JPI Spring 2015

Table of Contents 

Letter from the Editor | Madeleine Wykstra 1 

JPI Spring 2015 Editorial Board 2 

Sexual Citizenship and EU Conditionality | Séhzad M. Sooklall 3 

Does Official Development Assistance Contribute to Long- Term Growth and Stability in 

Afghanistan? | David Esmati 22 

From Operation Serval to Barkhane: Understanding France’s Increased Involvement in Africa 

in the Context of Françafrique and Post- colonialism | Carmen Cuesta Roca 32 

China’s Economic Espionage: Stealing, not Destroying | Reema Hibrawi 41 

The Anti-Communist Myth: A Critical Examination of Aggregate U.S. Foreign Policy 

Analysis of the Cold War | Dylan Heyden 48 

An Appraisal of the Joint Development Approach to the South China Sea Dispute: 

Prospects and Challenges | Guan Hui Lee 56 

Is Sustained Economic Growth in Russia’s Future? | Joel Alexander 66 

Iraq: State Or National Collapse? | Paul Mutter 79 

Power to the Babushkas? Reconsidering the Relationship between Russian Politics 

and the Elderly | Ilaria Parogni 90 

From Multi-Party to Two-Party System: The Applicability of Duverger’s Law and 

the Taiwanese Election Reform | Pei-Yu Wei 101 

Empowering Women or Hollow Words? Gender References in Peace Agreements | 

Lori Perkovich 111 

A New Cold War in the Arttic? | Roma Parhad 123 

Faculty Spotlight: A Conversation with Professor Michael Williams | 

Interviewed by Jordan Clifford 130

Letter from the Editor | Spring 2015 

It is with great pleasure that I present the Journal of Political Inquiry’s Spring 2015 publication. 

This issue is the product of a diverse, talented, and ambitious team of writers and editors. It features 

student authors from several different New York University graduate programs. These students 

invested commendable time and energy into their respective articles, and that effort shows in the 

quality of their work. 

The Spring 2015 issue, of course, would not have been possible without the valiant efforts of our 

managing editors, who worked tirelessly to prepare these articles for publication. The Journal is also 

fortunate to have had an exceptional team of students serve on the editorial board this year. In 

addition, our operations team should be commended for expanding JPI’s readership and 

participation to many different programs at GSAS and NYU. 

This has been a transformative year for JPI. We sought to expand the Journal’s presence and its 

substance, and we have succeeded in doing both. As you know, JPI is a student-cultivated, studentled 

publication. Its success this year was made possible by students who recognize the value in 

exchanging ideas, skills, and perspectives outside of the classroom. The Fall 2014 and Spring 2015 

publications speak to our collective ambition and initiative, and the value we see in producing 

something with our peers, for our peers. 

In my Fall 2014 letter, I wrote that we must “take advantage of our time together in graduate 

school, and the pool of talent that comprises our own student body.” The hundreds of hours spent 

in putting together JPI’s Fall 2014 and Spring 2015 issues have allowed us to do just that, and we 

are collectively better for it. Although JPI will continue evolving and growing under each new 

editorial board, the students who worked so hard to bring new life to JPI this year have left their 

own indelible mark. I thank them for their dedication—and I thank you, the readers, for your 

support of our efforts. 

Wishing you all a happy and successful summer, 

Madeleine Wykstra 

Editor-in-Chief 

Madeleine is a second-year MA candidate at New York University. She graduated summa cum laude from the 

State University of New York at Purchase, with a BA in political science and a minor in economics. 

Previously, Madeleine served as an editor for the Center for Constitutional Transitions at NYU Law School, 

and as an editorial intern for the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. Her research interests 

include multilateral responses to intrastate conflict, the emergence and development of transnational 

regulatory standards, and the design of administrative mechanisms to improve natural resource revenue 

management in developing countries. She will begin a JD program at Berkeley School of Law in the fall. 

1 Spring 2015 1

Editorial Board 

Editor-in- Chief 

Madeleine Wykstra 

Managing Editors 

Jie Zhan 

Roma Parhad 

Ásdís Ólafsdóttir 

Xing Lu 

Mireia Triguero Roura 

Dylan Heyden 

Guan Hui Lee 

Hannah Thomas 

Ji Min Kiim 

Joseph Lavicka 

Khobaib Osailan 

Marcela Villacob 

Editors 

Paul Mutter 

Pei-Yu Wei 

Wenjun Zeng 

Won Min Seo 

Zehra Rehman 

Jordan Clifford 

Ramiro Fúnez 

Special thanks to our honorary guest editor Elizabeth Bennett 


Sexual Citizenship and 

EU Conditionality 

Can Supranational 

Organizations Facilitate the 

Advancement of Sexual 

Minorities? 

The Case of Former Yugoslav 

Republics and EU Accession 

Séhzad M. Sooklall 

Citizenship is transcending traditional 

European states’ borders. More 

than a half billion Europeans are 

now citizens of both the European Union 

(EU) and one of the 28 member states. 1 

Article 20 of The Treaty on the 

Functioning of the European Union states 

that “every person holding the nationality 

of a Member State shall be a citizen of the 

Union” and that “citizenship of the Union 

shall be additional to and not replace 

national citizenship.” 2 Do the rights and 

protections afforded by member states 

necessarily mirror the ones afforded at the 

supranational level? Is one set of 

citizenship rights more desirable than the 

other? 

Several factors must be considered: 

does the citizen in question constitute part 

1 Dimitry Kochenov, “The Present and the Future 

of EU Citizenship: A Bird’s Eye View of the Legal 

Debate,” Jean Monnet Working Papers (NYU Law 

School) No.2/12 (2012): 3, 

http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2063200. 

2 The Member States, “Consolidated version of the 

Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,” 

Official Journal of the European Union (2012), 

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legalcontent/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:12012E/TXT. 

of the minority or majority in terms of the 

power structure of that state, and very 

importantly, to which member state does 

the citizen belong? In the process of EU 

enlargement, applicant countries have to 

harmonize their national legislation with 

the acquis communautaire before entry into 

the union. 3 This paper explores whether 

conditionality to EU membership has 

served as an effective instrument for 

positive change in the lives of sexual 

minorities in the applicant countries. More 

specifically, this paper will focus on the 

former Yugoslav republics of Serbia and 

Montenegro, which are currently in the 

negotiation phase for EU accession, and 

Croatia, which was admitted to the union 

in July 2013. 4 

This paper will begin with the 

introduction of relevant context, including 

operational definitions. It will be followed 

by a review of Contested Terrain of Sexual 

Citizenship: EU Accession and the Changing 

Position of Sexual Minorities in the Post-Yugoslav 

context, by Katja Kahlina. It will then 

compare EU accession of the former 

Yugoslav republics and the resulting 

impact on sexual minorities with recent 

events in France in regards to same sex 

marriage legalization. This comparative and 

interpretive analysis finds that although 

advancement of sexual citizenship in 

France was not imposed by the European 

Union, riots and anti-gay violence still 

3 Katja Kahlina, “Contested Terrain of Sexual 

Citizenship: EU Accession and the Changing 

Position of Sexual Minorities in the Post-Yugoslav 

Context,” University of Edinburgh School of Law: The 

Europeanisation of Citizenship in the Successor States of the 

Former Yugoslavia (CITSEE) Working Paper Series No. 

2013/33 (2013): 23, 

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_i 

d=2388884. 

