Korean). 


the judiciary. 229 It was of less concern that the 

process of judicial review might be 

undemocratic than that the process of judicial 

review itself could remain independent from 

national politicking. 

THE STRUCTURE AND THE FUNCTION OF THE 

CONSTITUTIONAL COURT OF KOREA 

The Constitutional Court Act 

stipulates that the CCK is to be comprised of 

nine justices among those who have 

qualification for the judge (Article 3 and 

Article 5). To secure political impartiality and 

guarantee the CCK’s function as the guardian 

of the constitution, three governmental 

branches – the President, the National 

Assembly, and the Chief Justice of the 

Supreme Court – jointly organize the 

membership of the CCK. The National 

Assembly elects three justices, the chief justice 

appoints three additional justices, and the 

incumbent president appoints three more 

(Article 6). Then the National Assembly holds 

personnel hearings for the six Justices 

appointed by the other two branches. The 

president also appoints the chief justice of the 

CCK. Each justice serves a six-year term, and 

can serve consecutive terms under the 

conditions as prescribed (Article 112) until 

reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70. 

The concern for judicial 

independence is illustrated in the relatively 

comprehensive authority of the CCK 

compared to its counterparts in other 

229 The relationship between the CCK and the 

Supreme Court is described as horizontal and 

parallel. The justices in the CCK are treated as 

their counterparts in the Supreme Court are. 

Both institutions share the authority to conduct 

judicial review, with the CCK adjudicating 

constitutional review on the statutes, and the 

Supreme Court left in charge of reviewing 

administrative decrees and regulations (Kwon, 

2010, p. 1131). 

democratic countries 230 . The Korean 

Constitution endows the constitutional court 

with the authority to adjudicate political 

controversies. Article 111 (1) of the 

constitution stipulates the jurisdiction of the 

CCK 231 : constitutional review upon the 

request of the courts; adjudication on 

impeachment; dissolution of political parties; 

competence disputes between state agencies, 

between state agencies and local governments, 

and between local governments; and 

constitutional complaints (Heonbeopsowon). The 

constitutional complaint is a direct channel 

through which an individual can request 

constitutional review to protect his or her 

fundamental rights from the exercise of state 

power. Except for the constitutional 

complaint, all four categories of constitutional 

adjudication are “political” in that the political 

disputes are settled through the judicial 

process. Since 1988, the Constitutional Court 

of Korea has been actively exercising its role 

in politics, conducting 877 judicial reviews, 

one impeachment case, two cases on the 

dissolution of political parties, 86 competency 

disputes, and 27,247 constitutional complaints 

232 

. 

THE JUDICIALIZATION OF KOREAN POLITICS 

In Korean politics, the CCK possesses 

“political jurisdiction,” meaning it is neither a 

purely political entity nor a wholly apolitical 

230 Kim and Park, “Causes and Conditions for 

Sustainable Judicialization of Politics in Korea” 

39 

231 The Constitution of the Republic of Korea 

http://www.law.go.kr/lsEfInfoP.do?lsiSeq=61603 

# (in Korean) 

http://www.law.go.kr/lsInfoP.do?lsiSeq=61603&u 

rlMode=engLsInfoR&viewCls=engLsInfoR 

232 The Constitutional Court Act, 

http://www.law.go.kr/LSW/lsInfoP.do?lsiSeq=11 

1952#0000 (in Korean) 

http://elaw.klri.re.kr/kor_service/lawView.do?lang 

=ENG&hseq=33354 (in English) 


ody 233 . This imbues its constitutional 

adjudication with the function of forming 

political realities. The CCK has been 

inherently “political,” born from the 

contested democratization process of the late 

1980s and designed primarily to guard liberal 

democratic constitutionalism from partisan 

ambitions. All of the three patterns of 

judicialization – constitutional review, 

policymaking, and intervention on “megapolitics” 

– are observed in the actions of the 

CCK 234 . And it has become a central political 

actor in resolving political controversies. 

Exemplary cases include the constitutional 

review of the Special Act on the May 18 th 

Democratization Movement, the Relocation 

of the Capital City Case, and the Dissolution 

of the Unified Progressive Party. And it is this 

trend of judicialization that has undermined de 

facto judicial independence of the CCK, if not 

its de jure judicial independence. 

DE JURE INDEPENDENCE OF THE 


Judicial independence is achieved 

when both the court and its judges are 

independent. Its theoretical roots originate 

from the theories of the separation of powers, 

upon which “the structure and the operation 

of the judiciary is separated and independent 

from the legislative and the executive” 235 . 

Judicial independence is based on the 

existence of an independent and autonomous 

court, and the independence of the justices. In 

that sense, the CCK’s judicial independence at 

de jure level is well secured. 

The Korean Constitution prescribes 

the independence of the court from the 

legislative and executive institutions by 

stipulating that “judicial power shall be vested 

in courts composed of judges” (Article 101 

(1)). The constitution also recognizes the 

233 Kwon, “Constitutional Theory” p.1116 

234 Ferejohn, 2002; Hirschl, 2010 

235 Kwon, 2010, p.1067 

courts’ autonomy, in Articles 102 and 108, 

which define the court’s authority to establish 

“regulations pertaining to judicial proceedings 

and internal discipline and regulations on 

administrative matters of the court.” The 

organization and the operation of the court 

are autonomous within the scope of the 

Constitutional Court Act. This does not mean 

that the court is subject to legislative 

institutions; rather, it is interpreted that the 

court enjoys autonomy which cannot be 

infringed upon. 

The independence of the justices in 

the CCK is also safeguarded by the 

constitution. Ginsburg and Melton (2014) 

suggest that the component of de jure 

independence is a statement of judicial 

independence, judicial tenure, selection 

procedure, removal procedure, limited 

removal conditions, and salary insulation. 

Except for the guarantee of tenure, the 

Korean Constitution prescribes all of these 

components. Article 103 of the constitution 

guarantees the ex-officio independence of 

justices – Sachliche Unabhängigkeit – when it 

articulates, “judges shall rule independently 

according to their conscience and in 

conformity with the Constitution and laws.” 

Thus, the constitution enshrines the right and 

duty of the nine justices to be subject only to 

their consciences, the Constitution, and the 

laws. They must be independent from any 

external pressures including the influence of 

the government, the higher court, the order of 

the chief justice, the litigants, and any social or 

political power. The qualification and the 

status of the justices are also defined in Article 

106 (1) of the constitution: “No judge shall be 

removed from office except by impeachment 

or a sentence of imprisonment without prison 

labor or heavier punishment, nor shall he be 

suspended from office, have his salary 

reduced, or suffer any other unfavorable 

treatment except by disciplinary action.” 


DE FACTO INDEPENDENCE OF THE 


Despite the de jure independence of 

the CCK, the practice of the law is often 

discrepant from the prescriptions of the law, 

leaving the independence of the CCK at stake 

on a de facto level. As Ginsburg and Melton 

(2014) have argued, de jure judicial 

independence has turned out to be largely 

ineffective in securing de facto judicial 

independence. Chavez (2010) delineates the 

types of pressures exercised against de facto 

judicial independence. Regarding judicial 

independence as one of the pillars supporting 

the rule of law, she articulates that informal 

practices, as well as de jure institutions, restrict 

judicial autonomy and independence. Such 

informal practices include noncooperation by 

entities refusing to abide by the court’s 

decision, and retaliation by withholding funds 

or threatening incumbency 236 . 

In the case of the CCK, de jure 

institutions have not necessarily maintained 

judicial independence. However, practices that 

have harmed the de facto judicial independence 

of the CCK show different aspects than 

noncooperation and retaliation. Harm results 

from the stipulation of the CCK’s binding 

power vis-à-vis all governmental institutions 

as defined by Article 47 of the Constitutional 

Court Act. Retaliation through financial 

means is also impossible due to the 

constitutional prescription of the judges’ 

salaries and incumbencies. Rather, the threat 

to the independence of the CCK can be 

analyzed by examining the internal and 

external pressures exercised on it. Specifically, 

the independence of the CCK has often been 

infringed upon by internal pressures within 

236 Georg Vanberg, “Establishing and 

Maintaining Judicial Independence”. in The 

Oxford Handbook of Law and Politics ed. K. E. 

