Spring 2016
JPI Spring 2016 Journal of Political Inquiry Fall 2016 New York University 19 University Pl. New York, NY
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JPI<br />
<strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong><br />
Journal of Political Inquiry<br />
Fall <strong>2016</strong><br />
New York University<br />
19 University Pl. New York, NY
TABLE OF CONTENTS<br />
Modern US National Security 4<br />
Enduring Long-Term Core Objectives and Changing Short-term<br />
interests<br />
Doreen Horschig<br />
The Development of Indian National Identity 8<br />
What Was the Impact of the British Raj?<br />
Zainab Zaheer<br />
Human Rights 16<br />
An Overlapping Consensus among Realism, Liberalism, and<br />
Marxism?<br />
Brittany Stubbs<br />
Regime Type and Civil War Susceptibility 22<br />
Regime Type and Civil War Susceptibility<br />
Mark Sizwebanzi Mngomezulu<br />
Between Balance and Bandwagon 35<br />
Why the United States and Japan Are Best Friends?<br />
Kazumichi Uchida<br />
The Judicialization of Politics and the<br />
Independence of Constitutional Court 47<br />
The Case of South Korea<br />
Eunseong Oh<br />
War on Terror 61<br />
An Actual War or a Social Construct by the Bush Administration<br />
Sinan Zhang<br />
Born to Be Different 67<br />
The national identity and the other in the Russian Political Elite<br />
Discourse<br />
Anastasiia Vlasenko<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 2
EDITORIAL BOARD<br />
MIREIA TRIGUERO ROURA Editor-in-chief<br />
XING LU Deputy Editor<br />
JOSEPH LAVICKA Managing Editor<br />
JIMIN KIM Managing Editor<br />
CLARE CHURCH Managing Editor<br />
LESLEY CONNOLY Managing Editor<br />
BRITTANY STUBBS Managing Editor<br />
WILLIAM DE WOLFF Managing Editor<br />
HAORAN HE Editor<br />
DYLAN HEYDEN Editor<br />
ESME HELEN MONTGOMERY Editor<br />
DENA MOTEVALIAN Editor<br />
EUNSEONG OH Editor<br />
BRYNNAN PARISH Editor<br />
SUNGMI SONG Editor<br />
ZAINAB ZAHEER Editor<br />
DOREEN HORSCHIG Editor<br />
LAURA POWERS Editor<br />
PEI YU WEI Editor<br />
EDWARD ABLANG Editor<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 3
Modern U.S. National<br />
Security<br />
Enduring Long-Term Core<br />
Objectives and Changing<br />
Short-Term Interests<br />
Doreen Horschig<br />
T<br />
his paper analyzes U.S. national<br />
security interests since 1987. While<br />
core objectives have not changed<br />
with various U.S. administrations over the<br />
past three decades, the fast-changing<br />
international environment has required an<br />
additional, small set of security interests<br />
that are more flexible and tailored to the<br />
situation at hand.<br />
The U.S. government spends more<br />
than $600 billion on its annual defense<br />
budget. 1 The question remains which<br />
national security interests the defense<br />
budget aims to protect and whether those<br />
interests have changed over time or<br />
remained static. The United States has<br />
pursued long-term core interests to<br />
safeguard the American people, territory,<br />
and way of life. In reaction to dynamic<br />
threats and risks, short-term, responsive or<br />
reactionary interests have been created<br />
alongside consistent core interests. In an<br />
age of global information, increasing<br />
international interdependence, and an<br />
unpredictable world economy, the U.S.<br />
government must remain flexible by<br />
creating temporary national security<br />
interests in response to current world<br />
events while still maintaining core interests<br />
in order to protect the United States and its<br />
people.<br />
This work analyzes the White<br />
House’s National Security Strategies (NSS)<br />
1 Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President<br />
on the Iran Nuclear Deal” (Washington D.C.<br />
August 05, 2015), Retrieved February 2,<br />
<strong>2016</strong>. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-pressoffice/2015/08/05/remarks-president-irannuclear-deal.<br />
since 1987 and finds three core U.S.<br />
national security interests: democracy,<br />
freedom, and security. This specific date<br />
was chosen because every strategy since<br />
1987 has followed a consistent format,<br />
allowing for more accurate comparison.<br />
The second part of this paper identifies<br />
areas and events that require changing<br />
national security interests, though core<br />
interests are never forgotten. The paper<br />
does not aim to give a detailed background<br />
on the chosen issues, but tries to exemplify<br />
the equally consistent yet shifting focus of<br />
U.S. national security interests more<br />
generally.<br />
CONSISTENT CORE INTERESTS OF<br />
DEMOCRACY, FREEDOM, AND<br />
SECURITY<br />
To understand the core interests of<br />
U.S. National Security since 1987, historical<br />
information regarding the strategies of<br />
different U.S. administrations must be<br />
highlighted. Core interests are understood<br />
as the key objectives that need to be<br />
protected in policies and grand strategies.<br />
In January 1987, Ronald Reagan<br />
pointed to U.S. core interests in his<br />
National Security Strategy. He stated that<br />
the U.S. aimed to survive as a nation,<br />
protect its economy, freedom, democracy,<br />
and to create a secure world. 2 Again, the<br />
themes of democracy, freedom, and<br />
security were central. George H.W. Bush<br />
and Bill Clinton mirrored these same core<br />
interests in their respective strategies<br />
throughout the 1990’s. Both sets of<br />
publications highlight the need to protect<br />
the United States as a free, independent<br />
nation, and the need to safeguard human<br />
rights, democracy, and economic freedom. 3<br />
2 White House, “National Security Strategy of<br />
the United States” (Washington D.C.:<br />
February 1987), 3-4, Retrieved February 5,<br />
<strong>2016</strong>. http://nssarchive.us/NSSR/1987.pdf.<br />
3 White House, “National Security Strategy of<br />
the United States” (Washington D.C.:<br />
February 1991), 4, Retrieved February 5,<br />
<strong>2016</strong>. http://nssarchive.us/NSSR/1991.pdf.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 4
Consistent throughout are the notions of<br />
the protection of freedom, democracy, and<br />
security.<br />
Turning to the 21 st century, the<br />
same three core interests remain. In 2002,<br />
following the events of 9/11, George W.<br />
Bush identified the interests and<br />
commitment to democracy and freedom. 4<br />
After September 11th, ensuring national<br />
security became increasingly important.<br />
Instead of deviating from core interests, the<br />
Bush administration confirmed and<br />
reiterated these same long-term security<br />
objectives for the United States. Naturally,<br />
after 9/11, Bush prioritized the physical<br />
safety of the U.S. population throughout<br />
his NSSs. 5 The Obama Administration<br />
argued in its NSS in 2010 and 2015 that<br />
U.S. core interests included “the security of<br />
the United States… [and] respect for<br />
universal values at home and around the<br />
world.” 6 Once again, the emphasis of the<br />
NSS is on freedom and security (perhaps<br />
even democracy, though to a lesser extent)<br />
and is consistent with core interests of<br />
former administrations. Democracy,<br />
freedom, and security are just as vital to<br />
U.S. national security policy as they were<br />
during the Reagan administration.<br />
In the midst of changing times and<br />
dramatic world events, Ronald Reagan,<br />
George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George<br />
W. Bush, and Barack Obama maintained<br />
the consistent national security interests of<br />
White House, “A National Security Strategy of<br />
Engagement and Enlargement” (Washington<br />
D.C.: February 1994), 5, Retrieved February<br />
5, <strong>2016</strong>. http://nssarchive.us/NSSR/1994.pdf.<br />
4 White House, “A National Security<br />
Strategy of the United States of America”<br />
(Washington D.C.: September 2002), iv,<br />
Retrieved February 4, <strong>2016</strong>.<br />
http://www.state.gov/documents/organizat<br />
ion/63562.pdf.<br />
5 Ibid, 7, 26, and 31.<br />
6 White House, “National Security Strategy”<br />
(Washington D.C.: February 2015), 2,<br />
Retrieved February 1, <strong>2016</strong>.<br />
https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/<br />
docs/2015_national_security_strategy.pdf.<br />
democracy, freedom, and security of the<br />
American people. Reaganomics, the Iran-<br />
Contra Affair, the end of the Cold War, fall<br />
of the Berlin wall, the Persian Gulf War,<br />
and 9/11, though significant, have not<br />
altered the core interests of U.S. National<br />
Security. Understanding core national<br />
security interests is necessary to<br />
understanding the minor and more<br />
temporary interests that have changed with<br />
time and environment.<br />
EVOLVING AND SHIFTING INTERESTS<br />
The common core U.S. national security<br />
interests do not reflect the entirety of U.S.<br />
national security policy. Additional security<br />
interests have been added, and often later<br />
removed, in response to current events and<br />
according to the will of the politician in<br />
power. Global threats that were eminent in<br />
the 20 th century have become less<br />
significant when compared to modern<br />
threats. Secondary interests had and have to<br />
be adjusted to reflect a changing political<br />
and global environment and according to<br />
current U.S. administration policies.<br />
Containing and Restraining the Soviet Union<br />
While not a current matter of<br />
national security interest, containing and<br />
restraining the USSR was vital during<br />
previous administrations, prior to 1991.<br />
During the most intense period of the Cold<br />
War, the prevention of nuclear war (and<br />
conventional war with the USSR) was of<br />
the utmost importance to the United States.<br />
In 1987, during the final years of the<br />
conflict, Reagan described it as a matter of<br />
national security to “[seek] meaningful ways<br />
of working with the Soviet leaders to<br />
prevent war and make the world a more<br />
peaceful place.” 7 Interests were prioritized<br />
based on the presence of Soviet power,<br />
communist propaganda, and nuclear<br />
weapons. Reagan prioritized a peaceful<br />
relationship with the USSR alongside<br />
freedom and democracy.<br />
7 White House, “National Security Strategy of<br />
the United States”, 1987, 1.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 5
Reagan’s NSS was generally<br />
militaristic because of the threat of the<br />
Soviet Union. In response to a powerful<br />
USSR, the U.S. “undertook the Strategic<br />
Modernization Program in order to<br />
maintain the essential survivability and<br />
effectiveness of our own forces in the face<br />
of… the Soviet threat.” 8 The strengthening<br />
of the military to contain the USSR was a<br />
primary interest of the NSS in 1987. The<br />
end of the Cold War eliminated<br />
containment as an objective of national<br />
security interest. This reaction to a shifting<br />
global environment exemplifies that not all<br />
current national security interests are core<br />
to American policy and demonstrates that<br />
security interests are flexible enough to<br />
react to current events (such as current<br />
state relations, new administrations, and/or<br />
international events).<br />
Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Sanctions in Iran<br />
As some concerns dissipate, like<br />
restraining the USSR, new ones arise. One<br />
recent example is the nuclear deal with Iran.<br />
The U.S. government reached a milestone<br />
in limiting the expansion of Iranian nuclear<br />
program. As Obama stated: “[the<br />
agreement] achieves one of our most<br />
critical security objectives.” 9 The objective<br />
of nuclear non-proliferation serves the core<br />
interest of safeguarding the American<br />
people and territory as well as the<br />
secondary interest of preventing a nuclear<br />
arms race. 10 This has been an interest for<br />
the U.S. since 1945. However, the specific<br />
interest has changed. The U.S. objective is<br />
not only to prevent nuclear proliferation in<br />
Iran but also to prevent terrorists and other<br />
radical groups in the region from obtaining<br />
nuclear weapons as well. A few decades<br />
ago, major national security concerns<br />
focused on great power politics, such as<br />
during the Reagan administration. The<br />
threat of terrorists obtaining nuclear<br />
8 Ibid, 23.<br />
9 Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President<br />
on the Iran Nuclear Deal.”<br />
10 Ibid.<br />
weapons, or Weapons of Mass Destruction<br />
(WMD’s), was relatively small (if not<br />
nonexistent) compared to the threat of the<br />
Soviet Union, but has now become key in<br />
the Bush and Obama administrations. Nonstate<br />
actors play an important role in<br />
shaping American security interests. The<br />
psychological threat of terrorists obtaining<br />
nuclear weapons has been taken into<br />
consideration by U.S. national security as<br />
well.<br />
As per the Iranian nuclear<br />
agreement, the reduction of Iran’s stockpile<br />
of nuclear weapons will be followed by an<br />
easing of international sanctions. The EU<br />
and U.S. agreed to terminate “all nuclearrelated<br />
economic and financial<br />
sanctions...” 11 The removal of trade barriers<br />
allows for the expansion of U.S. economic<br />
ties. It is believed that with an expansion in<br />
trade, the U.S. will be able to promote<br />
freedom and democracy in Iran. The<br />
potential this, however, will depend on the<br />
flexibility of the regime in Iran, the<br />
institutions that are created, and the will of<br />
the people.<br />
Global Health<br />
Global health is yet another<br />
example of a dynamic interest that has been<br />
prioritized because of the current global<br />
situation, though it can be linked to the<br />
core U.S. interest of security. Typically,<br />
protecting the population of the United<br />
States is described as a defense of the<br />
population against threats and violence<br />
committed by state and non-state actors. A<br />
global disease pandemic could be equally as<br />
devastating as more traditional security<br />
threats. The spread of disease has long been<br />
present, however, and it has become a more<br />
pressing issue with simplified global travel.<br />
11 “Joint Statement by EU High<br />
Representative Federica Mogherini and<br />
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif<br />
Switzerland” (Bruxelles: April 2, 2015),<br />
Retrieved February 2, <strong>2016</strong>.<br />
http://eeas.europa.eu/statementseeas/2015/150402_03_en.htm.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 6
Diseases like Ebola or the current Zika<br />
virus can reach American territory in a<br />
shorter amount of time than ever before. It<br />
is now in the interest of U.S. national<br />
security not only to fight pandemics within<br />
the country or its neighbors, but also to<br />
pursue global health programs. 12<br />
Energy and Cyber Security<br />
An additional American interest<br />
that has arisen over time as a priority is<br />
energy security. The United States believes<br />
that it is in the interest of national security<br />
to create “buffers against the coercive use<br />
of energy...” 13 In reaction to the changing<br />
national environment, the Obama<br />
administration tackled the use of energy as<br />
a political weapon. For example, Russia is<br />
aware of the dependence of Ukraine and<br />
Europe on its energy resources. Obama<br />
explained that there is a need for more<br />
“diversification of energy fuels, sources,<br />
and routes” to create greater political<br />
independence. 14 The Bush administration<br />
mentioned the same interest in one of its<br />
NSSs. 15 In Reagan’s strategy, however, the<br />
issue of energy security was not expressed<br />
because the political environment did not<br />
require it.<br />
Future Capacity of National Security Interests<br />
Past administrations highlighted<br />
similar national security interests that<br />
together form a core of consistent U.S.<br />
national security interests. The next NSS<br />
will, in all likelihood, employ the protection<br />
of the same fundamental values: individual<br />
freedoms of the American people,<br />
democracy, prosperity, and national<br />
security. However, especially in a digital,<br />
interconnected age, a new government<br />
would be wise to shift U.S. national security<br />
interests according to current issues. This<br />
could include a larger emphasis on the<br />
“protection of intellectual property, online<br />
freedom, and respect for civilian<br />
infrastructure...” 16 This is just one example<br />
of acknowledging new interests related to<br />
modernization through digitalization. Other<br />
threats, like the acquisition of WMDs by<br />
terrorist organizations, global diseases, and<br />
the procurement of nuclear power by nonstate<br />
actors, will require a modernization of<br />
security interests as well.<br />
CONCLUSION<br />
The interest of protecting United<br />
States’ citizens, territory, and values has not<br />
and will not change under any U.S.<br />
administration. Each administration since<br />
1987 has maintained the U.S. national core<br />
interests of democracy, freedom, and<br />
security in their respective NSSs. At the<br />
same time, these presidents had to adjust<br />
short-term interests according to current<br />
global events. For example, the NSS of the<br />
Reagan administration did not show as<br />
much interest in preventing religious<br />
extremist groups from obtaining WMD’s as<br />
President Obama’s does. In <strong>2016</strong>, the<br />
United States faces different threats than it<br />
did in previous decades. Cyberattacks,<br />
terrorism, counterintelligence, and weapons<br />
of mass destruction are contemporary<br />
concerns that will need to be addressed.<br />
Only the future will determine if the next<br />
administration will maintain these same<br />
core interests or reshape them for their<br />
own purposes. Any new administration<br />
should remain flexible in its National<br />
Security Strategy and in its response to<br />
challenges that arise when addressing and<br />
protecting these security interests.<br />
12 White House, “National Security Strategy”,<br />
2015, 14.<br />
13 Ibid, 16.<br />
14 Ibid.<br />
15 White House, “A National Security Strategy<br />
of the United States of America”,19.<br />
16 White House, “National Security Strategy”,<br />
2015, 13.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 7
The Development of<br />
Indian National Identity<br />
And the impact of the British<br />
Raj<br />
Zainab Zaheer<br />
T<br />
his paper will attempt to answer the<br />
question “How did modern-day<br />
Indian national identity develop and<br />
in what ways was it a product of the British<br />
Raj?” In order to do this, the essay will first<br />
trace the development of a unifying national<br />
identity in British India, and then tie this to<br />
key elements of national identity in the<br />
modern-day state. In order to explore the<br />
gradual formation of a distinct national<br />
rhetoric, this paper will briefly explore the<br />
work of both Mahatma Gandhi and<br />
Jawaharlal Nehru, and the roles they played in<br />
shaping Indian national consciousness.<br />
NATIONAL IDENTITY VS. NATIONALISM<br />
In order to define national identity, it<br />
is necessary to understand the closely linked<br />
but distinct concept of nationalism. This<br />
paper chooses to define nationalism as a belief<br />
in the significance of a geographical or<br />
demographical region and a conviction in that<br />
region’s right to independence in order to<br />
protect its culture or ethnicity. In contrast,<br />
scholars often define national identity as a<br />
sense of belonging to a state or nation, which<br />
is represented by a culture and language, and a<br />
variety of traditions. 17<br />
17 Richard D. Ashmore, Lee Jussim and David<br />
Wilder, Social Identity, Intergroup Conflict, and<br />
Conflict Reduction (New York: Oxford University<br />
Press, 2001), 74–75.<br />
According to academic Gianfranco<br />
Poggi, national identity is an essential<br />
ingredient of citizenship. Each nation-state is<br />
“made [a] historical reality… purposively<br />
constructed, functionally specific machine.” 18<br />
Each has a constant need to legitimize itself in<br />
the eyes of its citizens by providing a national<br />
ideology. The modern nation-state mobilizes<br />
commitment based on this idea of national<br />
identity. This commitment requires that<br />
Indian national identity be fluid, continually<br />
sustained, and able to change.<br />
The study of how these definitions<br />
apply to different states is vast, but for the<br />
purposes of this paper we will focus on Indian<br />
nationalism.<br />
FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO INDIAN<br />
NATIONALISM<br />
British India was ruled by centralized<br />
state and political institutions. By building this<br />
overarching administrative structure, the<br />
British would unknowingly ease the<br />
development Indian nationalism. During and<br />
after Indian independence, influential<br />
nationalist leaders would emphasize that both<br />
the beliefs and efforts of the Indian people<br />
would be best served if the unity of the<br />
imperial state were kept intact but was<br />
controlled by Indians.<br />
Unlike most colonial nationalist<br />
projects, Indian nationalists did not want to<br />
carve one piece of British India for<br />
themselves. Instead, they sought to claim the<br />
entirety of that empire, aiming to bring a land<br />
with fourteen major languages and over two<br />
hundred dialects under an overarching<br />
identity: India. According to Joya Chatterji,<br />
18 Gianfranco Poggi, The Development of the<br />
Modern State (Stanford: Stanford University<br />
Press, 1978), 95-101.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 8
“[t]he British in India were not in the business<br />
of promoting nationhood amongst their<br />
subjects: indeed, when challenged by critics<br />
claiming to speak for an Indian nation, their<br />
response was to declare that India was<br />
nothing more than a “geographical<br />
expression”. 19 This geographical expression<br />
did not consist of a community that identified<br />
itself as a nation or as a strong state that<br />
sought to create a sense of nationalism. Unlike<br />
other nationalist projects in the nineteenth<br />
century (such as the Egyptians against the<br />
Ottoman Empire or the Slavs against the<br />
Habsburg Empire) India did not face internal<br />
revolutions or external wars, both of which<br />
had proven to inspire modern nationalist<br />
movements in the past.<br />
After the War of Independence in<br />
1857, the East India Company’s rule was<br />
replaced by the British monarchy and new<br />
structures of government were established,<br />
including governors, presidencies and<br />
provinces. A system of civil servants and<br />
subordinates was created with the express<br />
goal of involving the “natives” in government,<br />
in order to create a sense of ownership among<br />
the population without truly devolving power<br />
to them. “This new apparatus of rule sought<br />
to recruit Indians in vast numbers into the<br />
service of a government capable of<br />
intervening more effectively than before in<br />
Indian life in areas that the East India<br />
Company—its reformist policies<br />
notwithstanding—had in practice left well<br />
alone.” 20 To bring stability and prevent any<br />
threat of revolt, several measures were taken:<br />
more white troops were stationed in India,<br />
19 Joya Chatterji, “Nationalisms in India, 1857-<br />
1947,” in The Oxford Handbook of the History of<br />
Nationalism, ed. John Breuilly (Oxford: Oxford<br />
University Press, 2013), 243.<br />
20 Ibid., 245.<br />
communications networks such as railways,<br />
roads, and a telegraph network were expanded<br />
in order to rapidly send troops across the<br />
subcontinent in case of rebellion, and<br />
irrigation projects were carried out throughout<br />
the Punjab (a geographical region in one of<br />
the northernmost parts of the Indian<br />
subcontinent). This transformation came at a<br />
huge cost. White troops were paid higher<br />
wages and taxes were raised and collected<br />
more efficiently in order to pay for<br />
widespread development.<br />
More white men were brought to<br />
India to “develop” the Indian economy and<br />
local bodies were created to collect taxes.<br />
Local populations took the opportunity to call<br />
for self-government and to try to influence<br />
policy locally and at imperial centers of power,<br />
such as Calcutta and London. This process<br />
continued to escalate over the next several<br />
years, resulting in a situation where:<br />
[T]he very structures of the British<br />
Empire unwittingly generated the<br />
motor force that drove Indians<br />
operating in these different arenas of<br />
politics to forge new linkages and<br />
alliances. These alliances were the<br />
crucial adhesive that came to bind the<br />
local, the provincial, and the all-India<br />
arenas into a single, interconnected<br />
field of politics, matching the<br />
interconnected structures of<br />
government with which it aimed to<br />
engage. 21<br />
THE INDIAN NATION AS AN IDEA<br />
As the state developed in the<br />
nineteenth century so did civil society, public<br />
21 Ibid.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 9
awareness, and involvement. Religious, legal,<br />
and bureaucratic literati (those whose families<br />
had served British rulers for generations,<br />
including Mughals and regional nawabs) had<br />
learned English and understood European<br />
history. They began to question the<br />
disparaging “white man’s narrative” that<br />
explained how and why earlier rulers on the<br />
subcontinent had so easily been defeated.<br />
Convinced that it must be because Indians<br />
had lost their culture, some like Raja Ram<br />
Mohun Roy and Sayyid Ahmed Khan, called<br />
for modernization and reform by lobbying the<br />
British government to support educational<br />
initiatives (like Khan’s university at Aligrah)<br />
and to outlaw “backward” practices such as<br />
satti (the burning of widows). 22 Some scholars<br />
argue that these movements were early<br />
examples of India’s emerging constitutional<br />
liberalism because such reformers insisted that<br />
it was the government’s responsibility to<br />
provide for the common good. Later, the<br />
paper will argue that Indian nationalists only<br />
sought to gather power for the greater good<br />
of those who fit their definition of “Indian.”<br />
Towards the close of the nineteenth<br />
century, the idea of a nationalism began to<br />
come to the forefront on the Indian<br />
subcontinent. In 1893, Dadabhai Naoroji, one<br />
of the founding fathers of the Indian National<br />
Congress, said, “I am an Indian and owe duty<br />
to my work and all my countrymen. Whether<br />
I am a Hindu or a Mahommedan, a Parsi, a<br />
Christian, or of any other creed, I am above<br />
all an Indian. Our country is India and our<br />
nationality is Indian.” 23 This was became the<br />
INC’s central tenet, to influence policy issues<br />
22 Christopher A. Bayly, “Rammohun Roy and<br />
the Advent of Constitutional Liberalism in India,<br />
1800–1830,” Modern Intellectual History 4, 1,<br />
2007, doi: 10.1017/S1479244306001028.<br />
23 Chatterji, “Nationalisms in India,” 249.<br />
that concerned Indians, regardless of region<br />
or religion. By this time, all-Indian nationalism<br />
had spread beyond elitist circles, spurred by<br />
the increasing intervention of British<br />
administration and an increase in English<br />
education. This further catalyzed the creation<br />
of a “secular-intelligentsia” that pushed for<br />
nationalism. 24<br />
As more natives gained an English<br />
education and became involved in local and<br />
provincial government structures, they<br />
became increasingly aware of the enforced<br />
difference between themselves and the<br />
“whites.” The blatant racial discrimination<br />
they faced turned many “would-be<br />
collaborators” against their colonial masters. 25<br />
Their resentment needed an outlet; the<br />
number of printing presses owned by Indians<br />
increased dramatically. The content they<br />
produced challenged the government and<br />
included the Indian public in the conversation<br />
on the Indian nation. The desire for<br />
protection and justice from the state inspired<br />
a generation of lawyers and journalists. Slowly,<br />
the term “native” came to define one’s<br />
“Indian-ness”. The varied peoples ruled by<br />
the Raj came together under a unifying,<br />
territorially-defined sense of identity.<br />
THE ROLE OF THE INDIAN NATIONAL<br />
CONGRESS & GANDHI<br />
The Indian National Congress was a<br />
group of lawyers and journalists, educated<br />
elites with Western education, who sought<br />
greater native representation, freedom of<br />
24 Anthony D. Smith, Theories of Nationalism<br />
(London: Gerald Duckworth, 1983), xxii–xxiii.<br />
25 Rajat Kanta Ray, Social Conflict and Political<br />
Unrest in Bengal, 1875–1927 (Oxford: Oxford<br />
University Press, 1984);<br />
Sumit Sarkar, Modern India 1885–1947 (New<br />
York: Macmillan, 2000), 22–24.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 10
press, equal treatment, and economic<br />
opportunity. The Congress contributed<br />
significantly to all-India nationalism by<br />
providing a forum for conversation and<br />
organized all-India nationalism by fashioning<br />
“a secular critique of British rule.” 26 Their<br />
strategy was to appeal to the British<br />
government as imperial subjects and<br />
emphasize how the very liberal values the<br />
British sought to encourage were being<br />
damaged on the subcontinent.<br />
India paid a heavy price after World<br />
War I. Heavily-taxed merchants, peasants<br />
overwhelmed by price fluctuations and a lack<br />
of resources, and demoralized soldiers began<br />
to view the INC as a medium to express their<br />
discontent. In 1920, the British government in<br />
India responded with the concept of diarchy.<br />
They seduced moderate Indian politicians<br />
with the promise of influence in provincial<br />
councils in order to undermine the still fragile<br />
“all-India” political unity.<br />
In the years following WWI, Mahatma<br />
Gandhi arrived in India as a critic of the<br />
state’s ability to improve social conditions and<br />
as a social and religious reformer, rather than<br />
a political figure. Unlike Khan, Roy, and other<br />
intellectuals of the time, Gandhi believed that<br />
the British were successful in conquering<br />
India because Indians cooperated with British<br />
forces. Ghandi said that Indians had enabled<br />
the British by being seduced by materialism<br />
and western ideas of modernity.<br />
…we must refuse to submit to this<br />
official violence. Appeal to Parliament<br />
by all means if necessary, but if the<br />
parliament fails us and we are worthy<br />
to call ourselves a nation, we must<br />
26 Chatterji, “Nationalisms in India,” 252.<br />
refuse to uphold the Government by<br />
withdrawing cooperation from it. 27<br />
Gandhi encouraged the all-India<br />
Congress to demand full independence, or<br />
swaraj, and called for Indians to boycott<br />
promotions to the provincial councils<br />
promised under diarchy (the Act of 1920). He<br />
launched a non-cooperation movement,<br />
satyagraha, and claimed to speak for the<br />
ordinary people of India. It was this that won<br />
the INC a “more broad-based and disparate<br />
following” than ever before. 28 A masterful<br />
politician, Gandhi had recruited supporters<br />
powerful enough to mobilize the masses for<br />
local campaigns. These included “rich<br />
peasants in Gujarat, prohibitionists in<br />
Karnataka, and Khilafatists in Bengal and<br />
North India.” 29<br />
Ghandi spoke in a way that the<br />
common man could use and understand. Both<br />
symbolically and semantically, he sought to<br />
connect with the everyday Indian. He drew<br />
attention to the weavers, artisans, and<br />
craftsmen losing their livelihood under British<br />
rule by deciding to stop wearing clothes<br />
woven on British looms and to instead wear<br />
cloth he had made himself on a spinning<br />
wheel. “By his symbolic adoption of the<br />
spinning wheel and khadi (hand-woven cloth),<br />
Gandhi advertised to every Indian that British<br />
rule was amoral and illegitimate.” 30 In his<br />
book Imperial Power & Popular Politics,<br />
Chandavarkar argues that Gandhi inspired the<br />
masses because of his skill in turning “the<br />
27 Judith Brown, Gandhi’s Rise to Power: Indian<br />
Politics 1915-1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge<br />
South Asian Studies, 1974), 245.<br />
28 Chatterji, “Nationalisms in India,” 255.<br />
29 Ibid.<br />
30 Ibid, 256.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 11
landest metaphor and the most platitudinous<br />
axiom in a distinctly subversive direction…” 31<br />
Gandhi’s success was not without<br />
setbacks. Some INC members were alarmed<br />
by his mass movements. Satyagraha led to<br />
violence that eventually caused Gandhi to call<br />
off the movement because he was unable to<br />
control outbursts across the country. Many<br />
leaders abandoned non-cooperation and<br />
sought to join the provincial councils created<br />
by the British with the idea of working within<br />
the system to conquer it. Gandhi was able to<br />
push the INC through this period of<br />