4 “EU Enlargement: Check Current Status,” 

European Commission, last modified April 16, 2015, 

http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/countries/checkcurrent-status/index_en.htm. 


erupted in Paris just as they did in 

Belgrade, Zagreb and Montenegro, which 

suggests that causality for anti-gay 

sentiment might not necessarily be rooted 

in EU conditionality but is likely a 

symptom of generalized homophobia. This 

paper presents the argument that the 

advancement of sexual minority rights 

comes at a cost regardless of whether it is 

endogenously or exogenously promulgated 

, and often with vitriol and protests 

targeted toward the very same minority 

groups expected to benefit from changes in 

the law. However, because the gains in 

legal status come with increased rights and 

remedies, it is a worthy and significant goal 

to pursue in spite of the costs. 

The paper concludes by posing 

relevant questions concerning the power of 

supranational organizations, and whether 

such organizations can facilitate the 

advancement of sexual minority rights. 

Taking the EU as a model, can other 

supranational organizations (World Trade 

Organization or the World Bank) impose 

membership requirements that ask not only 

for the respect of sexual minority rights via 

declaratory instruments but also impose 

strict enforcement, regulatory and 

disciplinary regimes for violating such 

rights? 

BACKGROUND 

Gender equality and nondiscrimination 

on the basis of sex, racial or 

ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, 

age and sexual orientation are amongst the 

founding values of the European Union. 5 

Therefore, citizens of member states and, 

5 European Commission, “The EU Explained: 

Justice, Fundamental Rights and Equality,” 

Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union 

(2014): 4, 

http://europa.eu/pol/pdf/flipbook/en/justice_en. 

pdf. 

by extension, citizens of the supranational 

European Union are afforded equal rights 

regardless of gender or sexual orientation. 

A supranational organization lies 

somewhere between a confederation and a 

federation, but it does not fall exclusively 

into either category because there are 

several characteristics that are unique to 

this type of union. 6 For example, while 

competence is divided between the EU and 

the individual states, sovereignty remains 

exclusively within the realm of the member 

states. 7 Kiljunen 8 makes the point that EU 

legislation takes precedence over national 

laws in areas where the EU has been 

accorded competence, 9 just as U.S. federal 

law and the constitution take precedence 

over state law only in matters where the 

federal government has been granted such 

powers by the Constitution. 

The important concept here is that 

a supranational organization is a collective 

body of states acting through a central 

power in matters delegated to it by the 

individual states. The states defer to the 

supranational rule in the matters delegated 

to that union. The EU started as an 

economic union, but gradually expanded its 

scope. Social, political and human rights 

eventually made their way into the acquis 

communautaire. The acquis communautaire is 

defined as the “[c]ommon foundation of 

rights and obligations which binds together 

6 Kimmo Kiljunen, “The European Constitution in 

the Making,” Centre for European Policy Studies (2004): 

22, 

7 Ibid. 

8 “Composition: Representatives of the National 

Parliaments,” The European Convention, last visited 

April 16, 2014, http://europeanconvention.europa.eu/EN/Static/Static6cf8.html?la 

ng=EN&Content=Parlement_Nat. Kimmo 

Kiljunen is a former member of the Finnish 

Parliament and member of the European 

Convention that drafted a constitution for the EU. 

9 Kiljunen, “The European Constitution in the 

Making,” 19. 


the Member States of the European 

Union.” 10 It is derived from the French 

verb acquérir, which means to acquire, and 

therefore conjointly means that which the 

community has already acquired. This 

concept is important here because new 

members seeking to enter the union have 

to harmonize their national laws to grant 

those acquired European rights to their 

citizens as well. Hence, as the rights of 

sexual minorities became part of the 

European acquis in the 2000s, 11 the 

applicant countries from The Socialist 

Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) 

had to enact non-discrimination legislation 

to protect sexual minorities. 

The SFRY was a federation of six 

socialist republics: Bosnia and 

Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, 

Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia, which 

disintegrated in the 1990s as a result of a 

number of regional ethnic conflicts. These 

countries are pertinent because they 

constitute the majority of applicants 

currently negotiating for EU accession. 12 

While Croatia successfully acceded to the 

union in 2013, Serbia and Montenegro are 

still undergoing the negotiating phase. 13 

Moreover, these three countries are 

relevant to this study because despite their 

geographic proximity, they have distinctive 

narratives and imaginaries in EU accession. 

10 “Community Acqui,” EuroVoc: Multilingual 

Thesaurus of the European Union, last visited April 16, 

2014, 

http://eurovoc.europa.eu/drupal/?q=request&uri= 

http://eurovoc.europa.eu/210682. 

11 Council of the European Union, “Council 

Directive 2000/78/EC of 27 November 2000 

Establishing a General Framework for Equal 

Treatment in Employment and Occupation,” Official 

Journal of the European Communities (2000), http://eurlex.europa.eu/legalcontent/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32000L007 

8&rid=2. 


European Commission. 

13 Ibid. 

This is especially seen vis-à-vis EU 

conditionality toward harmonization of 

sexual minority rights. 14 

LITERATURE REVIEW 

This analysis examines Kahlina’s 

paper in great depth because of her seminal 

work on the issue of sexual minority rights 

in the context of former Yugoslav 

republics’ accession to the EU. As a 

current and popular topic in human rights, 

there is however limited scholarship 

specifically on the issue of LGBT rights in 

the context of Western Balkan states. This 

paper not only builds on the work laid out 

by Kahlina but also offers a different 

perspective and analysis using secondary 

sources. 

Kahlina, in Contested Terrain of 

Sexual Citizenship: EU Accession and the 

Changing Position of Sexual Minorities in the 

Post-Yugoslav Context, explores the point 

brought forth by feminist and sexuality 

studies scholars that citizenship rights and 

duties are accorded differently on the basis 

of gender and sexuality. 15 The author 

submits that because citizenship is granted 

largely on the basis of ancestry, which is 

inevitably linked to reproductive and 

monogamous sexuality, society has an 

inherent bias toward heterosexuality. 16 

Throughout her paper, Kahlina discusses 

the tensions between nationalism, nationbuilding, 

and the transnational processes of 

EU accession and how these impacted 

sexual citizenship in the former Yugoslav 

republics. 17 

It is important to clarify Kahlina’s 

conceptions of “sexual citizenship” and 

“sexual minority.” Lister as quoted in 

14 Kahlina, “Contested Terrain of Sexual 

Citizenship,” 11. 

15 Ibid., 1. 

16 Ibid., 1-2. 

17 Ibid., 1. 


Kahlina referred to sexual citizenship as 

“the ways in which sexuality is implicated 

in the scope of rights that form the basis of 

citizenship, such as civil, social, and cultural 

rights, and which determine the unequal 

citizenship status of sexual minorities, i.e. 

of those individuals whose sexual practices 

do not comply with the heterosexual 

norm.” 18 This paper will attempt to answer if 

the bundle of rights afforded to the sexual 

minority can be equalized to those of the 

majority in the EU. Kahlina presents the 

concept of “sexual minority” not in a 

quantitative sense but rather in terms of 

the power structure. 19 Alcoff and Mohanty 

as quoted in Kahlina posit the concept of 

minority within a “framework [that] signifies 

the non-hegemonic position that is formed 

on the grounds of its unequal relation to 

the dominant group.” 20 Following this 

definition, sexual minorities would consist 

of the group of people who have unequal 

power in comparison to the dominant 

group of heterosexuals in society. 