Whittington, et al. (New York, NY: Oxford 

University Press. 2010) 

the court’s hierarchy and external pressures 

from political actors. 

The hierarchical pressure within the 

court is the main threat to its judicial 

independence. Studies in Korean legal 

sociology have identified the distinct legal 

culture of “the privilege of former office” 237 . 

It refers to the custom that the judges and the 

prosecutors grant the request of lawyers who 

have recently retired from the court and the 

prosecutor’s office. This privilege is one of 

the main reasons that judicial officers become 

lawyers after their retirement: they record 

exceptionally high rates of winning trials by 

utilizing their close connections to the 

incumbent justices in order to personally 

influence the decision. Their personal 

connections to the judiciary constitute a form 

of “social capital” 238 , bringing considerable 

pecuniary remunerations to those lawyers. 

The high rate of retirement of judges and 

prosecutors at an early age, and their greater 

chances of winning cases right after 

retirement, is strong evidence for the 

existence of this “invisible” yet quite 

pernicious privilege 239 . 

This “privilege” also greatly influences 

the future career of the incumbent judicial 

officers within the court. They are under 

pressure to maintain amicable relationships 

with their colleagues and senior officials if 

they are to be regarded as a successful lawyer 

after retirement. Since they are likely to 

encounter their colleagues and senior officials 

even after retirement, and since the personal 

relationship will affect their efficacy as a 

237 Kim, J. “Judicial independence and the 

necessity for judicial reform focused on judicial 

democratization: The case of Korea”. Kangwon 

Law Review, 41(1), (2014): 137-184 (available 


238 Lee, Y. H. “Legal Professionals’ Corruptions 

and the Downside of Social Capital in South 

Korea,” Korean Journal of Criminology, 18(2), 

(2006): 441-458 (available only in Korean). 

239 Kim, 2014, p.104 


lawyer arguing before the bench, these 

personal relationships and hierarchies within 

the court system have a profound impact on 

the officers’ conduct. In fact, looking at a 

snapshot of data from 2000 to 2004, among 

lawyers, 89.8 percent of retired judges and 75 

percent of former prosecutors practiced legal 

services in the same jurisdiction they had 

previously practiced law in 240 . 

The justices of the CCK face the same 

pressure. There have been a total of 46 

justices who have served in the CCK. Except 

for the nine incumbent justices, the career 

path of the other 37 former CCK justices 

shows that the “privilege” system exercises 

the same pressure on their professional 

independence as it does among other judges. 

In fact, their official retirement turns out to be 

far from their last: only six justices have ever 

retired at the regular retirement age. Another 

31 former justices retired under the age limit. 

The number of the former CCK justices who 

actually “retired” is just nine. Twenty-six 

former justices chose to pursue careers as 

lawyers, politicians or law professors. Among 

them, private law firms hired sixteen former 

CCK justices. They continue to provide their 

legal knowledge and experience to the law 

firms as lawyers. As in the case of the ordinary 

court judges and prosecutors, the CCK 

justices continue their legal career as lawyers. 

And it places the CCK justices under the 

influence of other institutions within the 

judiciary. 

External pressure from political actors 

is another factor that disturbs the judicial 

independence of the CCK. Pursuing a career 

in politics is the second most popular post- 

CCK career for justices after going into 

private practice. Among 37 retired justices, 

13.5 percent of them were elected or 

appointed as politicians. The majority of them 

became members of the National Assembly, 

and one of them was appointed as the 

240 Lee, 2006 

Chairman of the Board of Audit and 

Inspection. These justices have had to run for 

election or find a politician, in either the 

legislature or in the executive branch, who will 

appoint them to office. The fact that their 

position after retirement depends on the 

goodwill of such politicians exerts pressure on 

these judges while in office. 

The trend of judicialization in Korean 

politics exacerbates these aforementioned 

problems by strengthening the cohesion 

between the CCK and partisan politics. The 

impact of political pressure on constitutional 

adjudication is apparent in the cases of the 

CCK. The CCK has refrained from delivering 

rulings dissonant from the political aims of 

the ruling party. This tendency is intensified 

when the ruling party is the majority in the 

National Assembly, or as the political majority 

is ascertained through elections 241 . 

Among many cases, three 

constitutional adjudication cases most clearly 

illustrate the impact of judicialization on the 

independence of the CCK. The first case is 

the constitutional review on the Special Act 

on the May 18 th Democratization 

Movement 242 . During the process of 

democratization, one of the worst excesses 

committed against the citizens of the republic 

was the “Kwangju Uprising” of 1980, when 

the military carried out a large-scale massacre 

in that eponymous Korean city by deploying 

special airborne units against protesters. The 

core figures of military authority at the time, 

including the former President Chun Doohwan, 

were on trial for treason in relation to 

241 Park, J. (2009). Constitutional adjudication 

and policy-making – a positive analysis of 

constitutional policy-making for dissolving the 

countermajoritarian difficulty. Ph.D. dissertation, 

Seoul National University of Korea (available 


242 96Hun-Ka2, February 16, 1996 

(The Special Act on the May 

Democratization Movement, etc. Case) 


this as well as the 1979 putsch. However, 

before the inauguration of Kim Young-sam as 

president of the first civilian government in 

the republic, the CCK ruled that it was 

unconstitutional to penalize those litigants 

because the statute of limitations for treason 

had expired. The National Assembly in 1995 

then passed the Special Act as ex post facto 

legislation. Thus, the case became the subject 

of constitutional adjudication again, 

specifically on the questions of whether 

retrospective punishment is constitutional, if 

this constitutional adjudication violates the 

prohibition against double jeopardy, and if the 

successful coup d’état could be subject to 

punishment. But with the cessation of the 

former constitutional adjudication process 

under the government of Roh Tae-woo, a 

former general and colleague of Chun, the 

CCK did grant the constitutionality of 

penalizing the leaders of the coup d’état and 

the repressive reaction to the Kwangju 

Uprising. 

The second case includes the 

constitutional review on the Relocation of the 

Capital City. 243 It was President Roh Moohyun’s 

core election pledge to move the 

capital from Seoul to Sejong, to better balance 

regional development. The pledge led him to 

win the Presidential election in 2003, drawing 

vast amount of vote from the proposed new 

capital area, whose voters have traditionally 

constituted a swing-voting bloc between 

conservative and progressive parties. The 

CCK again followed the political stance of the 

ruling party in the National Assembly, which 

opposed the move from Seoul. Another 

factor that influenced the CCK’s decision was 

the change in the public’s policy preference to 

being against relocation. Justice Kim Young-il 

even cited the result of the public poll during 

the sentencing. The CCK declared the 

243 2004Hun-Ma554 et al., October 21, 2004 

(Relocation of the Nation’s Capital 

Case) 

proposed move to be unconstitutional based 

on the rationale that Seoul’s status as capital 

of Korea for over 600 years constituted a 

“customary constitution” which compels it to 

be the national capital. With that rationale, it 

also acknowledged the constitutional effect of 

the “customary constitution” to be the same 

as that of the written constitution. Therefore, 

amending the customary constitution to move 

the capital would require a national 

referendum based on Article 130 of the 

Constitution. The citation of a “customary 

constitution” and public polling in defense of 

the organized opposition to the move 

suggested that appearances, rather than the 

absolute legality of the proposed move, 

influenced deliberations. 

The third case is the recent decision 

on the dissolution of the Unified Progressive 

Party 244 . It marks the first and so-far the only 

dissolution of a democratically elected party in 

the liberal democratic era of Korean politics, 

with only a few parallel cases in the history of 

constitutionalism worldwide (such as the 

dissolution of the Communist Party of the 

German Federal Republic in 1956 on the 

grounds that the organization maintained ties 

to the East German security services.) In 

Korea, the far-left Unified Progressive Party 

(UPP) became the subject of dissolution 

proceedings for allegedly promoting pro- 

DPRK ideology and plotting treason, 

specifically alleged plans for sabotaging 

infrastructure if the North attacked. As the 

only modern nation divided exclusively by 

political ideology into rival states, the 

entrenched enmity between the two Koreas 

constitutes the essence of each one's national 

identity in opposition to the other's political 

system 245 . Following the arrest of several UPP 

244 2013Hun-Da1, 2014. 