instability by advocating for a new<br />
constitution for the party that would create a<br />
Working Committee, fifteen leaders who<br />
would exercise strong, centralized control<br />
over a loosely organized and divided party.<br />
Over time, it became clear that Gandhi’s<br />
ability to mass-mobilize supported the<br />
Congress’s ability to negotiate with the British<br />
over constitutional reforms. The looming<br />
threat of widespread revolt pressured the<br />
British to cooperate with the INC’s demands.<br />
The INC came to be seen as an effective<br />
vehicle that influenced the people and that<br />
represented the people.<br />
SEPARATIST SENTIMENTS TAKE HOLD<br />
The INC’s popular hold was not<br />
unchallenged. In the 1930s, its unifying<br />
message of all-India began to fragment with<br />
the Simon Commission, the Nehru Report,<br />
and Muslim spokesperson M. A. Jinnah’s 14<br />
Points. Opponents claimed that minority<br />
rights were being threatened and the INC was<br />
unable to address these fears satisfactorily. At<br />
the outbreak of World War II, Congress<br />
31 Raj Chandavarkar, Imperial Power and<br />
Popular Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge<br />
University Press, 1998).<br />
demanded an immediate share of central<br />
power and Jinnah, the self-appointed leader of<br />
Muslims in the subcontinent, passed the<br />
Lahore Resolution of 1940 calling for a<br />
separate state for Muslims. 32 The pursuit of a<br />
national Indian identity was complicated and<br />
INC control was threatened. INC leaders<br />
such as Jawaharlal Nehru denounced the<br />
Resolution and considered it insignificant, a<br />
mistake that fueled the fire for the movement<br />
for a separate Muslim nation.<br />
During World War II, Britain’s<br />
economy suffered and the new Labour party<br />
began to look for a quick exit solution. The<br />
Raj was soon no longer sustainable for Great<br />
Britain. With political unrest and mass<br />
violence looming, as well as famine and a<br />
declining economy, India had turned into a<br />
liability. Negotiating with the INC and<br />
Jinnah’s Muslim League proved difficult as<br />
both parties had reservations against the<br />
other, however. The INC was<br />
uncompromising towards Muslim demands.<br />
In the end, British India was divided into two<br />
unequal parts designed to “cut out the<br />
troublesome Muslim-majority districts in the<br />
west and east…” 33 Out of this negotiation,<br />
Pakistan was born. As Joya Chatterji says,<br />
[W]e have the final paradox of all-<br />
India nationalism encapsulated by the<br />
Congress: its determination to inherit<br />
the mighty imperial state constructed<br />
by the British in India led to the<br />
division of that empire. That partition<br />
was the outcome of a curious and<br />
covert political entente between the<br />
weak and unprincipled Viceroy of a<br />
32 "Lahore Resolution (1940)," History Pak,<br />
accessed May 06, <strong>2016</strong>,<br />
http://historypak.com/lahore-resolution-1940/.<br />
33 Chatterji, “Nationalisms in India,” 259.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 12
declining imperial power, ‘civic’<br />
nationalists in a hurry to achieve<br />
independence with a strong centre,<br />
Hindu cultural nationalists in Bengal<br />
determined to protect its unique<br />
‘genius’, and leaders of the Hindu<br />
right keen to purge Mother India of<br />
Muslim traitors. 34<br />
UNITING INDIA: NEHRU’S GOVERNMENT<br />
Different social, ethnic, and cultural<br />
groups in the newly-formed, independent<br />
Indian state interpreted nationalism<br />
differently. The inclusive idea upon which all-<br />
India nationalism had so far been based was<br />
fractured. Since 1947, successive governments<br />
“worked to bring about ‘the emotional<br />
integration of India’, precisely because ‘India’<br />
never was wholly united behind its<br />
nationalism, and because ‘the nation’ was<br />
imagined by its people in many contradictory<br />
ways.” 35 The Constituent Assembly was<br />
divided ideologically between Ghandi and<br />
Nehru’s multicultural brand of national<br />
identity and a desire for a Hindu India. After<br />
Gandhi’s assassination by a Hindu nationalist<br />
less than two years after the Constitution was<br />
written, Nehru became the voice of a secular<br />
national identity. He aimed to create a<br />
pluralistic society and believed India’s strength<br />
lay in its multiculturalism. 36 Hindu nationalists<br />
aimed for Hindu domination and viewed<br />
Muslims as threats to national stability. As a<br />
result of Nehru’s influence during the<br />
Constituent Assembly debates, secularism<br />
became the official doctrine of the Republic<br />
34 Ibid.<br />
35 Ibid, 260.<br />
36 Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India<br />
(London: Penguin, 1946 and 1989), 50.<br />
of India. All religious communities were<br />
recognized equally and religious schools were<br />
eligible for state funding. 37<br />
Minorities received concessions, and<br />
Nehru sought to accommodate Muslims who<br />
had chosen to stay in India. 38 While a uniform<br />
civil code was proposed, Muslims were<br />
allowed to use Shariah law within their<br />
communities and freedom of religion was<br />
recognized as a fundamental right. 39 One of<br />
the building blocks of Nehru’s pluralistic<br />
vision for India was multilingualism. Hindu<br />
nationalists wanted the state language to be<br />
Hindi, but Nehru pushed for the Constitution<br />
in English as well. 40 In 1963, English became<br />
an associate official language.<br />
This commitment to plurality was<br />
made evident by the constitutional<br />
recognition of fifteen official languages and<br />
the reorganization of certain states based on<br />
linguistic boundaries. 41 Maharashtra and<br />
Gujrat, for example, were created due to<br />
public demand in 1960. Over the first few<br />
decades of India’s independence, the<br />
government showed great flexibility in<br />
accommodating regional and linguistic<br />
nationalisms by recognizing Punjabis, Nagas,<br />
and Mizos. To promote religious impartiality<br />
37 The Constitution of India, Article 25, accessed<br />
May 05, <strong>2016</strong>, http://lawmin.nic.in/olwing/coi/coienglish/coi-indexenglish.htm.<br />
38 Sarvepalli Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru (London:<br />
Oxford India Paperbacks, 1984), 3 and 172.<br />
39 The Constitution of India, Article 25<br />
40 Christophe Jaffrelot, “Nation-Building and<br />
Nationalism: South Asia, 1947–90,” in The<br />
Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism,<br />
ed. John Breuilly (Oxford: Oxford University<br />
Press, 2013).<br />
41 "Language Provisions in the Constitution of<br />
the Indian Union." Site for Language<br />
Management in Canada (SLMC). Accessed May<br />
05, <strong>2016</strong>.<br />
https://slmc.uottawa.ca/?q=bi_india_constitution.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 13
and a ‘Hindu-only image, “the Indian<br />
Republic drew upon Buddhism to adorn itself<br />
with symbols that could be both Indian and<br />
neutral: the official emblem replicates the<br />
lions of Ashoka, the great Buddhist emperor,<br />
for instance.” 42<br />
This federal flexibility was a product<br />
of Nehru’s secular ideology triumphing over<br />
that of the Hindu traditionalists, but it did not<br />
survive long. Neither his successors, nor the<br />
Hindu traditionalist local leaders were willing<br />
to follow through with his secularism. Hindi<br />
was declared the official language in the<br />
province in Uttar Pradesh. Despite the central<br />
government’s recommendation, there was<br />
great opposition to the instruction of Urdu in<br />
state schools. 43 Hindi was patronized through<br />
promotion of literature, the slaughtering of<br />
cows was banned, and violence against<br />
Muslims was carried out in Aligarh, Varanasi,<br />
etc.<br />
MODERN DAY VOICES IN INDIA<br />
The secular framework began to come<br />
undone in the 1980s during Indira Gandhi’s<br />
third term in office, after her administration<br />
began to exploit communal feelings. 44 After<br />
her assassination, Rajiv Gandhi continued this<br />
practice and eventually incited Hindu<br />
backlash, as an increasing number of Hindus<br />
felt treated as second-class citizens. Ever<br />
since, Hindu nationalists have played a much<br />
more dominant role in national politics. The<br />
42 Jaffrelot, “Nation-Building and Nationalism.”<br />
43 Bruce Graham, Hindu Nationalism and Indian<br />
Politics: The Origins and Development of the<br />
Bharatiya Jana Sangh (Cambridge: Cambridge<br />
University Press, 1990), 113.<br />
44 "1980: Gandhi Returned by Landslide Vote,"<br />
BBC News, January 07, 1980, accessed May<br />
06, <strong>2016</strong>,<br />
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/j<br />
anuary/7/newsid_2506000/2506387.stm.<br />
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or National<br />
Volunteer Corps, is the modern-day political<br />
representation of Hindu nationalism and is<br />
one of the largest organizations in India.<br />
The RSS grew increasingly influential<br />
over the next 60 years. In 1955, it formed the<br />
Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, also known as the<br />
Indian Workers’ Union, to promote Hindu<br />
nationalist ideology (and which is now the<br />
country’s largest trade union). 45 The union has<br />
helped to develop a school network, a<br />
religious framework, and has provided<br />
development assistance in impoverished areas.<br />
In addition, the RSS created the Family of the<br />
Sangh which lead to a weakening of<br />
secularism in India and the development of<br />
anti-Muslim feelings. 46<br />
Though once dominant, the Indian<br />
National Congress suffered a historic defeat in<br />
2014 (the country’s most recent election). The<br />
INC won only 44 out of 543 constituency<br />
seats in the lower house of parliament. The<br />
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which swept the<br />
election with 282 seats as well as complete<br />
control of four states, is a right wing party<br />
with close ideological and organizational links<br />
to the Hindu nationalist, Rashtriya<br />
Swayamsevak Sangh. 47 This recent turn of<br />
events developed out of a weakening of the<br />
Indian economy and the INC’s failure to<br />
45 "Welcome to Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh,"<br />
Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, accessed May 05,<br />
<strong>2016</strong>,<br />
http://bms.org.in/pages/BMSATGlance.aspx.<br />
46 Christophe Jaffrelot, The Sangh Parivar: A<br />
Reader, (Oxford: Oxford University Press,<br />
2005).<br />
47 "Election Results 2014: Historic Win for NDA<br />
with 336 Seats, 282 for BJP," Firstpost, May 17,<br />
2014, accessed May 05, <strong>2016</strong>,<br />
http://www.firstpost.com/politics/election-results-<br />
2014-historic-win-for-nda-with-336-seats-285-<br />
for-bjp-1526377.html.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 14
effectively engage younger voters. In contrast,<br />
BJP leader, Narendra Modi, ran one of the<br />
most innovative and successful election<br />
campaigns that India has ever seen, making<br />
heavy use of social media, and taking<br />
advantages of the weaknesses of the thengovernment,<br />
such as corruption scandals. 48<br />
Modi’s victory has signaled a shift in<br />
Indian political development. His campaign<br />
focused more on ideology than his opponents<br />
and less on ethnicity, caste, language, and<br />
religion, though these factors were still visibly<br />
present. According to a Brookings article, “in<br />
2014 they took a back seat to punishing the<br />
party in power for presiding over falling<br />
growth rates, inflation, and a rupee that had<br />
lost up to 25 percent in value before<br />
recovering.” 49 This is not to say that religion is<br />
no longer a strong factor. Exit polls showed<br />
that less than 10% of the Muslim population<br />
voted for the BJP, meaning the largest<br />
minority religion is not represented by the<br />
party in power. 50 While there has been<br />
progress (there is less political corruption and<br />
fewer regional parties demanding<br />
representation, for instance), the Indian<br />
political system has a long way to go to before<br />
48 Narendra Modi, "Largest Mass Outreach<br />
Campaign in Electoral History of a Democracy,"<br />
April 29, 2014, accessed May 05, <strong>2016</strong>,<br />
http://www.narendramodi.in/largest-massoutreach-campaign-in-electoral-history-of-ademocracy-3136.<br />
49 Raj M. Desai, "India's Political Development at<br />
the Crossroads," The Brookings Institution, May<br />
19, 2014, http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/upfront/posts/2014/05/19-india-politicaldevelopment-desai.<br />
50 Sandipan Sharma, "Bihar Exit Polls Over; the<br />
Voters May Have Turned Smarter than Netas<br />
and Pundits - Firstpost," Firstpost, November 06,<br />
2015, accessed May 05, <strong>2016</strong>,<br />
http://www.firstpost.com/politics/bihar-exit-pollshint-at-all-outcomes-voters-may-have-turnedsmarter-than-netas-pundits-2497084.html.<br />
becoming more institutionalized, transparent,<br />
and stable.<br />
CONCLUSION<br />
While India developed out of a push<br />
for an all-inclusive national identity, modernday<br />
India national identity emphasizes<br />
homogeneity. Minorities face what Jaffrelot<br />
calls “the growing Hindu-oriented<br />
xenophobia”. 51 Despite this, India’s<br />
multilingualism is still strong. The creation of<br />
linguistic regions helped diffuse tensions at<br />
the creation of the state and ethno-nationalist<br />
separatists were largely quelled. Of course,<br />
Ghandi and Nehru deserve a huge portion of<br />
the credit for India’s early success in<br />
inclusivity. Gandhi worked to make these<br />
values widely accepted and Nehru worked to<br />
incorporate them into the state structure.<br />
Indian nation-building was<br />
strengthened in large part because of the early<br />
focus on mass political literacy and an<br />
institutionalized focus on plurality. It is<br />
important, however, to recognize that India<br />
has never been free of serious challenges in<br />
the form of regional nationalisms. India, the<br />
nation-state, survived through a process of<br />
continuous reformation, regeneration, and<br />
flexibility in order to win popular favor. While<br />
today’s India is in many ways similar to the<br />
India formed in 1947, modern-day India<br />
would be wise to revisit the multicultural<br />
foundations of the state.<br />
51 Jaffrelot, “Nation-Building and Nationalism.”<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 15
Human Rights<br />
An Overlapping Consensus<br />
Among International Political<br />
Theories?<br />
Brittany Stubbs<br />
J<br />
ack Donnelly’s concept of an “overlapping<br />
consensus” among human rights is often<br />
quoted to explain the notion that modern<br />
human rights represent only those rights<br />
found at the convergence of all cultures,<br />
philosophies, and religions. 52 The same<br />
consensus does not exist among the most<br />
influential political theories in modern history,<br />
however. I first examine different perspectives<br />
on human rights as offered by liberalism,<br />
realism, and Marxism. I find that although<br />
liberalism and realism use human rights to<br />
further their arguments and objectives,<br />
Marxism remains adamantly opposed to the<br />
concept. While Donnelly has discovered an<br />
overlapping consensus for human rights<br />
among cultures, this same consensus cannot<br />
be found within international political theory.<br />
The paper will examine three theories as well<br />
as their popular descendants. These theories<br />
are chosen because they are the most<br />
prominent international political theories.<br />
After thorough examination, one finds that<br />
even among these three theories alone, a<br />
consensus for human rights is unattainable.<br />
THE UNITED NATIONS AND THE<br />
ESTABLISHMENT OF HUMAN RIGHTS<br />
In an immediate response to the<br />
atrocities of the Holocaust and the two world<br />
wars, 51 states committed to international<br />
cooperation and human rights through the<br />
creation of the United Nations. 53 Three years<br />
52 Jack Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in<br />
Theory and Practice, 3rd ed. (Ithaca: Cornell<br />
University Press, 2013), 57-72.<br />
53 "History of the United Nations," United<br />
Nations, accessed April 01, <strong>2016</strong>,<br />
later, the United Nations published the<br />
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To<br />
make the declaration legally binding, the<br />
United Nations produced and adopted two<br />
covenants that together reiterate and expand<br />
on the declaration: the International Covenant<br />
on Civil and Political Rights and the<br />
International Covenant on Economic, Social<br />
and Cultural Rights. Together the Universal<br />
Declaration of Human Rights and the two<br />
covenants form what is known as the<br />
International Bill of Human Rights and<br />
assume the definition of human rights<br />
provided by the United Nations, “Human<br />
rights are rights inherent to all human beings,<br />
whatever our nationality, place of residence,<br />
sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion,<br />
language, or any other status.” 54 The United<br />
Nations Commission on Human Rights was<br />
established by the United Nations in 1946 to<br />
oversee the implementation of human rights. 55<br />
In 2006, the United Nations General<br />
Assembly replaced the commission with the<br />
Human Rights Council and granted the<br />
council greater powers. 56<br />
http://www.un.org/en/sections/history/historyunited-nations/index.html.<br />
The United Nations, Charter of the United<br />
Nations (1945), Chapter 1, Article 1, accessed<br />
November 27, 2015,<br />
http://www.un.org/en/charter-unitednations/index.html.<br />
(Emphasis added.)<br />
54 "What Are Human Rights," United Nations<br />
Human Rights: Office of the High Commissioner<br />
for Human Rights, accessed November 27,<br />
2015,<br />
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Pages/Whatare<br />
HumanRights.aspx.<br />
55 "United Nations Commission On Human<br />
Rights," United Nations Human Rights: Office of<br />
the High Commissioner for Human Rights,<br />
accessed December 02, 2015,<br />
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CHR/Pages/<br />
CommissionOnHumanRights.aspx.<br />
56 "United Nations Human Rights Council,"<br />
United Nations Human Rights: Office of the High<br />
Commissioner for Human Rights, accessed<br />
December 02, 2015,
REALISM<br />
If an overlapping consensus on<br />
human rights can be found in international<br />
political theory, it must include realism.<br />
Realism is arguably one of the oldest and<br />
most foundational international political<br />
theories. Classical Realism emphasizes the<br />
international realm as one of anarchy and<br />
assumes man is immoral and self-interested.<br />
Without the presence of an overarching<br />
sovereign power to reign in the desires of<br />
individual states, these states are assumed to<br />
be in a constant state of war of all, against all.<br />
States survive this brutal arena only through<br />
their own might and alliances with other<br />
states. According to Thucydides, “the strong<br />
do what they have the power to do and the<br />
weak accept what they have to accept.” 57<br />
From the realist perspective, human<br />
rights are the will of strong states imposed<br />
upon weak states. In the 21st century, strong<br />
states are usually considered those states in<br />
the West, the “developed” world, or the<br />
Global North. Whether or not strong states<br />
have, in fact, imposed human rights, or their<br />
version of human rights, on weaker states is<br />
up for debate. However, the Global South has<br />
expressed at times in the Human Rights<br />
Council that this is the case. According to<br />
realism, the only profitable response for weak<br />
states in an international organization is to<br />
form an alliance against stronger states. 58 This<br />
has indeed occurred within the Human Rights<br />
Council. In retaliation to the demands of<br />
strong states in the council, developing states<br />
have partnered together in an organization<br />
aptly named the Like-Minded-Group, a group<br />
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/<br />
AboutCouncil.aspx.<br />
57 Chris Brown, Terry Nardin, and N. J. Rengger,<br />
International Relations in Political Thought:<br />
Texts from the Ancient Greeks to the First World<br />
War, Kindle ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge<br />
University Press, 2002), 54.<br />
58 Rosa Freedman, The United Nations Human<br />
Rights Council: A Critique and Early<br />
Assessment (London: Rutledge, 2013), 90.<br />
that decries the imperialism within the<br />
International Bill of Human Rights as well as<br />
in administration of the Human Rights<br />
Council. 59 Rosa Freedman, author of The<br />
United Nations Human Rights Council: A Critique<br />
and Early Assessment, says of the Human Rights<br />
Council (HRC), “Surprisingly, weaker states<br />
have thus far politicized the HRC more<br />
frequently than stronger states. Weaker states,<br />
predominantly from the Global South, form<br />
alliances and use group tactics, such as bloc<br />
voting, to further common agendas.” 60 This<br />
does not, of course, mean that weaker states<br />
have been able to completely counteract the<br />
will of stronger states, only that the weaker<br />
states have used such alliances to express<br />
themselves in the council.<br />
Unlike its parent, neorealism does not<br />
take into consideration human nature. Instead<br />
neorealism focuses on how the structure of<br />
the international realm can impact sovereign<br />
behaviour. In neorealism, the international<br />
arena is again one of anarchy. Without a<br />
world government, there is no higher power<br />
to enforce safety or guarantee protection. For<br />
this reason, states must be powerful enough<br />
to protect themselves; there is no<br />
consideration of cultural differences. 61<br />
Neo-realism argues the stronger the<br />
state, the less vulnerable the state is in the<br />
international arena. 62 This is arguably true<br />
regarding the Human Rights Council as well.<br />
While Donnelly argues that “states are<br />
legitimate largely to the extent that they<br />
respect, protect, and implement the rights of<br />
their citizens,” a neorealist would argue that<br />
the more powerful a state is, the less likely<br />
59 Ibid, 30, 32.<br />
60 Ibid, 120-121.<br />
61 Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki, and Steve<br />
Smith, International Relations Theories:<br />
Discipline and Diversity (New York: Oxford<br />
University Press, 2007), 72.<br />
62 Huseyn Aliyev, "Neo-Realism and<br />
Humanitarian Action: From Cold War to Our<br />
Days," The Journal of Humanitarian Assistance,<br />
May 16, 2011, accessed December 01, 2015,<br />
https://sites.tufts.edu/jha/archives/1173.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 17
weaker states will successfully reprimand the<br />
state on its human rights violations. 63 Many<br />
argue that the death penalty, the treatment of<br />
Native American and other minority<br />
populations, and the use of torture in<br />
Guantanamo Bay are all examples of<br />
violations of human rights committed by the<br />
United States. Yet in not one of these cases<br />
has serious international action been taken<br />
against the United States. China’s use of force<br />
in Tibet as well as Russia’s human rights<br />
violations in Chechnya and the North<br />
Caucasus are further examples of human<br />
rights violations committed by strong states<br />
with little to no repercussion. 64<br />
Neorealism further argues that states<br />
must gain power to protect and defend<br />
themselves against other states. It follows<br />
then that states would attempt to secure this<br />
power through the implementation and<br />
protection of human rights. Since the fall of<br />
the Soviet Union, strong states use the banner<br />
of human rights to justify humanitarian<br />
intervention. A neorealist would argue that a<br />
state does not engage in humanitarian<br />
intervention for the sake of human rights<br />
alone. Instead, a state would require further<br />
motivations to intervene. It could be argued,<br />
for instance, that humanitarian intervention<br />
was not undertaken during the Rwandan<br />
genocide of 1994, despite gross human rights<br />
violations. In 2013, humanitarian intervention<br />
was avoided during the onset of the genocide<br />
in Darfur, in part because there was little for<br />
states to gain from engaging in this conflict. 65<br />
LIBERALISM<br />
In the same way that realism<br />
encourages the implementation of human<br />
rights, so too does liberalism. In comparison<br />
to realism, however, the influence of<br />
liberalism on human rights is more direct.<br />
63 Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory<br />
and Practice, 62.<br />
64 Aliyev, “Neo-Realism and Humanitarian<br />
Action: From Cold War to Our Days.”<br />
65 Ibid.<br />
While liberalism also believes that man is selfinterested<br />
and concludes that the international<br />
realm is a dangerous place, liberalism<br />
emphasizes optimism and the possibility of<br />
international cooperation through<br />
international organizations and international<br />
law. Very simply expressed by Jack Snyder of<br />
Foreign Policy, “[liberals] foresee a slow but<br />
inexorable journey away from the anarchic<br />
world the realists envision, as trade and<br />
finance forge ties between nations, and<br />
democratic norms spread.” 66 Liberals who<br />
maintain democratic peace theory carry the<br />
expectation that democratic states will not go<br />
to war and instead assume that any conflict<br />
among democratic states will be resolved<br />
using peaceful diplomatic relations. 67 While<br />
democratic peace theory is not a required<br />
belief of all liberals, it is probably the “the<br />
most significant and also most politically<br />
influential version of liberalism in<br />
International Relations.” 68 One such example<br />
of liberal optimism is the famous “Golden<br />
Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention,” a<br />
theory developed by Thomas Friedman in<br />
1996 that states that "no two countries that<br />
both have a McDonald’s have ever fought a<br />
war against each other" (though this theory<br />
has since been disproven). 69 The creation of<br />
the United Nations, and the League of<br />
Nations before it, are both products of<br />
66 Jack Snyder, “One World, Rival Theories,”<br />
Foreign Policy, October 26, 2009, accessed<br />
December 2, 2015,<br />
http://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/26/one-worldrival-theories/.<br />
67 Snyder, “One World, Rival Theories”;<br />
Dunne, Kurki, and Smith, International Relations<br />
Theories: Discipline and Diversity, 97.<br />
68 Dunne, Kurki, and Smith, International<br />
Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity, 96.<br />
69 Daniel W. Drezner, "Is It Even Possible to Kill<br />
an International Relations Theory?," Foreign<br />
Policy Is It Even Possible to Kill an International<br />
Relations Theory Comments, July 28, 2011,<br />
accessed April 05, <strong>2016</strong>,<br />
http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/07/28/is-it-evenpossible-to-kill-an-international-relations-theory/.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 18
international liberalism and a belief in the<br />
power of diplomacy.<br />
Neoliberalism, while very similar to<br />
liberalism, focuses more so on institutions and<br />
organizations in the international realm. 70<br />
Neoliberals acknowledge that there is not a<br />
world government to enforce international<br />
agreements. International organizations are<br />
highly valued in neoliberalism because they<br />
provide “forums in which states can mitigate<br />
collective-action problems that threaten stable<br />
patterns of cooperation.” 71 International<br />
organizations, within this theory, monitor<br />
compliance with international agreements,<br />
promote international cooperation, and<br />
encourage peaceable conflict resolution. 72<br />
Liberalism and neoliberalism, as<br />
opposed to realism, do not accept that human<br />
rights are the will of the strong imposed upon<br />
the weak. Instead, liberal and neoliberals are<br />
more optimistic. “Governments accept<br />
binding international human rights norms<br />
because they are swayed by the overpowering<br />
ideological and normative appeal of the values<br />
that underlie them,” argues Andrew<br />
Moravcsik of Princeton University. 73 Jack<br />
Donnelly’s “overlapping consensus” varies<br />
slightly from Moravcsik’s but offers an equally<br />
liberal approach: human rights are never an<br />
imposition; they are instead the set of rights<br />
shared by all major cultures, philosophies, and<br />
religions. 74 In regards to the slow liberal<br />
progression away from anarchy, human rights<br />
serve the purposes of liberalism and<br />
neoliberalism by creating norms of state<br />
behaviour. In both, states have an incentive to<br />
participate in international human rights<br />
instruments, even when required to sacrifice<br />
70 Dunne, Kurki, and Smith, International<br />
Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity,110.<br />
71 Ibid, 111.<br />
72 Ibid.<br />
73 Moravcsik, “The Origins of Human Rights<br />
Regimes: Democratic Delegation in Postwar<br />
Europe,” 225-229.<br />
74 Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory<br />
and Practice, 57-72.<br />
an amount of sovereignty for the sake of<br />
human rights. Democratic peace theory<br />
concludes that established democracies have<br />
an incentive to promote human rights to<br />
newly formed democracies, and newly formed<br />
democracies have an incentive to implement<br />
human rights domestically, if only so that<br />
both parties avoid war with one another. 75<br />
While the International Bill of Human Rights<br />
does not explicitly demand democracy, it<br />
requires a government with free elections and<br />
universal suffrage: “the will of the people shall<br />
be the basis of the authority of government;<br />
this will shall be expressed in periodic and<br />
genuine elections which shall be by universal<br />
and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret<br />
vote or by equivalent free voting<br />
procedures.” 76<br />
MARXISM<br />
Though both realism and liberalism<br />
promote the implementation of human rights,<br />
Marx (and therefore Marxism) stands strongly<br />
opposed. Marxism is the international political<br />
theory that refuses a political consensus<br />
regarding human rights. Karl Marx himself<br />
directly addressed the “rights of man” in his<br />
works. However, a distinction must first be<br />
made between the “rights of man”, as<br />
discussed by Karl Marx, and the concept of<br />
human rights today.<br />
The subject of Marx’s critiques are the<br />
rights provided by the French Constitution of<br />
1793, more specifically, the right to “liberty,<br />
equality, and private ownership.” 77 The<br />
75 Moravcsik, “The Origins of Human Rights<br />
Regimes: Democratic Delegation in Postwar<br />
Europe,” 225-229.<br />
76 The United Nations, The Universal<br />
Declaration of Human Rights (1948), Article 21,<br />
accessed December 01, 2015,<br />
http://www.un.org/en/universal-declarationhuman-rights/index.html.<br />
77 Marcel Van Herpen, Marx and Human Rights:<br />
Analysis of an Ambivalent Relationship, 07th<br />
ed., vol. 12, Cicero Foundation Great Debate<br />
Paper (Paris/Maastricht: Cicero Foundation,<br />
2012), pg. 8,<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 19
constitution granted equality to all men,<br />
universal manhood suffrage, and abolished<br />
slavery. 78 These “rights of man” were a<br />
contributing factor in the progression towards<br />
human rights. Modern human rights,<br />
however, are far more broad and inclusive.<br />
The human rights of the International Bill of<br />
Human Rights guarantees the rights listed to<br />
all individuals “without distinction of any<br />
kind” and include political rights, civic rights,<br />
economic rights, social rights, and cultural<br />
rights. These include, but are certainly not<br />
limited to, the right to religious freedom, the<br />
right to education (including free, compulsory<br />
primary education), and the right to just and<br />
favourable conditions of work. 79<br />
Karl Marx’s criticisms of the rights of<br />
man are rooted in his belief that the rights of<br />
man are dependent upon the concept of civil<br />
society. According to Marx, there are two<br />
worlds: a political state and a civil society. 80 In<br />
the political state, man “considers himself a<br />
communal being.” In comparison, in civil<br />
society, man acts as “a private individual,<br />
regards other men as a means, degrades<br />
himself into a means, and becomes the<br />
plaything of alien powers.” 81 Marx views the<br />
http://www.cicerofoundation.org/lectures/Marcel_<br />
H_Van_Herpen_Marx_and_Human_Rights.pdf.<br />
78 “Constitution of 1793,” Liberty, Equality, and<br />
Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution,<br />
accessed November 25, 2015,<br />
https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/430/.<br />
79 The United Nations, Human Rights Office of<br />
the High Commissioner, International Covenant<br />
on Civil and Political Rights (1966), Article 18,<br />