Kahlina submits that although 

sexual minority rights were already part of 

the EU legal discourse in the 2000s, they 

did not play a prominent role in the 2004 

and 2007 enlargements. 21 However, greater 

18 Ruth Lister, “Sexual Citizenship.” In Handbook of 

Citizenship Studies, eds. Engin F. Isin and Bryan S. 

Turner, 191-209. London: SAGE Publications Ltd., 

2002. doi: 10.4135/9781848608276.n12, quoted in 

Kahlina, “Contested Terrain of Sexual Citizenship,” 

2. 



20 Linda Martín Alcoff and Satya P. Mohanty, 

“Reconsidering Identity Politics: An Introduction.” 

In Identity Politics Reconsidered, eds. Satya P. Mohanty, 

Linda Martín Alcoff, and Michael Hames-Garcia, 1- 

9. Gordonsville, VA, USA: Palgrave Macmillan, 

2006. Accessed May 1, 2015. ProQuest ebrary, 

quoted in Kahlina, “Contested Terrain of Sexual 



Citizenship,” 9. The 2004 and 2007 enlargements 

emphasis was placed on sexual citizenship 

beginning with the accession of Croatia, 

Montenegro, and Serbia in the late 2000s. 22 

The author points to the European 

Commission Progress Report for Croatia and 

Article 33 of the EP Resolution 2012 on the 

European integration process of Serbia 

calling on the respective countries to do 

more against homophobia and to conform 

with European standards when it comes to 

protection of sexual minorities. 23 Kahlina 

purports that those stricter standards were 

imposed because of EU bias against the 

Western Balkan states, which were 

depicted as “backward,” “not civilized 

enough” and “not ‘European’ enough.” 24 

On the other hand, it could be 

argued that the EU’s motivation was 

sincerely founded upon a desire to create a 

more unified community that shared 

similar human rights values among other 

things. In Citizenship and the Problem of 

Community, Lynn A. Staeheli explains that 

citizenship is closely linked to community. 

She argues that “community is where 

contests are waged over membership and 

the political subjects and subjectivities that 

‘belong’ in a political community … 

[community] is a site in which power 

relationships are both expressed and 

solidified through citizenship formation.” 25 

Staehli suggests that citizenship is a 

struggle or contest to belong to a particular 

polity. 

included the following countries: Hungary, Poland, 

Romania, Slovakia, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, 

Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Slovenia. “EUROPA: 

The History of the European Union,” European 

Union, last visited April 16, 2014, 

http://europa.eu/about-eu/eu-history/2000- 

2009/index_en.htm. 



23 Ibid., 9-10. 

24 Ibid., 10. 

25 Lynn Staeheli, “Citizenship and the Problem of 

Community,” Political Geography 5, 7 (2008): 27. 


In studying how different 

communities in the Western Balkan states 

were imagined, Kahlina paid close 

attention to the sharp distinctions in the 

national imaginaries of the respective 

states. 26 Following the dissolution of the 

former Yugoslav federation, the previously 

repressed sense of ethnic belonging came 

to the forefront in the states once again. 27 

Kahlina finds that this concept of national 

imaginary built around ethnic identity is 

significant in the study of EU accession. In 

Croatia, for example, being more 

“European” was considered more desirable 

than being “Balkan,” which was the reverse 

in Serbia. 28 These distinctive discourses 

eventually led to different paths toward EU 

accession in the respective states. Building 

on national imaginaries can be a powerful 

tool for social change. Western 

democracies often pride themselves on 

issues such as inclusion of minorities, 

tolerance, and human rights. It is a way to 

mark their difference from the others. 29 

National imaginaries translate into 

legal realities. Kahlina explains that 

conceptions of nation, gender and sexuality 

define the citizenship status of sexual 

minorities because they not only relate in a 

cultural context but also in the allocation of 

rights through family codes, citizenship and 

immigration acts, and labor and health 


Citizenship,” 11-12. 

27 Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Social Identity, Intergroup 

Conflict, and Conflict Reduction, eds. Richard D. 

Ashmore, Lee Jussim & David Wilder (2001), 47- 

51. 



29 Fred Joseph LeBlanc, “Sporting 

Homonationalism: Russian Homophobia, 

Imaginative Geographies & the 2014 Sochi 

Olympic Games” (presentation, Sociology 

Association of Aotearoa New Zealand, Annual 

Conference December 2013) 

https://otago.academia.edu/FredLeBlanc/Confere 

nce-Presentations. 

insurance laws. 30 Kahlina, however, stops 

short from endorsing the concept of 

Europeanization of the Western Balkan 

states as a definite and progressive change 

in the national imaginaries that results in 

greater inclusion of sexual minorities. She 

suggests that importing Western European 

standards has also provided ammunition to 

conservative and nationalist groups to 

disenfranchise and discriminate against 

sexual minority groups, implying that there 

was no clear advancement of sexual 

minority rights as a result of the Western 

Balkan states’ legislative harmonization 

with EU requirements. Kahlina therefore 

suggests that the EU was not necessarily an 

unambiguous liberator of the oppressed 

sexual minorities in the former Yugoslav 

republics. She specifically cautions against 

the assumption that a Europeanization 

movement would become a protector of 

local LGBT populations. 31 

In fact, changes in the legal code 

that decriminalized homosexuality did not 

occur at the same time across the former 

Yugoslav states, Kahlina argues. It was not 

a single Europeanization wave that swept 

decriminalization of homosexuality 

through Yugoslavia at a particular point in 

time. Decriminalization of homosexuality 

actually began in 1977, long before EU 

accession, at a time when criminal law 

shifted from federal to the state level— 

Slovenia, Croatia, and Montenegro, and the 

Province of Vojvodina decriminalized in 

1977 but Serbia waited until 1994. 32 Serbia 

was actually one of the last countries in the 

Eastern European block to address the 

issue of homosexuality altogether. In fact, 

it took 15 years after the 1994 



31 Ibid., 5. 

32 Douglas Sanders, “Getting Lesbian and Gay 

Issues on the International Human Rights Agenda,” 

Human Rights Quarterly 67, 71 (1996): 18. 


decriminalization for the country to enact 

the first law banning discrimination based 

on sexual orientation, and it would not be 

until 2009 that the first non-violent gay 

pride parade took place. 33 The relative 

speed of change in Serbia is arguably 

slower compared to the neighboring 

countries, and the possible reasons behind 

this particular Serbian exception will be 

examined below. 

As SFRY broke up in 1992, 

Ragazzi and Sťiks explain, the successor 

states used their “founding documents, 

constitutions and citizenship laws as 

effective tools to accelerate nation-building 

and to ‘ethnically engineer’ their 

populations to the advantage of the 

majority ethnic group.” 34 The authors 

argued that the new citizenship laws both 

“deterritorialised inclusion and targeted 

exclusion” because in Croatia, for example, 

Croatian ethnicity at its core was used “not 

only to homogenise the national 

population through the exclusion of non- 

Croats, but also to include all ethnic Croats 

in a single national group, regardless of 

their place or country of residence.” 35 

In Negotiating Interests: Women and 

Nationalism in Serbia and Croatia, 1990-1997, 

Lilly and Irvine submit that nationalist 

ideologies in Serbia and Croatia reflect the 

concept of nation as a patriarchal family, 

assigning the role of the father in the 

public sphere as soldiers and workers, and 

positioning women to the private sphere as 

“reproducers and socializers of future 

citizens” teaching them the nation’s 

33 Bojana Dunjić-Kostić et al., “Knowledge: A 

Possible Tool in Shaping Medical Professionals’ 

Attitudes Towards Homosexuality,” Psychiatria 

Danubina 24, 2 (2012): 143-144. 

