International Relations

An earlier post commented on Tony Judt's magnificent book Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 . There I focused on the story he tells of the brutality of the creation of Communist Party dictatorships across Eastern Europe ( link ). Equally fascinating is his narrative of the abrupt collapse of those states in 1989. In short order the world witnessed the collapse of communism in Poland (June 1989), East Germany (November 1989), Czechoslovakia (November 1989), Bulgaria (November 1989), Romania (December 1989), Hungary (March 1990), and the USSR (December 1991). Most of this narrative occurs in chapter 19. The sudden collapse of multiple Communist states in a period of roughly a year requires explanation. These were not sham states; they had formidable forces of repression and control; and there were few avenues of public protest available to opponents of the regimes. So their collapse is worth of careful assessment. There seem to be several crucial ingredients in the sudden colla...

Robert Klitgaard is an insightful expert on the institutional causes of corruption in various social arrangements. His 1988 book, Controlling Corruption , laid out several case studies in detail, demonstrating specific features of institutional design that either encouraged or discouraged corrupt behavior by social and political actors. More recently Klitgaard prepared a major report for the OECD on the topic of corruption and development assistance (2015;  link ). This working paper is worth reading in detail for anyone interested in understanding the dysfunctional origins of corruption as an institutional fact. Here is an early statement of the kinds of institutional facts that lead to higher levels of corruption: Corruption is a crime of calculation. Information and incentives alter patterns of corruption. Processes with strong monopoly power, wide discretion for officials and weak accountability are prone to corruption. (7) Corruption can go beyond bribery to include nepotism, ...

There are a lot of opinions about China today in the United States -- authoritarian, farsighted, effective at economic progress, overly committed to Party authority, challenged by the environmental effects of rapid economic growth, burdened by a corrupt and aging party elite. Some believe China is on the path to becoming a dominant super power, while others think that the suppression of individual freedom and thought is a fatal weakness that will eventually spell serious problems for Chinese stability and progress. Several specific impressions from a recent trip to China leave me with more nuanced versions of several of those thoughts. Here is one: whenever you drive into a parking garage in virtually any major city in China your license plate is immediately scanned and stored. This makes it very convenient for parking -- you don't need a ticket and the parking charge is automatically added to your form of payment when you leave. But it also means the state has the tools necessary ...

Europe faces major challenges today, from the rise of the extreme right to Brexit to the ongoing threat of ISIS terror. But these challenges pale against those faced across the map of Europe in 1945 and for the next twenty years or so. Tony Judt makes the depth and power of those challenges and changes very clear in his 2005 book,  Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 . Here is a good statement of his vision of the period from early in the book.  An era was over and a new Europe was being born. This much was obvious. But with the passing of the old order many longstanding assumptions would be called into question. What had once seemed permanent and somehow inevitable would take on a more transient air. The Cold-War confrontation; the schism separating East from West; the contest between �Communism� and �capitalism�; the separate and non-communicating stories of prosperous western Europe and the Soviet bloc satellites to its east: all these could no longer be understood as t...

How do the domestic politics of China work, from 1949 to the present? This question covers many issues: Why does the Chinese state act as it does? Why does it choose the policies it has pursued over time? How does the Chinese Communist Party work? What are the mechanisms of policy formulation and adoption in China? How do ordinary people and groups express their needs and wishes? What kinds of issues lead to mobilization and protest? How does the state respond? One thing apparent in these questions is the polarity they presuppose: state and civil society, central government and the people. But in fact, of course, this polarity obscures a crucial stratification of levels of political power and authority. There is an extensive central government, of course, with substantial power. But there are also units of government at lower levels -- province, county, city, town, and village. Officials at each of these levels have powers, authority, and responsibility; and there are powerful stakehol...

This month marks the tenth anniversary of Understanding Society . The blog now includes 1,176 posts on topics in the philosophy of social science, the heterogeneity of the social world, current thinking about social problems, and occasional contributions on how we can envision a better future. Thanks to all of the readers who have visited during the past twelve months! The blog continues to serve as a simulating outlet for intellectual work for me. Each post is roughly a thousand words, and my aim is to develop one idea or address one problem in the post. I've never tried for consistency or thematic coherence over time; the blog is more of a research notebook for me, allowing me to capture ideas and topics as they come up. Since the beginning I've looked at it as a kind of "open source philosophy," allowing for the development of ideas and arguments in a piecemeal way. At the same time, it serves as a kind of seismograph for me, letting me recall the kind of topics th...