245 Justine Guichard, “The judicial politics of 

enmity. A case study of the constitutional court 

of Korea’s jurisprudence since 1988”. Columbia 


members on treason charges, the CCK 

dissolved the UPP at the end of 2014 on the 

grounds that its ideology and activities posed 

a serious threat to South Korea’s existence as 

a liberal democracy. The UPP’s five sitting 

legislators lost their membership in the 

National Assembly as a result of the 8-1 

ruling. The one dissenter, Justice Kim Yi-su, 

argued that the treason charges against some 

of its members did not merit the forced 

dissolution of the entire organization – citing 

the aforementioned West German case as a 

precedent since it led to persecution of real 

and alleged communist sympathizers, both 

officially and unofficially. 246 The other eight 

justices’ rationale for ordering the UPP’s 

dissolution was based on a controversial 

interpretation of “militant democracy 

(streitbare Demokratie)” in Korean law 247 . 

The Constitution’s Article 8 (4) states: 

If the purposes or activities of a 

political party are contrary to the 

fundamental democratic order, the 

Government may bring an action 

against it in the Constitutional Court 

for its dissolution, and the political 

party shall be dissolved in accordance 

with the decision of the Constitutional 

Court in the formation of the political 

will. 

South Korean law continues to define 

“treason” rather broadly, on the grounds that 

the state of war between the republic and the 

North has never formally concluded – simply 

expressing support for the North’s politics 

has led to prosecutions. The article has been 

interpreted as the realization of “militant 

University Academic Commons, (2014). 

http://dx.doi.org/10.7916/D8R78CBB. 

246 The party, while banned, essentially reformed 

itself in 1968 under a new name and a more 

permissible West German political environment, 

retaining many formerly banned members. 

247 2013Hun-Da1, 2014, p.112 

democracy” advocated by Karl Loewenstein 

and Karl Manheim 248 . The majority opinion of 

law professors and constitutional scholars, is 

that the article should be restrictively applied 

only to exceptional cases where democracy is 

about to be destroyed and obliterated by the 

actions of a subversive party – i.e., one that 

clearly intends to function within a liberal 

democratic system only to the end of 

destroying and replacing it 249 . The CCK 

arguably stretched the interpretation of this 

article since there was no clear and present 

danger proven against the republic 250 . This 

was substantiated by the fact that a number of 

the treason charges, and sentences that came 

with them, were either reduced or dropped 

due to a lack of evidence. 

JUSTIFICATION FOR THE EXISTENCE OF THE 

CONSTITUTIONAL COURT 

As Richard Posner 251 claims, the 

constitutional court is an inherently political 

institution. Tom Ginsburg 252 also contended 

that the design of the constitutional court 

resulted from the political actors’ attempts to 

insure their interests under new constitutional 

norms. Contrary to such skepticism that the 

constitutional courts could be swayed by 

partisan politics, it is better for a democratic 

regime to have a constitutional court 

established 253 . In fact, their role is not just 

limited to amending setbacks in democracy, 

but extends to complete democracy as one of 

its quintessential parts. 

To begin with, constitutional courts 

supplement the flaws in democracy. The 

legislative and executive branches are proven 

248 Kwon, 2010, p.83 

249 Kwon, 2010, 86; Lim, 2015, 3. 

250 Lim, 2015, 2. 

251 Posner, R. “The Supreme Court”. Harvard 

Law Review, 119(1), (2005), 28-102. 

252 Ginsburg. “Judicial Review in New 

Democracies”. 

253 Park, 2009, 51-57. 


to be fallible in modern democratic history, 

with the everlasting possibility of abusing their 

authority. This is where the constitutional 

court works. When the legislative and the 

executive fail to comply with democratic 

decision-making processes, the constitutional 

court can ideally resolve the chaos 

independent from partisan political interests. 

Presenting the concept of “counterdemocracy,” 

Pierre Rosanvallon 254 has 

emphasized the constitutional court’s 

contribution to democracy in three aspects. 

First, the judiciary provides reasonable 

explanation for its decisions through systemic 

procedures based on facts and causal 

relationships. Moreover, the judiciary is 

obliged to make decisions and provide 

answers to raised questions, hence eliminating 

uncertainty in society and closely binding the 

community. Finally, the court is analogous to 

a “theater” 255 where the societal controversies 

become clear in light of fundamental 

governing principles, and at the same time, 

where society reflects upon itself. John 

Ferejohn and Larry Kramer 256 also echo the 

involvement of the constitutional court in 

enhancing democracy. Since the courts take 

decisive action when the political system is 

“fragmented, indecisive, or gridlocked,” it is 

what people resort to when their political 

leaders fail to yield decisive action 257 . 

Additionally, the judicial intervention forces 

political officials to expect judicial 

proceedings. 

In the same vein, the constitutional 

court safeguards fundamental rights from 

254 Pierre Rosanvallon, Counter-Democracy. 

Politics in an Age of Distrust, trans. A. 

Goldhammer, (Cambridge: Cambridge 

University Press, 2008) 

255 Ibid p.237 

256 John A. Ferejohn, and Larry D. Kramer, 

“Independent Judges, Dependent Judiciary: 

Institutionalizing Judicial Restraint,” New York 

University Law Review, 77(4), (2002): 962-1039. 

257 Ibid. 249. 

abusive governmental power, thus realizing 

the ideals of liberal democracy and human 

rights. Steven Croley considered 

constitutionalism to be a remedy for defects 

inherent in majoritarian rule. Individuals 

possess the rights “against the majority, which 

is to say, against encroachment by 

majoritarian power” 258 . John Ferejohn and 

Pasquale Pasquino (2002) also acknowledged 

that the constitutional court protects 

constitutional values. He thought that the 

actions of the constitutional court would 

guarantee that “the legislation and 

administrative actions do not encroach on 

constitutional values” by upholding the 

hierarchy of norms 259 . 

Further, the constitutional court 

completes democracy. The activity of the 

constitutional court does not produce 

counter-majoritarian opinions, because the 

constitutional court is designed to participate 

in politics from the beginning. It constitutes a 

part of the democratic policy-making process 

and therefore its activity strengthens and 

expands democracy. Additionally, the 

constitutional court protects the constitution 

as the pre-commitment of the polity. This 

pre-commitment is beneficial to democracy as 

it promotes liberty in politics and ultimately 

the popular sovereignty. 

DOES THE CCK GUARD THE LIBERAL 

DEMOCRATIC CONSTITUTION? 

The Constitutional Court of Korea 

has maintained its significant status in Korean 

politics, overcoming the counter-majoritarian 

problem and struggling to secure judicial 

independence from partisan political 

pressures. The judicialization of Korean 

258 Steven P. Croley, “The Majoritarian Difficulty: 

Elective Judiciaries and the Rule of Law,” 

University of Chicago Law Review, 62, 689-790. 

(1995), 704. 

259 John Ferejohn and Pasquale Pasquino 

(2002), 251. 


politics has opened the door to the possibility 

of the CCK expanding its influence into 

politics and subjecting itself to further 

pressures from political actors, its own 

internal hierarchy, and the informal patronage 

networks characteristic of the functioning of 

the Korean judiciary as a whole. As a result, 

the politico-historical context and the recent 

tendency toward judicialization both provide 

reason to be concerned about the CCK’s 

independence. Unfortunately, however, de facto 

judicial independence has not and is not 

guaranteed as thoroughly as de jure judicial 

independence has been. 

Still, these setbacks are not enough to 

completely frustrate the CCK in functioning 

as a guardian of the liberal democratic 

constitutionalism. Institutional remedies have 

been designed to insulate the Korean political 

system from possible overreach and 

partisanship by the CCK. Those 

countermeasures comprise of three categories, 

as corresponding to three most frequently 

raised criticisms: measures to countervail the 

lack of democratic accountability, 

complements for judicial independence, and 

ultimately, systemic means to improve the 

state of Korean democracy. 