34 Francesco Ragazzi & Igor Štiks, Citizenship Policies 

in the New Europe, eds. Rainer Bauböck, Bernhard 

Perchinig & Wiebke Sievers (2009), 339. 

35 Ibid. 

“history, traditions, culture, and values.” 36 

As such, women are framed as not only 

carriers of the genetic material of the ethnic 

group but also as transmitters of the 

cultural ethnicity. Heterosexuality emerged 

as the dominant and only legitimate form 

of sexual relationship, which de facto 

delegitimized other sexualities for the sake 

of the nation—this of course paved the 

way for exclusionary laws that made 

citizenship particularly difficult for sexual, 37 

and arguably, other minority groups. 

After the first decade of the 

breakup of the SFRY, Jović explains that a 

new consensus emerged towards 

Europeanization—notions of nationalism 

in Croatia were not necessarily being 

rejected but on the contrary, they were 

being secured by ensuring continuity of the 

nation through membership in powerful 

institutions such as the NATO and the 

EU. 38 It was a means to ensure Croatia’s 

survival as an independent state would not 

be challenged. 39 Kahlina posits that the 

defining or redefining of what it is to be 

Croatian or Serbian probably started 

around the same time as a result of the 

socio-political and symbolic processes of 

EU accession. 40 The question of what it is 

to be European was therefore posed, and, 

as a result, the place for sexual and other 

minorities also became part of the 

discourse. Ultimately, the question 

becomes whether these new aspiring EU 

states would become more like the 

36 Carol S. Lilly & Jill A. Irvine, “Negotiating 

Interests: Women and Nationalism in Serbia and 

Croatia, 1990-1997,” Eastern European Politics and 

Societies, 16 (2002): 112. 


Citizenship,” 7-8. 

38 Dejan Jović, The Western Balkans and the EU: ‘The 

Hour of Europe’, ed. Jacques Rupnik (Institute for 

Security Studies European Union, 2011), 40-41. 

39 Ibid. 




Western European nations, where 

difference and inclusiveness is a matter of 

national pride, or if they would follow a 

different trajectory. 

Croatia applied for EU 

membership in 2003, followed by 

Montenegro in 2008 and Serbia in 2009, 

and last year, in 2013, Croatia’s application 

was approved making it the 28 th member of 

the Union. 41 Montenegro and Serbia are 

still in the negotiation phase. 42 Kahlina 

posits that although desire to join the EU 

was “largely present” in the former 

Yugoslav republics, legal improvements for 

sexual minorities were however “portrayed 

as part of European values and EU 

conditionality . . . [which] in turn 

influenced the joining of homophobic, 

nationalist, religious, and anti-EU 

discourses in the mobilization against the 

transformation of sexual citizenship.” 43 

Sexual minority rights did not come 

as a pre-condition for accession until the 

2000s. 44 Kochenov points out that 

discrimination against sexual minorities was 

not raised as an issue until Council Directive 

2000/78/EC, which stated that 

“[d]iscrimination based on . . . sexual 

orientation may undermine the 

achievement of the objectives of the EC 

Treaty,” 45 and Kahlina points out that the 

issue similarly was not raised until the year 

2000 in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of 


European Commission. 

42 Ibid. 



44 Ibid. 

45 Dimitry Kochenov, “Democracy and Human 

Rights - Not for Gay People?: EU Eastern 

Enlargement and its Impact on the Protection of 

the Rights of Sexual Minorities,” Texan Wesleyan 

Law Review 13, 2 (2007): 487, 

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_i 

d=1022307. 

the European Union. 46 It is noteworthy that in 

2000 the following member states, part of 

the original 15, still did not have antidiscrimination 

laws protecting the 

employment rights of sexual minorities : 

United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Belgium, 

Greece, Portugal and Austria. 47 They 

passed such legislations in 2003. 48 

But after Council Directive 

2000/78/EC and the Charter of Fundamental 

Rights of the European Union in 2000 and the 

subsequent legislative harmonization in the 

above EU member states, nondiscrimination 

on the basis of sexual 

orientation became a more pronounced 

European value. Therefore, countries that 

wanted to become more European or that 

had aspirations to join the EU, Kahlina 

suggests, probably started viewing 

movements toward liberal pluralism more 

favorably. 49 This can be argued in the case 

of Croatia where, following the dissolution 

of SFRY, strong anti-Balkanist sentiment 


Citizenship,” 9. The charter specifies “[a]ny 

discrimination based on any ground such as sex, 

race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, 

language, religion or belief, political or any other 

opinion, membership of a national minority, 

property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation 

shall be prohibited.” European Convention, 

“Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European 

Union,” Official Journal of the European Communities 

(2000) (emphasis added), 

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/charter/pdf/text_e 

n.pdf. 

47 Robert Wintemute, “Sexual Orientation and 

Gender Identity Discrimination: The Case Law of 

the European Court of Human Rights and the 

Court of Justice of the European Union,” ILGA- 

Europe (2013): 1, http://www.ilgaeurope.org/content/download/19297/124445/vers 

ion/4/file/Council+of+Europe+(Comm+for+HR 

)+2013-10-21.pdf. Notable exceptions in the list of 

the original 15, which passed such antidiscrimination 

provisions prior 2000 include France 

in 1985, and Denmark and Sweden in 1987. Ibid. 

48 Ibid. 




fueled the country, and because Croatians 

saw themselves more as Europeans they 

perceived EU accession as their grand 

return to Europe. They therefore became 

more accommodating to the imported 

European non-discrimination values—a 

cause which united both right and left wing 

politicians of the country. 50 Therefore from 

a Croatian perspective, it made sense to 

return to Europe given their selfperception, 

and they also understood it was 

in their security interest to become part of 

the EU and NATO. 

Kahlina argues that the same was 

not necessarily true for Serbia, however, 

and that Montenegro found itself 

somewhere in the middle of these two 

extremes. 51 Montenegrins did not view the 

Europe and Balkan notions as mutually 

opposing, and like Croatia, Montenegrin 

politicians, both left and right, were united 

behind the cause of EU accession. 52 These 

different perceptions of local attitudes 

toward Europe and the Balkans ultimately 

had an impact on the feasibility of the 

adoption of the imported European values. 

Whether the adoption of these 

imported European values is genuine and 

effective is another story, but what remains 

true and enduring is that mechanisms, 

structures, policies, and institutions 

required in the acceding countries can and 

will ultimately have an important impact in 

the facilitation and genuine integration of 

such values in civil society. Antidiscrimination 

laws and institutions that 

should monitor their implementation are 

now an inevitable part of the obligations 

imposed in the EU accession process. 53 

The EU, through its delegations and 

monitoring instruments in the acceding 

countries, can serve as an important 

50 Ibid. 

51 Ibid., 11-12. 

52 Ibid., 12. 

53 Ibid. 

promoter for the advancement of sexual 

minority rights in the respective states. 