accessed December 3, 2015,<br />
http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pag<br />
es/ccpr.aspx.<br />
The United Nations, Human Rights Office of the<br />
High Commissioner, International Covenant on<br />
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966),<br />
Article 7 and 13, accessed December 3, 2015,<br />
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pa<br />
ges/CESCR.aspx.<br />
80 Van Herpen, Marx and Human Rights:<br />
Analysis of an Ambivalent Relationship, 8.<br />
81 Karl Marx, “On The Jewish Question,” On the<br />
Jewish Question, Autumn 1843, accessed<br />
rights of man afforded by the French<br />
Constitution of 1793 as the response to the<br />
degradation of French civil society. 82 As such,<br />
Marx views the rights of man as “nothing but<br />
the rights of a member of civil society – i.e.,<br />
the rights of egoistic man, of man separated<br />
from other men and from the community.” 83<br />
The rights of man, then, cause man to pursue<br />
his own selfish interests, separate man from<br />
his community, and therefore alienate man<br />
from his natural self. 84<br />
The rights of man as defined by<br />
France in 1793 are not direct equivalents to<br />
modern human rights. There is just reason to<br />
believe, though, that Marx would also criticize<br />
human rights as established and enforced by<br />
the United Nations. The very creation of the<br />
United Nations and the subsequent Universal<br />
Declaration of Human Rights was a direct<br />
reaction to the horrors of the Holocaust, just<br />
like that French Constitution of 1793 was a<br />
response to the degradation of French civil<br />
society. 85 Marx would therefore also view<br />
modern human rights as a method of<br />
alienating individuals from one another. To<br />
further prove this point, it should be noted<br />
that in the International Bill of Human Rights,<br />
human rights are granted to individuals rather<br />
than collectives (with the sole exception of the<br />
group right to self-determination).<br />
Furthermore, human rights are the<br />
product of sovereign deliberation rather than<br />
the demands of the masses. The United<br />
Nations, when contemplating the Universal<br />
Declaration of Human Rights, used as<br />
inspiration the rights afforded by often<br />
western constitutions. As a result, the<br />
demands of western citizens in their<br />
November 25, 2015,<br />
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/18<br />
44/jewish-question/.<br />
82 Van Herpen, Marx and Human Rights:<br />
Analysis of an Ambivalent Relationship.<br />
83 Marx, “On The Jewish Question.”<br />
84 Van Herpen, Marx and Human Rights:<br />
Analysis of an Ambivalent Relationship<br />
85 Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory<br />
and Practice, 25.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 20
espective states (including, but not limited to,<br />
the United States, the United Kingdom, and<br />
France) for inalienable rights were<br />
subsequently coded into international law and<br />
made binding on states party to the two<br />
human rights covenants. There is an argument<br />
that “human rights” are, if not an invention of<br />
the West, at the very least defined by western<br />
ideals. In this light, human rights cannot be<br />
the product of the revolution of the working<br />
class or even to the benefit of the masses.<br />
According to Marxist theory, human rights are<br />
used by the arguably bourgeois states (the<br />
West), to enforce western civilization on the<br />
proletariat states (the Global South).<br />
CONCLUSIONS<br />
The question remains, then, whether<br />
or not there exists an overlapping consensus<br />
among international political theories and<br />
their interpretations of human rights. Not all<br />
international political theories were examined<br />
within this essay, yet even amongst these few<br />
theories, there is not an overlapping<br />
consensus in favour of human rights. Realism<br />
and liberalism each have reasons to favour the<br />
identification and implementation of human<br />
rights, though for different reasons. Realism<br />
favours human rights as a tool for strong<br />
states to gain power in an anarchical world.<br />
Liberalism perceives human rights as both the<br />
evidence of international cooperation and a<br />
mechanism towards international cooperation.<br />
Despite these fundamental differences, the<br />
two theories offer optimistic perspectives on<br />
the benefits of human rights instruments.<br />
An overlapping consensus in<br />
international political theory cannot be<br />
justified if Marxism is included in the analysis.<br />
Marx’s opposition towards the rights of man<br />
can be directly applied to Marxist<br />
interpretations of the modern human rights<br />
regime. Marxism refuses to accommodate<br />
human rights. According to Marx, human<br />
rights encourage men to pursue selfish<br />
interests and alienate one man from one<br />
another. Marxism, as opposed to realism and<br />
liberalism, does not focus on the state.<br />
Instead, Marx’s attention is set on the<br />
individual and his relationship with the<br />
community. In Marxist theory, rights prevent<br />
community and therefore must be avoided.<br />
Instead, Marx believes that collectively, the<br />
working class should institute a new world<br />
order. Individual rights, according to Marx,<br />
only serve to patch up the holes in a failing<br />
system. A new world order, established by a<br />
revolution of the working class in Marxist<br />
fashion, would favour the working class and<br />
encourage community among men.<br />
While Jack Donnelly may argue that<br />
there is an overlapping consensus on human<br />
rights in regards to cultures, philosophies, and<br />
religions, there is not an overlapping<br />
consensus in international political theory.<br />
Marxism, as it was originally intended by Karl<br />
Marx, is far too opposed to the concept of<br />
individual rights. Both realism and liberalism,<br />
however, are in agreement regarding the<br />
potential benefits of human rights. Although<br />
Marxism strongly protests human rights, this<br />
opposition seems to have done little to harm<br />
the human rights regime altogether.<br />
Proponents of Marxism have certainly failed<br />
to abolish the human rights regime outright.<br />
Despite this lack of consensus, human rights<br />
enjoy near universal approval. Where states<br />
vary, however, is in their application and<br />
enforcement of human rights depending, in<br />
part, on their school of international political<br />
thought.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 21
Regime Type and Civil<br />
War Susceptibility<br />
The Case of Tanzania and<br />
Mozambique<br />
Mark Sizwebanzi Mngomezulu<br />
S<br />
ome literature on civil war has described<br />
specific authoritarian regime types as<br />
more susceptible to civil war onset than<br />
others. It is argued that certain institutional<br />
configurations of some of these regimes<br />
present more opportunity to rebel, whereas<br />
others can keep in check the opportunity to<br />
rebel. Of all the authoritarian regimes<br />
mentioned by Gurses and Mason 86 , for<br />
example, single party regimes are considered<br />
least vulnerable to civil war because of their<br />
ability to monopolize power and the political<br />
space in a country. Against this backdrop,<br />
this paper seeks to answer the question: why<br />
has the single party state in Mozambique<br />
experienced a civil war, while that of Tanzania<br />
has not?<br />
Mozambique and Tanzania are one of<br />
the few countries in Africa that openly<br />
pursued socialist strategies after independence<br />
with power largely concentrated on the ruling<br />
parties—Frente de Libertação de<br />
Moçambique (FRELIMO) and the<br />
Tanganyika African National Union (TANU,<br />
now known as Chama Cha Mapinduzi),<br />
respectively. Also both parties have remained<br />
in power to this day.<br />
The paper argues that the relative<br />
strength of the Tanganyika African National<br />
Union’s (TANU) structures in Tanzania, the<br />
less significance of foreign intervention in the<br />
post-independence politics, and the lack of<br />
colonial violence preceding independence<br />
86 Mehmet Gurses and T. David Mason. “Weak<br />
States, Regime Types, and Civil War,” Civil<br />
Wars 12, no. 1 (2010), 140 – 155.<br />
accounted for its ability to avoid civil war.<br />
Whereas in Mozambique, the weakness of<br />
FRELIMO’s bureaucratic structures, the high<br />
level of foreign intervention in the country’s<br />
post-colonial politics and the high level of<br />
violence preceding independence increased<br />
the country’s chance of being mired in civil<br />
war after independence.<br />
The structure of the paper is as<br />
follows: I begin with a brief survey of the<br />
literature on authoritarian regimes, with a<br />
specific focus on the single party variant and<br />
its manifestation in post-colonial Africa. A<br />
methodology section follows that provides<br />
key operational definitions of concepts and<br />
establish theoretical parameters for the<br />
argument, then the detailed case studies of<br />
Mozambique and Tanzania. The discussion<br />
section will then synthesize the findings in<br />
both cases as uncovered by the explanatory<br />
model, and take stock of other possible rival<br />
explanations. Lastly, the conclusion section<br />
will reiterate main points and discuss the<br />
implications of the study.<br />
LITERATURE REVIEW<br />
Political regimes are defined by<br />
Bratton and van de Walle as, “sets of formal<br />
procedures…that determine distribution of<br />
power. These rules describe who may engage<br />
in power and how.” 87 In theory, democratic<br />
regimes have political platforms open to a<br />
wider range of interests than authoritarian<br />
regimes. Pointedly, Geddes classifies regimes<br />
as “authoritarian if opposition parties have<br />
been banned or subjected to serious<br />
harassment or institutional disadvantage, or if<br />
the ruling party has never lost control of the<br />
executive and has controlled at least two-<br />
87 Bratton, M and Van de Walle, Democratic<br />
Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in<br />
Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University<br />
Press, London, 1997), 93.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 22
thirds of legislative seats in all elections.” 88<br />
However, authoritarian regimes also differ to<br />
the extent in which the political platform is<br />
open to opposition. Some disproportionately<br />
rely on brute force to curb opposition politics,<br />
while others balance force and other soft<br />
methods of rule. Consequently, authoritarian<br />
regime configuration affects its ability to avoid<br />
civil war.<br />
Geddes develops a typology that<br />
differentiates regimes into personalist,<br />
military, single party regimes and hybrid<br />
regimes. 89 Of these, personalist regimes—<br />
where a leader has concentrated political<br />
power on himself or herself at the expense of<br />
institutions—are the most vulnerable to civil<br />
wars, whereas single party regimes are least<br />
vulnerable. The single party regime can be<br />
loosely defined as a regime that proscribes the<br />
legal operation of opposition parties. This is<br />
different from dominant party systems where<br />
opposition may legally operate but be unable<br />
to ascend to power. 90<br />
Single party regimes are seen as least<br />
vulnerable to civil war because the states’<br />
disproportionate amount of power allows it to<br />
deal harshly with opposition at its nascent<br />
stage. 91 This regime also attempts to strike a<br />
balance between the main interests of the<br />
ruling clique, namely to remain in power, and<br />
to provide outlets for political expression<br />
which are not harmful to its overall survival.<br />
As a general rule, an increased reliance on<br />
violence signifies a failure in that balance of<br />
88 Barbara Geddes, Paradigms and Castles:<br />
Theory Building and Research Design In<br />
Comparative Politics (University of Michigan,<br />
Ann Arbor, 2003), 71.<br />
89 Ibid.,71 – 77.<br />
90 Beatriz Magaloni and Ruth Krichel. “Political<br />
Order and One-Party Rule,” Annual Review of<br />
Political Science, 13 (2010),123–143.<br />
91 Mehmet Gurses and T. David Mason. “Weak<br />
States, Regime Types, and Civil War,” Civil<br />
Wars 12, no. 1 (2010),141.<br />
interests. Civil war becomes a culmination of<br />
that failure.<br />
It is also argued that the resilience of<br />
the single party state stems from the<br />
constraints that elites face in the initial stages<br />
of the formation of the party. Facing stiff<br />
opposition from other organizations vying for<br />
power may propel an organization to mobilize<br />
on a broad basis. However, faced with weaker<br />
constraints, the party may form elite coalitions<br />
instead of tapping into an inclusive peoplecentered<br />
constituency. 92 In short, the power<br />
base of a single party is of utmost importance<br />
to its survival.<br />
The foregoing argument is important<br />
because it suggests that the single party’s<br />
longevity is not necessarily connected with the<br />
single party per se, but that its internal<br />
mechanics play a significant role in its<br />
survival. This distinction is of essence since<br />
these regimes have shown different levels of<br />
longevity and ability to avoid civil war. This<br />
theory has substantial explanatory power as<br />
we examine FRELIMO’s and TANU’s<br />
organizational origins in the case study<br />
section. If the institutional base on which a<br />
specific single party forms itself is firm, it can<br />
increase its ability to co-opt rivals, further<br />
weakening opposition. 93<br />
The single party regime in the early<br />
post-independence years in most African<br />
countries was justified as the only way of<br />
carrying out the common good—that is<br />
broad-based development for the benefit of<br />
all. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana was one of its<br />
notable proponents. 94 Indeed most<br />
92 Benjamin Smith. “Life of the Party. The Origins<br />
of Regime Breakdown and the Persistence of<br />
Single-Party Rule.” World Politics. 57 (2005),<br />
422.<br />
93 Jason Brownlee, Authoritarianism in an Age of<br />
Democratization. Cambridge: (Cambridge<br />
University Press: Cambridge, 2007), 33.<br />
94 See: Kwame Nkrumah, I Speak of Freedom: A<br />
Statement of African Ideology (Oxford University<br />
Press, London, 1962),117.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 23
independence leaders saw opposition parties<br />
as divisive and hurtful to the development<br />
process of countries. 95 And it was on this<br />
basis that many single-party states ascended to<br />
power in Africa.<br />
However, others have criticized the<br />
idea espoused by these leaders and other<br />
scholars that single party regimes are more<br />
stable than other types of regimes. They argue<br />
that the stifling of opposition and other<br />
political freedoms especially in de jure singleparty<br />
regimes might sow the seeds of its own<br />
destruction. This is because a zero-sum game<br />
of politics arises which only presents violence<br />
as the only option to voice political opinion. 96<br />
If the law stipulates that opposition is banned,<br />
then violence is the only viable option. Others<br />
have suggested that in practice, the one-party<br />
state in Africa was able to stem destabilizing<br />
separatist causes that are often the political<br />
ticket of opposition. 97 Thus, this view has<br />
insisted on the utility of this regime type<br />
especially in political environments<br />
characterized by diversity. Yet even then, the<br />
record of this regime type in Africa has been<br />
far more ambiguous. How does one account<br />
for the overthrow of some of the earliest<br />
single-party regimes such as Nkrumah’s<br />
Convention People’s Party (CPP) in 1966, and<br />
the resilience of other such as that of<br />
Tanzania?<br />
Against this backdrop, this paper<br />
tackles the puzzle of occurrence of civil war in<br />
some single-party regimes in Africa and not in<br />
others. Focusing on Mozambique and<br />
Tanzania, it argues that the relative stability of<br />
a single party regime hinges on the strength of<br />
the party’s structures, the role of foreign<br />
intervention in the post-independence<br />
95 Benyamin Neuberger, “Has the Single Party<br />
Failed in Africa?” African Studies Review. 17,<br />
no. 1 (1974), 173.<br />
96 Ibid, 174 - 175.<br />
97 Ibid, 174 – 175.<br />
domestic politics of a country, and colonial<br />
violence preceding independence.<br />
METHODOLOGY<br />
Operationalized definitions of the<br />
above independent variables are as follows:<br />
firstly, “strength of the party’s structures”<br />
refers to the extent to which the party can<br />
marshal support country-wide. The<br />
understanding is that the more it has support<br />
throughout the country the less chance for<br />
rebellion against it, and less risk of civil war.<br />
This is because the ruling party aims to<br />
dominate the political space, leaving little or<br />
no room for opposition to operate. Secondly<br />
the role of foreign intervention in the postindependence<br />
domestic politics of a country<br />
refers to the extent to which foreign<br />
governments support, through finances and<br />
armaments, opposition groups in that country.<br />
Lastly, “colonial violence preceding<br />
independence” refers to the intensity of<br />
fighting among different groups vying for<br />
power, five to ten years before independence,<br />
so that higher levels of fighting in this<br />
stipulated period presents a greater chance of<br />
fighting in the newly-emergent order.<br />
This is a small-N comparative study<br />
that mainly relies on qualitative data and the<br />
comparative historical approach. To that end,<br />
it focuses on mid-level theorizing using Mill’s<br />
method of difference—similar origins,<br />
different outcomes—to answer how countries<br />
of similar regime types have had different<br />
results vis-à-vis civil war vulnerability. Both<br />
Mozambique and Tanzania 98 were ruled by<br />
colonial authorities; the Portuguese and the<br />
98 This case study excludes the island of<br />
Zanzibar in the analysis of Tanzania, and<br />
focuses on the mainland—Tanganyika. This is<br />
because Zanzibar has had a slightly different<br />
political experience stemming from Oman<br />
sultanate rule that precedes any other Western<br />
colonial power. That makes it almost a separate<br />
case.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 24
British prior to their independence in 1975<br />
and 1961, respectively. Both states had ruling<br />
parties that pursued variants of socialist<br />
policies and were ruled, de facto, (and later de<br />
jure) by single party regimes.<br />
It traces the set of causal processes<br />
operationalized above to account for the<br />
difference—civil war in one case<br />
(Mozambique) and non-occurrence in the<br />
other (Tanzania). The period to be focused on<br />
is post-independence up to the early 1990s,<br />
the latter date demarcating roughly when both<br />
states opened the political platform to other<br />
parties.<br />
Conceptually, civil war is understood<br />
using Small’s and Singer’s definition: “any<br />
armed conflict that involves a) military action<br />
internal to the metropole, b) the active<br />
participation of the national government, and<br />
c) effective resistance by both sides” 99 … “and<br />
state violence should be sustained and<br />
reciprocated and that the war exceeds a<br />
certain threshold of deaths (typically more<br />
than 1,000)” 100 This is the most commonly<br />
accepted definition of civil war by scholars<br />
and policy organizations.<br />
MOZAMBIQUE: COLONIALISM AND VIOLENCE.<br />
Portuguese presence in Mozambique<br />
dates circa 1498, and had been mainly limited<br />
to the coastlines. From this period up the<br />
1800s, the Portuguese faced stiff opposition<br />
to their attempt to control many parts of the<br />
country, especially, the inland. Physical<br />
confrontation and “diplomacy” were part of<br />
the strategies African polities used in resisting<br />
99 Melvin Small and David Singer, Resort to<br />
Arms: International and civil war, 1816 -1992<br />
(Cage, Beverly Hills, 1982), 210.<br />
100 Nicholas Sambanis. “What Is Civil War?<br />
Conceptual and Empirical Complexities of an<br />
Operational Definition. The Journal of Conflict<br />
Resolution 48, no. 6 (2004), 816.<br />
colonial occupation. 101 The Ngoni ethnic<br />
group from the south waged one of the<br />
earliest notable wars against the Portuguese in<br />
1895, and were eventually vanquished. 102 The<br />
Correlates of War Project has coded this<br />
episode as the “Portuguese Gaza Empire War<br />
of 1895”; an extra-state war. 103<br />
This defeat signaled the growing<br />
power of Portugal, which by the start of the<br />
20 th century had spread all over southern<br />
Mozambique. 104 The growing power of<br />
Portugal in the country was accompanied by<br />
forced conscriptions of indigenous people<br />
into workforces and stringent tax<br />
requirements on a level hitherto unknown<br />
amongst the people, which resulted in a<br />
growing resentment towards the authorities.<br />
The rise of the António de Oliveira Salazar<br />
regime in Portugal in 1932, further centralized<br />
the colonial structures in a bid to facilitate<br />
easier resource extraction to the benefit of the<br />
Portuguese economy. 105 Even in this early<br />
period, there were daily resistances of colonial<br />
authorities. Yet they remained sporadic and<br />
uncoordinated. These resistances were largely<br />
organized along lines of regions, ethnic<br />
groups, and specific production sectors. These<br />
divisions were also one of the biggest issues<br />
that FRELIMO faced even after<br />
independence. This problem that partly<br />
101 Barry Munslow, Mozambique: the Revolution<br />
and its Origins (Longman, New York, 1983), 53.<br />
102 Ibid, 53.<br />
103<br />
“An extra-state war involves fighting by a<br />
state system member outside its borders against<br />
the armed forces of an entity that is not a<br />
member of the interstate system.” See; Meredith<br />
and Wayman, Resort to War: 1816 – 2007 (Q.C<br />
Press, Washington D.C, 2010) Available:<br />
http://www.correlatesofwar.org/data-sets/COWwar.<br />
104 Allen Isaacman and Barbara Isaacman,<br />
Mozambique: From Colonialism to Revolution,<br />
1900 – 1982 (Westview Press, Colorado, 1983),<br />
27.<br />
105 Ibid, 27.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 25
enabled the operation of its arch-rival<br />
RENAMO after independence.<br />
The systematic brutality of the<br />
Portuguese colonial regime against natives<br />
became the rallying cry of the nascent<br />
nationalist movement from the 1930s<br />
onwards. At the front of this new wave of<br />
resistance were the so-called assimilado. 106 This<br />
group, with the help of the little education<br />
they had received, began to question the<br />
contradictions and double standards of the<br />
colonial state. They detested their separation<br />
from ninety-nine per cent of the population<br />
who were not educated. This was a classic<br />
strategy the colonial authorities had devised to<br />
bar any form of dialogue between the<br />
educated and the uneducated, the former who<br />
were mostly in urban areas and the latter in<br />
rural areas. 107 Standing against this division,<br />
early nationalism was born in Mozambique at<br />
the core of which were the mestizo 108 and<br />
assimilado.<br />
Organizationally, the nationalist<br />
movement first manifested itself in three<br />
groups: “UDENAMO (National Democratic<br />
Union of Mozambique), MANU (the<br />
Mozambican-Makonde Union), and UNAMI<br />
(National African Union of Independent<br />
106 The assimilado were an “indigenous pettybourgeoisie…<br />
(constituting) a tiny minority of the<br />
wider African population. To become an<br />
assimilado one had to fulfil certain legal criteria.<br />
One had to swear loyalty to the colonial state,<br />
speak only Portuguese at home, adopt<br />
‘European’ habits, abandon ‘heathen’ beliefs<br />
and have a Portuguese official vouch for their<br />
character.” See: Sumich and Honwana, ‘Strong<br />
Party, Weak States: Frelimo and State Survival<br />
through the Mozambican Civil War: An Analytical<br />
Narrative on State-making Crisis States<br />
Research Centre (2007), 6.<br />
107 Funada-Classen Sayaka, Origins of War in<br />
Mozambique, A History of Unity and Division<br />
(ZAF, Cape Town, 2013) at 145.<br />
108 Mestizo are generally those who were a<br />
mixture of Portuguese and Bantu/black<br />
parentage.<br />
Mozambique).” 109 However, these groups<br />
had narrow interests that reflected ethnic and<br />
regional biases and this hindered their<br />
mobilization capacities. Later, with<br />
negotiations brokered in Tanzania by Julius<br />
Nyerere, these organizations reluctantly<br />
agreed to form a united movement against the<br />
Portuguese colonial authorities. So in 25 June<br />
1964, FRELIMO was born “under the<br />
leadership of Dr. Eduardo Mondlane.” 110<br />
Evidently, from the beginning the structure of<br />
FRELIMO was rather rickety; a compromise<br />
necessitated by the desire to be rid of a<br />
common enemy.<br />
After a long debate on the modus<br />
operandi of the new movement—centering<br />
on the use of armed resistance or peaceful<br />
demonstration—coupled with a series of<br />
failed negotiation attempts with the<br />
Portuguese government, FRELIMO finally<br />
launched an armed struggle against the<br />
colonial authorities after September 1964.<br />
“Groups had already been sent for training in<br />
Algeria soon after (the party’s) first<br />
congress.” 111 Thus, “in the dead of the night<br />
on 25 September 1964, FRELIMO soldiers,<br />
with logistical assistance from surrounding<br />
population, attacked the Portuguese<br />
administrative post at Chai in Cabo Delgado<br />
Province…and the guerillas were able to<br />
damage the post and kill one policeman and<br />
wound several.” 112<br />
This attack set off a chain of events in<br />
which the Portuguese government hunted<br />
down the insurgency’s network and arrested<br />
109 Allen Isaacman and Barbara Isaacman,<br />
Mozambique: From Colonialism to Revolution,<br />
1900 – 1982 (Westview Press, Colorado, 1983),<br />
80-81.<br />
110 Ibid, 81.<br />
111 Barry Munslow, Mozambique: the Revolution<br />
and its Origins (Longman, New York, 1983) at<br />
84.<br />
112 Isaacman and Isaacman, Mozambique, 84.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 26
about 1500 FRELIMO sympathizers. 113 The<br />
colonial authorities tried to limit FRELIMO’s<br />
advances by “relocating peasants to strategic<br />
hamlets” and heavily patrolling the “Tanzania<br />
and Malawian borders,” where the insurgents<br />
were most active. 114 Among the most brutal<br />
strategies of counter-insurgency was the<br />
resettlement of peasants in new villages<br />
encircled with barbed wire. It became clear<br />
that the war would last for a long time. In<br />
1965, Salazar allowed for the repatriation of<br />
foreign capital out of Mozambique at 100 per<br />
cent rate, a policy that had lasting<br />
ramifications on the Mozambican economy.<br />
He also increased cooperation with NATO<br />
and the white minority regimes of South<br />
Africa and Rhodesia, and increased the<br />
number of Portuguese forces to fight the<br />
guerillas in the country. 115<br />
After long years of intense fighting,<br />
resulting in the growth of liberated zones<br />
under FRELIMO, coupled with the military<br />
coup in Portugal that toppled the Salazar<br />
dictatorship, FRELIMO gained power in<br />
September 20 1974. 116 The war resulted in<br />
“more than 33,000 casualties.” 117 It was in<br />
this context of a violent pre-independence<br />
struggle that the party came to power in 1975.<br />
With the defeat of the common enemy, its<br />
unity and exclusive rule in the country was to<br />
face major challenges.<br />
FORMATION OF FRELIMO: A COMPROMISE<br />
Although FRELIMO had managed to<br />
wage a successful war of independence, “its<br />
early years (1962 – 1989) were filled with<br />
113 Munslow, Mozambique, 87.<br />
114 Isaacman and Isaacman, Mozambique, 100.<br />
115 Munslow, Mozambique, 87.<br />
116 Isaacman and Isaacman, Mozambique, 106.<br />
117<br />
Data Appendix for Monica Duffy Toft,<br />
Securing the Peace: The Durable Settlement of<br />
Civil Wars (Princeton University Press, 2010).<br />
https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/sites/www.bsg.ox.ac.u<br />
k/files/documents/MTcodebook2010_0.pdf<br />
factionalism and purges.” 118 This had a lasting<br />
impact on the popularity of the party and its<br />
structures countrywide. Because the ruling<br />
elites came from the north and south of the<br />
country, the vacuum left at the center was<br />
capitalized upon by those who lost out in the<br />
early power struggles within FRELIMO, and<br />
this region became the stronghold of rebelarmed<br />
factions. 119 Crucially, other scholars<br />
have suggested that the factionalism that<br />
bedeviled FRELIMO at its early stages did<br />
not necessarily revolve so much around<br />
ethnicity, as it did around the strategy to be<br />
used in confronting the colonial government.<br />
Some supported negotiation with Portuguese<br />
authorities, and other cited the violence of the<br />
regime as evidence that it would not<br />
relinquish power peacefully. 120 Indeed those<br />
of the latter opinion were to be proven right<br />
when in 1961 colonial military forces were<br />
increased from 3,000 to 12,000.” 121<br />
The faction that supported armed<br />
struggle dominated the executive committee<br />
of the party and was able to push the agenda<br />
of armed struggle with began in earnest in<br />
1974. 122 Those who had lost out formed<br />
splinter groups which severely threatened<br />
FRELIMO’s grip over the country after<br />
independence. As the armed struggle<br />
continued, the party faced another internal<br />
crisis relating to the administration of<br />
liberated zones, “military strategy and tactics<br />
to be pursued, the emancipation of women,<br />
education and the very definition of the<br />
enemy.” 123 Here we see that even in the early<br />
118 Jason Sumich and Joao Honwana, “Strong<br />
Party, Weak States: Frelimo and State Survival<br />
through the Mozambican Civil War: An Analytical<br />
Narrative on State-making.” Crisis States<br />
Research Centre (2007) at 6 and 7.<br />
119 Ibid, 7.<br />
120 Munslow, Mozambique, 83.<br />
121 Ibid 83.<br />
122 Isaacman and Isaacman, Mozambique, 83.<br />
123 Munslow, Mozambique, 104.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 27
period of the party, policy was highly<br />
contested and divisive. Also, the party lacked<br />
a solid foundation and popular support from<br />
the ordinary people.<br />
So when independence was gained in<br />
Mozambique, the party and the country were<br />
in a state of shambles. Even excepting the<br />
factionalism within FRELIMO, the party<br />
faced the daunting task of reconstructing and<br />
uniting a country that had been ravaged by<br />
pre-independence civil war. Finnegan captures<br />
the situation aptly:<br />
Frelimo was left to run an effectively<br />
bankrupt country with virtually no<br />
trained people. The illiteracy rate was<br />
over 90 percent. There were six<br />
economists, two agronomists, not a<br />
single geologist, and fewer than a<br />
thousand black high school graduates<br />
in all of Mozambique. Of 350 railroad<br />
engineers working in 1975, just one<br />
was black and he was an agent of the<br />
Portuguese secret police. 124<br />
The leadership was faced with the<br />
challenges of rebuilding the nation from<br />
scratch and dealing with the internal problems<br />
of the party. This dearth of human resource<br />
and an economy abandoned by the<br />
Portuguese who emigrated en masse, led the<br />
party to nationalize companies and pursue<br />
interventionist strategies at a pace they had<br />
not anticipated. In 1977, the leadership<br />
declared the party as Marxist-Leninist<br />
pursuing scientific socialism. 125 The<br />
subsequent failure of socialist policies,<br />
124 William Finnegan, A Complicated War: The<br />
Harrowing of Mozambique (University of<br />
California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles,<br />
1992) at 30.<br />
125 Sumich and Honwana, “Strong Party, Weak<br />
States: Frelimo and State Survival through the<br />
Mozambican Civil War: An Analytical Narrative<br />
on State-making,” 7.<br />
coupled with the suspicion that socialism<br />
raised in Mozambique’s white-ruled neighbors<br />
(especially in Rhodesia and South Africa),<br />
made the country vulnerable to the outbreak<br />
of another civil war.<br />
The spectacular failure of the<br />
country’s policies led to a shortage of goods<br />
and food. Also, as an unintended<br />
consequence, these policies benefitted wealthy<br />
peasants who could exploit party connections,<br />
to the detriment of the majority. Furthermore,<br />
the party’s abolition of traditional practices<br />
such as lobola (bride wealth), polygamy, and<br />
religious associations, 126 isolated some<br />
sections of the peasantry from the party who<br />
were against these new decrees. Although<br />
Isaacman and Isaacman suggest that the party<br />
had implanted itself fairly securely in most of<br />
the country, its dominance in the north and<br />