First, the legal design of the CCK 

targets the difficulty in alleviating countermajoritarian 

trends by facilitating public 

understanding and their acceptance of its 

decision. One way to do so is the opening of 

more trials to the public. Article 34 of the 

Korean Constitution stipulates that the CCK 

must disclose the oral pleadings of the 

adjudication and the pronouncement of the 

decision, unless it is a paper hearing and 

deliberation. 260 In addition, the Court 

Organization Act enumerates when the CCK 

can decide not to open the trial, namely “if it 

260 The CCK can convene litigants to the court 

and hold a face-to-face trial or just review the 

submitted documents and internally make 

decisions. 

might endanger the national security, public 

peace, and order or good public moral, it may 

be decided that the trial be closed to the 

public” according to Article 57. That is, 

constitutional adjudication is held to be public 

in principle, and the CCK ought to present 

reasons when it decides to close the 

courtroom. It is incumbent upon the CCK to 

invite the public into the judicial arena. The 

benefit of a public trial is improved awareness 

on the constitutional discourse and the 

augmented duty of the justices to present the 

logic behind their decisions. In this way the 

CCK remains as “the pure form of the public 

reason” 261 . 

Second, the demand of the CCK to 

exert binding power over the legislative 

branch in its rulings on laws restores judicial 

independence. Once the CCK declares a law 

or bill to be unconstitutional, other state 

agencies and local governments are liable to 

legislate alternatives (Article 47). Likewise, if 

the CCK accepts the constitutional complaint 

requested by an individual, state agencies and 

local governments’ offices are obliged to take 

measures to follow the decision (Article 75). 

This binding power impacts the future actions 

of state agencies. These additional de jure 

supports parallelize the judicial power with 

the legislative authority. 

Third, the CCK has a unique method 

of sentencing that improves its ability to 

counter majoritarian tendencies. Based on the 

principle of public trial, the CCK is supposed 

to disclose details of the sentencing process as 

well as the proceedings of trials. The 

information on the sentencing includes 

controversial issues, the court’s answer for the 

issues, legal reasoning for the answer, logical 

explanation for the reasoning, and most 

importantly, dissenting opinions. When 

drafting a sentence, each individual justice 

identifies themselves in the reasoning and 

opinion. That is, every justice has the right to 

261 Ferejohn & Pasquino, 2002, p.9 


articulate their viewpoint on the document if 

they hold different opinion from the majority 

decision. Their reasoning will be recorded as 

the dissenting opinion and fully publicized. 

Thus, not only does the minority opinion 

enjoy the right to voice itself, but it also opens 

the possibility for the public to examine the 

logical soundness of every opinion, however 

unpopular the minority view on it is. The 

principle of public trial, institutional support 

for judicial independence, and the publication 

of dissenting opinions all formulate the public 

forum for open discussion and communal 

deliberation. These characteristics are what 

make the constitutional court a deliberative 

institution 262 . 

post-authoritarian countries, even if a balance 

between the CCK and the republic’s founding 

principles in theory, and Korean liberal 

democracy in practice has yet to be struck. 

CONCLUSION 

Born in the chaotic process of 

Korean democratization and raised in the 

environment of growing judicialization, the 

Constitutional Court of Korea is both a 

symbolic and actual guardian of liberal 

democratic constitutionalism. The writers of 

the Constitution, who desired liberal 

democracy and democratic constitutionalism 

with the political purpose of guarding the 

basic rights and democracy itself, establish it. 

Although the political context of South 

Korea’s post-authoritarian regime meant that 

the CCK came into being under heavy 

pressure from internal and external forces, de 

jure and institutional measures designed to 

guard the independence of the CCK have 

enabled it to fulfill its role of guarding liberal 

democratic constitutionalism. Many 

challenges remain, though, and are likely to 

develop further in a negative direction 

without action being taken – particularly the 

institution’s responsiveness to the siren songs 

of patronage, careerism and the fickle nature 

of public opinion. The case of the CCK 

illuminates the constitutional court’s role in 

improving the liberal democratic system of 

262 Ferejohn and Pasquino, 2002 


War on Terror 

An Actual War or a Social 

Construction by the Bush 

Administration? 

Sinan Zhang 

The War on Terror was “a multifaceted effort 

to prevent the spread of terrorist ideologies 

and activities” and “an attempt to destroy 

both state-specific and international terrorist 

groups such as al-Qaeda” by the United States 

and its allies from 2001 to 2013. 263 In an 

immediate response to the attacks of 

September 11, 2001, the United States 

orchestrated a prolonged campaign in 

Afghanistan against the Taliban regime. In 

2003, the United States invaded Iraq, later 

deposing the long-time autocrat Saddam 

Hussein, and launched effort to build a 

functioning democracy in the state. In 2013, 

after over a decade of fighting terrorists and 

insurgent groups, 

President Obama announced that the United 

States would no longer pursue a “War on 

Terror,” but would instead focus the efforts 

of the U.S. on state enemies and networks of 

extremists. 264 While President Obama may 

have formally declared an end to the War on 

Terror, current U.S. military involvement 

against the Islamic State in the Middle East 

causes many to question whether or not the 

War on Terror has truly ended. 

263 

“An Overview of the War on Terror,” EBSCO 

Online Library, accessed December 9, 2015, 

http://connection.ebscohost.com/us/warterror/overview-war-terror. 

264 

Barak Obama, "Remarks by the President at 

the National Defense University" (speech, 

Remarks by the President at the National 

Defense University, Fort McNair, Washington, 

D.C., May 9, 2016), accessed May 09, 2016, 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-pressoffice/2013/05/23/remarks-president-nationaldefense-university. 

Ever since the War on Terror was 

declared by President George W. Bush on 

September 20, 2001, scholars and pundits 

have questioned whether or not this so-called 

war could, in fact, be considered a war at all, 

according to traditional thought. 265 Though 

labeled as a war, the War on Terror was 

unique: it was not fought between states, and 

it did not have a clear enemy, defined goals, or 

a specified duration. However, it could be 

argued that “war” is only a concept that 

society has constructed to define large-scale 

conflict, and as such, the term should be 

flexible to changes in society or conflict. In 

this light, the War on Terror was an actual war 

because it reflected the evolving nature of 

warfare in a changing world with increasingly 

powerful non-traditional security threats from 

non-state actors. This essay believes that, to 

some extent, the concept of a “War on Terror” 

was created by the Bush administration to free 

the U.S. from the traditional constraints of 

warfare and to bolster military spending in the 

relatively pacified early 2000s when the U.S. 

no longer faced serious state-level security 

threats. 

THE WAR ON TERROR AND TRADITIONAL 

WARFARE 

According to traditional thought, the 

War on Terror does not fit into the criteria 

that have defined wars for millennia. 

Humanitarian law has intentionally avoided 

defining the term “war,” instead choosing to 

use the more generic term “armed conflict.” 

The Geneva Conventions and their additional 

protocols define “international armed 

conflict” and “non-international armed 

265 

George W. Bush, “President Bush's Address 

to a Joint Session of Congress and the Nation” 

(speech, United States Capitol, Washington, 


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/bushadd 

ress_092001.html. 


conflict.” 266 The International Criminal 

Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) 

combined the two to define “armed conflict” 

more broadly in a definition that has since 

been adopted by other international bodies as 

well. According to the ICTY, an armed 

conflict is ''a resort to armed force between 

States or protracted armed violence between 

governmental authorities and organized 

armed groups or between such groups within 

a State.” 267 First, the War on Terror was not 

fought against a state, it was fought against an 

idea, “terrorism.” Second, in the international 

community, warfare is bound by certain rules. 