These delegations paid particularly close 

attention to the Gay Pride Marches 

because they were seen as an important 

and visible “marker of democratization and 

human rights promotion,” argues 

Kahlina. 54 

In State-Sponsored Homophobia and the 

Denial of the Right of Assembly in Central and 

Eastern Europe: The “Boomerang” and the 

“Ricochet” between European Organizations and 

Civil Society to Uphold Human Rights, 

Holzhacker argues that gay pride marches 

are more than just symbolic public displays. 

These marches “communicate specific 

political and societal demands to elites, 

including social acceptance, the need for 

equality and antidiscrimination laws, as well 

as the recognition of same-sex partnerships 

and marriage.” 55 Holzhacker goes so far as 

to say that not providing adequate 

protection to participants or banning the 

gay pride marches altogether is a form of 

state-sponsored homophobia. The author 

argues that “such state action serves to 

legitimize homophobia in the broader 

society; cues other actors, such as 

employers, to engage in discriminatory 

behavior, and emboldens those who use 

verbal and violent attacks in the streets 

against [LGBT] persons who wish to 

exercise their right of assembly to bring 

about social and legal change.” 56 

Although gay pride marches may 

attract greater opposition, they are one of 

the few visual indicators available to the 

EU delegations and human rights watchers. 

54 Ibid., 15-16. 

55 Ronald Holzhacker, “State-Sponsored 

Homophobia and the Denial of the Right of 

Assembly in Central and Eastern Europe: The 

“Boomerang” and the “Ricochet” between 

European Organizations and Civil Society to 

Uphold Human Rights,” Law & Policy 1, 3 (2012): 

35. 

56 Ibid., 2. 


Also, these marches are not just symbolic 

because they are also the very embodiment 

of the human right of assembly, codified in 

articles 10 and 11 of the Declaration of 

Rights of Man and Citizen (1789), the First 

Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and 

in various regional European human rights 

treaties, notably article 11 of the European 

Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) 

and article 12 of the Charter of 

Fundamental Rights of the European 

Union. 57 Gay Pride embodies the political 

right of assembly. If the right of assembly 

cannot be protected, it is improbable that 

other rights such as protection from 

discrimination or even marriage equality 

could ever be achieved. For this reason, it 

is an important symbol that can be used by 

delegations to measure the extent of 

protection afforded to sexual minorities. 

The first Pride March in Belgrade 

took place in 2001, but was cut short 

because of the eruption of violent 

protests. 58 Instead of arranging for greater 

police protection, the second Pride March 

organized eight years later in 2009 was 

cancelled by city authorities out of fear that 

the march would erupt into widespread 

violence. 59 A year later, in 2010, the 

Belgrade Pride under the watchful eye of 

the head of the EU mission in Serbia, 

Vincent Degert, who said it was a moment 

to “celebrate the values of tolerance, 

freedom of expression and assembly," was 

again met with violent protests culminating 

in more than 100 people being injured, 

mostly police, and around another 100 

people being arrested. 60 The Pride March 

57 Ibid., 3. 

58 Mark Lowen, “Gay March Plan Tests Serb 

Feelings,” BBC News, last modified September 19, 

2009, 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8263116.stm. 

59 Ibid. 

60 Mark Lowen, “Scores Arrested in Belgrade after 

Anti-gay Riot,” BBC News, last modified October 

was again cancelled in 2011, 2012, and 

2013 by the government citing fears of 

violent protests, which raised concerns at 

the European Commission when 

considering Serbian membership to the 

EU. 61 

Serbian resistance to inclusion of 

sexual minorities have come under various 

pretexts. Kahlina brings forth the issue of 

White Plague in Serbia, which is a term used 

to describe the decreasing birthrates and 

resulting insufficient reproduction of 

ethnically pure Serb-citizens. 62 The White 

Plague is closely linked to the concept of 

lineage and became a dominant theme 

following the breakup of SFRY in the 

1990s. 63 Per this framework, “nonreproductive 

practices and nonheterosexual 

identities were perceived as a 

direct threat to the nation . . . [and were to] 

be excluded from belonging to the national 

community.” 64 Kahlina points out how 

some activists organized anti-Pride protests 

called Family Pride under the White Plague 

theme, which framed the future existence 

of the pure Serbian nation as being 

compromised by an aggressive movement 

of the LGBT community. 65 

Pride Marches in the other 

acceding countries did not go without 

disruption either, but they were less violent 

than Belgrade’s. Zagreb held its first Pride 

10, 2010, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worldeurope-11507253. 

61 Julia Druelle, “La Serbie Interdit la Gay Pride 

pour la Troisième Année Consécutive” [Serbia Bans 

Gay Pride for the Third Consecutive Year], Le 

Monde, last modified September 28, 2013, 

http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2013/09/2 

8/la-serbie-interdit-la-gay-pride-pour-la-troisiemeannee-consecutive_3486625_3214.html. 



63 Ibid. 

64 Ibid. 

65 Ibid. 


in 2002, 66 and Montenegro did not have its 

first march until 2013. 67 Right of assembly 

is a core European value and human right, 

and Serbia’s consecutive cancellations of 

the Gay Pride marches have raised serious 

concerns at the EU. The Swedish Minister 

for European Affairs, Birgitta Ohlsson, 

stated in 2012 that the recent Gay Pride 

bans has damaged Serbia’s membership 

bid, and she also stressed that membership 

in the union comes with “commitment to 

human rights, commitment to minority 

rights, commitment to freedom of speech, 

commitment to freedom of assembly. 

These are the core values of the union. 

LGBT-rights are human rights.” 68 

Similarly, commenting on the 

violence at the first Split Pride in Croatia in 

2011, the Dutch EU MP Marije 

Cornelissen, who participated in the 

parade, explained that the violence in Split 

showed that “Croatia still ha[d] a lot to do 

to properly protect human rights” and to 

firmly combat homophobia. 69 Stella 

Ronner Grubačić, Ambassador of the 

Kingdom of the Netherlands in Croatia, 

went even further and stated that the EU 

should more closely monitor Croatia in 

66 “Croatian Gays Join First 'Pride' March,” BBC 

News, last modified June 29, 2002, 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2074653.stm. 

67 “Monténégro: Incidents en Marge de la Première 

Gay Pride” [Montenegro: Incidents at the First Gay 

Pride], Le Parisien, last modified October 20, 2013, 

http://www.leparisien.fr/flash-actualitemonde/montenegro-incidents-en-marge-de-lapremiere-gay-pride-20-10-2013-3243477.php. 

68 “Cancelled Pride Festival Damages Serbia’s EU 

Membership Bid,” Alliance of Liberals and Democrats 

for Europe Party, last modified October 8, 2012, 

http://www.aldeparty.eu/en/news/cancelled-pridefestival-damages-serbias-eu-membership-bid. 

69 “Unsafe Pride Event in Croatia Casts Shadow 

over Accession Prospects,” The European Parliament's 

Intergroup on LGBT Rights, last modified June 13, 

2011, http://www.lgbt-ep.eu/press-releases/unsafepride-event-in-croatia-casts-shadow-over-accessionprospects. 

relation to the accession process following 

the violent protests at the 2011 march. 70 It 

is likely that these marches were serving as 

important social indicators to EU officials 

in evaluating whether the acceding 

countries were indeed endorsing and 

practicing European values of inclusion 

and respect for minority rights. 