south, and the increasing unpopularity of its<br />
socialist strategies were to be the pretext on<br />
which foreign intervention and attendant<br />
destabilization of the country were to be<br />
primarily based upon.<br />
FOREIGN INTERVENTION: GEOPOLITICS OF<br />
SOUTHERN AFRICA AND THE COLD WAR.<br />
The geopolitics of Southern Africa<br />
from the late 1970s onwards may have been<br />
one of the most important contributing<br />
factors to the occurrence of civil war in<br />
Mozambique shortly after independence. With<br />
the threat posed, “by the creation of a<br />
socialist, black majority-run state in their<br />
immediate vicinity, [South Africa and<br />
Rhodesia], with implicit approval from<br />
Western, capitalist countries, aided and<br />
abetted the formation of a counterrevolutionary<br />
movement, RENAMO, in the<br />
late 1970s.” 127 A left-leaning black majority<br />
126 Ibid at 10.<br />
127 Mary H. Moran and M. Anne Pitcher, “The<br />
'Basket Case' and the 'Poster Child': Explaining<br />
the End of Civil Conflicts in Liberia and<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 28
state in their midst meant friendly territory for<br />
insurgent movements that South Africa and<br />
Rhodesia faced at the time.<br />
Indeed, FRELIMO had earlier openly<br />
pledged to support the “front line states” in<br />
their cause to rid southern Africa of the<br />
remaining white-minority regimes. 128 To that<br />
end, independence in Mozambique brought<br />
with it a growing base of Zimbabwe African<br />
National Union (ZANU) and Zimbabwe<br />
African Patriotic Union (ZAPU) insurgent<br />
movements from Rhodesia, and also that of<br />
the African National Congress (ANC) and<br />
Pan-African Congress (PAC) inside<br />
Mozambique. 129<br />
Initially, foreign intervention in<br />
Mozambique was executed through<br />
Resistencia Nacional Mozambicana<br />
(MNR/RENAMO) “set up by the<br />
Rhodesians to be a fifth column inside<br />
Mozambique. Its members were men from<br />
various Portuguese special forces units who<br />
fled to Rhodesia in 1974…these then<br />
increased their numbers by raiding FRELIMO<br />
re-education camps…and recruiting people<br />
with no vested interest in FRELIMO.” 130<br />
This counter-insurgency group assisted the<br />
Rhodesian government in hunting down<br />
rebels of the Zimbabwean African National<br />
Liberal Army (ZANLA) and implementing its<br />
own agenda of destabilizing the newly-formed<br />
socialist government. 131<br />
With the independence of Zimbabwe<br />
in 1980, “South African military intelligence<br />
took over the MNR,” and established<br />
Mozambique,” Third World Quarterly 25, No. 3<br />
(2004) at 510.<br />
128 Isaacman and Isaacman, Mozambique, 173.<br />
129 Ibid, 174.<br />
130 Joseph Hanlon, Beggar Your Neighbours:<br />
Apartheid Power in Southern Africa (Catholic<br />
Institute for International Relations, London<br />
1986), 139.<br />
131 Alcinda Honwana, Child Soldiers in Africa<br />
(University of Pennsylvania Press:<br />
Pennsylvania, 2006), 8.<br />
operation bases near the South-African<br />
Mozambican border. 132 South African<br />
government’s funding of RENAMO made<br />
FRELIMO helpless in stemming the growth<br />
of the new insurgent movement. The<br />
consequence was the civil war that broke out<br />
in 1979.<br />
Hanlon notes that, “for an<br />
organization with no historic roots, the MNR<br />
was very effective….the main important<br />
factor (for its success) was force—armed<br />
bands would simply kidnap hundreds of<br />
young men (and women)…those escaping<br />
were killed.” 133 And “by mid-1983, the rebels<br />
were operating in eight of the country’s eleven<br />
provinces.” 134 Besides receiving support from<br />
their South African patrons, they also<br />
capitalized on the frustration of peasants on<br />
the failure of the “new development<br />
projects”. 135<br />
Moran and Pitcher note that “by the<br />
mid-1980s the…war had destroyed hundreds<br />
of schools and health clinics, disrupted rural<br />
trading networks, undermined food security,<br />
killed thousands of people and dislocated<br />
hundreds of thousands more to camps in<br />
more secure areas of Mozambique or across<br />
borders in Zimbabwe and Malawi.” 136 The<br />
foreign-funded insurgency obviously dealt a<br />
serious blow to a country still attempting to<br />
rebuild on the ruins of the war of liberation in<br />
1975, and further undermined its institutional<br />
structures all over the country, especially in<br />
central Mozambique, the stronghold of<br />
RENAMO.<br />
The harsh economic conditions<br />
created by the drought of 1983, and increasing<br />
attacks from the insurgents led FRELIMO to<br />
132 Hanlon, Beggar Your Neighbours, 140.<br />
133 Ibid., 141.<br />
134 Hanlon, Beggar Your Neighbours, 8.<br />
135 Hanlon, Beggar Your Neighbours, 141.<br />
136 Moran and Pitcher, “The 'Basket Case' and<br />
the 'Poster Child': Explaining the End of Civil<br />
Conflicts in Liberia and Mozambique,” 510.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 29
egin courting the West, and managed to<br />
secure food aid. Under pressure from the<br />
rebels, the Mozambican state also signed the<br />
Nkomati non-aggression pact in 1984 with the<br />
South African government, hoping that the<br />
latter would stop funding the rebels.<br />
However, this accord turned out to be useless,<br />
as the South African government never<br />
stopped funding the insurgents. 137 By this<br />
time, the government had lost full control of<br />
the state and was battling for survival.<br />
FRELIMO could not defeat<br />
RENAMO in battle because its resources had<br />
been dissipated by the long-drawn conflict.<br />
However, in the 1980s RENAMO’s resource<br />
tap dried out as apartheid South Africa<br />
channeled its energy to quelling disturbances<br />
at home. 138 This resulting stalemate facilitated<br />
the brokering of peace talks led by the<br />
Catholic Church, 139 and after several months<br />
of negotiations the two warring parties signed<br />
the “General Peace Agreement in Rome in<br />
1992.” 140 This devastating civil war left an<br />
estimated 1,000,000 people dead.<br />
TANZANIA: AFRICAN SOCIALISM<br />
This section argues that unlike<br />
Mozambique, Tanzania had a peaceful<br />
transition to independence, and its postindependence<br />
politics were characterized by<br />
little or no foreign involvement. Also, the<br />
strength and popularity of TANU around the<br />
country effectively stifled viable opposition.<br />
An intersection of these variables is a<br />
sufficient cause of non-occurrence of civil war<br />
in Tanzanian post-colonial politics.<br />
137 Hanlon, Beggar Your Neighbours.<br />
138 Hanlon, Beggar Your Neighbours, 9.<br />
139 Moran and Pitcher, “The 'Basket Case' and<br />
the 'Poster Child': Explaining the End of Civil<br />
Conflicts in Liberia and Mozambique,” 511.<br />
140 Hanlon, Beggar Your Neighbours, 9.<br />
History of Colonial Tanzania 141<br />
Colonial rule in Tanzania began with<br />
the Germans in 1885 to 1920. Thereafter the<br />
British ruled the country under a League of<br />
Nations mandate from 1920 to 1961. 142 While<br />
the Germans discriminated African<br />
populations, they did not create stratified rule<br />
among the different ethnic groups. 143<br />
Nonetheless, their rule weakened traditional<br />
structures of rule among indigenous ethnic<br />
groups replacing them with those in line with<br />
colonial interests.<br />
A notable resistance in this period was<br />
the Maji Maji movement waged by stateless<br />
ethnic groups, from 1905 to 1907. The<br />
Germans severely crushed this resistance,<br />
resulting in an estimated 75,000 deaths and<br />
three years of famine. 144 The Correlates of<br />
War Project codes this rebellion as an extrastate<br />
war. 145 This was the only notable<br />
episode of physical resistance against a<br />
colonial power in Tanzania’s colonial<br />
experience. Lindermann and Putzel argue that<br />
this defeat may be one explanation why<br />
opposition towards the British later was<br />
largely peaceful. 146 The crushing defeat of the<br />
rebellion lingered in the minds of the people<br />
so that it influenced their subsequent<br />
approaches toward resistance.<br />
141 Before independence, mainland Tanzania<br />
was referred to as Tanganyika.<br />
142 Stephan Lindemann and James Putzel. State<br />
Resilience in Tanzania – Draft Analytical<br />
Narrative, 1. Available from online at<br />
www.lse.ac.uk/internationalDevelopment/researc<br />
h/crisisStates/download/seminars/PutzelLindem<br />
annTanzaniaApr30.pdf [Accessed 13 May<br />
<strong>2016</strong>].<br />
Ibid at 3.<br />
144<br />
Andrew Coulson, Tanzania: A Political<br />
Economy, (Oxford Scholarship Online, 2013) at<br />
56.<br />
145 Sarkees and Wayman. Resort to War: 1816 –<br />
2007.<br />
146 Lindemann and Putzel, State Resilience, 5.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 30
British colonial rule in Tanganyika<br />
emphasized indirect rule. The consequence<br />
was the invention of traditional chiefs within<br />
ethnic groups that traditionally did not have<br />
them. However, Lindermann and Putzel argue<br />
that relatively speaking, the British never<br />
pursued an open policy of divide and rule<br />
among the ethnic groups even though there<br />
were imbalances in army recruitment. 147 Thus<br />
during British rule there was no physical<br />
confrontation between the ethnic groups of<br />
Tanganyika and the colonial authorities.<br />
To echo an earlier point, Omari<br />
argues that the Germans had already brutally<br />
pacified the warring ethnic tribes in<br />
Tanganyika, so that the British found a much<br />
more conducive environment. 148 Whatever<br />
the reasons for lack of confrontation, it is<br />
clear that this non-violent approach paved a<br />
smoother path toward independence. The<br />
discontinuity of violence associated with<br />
German colonialism and the Maji Maji<br />
rebellion, and the relatively peaceful period<br />
under British rule may have influenced, to a<br />
certain extent, the less violent politics of postcolonial<br />
Tanganyika.<br />
ORIGINS AND STRUCTURE OF THE<br />
TANGANYIKA AFRICAN NATIONAL UNION<br />
(TANU)<br />
One of the remarkable things about<br />
TANU was its ability to marshal broad-based<br />
support for its cause during the British<br />
colonial era, and its popularity after<br />
independence as the ruling party of Tanzania.<br />
Generally speaking, the nationalist movement<br />
in Tanzania was an amalgamation of three<br />
bodies representing African interests in the<br />
147 Ibid at 5.<br />
148 Abidallah Omari, “Civil-military relations in<br />
Tanzania,” in eds. Rocky Williams, Gavin<br />
Cawthra and Diane Abrahams, Ourselves to<br />
Know. Civil-Military Relations and Defence<br />
Transformation in Southern Africa. (Pretoria:<br />
Institute for Strategic Studies, 2002), 93.<br />
colony: the Tanganyika African Association<br />
(TAA), “the trade union movement”, and the<br />
cooperative movement that had its base in the<br />
rural areas. 149 Thus from its founding TANU<br />
enjoyed a geographical and class spread that<br />
most nationalist movements in Africa could<br />
only hope for. Unlike Mozambique’s<br />
FRELIMO, these organizations that came to<br />
constitute TANU were not based on ethnic or<br />
regional interests, but on occupation, an<br />
obstacle that was relatively easier to supplant.<br />
Under the leadership of intellectuals<br />
recruited mainly from the TAA, TANU<br />
worked to produce a united front against<br />
British colonialism through co-opting chiefs<br />
in the rural areas and other agricultural-based<br />
tribal organizations fighting unfair colonial<br />
laws. 150 After its successful consolidation, the<br />
new party presented its explicit goals<br />
including: the end of British colonialism,<br />
opposition to all forms of tribalism, the<br />
formation of branches in all the regions of<br />
Tanganyika to work hand-in-glove with the<br />
central committee of the party. 151 From the<br />
beginning, the leadership invested on the local<br />
population and in the formation of<br />
representative structures. Instead of alienating<br />
traditional authorities, these were<br />
incorporated into party structures, and in<br />
decision-making processes at the local level.<br />
The increasing popularity of the party is<br />
reflected in the following numbers. Between<br />
1954 and 1957, TANU membership grew<br />
from 15,000 to 200,000” 152 managing to not<br />
only to be a coalition of elites but mobilizing<br />
the peasantry as well.<br />
Consequently, when the party rose to<br />
power as Tanzania gained independence in<br />
1961, it was in a position of relative strength.<br />
Its post-colonial political discourse was<br />
characterized by three features, namely;<br />
149 Lindemann and Putzel, State Resilience, 8.<br />
150 Ibid, 8.<br />
151 Ibid, 9.<br />
152 Coulson, Tanzania: A Political Economy, 151.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 31
“egalitarianism, mass participation in politics<br />
at all levels, and anti-elitism.” 153 Its<br />
commitment to ensuring broad-based<br />
development led to its relative popularity in<br />
most sectors of the society. Encouraging mass<br />
participation, the party sought to “narrow the<br />
mass-elite gap and to create a sense of<br />
responsibility on the part of citizens.” 154 This<br />
kind of broad-based one-party state system<br />
was carefully calibrated to give individuals a<br />
sense of belonging while at the same time<br />
acting to curb elite corruption within the<br />
party’s structures. 155<br />
Even though Tanzania has a diverse<br />
ethnic community, the party managed to<br />
promote inter-ethnic cooperation and this<br />
helped to reduce the politicization of<br />
ethnicity. 156 Malipula argues that inter-ethnic<br />
cooperation was one of TANU’s key<br />
strategies even before independence. As a<br />
result, the nationalistic bent of the party, its<br />
institutionalization in Tanzanian society from<br />
an early period increased its popularity among<br />
the people. This popularity further squeezed<br />
recruitment base of rival parties. Opposition<br />
was dealt a final blow when it was officially<br />
outlawed by the Arusha Declaration of 1967.<br />
The Arusha Declaration of 1967<br />
outlined the party’s policy position and its<br />
commitment to serve the common people.<br />
Incidentally, it was this document that<br />
officially designated Tanzania as a single-party<br />
state, pursuing African socialism. Part of this<br />
declaration stated that “every citizen is an<br />
integral part of the nation and as the right to<br />
take an equal part in government at local,<br />
153 Patrick J. McGowan and H. K. M. Wacirah.<br />
(1974). “The Evolution of Tanzanian Political<br />
Leadership." African Studies Review. 17, no. 1<br />
(1974), 179.<br />
154 Ibid,179.<br />
155 Lindemann and Putzel, State Resilience,<br />
11.<br />
156 Mrisho Malipula. “Depoliticised Ethnicity in<br />
Tanzania: A Structural and Historical Narrative.”<br />
Afrika Focus. 17, (2014), 51.<br />
regional and national levels” 157 Consequently,<br />
the structure of the party allowed a degree of<br />
autonomy at the local level.<br />
In following a position the party had<br />
stated before independence, TANU<br />
nationalized white settler farms and<br />
distributed land to peasants in a bid to<br />
counteract the power of free-hold farmers in<br />
the country. 158 In part, the Arusha<br />
Declaration argues “every TANU and<br />
government leader must be either a peasant or<br />
a worker, and should in no way be associated<br />
with the practices of capitalism or<br />
feudalism.” 159 This and the above-mentioned<br />
systematic processes strengthened TANU’s<br />
rule in the post-independence period. The<br />
policy of balancing the political needs of<br />
sectors of society, and the corporatist<br />
structure of the party, in effect, left small<br />
space from which opposition could recruit.<br />
Also, the party was able to absorb counterelites<br />
into its political program.<br />
That said, single-party state’s<br />
structures were not without its detractors. For<br />
one, the party often formulated policies from<br />
the top, and regional structures did not have<br />
much influence on policy. 160 The villagization<br />
program (ujamaa vijijini) was a case in point.<br />
Peasants were relocated to “newly constructed<br />
settlements in order to promote efficient<br />
agricultural production and to facilitate the<br />
equitable delivery of basic services” without<br />
their consent. 161 The success of this project is<br />
157 Arusha Declaration. Part 1 c) Available online<br />
at<br />
https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/nyerere/1<br />
967/arusha-declaration.htm [Accessed 13 May<br />
<strong>2016</strong>].<br />
158 Lindemann and Putzel, State Resilience, 14.<br />
159 Arusha Declaration. Part 5 a)<br />
160 Howard Stein, “Theories of the State in<br />
Tanzania.” Journal of Modern African Studies.<br />
23, no. 1 (1985), 109.<br />
161 Paul J. Kaiser. “Structural Adjustment and the<br />
Fragile Nation: The Demise of Social Unity in<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 32
ambiguous, although it is largely considered a<br />
failure. As Kaiser shows, “in the final years of<br />
the ujamaa era, basic consumer goods were<br />
rarely available, the transportation<br />
infrastructure was collapsing, and the<br />
government was unable to provide many of<br />
the basic health-care and education services<br />
that were promised immediately following the<br />
Arusha Declaration.” 162 This was a result of<br />
the declaration’s shunning of foreign<br />
investment and emphasis on self-reliance,<br />
which resulted in a severe foreign exchange<br />
deficit.<br />
Yet, the country managed to weather<br />
this crisis and the subsequent IMF imposed<br />
Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) of<br />
1981 to 1995 without disintegrating into civil<br />
war. In fact, no party has yet managed to pose<br />
as viable opposition to TANU. The party’s<br />
institutionalization in Tanzanian society and<br />
its ability to reinvent itself in times of crises<br />
and change, accounts for relative stability in<br />
the country’s post-colonial period, and the<br />
lack of civil conflict.<br />
NEOCOLONIALISM IN TANZANIAN POST-<br />
INDEPENDENCE POLITICS?<br />
Literature suggests that there was no<br />
systemic involvement of foreign governments<br />
in the domestic affairs of Tanzania to the<br />
extent seen in the Mozambican case. The<br />
British colonial administration attempted to<br />
create a rival party in 1956 called the United<br />
Tanganyika Party (UTP) “composed of<br />
disgruntled chiefs and white settlers,” 163 but it<br />
was too weak in the face of TANU’s<br />
popularity. When a split occurred in TANU<br />
leadership, there emerged “the African<br />
National Congress (ANC) that represented<br />
Africans only and thereby challenged TANU’s<br />
Tanzania.” The Journal of Modern African<br />
Studies. 34, no. 2 (1996), 229.<br />
162 Ibid., 231.<br />
163 Lindemann and Putzel, State Resilience, 9 -<br />
10.<br />
ideology of unity and equality.” 164 However,<br />
this party’s divisive and partisan ideology did<br />
not sit well with the people of Tanzania who<br />
had already internalized the ideology of unity<br />
of all Tanzanians regardless of ethnicity and<br />
religion, propagated by TANU.<br />
From a geo-political and Cold War<br />
politics standpoint, one might argue that<br />
unlike Mozambique, whose declaration as<br />
socialist directly threatened the survival of<br />
South Africa and Rhodesia as white-minority<br />
ruled states, TANU’s socialism could be<br />
tolerated because Tanzania’s geographical<br />
location did not threaten the West’s<br />
calculations of balance of power in the region.<br />
Yet even taking this into account, it can be<br />
said with relative confidence that the colonial<br />
history of Tanzania, the commitment of the<br />
party to build local infrastructure and garner<br />
wide support had substantial influence of the<br />
longevity of its single party regime, and the<br />
lack of any civil war episode in the country’s<br />
post-independence period.<br />
Ultimately, Tanzania’s single party<br />
regime hinged on the relatively peaceful<br />
transition, a strong party base and structures,<br />
and the relative lack of foreign involvement in<br />
the domestic affairs of the country through<br />
arming and funding opposition groups.<br />
DISCUSSION<br />
This paper has traced three processes<br />
in the case studies reviewed, and the findings<br />
are largely consistent with the initial<br />
hypothesis—that civil war occurrence, or lack<br />
thereof, in Mozambique and Tanzania was a<br />
product of the intersection of these factors:<br />
violence preceding independence, structures<br />
and institutionalization of parties, and foreign<br />
intervention in domestic politics.<br />
Of note is that in the Mozambican<br />
case, violence preceding independence,<br />
coupled with the re-involvement of the<br />
Portuguese in the country’s politics under the<br />
164 Ibid, 10.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 33
auspices of RENAMO, and later, South<br />
African involvement, were the two most<br />
important factors that account for relapse into<br />
civil war in 1979. It seems that even though<br />
FRELIMO did not have strong institutions in<br />
all of Mozambique, civil war would not have<br />
been possible without foreign power<br />
involvement.<br />
In contrast, the extent of rural<br />
mobilization and support TANU had, even in<br />
times of crisis, is singularly intriguing. So was<br />
its ability to fight politicization of ethnicity in<br />
its structures and around the country. This<br />
and its official ban on opposition had the<br />
effect of casting all opposition in the eyes of<br />
the people, as divisive and therefore<br />
undesirable. TANU possessed a remarkable<br />
ability to reinvent itself in times of crisis, a<br />
rare quality amongst many single-party<br />
regimes in Africa.<br />
An interesting finding was the<br />
involvement of TANU in the formation of<br />
FRELIMO, and its support for its insurgency<br />
during the war of liberation. It begs the<br />
question therefore, as to what extent<br />
Mozambique learned from the lessons of its<br />
neighbor in terms of the implementation of<br />
socialism. Whatever the case may be, it seems<br />
that the African socialism of Nyerere was<br />
much more homegrown than that of<br />
FRELIMO which has been interpreted by<br />
some scholars as more “scientific” and<br />
Leninist.<br />
In spite of all of this, a self-criticism is<br />
in order. Cold war realities in Southern Africa<br />
loom larger in Mozambican postindependence<br />
politics, than they did in<br />
Tanzania, and this analysis has not delved<br />
deeply into this variable. The foregoing does<br />
not falsify the argument presented by the<br />
paper, but only highlights another potential<br />
avenue of research. For one, further research<br />
could focus on the role of the Cold war<br />
powers in propping up single party regimes in<br />
Africa. Also, some have credited the stability<br />
and popularity of TANU to the leadership<br />
skills of Julius Nyerere. This analysis has<br />
largely eschewed the leadership argument and<br />
focused mainly on structural analysis of the<br />
parties. No doubt leadership does play a role<br />
in organizational capacity.<br />
CONCLUSION<br />
This paper argued that the ability of a singleparty<br />
to avoid civil war is largely influenced by<br />
internal and external dynamics. This<br />
proposition was tested on two single-party<br />
regimes in Africa, and the results showed that<br />
colonial violence preceding independence,<br />
weak institutions and foreign intervention<br />
increase the susceptibility to civil war. The<br />
findings open up the “black-box” that is the<br />
single-party, and call for further research on<br />
the nature of this regime type.<br />
The single-party state should not be assumed<br />
to be stable at face value. Studying closely its<br />
internal dynamics, policymakers and scholars<br />
can come to understand the real basis of<br />
stability or lack thereof of this regime type.<br />
This understanding can lead to sound<br />
recommendations on the political stability of<br />
this regime type and the chance of civil war<br />
onset. Thus the contribution of this study is<br />
largely heuristic. It has traced three processes<br />
and found compelling evidence to support its<br />
hypothesis. It therefore behooves other<br />
researchers to test this hypothesis on other<br />
cases, or come up with rival explanations<br />
linking this regime type to civil war onset.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 34
Between Balance and<br />
Bandwagon<br />
Friendship of the US and Japan<br />
Kazumichi Uchida<br />
U<br />
nder what conditions do states<br />
adopt a balancing policy, and under<br />
what conditions do they adopt a<br />
bandwagon policy, if threatened by<br />
a challenging state? Given the rise of China in<br />
recent years, the United States is<br />
strengthening its security cooperation with<br />
Japan and other allies through initiatives to<br />
improve the capacity of its allies and to<br />
enhance their cooperation with the US forces<br />
in order to secure US military presence and<br />
constant access to the Asia-Pacific region. 165<br />
At a US–Japan summit meeting in 2014, both<br />
countries reached an agreement that they<br />
would oppose any attempt to change the<br />
status quo through coercion and<br />
intimidation. 166 The United States recognizes<br />
the role of Japan as a primary ally that<br />
promotes security in the Asia-Pacific region as<br />
it proceeds with its rebalancing policy. 167<br />
However, is Japan really trustworthy?<br />
In the past, Japan decided to ally with Nazi<br />
Germany and deprived Great Britain and The<br />
Netherlands of their interests in South-East<br />
Asia. If Japan decided to side with the rising<br />
China today, it would significantly damage the<br />
United States’ interests in the Asia-Pacific<br />
165 The National Institute for Defense Studies,<br />
Japan, East Asian Strategic Review 2015, 27,<br />
http://www.nids.go.jp/publication/eastasian/pdf/eastasian2015/eastasian_e2015.pdf.<br />
166 The White House, “Joint Press Conference<br />
with President Obama and Prime Minister Abe<br />
of Japan” (April 24, 2014).<br />
167 J. Berkshire Miller, “Battle-Ready Japan? -<br />
The Real Story behind Tokyo’s First National<br />
Security Strategy,” Foreign Affairs (January<br />
2014).<br />
region, given their advanced technologies<br />
combined with the plentiful human resources<br />
available in China. In previous studies, many<br />
scholars have analyzed the effects of the rising<br />
China on the bilateral relationship between<br />
them and the Unites States. 168 However, few<br />
have analyzed them based on the trilateral<br />
relationship between the United States, China,<br />
and Japan, even though the trilateral<br />
relationship has a significant impact on the<br />
interests of the United States. In this study, I<br />
examine the reason why Japan has adopted a<br />
balancing policy with the United States, in<br />
particular after the Cold War ended, by<br />
clarifying the conditions that apply to both the<br />
balancing and the bandwagon policy.<br />
In what follows, I begin by outlining<br />
the arguments of neorealism, because both<br />
balancing and bandwagon are logically<br />
deduced from them. In the theoretical analysis<br />
section, I demonstrate that microeconomics<br />
enables us to simplify these arguments and<br />
formulate the conditions by simply examining<br />
the military productivities of each of the three<br />
countries. Just by seeing their military<br />
productivity, we can examine whether one of<br />
them will balance or bandwagon. In the test<br />
section, I demonstrate that the trilateral model<br />
can predict precisely what happened in East<br />
Asia in the post-Cold War era.<br />
LITERATURE REVIEW<br />
How do states behave when faced<br />
with a rising power, like how Japan is<br />
currently facing the rising power of China?<br />
With regard to the behavioral tendency of<br />
states when faced with a rising power, many<br />
scholars have argued from a variety of<br />
168 For example, Liff and Ikenberry argued the<br />
issue from the viewpoint of the security dilemma.<br />
See, Adam P. Liff and G. John Ikenberry,<br />
“Racing Toward Tragedy? - China’s Rise,<br />
Military Competition in the Asia Pacific, and the<br />
Security Dilemma,” International Security, Vol.<br />
39, No. 2 (Fall 2014): 52-91.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 35
perspectives, including both defensive and<br />
offensive realism. In general, we can<br />
categorize their arguments into two schools of<br />
thought: balancing and bandwagon. The<br />
balancing school argues that states prefer to<br />
balance against a rising power with the help of<br />
other states; the bandwagon school argues<br />
that states prefer to bandwagon with a rising<br />
state to get a small share of their gains. 169 I<br />
will review below each school’s points by<br />
providing representative arguments for each<br />
school of thought.<br />
Balancing School<br />
One of the most famous scholars of<br />
the balancing school of thought is Stephen<br />
Walt. In the past, both balancing and<br />
bandwagoning had been solely defined by<br />
states’ capabilities such as military ones.<br />
However, in The Origins of Alliances, Walt<br />
demonstrates that by focusing on states’ threats<br />
deduced from their neighbors’ aggressive<br />
intentions as well as their capabilities, we<br />
could better explain the Middle Eastern states’<br />
behaviors during the Cold War. He argues<br />
that states prefer balancing to bandwagoning<br />
because they are sensitive to both the<br />
capabilities and intentions of their<br />
neighbors. 170 Moreover, he maintains that this<br />
theory is more applicable to regional states<br />
because they can do little to affect the global<br />
balance, and other regional states present<br />
much more immediate dangers. 171 In other<br />
words, the benefit of balancing against<br />
neighbors’ threats outweighs the benefit of<br />
changing the global balance for them. This<br />
169 The defensive realists argue for balancing<br />
policies while the offensive realists argue for<br />
bandwagon policies. See, Eric J. Hamilton and<br />
Brian C. Rathbun, “Scarce Differences: Toward<br />
a Material and Systemic Foundation for<br />
Offensive and Defensive Realism,” Security<br />
Studies, Vol. 22, No.3 (2013): 444-45.<br />
170 Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances<br />
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), 178-<br />
180.<br />
171 Ibid., 164-165.<br />
might be applicable to Japan because Japan is<br />
also a regional power in East Asia, and it is<br />
threatened by the rising power of China.<br />
No matter how influential it is<br />
worldwide, the shortcoming of this theory is<br />
that it does not consider the possibility that<br />
states could have an uncertain attitude toward<br />
balancing and bandwagoning. During the<br />
Cold War, all states were supposed to adopt a<br />
certain attitude toward the United States and<br />
Soviet Union. No state was allowed to hold an<br />
uncertain attitude. However, since the Cold<br />
War ended, regional states could afford to<br />
hold more obscure attitudes, thereby gaining<br />
the support of great powers. For example,<br />
Japan might hold an uncertain attitude in<br />
order to simultaneously gain security benefits<br />
from the United States, and economic<br />
benefits from China. Regional states might<br />
adopt such a strategy just to gain more<br />
benefits.<br />
Bandwagon School<br />
The bandwagon school argues that<br />
states prefer bandwagoning to balancing and<br />
that bandwagon has a pacifying effect on the<br />
international system. Randall Schweller (1994)<br />
argues that states have options and decide<br />
whether they should adopt balancing or<br />
bandwagon policies on the basis of their<br />
preferences. 172 He also argues that a<br />
bandwagon sometimes has a positive<br />
influence on the stability of the international<br />
system, and dispelled the negative image of a<br />
bandwagon. 173 Sweeney and Fritz (2004)<br />
argue that bandwagon is more common than<br />
balancing among great powers because great<br />
powers tend to consider their interests, not<br />
the distribution of power, when they form<br />
172 Randall Schweller, “Bandwagoning for Profit:<br />
Bridging the Revisionist State Back In,”<br />
International Security, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Summer<br />
1994): 72-107.<br />
173 Ibid.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 36
alliances. 174 They gave specific examples of<br />
these interests, such as the similarity of states’<br />
dispositions and non-security issues like gold<br />
or prestige, that encourage great powers to<br />
form bandwagon alliances. 175 Amanda Licht<br />
(2007) argues that bandwagon produces<br />
strong systemic pacifying effects. 176 She<br />
maintains that bandwagon is helpful for all<br />
states to achieve lasting peace. This is because<br />
great powers pursue a strategy of “selfbinding”<br />
under the bandwagon alliances. 177<br />
Great powers are not supposed to threaten<br />
other smaller states once they reach any kind<br />
of agreement with them. Moreover, she<br />
indicates that bandwagon alliances should be a<br />
means to maintain a satisfied community and<br />