For instance, international treaties, such as the 

Geneva Conventions, protect Prisoners of 

War (POWs). 268 According to Baylis, Smith, 

and Owens, these rules not only ''regulate 

already existing activities'' of war, but ''create 

the very possibility for these activities.” 269 It is 

the international law of war that distinguishes 

war from massacre or other arbitrary uses of 

violence. But these treaties defining 

international laws of war are negotiated 

266 How Is the Term "Armed Conflict" Defined in 

International Humanitarian Law?, Opinion Paper 

(ICRC, 2008), International Armed Conflict 

(IAC). 

267 The International Criminal Tribunal for 

Former Yugoslavia, The Prosecutor v. Dusko 

Tadic: Decision on the Defence Motion for 

Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction (1995), 

accessed May 09, 2016, 

http://www.icty.org/x/cases/tadic/acdec/en/5100 

2.htm. 

How Is the Term "Armed Conflict" Defined in 

International Humanitarian Law?, Opinion Paper 

(ICRC, 2008), International Armed Conflict 

(IAC). 

268 Karin M Fierke, “Constructivism,” 

International Relations Theories: Discipline and 

Diversity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 

2013), 200. 

269 John Baylis, Steve Smith, and Patricia 

Owens, The Globalization of World Politics: An 

Introduction to International Relations (Oxford: 

Oxford University Press, 2014), 159. 

among states, and non-state actors, which are 

not necessarily bound to the same 

conventions. Finally, war necessitates clearly 

defined enemies, goals, and has a fixed 

duration. It cannot be indefinite. It ends when 

the goals are met and enemies are disabled. 

Given this, the War on Terror cannot 

truly be considered a war. First, the War on 

Terror was not fought between states. It was 

fought against an idea, terrorism, practiced by 

non-state actors. The War on Terror was a 

series of unilateral and systematic military 

operations, coupled with economic, political, 

legal, and conceptual struggles, against groups 

supposedly representing this idea, namely Al 

Qaeda and other terrorist groups. It is 

problematic to describe the War on Terror as 

an actual war because its target, terrorism, 

''has most often, at least in recent times, 

been...treated as an area of crime.” 270 

Second, the War on Terror was not 

bound by the international laws of war. While 

it is still debated whether or not the Geneva 

Conventions were applicable during the War 

on Terror, the Bush administration remained 

adamant that the war would not be bound by 

humanitarian law. 271 One of the most striking 

violations was the deliberate abuse of accused 

terrorists who were deprived of POW status 

and protections. These people were not 

regarded as conventional soldiers by the U.S. 

government, and as a result were treated as if 

they existed outside of the conventional laws 

of war. 

Third, the War on Terror had no 

clearly-defined enemies, goals, or 

duration. While traditional wars designate one 

or some certain states or actors as clear targets 

of wars, the War on Terror had an obscure 

270 Fierke, “Constructivism,” 200. 

271 John B. Bellinger, III, "Obama, Bush, and the 

Geneva Conventions," Foreign Policy Obama 

Bush and the Geneva Conventions Comments, 

August 11, 2011, accessed April 23, 2016, 

http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/08/11/obamabush-and-the-geneva-conventions/. 


group of enemies, terrorists. Further 

complicating the situation, Bush stated that 

“any nation that [continued] to harbor or 

support terrorism [would] be regarded by the 

United States as a hostile regime.” The goal of 

the War on Terror, “was not the defeat of a 

particular country...but a global 

transformation on U.S. terms and the 

simultaneous elimination of powers who 

might obstruct this sweeping U.S. project.” 272 

Not only was the War on Terror against 

terrorism and terrorists, it transformed into a 

war seemingly against any actor not assisting 

the U.S. in this aim. Necessarily, this was also 

a war with indefinite duration. President Bush 

intended to make this war open-ended. Bush 

stated on September 21, 2001, that the, "...war 

on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not 

end there. It will not end until every terrorist 

group of global reach has been found, 

stopped, and defeated.” 273 Ironically, the lack 

of clear enemies, goals, and duration was the 

reason why the U.S. officially terminated the 

War on Terror in 2013. In 2013, President 

Obama stated that the U.S. military should 

focus on specific enemies rather than 

terrorism as an idea. He went on to explain, 

"we must define our effort not as a boundless 

‘Global War on Terror,’ but rather as a series 

of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle 

272 George W. Bush, "President Declares 

"Freedom at War with Fear"" (speech, Address 

to a Joint Session of Congress and the 

American People, United States Capitol, 

Washington, D.C., May 9, 2016), accessed May 

09, 2016, http://georgewbushwhitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09 

/20010920-8.html. 

Michael H. Hunt, American Ascendancy: How 

the United States Gained and Wielded Global 

Dominance, (Chapel Hill: University of North 

Carolina Press, 2007), 279. 

273 George W. Bush, "Transcript of President 

Bush's address," CNN, September 21, 2001, 

http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/gen.bush.t 

ranscript/. 

specific networks of violent extremists that 

threaten America.” 274 

THE WAR ON TERROR AS A SOCIAL 

CONSTRUCT 

The case can also be made, however, 

that the War on Terror was a true war that 

reflected the evolving realities of the 

international community and armed conflict 

with non-state actors. War, according to 

constructivist scholars, is a social construct, 

just like ''other objects in international 

relations, existing only by virtue of human 

acts of creation which happen in a cultural, 

historical, and political context of meaning.'' 275 

The rules of war thus change relative to the 

global environment. The idea that war must 

be constrained to one traditional form, as 

described above, is an anachronistic view of 

what war is. War evolved from total warfare 

in World War II to precision warfare 

evidenced later in the twentieth century. 

Warfare must necessarily evolve once more to 

incorporate increasingly powerful nontraditional 

security threats from non-state 

actors. 

Gradually, non-state actors of 

terrorism have been recognized by states as 

legitimate threats, as demonstrated by the 

rising priority of counter-terrorism in various 

regional security frameworks. For example, 

one of the Shanghai Cooperation 

Organization (SCO)’s primary objectives is to 

promote cooperation in order to combat 

terrorism, separatism, and extremism. 276 There 

274 Barak Obama, "Remarks by the President at 

the National Defense University" (speech, 

Remarks by the President at the National 

Defense University, Fort McNair, Washington, 


https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-pressoffice/2013/05/23/remarks-president-nationaldefense-university. 

275 Baylis, Smith, and Owens, The Globalization 

of World Politics, 158. 

276 "Shanghai Convention on Combating 

Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism," 


is also a global trend emerging: states are 

beginning to recognize that terrorism is more 

destructive and poses a greater security threat 

than traditional transnational crime. 

Therefore, recognizing terrorist organizations 

as proper protagonists of war is necessary. 

Terrorist groups are far more powerful than 

they were decades ago. They have the capacity 

to destabilize the international order on which 

states rely to prosper. The newly emerged 

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the 

Middle East is such an example. By coupling 

with religious extremists, secessionists, and 

separatists, terrorists now pose more serious 

security challenges to great powers than 

neighboring states. Thus, it is fair to say that 

though the War on Terror differed from 

traditional warfare, constructivist scholars 

would be likely to consider it a legitimate war 

because of the notion that war was a social 

construct to begin with. The War on Terror 

reflects the evolving nature of war in a world 

with increasingly powerful non-traditional 

security threats from non-state actors. 

WHY DID THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION 

CREATE A WAR AGAINST TERROR? 

The nature of the War on Terror is 

complex. It can be argued that its very name 

reflected the evolution of warfare but it 

certainly served to benefit the Bush 

Administration in many ways as well. 

President Bush needed to gain a maximum 

advantage over terrorism and to have 

domestic and international support for doing 

so. A war against terrorism, as opposed to a 

war against Iraq or Afghanistan individually, 

was certainly a war that the international 

community could support. The Bush 

Administration also needed an exceptional 

excuse to increase military spending in the 

relatively pacified post-Cold War international 

Refworld, June 15, 2001, accessed May 09, 

2016, 

http://www.refworld.org/docid/49f5d9f92.html. 

relations. By framing the war in Iraq and 

Afghanistan as a war against terrorism, Bush 

received nearly unlimited resources for his 

military build-up plans and endeavors in the 

Middle East. 