ANALYSIS 

Kahlina’s paper maintains a 

conservative approach in giving the EU 

accession process credit for advancing 

sexual citizenship in the former Yugoslav 

republics. In contrast, this paper will 

examine the significance of EU-inspired 

legislative reform. Regardless of whether 

endogenously or exogenously promulgated, 

such reforms are arguably always 

accompanied with local strife, and in the 

end, either path, local or supranational, can 

ultimately lead to significant advances in 

sexual minority rights. The important point 

to analyze here is : (1) whether setting the 

law in a hierarchical manner in a 

supranational context can be effective in 

transforming sexual citizenship and 

assuring equal rights, or (2) whether the 

advancement of sexual minorities come 

from the groundswell support of the 

individual peoples constituting a nation. 

Kahlina suggests a cautious 

approach in examining the effectiveness of 

a supranational approach in advancing 

sexual minority rights, but it can be argued 

that both approaches, supranational and 

local, acting individually or in concert with 

each other, can lead to significant gains in 

the cause of sexual citizenship. However, 

70 “Gay Pride u Zagrebu: Nova Kušnja Tolerancije 

u Hrvatskoj” [Gay Pride in Zagreb: New Test of 

Tolerance in Croatia], Deutsche Welle, last modified 

June 18, 2011, http://www.dw.de/gay-pride-u- 

zagrebu-nova-kušnja-tolerancije-u-hrvatskoj/a- 

15170887. 


to become most transformative, these 

battles should probably be fought both at 

the supranational law level and at the local 

level by civil society organizations. Often 

times, it is via the engagement of the local 

NGOs using supranational law to pressure 

their governments that advancement in 

sexual citizenship can be most effectively 

attained. 71 However, this analysis finds that, 

even alone, EU-inspired legislative reform 

can become an effective instrument to 

ensure equal citizenship rights. 

It is also quite possible that the EU 

process is not the actual cause of the 

mobilization of religious and nationalist 

groups against local gay communities, but 

the very nature of the legal reforms 

themselves. Whether via the 

instrumentation of the EU or that of any 

other institution at the local, national, 

regional, supranational or even 

international level, the advancement for 

equal rights has almost always been 

accompanied by violent protests of the 

powerful ruling majorities, regardless of the 

impetus for reform. 

Considering France, a progressive 

country in Western Europe and founding 

member of the EU, for example, it 

legalized same sex marriage just in May 

2013 – this legislative act came into 

existence only after months of severe and 

violent protests by the hundreds of 

thousands in the streets of Paris. 72 The 


Citizenship,” 13-14. Montenegro, for example, has 

been slow in implementing legal protections for the 

LGBT community, and one of the reasons could be 

although in the midst of pre-existing supranational 

law, there was low pressure from local activists, 

who became more organized and visible only 

recently. 

72 Steven Erlanger, “Hollande Signs French Gay 

Marriage Law,” New York Times, last modified May 

8, 2013, 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/world/euro 

pe/hollande-signs-french-gay-marriagemain 

right wing party of former President 

Nicolas Sarkozy, the Union pour un 

Mouvement Populaire [Union for a 

Popular Movement] was opposed to the 

same-sex marriage law. 73 The radical right 

wing parties, the Front National 74 and the 

Parti Chrétien-Démocrate [Christian 

Democrat] were also against it. 75 In 

addition, almost all religious groups in 

France united against the proposed law. 76 

On November 17, 2012, there were 70,000 

activists, according to police, and 200,000, 

as reported by protest organizers, in Paris 

rallying against same sex marriage – the 

same month that the draft bill was 

submitted in Parliament. 77 On January 13, 

2013, there were 340,000, according to the 

police, and 1 million, per organizers, 

law.html?_r=1&. 

73 Laura Smith-Spark, “French Lawmakers Approve 

Same-Sex Marriage Bill,” CNN.com, last modified 

April 24, 2013, 

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/23/world/europe 

/france-same-sex-vote. 

74 “Contre le “Mariage Pour Tous”, Marine Le Pen 

en Appelle au Principe de Précaution” [Marine Le 

Pen Against Marriage for Everyone], 20 Minutes, last 

modified January 27, 2013, 

http://www.20minutes.fr/ledirect/1088305/contre 

-mariage-tous-marine-pen-appelle-principeprecaution. 

75 Alexandre Lemarié, “Christine Boutin: “Il y a des 

Lois Supérieures à la Loi de la République”” 

[Christine Boutin: There are Superior Laws than the 

Laws of the Republic], Le Monde, last modified May 

20, 2013, 

http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2013/05 

/20/christine-boutin-il-y-a-des-lois-superieures-a-laloi-de-la-republique_3378882_823448.html. 

76 Bernadette Sauvaget, “Les Cathos sur la Voie du 

Veto” [Catholics on the Path to Veto], Libération, 

last modified May 10, 2012, 

http://www.liberation.fr/societe/2012/05/10/lescathos-sur-la-voie-du-veto_817881. 

77 “Mariage Gay: Entre 70,000 et 200,000 

Opposants ont défilé à Paris” [Gay Marriage: 

Between 70,000 to 200,000 Opponents Marched in 

Paris], Le Parisien, last modified November 17, 2012, 

http://www.leparisien.fr/societe/mariage-gay-les- 

opposants-se-rassemblent-a-paris-et-en-province- 

17-11-2012-2329543.php. 


assembled in Paris against same sex 

marriage. 78 

In addition to protests on the 

streets, homophobic violence also tripled 

during the time the law was under 

consideration. 79 In 2013, in less than a sixmonth 

period, the number of homophobic 

violence reported to the nonprofit SOS 

Homophobie had already equaled the 2012 

record, which was in itself already 27 

percent higher than the previous year. 80 In 

April 2013, a month before the enactment 

of same-sex marriage in France, SOS 

Homophobie confirmed in a communiqué 

that it was a receiving about 10 reports of 

homophobic violence a day, which was 

three times the level of the year before. 81 A 

different organization, Refuge, which hosts 

young gays and lesbians between 15 and 25 

years old rejected by their families, also saw 

a tripling in the number of phone calls they 

were receiving. 82 Refuge confirmed that 

since December of 2012 when the debate 

on same-sex marriage had just started in 

Parliament, the number of phone calls 

reached around 400 to 450 a month in 

78 “Opposition au Mariage Gay: Le Récit de la 

Journée de Manifestation” [Opposition to Gay 

Marriage: A Day of Protest], Le Parisien, last 

modified January 13, 2013, 

http://www.leparisien.fr/societe/en-direct-lesopposants-au-mariage-gay-defilent-deja-en-outremer-13-01-2013-2476941.php. 

79 “Homophobie: Un Nouveau “Record”” 

[Homophobia: A New “Record”], Marianne, last 

modified September 4, 2013, 

http://www.marianne.net/Homophobie-unnouveau-record_a231754.html. 

80 Ibid. 

81 Michaël Szadkowski & François Béguin, “Des 

Associations Dénoncent la "Radicalisation" des 

Actes Homophobes” [LGBT Organizations 

Denounce Rise in Radical Homophobic Acts], Le 

Monde, last modified April 9, 2013, 

http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2013/04/0 

8/des-associations-denoncent-une-radicalisationdes-actes-homophobes_3156119_3224.html#. 