channeled through institutions. 178 For<br />
example, once small states form bandwagon<br />
alliances with great powers, the great powers<br />
share information about security with the<br />
smaller states, which discourages other states<br />
from attacking them.<br />
The shortcoming of both studies is<br />
that they solely define bandwagon by military<br />
capability, and have never considered the<br />
aggressive intentions of states. 179 With their<br />
definition, during World War II, Japan’s<br />
policy should have been a balancing with Nazi<br />
Germany, not bandwagon with them, because<br />
both Germany and Japan were overwhelmed<br />
174 Kevin Sweeney and Paul Fritz, “Jumping on<br />
the Bandwagon: An Interest-Based Explanation<br />
for Great Power Alliances,” The Journal of<br />
Politics, Vol. 66, No. 2 (May 2004): 429.<br />
175 Ibid., 434-435.<br />
176 Amanda Licht, “Ensuring a Smooth Ride:<br />
Regional Hegemons and the Choice Between<br />
Bandwagoning and Balancing Dynamics,”<br />
Conference Papers in American Political<br />
Science Association. 2007 Annual Meeting, p.<br />
22.<br />
177 Ibid., 9.<br />
178 Ibid., 9.<br />
179 Sweeney and Fritz, “Jumping on the<br />
Bandwagon,” 430; Licht, “Ensuring a Smooth<br />
Ride,” 8.<br />
by US’ military capability. Moreover, if we<br />
adopt their definition, we would not be able<br />
to examine the causal relationship between<br />
foreign policies such as military expansion and<br />
systemic effect. More specifically, we cannot<br />
predict the outcome of the foreign policies,<br />
whether defensive or offensive, of a rising<br />
state, if there is a much stronger hegemony in<br />
the world, because all foreign policies between<br />
smaller states are put together to balance<br />
against the great powers.<br />
In order to address the shortcomings<br />
of each school, we need to define each foreign<br />
policy based on both capabilities and<br />
aggressive intentions. Then, we need to<br />
modify each theory so that we can apply them<br />
to post-Cold War era when regional states can<br />
afford to hold an uncertain attitude toward<br />
balancing and bandwagon. In the section<br />
below, I propose that we deduce each foreign<br />
policy from structural realism, which enables<br />
us to examine how states’ foreign policies<br />
interact with each other.<br />
THEORETICAL ANALYSIS<br />
In order to deduce both balancing and<br />
bandwagon from the neorealism theories, I<br />
begin the analysis by organizing the arguments<br />
from Kenneth Waltz’s Theory of International<br />
Politics (hereinafter, referred to as “Theory”)<br />
and John Mearsheimer’s Tragedy of Great Power<br />
Politics (hereinafter referred to as “Tragedy”).<br />
The former is representative of defensive<br />
realism, while the latter is representative of<br />
offensive realism. In most previous studies,<br />
the two schools have differed in the scarcity of<br />
security. 180 The former describes security as<br />
abundant so that no states need to expand in<br />
order to survive, while the latter describes<br />
security as scarce so that all states need to<br />
180 Eric J. Hamilton and Brian C. Rathbun,<br />
“Scarce Differences: Toward a Material and<br />
Systemic Foundation for Offensive and<br />
Defensive Realism,” Security Studies, Vol. 22,<br />
No.3 (2013), 440-42.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 37
expand in order to survive in the system.<br />
However, in this study, I regard these<br />
arguments as a process from the static model<br />
to the dynamic model within the framework of<br />
structural realism. The former was static<br />
because it was established under the Cold<br />
War, while the latter was dynamic because it<br />
was designed to adjust the new world in the<br />
post-Cold War era.<br />
Structural Realism<br />
In 1979, Waltz wrote the Theory, in<br />
which he insists that, in an international<br />
system dominated by the principle of selfhelp,<br />
all foreign policies automatically lead to<br />
a repeating balance of power. 181 In the Theory,<br />
Waltz argues that a structure is defined by the<br />
arrangement of its parts. 182 To define a<br />
structure requires ignoring how units relate<br />
with one another (how they interact), and<br />
concentrating on how they stand in relation to<br />
one another (how they are arranged or<br />
positioned). 183 Now, international systems are<br />
assumed to be decentralized and anarchic, and<br />
states are assumed to seek to ensure<br />
survival. 184 Hence, we can say that states are<br />
alike in the tasks they face, though not in their<br />
abilities to perform them. 185 Therefore, a<br />
variation of structure is defined only by<br />
distinctions of states’ capabilities to perform<br />
the task. 186 In that fashion, Waltz discards all<br />
attributes of a structure except capability.<br />
States’ function is now uniform and applicable<br />
worldwide. The next issue is how to refine the<br />
rigid model so that it could be adjusted to the<br />
new world.<br />
181 Kenneth N Waltz, Theory of International<br />
Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979),<br />
116-123.<br />
182 Ibid., 80.<br />
183 Ibid., 80.<br />
184 Ibid., 88, 91.<br />
185 Ibid., 96.<br />
186 Ibid., 98.<br />
Dynamic Model<br />
In 1981, Robert Gilpin’s War and<br />
Change in World Politics points out that the<br />
distribution of capabilities and the ways in<br />
which the distribution of capabilities changes<br />
over time are the most significant factors<br />
underlining the process of international<br />
political change. 187 States differ in their rates<br />
of growth, and thus, the distribution of<br />
capability among them changes. Therefore, he<br />
argues that states’ foreign policies vary<br />
according to the changes in the distribution of<br />
capability. 188 The foreign policies include not<br />
only the maintenance of the status quo, but<br />
also the expansion of their territories. This<br />
was how Gilpin broke down the rigid model<br />
established by Waltz. Thus Waltz formulated<br />
the simple relationship between foreign<br />
policies and balance of power while Gilpin<br />
made it dynamic to adjust to the post-Cold<br />
War era.<br />
Gilpin starts off his argument by<br />
refining the definitions of a state and power.<br />
He describes the relationship between the<br />
growth of the power of a state and its control<br />
over the international system. 189 If a state<br />
acquires more resources, it can gain more<br />
economic power, which in turn encourages it<br />
to acquire more resources. In other words, he<br />
defines a state’s power by its economic output<br />
and argued that a state’s purpose is to<br />
function of a resource. Now, power became a<br />
function of a resource. Then, he formulates<br />
that a state will seek to change the<br />
international system until the marginal costs<br />
of further change are equal to or greater than<br />
the marginal benefits. 190 This enables us to<br />
express the distribution of capability by a<br />
resource variable as shown below.<br />
187 Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World<br />
Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University<br />
Press, 1981), 86.<br />
188 Ibid., 93.<br />
189 Ibid., 106.<br />
190 Ibid., 106.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 38
For simplicity, assume that there are<br />
two states in the international system: state A<br />
and state B. The international system consists<br />
of a limited amount of resource, K. By the<br />
definition shown above, the range of their<br />
power is expressed by the limits on each<br />
state’s production capacity. Now, we should<br />
notice that the tangential line between the two<br />
stands for the distribution of capability of the<br />
two states. A change in the production<br />
possibility limits leads to a change in the<br />
distribution of capability, which is defined as a<br />
systemic change in his book. 191<br />
FIGURE 1 DYNAMIC MODEL AND<br />
DISTRIBUTION OF CAPABILITY<br />
Power <br />
State A <br />
State B <br />
This is how Gilpin made Waltz’s<br />
theory dynamic so that it could adjust to the<br />
new world. He also argues that hegemony<br />
changes as time passes. 192 Hegemony stops its<br />
expansion at the point when its marginal cost<br />
equates with its marginal benefit. 193 However,<br />
its economic power declines as its defense<br />
cost increases. The more it expands, the more<br />
it needs to spend on defending its territory. 194<br />
When the hegemon fails to restore the<br />
equilibrium in the system, a rising power<br />
changes the system in accordance with the<br />
new international distribution of power. 195 A<br />
K <br />
Tangential Line<br />
stands for the<br />
Distribution of<br />
Capability<br />
Production possibility<br />
frontier<br />
new hegemony appears and another<br />
equilibrium emerges that reflects the new<br />
distribution of power in the world.<br />
Trilateral Model<br />
In this section, we will see how the<br />
distribution of capability between two states<br />
changes if a challenging state emerges in the<br />
system. The international system stabilizes<br />
only when all resources in the system are<br />
distributed in the best manner possible,<br />
whether states balance or bandwagon, so that<br />
states no longer have an incentive to<br />
destabilize the prevailing order.<br />
The two figures below show how<br />
states A and B react when threatened by a<br />
challenging state C. We assume that all<br />
resources in the system are distributed to state<br />
A and B, while state C gets nothing in the<br />
beginning. Now, we focus on how state B<br />
reacts. State B has two options. The first one<br />
is to ally with state A, and the second one is to<br />
ally with state C. The priority of state B<br />
should be the survival of the stability of the<br />
entire system. This is because it is only when<br />
the entire system is stable that no state has an<br />
incentive to attack it. Thus, when state B<br />
needs to react to the challenging state, it first<br />
considers which course will stabilize the entire<br />
system.<br />
Now, we can think about two cases.<br />
The first case is the one in which the entire<br />
system stabilizes if state B allies with state A,<br />
while the second case is the one in which the<br />
entire system stabilizes if state B allies with<br />
state C. In both cases, the slopes of two<br />
tangential lines in the figures below are<br />
parallel with each other so that all resources<br />
are distributed in the best manner possible.<br />
191 Ibid., 42-43.<br />
192 Ibid., 198.<br />
193 Ibid., 146.<br />
194 Ibid., 168-175.<br />
195 Ibid., 197-198.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 39
FIGURE 2 BALANCING MODEL<br />
State B <br />
State C <br />
Threat <br />
State B allies<br />
with State A<br />
Balancing<br />
distribution of capability between state B and<br />
state C parallel with that of the entire system.<br />
In this case, the entire system stabilizes, and<br />
state B can prevent both state A and state C<br />
from attacking it.<br />
From the settings above, we can<br />
deduce several propositions regarding the<br />
behavior of state B when faced with the rising<br />
power of state C.<br />
State A <br />
l <br />
This is the case in which state B allies<br />
with state A and the entire system can<br />
stabilize. Threatened by state C, state B tries<br />
to cope with state C by making the<br />
distribution of capability between state A and<br />
state B parallel with that of the entire system.<br />
In this case, the entire system stabilizes, and<br />
state B can prevent both state A and state C<br />
from attacking it.<br />
FIGURE 3 BANDWAGON MODEL<br />
State A <br />
State B <br />
State B allies with State C <br />
Bandwagon <br />
This is the case in which state B allies<br />
with state C and the entire system can<br />
stabilize. Threatened by state C, state B tries<br />
to cope with state C by making the<br />
l <br />
State C <br />
Threat <br />
l’ <br />
l’ <br />
Proposition 1:<br />
When both state A and state C become<br />
powerful, state B is likely to adopt balancing<br />
policies.<br />
Proof: See Appendix.<br />
Proposition 2:<br />
When both state A and state C lose power,<br />
state B is likely to adopt balancing policies.<br />
Proof: See Appendix.<br />
Proposition 3:<br />
When both state A and state C become<br />
powerful, state B is likely to adopt bandwagon<br />
policies.<br />
Proof: See Appendix.<br />
Proposition 4:<br />
When both state A and state C lose power,<br />
state B is likely to adopt bandwagon policies.<br />
Proof: See Appendix.<br />
What implications can we deduce<br />
from these propositions? The propositions<br />
above imply that both balancing and<br />
bandwagon take place either when two of the<br />
states grow in power at the same time, or<br />
when two of the states decline in power at the<br />
same time. For example, when state A and<br />
state C grow in power at the same time, state<br />
B adopts either balancing or bandwagon.<br />
When state A and state C declines in power at<br />
the same time, state B also adopts either<br />
balancing or bandwagon. In either case, the<br />
entire system stabilizes so that all states in the<br />
system are guaranteed security. However,<br />
when state A grows in power while state C<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 40
declines, state B does not adopt either policy,<br />
which destabilizes the entire system.<br />
Paradoxically, even if state A grows in power<br />
rapidly, it is not yet secure if state C declines,<br />
and thus state B does not adopt either of the<br />
policies designed to stabilize the entire system.<br />
Offensive Realism<br />
The model above is also applicable to<br />
the argument of offensive realism. John<br />
Mearsheimer argues that states are rational<br />
and therefore they maximize not absolute<br />
power, but relative power. 196 He argues that<br />
states motivated by relative power are likely to<br />
forgo large gains in their own power if such<br />
gains give rival states even greater power, for<br />
smaller national gains that nevertheless<br />
provide them with a power advantage over<br />
their rivals. 197 This is how Mearsheimer<br />
relates the offensive realism to the balance of<br />
power.<br />
The trilateral model above is<br />
consistent with his argument. State B is likely<br />
to forgo bandwagon if that gives state C<br />
greater power, while state B is likely to forgo<br />
balancing if that gives state A greater power.<br />
In either case, state B is concerned about its<br />
relative power, not absolute power that might<br />
give rival states greater power. Mearsheimer<br />
also argues that all states are inclined to alter<br />
the balance of power in their favor. 198 In the<br />
trilateral model above, state B alters the<br />
balance of power either by balancing or<br />
bandwagon so that no state any longer has an<br />
incentive to disrupt the prevailing order.<br />
196 John J. Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great<br />
Power Politics (New York, London: W. W.<br />
Norton and Company, 2001), 36.<br />
197 Ibid.<br />
198 Ibid., p. 3.<br />
TEST OF THE THEORY<br />
The theory above will be tested according to<br />
two criteria. 199 First, what predictions can be<br />
inferred from the above theory? Second, how<br />
much history does this theory explain?<br />
Predictions and Tests<br />
The theory’s predictions are derived<br />
from its primary hypothesis, namely, that in<br />
the trilateral system if the capability of two<br />
states are same, the other state adopts either<br />
balancing or bandwagon, if the capability of<br />
the two are different, the other adopts neither<br />
of the policies. The following two predictions<br />
are tested in case studies of the relationship<br />
between the United States, China and Japan in<br />
the period 1990-2015. The outcomes vary<br />
sharply across time, creating a good setting for<br />
multiple within–case comparison tests that<br />
contrast different periods within the same<br />
case. 200<br />
I. When the United States is powerful<br />
while China is powerless, Japan is not<br />
allied with either of them closely.<br />
II.<br />
When both the United States and China<br />
are powerful simultaneously, Japan is<br />
allied with the United States closely.<br />
III. When the United States is powerless<br />
while China is powerful, Japan is not<br />
allied with either of them closely.<br />
The graph below shows the growth rates of<br />
both the United States and China, which I<br />
took from the IMF website. 201 The vertical<br />
199 Stephen Van Evera, Guide to Methods for<br />
Students of Political Science (Ithaca, NY:<br />
Cornell University Press, 1997); Stephen Van<br />
Evera, “Offense, Defense, and the Causes of<br />
War,” International Security, Vol. 22, No. 4<br />
(<strong>Spring</strong> 1998): 22-23.<br />
200 Stephen Van Evera, Guide to Methods for<br />
Students of Political Science, 58-63.<br />
201 “IMF Report for Selected Countries and<br />
Subjects: Gross domestic product,” last modified<br />
May <strong>2016</strong>,<br />
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2015/02/<br />
weodata/weorept.aspx?pr.x=82&pr.y=7<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 41
line of the graph shows the growth rate in<br />
percentage, and the horizontal line shows the<br />
year.<br />
In the case studies discussed below, I will<br />
focus on three terms. The first term is from<br />
1992 to 1999, when the US economy grew<br />
constantly, while China’s economy stagnated<br />
due to the economic sanctions after the<br />
Tiananmen incident and because of the Asian<br />
currency crisis. The second term is from 2001<br />
to 2007, when the economy of both the<br />
United States and China grew together after<br />
the temporal shock of the September 11<br />
attacks. The third term is from 2007 to 2010,<br />
when the United States fell into recession due<br />
to the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, while<br />
China minimized the damage by authorizing<br />
prompt measures against it.<br />
In the context of the United States’<br />
and China’s growth rates, two factors, military<br />
threat and economic interests, have<br />
determined the attitude of Japan toward<br />
China. 202 The first factor, military threat, is<br />
related to the growth rate of China; the more<br />
China grows, the more Japan feels threatened.<br />
The second factor, economic interests, is<br />
related to the growth rate of the United States;<br />
the less the United States grows, the more<br />
Japan relies on China.<br />
With regard to military threat, since<br />
1991, the growth rate of China’s military<br />
expenditure has been a two-digit figure, which<br />
has always threatened Japan. In 2007, China’s<br />
military expenditure rose to 60 billion dollars,<br />
which far exceeded Japan’s 40 billion<br />
dollars. 203 With regard to economic interests,<br />
&sy=1990&ey=2015&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=cou<br />
ntry&ds=.&br=1&c=924%2C111&s=NGDP_RPC<br />
H&grp=0&a=<br />
202<br />
天 児 慧 著 『 日 中 対 立 習 近 平 の 中 国 をよむ』<br />
(ちくま 新 書 2013)p. 54.<br />
203 “Stockholm International Peace Research<br />
Institute, Military Expenditure Database,” last<br />
modified May <strong>2016</strong>,<br />
16 <br />
14 <br />
12 <br />
10 <br />
8 <br />
6 <br />
4 <br />
2 <br />
0 <br />
-‐2 <br />
-‐4 <br />
Japan has emphasized trade with China. In<br />
2007, the total amount of Japan’s trade with<br />
China exceeded 236 billion dollars (2.78<br />
trillion Yen), when China took the lead in<br />
Japan’s trade. 204 In 2003, Japan came out of<br />
its long recession owing to its trade with<br />
China.<br />
FIGURE 4: GROWTH RATES OF THE US AND<br />
CHINA, 1990-2015<br />
1990 <br />
92 <br />
94 <br />
96 <br />
98 <br />
2000 <br />
2 <br />
4 <br />
6 <br />
8 <br />
10 <br />
12 <br />
14 <br />
The relative values of the two factors,<br />
military threat and economic interests, have<br />
thus determined the relationship between<br />
Japan and China since the 1990s. I will<br />
examine in detail below how the two factors<br />
have interacted with each other.<br />
[Term I: 1992-1999] Alliance Adrift<br />
Neither military threat nor economic<br />
interests mattered during this term; Japan did<br />
not rely on the US military forces because<br />
China had not yet pursued military expansion,<br />
and it did not rely on the Chinese markets<br />
because Japan had exported its products to<br />
http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/<br />
milex_database.<br />
204 “Trade Statistics of Japan Ministry of<br />
Finance,” last modified May <strong>2016</strong>,<br />
http://www.customs.go.jp/toukei/srch/indexe.htm<br />
?M=27&P=1,,,3,105,1,,,,,,1992,<strong>2016</strong>,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,<br />
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,20.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 42<br />
China<br />
US
the US markets. The US-Japan Security<br />
Alliance thus did not have a purpose in this<br />
term. This alliance was concluded in 1951 to<br />
oppose the threat of the Soviet Union during<br />
the Cold War. In that era, it worked well in<br />
East Asia considering that the Soviet Union<br />
never attacked Japan. However, soon after the<br />
Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War<br />
ended in 1989, the alliance lost its goal. Due<br />
to the economic sanctions after the<br />
Tiananmen incident, China’s capability was<br />
still low; therefore, neither the United States<br />
nor Japan could specify any threat that the<br />
security alliance was supposed to target.<br />
Moreover, Tokyo’s contribution to the Gulf<br />
War effort, over 13 billion dollars, won little<br />
acclaim in Washington. On North Korean<br />
matters, Washington was apt to deal bilaterally<br />
with Pyongyang and “consult” afterwards<br />
with Tokyo, pressuring Japan to accept<br />
arrangements already agreed upon. By the<br />
mid-1990s, US-Japan security relations were at<br />
a nadir. 205<br />
Meanwhile, several conflicts broke out<br />
in East Asia in this term. In 1993, the North<br />
Korean nuclear crisis erupted after North<br />
Korea left the Non Proliferation Treaty<br />
(NPT) and conducted ballistic missile tests. In<br />
1996, the China–Taiwan crisis also broke out.<br />
Just before the presidential election in Taiwan,<br />
China conducted missile launch exercises in<br />
the Taiwan Strait and the United States<br />
decided to dispatch the Seventh Fleet to the<br />
strait. Tensions therefore rose rapidly in East<br />
Asia.<br />
In 1997, in order to cope with these<br />
issues and to improve the reliability of the<br />
US–Japan Security Alliance, both countries<br />
held discussions and established the guidelines<br />
for Japan-US Defense cooperation. They<br />
redefined the goal of the alliance as dealing<br />
205 Joseph N. Franz, “Tightening the Helmet<br />
Strings: The Future of the U. S. -Japan Security<br />
Relationship,” U. S. Army War College Strategy<br />
Research Project (2000), 6-7.<br />
with emergency contingencies in areas<br />
surrounding Japan as well as an armed attack<br />
against Japan. 206 In 1998, a series of laws<br />
against situations in areas surrounding Japan<br />
was submitted to the Diet, and in 1999, they<br />
were approved in the Diet. This is how both<br />
the United States and Japan attached new<br />
significance to the US-Japan Security Alliance.<br />
The alliance has started fulfilling the new<br />
function of the preservation of order, not only<br />
in Japan, but also in East Asia as a whole.<br />
[Term II: 2001-2007] Alliance Strengthened<br />
In this term, the military threat factor<br />
mattered, while economic interests did not;<br />
Japan needed to rely on the US military forces<br />
to prepare for Chinese military expansion, but<br />
did not need to exclusively rely on the<br />
Chinese markets because the US economy<br />
grew in this period. Soon after terrorists<br />
attacked the United States in September 2001,<br />
the US economy was temporally shocked, but<br />
it improved soon. In this period, the unity of<br />
the United States and Japan was strengthened<br />
through a variety of joint military operations.<br />
One of the most fruitful results was the<br />
collaboration to take military actions after the<br />
September 2001 terrorist attacks.<br />
Since 2001, Japan’s Self Defense<br />
Forces had refueled US and its allies’ vessels<br />
in the Indian Ocean to support the US-led<br />
effort in Afghanistan under Anti-Terrorism<br />
Special Measures Law. 207 The operation was<br />
carried out until 2006, and they refueled 132<br />
million gallons. 208 The US Secretary of<br />
206 “The Guidelines for Japan-U. S. Defense<br />
Cooperation,” last modified May <strong>2016</strong>,<br />
http://www.mod.go.jp/e/d_act/anpo/19970923.ht<br />
ml.<br />
207 Sayuri Umeda, “Japan: Refueling Mission in<br />
the Indian Ocean Extended,” Library of<br />
Congress (December 2008),<br />
http://www.loc.gov/law/foreignnews/article/japan-refueling-mission-in-theindian-ocean-extended/.<br />
208 Eric Talmadge, “Japan to Resume Its Mission<br />
in Indian Ocean,” The Washington Post, January<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 43
Defense Robert Gates said that the Japanese<br />
refueling had contributed to a broad<br />
international coalition trying to bring freedom<br />
to Afghanistan. 209<br />
[Term III: 2007-2010] Triangular Relationship<br />
In this term, both military threat and<br />
the economic interests mattered; Japan<br />
needed to rely on the US military forces to<br />
take measures against Chinese military<br />
expansions, and simultaneously needed to rely<br />
on the Chinese markets to overcome the<br />
economic recession caused by the bankruptcy<br />
of the Lehman Brothers in 2007. In this<br />
period, the Chinese economy also stagnated,<br />
but the Chinese government successfully<br />
minimized the damage by authorizing prompt<br />
measures against it, and thus many western<br />
countries came to rely on the Chinese markets<br />
to get out of the recession. Moreover, the gap<br />
between the wealthy and the poor was<br />
widening in Japan, and thus the US-type<br />
growth model was not attractive to Japanese<br />
people in those days. In terms of that, we can<br />
say that China’s economic power was<br />
relatively stronger than the United States’.<br />
Hence, we can predict that the unity of the<br />
United States and Japan weakened<br />
significantly in this term.<br />
In Japan, criticized for the failure to<br />
take measures against the economic crisis, the<br />
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the biggest<br />
political party in Japan, lost in the general<br />
election in 2009, and the Democratic Party of<br />
Japan (DPJ) leader Yukio Hatoyama took<br />
office as the prime minister in the same<br />
year. 210 From the outset, he proposed that<br />
12, 2008, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2008/01/11/AR20080111033<br />
78.html.<br />
209 Thom Shanker, “Gates Urges Japan to<br />
Accept Global Security Role,” The New York<br />
Times, November 8, 2007,<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/world/asia/0<br />
8iht-gates.1.8245771.html?_r=0.<br />
210 Shoichi Itoh, “After the Election: Will Japan<br />
be Different?,” Brookings, September 2009,<br />
Japan should consider a significant policy shift<br />
away from the United States, toward a more<br />
independent foreign policy. 211 In other words,<br />
he tried to establish a triangular relationship<br />
between Japan, the United States, and China,<br />
wherein Japan maintained distance from the<br />
United States and closeness to China. The<br />
issue of the relocation of the military base in<br />
Okinawa was in particular significantly<br />
affected. In the 2009 election campaign, he<br />
promised that he would find another place<br />
outside Okinawa Prefecture. However, he<br />
could not find a place as promised, and thus<br />
failed to relocate the US Marine air base out<br />
of Okinawa in the end. 212 Both the United<br />
States and Okinawa Prefecture were<br />
disappointed by this clumsiness. This is how<br />
the negotiations reached a deadlock, and this<br />
issue is still a source of trouble between the<br />
United States and Japan.<br />
CONCLUSION<br />
In this study, we saw that in a trilateral<br />
relationship a state tends to adopt either a<br />
balancing or a bandwagon policy if two of<br />
them grow or decline simultaneously. In<br />
previous studies, many scholars have<br />
examined either balancing or bandwagon<br />
policies, however, few have considered the<br />
possibility that states hold an uncertain<br />
http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/200<br />
9/09/japan-election-itoh.<br />
211 John Pomfret, “U.S. Concerned About New<br />
Japanese Premier Hatoyama,” The Washington<br />
Post, December 29, 2009,<br />
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2009/12/28/AR20091228022<br />
71.html.<br />
212 Tze M. Loo, “The Okinawa Question,” The<br />
New York Times, June 10, 2010,<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/opinion/11ih<br />
t-edloo.html; Yuka Hayashi, “Okinawa Timing:<br />
It’s Complicated,” THE WALL STREET<br />
JOURNAL, May 11, 2010,<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2010/05/11/o<br />
kinawa-timing-its-complicated/.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 44
attitude toward them. In order to consider the<br />
possibility, we deduced the trilateral model<br />
from the arguments of neorealism.<br />
Then, in order to test the credibility of<br />
the model, we examined the post-Cold War<br />
era in East Asia. When China’s economy<br />
stagnated while the US’ economy grew<br />
constantly after the Tiananmen incident, the<br />
US-Japan Security Alliance lost its purpose.<br />
As a result, several conflicts broke out in East<br />
Asia in the 1990s. In contrast, when both the<br />
United States and China grew in power in the<br />
2000s, Japan decided to adopt a balancing<br />
policy against the rising power of China. As a<br />
result, the unity of the United States and<br />
Japan was strengthened again, that enabled<br />
the US troops to carry out operations around<br />
the Indian Ocean. However, after the<br />
bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers in 2007,<br />
the US-type growth model attracted less and<br />
less Japanese people, and the Japanese<br />
government tried to maintain distance from<br />
the United States.<br />
The reason why the United States and<br />
Japan have been best friends is precisely<br />
because of the simultaneous facts of the<br />
growth of China and the continuance of US<br />
power in the post-Cold War era, especially<br />
after the terrorists attacked the United States<br />
in September 2001. The model shows that if<br />
China’s economy stagnated due to economic<br />
sanctions, paradoxically, the United States<br />
would also get damaged even if US’ economy<br />
grew. Therefore, the political implication of<br />
this model is that the United States should<br />
adopt an engagement strategy that encourages<br />
China’s economy to grow within the existing<br />
framework instead of squeezing it through<br />
economic sanctions.<br />
Appendix<br />
Proof of Proposition 1 and 2<br />
When state A and state B balance against state<br />
C, the distribution of capability between two<br />
states is supposed to be equal to that of the<br />
entire system, known as Pareto Optimum.<br />
Let the power of state A be F k , let the<br />
power of state B be G k , let the power of<br />
state C be H k .<br />
For simplicity, we assume that F k = a ∙ k ! ! ,<br />
G k = b ∙ k ! ! , and H k = c ∙ k !<br />
!<br />
The coefficients a, b, and c reflect the<br />
productivities of each state.<br />
If the number increases, the state can turn<br />
their resources into military armaments, and<br />
become more powerful.<br />
In equilibrium, ∂F ∂k !<br />
= ∂G ∂k !<br />
Thus, 2a ∙ k ! = 2b ∙ k !<br />
Now, let us assume that the total amount of<br />
resources in the system is 1.<br />
Thus, k ! + k ! = 1<br />
Therefore, 2a ∙ k ! = 2b ∙ 1 − k !<br />
(a + b) ∙ k ! = b<br />
∴ k ! = b a + b , k ! = a a + b<br />
∴ ∂F ∂k<br />
= ∂G<br />
! ∂k<br />
= 2a ∙ b<br />
! a<br />
+ b<br />
The formulation above indicates the<br />
distribution of capability between state A and<br />
state B.<br />
In equilibrium, the distribution of capability<br />
between them equates to that of the entire<br />
system.<br />
Thus, 2c ∙ k ! = 2a ∙ b<br />
a<br />
+ b<br />
∴ c = a ∙ b a + b ∙ 1 k !<br />
Now, all the resources in the system are<br />
distributed between state A and state B.<br />
Thus, k ! → 0<br />
∴ c = a ∙ b<br />
a + b<br />
The formulation above is the condition of the<br />
balancing policy. State B decides to adopt the<br />
balancing policy if the above condition is met<br />
in the system.<br />
Now, from the condition equations above, we<br />
can deduce the formulations below.<br />
I. If a ≥ b b − 1<br />
i.e. a is sufficiently<br />
large, c = a ∙ b a + b ≥ 1<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 45
This implies that when both state A<br />
and state C become powerful, state B<br />
is likely to adopt balancing policies.<br />
II. If a < b b − 1<br />
i.e. a is sufficiently<br />
small, c = a ∙ b a + b < 1<br />
This implies that when both state A and state<br />
C lose power, state B is likely to adopt<br />
balancing policies. Q.E.D<br />
Proof of Proposition 3 and 4<br />
When state B bandwagons with state C, the<br />
distribution of capability between the two<br />
equates with that of the entire system, known<br />
as Pareto Optimum.<br />
In the same fashion as Balancing, we can get<br />
a = b ∙ c<br />
b + c<br />