The Bush administration used the 

term ''War on Terror'' to justify the use of 

force against terrorist organizations and states 

harboring terrorists, and to suppress 

humanitarian law in order to maximize 

combat efficiency against terrorism. From a 

constructivist perspective, it was rational for 

the Bush Administration to reconsider 

international and domestic laws in order to 

respond to the asymmetrical and nonconventional 

fight against terrorism. President 

Bush felt that he could not reasonably be 

expected to adhere to humanitarian law 

against Al Qaeda and other terrorist 

organizations when Al Qaeda did not likewise 

distinguish between U.S. military personnel 

and civilians on 9/11. The Bush 

Administration felt that the response 

necessary to defeat and deter terrorism 

needed to also be non-traditional, including 

the kidnapping of suspected terrorists around 

the world as well as the use of torture in 

Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. The War 

on Terror served as an excellent reason for 

the Bush Administration to untangle itself 

from the international laws of war and to 

justify extraordinary measures in order to 

efficiently achieve its goal of defeating and 

deterring terrorism. 277 

The term “War on Terror” also served 

as an exceptional reason to maintain a high 

military budget in the relatively pacified post- 

Cold War era. After the 9/11 attacks, the use 

of force had increasingly become a handy 

option for the U.S. to approach global order. 

To support frequent international military 

missions, the U.S. had to rely on a global 

military dominance financed by 

277 Baylis, Smith, and Owens, The Globalization 

of World Politics, 159. 


extraordinarily large expenditures. However, 

the relative economic decline of the U.S. since 

the 1970s led people to question such 

extravagance, especially after the collapse of 

the Soviet Union. 278 The public needed a 

convincing reason to support the increased 

military spending in the early 2000s when the 

U.S. no longer faced state-level security 

threats. As Dean Acheson stated, the “Korea 

War came along and saved us'' in uniting the 

people of the United States toward a global 

competition for supremacy against the Soviet 

Union in the post-war 1950s. 279 In the same 

way, the War on Terror provided an excuse 

for the Bush Administration to increase the 

military budget once more without 

opposition. As Figure 1 shows, U.S. military 

spending after the 9/11 attacks doubled, while 

spending on other non-military programs 

(including education, social welfare, 

infrastructure, etc.) increased by only 13.5% 

over the same time period. As Hunt argues, 

''[t]he permissive political atmosphere 

following the 9/11 attacks gave 

Figure 1 . U.S. Military and Non-Military Spending 

George W. Bush the chance to pick up the 

pace of military operations.'' 280 The War on 

Terror proved to be very successful in 

justifying Washington's increased use of force. 

The War on Terror was arguably one 

of the most influential events in the 

international community after the end of the 

Cold War, substantially shaping the world for 

the next decade. Though significant, its very 

nature is still controversial. Can the War on 

Terror be considered a war at all? On the one 

hand, the War on Terror was not fought 

between states, refused to be bound by 

international laws of war, and did not have 

defined enemies, goals, or duration. However, 

the War on Terror should be considered an 

actual war because it reflected the evolving 

nature of war in a world with increasingly 

powerful non-traditional security threats from 

non-state actors. Certainly, the Bush 

Administration benefitted from the new 

creation of the War on Terror. By declaring a 

war against terrorism, as opposed to a 

278 Walter Lafeber, The American Age: United 

States Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad, 

1750 to the Present, (New York: W.W. Norton & 

280 Michael H. Hunt, American Ascendancy: How 

Company, 1994). 

the United States Gained and Wielded Global 

279 

Walter LaFeber, Source: America, How Military Russia, Spending and the Has Changed Since Dominance, 9/11. National (Chapel Priorities Hill: Projects. University of North 

Cold War, 1945-2000, (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 

Carolina Press, 2007), 276. 

2002), 103. 


traditional state-actor, Bush was able to 

deploy the full force of the U.S. military 

without the usual constraints of traditional 

warfare and was able to bolster military 

spending in the post-Cold War era when the 

U.S. no longer faced serious state-level 

security threats. 


Born to Be Different 

National Identity And The 

“Other” In Russian Political 

Elite Discourse 

Anastasiia Vlasenko 

I 

n his presidential address to the Valdai 

International Discussion Club on 

September 20, 2013, Russian President 

Vladimir Putin transformed national identity 

into the primary political concern for Russian 

elites: “Today we need new strategies to 

preserve our identity in a rapidly changing 

world. […] For us, questions about who we 

are and who we want to be are increasingly 

prominent in our society. […] It is evident 

that it is impossible to move forward without 

spiritual, cultural and national selfdetermination.” 

281 Putin’s speech activated a 

discourse within the Russian political elite 

concerned with who Russians are and who 

they are not. Previously fraternal ethnicities 

were categorized into the increasingly diverse 

and expanding label of “other”; defining 

Russian national identity much more narrowly 

than ever before. 

The recent redefinition of Russian 

national identity is puzzling. It remains 

unclear why Russia changed its attitudes 

towards neighboring ethnic groups and 

nation-states, as well as its own population. 

The latest transformations in national identity 

are particularly perplexing if you consider that 

ethnic Russians share many congenital and 

gained characteristics with the aforementioned 

groups as well as a controversial history of 

interrelations. Russian national identity was 

not actively discussed on an official level until 

recently. 

281 Vladimir Putin, Three Landmark Speeches by 

the President of Russia (Kuala Lumpur: ITBM, 

2014), 28. 

In this paper I address the question of 

the origins of modern Russian national 

identity by focusing on the discursive power 

of elites. More specifically, I argue that the 

observed change in attitudes and definitions 

can be explained by the deliberate 

manipulations of political elites, who employ 

their discursive power to achieve their own 

economic and political goals. Elites are 

believed to have social power over other 

groups of the society; they can frame 

discourses within the society by limiting the 

general public’s freedom of action through 

mental control. 282 Thus, the primary focus of 

my research is the influence of elite interests 

in Russian political discourse, more 

specifically, how did the Russian elites’ 

political discourse influence Russian national 

identity and the notion of the “other?” 

The paper focuses on the formulation 

of national identity in Russian elite political 

discourse in the period of Vladimir Putin’s 

incumbency. 283 The Russian government is 

conventionally characterized by centralized, 

personalized power structures, which 

effectively resist any manifestation of 

opposition. 284 More importantly, the 

personalization of power in Russia is also 

accompanied by the rise of nationalism, which 

is often claimed to be popularized by Vladimir 

Putin. 285 These considerations lead to the 

282 Teun Van Dijk (1989) “Structures of discourse 

and structures of power,” in Communication 

Yearbook 12, ed. James A. Anderson(Newbury 

Park, CA: Sage, 1989), 19. 

283 Particular attention is paid to the president 

due to the high level of personalization of state 

power in Russia. For details, see Lilia 

Shevtsova, “The Return of Personalized Power,” 

Journal of Democracy 20, 2 (2009), 61–65. 

284 Dorothy Horsfield, “Casting shadows? 

Authoritarianism in Putin’s Russia,” Asia Europe 

Journal, 12, 4 (2014), 445-456. 

285 Uri Teper and Daniel Course, “Contesting 

Putin's nation-building: the ' Muslim other' and 

the challenge of the Russian ethno-cultural 

alternative,” Nations & Nationalism, 20, 4, 


conclusion that the Russian elites’ message 

must be characterized by a high level of 

homogeneity and consistency, thereby 

justifying a study of the elites’ influence on the 

Russian national identity and notions of the 

“other,” referring to the West and non-ethnic 

Russians. 

The remainder of the paper is 

organized in the following way. First, I discuss 

the theoretical ramifications of national 

identity research, then analyze primordial and 

constructivist approaches. I proceed to the 

analysis of Russia by first discussing its state 

ideology and its influences on the perception 

of the West as the “other.” The next section 

focuses on the formulation of national 

identity within the domestic political discourse 

and the conceptualization of the non-ethnic 

Russian “other.” Finally, I conclude that there 

are two coexisting notions of the “other”. 