82 Ibid. 

comparison to just around 150 calls a 

month before the debate. 83 

Nicolas Noguier, president and 

founder of Refuge, explained that he does 

not think that there is as a radical increase 

in homophobic violence in France as much 

as there is a revelation of the existing hidden 

homophobia. 84 Noguier argued that the 

marriage debate in fact only highlighted or 

provoked a public expression of existing 

homophobia. He emphasized that the 

debate around marriage equality had 

ultimately allowed for the “liberation of 

this homophobic expression” which had to 

be put out in the open anyway. 85 For 

Noguier, the new marriage equality law was 

“necessary,” but it was accompanied by 

“important collateral damage” as well. 86 

The sociocultural and geopolitical 

dynamics in France and the former 

Yugoslav republics are worlds apart, and 

yet in both cases advances in sexual 

minority rights have yielded similar 

aggressive protests and opposition. If equal 

citizenship rights were truly a Western 

European concept, how are such rights 

also vehemently opposed when it came 

down to the legalization of same-sex 

marriage in France in 2013? Could it be 

that public debates on equal citizenship 

and the visibility of gay pride marches are 

not the cause but the revelation of existing 

homophobia, as explained above by 

Noguier? In colloquial language, are public 

debates around same-sex marriage in 

France or Gay Prides in the former 

Yugoslav republics bringing homophobia 

out of the closet but not necessarily causing 

it? 

Regardless of whether these 

debates are the cause or the revelation of 

homophobia, stating the law of the land or 

83 Ibid. 

84 Ibid. 

85 Ibid. 

86 Ibid. 


egion in favor of equal rights can 

ultimately lead to significant gains for 

minority communities, even if such legal 

changes also spur violent opposition. The 

net effect seems positive in the end. Taking 

the United States for example, after the 

landmark U.S. Supreme Court case, Brown 

v. Board of Education, which held that racially 

segregated educational facilities were 

inherently unequal, in spite of the massive 

and violent resistance organized across the 

Southern states, the ultimate impact of 

Brown was groundbreaking for the civil 

rights movement and for the integration of 

African Americans in civil society. In June 

2013, the Supreme Court in United States v. 

Windsor held that the federal government 

could not discriminate against same-sex 

couples and that the Defense of Marriage 

Act was unconstitutional. 87 The Windsor 

decision led to a number of cases in lower 

courts around the country on the issue of 

same-sex marriage prohibitions. The 

important point to note here is the 

implications of an overarching law, which 

states or smaller jurisdictions have to 

subsequently follow. Whether it is U.S. 

federal law determined by the Supreme 

Court or EU supranational law, stating 

87 Alison M. Smith, “Same-Sex Marriage: A Legal 

Background after United States v. Windsor,” 

Congressional Research Service, (2014): 1, 

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43481.pdf. As of 

October 2014, there were already 18 states: 

California, Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, 

Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, 

Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New 

Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, 

Vermont, Washington, and the District of 

Columbia that allow for same-sex marriage. 

Following Windsor, federal district courts in Utah, 

Oklahoma, Virginia, Michigan, and Texas have 

struck down same sex marriage bans in those states. 

Id. at 5. In Kentucky and Ohio, federal district 

courts held that they are to recognize same-sex 

marriages validly entered in other jurisdictions. Id. at 

7. All these rulings have been stayed pending 

appeal. Id. 

equal status of minorities in the eyes of the 

law goes a long way not only in advancing 

their legal status but also leads to a greater 

fulfillment of the promise of citizenship. 

This is illustrated by the gradual integration 

of African Americans in “white-only” 

public schools or the grant of marriage 

rights to gays and lesbians, at least at the 

Federal level for the time being. 

EU accession is an attractive 

economic and national security goal, and 

tying membership conditions with equal 

rights and non-discrimination against 

sexual minorities ultimately promises more 

good than harm. Opposition against full 

citizenship rights for sexual minorities 

happens in other places where EU 

accession is not a factor at all, from 

Uganda to progressive France. Reforming 

the law and establishing institutions to 

monitor implementation of these laws as a 

condition of membership can be an 

effective instrument to ensure full 

citizenship rights for sexual minorities. 

Today, all three states: Croatia, Serbia and 

Montenegro have anti-discrimination acts 

that explicitly condemn discrimination 

against sexual minorities, and they have 

also set up instruments to report and 

monitor any such discrimination. 88 


Citizenship,” 12-14. The following offices have 

been set up: in Croatia, there is an Ombudsperson 

for Gender Equality; in Serbia, a Commissioner for 

the Protection of Equality, and there is an office for 

the Protector of Human Rights and Freedoms of 

Montenegro. Other legal changes also took effect in 

the former Yugoslav republics – a Same-Sex 

Partnership Act was passed in Croatia although it 

provided only a few limited rights to same-sex 

couples instead full marriage rights. Before the 

Zakon o suzbijanju diskriminacije [Anti- discrimination 

Act] in 2008, which explicitly banned discrimination 

on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity 

and gender expression, the Croatian Parliament had 

already incorporated anti-discrimination stipulations 

in a number of acts covering social, economic and 

political life, namely: the Zakon o radu [Labor Act], 


These legal changes were often 

presented by local politicians as 

exogenously imposed requirements on 

states applying for membership to the 

EU. 89 However, regardless of the EUscapegoating, 

the fact remains that these 

countries are passing laws to protect sexual 

minorities on a number of civic, social and 

political fronts. Positioning the move 

toward equal citizenship for gays and 

lesbians as EU-imposed does not take away 

from the very fact that in the end: equality 

in the eyes of the law for such minorities is 

achieved. Becoming equal in the eyes of 

the law is no small feat. If the law of the 

land of an EU member country is to hold 

any meaning—it follows that justice and 

remedies should become eventually 

accessible and achievable. 

The Ombudsperson for Gender 

Equality in Croatia indeed plays an 

important role in monitoring the 

implementation of the Anti-discrimination 

Act. The office is responsible for the 

investigation of individual complaints and 

to provide assistance to petitioners about 

discrimination based on sex, marital or 

the Zakon o medijima [Media Law], the Zakon o sportu 

[Sport Act], and the Zakon o znanosti i visokom 

obrazovanju [Science and Higher Education Act] 

among others. Similarly in Serbia, before passing 

the Zakon o zabrani diskriminacije [Anti-discrimination 

Act] in 2009, explicitly forbidding discrimination on 

the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation, 

the country also enacted stipulations banning 

discrimination against sexual minorities in a number 

of laws, namely: the Zakon o javnom informisanju 

[Public Informing Act], the Zakon o radu [Labor 

Act], the Zakon o visokom obrazovanju [Higher 

Education Act], and the Zakon of Radiodifuziji 

[Broadcasting Act]. The Montenegrin government 

on the other hand passed the Zakon o zabrani 

diskriminacije [Anti-discrimination Act] in 2010, 

which included sexual orientation and gender 

identity as protected classes, and they also passed 

the Zakon o radu [Labor Act] and the Zakon o 

medijima [Media Law], also geared toward increasing 

protection for sexual minorities. 

89 Ibid. 

family status and sexual orientation. 90 In its 

2012 Annual Report, the office reported a 

slight increase in complaints based on 

sexual orientation. 91 The slight yearly 

increases could suggest growing visibility 

and reliability of the institution as an 

effective instrument to channel 

discrimination complaints. 92 

The Commissioner for Protection 

of Equality in Serbia explained in its 2012 

Abridged Report that discrimination based 

on sexual orientation is still widespread in 

the country. 93 In 2012, there were only 

eight discrimination complaints on the 

90 Ombudsperson for Gender Equality, “Annual 

Report 2012,” Republic of Croatia (2013): 8, 

http://www.prs.hr/attachments/article/858/IZVJ 

ESCE%202012%20-%20ENG2-KB.pdf. 