This is the condition of the bandwagon<br />
policy. State B decides to adopt the<br />
bandwagon policy if the above condition is<br />
met in the system.<br />
Now, from the condition equations above, we<br />
can deduce the formulations below.<br />
I. If c ≥ b b − 1<br />
i.e. c is sufficiently<br />
large, a = b ∙ c b + c ≥ 1<br />
This implies that when both state A<br />
and state C become powerful, state B<br />
is likely to adopt bandwagon policies.<br />
II. If c < b b − 1<br />
i.e. c is sufficiently<br />
small, a = b ∙ c b + c < 1<br />
This implies that when both state A and state<br />
C lose power, state B is likely to adopt<br />
bandwagon policies. Q. E. D.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 46
The Judicialization of<br />
Politics and the<br />
Independence of<br />
Constitutional Court<br />
The Case of South Korea<br />
Eunseong Oh<br />
S<br />
ince its establishment in 1988, the<br />
Constitutional Court of Korea (CCK)<br />
has been functioning as the final and the<br />
ultimate authority to interpret the constitution<br />
and adjudicate constitutional disputes in<br />
South Korea. The CCK emerged from a<br />
compromise between the former ruling party<br />
and the country’s opposition parties. It was an<br />
attempt to secure a check and balance system<br />
against the arbitrary exercise of the executive<br />
branch’s power during the period of<br />
authoritarian rule (and in parallel, the national<br />
legislature’s having been incompetent in<br />
curbing the executive branch). Its design<br />
concentrates on protecting the fundamental<br />
rights of the citizen against unjust legislation<br />
of the majoritarian parliament forced through<br />
by the ruling party or the overzealous exercise<br />
of executive power.<br />
The decision to establish the<br />
Constitutional Court inherits Kelsenian<br />
tradition. When the traditional threat of the<br />
ancient regime on citizens’ rights and liberty<br />
was replaced by the new threat of<br />
democratically-elected fascist regimes that<br />
began to emerge in 1920s Europe, the idea of<br />
parliamentary sovereignty declined and the<br />
constitutionalism escalated. There was a<br />
growing need for institutions to protect<br />
fundamental rights and liberty against the<br />
authoritarian state. In response to the need,<br />
Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt proposed<br />
different solutions through the argument on<br />
the guardian of the constitution. 213 Schmitt<br />
defined the character of democracy to be the<br />
identity of the ruler and the ruled. Schmitt<br />
contended that the president (executive),<br />
whose authority is to be combined with the<br />
constituent power, should be the guardian of<br />
the constitution. As he wrote in 1934, “The<br />
leader protects the law.” 214 Kelsen’s idea was<br />
to establish the constitutional court as the<br />
final authority to interpret the constitution<br />
through adjudication. The constitutional court<br />
would keep the balance among governmental<br />
powers and safeguard citizens’ rights and<br />
liberty through judicial review.<br />
It was only recently that the<br />
constitutional court, once believed to be “the<br />
least dangerous branch” 215 , attained greater<br />
authority at an alarming rate. After the World<br />
War II, there emerged a phenomenon called<br />
judicialization of politics, which is “the<br />
reliance on courts and judicial means for<br />
addressing core moral predicaments, public<br />
policy questions, and political<br />
controversies” 216 . It has become increasingly<br />
prevalent worldwide, emerging out of<br />
Western and Southern Europe and later<br />
sprawling to post-communist states in Central<br />
and Eastern Europe. Since the end of the<br />
Cold War, judicialization of politics has spread<br />
to post-authoritarian regimes in Latin<br />
America, Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa 217 .<br />
213 Lars Vinx, trans., The Guardian of the<br />
Constitution: Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt on<br />
the Limits of Constitutional Law (Cambridge:<br />
Cambridge University Press, 2015).<br />
214 Carl Schmitt, “Der Führer schützt das Recht”,<br />
Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung, no 39 (1934), 946<br />
215 Alexander M. Bickel, The Least Dangerous<br />
Branch. (New Haven: Yale University Press<br />
1986).<br />
216 Ran Hirschl, “The Judicialization of Politics”,<br />
in The Oxford Handbook of Law and Politics, ed.<br />
K. E. Whittington et al. ( New York, NY: Oxford<br />
University Press, 2010), 119.<br />
217 Tate, C. N., and Vallinder, T. The Global<br />
Expansion of Judicial Power. (New York: New<br />
York University Press, 1995)<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 47
In modern democratic countries, the<br />
judiciary has expanded its realm of oversight<br />
from a passive locus for the interpretation and<br />
application of statutes to active functions of<br />
legislation 218 . Though implemented in<br />
different political, legal and cultural contexts,<br />
this phenomenon has come with the<br />
emergence of the constitutional adjudication<br />
system. The rise of constitutional<br />
adjudication 219 , whether by the U.S. Supreme<br />
Court or various European constitutional<br />
courts, has put pressure on political<br />
institutions to correspond to the constitution,<br />
and therefore, to be under the jurisdiction of<br />
the courts 220 .<br />
There are three patterns of<br />
judicialization: limits on the authority of the<br />
legislative branch imposed by the judiciary,<br />
the participation of the courts in<br />
policymaking, and the courts’ regulation of<br />
what constitutes permissible political<br />
activity 221 . The first involves the courts’<br />
increasing influence on the legislature,<br />
John A. Ferejohn and Pasquale Pasquino.<br />
“Rule of Democracy and Rule of Law,” in<br />
Democracy and the Rule of Law, ed. J. M.<br />
Maravall et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge<br />
University Press, 2003) 242-260.<br />
218 Ibid.<br />
219 In this essay, constitutional adjudication,<br />
judicial review, and constitutional review are<br />
used interchangeably, with an intention to refer<br />
to the adjudication process by the constitutional<br />
court justices on the constitutionality of statutes.<br />
If found unconstitutional after constitutional<br />
adjudication, a statute is to be nullified and<br />
replaced by new legislation.<br />
220 John A. Ferejohn and Pasquale Pasquino.<br />
“Constitutional Courts as Deliberative<br />
Institutions: Towards an Institutional Theory of<br />
Constitutional Justice,” in Constitutional Justice<br />
East and West, ed. W. Sadurski (The Hague:<br />
Kluwer Law International, 2002) 21-36<br />
221 John A. Ferejohn. “Judicializing Politics,<br />
Politicizing Law,” Law & Contemporary<br />
Problems, 65(3), (2002): 41-68.<br />
Hirschl, “The Judicialization of Politics.”<br />
especially with the introduction of judicial<br />
review: the elected officials’ legislative agendas<br />
are subject to review where the constitution is<br />
the supreme and fundamental law of the land.<br />
The second reflects the growing role of the<br />
courts as policymakers. Not only are there<br />
cases where public policies are made in the<br />
courts, but administrative review both before<br />
and after the judiciary weighs in also<br />
demonstrates the courts’ substantial influence<br />
over the executive branch. This aspect of<br />
judicialization has become more and more<br />
prominent in modern welfare states and<br />
international tribunals since 1945. In the third<br />
pattern, the courts even come to regulate the<br />
conduct of political actors in electoral<br />
processes or in the executive branch taking<br />
charge of nationwide political decisionmaking.<br />
All of these roles influence other<br />
political actors to consider judicial reactions to<br />
their agendas more deeply than they had in<br />
the past.<br />
Traditionally, discussions of<br />
judicialization focus on “the countermajoritarian<br />
difficulty” 222 . At the center of this<br />
debate is the process of judicial review, where<br />
unelected justices are able to nullify the dulyenacted<br />
legislation of elected officials by<br />
ruling it unconstitutional. For critics of these<br />
actions, it is considered illegitimate for the<br />
judiciary, which lacks democratic<br />
accountability, to intervene in the business of<br />
representative institutions. This tradition<br />
stems from the classical theories on separation<br />
of powers 223 . In the Lockean and Rousseauian<br />
tradition of parliamentary sovereignty, the<br />
authority to conduct a constitutional review<br />
222 Bickel, “The Least Dangerous Branch,” 16-<br />
23.<br />
223 Ferejohn and Pasquino, “Rule of Democracy<br />
and Rule of Law,” 242-260.<br />
Tom Ginsburg, “The Constitutional Court and<br />
the Judicialization of Korean Politics,” in New<br />
courts in Asia, ed. A. Harding, et al. (New York:<br />
Routledge, 2010).<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 48
elongs exclusively to the legislature. Thus the<br />
parliament, as the representative of the<br />
people, is the only branch that can legitimately<br />
exercise constitutional review, which thus in<br />
nature a priori and abstract. In light of the idea<br />
of parliamentary sovereignty, judicialization is<br />
undemocratic in that the judiciary exercises its<br />
power to thwart the will of democratically<br />
elected officials.<br />
Similarly, the tradition of<br />
Montesquieuian separation of power also<br />
forms a basis for rejecting constitutional<br />
review by the judiciary. Montesquieu argued<br />
that governmental power should be separated<br />
horizontally and distributed among three<br />
branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. If<br />
the judiciary retains legislative and executive<br />
power, then power will be exercised arbitrarily<br />
over the life and liberty of the citizenry,<br />
resulting in despotism: judicial review, where<br />
the court intervenes the legislative and<br />
executive activity, is therefore seen to be in<br />
conflict with the exercise of democracy.<br />
Countries that inherited traditions of<br />
parliamentary sovereignty and<br />
Montesquieuian separation of powers adapted<br />
constitutional review according to their<br />
respective traditions. The Republic of Korea,<br />
as it transitioned from authoritarian rule to<br />
liberal democracy in the 1980s, adopted the<br />
Kelsenian model of the constitutional court<br />
based on the Montesquieuian tradition.<br />
Even in the context of judicialization,<br />
however, guaranteeing judicial independence<br />
has been a more serious concern than the<br />
judiciary overstepping its authority to<br />
intervene against democratically-elected<br />
officials’ legislation, when considering the<br />
focus of the institution on rights protection<br />
from its birth. The paradox lies, rather, in that<br />
the judicialization of politics also coincides<br />
with the undermining of judicial<br />
independence in the Korean case, resulting in<br />
politicization of the CCK 224 . As the realm of<br />
jurisdiction expands into politics in the<br />
context of judicialization, the CCK is also<br />
subject to influence from politics. The very<br />
political nature of the CCK has opened a<br />
channel for political power to encroach upon<br />
the judiciary’s independence. This manifests<br />
itself in both formal and informal ways, the<br />
latter of which are difficult to measure but<br />
pervasive within the judiciary at all levels.<br />
In this paper, I examine whether the<br />
CCK is an independent guardian of liberal<br />
democratic constitutionalism that is free from<br />
political pressure. First, I explore the political<br />
and historical context in which the CCK was<br />
created, as well as its structure and function in<br />
Korean politics. In order to answer the first<br />
part of the question – if the CCK is<br />
independent – I examine the judicial<br />
independence of the CCK both on the de jure<br />
and the de facto level. I trace the career of CCK<br />
justices since their mandatory retirements in<br />
order to find out if political pressure has been<br />
exercised in any form. In addition, records of<br />
constitutional adjudication on the “purely”<br />
political cases I discuss provide insight into<br />
the politicization of the CCK. Finally, whether<br />
the CCK is a guardian of constitutional<br />
democracy or not is addressed by examining<br />
the court’s role as a guardian of the<br />
constitution, specifically the role of the CCK<br />
in complementing Korea’s liberal democracy.<br />
Because South Korea is only a nascent<br />
democratic country, it is still in a precarious<br />
stage that occurs before the stabilization of<br />
constitutional democracy and the<br />
entrenchment of the role of constitutional<br />
institutions. Therefore, the case of the<br />
Constitutional Court of Korea offers valuable<br />
224 Jongcheol Kim and Jonghyun Park. “Causes<br />
and Conditions for Sustainable Judicialization of<br />
Politics in Korea,” in The Judicialization of<br />
Politics in Asia ed, Dressel, B.,(New York, NY:<br />
Routledge, 2012), 37.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 49
insights into understanding possible threats to<br />
judicial independence in post-authoritarian<br />
societies. In addition, it will also provide<br />
grounds to evaluate the contribution of the<br />
constitutional court as an institution in<br />
modern democratic politics.<br />
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT OF KOREA<br />
THE POLITICAL CONTEXT OF THE<br />
CONSTITUTIONALISM IN KOREA 225 : BEFORE<br />
THE 1987 CONSTITUTION<br />
The first written constitution of<br />
Korea was promulgated in 1899 by the king,<br />
when the Joseon Dynasty changed its name to<br />
the Empire of Dai Han. During the Japanese<br />
colonial period (1910-1945), the provisional<br />
government of Korea—then in exile—<br />
embraced Western traditions of modern<br />
constitutionalism based on the principles of<br />
popular sovereignty, parliamentarianism, the<br />
separation of powers, fundamental rights and<br />
the rule of law. All were enshrined in émigré<br />
declarations on the future character of the<br />
Korean nation issued between 1919 and 1948.<br />
Yet these aspirational values had little impact<br />
on affairs in Korea proper until 1945, when<br />
the Japanese evacuated the country. Even<br />
then, these precepts fell short of reality with<br />
the formation of separate occupation zones<br />
trending towards authoritarian rule, whether<br />
aligned with “capitalist” or “communist”<br />
production systems, and the outbreak of fullscale<br />
civil war three years later.<br />
The weak basis for Korean<br />
constitutionalism when independence came<br />
meant that the supreme law of the land<br />
underwent nine distinct reforms in a 60-year<br />
period from 1945. The constitution not only<br />
underwent relatively frequent reforms as a<br />
written and rigid constitution, but its content<br />
also underwent radical changes varying across<br />
the parliamentary government to the<br />
presidential system, and from the bicameral<br />
225 Kwon, Y. Constitutional Theory. (Seoul:<br />
Beopmunsa, 2010) (available only in Korean).<br />
parliament to the unicameral National<br />
Assembly. These reforms can be summarized<br />
as the repeated destruction of constitutional<br />
order and the subsequent movement to guard<br />
democratic constitutionalism 226 . The First<br />
Republic (1948-1960) amended the<br />
constitution twice, first to secure President<br />
Syngman Rhee’s reelection by changing<br />
electoral and parliamentary rules, and second<br />
to allow his reappointment. Both reform<br />
procedures violated the constitution.<br />
The third reform came after the “4.19<br />
Revolution” in 1960, which led to the<br />
resignation and exile of President Rhee<br />
following mass protests against his rigged<br />
reelection campaign. The third and fourth<br />
reforms aimed to restore the democratic<br />
constitutionalism under opposition leader<br />
Chang Myon by installing the first<br />
constitutional court and retroactively<br />
penalizing anti-democratic practices under<br />
Rhee. These efforts, however, were aborted<br />
by the “5.16” military coup d’état of President<br />
Park Chung-hee, which led to the fifth and<br />
the sixth reforms, leading to the imperial<br />
presidency of Park Chung-hee and the<br />
abolition of term limits. President Park<br />
continued to carry out the seventh reform in<br />
1972, known as the October Revitalizing<br />
Reform, or the “Yushin Constitution” that<br />
suspended the previous constitution. The<br />
authoritarian era reached its peak with the<br />
imposition of martial law that year.<br />
After President Park’s assassination in<br />
1979, another military coup d’état followed,<br />
led by President Chun Doo-hwan, and saw<br />
the eighth reform, which also maintained the<br />
existence of a powerful presidency.<br />
Throughout the nine reforms and six<br />
republics, the Korean Constitution had been<br />
at the center of repeated battles between<br />
prolonged one-man rule and efforts to<br />
provision for a democratic constitution.<br />
226 Ibid.,100<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 50
THE 1987 CONSTITUTION AND THE<br />
CONSTITUTIONAL COURT OF KOREA 227<br />
The long period of authoritarian rule<br />
culminated in the “6.10 Democratic<br />
Revolution” in 1987. As a result of the “June<br />
Revolution,” the ninth Korean Constitution<br />
was adopted and the CCK was established,<br />
based upon popular sovereignty and liberal<br />
democracy as its fundamental ideologies.<br />
Eight representatives from the ruling party<br />
and the opposition parties drafted the<br />
document. Since these eight each represented<br />
one of the promising candidates for the<br />
upcoming Presidential election (including the<br />
eventual winner, the ruling party candidate<br />
Roh Tae-woo), the discussion was mainly<br />
concentrated on term limits and other<br />
restrictions on the power of the presidency.<br />
The reform was reviewed and approved by<br />
the special committee on constitutional<br />
reform in the National Assembly to be sent to<br />
a plebiscite that year, which ratified the new<br />
constitution with 93.1 percent of the votes<br />
cast in favor.<br />
Considering Korea’s experience with<br />
authoritarianism and the distant, ephemeral<br />
democracy practiced by the provisional<br />
government in exile, it is not surprising that<br />
the eight delegates and the special committee<br />
decided to adopt the Kelsenian model of a<br />
constitutional court. In the special committee,<br />
there had been discussion on whether the<br />
Supreme Court or the constitutional court<br />
should exercise constitutional review. Both<br />
parties’ primary concern was to effectively<br />
protect citizens’ fundamental rights and liberty<br />
from unjust legislation or executive<br />
arbitrariness. It was the ruling party’s idea to<br />
227 “Twenty years of the Constitutional Court of<br />
Korea,” The Constitutional Court Library, last<br />
modified 2008,<br />
http://library.ccourt.go.kr:8080/vlsvr/search/Sear<br />
chViewC.jsp?barcode=VL00000282027&search<br />
Val=search_empty&productCd=007. (available<br />
only in Korean).<br />
insulate the Supreme Court from partisan<br />
politics and install a committee for<br />
constitutional adjudication, while the<br />
opposition parties insisted on the transfer of<br />
this authority to the Supreme Court. In the<br />
past, during the fifth reform of the<br />
constitution (in 1962), the government had in<br />
fact vested the Supreme Court with the<br />
authority to conduct judicial reviews.<br />
However, for twenty years the court’s<br />
authority to conduct a judicial review<br />
remained virtually dormant, with only two<br />
cases of statutes being ruled unconstitutional<br />
before the bench. Even after the<br />
constitutional committee was reinstated, the<br />
authoritarian regime restricted the right to<br />
judicial review only to the Supreme Court. At<br />
last, having been granted the condition to<br />
institutionalize constitutional complaints, the<br />
opposition parties agreed to install a<br />
constitutional court rather than transfer the<br />
power to the Supreme Court (The<br />
Constitutional Court of Korea, 2008).<br />
Thus, not only was it a political<br />
decision to establish the CCK, but the<br />
decision also aimed to impact political actors<br />
and the democratic system through the CCK.<br />
The primary function that people expected of<br />
the CCK was restoring and honoring the<br />
liberal democratic constitutionalism the<br />
provisional government had imagined for the<br />
country in 1919, that successive presidents<br />
had breached by rigging elections, banning<br />
members of the opposition from running for<br />
office and using extrajudicial measures to<br />
suppress political activism. So, the CCK was<br />
born as the guardian of the constitution 228 .<br />
This role required the CCK, as a “fourth<br />
power,” to stay independent from the<br />
legislature, the executive, and even the rest of<br />
228 Yi, Y. “Judicialization of Politics, is the Crisis<br />
of Democracy? Focusing on the Principle of<br />
Habermas’s Democratic Constitutional State<br />
Theory”. Peace Studies, 20(1) (2012): 71-103<br />
(available only in Korean).<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 51
the judiciary. 229 It was of less concern that the<br />
process of judicial review might be<br />
undemocratic than that the process of judicial<br />
review itself could remain independent from<br />
national politicking.<br />
THE STRUCTURE AND THE FUNCTION OF THE<br />
CONSTITUTIONAL COURT OF KOREA<br />
The Constitutional Court Act<br />
stipulates that the CCK is to be comprised of<br />
nine justices among those who have<br />
qualification for the judge (Article 3 and<br />
Article 5). To secure political impartiality and<br />
guarantee the CCK’s function as the guardian<br />
of the constitution, three governmental<br />
branches – the President, the National<br />
Assembly, and the Chief Justice of the<br />
Supreme Court – jointly organize the<br />
membership of the CCK. The National<br />
Assembly elects three justices, the chief justice<br />
appoints three additional justices, and the<br />
incumbent president appoints three more<br />
(Article 6). Then the National Assembly holds<br />
personnel hearings for the six Justices<br />
appointed by the other two branches. The<br />
president also appoints the chief justice of the<br />
CCK. Each justice serves a six-year term, and<br />
can serve consecutive terms under the<br />
conditions as prescribed (Article 112) until<br />
reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70.<br />
The concern for judicial<br />
independence is illustrated in the relatively<br />
comprehensive authority of the CCK<br />
compared to its counterparts in other<br />
229 The relationship between the CCK and the<br />
Supreme Court is described as horizontal and<br />
parallel. The justices in the CCK are treated as<br />
their counterparts in the Supreme Court are.<br />
Both institutions share the authority to conduct<br />
judicial review, with the CCK adjudicating<br />
constitutional review on the statutes, and the<br />
Supreme Court left in charge of reviewing<br />
administrative decrees and regulations (Kwon,<br />
2010, p. 1131).<br />
democratic countries 230 . The Korean<br />
Constitution endows the constitutional court<br />
with the authority to adjudicate political<br />
controversies. Article 111 (1) of the<br />
constitution stipulates the jurisdiction of the<br />
CCK 231 : constitutional review upon the<br />
request of the courts; adjudication on<br />
impeachment; dissolution of political parties;<br />
competence disputes between state agencies,<br />
between state agencies and local governments,<br />
and between local governments; and<br />
constitutional complaints (Heonbeopsowon). The<br />
constitutional complaint is a direct channel<br />
through which an individual can request<br />
constitutional review to protect his or her<br />
fundamental rights from the exercise of state<br />
power. Except for the constitutional<br />
complaint, all four categories of constitutional<br />
adjudication are “political” in that the political<br />
disputes are settled through the judicial<br />
process. Since 1988, the Constitutional Court<br />
of Korea has been actively exercising its role<br />
in politics, conducting 877 judicial reviews,<br />
one impeachment case, two cases on the<br />
dissolution of political parties, 86 competency<br />
disputes, and 27,247 constitutional complaints<br />
232<br />
.<br />
THE JUDICIALIZATION OF KOREAN POLITICS<br />
In Korean politics, the CCK possesses<br />
“political jurisdiction,” meaning it is neither a<br />
purely political entity nor a wholly apolitical<br />
230 Kim and Park, “Causes and Conditions for<br />
Sustainable Judicialization of Politics in Korea”<br />
39<br />
231 The Constitution of the Republic of Korea<br />
http://www.law.go.kr/lsEfInfoP.do?lsiSeq=61603<br />
# (in Korean)<br />
http://www.law.go.kr/lsInfoP.do?lsiSeq=61603&u<br />
rlMode=engLsInfoR&viewCls=engLsInfoR<br />
232 The Constitutional Court Act,<br />
http://www.law.go.kr/LSW/lsInfoP.do?lsiSeq=11<br />
1952#0000 (in Korean)<br />
http://elaw.klri.re.kr/kor_service/lawView.do?lang<br />
=ENG&hseq=33354 (in English)<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 52
ody 233 . This imbues its constitutional<br />
adjudication with the function of forming<br />
political realities. The CCK has been<br />
inherently “political,” born from the<br />
contested democratization process of the late<br />
1980s and designed primarily to guard liberal<br />
democratic constitutionalism from partisan<br />
ambitions. All of the three patterns of<br />
judicialization – constitutional review,<br />
policymaking, and intervention on “megapolitics”<br />
– are observed in the actions of the<br />
CCK 234 . And it has become a central political<br />
actor in resolving political controversies.<br />
Exemplary cases include the constitutional<br />
review of the Special Act on the May 18 th<br />
Democratization Movement, the Relocation<br />
of the Capital City Case, and the Dissolution<br />
of the Unified Progressive Party. And it is this<br />
trend of judicialization that has undermined de<br />
facto judicial independence of the CCK, if not<br />
its de jure judicial independence.<br />
DE JURE INDEPENDENCE OF THE<br />
CONSTITUTIONAL COURT OF KOREA<br />
Judicial independence is achieved<br />
when both the court and its judges are<br />
independent. Its theoretical roots originate<br />
from the theories of the separation of powers,<br />
upon which “the structure and the operation<br />
of the judiciary is separated and independent<br />
from the legislative and the executive” 235 .<br />
Judicial independence is based on the<br />
existence of an independent and autonomous<br />
court, and the independence of the justices. In<br />
that sense, the CCK’s judicial independence at<br />
de jure level is well secured.<br />
The Korean Constitution prescribes<br />
the independence of the court from the<br />
legislative and executive institutions by<br />
stipulating that “judicial power shall be vested<br />
in courts composed of judges” (Article 101<br />
(1)). The constitution also recognizes the<br />
233 Kwon, “Constitutional Theory” p.1116<br />
234 Ferejohn, 2002; Hirschl, 2010<br />
235 Kwon, 2010, p.1067<br />
courts’ autonomy, in Articles 102 and 108,<br />
which define the court’s authority to establish<br />
“regulations pertaining to judicial proceedings<br />
and internal discipline and regulations on<br />
administrative matters of the court.” The<br />
organization and the operation of the court<br />
are autonomous within the scope of the<br />
Constitutional Court Act. This does not mean<br />
that the court is subject to legislative<br />
institutions; rather, it is interpreted that the<br />
court enjoys autonomy which cannot be<br />
infringed upon.<br />
The independence of the justices in<br />
the CCK is also safeguarded by the<br />
constitution. Ginsburg and Melton (2014)<br />
suggest that the component of de jure<br />
independence is a statement of judicial<br />
independence, judicial tenure, selection<br />
procedure, removal procedure, limited<br />
removal conditions, and salary insulation.<br />
Except for the guarantee of tenure, the<br />
Korean Constitution prescribes all of these<br />
components. Article 103 of the constitution<br />
guarantees the ex-officio independence of<br />
justices – Sachliche Unabhängigkeit – when it<br />
articulates, “judges shall rule independently<br />
according to their conscience and in<br />
conformity with the Constitution and laws.”<br />
Thus, the constitution enshrines the right and<br />
duty of the nine justices to be subject only to<br />
their consciences, the Constitution, and the<br />
laws. They must be independent from any<br />
external pressures including the influence of<br />
the government, the higher court, the order of<br />
the chief justice, the litigants, and any social or<br />
political power. The qualification and the<br />
status of the justices are also defined in Article<br />
106 (1) of the constitution: “No judge shall be<br />
removed from office except by impeachment<br />
or a sentence of imprisonment without prison<br />
labor or heavier punishment, nor shall he be<br />
suspended from office, have his salary<br />
reduced, or suffer any other unfavorable<br />
treatment except by disciplinary action.”<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 53
DE FACTO INDEPENDENCE OF THE<br />
CONSTITUTIONAL COURT OF KOREA<br />
Despite the de jure independence of<br />
the CCK, the practice of the law is often<br />
discrepant from the prescriptions of the law,<br />
leaving the independence of the CCK at stake<br />
on a de facto level. As Ginsburg and Melton<br />
(2014) have argued, de jure judicial<br />
independence has turned out to be largely<br />
ineffective in securing de facto judicial<br />
independence. Chavez (2010) delineates the<br />
types of pressures exercised against de facto<br />
judicial independence. Regarding judicial<br />
independence as one of the pillars supporting<br />
the rule of law, she articulates that informal<br />
practices, as well as de jure institutions, restrict<br />
judicial autonomy and independence. Such<br />
informal practices include noncooperation by<br />
entities refusing to abide by the court’s<br />
decision, and retaliation by withholding funds<br />
or threatening incumbency 236 .<br />
In the case of the CCK, de jure<br />
institutions have not necessarily maintained<br />
judicial independence. However, practices that<br />
have harmed the de facto judicial independence<br />
of the CCK show different aspects than<br />
noncooperation and retaliation. Harm results<br />
from the stipulation of the CCK’s binding<br />
power vis-à-vis all governmental institutions<br />
as defined by Article 47 of the Constitutional<br />
Court Act. Retaliation through financial<br />
means is also impossible due to the<br />
constitutional prescription of the judges’<br />
salaries and incumbencies. Rather, the threat<br />
to the independence of the CCK can be<br />
analyzed by examining the internal and<br />
external pressures exercised on it. Specifically,<br />
the independence of the CCK has often been<br />
infringed upon by internal pressures within<br />
236 Georg Vanberg, “Establishing and<br />
Maintaining Judicial Independence”. in The<br />
Oxford Handbook of Law and Politics ed. K. E.<br />
Whittington, et al. (New York, NY: Oxford<br />
University Press. 2010)<br />
the court’s hierarchy and external pressures<br />
from political actors.<br />
The hierarchical pressure within the<br />
court is the main threat to its judicial<br />
independence. Studies in Korean legal<br />
sociology have identified the distinct legal<br />
culture of “the privilege of former office” 237 .<br />
It refers to the custom that the judges and the<br />
prosecutors grant the request of lawyers who<br />
have recently retired from the court and the<br />
prosecutor’s office. This privilege is one of<br />
the main reasons that judicial officers become<br />
lawyers after their retirement: they record<br />
exceptionally high rates of winning trials by<br />
utilizing their close connections to the<br />
incumbent justices in order to personally<br />
influence the decision. Their personal<br />
connections to the judiciary constitute a form<br />
of “social capital” 238 , bringing considerable<br />
pecuniary remunerations to those lawyers.<br />
The high rate of retirement of judges and<br />
prosecutors at an early age, and their greater<br />
chances of winning cases right after<br />
retirement, is strong evidence for the<br />
existence of this “invisible” yet quite<br />
pernicious privilege 239 .<br />
This “privilege” also greatly influences<br />
the future career of the incumbent judicial<br />
officers within the court. They are under<br />
pressure to maintain amicable relationships<br />
with their colleagues and senior officials if<br />
they are to be regarded as a successful lawyer<br />
after retirement. Since they are likely to<br />
encounter their colleagues and senior officials<br />
even after retirement, and since the personal<br />
relationship will affect their efficacy as a<br />
237 Kim, J. “Judicial independence and the<br />
necessity for judicial reform focused on judicial<br />
democratization: The case of Korea”. Kangwon<br />
Law Review, 41(1), (2014): 137-184 (available<br />
only in Korean).<br />
238 Lee, Y. H. “Legal Professionals’ Corruptions<br />