APPROACHES TO NATIONAL IDENTITY 

There are two major theoretical 

approaches to national identity. An analysis of 

both will make it possible to draw conclusions 

about the ability of elites to create the 

discourse of otherness. The first, 

primordialism, argues that identity is intrinsic 

and static. Ethnicity is biologically and 

historically given, meaning that an individual 

is born with a certain ethnic identity, which 

he/she cannot alter. According to the second 

approach, constructivism, identity is 

manipulative and ever changing; it is based on 

political, social and cultural resources. Thus, 

ethnicity is socially constructed and can be 

manipulated by outside forces to create 

(2014), 721-741; Sean Cannady and Paul 

Kubicek, “Nationalism and legitimation for 

authoritarianism: A comparison of Nicholas I and 

Vladimir Putin,” Journal of Eurasian Studies, 5, 

1, (2014), 1-9; Theodore P. Gerber, “Beyond 

Putin? Nationalism and Xenophobia in Russian 

Public Opinion,” Washington Quarterly, 37, 3 

(2014), 113-134. 

antagonism against other ethnicities. 286 In this 

paper I argue that national identity is both 

given and constructed. This equivocal nature 

of national identity allows the political elites to 

manipulate it in accordance with their material 

and instrumental interests. 

The fact that national identity is both 

primordial and instrumental makes it Janusfaced. 

People are limited in their selfidentification 

by their heritage, communities, 

and environment. From this point of view, 

identity is given. However, individuals are also 

free to alter their identities, depending on 

both the judgments of others and the 

consideration of comforts or benefits desired 

from other identities. Thus, identity is also 

constructed. 287 

I apply this notion of Janus-faced 

national identity to analyze the discursive 

identity formation by Russian elites. 288 In one 

consideration, the Russian political elites 

cannot avoid the given characteristics of 

Russian identity, which is limited to Slavic 

genetic heritage, Orthodox Christian religion, 

and a long history of authoritarian power 

relations. In another consideration, Russian 

identity is adjusted depending on countless 

domestic and international factors, namely 

neighbouring states, the economic and 

strategic interests of the ruling party, ongoing 

domestic and international conflicts, and 

survival-related interests of the elites. Inborn 

traits of Russians can therefore be easily 

employed for construction of the national 

identity in accordance with the current needs. 

Thus, this paper is aimed at revealing the 

interplay of the given and constructed 

286 Andrzej Walicki, (1998) ‘Ernest Gellner and 

the "Constructivist" Theory of Nation’, Harvard 

Ukrainian Studies, 22, Cultures and Nations of 

Central and Eastern Europe (1998), 611-619 

287 David Laitin, Identity in Formation: The 

Russian-Speaking Population in the Near 

Abroad (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), 

20-21. 

288 Ivi. 


characteristics of Russian identity and how it 

is influenced by elite discourse. 

CIVILIZATIONAL NATIONALISM AND THE 

WEST AS THE “OTHER” 

Recently Russian state ideology, the core 

of the political elite’s discourse, has gained 

features of a so-called civilizational 

nationalism. This civilizational nationalism 

takes its roots from the 19 th century idea of a 

non-Western path, which argues the Russian 

highly centralized non-democratic political 

system is caused by civilizational 

predetermination. 289 The Kremlin made a 

deliberate choice to canonize the notion of a 

thousand-year-old civilization to replace the 

old doctrines of Marxist-Leninist ideologies 

and to block the allegedly hostile Western 

liberal and democratic penetration into Russia. 

According to academics Aleksandr 

Verkhovskii and Emil Pain, civilizational 

nationalism predisposes Russia to an 

authoritarian regime. 290 More importantly, a 

positive attitude to civilizational nationalism is 

shared by multiple groups within the society, 

including the strong-arm branch of the 

political elites, liberal thinkers, the political 

establishment, and the mass public. 

Discussing civilizational nationalism 

within the Russian official discourse is 

impossible without the concept of sovereign 

democracy, as opposed to the Western liberal 

democracy. According to academic Thomas 

Ambrosio, sovereign democracy “expresses 

Russian independence on the world stage and 

reject[s] the legitimacy of external criticisms 

from the democratic West.” 291 Political elites 

289 Alexandr Verkhovskii and Emil Pain, 

“Civilizational Nationalism. The Russian Version 

of the ‘Special Path,’” Russian Politics and Law 

50, 5, (2012), 56. 

290 Ibid., 52. 

291 Thomas Ambrosio, Authoritarian Backlash: 

Russian Resistance to Democratization in the 

Former Soviet Union. (Burlington: Ashgate, 

2009), 70. 

use the concept of sovereign democracy to 

popularize the idea of the non-Western 

“special path” within the country and the 

necessity to counterbalance hostile 

developments abroad. This process has a 

direct influence on the Russian ideological 

framing of the “us and them” division. 

Sovereign democracy allows the political elites 

to emphasize the diversity of values, 

differentiating between Western neoimperialism 

and the Russian tradition of 

strong statehood. 292 

An important component of Russian state 

ideology is the notion of a Russia-centered 

world as an alternative to the notion of the 

West as the world’s center. 293 Usually, the 

notion of a Russia-centered world is 

articulated in opposition to the EU-centered 

world and is connected to international 

political, economic, and social processes 

taking place in the post-Soviet space. Russia is 

juxtaposed to Europe, as a bearer of more 

advanced values and norms. In his address to 

the Federal Assembly in 2013, Vladimir Putin 

said: “Today in many countries the norms of 

morality and ethics are reviewed, national 

traditions and cultures are erased. They [the 

West] demand […] the obligatory recognition 

of equivalence of good and evil […]. Russia 

will keep to traditional values.” 294 Thus, Putin 

constructs the discourse as focused on 

preserving traditional values and capable of 

making an effective distinction between good 

and evil. Logically, the preservation of 

traditional values depends on their holders, 

292 Ibid., 79 

293 Roy Allison, “Russian ‘Deniable’ Intervention 

in Ukraine: How and Why Russia Broke the 

Rules,” International Affairs 90, 6 (2014), 1256. 

294 Elizabeth Salkova, “Putin puts the traditional 

Russian values, as opposed to the western 

morality,” December 12, 2013’ Ok-inform.ru. 

http://ok-inform.ru/politika/vlast/7459-rossiyabudet-i-dalshe-podderzhivat-traditsionnyetsennosti.html 


“true Russians,” with distinct behaviors and 

characteristics from the others. 

Thus, the West is the most frequently 

mentioned and to a certain degree 

institutionalized “other” within Russian elite 

political discourse. It is an integral part of the 

ideological framework of Russian politics, 

which is used to justify both domestic and 

foreign policy decisions. Nevertheless, the 

question remains: has Russia also transitioned 

to a domestically nationalist ideology, as 

argued by the previous research? 295 If the basis 

of Russian state ideology is embedded in 

nationalism, we should expect to observe 

well-defined national identity as contrasted 

not only to the West, as occidentalists would 

assume, but also to the domestic “other,” 

threatening the aforementioned homogeneity 

of the nation. 296 This puzzle can be solved 

through a detailed analysis of elite discourse in 

regard to ethnic and non-ethnic Russians. 

NON-ETHNIC RUSSIANS AS THE “OTHER” IN 

THE RUSSIAN POLITICAL DISCOURSE 

The formation of national identity and the 

notion of the “other” through the discursive 

power of political elites is an ongoing and 

dynamic process in the Russian Federation. 

Its relevance can be explained by two recent 

changes. First, after the collapse of the Soviet 

Union, the proportion of the ethnic Russians 

in the country increased from 52 percent to 

80 percent. 297 This rapid change initiated the 

process of national identity revision. As the 

proportion of ethnic Russians increased 

relative to other ethnic groups, the possibility 

of speaking about Russians as a nation 

(Russkiye), not of Russians as a people 

(Rosseyane) emerged. Secondly, the end of the 

1990s and the beginning of the 2000s was 

marked by the rapid decrease in birth rates 

among ethnic Russians and the opposite 

tendency amongst the Muslim population 

within the Russian Federation. The influx of 

labor migrants from the Caucasus and thus, 

the increase in the number of ethnic groups 

living side by side in large cities, translated 

religion and skin color into more relevant 

concepts in elite national identity discourse. 298 

These two factors created a demand from 

both the general ethnic Russian public for 

national, cultural, and ethnic reassertion, 

which the political elites proved ready to 

satisfy. 