and the Downside of Social Capital in South<br />
Korea,” Korean Journal of Criminology, 18(2),<br />
(2006): 441-458 (available only in Korean).<br />
239 Kim, 2014, p.104<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 54
lawyer arguing before the bench, these<br />
personal relationships and hierarchies within<br />
the court system have a profound impact on<br />
the officers’ conduct. In fact, looking at a<br />
snapshot of data from 2000 to 2004, among<br />
lawyers, 89.8 percent of retired judges and 75<br />
percent of former prosecutors practiced legal<br />
services in the same jurisdiction they had<br />
previously practiced law in 240 .<br />
The justices of the CCK face the same<br />
pressure. There have been a total of 46<br />
justices who have served in the CCK. Except<br />
for the nine incumbent justices, the career<br />
path of the other 37 former CCK justices<br />
shows that the “privilege” system exercises<br />
the same pressure on their professional<br />
independence as it does among other judges.<br />
In fact, their official retirement turns out to be<br />
far from their last: only six justices have ever<br />
retired at the regular retirement age. Another<br />
31 former justices retired under the age limit.<br />
The number of the former CCK justices who<br />
actually “retired” is just nine. Twenty-six<br />
former justices chose to pursue careers as<br />
lawyers, politicians or law professors. Among<br />
them, private law firms hired sixteen former<br />
CCK justices. They continue to provide their<br />
legal knowledge and experience to the law<br />
firms as lawyers. As in the case of the ordinary<br />
court judges and prosecutors, the CCK<br />
justices continue their legal career as lawyers.<br />
And it places the CCK justices under the<br />
influence of other institutions within the<br />
judiciary.<br />
External pressure from political actors<br />
is another factor that disturbs the judicial<br />
independence of the CCK. Pursuing a career<br />
in politics is the second most popular post-<br />
CCK career for justices after going into<br />
private practice. Among 37 retired justices,<br />
13.5 percent of them were elected or<br />
appointed as politicians. The majority of them<br />
became members of the National Assembly,<br />
and one of them was appointed as the<br />
240 Lee, 2006<br />
Chairman of the Board of Audit and<br />
Inspection. These justices have had to run for<br />
election or find a politician, in either the<br />
legislature or in the executive branch, who will<br />
appoint them to office. The fact that their<br />
position after retirement depends on the<br />
goodwill of such politicians exerts pressure on<br />
these judges while in office.<br />
The trend of judicialization in Korean<br />
politics exacerbates these aforementioned<br />
problems by strengthening the cohesion<br />
between the CCK and partisan politics. The<br />
impact of political pressure on constitutional<br />
adjudication is apparent in the cases of the<br />
CCK. The CCK has refrained from delivering<br />
rulings dissonant from the political aims of<br />
the ruling party. This tendency is intensified<br />
when the ruling party is the majority in the<br />
National Assembly, or as the political majority<br />
is ascertained through elections 241 .<br />
Among many cases, three<br />
constitutional adjudication cases most clearly<br />
illustrate the impact of judicialization on the<br />
independence of the CCK. The first case is<br />
the constitutional review on the Special Act<br />
on the May 18 th Democratization<br />
Movement 242 . During the process of<br />
democratization, one of the worst excesses<br />
committed against the citizens of the republic<br />
was the “Kwangju Uprising” of 1980, when<br />
the military carried out a large-scale massacre<br />
in that eponymous Korean city by deploying<br />
special airborne units against protesters. The<br />
core figures of military authority at the time,<br />
including the former President Chun Doohwan,<br />
were on trial for treason in relation to<br />
241 Park, J. (2009). Constitutional adjudication<br />
and policy-making – a positive analysis of<br />
constitutional policy-making for dissolving the<br />
countermajoritarian difficulty. Ph.D. dissertation,<br />
Seoul National University of Korea (available<br />
only in Korean).<br />
242 96Hun-Ka2, February 16, 1996<br />
(The Special Act on the May<br />
Democratization Movement, etc. Case)<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 55
this as well as the 1979 putsch. However,<br />
before the inauguration of Kim Young-sam as<br />
president of the first civilian government in<br />
the republic, the CCK ruled that it was<br />
unconstitutional to penalize those litigants<br />
because the statute of limitations for treason<br />
had expired. The National Assembly in 1995<br />
then passed the Special Act as ex post facto<br />
legislation. Thus, the case became the subject<br />
of constitutional adjudication again,<br />
specifically on the questions of whether<br />
retrospective punishment is constitutional, if<br />
this constitutional adjudication violates the<br />
prohibition against double jeopardy, and if the<br />
successful coup d’état could be subject to<br />
punishment. But with the cessation of the<br />
former constitutional adjudication process<br />
under the government of Roh Tae-woo, a<br />
former general and colleague of Chun, the<br />
CCK did grant the constitutionality of<br />
penalizing the leaders of the coup d’état and<br />
the repressive reaction to the Kwangju<br />
Uprising.<br />
The second case includes the<br />
constitutional review on the Relocation of the<br />
Capital City. 243 It was President Roh Moohyun’s<br />
core election pledge to move the<br />
capital from Seoul to Sejong, to better balance<br />
regional development. The pledge led him to<br />
win the Presidential election in 2003, drawing<br />
vast amount of vote from the proposed new<br />
capital area, whose voters have traditionally<br />
constituted a swing-voting bloc between<br />
conservative and progressive parties. The<br />
CCK again followed the political stance of the<br />
ruling party in the National Assembly, which<br />
opposed the move from Seoul. Another<br />
factor that influenced the CCK’s decision was<br />
the change in the public’s policy preference to<br />
being against relocation. Justice Kim Young-il<br />
even cited the result of the public poll during<br />
the sentencing. The CCK declared the<br />
243 2004Hun-Ma554 et al., October 21, 2004<br />
(Relocation of the Nation’s Capital<br />
Case)<br />
proposed move to be unconstitutional based<br />
on the rationale that Seoul’s status as capital<br />
of Korea for over 600 years constituted a<br />
“customary constitution” which compels it to<br />
be the national capital. With that rationale, it<br />
also acknowledged the constitutional effect of<br />
the “customary constitution” to be the same<br />
as that of the written constitution. Therefore,<br />
amending the customary constitution to move<br />
the capital would require a national<br />
referendum based on Article 130 of the<br />
Constitution. The citation of a “customary<br />
constitution” and public polling in defense of<br />
the organized opposition to the move<br />
suggested that appearances, rather than the<br />
absolute legality of the proposed move,<br />
influenced deliberations.<br />
The third case is the recent decision<br />
on the dissolution of the Unified Progressive<br />
Party 244 . It marks the first and so-far the only<br />
dissolution of a democratically elected party in<br />
the liberal democratic era of Korean politics,<br />
with only a few parallel cases in the history of<br />
constitutionalism worldwide (such as the<br />
dissolution of the Communist Party of the<br />
German Federal Republic in 1956 on the<br />
grounds that the organization maintained ties<br />
to the East German security services.) In<br />
Korea, the far-left Unified Progressive Party<br />
(UPP) became the subject of dissolution<br />
proceedings for allegedly promoting pro-<br />
DPRK ideology and plotting treason,<br />
specifically alleged plans for sabotaging<br />
infrastructure if the North attacked. As the<br />
only modern nation divided exclusively by<br />
political ideology into rival states, the<br />
entrenched enmity between the two Koreas<br />
constitutes the essence of each one's national<br />
identity in opposition to the other's political<br />
system 245 . Following the arrest of several UPP<br />
244 2013Hun-Da1, 2014.<br />
245 Justine Guichard, “The judicial politics of<br />
enmity. A case study of the constitutional court<br />
of Korea’s jurisprudence since 1988”. Columbia<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 56
members on treason charges, the CCK<br />
dissolved the UPP at the end of 2014 on the<br />
grounds that its ideology and activities posed<br />
a serious threat to South Korea’s existence as<br />
a liberal democracy. The UPP’s five sitting<br />
legislators lost their membership in the<br />
National Assembly as a result of the 8-1<br />
ruling. The one dissenter, Justice Kim Yi-su,<br />
argued that the treason charges against some<br />
of its members did not merit the forced<br />
dissolution of the entire organization – citing<br />
the aforementioned West German case as a<br />
precedent since it led to persecution of real<br />
and alleged communist sympathizers, both<br />
officially and unofficially. 246 The other eight<br />
justices’ rationale for ordering the UPP’s<br />
dissolution was based on a controversial<br />
interpretation of “militant democracy<br />
(streitbare Demokratie)” in Korean law 247 .<br />
The Constitution’s Article 8 (4) states:<br />
If the purposes or activities of a<br />
political party are contrary to the<br />
fundamental democratic order, the<br />
Government may bring an action<br />
against it in the Constitutional Court<br />
for its dissolution, and the political<br />
party shall be dissolved in accordance<br />
with the decision of the Constitutional<br />
Court in the formation of the political<br />
will.<br />
South Korean law continues to define<br />
“treason” rather broadly, on the grounds that<br />
the state of war between the republic and the<br />
North has never formally concluded – simply<br />
expressing support for the North’s politics<br />
has led to prosecutions. The article has been<br />
interpreted as the realization of “militant<br />
University Academic Commons, (2014).<br />
http://dx.doi.org/10.7916/D8R78CBB.<br />
246 The party, while banned, essentially reformed<br />
itself in 1968 under a new name and a more<br />
permissible West German political environment,<br />
retaining many formerly banned members.<br />
247 2013Hun-Da1, 2014, p.112<br />
democracy” advocated by Karl Loewenstein<br />
and Karl Manheim 248 . The majority opinion of<br />
law professors and constitutional scholars, is<br />
that the article should be restrictively applied<br />
only to exceptional cases where democracy is<br />
about to be destroyed and obliterated by the<br />
actions of a subversive party – i.e., one that<br />
clearly intends to function within a liberal<br />
democratic system only to the end of<br />
destroying and replacing it 249 . The CCK<br />
arguably stretched the interpretation of this<br />
article since there was no clear and present<br />
danger proven against the republic 250 . This<br />
was substantiated by the fact that a number of<br />
the treason charges, and sentences that came<br />
with them, were either reduced or dropped<br />
due to a lack of evidence.<br />
JUSTIFICATION FOR THE EXISTENCE OF THE<br />
CONSTITUTIONAL COURT<br />
As Richard Posner 251 claims, the<br />
constitutional court is an inherently political<br />
institution. Tom Ginsburg 252 also contended<br />
that the design of the constitutional court<br />
resulted from the political actors’ attempts to<br />
insure their interests under new constitutional<br />
norms. Contrary to such skepticism that the<br />
constitutional courts could be swayed by<br />
partisan politics, it is better for a democratic<br />
regime to have a constitutional court<br />
established 253 . In fact, their role is not just<br />
limited to amending setbacks in democracy,<br />
but extends to complete democracy as one of<br />
its quintessential parts.<br />
To begin with, constitutional courts<br />
supplement the flaws in democracy. The<br />
legislative and executive branches are proven<br />
248 Kwon, 2010, p.83<br />
249 Kwon, 2010, 86; Lim, 2015, 3.<br />
250 Lim, 2015, 2.<br />
251 Posner, R. “The Supreme Court”. Harvard<br />
Law Review, 119(1), (2005), 28-102.<br />
252 Ginsburg. “Judicial Review in New<br />
Democracies”.<br />
253 Park, 2009, 51-57.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 57
to be fallible in modern democratic history,<br />
with the everlasting possibility of abusing their<br />
authority. This is where the constitutional<br />
court works. When the legislative and the<br />
executive fail to comply with democratic<br />
decision-making processes, the constitutional<br />
court can ideally resolve the chaos<br />
independent from partisan political interests.<br />
Presenting the concept of “counterdemocracy,”<br />
Pierre Rosanvallon 254 has<br />
emphasized the constitutional court’s<br />
contribution to democracy in three aspects.<br />
First, the judiciary provides reasonable<br />
explanation for its decisions through systemic<br />
procedures based on facts and causal<br />
relationships. Moreover, the judiciary is<br />
obliged to make decisions and provide<br />
answers to raised questions, hence eliminating<br />
uncertainty in society and closely binding the<br />
community. Finally, the court is analogous to<br />
a “theater” 255 where the societal controversies<br />
become clear in light of fundamental<br />
governing principles, and at the same time,<br />
where society reflects upon itself. John<br />
Ferejohn and Larry Kramer 256 also echo the<br />
involvement of the constitutional court in<br />
enhancing democracy. Since the courts take<br />
decisive action when the political system is<br />
“fragmented, indecisive, or gridlocked,” it is<br />
what people resort to when their political<br />
leaders fail to yield decisive action 257 .<br />
Additionally, the judicial intervention forces<br />
political officials to expect judicial<br />
proceedings.<br />
In the same vein, the constitutional<br />
court safeguards fundamental rights from<br />
254 Pierre Rosanvallon, Counter-Democracy.<br />
Politics in an Age of Distrust, trans. A.<br />
Goldhammer, (Cambridge: Cambridge<br />
University Press, 2008)<br />
255 Ibid p.237<br />
256 John A. Ferejohn, and Larry D. Kramer,<br />
“Independent Judges, Dependent Judiciary:<br />
Institutionalizing Judicial Restraint,” New York<br />
University Law Review, 77(4), (2002): 962-1039.<br />
257 Ibid. 249.<br />
abusive governmental power, thus realizing<br />
the ideals of liberal democracy and human<br />
rights. Steven Croley considered<br />
constitutionalism to be a remedy for defects<br />
inherent in majoritarian rule. Individuals<br />
possess the rights “against the majority, which<br />
is to say, against encroachment by<br />
majoritarian power” 258 . John Ferejohn and<br />
Pasquale Pasquino (2002) also acknowledged<br />
that the constitutional court protects<br />
constitutional values. He thought that the<br />
actions of the constitutional court would<br />
guarantee that “the legislation and<br />
administrative actions do not encroach on<br />
constitutional values” by upholding the<br />
hierarchy of norms 259 .<br />
Further, the constitutional court<br />
completes democracy. The activity of the<br />
constitutional court does not produce<br />
counter-majoritarian opinions, because the<br />
constitutional court is designed to participate<br />
in politics from the beginning. It constitutes a<br />
part of the democratic policy-making process<br />
and therefore its activity strengthens and<br />
expands democracy. Additionally, the<br />
constitutional court protects the constitution<br />
as the pre-commitment of the polity. This<br />
pre-commitment is beneficial to democracy as<br />
it promotes liberty in politics and ultimately<br />
the popular sovereignty.<br />
DOES THE CCK GUARD THE LIBERAL<br />
DEMOCRATIC CONSTITUTION?<br />
The Constitutional Court of Korea<br />
has maintained its significant status in Korean<br />
politics, overcoming the counter-majoritarian<br />
problem and struggling to secure judicial<br />
independence from partisan political<br />
pressures. The judicialization of Korean<br />
258 Steven P. Croley, “The Majoritarian Difficulty:<br />
Elective Judiciaries and the Rule of Law,”<br />
University of Chicago Law Review, 62, 689-790.<br />
(1995), 704.<br />
259 John Ferejohn and Pasquale Pasquino<br />
(2002), 251.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 58
politics has opened the door to the possibility<br />
of the CCK expanding its influence into<br />
politics and subjecting itself to further<br />
pressures from political actors, its own<br />
internal hierarchy, and the informal patronage<br />
networks characteristic of the functioning of<br />
the Korean judiciary as a whole. As a result,<br />
the politico-historical context and the recent<br />
tendency toward judicialization both provide<br />
reason to be concerned about the CCK’s<br />
independence. Unfortunately, however, de facto<br />
judicial independence has not and is not<br />
guaranteed as thoroughly as de jure judicial<br />
independence has been.<br />
Still, these setbacks are not enough to<br />
completely frustrate the CCK in functioning<br />
as a guardian of the liberal democratic<br />
constitutionalism. Institutional remedies have<br />
been designed to insulate the Korean political<br />
system from possible overreach and<br />
partisanship by the CCK. Those<br />
countermeasures comprise of three categories,<br />
as corresponding to three most frequently<br />
raised criticisms: measures to countervail the<br />
lack of democratic accountability,<br />
complements for judicial independence, and<br />
ultimately, systemic means to improve the<br />
state of Korean democracy.<br />
First, the legal design of the CCK<br />
targets the difficulty in alleviating countermajoritarian<br />
trends by facilitating public<br />
understanding and their acceptance of its<br />
decision. One way to do so is the opening of<br />
more trials to the public. Article 34 of the<br />
Korean Constitution stipulates that the CCK<br />
must disclose the oral pleadings of the<br />
adjudication and the pronouncement of the<br />
decision, unless it is a paper hearing and<br />
deliberation. 260 In addition, the Court<br />
Organization Act enumerates when the CCK<br />
can decide not to open the trial, namely “if it<br />
260 The CCK can convene litigants to the court<br />
and hold a face-to-face trial or just review the<br />
submitted documents and internally make<br />
decisions.<br />
might endanger the national security, public<br />
peace, and order or good public moral, it may<br />
be decided that the trial be closed to the<br />
public” according to Article 57. That is,<br />
constitutional adjudication is held to be public<br />
in principle, and the CCK ought to present<br />
reasons when it decides to close the<br />
courtroom. It is incumbent upon the CCK to<br />
invite the public into the judicial arena. The<br />
benefit of a public trial is improved awareness<br />
on the constitutional discourse and the<br />
augmented duty of the justices to present the<br />
logic behind their decisions. In this way the<br />
CCK remains as “the pure form of the public<br />
reason” 261 .<br />
Second, the demand of the CCK to<br />
exert binding power over the legislative<br />
branch in its rulings on laws restores judicial<br />
independence. Once the CCK declares a law<br />
or bill to be unconstitutional, other state<br />
agencies and local governments are liable to<br />
legislate alternatives (Article 47). Likewise, if<br />
the CCK accepts the constitutional complaint<br />
requested by an individual, state agencies and<br />
local governments’ offices are obliged to take<br />
measures to follow the decision (Article 75).<br />
This binding power impacts the future actions<br />
of state agencies. These additional de jure<br />
supports parallelize the judicial power with<br />
the legislative authority.<br />
Third, the CCK has a unique method<br />
of sentencing that improves its ability to<br />
counter majoritarian tendencies. Based on the<br />
principle of public trial, the CCK is supposed<br />
to disclose details of the sentencing process as<br />
well as the proceedings of trials. The<br />
information on the sentencing includes<br />
controversial issues, the court’s answer for the<br />
issues, legal reasoning for the answer, logical<br />
explanation for the reasoning, and most<br />
importantly, dissenting opinions. When<br />
drafting a sentence, each individual justice<br />
identifies themselves in the reasoning and<br />
opinion. That is, every justice has the right to<br />
261 Ferejohn & Pasquino, 2002, p.9<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 59
articulate their viewpoint on the document if<br />
they hold different opinion from the majority<br />
decision. Their reasoning will be recorded as<br />
the dissenting opinion and fully publicized.<br />
Thus, not only does the minority opinion<br />
enjoy the right to voice itself, but it also opens<br />
the possibility for the public to examine the<br />
logical soundness of every opinion, however<br />
unpopular the minority view on it is. The<br />
principle of public trial, institutional support<br />
for judicial independence, and the publication<br />
of dissenting opinions all formulate the public<br />
forum for open discussion and communal<br />
deliberation. These characteristics are what<br />
make the constitutional court a deliberative<br />
institution 262 .<br />
post-authoritarian countries, even if a balance<br />
between the CCK and the republic’s founding<br />
principles in theory, and Korean liberal<br />
democracy in practice has yet to be struck.<br />
CONCLUSION<br />
Born in the chaotic process of<br />
Korean democratization and raised in the<br />
environment of growing judicialization, the<br />
Constitutional Court of Korea is both a<br />
symbolic and actual guardian of liberal<br />
democratic constitutionalism. The writers of<br />
the Constitution, who desired liberal<br />
democracy and democratic constitutionalism<br />
with the political purpose of guarding the<br />
basic rights and democracy itself, establish it.<br />
Although the political context of South<br />
Korea’s post-authoritarian regime meant that<br />
the CCK came into being under heavy<br />
pressure from internal and external forces, de<br />
jure and institutional measures designed to<br />
guard the independence of the CCK have<br />
enabled it to fulfill its role of guarding liberal<br />
democratic constitutionalism. Many<br />
challenges remain, though, and are likely to<br />
develop further in a negative direction<br />
without action being taken – particularly the<br />
institution’s responsiveness to the siren songs<br />
of patronage, careerism and the fickle nature<br />
of public opinion. The case of the CCK<br />
illuminates the constitutional court’s role in<br />
improving the liberal democratic system of<br />
262 Ferejohn and Pasquino, 2002<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 60
War on Terror<br />
An Actual War or a Social<br />
Construction by the Bush<br />
Administration?<br />
Sinan Zhang<br />
The War on Terror was “a multifaceted effort<br />
to prevent the spread of terrorist ideologies<br />
and activities” and “an attempt to destroy<br />
both state-specific and international terrorist<br />
groups such as al-Qaeda” by the United States<br />
and its allies from 2001 to 2013. 263 In an<br />
immediate response to the attacks of<br />
September 11, 2001, the United States<br />
orchestrated a prolonged campaign in<br />
Afghanistan against the Taliban regime. In<br />
2003, the United States invaded Iraq, later<br />
deposing the long-time autocrat Saddam<br />
Hussein, and launched effort to build a<br />
functioning democracy in the state. In 2013,<br />
after over a decade of fighting terrorists and<br />
insurgent groups,<br />
President Obama announced that the United<br />
States would no longer pursue a “War on<br />
Terror,” but would instead focus the efforts<br />
of the U.S. on state enemies and networks of<br />
extremists. 264 While President Obama may<br />
have formally declared an end to the War on<br />
Terror, current U.S. military involvement<br />
against the Islamic State in the Middle East<br />
causes many to question whether or not the<br />
War on Terror has truly ended.<br />
263<br />
“An Overview of the War on Terror,” EBSCO<br />
Online Library, accessed December 9, 2015,<br />
http://connection.ebscohost.com/us/warterror/overview-war-terror.<br />
264<br />
Barak Obama, "Remarks by the President at<br />
the National Defense University" (speech,<br />
Remarks by the President at the National<br />
Defense University, Fort McNair, Washington,<br />
D.C., May 9, <strong>2016</strong>), accessed May 09, <strong>2016</strong>,<br />
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-pressoffice/2013/05/23/remarks-president-nationaldefense-university.<br />
Ever since the War on Terror was<br />
declared by President George W. Bush on<br />
September 20, 2001, scholars and pundits<br />
have questioned whether or not this so-called<br />
war could, in fact, be considered a war at all,<br />
according to traditional thought. 265 Though<br />
labeled as a war, the War on Terror was<br />
unique: it was not fought between states, and<br />
it did not have a clear enemy, defined goals, or<br />
a specified duration. However, it could be<br />
argued that “war” is only a concept that<br />
society has constructed to define large-scale<br />
conflict, and as such, the term should be<br />
flexible to changes in society or conflict. In<br />
this light, the War on Terror was an actual war<br />
because it reflected the evolving nature of<br />
warfare in a changing world with increasingly<br />
powerful non-traditional security threats from<br />
non-state actors. This essay believes that, to<br />
some extent, the concept of a “War on Terror”<br />
was created by the Bush administration to free<br />
the U.S. from the traditional constraints of<br />
warfare and to bolster military spending in the<br />
relatively pacified early 2000s when the U.S.<br />
no longer faced serious state-level security<br />
threats.<br />
THE WAR ON TERROR AND TRADITIONAL<br />
WARFARE<br />
According to traditional thought, the<br />
War on Terror does not fit into the criteria<br />
that have defined wars for millennia.<br />
Humanitarian law has intentionally avoided<br />
defining the term “war,” instead choosing to<br />
use the more generic term “armed conflict.”<br />
The Geneva Conventions and their additional<br />
protocols define “international armed<br />
conflict” and “non-international armed<br />
265<br />
George W. Bush, “President Bush's Address<br />
to a Joint Session of Congress and the Nation”<br />
(speech, United States Capitol, Washington,<br />
D.C., May 9, <strong>2016</strong>), accessed May 09, <strong>2016</strong>,<br />
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/bushadd<br />
ress_092001.html.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 61
conflict.” 266 The International Criminal<br />
Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)<br />
combined the two to define “armed conflict”<br />
more broadly in a definition that has since<br />
been adopted by other international bodies as<br />
well. According to the ICTY, an armed<br />
conflict is ''a resort to armed force between<br />
States or protracted armed violence between<br />
governmental authorities and organized<br />
armed groups or between such groups within<br />
a State.” 267 First, the War on Terror was not<br />
fought against a state, it was fought against an<br />
idea, “terrorism.” Second, in the international<br />
community, warfare is bound by certain rules.<br />
For instance, international treaties, such as the<br />
Geneva Conventions, protect Prisoners of<br />
War (POWs). 268 According to Baylis, Smith,<br />
and Owens, these rules not only ''regulate<br />
already existing activities'' of war, but ''create<br />
the very possibility for these activities.” 269 It is<br />
the international law of war that distinguishes<br />
war from massacre or other arbitrary uses of<br />
violence. But these treaties defining<br />
international laws of war are negotiated<br />
266 How Is the Term "Armed Conflict" Defined in<br />
International Humanitarian Law?, Opinion Paper<br />
(ICRC, 2008), International Armed Conflict<br />
(IAC).<br />
267 The International Criminal Tribunal for<br />
Former Yugoslavia, The Prosecutor v. Dusko<br />
Tadic: Decision on the Defence Motion for<br />
Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction (1995),<br />
accessed May 09, <strong>2016</strong>,<br />
http://www.icty.org/x/cases/tadic/acdec/en/5100<br />
2.htm.<br />
How Is the Term "Armed Conflict" Defined in<br />
International Humanitarian Law?, Opinion Paper<br />
(ICRC, 2008), International Armed Conflict<br />
(IAC).<br />
268 Karin M Fierke, “Constructivism,”<br />
International Relations Theories: Discipline and<br />
Diversity (Oxford: Oxford University Press,<br />
2013), 200.<br />
269 John Baylis, Steve Smith, and Patricia<br />
Owens, The Globalization of World Politics: An<br />
Introduction to International Relations (Oxford:<br />
Oxford University Press, 2014), 159.<br />
among states, and non-state actors, which are<br />
not necessarily bound to the same<br />
conventions. Finally, war necessitates clearly<br />
defined enemies, goals, and has a fixed<br />
duration. It cannot be indefinite. It ends when<br />
the goals are met and enemies are disabled.<br />
Given this, the War on Terror cannot<br />
truly be considered a war. First, the War on<br />
Terror was not fought between states. It was<br />
fought against an idea, terrorism, practiced by<br />
non-state actors. The War on Terror was a<br />
series of unilateral and systematic military<br />
operations, coupled with economic, political,<br />
legal, and conceptual struggles, against groups<br />
supposedly representing this idea, namely Al<br />
Qaeda and other terrorist groups. It is<br />
problematic to describe the War on Terror as<br />
an actual war because its target, terrorism,<br />
''has most often, at least in recent times,<br />
been...treated as an area of crime.” 270<br />
Second, the War on Terror was not<br />
bound by the international laws of war. While<br />
it is still debated whether or not the Geneva<br />
Conventions were applicable during the War<br />
on Terror, the Bush administration remained<br />
adamant that the war would not be bound by<br />
humanitarian law. 271 One of the most striking<br />
violations was the deliberate abuse of accused<br />
terrorists who were deprived of POW status<br />
and protections. These people were not<br />
regarded as conventional soldiers by the U.S.<br />
government, and as a result were treated as if<br />
they existed outside of the conventional laws<br />
of war.<br />
Third, the War on Terror had no<br />
clearly-defined enemies, goals, or<br />
duration. While traditional wars designate one<br />
or some certain states or actors as clear targets<br />
of wars, the War on Terror had an obscure<br />
270 Fierke, “Constructivism,” 200.<br />
271 John B. Bellinger, III, "Obama, Bush, and the<br />
Geneva Conventions," Foreign Policy Obama<br />
Bush and the Geneva Conventions Comments,<br />
August 11, 2011, accessed April 23, <strong>2016</strong>,<br />
http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/08/11/obamabush-and-the-geneva-conventions/.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 62
group of enemies, terrorists. Further<br />
complicating the situation, Bush stated that<br />
“any nation that [continued] to harbor or<br />
support terrorism [would] be regarded by the<br />
United States as a hostile regime.” The goal of<br />
the War on Terror, “was not the defeat of a<br />
particular country...but a global<br />
transformation on U.S. terms and the<br />
simultaneous elimination of powers who<br />
might obstruct this sweeping U.S. project.” 272<br />
Not only was the War on Terror against<br />
terrorism and terrorists, it transformed into a<br />
war seemingly against any actor not assisting<br />
the U.S. in this aim. Necessarily, this was also<br />
a war with indefinite duration. President Bush<br />
intended to make this war open-ended. Bush<br />
stated on September 21, 2001, that the, "...war<br />
on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not<br />
end there. It will not end until every terrorist<br />
group of global reach has been found,<br />
stopped, and defeated.” 273 Ironically, the lack<br />
of clear enemies, goals, and duration was the<br />
reason why the U.S. officially terminated the<br />
War on Terror in 2013. In 2013, President<br />
Obama stated that the U.S. military should<br />
focus on specific enemies rather than<br />
terrorism as an idea. He went on to explain,<br />
"we must define our effort not as a boundless<br />
‘Global War on Terror,’ but rather as a series<br />
of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle<br />
272 George W. Bush, "President Declares<br />
"Freedom at War with Fear"" (speech, Address<br />
to a Joint Session of Congress and the<br />
American People, United States Capitol,<br />
Washington, D.C., May 9, <strong>2016</strong>), accessed May<br />
09, <strong>2016</strong>, http://georgewbushwhitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09<br />
/20010920-8.html.<br />
Michael H. Hunt, American Ascendancy: How<br />
the United States Gained and Wielded Global<br />
Dominance, (Chapel Hill: University of North<br />