The clash between ethnic and non-ethnic 

Russians is highly problematic because the 

Soviet Union kindled the process of national 

formation within each union republic in early 

1920s (so-called policy of korenizatsiia), thus 

giving birth to nationalistic inclinations. 299 

Currently, Russian elites find difficulty in 

criticizing Soviet policies, as the Russian 

Federation is considered to be the legal heir of 

the USSR, the collapse of which, according to 

Vladimir Putin, was “the greatest geopolitical 

295 Wayne Allensworth, The Russian Question: 

Nationalism, Modernization and Post- 

Communist Russia (Lanham, MD: Rowman and 

Littlefield, 1998), 260; Edward Lucas, E. The 

New Cold War: How the Kremlin Menaces Both 

Russia and the West (London: Palgrave 

Macmillan, 2008), 14; Pierre Hassner, “Russia’s 

Transition to Autocracy,” Journal of Democracy, 

19, 2 (2008), 7. 

296 Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit, 

Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its 

Enemies (New York: Penguin Press, 2005), 4. 

297 Luke March, “Nationalism for Export? The 

Domestic and Foreign-Policy Implications of the 

New Russian Idea,” Europe-Asia Studies, 64, 3, 

(2012), 404. 

298 Agata Dubas, The Menace of a ‘Brown’ 

Russia: Ethnically Motivated Xenophobia— 

Symptoms, Causes and Prospects for the 

Future (Warsaw: Centre for Eastern Studies, 

2008). 

299 Rogers Brubaker, “Rethinking Nationhood: 

Nation as Institutionalized Form, Practical 

Category, Contingent Event,” Contention, 4, 

(1994), 3-14. 


tragedy of the 20 th century.” 300 The second 

cleavage between the West and the East is 

deeply rooted in the Russian civilization 

nationalist ideology and is mostly related to 

the Russian foreign policy discourse. Finally, 

the third cleavage addresses the conflict 

between ethnic identities (Russkiy) based on 

religion, language, culture and the civic 

identity (Rossiyskiy) based on inclusive 

citizenship. 301 This cleavage is the most salient 

and important in regards to the notion of “the 

other” within the Russian borders. 

More specific analysis of the variety of 

elite discourse channels reveals the cleavage 

between ethnic and civic identities is the most 

widely discussed and the most coherently 

presented. Marlene Laruelle found that the 

majority of Russian governmental TV 

programs emphasize the Slavic roots of the 

Russian identity, and mention historical, 

religious, and cultural links with the 

neighboring ethnic groups (in particular 

Georgians and Ukrainians), spoilt by the socalled 

nationalist diseases of the post-Soviet 

epidemic. 302 This approach to presenting the 

interethnic relations reveals the dichotomy of 

Russian political discourse. “Others” are 

perceived to be the same in primordial terms; 

however, they are criticized for developing 

into something different, as a result of the 

latest political decisions of the titular elites. In 

300 Katie Sanders, “Did Vladimir Putin call the 

breakup of the USSR 'the greatest geopolitical 

tragedy of the 20th century?” Pundit Fact, March 

6, 2014 

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2 

014/mar/06/john-bolton/did-vladimir-putin-callbreakup-ussr-greatest-geop/ 

301 Vera Tolz, “Forging the Nation: National 

Identity and Nation Building in Post-Communist 

Russia,” Europe-Asia Studies, 50, 6 (1998), 993- 

1022. 

302 Marlene Laruelle, “The Russian Idea on the 

Small Screen: Staging National Identity of the 

Russian TV,” Demokratizatsiya 22, 2 (2014), 

329-330. 

such a way, neighboring ethnic groups are 

presented as the same historically, but 

different currently. 

A similar approach is applied to the North 

Caucasus, which is officially located within the 

Russian borders. The Caucasians belong to a 

variety of ethnic groups, and thus, it is 

difficult to use primordial similarities in this 

case. However, an analysis of state-sponsored 

TV programs demonstrates that the North 

Caucusus is portrayed as having a different, 

forgotten identity: the Cossack one. 303 North 

Caucusus is depicted as the place of great wars 

of Slavic Cossacks, a narrative that makes this 

region one more bastion of Pan-Russian 

context, in which the North Caucasian people 

are assigned a secondary role. Thus, even if 

the given identities are inapplicable, they are 

used for constructivist purposes. 

The annexation of Crimea and the conflict 

in Eastern Ukraine activated the Russian 

elites’ nationalist discourse and brought forth 

valuable data for analysis. The President’s 

governmental speeches and announcements, 

and those of other officials, regarding the 

dispute in Ukraine show that Russian elites 

prefer to describe national identity in 

primordial ethno-linguistic and ethno-cultural 

terms. These terms reassert the boundaries 

between Russians and the other (in this case 

Ukrainians) as a justification for Russian 

territorial claims. 304 In his Kremlin address on 

the unification with Crimea, Putin used the 

word ‘Russkiy’ 29 times, thus initiating the 

official transfer of the Russian elite political 

discourse from civic identity to ethnic 

identity. 305 Taking into consideration the 

aforementioned discussion of the Russkiy and 

303 Ibid. 

304 Uri Teper, “Official Russian Identity Discourse 

In Light of the Annexation of Crimea: National or 

Imperial?”, Post-Soviet Affairs (2015), 2. 

305 Vladimir Putin, “Obrashcheniye Prezidenta 

Rossiyskoy Federatsii,” 2014 [Address of the 

President of the Russian Federation]. Kremlin.ru, 

 


Rossiyskiy dichotomy in the Russian political 

discourse, it can be concluded that Russia’s 

geostrategic interests resulted in the 

ethnicization of the Russian national identity 

and the notion of the “other.” 

Russian elites have proved to be extremely 

opportunistic. 306 Foreign and domestic policy 

considerations provided the elites with 

justification to transform once fraternal ethnic 

groups into the threatening “other”. 307 More 

importantly, this “other” exists both within 

and beyond the Russian borders, ensuring that 

the Russian national identity as it is currently 

presented in the Russian political discourse, 

can exist only as long as it is strictly framed 

within its ethnic boundaries. In such a way, 

the primordial myths regarding threats to 

Russia as a nation, proved to be a solid and 

reliable basis for construction of the national 

identity and the “other.” 

Two dimensions of Russian national 

identity can be traced: (1) Russians as 

contrasted with the West, and (2) ethnic 

Russians (Russkiye) as contrasted with nonethnic 

Russians or fraternal ethnic groups 

“spoiled” by the West. The first dimension 

aims to reassure Russia’s status as a great 

power, destined to be different from the 

West, on an international level. The second 

dimension ensures the political survival of the 

ruling party, since its main goal is to show the 

otherness of the minorities within Russia and 

to justify the expansion of Russia beyond its 

borders. Combined, these two notions of the 

“other” serve both foreign and domestic 

objectives of the Russian elites. 

CONCLUSION 

Within Russian elite political 

discourse, national identity and the notion of 

the “other” are presented in primordial, ethnic 

terms. Elites manipulate the public’s 

perception of the inborn characteristics of 

Russians in order to construct an identity 

capable of reasserting the status of Russia as a 

whole on the international arena, and the 

position of the current incumbents on the 

domestic level. Thus, Russian national identity 

can be characterized as both given and 

constructed, as it combines the inherited, 

stable features with those imposed and 

manipulated by the political elites. 

306 Galina Kozhevnikova, G. (2004) “Putin’skii 

prizyv’’: ideology ili mifotvortsy?”, in Putiami 

nesvobody [By Paths of Bondage], ed. 

Aleksandr Verkhovskii (Moscow: Information- 

Analytical Center ‘SOVA’, 2005), 6-17. 

307 Vera Tolz, Vera, “Rethinking Russian- 

Ukrainian relations: A New Trend in Nationbuilding 

in Post-communist Russia?” Nations 

and Nationalism, 8, 2 (2002), 235–253.

Spring 2016

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?