Carolina Press, 2007), 279.<br />
273 George W. Bush, "Transcript of President<br />
Bush's address," CNN, September 21, 2001,<br />
http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/gen.bush.t<br />
ranscript/.<br />
specific networks of violent extremists that<br />
threaten America.” 274<br />
THE WAR ON TERROR AS A SOCIAL<br />
CONSTRUCT<br />
The case can also be made, however,<br />
that the War on Terror was a true war that<br />
reflected the evolving realities of the<br />
international community and armed conflict<br />
with non-state actors. War, according to<br />
constructivist scholars, is a social construct,<br />
just like ''other objects in international<br />
relations, existing only by virtue of human<br />
acts of creation which happen in a cultural,<br />
historical, and political context of meaning.'' 275<br />
The rules of war thus change relative to the<br />
global environment. The idea that war must<br />
be constrained to one traditional form, as<br />
described above, is an anachronistic view of<br />
what war is. War evolved from total warfare<br />
in World War II to precision warfare<br />
evidenced later in the twentieth century.<br />
Warfare must necessarily evolve once more to<br />
incorporate increasingly powerful nontraditional<br />
security threats from non-state<br />
actors.<br />
Gradually, non-state actors of<br />
terrorism have been recognized by states as<br />
legitimate threats, as demonstrated by the<br />
rising priority of counter-terrorism in various<br />
regional security frameworks. For example,<br />
one of the Shanghai Cooperation<br />
Organization (SCO)’s primary objectives is to<br />
promote cooperation in order to combat<br />
terrorism, separatism, and extremism. 276 There<br />
274 Barak Obama, "Remarks by the President at<br />
the National Defense University" (speech,<br />
Remarks by the President at the National<br />
Defense University, Fort McNair, Washington,<br />
D.C., May 9, <strong>2016</strong>), accessed May 09, <strong>2016</strong>,<br />
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-pressoffice/2013/05/23/remarks-president-nationaldefense-university.<br />
275 Baylis, Smith, and Owens, The Globalization<br />
of World Politics, 158.<br />
276 "Shanghai Convention on Combating<br />
Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism,"<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 63
is also a global trend emerging: states are<br />
beginning to recognize that terrorism is more<br />
destructive and poses a greater security threat<br />
than traditional transnational crime.<br />
Therefore, recognizing terrorist organizations<br />
as proper protagonists of war is necessary.<br />
Terrorist groups are far more powerful than<br />
they were decades ago. They have the capacity<br />
to destabilize the international order on which<br />
states rely to prosper. The newly emerged<br />
Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the<br />
Middle East is such an example. By coupling<br />
with religious extremists, secessionists, and<br />
separatists, terrorists now pose more serious<br />
security challenges to great powers than<br />
neighboring states. Thus, it is fair to say that<br />
though the War on Terror differed from<br />
traditional warfare, constructivist scholars<br />
would be likely to consider it a legitimate war<br />
because of the notion that war was a social<br />
construct to begin with. The War on Terror<br />
reflects the evolving nature of war in a world<br />
with increasingly powerful non-traditional<br />
security threats from non-state actors.<br />
WHY DID THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION<br />
CREATE A WAR AGAINST TERROR?<br />
The nature of the War on Terror is<br />
complex. It can be argued that its very name<br />
reflected the evolution of warfare but it<br />
certainly served to benefit the Bush<br />
Administration in many ways as well.<br />
President Bush needed to gain a maximum<br />
advantage over terrorism and to have<br />
domestic and international support for doing<br />
so. A war against terrorism, as opposed to a<br />
war against Iraq or Afghanistan individually,<br />
was certainly a war that the international<br />
community could support. The Bush<br />
Administration also needed an exceptional<br />
excuse to increase military spending in the<br />
relatively pacified post-Cold War international<br />
Refworld, June 15, 2001, accessed May 09,<br />
<strong>2016</strong>,<br />
http://www.refworld.org/docid/49f5d9f92.html.<br />
relations. By framing the war in Iraq and<br />
Afghanistan as a war against terrorism, Bush<br />
received nearly unlimited resources for his<br />
military build-up plans and endeavors in the<br />
Middle East.<br />
The Bush administration used the<br />
term ''War on Terror'' to justify the use of<br />
force against terrorist organizations and states<br />
harboring terrorists, and to suppress<br />
humanitarian law in order to maximize<br />
combat efficiency against terrorism. From a<br />
constructivist perspective, it was rational for<br />
the Bush Administration to reconsider<br />
international and domestic laws in order to<br />
respond to the asymmetrical and nonconventional<br />
fight against terrorism. President<br />
Bush felt that he could not reasonably be<br />
expected to adhere to humanitarian law<br />
against Al Qaeda and other terrorist<br />
organizations when Al Qaeda did not likewise<br />
distinguish between U.S. military personnel<br />
and civilians on 9/11. The Bush<br />
Administration felt that the response<br />
necessary to defeat and deter terrorism<br />
needed to also be non-traditional, including<br />
the kidnapping of suspected terrorists around<br />
the world as well as the use of torture in<br />
Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. The War<br />
on Terror served as an excellent reason for<br />
the Bush Administration to untangle itself<br />
from the international laws of war and to<br />
justify extraordinary measures in order to<br />
efficiently achieve its goal of defeating and<br />
deterring terrorism. 277<br />
The term “War on Terror” also served<br />
as an exceptional reason to maintain a high<br />
military budget in the relatively pacified post-<br />
Cold War era. After the 9/11 attacks, the use<br />
of force had increasingly become a handy<br />
option for the U.S. to approach global order.<br />
To support frequent international military<br />
missions, the U.S. had to rely on a global<br />
military dominance financed by<br />
277 Baylis, Smith, and Owens, The Globalization<br />
of World Politics, 159.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 64
extraordinarily large expenditures. However,<br />
the relative economic decline of the U.S. since<br />
the 1970s led people to question such<br />
extravagance, especially after the collapse of<br />
the Soviet Union. 278 The public needed a<br />
convincing reason to support the increased<br />
military spending in the early 2000s when the<br />
U.S. no longer faced state-level security<br />
threats. As Dean Acheson stated, the “Korea<br />
War came along and saved us'' in uniting the<br />
people of the United States toward a global<br />
competition for supremacy against the Soviet<br />
Union in the post-war 1950s. 279 In the same<br />
way, the War on Terror provided an excuse<br />
for the Bush Administration to increase the<br />
military budget once more without<br />
opposition. As Figure 1 shows, U.S. military<br />
spending after the 9/11 attacks doubled, while<br />
spending on other non-military programs<br />
(including education, social welfare,<br />
infrastructure, etc.) increased by only 13.5%<br />
over the same time period. As Hunt argues,<br />
''[t]he permissive political atmosphere<br />
following the 9/11 attacks gave<br />
Figure 1 . U.S. Military and Non-Military Spending<br />
George W. Bush the chance to pick up the<br />
pace of military operations.'' 280 The War on<br />
Terror proved to be very successful in<br />
justifying Washington's increased use of force.<br />
The War on Terror was arguably one<br />
of the most influential events in the<br />
international community after the end of the<br />
Cold War, substantially shaping the world for<br />
the next decade. Though significant, its very<br />
nature is still controversial. Can the War on<br />
Terror be considered a war at all? On the one<br />
hand, the War on Terror was not fought<br />
between states, refused to be bound by<br />
international laws of war, and did not have<br />
defined enemies, goals, or duration. However,<br />
the War on Terror should be considered an<br />
actual war because it reflected the evolving<br />
nature of war in a world with increasingly<br />
powerful non-traditional security threats from<br />
non-state actors. Certainly, the Bush<br />
Administration benefitted from the new<br />
creation of the War on Terror. By declaring a<br />
war against terrorism, as opposed to a<br />
278 Walter Lafeber, The American Age: United<br />
States Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad,<br />
1750 to the Present, (New York: W.W. Norton &<br />
280 Michael H. Hunt, American Ascendancy: How<br />
Company, 1994).<br />
the United States Gained and Wielded Global<br />
279<br />
Walter LaFeber, Source: America, How Military Russia, Spending and the Has Changed Since Dominance, 9/11. National (Chapel Priorities Hill: Projects. University of North<br />
Cold War, 1945-2000, (Boston: McGraw-Hill,<br />
Carolina Press, 2007), 276.<br />
2002), 103.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 65
traditional state-actor, Bush was able to<br />
deploy the full force of the U.S. military<br />
without the usual constraints of traditional<br />
warfare and was able to bolster military<br />
spending in the post-Cold War era when the<br />
U.S. no longer faced serious state-level<br />
security threats.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 66
Born to Be Different<br />
National Identity And The<br />
“Other” In Russian Political<br />
Elite Discourse<br />
Anastasiia Vlasenko<br />
I<br />
n his presidential address to the Valdai<br />
International Discussion Club on<br />
September 20, 2013, Russian President<br />
Vladimir Putin transformed national identity<br />
into the primary political concern for Russian<br />
elites: “Today we need new strategies to<br />
preserve our identity in a rapidly changing<br />
world. […] For us, questions about who we<br />
are and who we want to be are increasingly<br />
prominent in our society. […] It is evident<br />
that it is impossible to move forward without<br />
spiritual, cultural and national selfdetermination.”<br />
281 Putin’s speech activated a<br />
discourse within the Russian political elite<br />
concerned with who Russians are and who<br />
they are not. Previously fraternal ethnicities<br />
were categorized into the increasingly diverse<br />
and expanding label of “other”; defining<br />
Russian national identity much more narrowly<br />
than ever before.<br />
The recent redefinition of Russian<br />
national identity is puzzling. It remains<br />
unclear why Russia changed its attitudes<br />
towards neighboring ethnic groups and<br />
nation-states, as well as its own population.<br />
The latest transformations in national identity<br />
are particularly perplexing if you consider that<br />
ethnic Russians share many congenital and<br />
gained characteristics with the aforementioned<br />
groups as well as a controversial history of<br />
interrelations. Russian national identity was<br />
not actively discussed on an official level until<br />
recently.<br />
281 Vladimir Putin, Three Landmark Speeches by<br />
the President of Russia (Kuala Lumpur: ITBM,<br />
2014), 28.<br />
In this paper I address the question of<br />
the origins of modern Russian national<br />
identity by focusing on the discursive power<br />
of elites. More specifically, I argue that the<br />
observed change in attitudes and definitions<br />
can be explained by the deliberate<br />
manipulations of political elites, who employ<br />
their discursive power to achieve their own<br />
economic and political goals. Elites are<br />
believed to have social power over other<br />
groups of the society; they can frame<br />
discourses within the society by limiting the<br />
general public’s freedom of action through<br />
mental control. 282 Thus, the primary focus of<br />
my research is the influence of elite interests<br />
in Russian political discourse, more<br />
specifically, how did the Russian elites’<br />
political discourse influence Russian national<br />
identity and the notion of the “other?”<br />
The paper focuses on the formulation<br />
of national identity in Russian elite political<br />
discourse in the period of Vladimir Putin’s<br />
incumbency. 283 The Russian government is<br />
conventionally characterized by centralized,<br />
personalized power structures, which<br />
effectively resist any manifestation of<br />
opposition. 284 More importantly, the<br />
personalization of power in Russia is also<br />
accompanied by the rise of nationalism, which<br />
is often claimed to be popularized by Vladimir<br />
Putin. 285 These considerations lead to the<br />
282 Teun Van Dijk (1989) “Structures of discourse<br />
and structures of power,” in Communication<br />
Yearbook 12, ed. James A. Anderson(Newbury<br />
Park, CA: Sage, 1989), 19.<br />
283 Particular attention is paid to the president<br />
due to the high level of personalization of state<br />
power in Russia. For details, see Lilia<br />
Shevtsova, “The Return of Personalized Power,”<br />
Journal of Democracy 20, 2 (2009), 61–65.<br />
284 Dorothy Horsfield, “Casting shadows?<br />
Authoritarianism in Putin’s Russia,” Asia Europe<br />
Journal, 12, 4 (2014), 445-456.<br />
285 Uri Teper and Daniel Course, “Contesting<br />
Putin's nation-building: the ' Muslim other' and<br />
the challenge of the Russian ethno-cultural<br />
alternative,” Nations & Nationalism, 20, 4,<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 67
conclusion that the Russian elites’ message<br />
must be characterized by a high level of<br />
homogeneity and consistency, thereby<br />
justifying a study of the elites’ influence on the<br />
Russian national identity and notions of the<br />
“other,” referring to the West and non-ethnic<br />
Russians.<br />
The remainder of the paper is<br />
organized in the following way. First, I discuss<br />
the theoretical ramifications of national<br />
identity research, then analyze primordial and<br />
constructivist approaches. I proceed to the<br />
analysis of Russia by first discussing its state<br />
ideology and its influences on the perception<br />
of the West as the “other.” The next section<br />
focuses on the formulation of national<br />
identity within the domestic political discourse<br />
and the conceptualization of the non-ethnic<br />
Russian “other.” Finally, I conclude that there<br />
are two coexisting notions of the “other”.<br />
APPROACHES TO NATIONAL IDENTITY<br />
There are two major theoretical<br />
approaches to national identity. An analysis of<br />
both will make it possible to draw conclusions<br />
about the ability of elites to create the<br />
discourse of otherness. The first,<br />
primordialism, argues that identity is intrinsic<br />
and static. Ethnicity is biologically and<br />
historically given, meaning that an individual<br />
is born with a certain ethnic identity, which<br />
he/she cannot alter. According to the second<br />
approach, constructivism, identity is<br />
manipulative and ever changing; it is based on<br />
political, social and cultural resources. Thus,<br />
ethnicity is socially constructed and can be<br />
manipulated by outside forces to create<br />
(2014), 721-741; Sean Cannady and Paul<br />
Kubicek, “Nationalism and legitimation for<br />
authoritarianism: A comparison of Nicholas I and<br />
Vladimir Putin,” Journal of Eurasian Studies, 5,<br />
1, (2014), 1-9; Theodore P. Gerber, “Beyond<br />
Putin? Nationalism and Xenophobia in Russian<br />
Public Opinion,” Washington Quarterly, 37, 3<br />
(2014), 113-134.<br />
antagonism against other ethnicities. 286 In this<br />
paper I argue that national identity is both<br />
given and constructed. This equivocal nature<br />
of national identity allows the political elites to<br />
manipulate it in accordance with their material<br />
and instrumental interests.<br />
The fact that national identity is both<br />
primordial and instrumental makes it Janusfaced.<br />
People are limited in their selfidentification<br />
by their heritage, communities,<br />
and environment. From this point of view,<br />
identity is given. However, individuals are also<br />
free to alter their identities, depending on<br />
both the judgments of others and the<br />
consideration of comforts or benefits desired<br />
from other identities. Thus, identity is also<br />
constructed. 287<br />
I apply this notion of Janus-faced<br />
national identity to analyze the discursive<br />
identity formation by Russian elites. 288 In one<br />
consideration, the Russian political elites<br />
cannot avoid the given characteristics of<br />
Russian identity, which is limited to Slavic<br />
genetic heritage, Orthodox Christian religion,<br />
and a long history of authoritarian power<br />
relations. In another consideration, Russian<br />
identity is adjusted depending on countless<br />
domestic and international factors, namely<br />
neighbouring states, the economic and<br />
strategic interests of the ruling party, ongoing<br />
domestic and international conflicts, and<br />
survival-related interests of the elites. Inborn<br />
traits of Russians can therefore be easily<br />
employed for construction of the national<br />
identity in accordance with the current needs.<br />
Thus, this paper is aimed at revealing the<br />
interplay of the given and constructed<br />
286 Andrzej Walicki, (1998) ‘Ernest Gellner and<br />
the "Constructivist" Theory of Nation’, Harvard<br />
Ukrainian Studies, 22, Cultures and Nations of<br />
Central and Eastern Europe (1998), 611-619<br />
287 David Laitin, Identity in Formation: The<br />
Russian-Speaking Population in the Near<br />
Abroad (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998),<br />
20-21.<br />
288 Ibid.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 68
characteristics of Russian identity and how it<br />
is influenced by elite discourse.<br />
CIVILIZATIONAL NATIONALISM AND THE<br />
WEST AS THE “OTHER”<br />
Recently Russian state ideology, the core<br />
of the political elite’s discourse, has gained<br />
features of a so-called civilizational<br />
nationalism. This civilizational nationalism<br />
takes its roots from the 19 th century idea of a<br />
non-Western path, which argues the Russian<br />
highly centralized non-democratic political<br />
system is caused by civilizational<br />
predetermination. 289 The Kremlin made a<br />
deliberate choice to canonize the notion of a<br />
thousand-year-old civilization to replace the<br />
old doctrines of Marxist-Leninist ideologies<br />
and to block the allegedly hostile Western<br />
liberal and democratic penetration into Russia.<br />
According to academics Aleksandr<br />
Verkhovskii and Emil Pain, civilizational<br />
nationalism predisposes Russia to an<br />
authoritarian regime. 290 More importantly, a<br />
positive attitude to civilizational nationalism is<br />
shared by multiple groups within the society,<br />
including the strong-arm branch of the<br />
political elites, liberal thinkers, the political<br />
establishment, and the mass public.<br />
Discussing civilizational nationalism<br />
within the Russian official discourse is<br />
impossible without the concept of sovereign<br />
democracy, as opposed to the Western liberal<br />
democracy. According to academic Thomas<br />
Ambrosio, sovereign democracy “expresses<br />
Russian independence on the world stage and<br />
reject[s] the legitimacy of external criticisms<br />
from the democratic West.” 291 Political elites<br />
289 Alexandr Verkhovskii and Emil Pain,<br />
“Civilizational Nationalism. The Russian Version<br />
of the ‘Special Path,’” Russian Politics and Law<br />
50, 5, (2012), 56.<br />
290 Ibid., 52.<br />
291 Thomas Ambrosio, Authoritarian Backlash:<br />
Russian Resistance to Democratization in the<br />
Former Soviet Union. (Burlington: Ashgate,<br />
2009), 70.<br />
use the concept of sovereign democracy to<br />
popularize the idea of the non-Western<br />
“special path” within the country and the<br />
necessity to counterbalance hostile<br />
developments abroad. This process has a<br />
direct influence on the Russian ideological<br />
framing of the “us and them” division.<br />
Sovereign democracy allows the political elites<br />
to emphasize the diversity of values,<br />
differentiating between Western neoimperialism<br />
and the Russian tradition of<br />
strong statehood. 292<br />
An important component of Russian state<br />
ideology is the notion of a Russia-centered<br />
world as an alternative to the notion of the<br />
West as the world’s center. 293 Usually, the<br />
notion of a Russia-centered world is<br />
articulated in opposition to the EU-centered<br />
world and is connected to international<br />
political, economic, and social processes<br />
taking place in the post-Soviet space. Russia is<br />
juxtaposed to Europe, as a bearer of more<br />
advanced values and norms. In his address to<br />
the Federal Assembly in 2013, Vladimir Putin<br />
said: “Today in many countries the norms of<br />
morality and ethics are reviewed, national<br />
traditions and cultures are erased. They [the<br />
West] demand […] the obligatory recognition<br />
of equivalence of good and evil […]. Russia<br />
will keep to traditional values.” 294 Thus, Putin<br />
constructs the discourse as focused on<br />
preserving traditional values and capable of<br />
making an effective distinction between good<br />
and evil. Logically, the preservation of<br />
traditional values depends on their holders,<br />
292 Ibid., 79<br />
293 Roy Allison, “Russian ‘Deniable’ Intervention<br />
in Ukraine: How and Why Russia Broke the<br />
Rules,” International Affairs 90, 6 (2014), 1256.<br />
294 Elizabeth Salkova, “Putin puts the traditional<br />
Russian values, as opposed to the western<br />
morality,” December 12, 2013’ Ok-inform.ru.<br />
http://ok-inform.ru/politika/vlast/7459-rossiyabudet-i-dalshe-podderzhivat-traditsionnyetsennosti.html<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 69
“true Russians,” with distinct behaviors and<br />
characteristics from the others.<br />
Thus, the West is the most frequently<br />
mentioned and to a certain degree<br />
institutionalized “other” within Russian elite<br />
political discourse. It is an integral part of the<br />
ideological framework of Russian politics,<br />
which is used to justify both domestic and<br />
foreign policy decisions. Nevertheless, the<br />
question remains: has Russia also transitioned<br />
to a domestically nationalist ideology, as<br />
argued by the previous research? 295 If the basis<br />
of Russian state ideology is embedded in<br />
nationalism, we should expect to observe<br />
well-defined national identity as contrasted<br />
not only to the West, as occidentalists would<br />
assume, but also to the domestic “other,”<br />
threatening the aforementioned homogeneity<br />
of the nation. 296 This puzzle can be solved<br />
through a detailed analysis of elite discourse in<br />
regard to ethnic and non-ethnic Russians.<br />
NON-ETHNIC RUSSIANS AS THE “OTHER” IN<br />
THE RUSSIAN POLITICAL DISCOURSE<br />
The formation of national identity and the<br />
notion of the “other” through the discursive<br />
power of political elites is an ongoing and<br />
dynamic process in the Russian Federation.<br />
Its relevance can be explained by two recent<br />
changes. First, after the collapse of the Soviet<br />
Union, the proportion of the ethnic Russians<br />
in the country increased from 52 percent to<br />
80 percent. 297 This rapid change initiated the<br />
process of national identity revision. As the<br />
proportion of ethnic Russians increased<br />
relative to other ethnic groups, the possibility<br />
of speaking about Russians as a nation<br />
(Russkiye), not of Russians as a people<br />
(Rosseyane) emerged. Secondly, the end of the<br />
1990s and the beginning of the 2000s was<br />
marked by the rapid decrease in birth rates<br />
among ethnic Russians and the opposite<br />
tendency amongst the Muslim population<br />
within the Russian Federation. The influx of<br />
labor migrants from the Caucasus and thus,<br />
the increase in the number of ethnic groups<br />
living side by side in large cities, translated<br />
religion and skin color into more relevant<br />
concepts in elite national identity discourse. 298<br />
These two factors created a demand from<br />
both the general ethnic Russian public for<br />
national, cultural, and ethnic reassertion,<br />
which the political elites proved ready to<br />
satisfy.<br />
The clash between ethnic and non-ethnic<br />
Russians is highly problematic because the<br />
Soviet Union kindled the process of national<br />
formation within each union republic in early<br />
1920s (so-called policy of korenizatsiia), thus<br />
giving birth to nationalistic inclinations. 299<br />
Currently, Russian elites find difficulty in<br />
criticizing Soviet policies, as the Russian<br />
Federation is considered to be the legal heir of<br />
the USSR, the collapse of which, according to<br />
Vladimir Putin, was “the greatest geopolitical<br />
295 Wayne Allensworth, The Russian Question:<br />
Nationalism, Modernization and Post-<br />
Communist Russia (Lanham, MD: Rowman and<br />
Littlefield, 1998), 260; Edward Lucas, E. The<br />
New Cold War: How the Kremlin Menaces Both<br />
Russia and the West (London: Palgrave<br />
Macmillan, 2008), 14; Pierre Hassner, “Russia’s<br />
Transition to Autocracy,” Journal of Democracy,<br />
19, 2 (2008), 7.<br />
296 Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit,<br />
Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its<br />
Enemies (New York: Penguin Press, 2005), 4.<br />
297 Luke March, “Nationalism for Export? The<br />
Domestic and Foreign-Policy Implications of the<br />
New Russian Idea,” Europe-Asia Studies, 64, 3,<br />
(2012), 404.<br />
298 Agata Dubas, The Menace of a ‘Brown’<br />
Russia: Ethnically Motivated Xenophobia—<br />
Symptoms, Causes and Prospects for the<br />
Future (Warsaw: Centre for Eastern Studies,<br />
2008).<br />
299 Rogers Brubaker, “Rethinking Nationhood:<br />
Nation as Institutionalized Form, Practical<br />
Category, Contingent Event,” Contention, 4,<br />
(1994), 3-14.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 70
tragedy of the 20 th century.” 300 The second<br />
cleavage between the West and the East is<br />
deeply rooted in the Russian civilization<br />
nationalist ideology and is mostly related to<br />
the Russian foreign policy discourse. Finally,<br />
the third cleavage addresses the conflict<br />
between ethnic identities (Russkiy) based on<br />
religion, language, culture and the civic<br />
identity (Rossiyskiy) based on inclusive<br />
citizenship. 301 This cleavage is the most salient<br />
and important in regards to the notion of “the<br />
other” within the Russian borders.<br />
More specific analysis of the variety of<br />
elite discourse channels reveals the cleavage<br />
between ethnic and civic identities is the most<br />
widely discussed and the most coherently<br />
presented. Marlene Laruelle found that the<br />
majority of Russian governmental TV<br />
programs emphasize the Slavic roots of the<br />
Russian identity, and mention historical,<br />
religious, and cultural links with the<br />
neighboring ethnic groups (in particular<br />
Georgians and Ukrainians), spoilt by the socalled<br />
nationalist diseases of the post-Soviet<br />
epidemic. 302 This approach to presenting the<br />
interethnic relations reveals the dichotomy of<br />
Russian political discourse. “Others” are<br />
perceived to be the same in primordial terms;<br />
however, they are criticized for developing<br />
into something different, as a result of the<br />
latest political decisions of the titular elites. In<br />
300 Katie Sanders, “Did Vladimir Putin call the<br />
breakup of the USSR 'the greatest geopolitical<br />
tragedy of the 20th century?” Pundit Fact, March<br />
6, 2014<br />
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2<br />
014/mar/06/john-bolton/did-vladimir-putin-callbreakup-ussr-greatest-geop/<br />
301 Vera Tolz, “Forging the Nation: National<br />
Identity and Nation Building in Post-Communist<br />
Russia,” Europe-Asia Studies, 50, 6 (1998), 993-<br />
1022.<br />
302 Marlene Laruelle, “The Russian Idea on the<br />
Small Screen: Staging National Identity of the<br />
Russian TV,” Demokratizatsiya 22, 2 (2014),<br />
329-330.<br />
such a way, neighboring ethnic groups are<br />
presented as the same historically, but<br />
different currently.<br />
A similar approach is applied to the North<br />
Caucasus, which is officially located within the<br />
Russian borders. The Caucasians belong to a<br />
variety of ethnic groups, and thus, it is<br />
difficult to use primordial similarities in this<br />
case. However, an analysis of state-sponsored<br />
TV programs demonstrates that the North<br />
Caucusus is portrayed as having a different,<br />
forgotten identity: the Cossack one. 303 North<br />
Caucusus is depicted as the place of great wars<br />
of Slavic Cossacks, a narrative that makes this<br />
region one more bastion of Pan-Russian<br />
context, in which the North Caucasian people<br />
are assigned a secondary role. Thus, even if<br />
the given identities are inapplicable, they are<br />
used for constructivist purposes.<br />
The annexation of Crimea and the conflict<br />
in Eastern Ukraine activated the Russian<br />
elites’ nationalist discourse and brought forth<br />
valuable data for analysis. The President’s<br />
governmental speeches and announcements,<br />
and those of other officials, regarding the<br />
dispute in Ukraine show that Russian elites<br />
prefer to describe national identity in<br />
primordial ethno-linguistic and ethno-cultural<br />
terms. These terms reassert the boundaries<br />
between Russians and the other (in this case<br />
Ukrainians) as a justification for Russian<br />
territorial claims. 304 In his Kremlin address on<br />
the unification with Crimea, Putin used the<br />
word ‘Russkiy’ 29 times, thus initiating the<br />
official transfer of the Russian elite political<br />
discourse from civic identity to ethnic<br />
identity. 305 Taking into consideration the<br />
aforementioned discussion of the Russkiy and<br />
303 Ibid.<br />
304 Uri Teper, “Official Russian Identity Discourse<br />
In Light of the Annexation of Crimea: National or<br />
Imperial?”, Post-Soviet Affairs (2015), 2.<br />
305 Vladimir Putin, “Obrashcheniye Prezidenta<br />
Rossiyskoy Federatsii,” 2014 [Address of the<br />
President of the Russian Federation]. Kremlin.ru,<br />
<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 71
Rossiyskiy dichotomy in the Russian political<br />
discourse, it can be concluded that Russia’s<br />
geostrategic interests resulted in the<br />
ethnicization of the Russian national identity<br />
and the notion of the “other.”<br />
Russian elites have proved to be extremely<br />
opportunistic. 306 Foreign and domestic policy<br />
considerations provided the elites with<br />
justification to transform once fraternal ethnic<br />
groups into the threatening “other”. 307 More<br />
importantly, this “other” exists both within<br />
and beyond the Russian borders, ensuring that<br />
the Russian national identity as it is currently<br />
presented in the Russian political discourse,<br />
can exist only as long as it is strictly framed<br />
within its ethnic boundaries. In such a way,<br />
the primordial myths regarding threats to<br />
Russia as a nation, proved to be a solid and<br />
reliable basis for construction of the national<br />
identity and the “other.”<br />
Two dimensions of Russian national<br />
identity can be traced: (1) Russians as<br />
contrasted with the West, and (2) ethnic<br />
Russians (Russkiye) as contrasted with nonethnic<br />
Russians or fraternal ethnic groups<br />
“spoiled” by the West. The first dimension<br />
aims to reassure Russia’s status as a great<br />
power, destined to be different from the<br />
West, on an international level. The second<br />
dimension ensures the political survival of the<br />
ruling party, since its main goal is to show the<br />
otherness of the minorities within Russia and<br />
to justify the expansion of Russia beyond its<br />
borders. Combined, these two notions of the<br />
“other” serve both foreign and domestic<br />
objectives of the Russian elites.<br />
CONCLUSION<br />
Within Russian elite political<br />
discourse, national identity and the notion of<br />
the “other” are presented in primordial, ethnic<br />
terms. Elites manipulate the public’s<br />
perception of the inborn characteristics of<br />
Russians in order to construct an identity<br />
capable of reasserting the status of Russia as a<br />
whole on the international arena, and the<br />
position of the current incumbents on the<br />
domestic level. Thus, Russian national identity<br />
can be characterized as both given and<br />
constructed, as it combines the inherited,<br />
stable features with those imposed and<br />
manipulated by the political elites.<br />
306 Galina Kozhevnikova, G. (2004) “Putin’skii<br />
prizyv’’: ideology ili mifotvortsy?”, in Putiami<br />
nesvobody [By Paths of Bondage], ed.<br />
Aleksandr Verkhovskii (Moscow: Information-<br />
Analytical Center ‘SOVA’, 2005), 6-17.<br />
307 Vera Tolz, Vera, “Rethinking Russian-<br />
Ukrainian relations: A New Trend in Nationbuilding<br />
in Post-communist Russia?” Nations<br />
and Nationalism, 8, 2 (2002), 235–253.<br />
JPI: <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2016</strong> Issue 72