91 Ibid., 10. There were 39 cases (10.6 %) in 2012 

compared to 16 cases (8.5%) in 2011, 12 cases 

(5.8%) in 2010, and 9 cases (4.4%) in 2009 

92 Ombudswoman for Gender Equality, “Annual 

Report for 2011,” Republic of Croatia (2012): 10, 

http://www.prs.hr/attachments/article/107/Summ 

ary%20of%20Annual%20Report%20for%202011% 

20web.pdf. In its 2011 Annual Report, the office 

mentioned that there was 22 criminal charges for 

hate crimes against LGBT people and 103 

misdemeanor charges against 62 people after the 

Split Pride in June 2011. Ibid. And using her 

authority under Anti-Discrimination Law, the 

Ombudswoman also intervened in four judicial 

proceedings in 2011 concerning discrimination 

claims based on sexual orientation: one case before 

the Municipal Court, one before the Administrative 

Court, and two before the Supreme Court. Ibid. In 

its 2011 report, the Ombudsperson for Gender 

Equality also made recommendations in a number 

of areas from education curriculum in public 

schools to the training of judges, prosecutors and 

law enforcement officials concerning discrimination 

issues against LGBT persons, and finally the report 

also asked for the development of a new legal 

framework that would appropriately protect LGBT 

persons in accordance with obligations vis-à-vis the 

EU and the Council of Europe. Ibid., 24. 

93 Commissioner for the Protection of Equality, 

“Abridged Report for 2012,” Republic of 

Serbia (2013): 43, 

http://www.ravnopravnost.gov.rs/jdownloads/files 

/engleski-web.pdf. 


asis of sexual orientation, accounting for 

only 2 percent of all claims. 94 Of the eight 

complaints, discrimination was found only 

in one case. 95 The report pointed out that 

such a small number suggests that cases 

were not being sufficiently reported. 96 The 

Protector of Human Rights and Freedoms 

of Montenegro handled 64 cases in 2012, 

and only three were discrimination claims 

based on sexual orientation and gender 

identity. 97 Although the 2012 Annual 

Report says that progress has been made in 

regards to the rights of LGBT persons, 98 

still per the same report, as of 2012, only 

one person in Montenegro had publicly 

declared himself as an LGBT person. 99 

However, the report also points out that 

adoption of the Strategy of Improvement 

of the Quality of Life of LGBT Persons 

2013-2018, which ensures freedom of 

assembly at public events like the Gay 

Pride along with a new law on same-sex 

unions would help contribute to the 

advancement of sexual minorities in 

Montenegro. 100 

94 Ibid., 15-16. 

95 Ibid., 44. 

96 Ibid. The report also expressed its concern over 

the consecutive cancellations of the Belgrade Pride 

in 2011 and 2012. Ibid., 43. Finally, the report 

concluded with recommendations for the education 

curriculum in public schools and training of law 

enforcement, judges, and prosecutors in regards to 

discrimination issues, among others. Ibid., 64-66. 

The report noted that the recommendation made in 

the previous year in regards to amending the 

Criminal Code to provide adequate punishment for 

hate crimes, including those based sexual 

orientation of the victim, had been implemented. 

Ibid., 64. 

97 Protector of Human Rights and Freedoms of 

Montenegro, “Annual Report 2012,” Government of 

Montenegro (2013): 82, 

http://www.ombudsman.co.me/docs/izvjestaji/19 

112013_Final_Izvjestaj.pdf. 

98 Ibid., 106. 

99 Ibid. 

100 Ibid. 

A brief review of the work 

implemented by these newly installed 

organizations shows that although they 

have only achieved modest success, these 

Western Balkan states are moving in the 

right direction with increasing political 

support. In fact, local politicians have been 

able to use EU conditionality to externalize 

the reasoning behind enacting unpopular 

anti-discrimination laws. Therefore, in 

many instances, EU conditionality has 

enabled local politicians to undertake risky 

political maneuvers that would have 

otherwise been impossible given the 

cultural context. 101 

Hence, although change could be 

more effective when it comes directly from 

a grassroots level, these supranationallyinspired 

organizations can and do play an 

important role in strengthening local civil 

society organizations by ensuring and 

advocating for their freedoms of assembly 

and speech. In addition, creating a 

supranational standard for equal rights is 

no de minimis feat either. The accompanying 

changes in the national legal codes will 

have a lasting impact and will also provide 

additional and alternative recourse at the 

supranational judicial bodies. In the end, 

having supranational anti-discrimination 

laws is of great significance. 

Yet some of these new laws don’t 

go as far as they should—like the Same-Sex 

Partnership Act in Croatia, which provides 

only three stipulations: “the right to 

common property, the right to be sustained 

by the partner, and prohibition of 

discrimination on the grounds of same-sex 

relationship and homosexual 

orientation.” 102 Nevertheless, it is 

uncontestably a move in the right direction 

in comparison to the previous legal regime 

that was in place. 



102 Ibid., 12. 


Finally, in the post-Yugoslav space, 

could EU conditionality be the actual 

culprit for the increased violence against 

sexual minorities? Not necessarily so— 

because such violent acts did peak up even 

in the absence of EU conditionality as a 

factor in other spaces, like same-sex 

marriage legislation in France. The 

common denominator in these cases seems 

to be increased visibility and public debates 

around issues of equal citizenship, and it is 

this common denominator that radicalizes 

and galvanizes the anti-gay movements, 

and that is regardless of the source of these 

debates—whether local, national or 

supranational. Same-sex marriage in France 

and EU conditionality requiring protection 

of sexual minorities in the former Yugoslav 

republics both essentially led to massive 

demonstrations, protests and violence 

against LGBT communities. Arguably, it is 

not the origin or the source of these 

debates that causes such unrest and 

detrimental effects on gay communities, 

but rather it is the very nature of these 

debates. Equal citizenship rights whether at 

the behest of national or supranational laws 

both tend to radicalize the opponents of 

such causes. 

CONCLUSION 

The eternal debate in human rights 

scholarship is often fixated on the issue of 

cultural relativism. Inevitably, cultural 

perceptions of human dignity often varies 

from society to society, but the main 

question raised in this paper is that – can 

the law serve as an effective instrument to 

set a universal standard on some basic 

rights afforded to Mankind? More 

specifically, this paper looks to the 

European Union and posits whether the 

law of the supranational union can serve as 

a positive force in effecting change or is it a 

detriment in the advancement of sexual 

minority rights? Kahlina argues that the 

EU should not be confounded as an 

unambiguous liberator and that sexual 

minority groups have suffered 

consequences emanating from EUimposed 

legal changes. On the other hand, 

this paper presented a comparative and 

interpretive analysis, which argued that 

because similar backlashes occurred in the 

French context during the endogenous 

legalization process of same-sex marriage 

in 2013, causality for anti-gay sentiment is 

not necessarily because legal reform is 

exogenously promulgated by supranational 

bodies but is rather an expression of 

heteronormative preference in many 

societies. 

Strides toward augmenting 

citizenship rights for minorities often come 

at a cost and are usually part of a slow and 

incremental process. The battle for equal 

citizenship continues today in the EUacceding 

countries and across the world, 

from Uganda to the United States. 

Whether the movement for equal 

citizenship is spurred at a grassroots level 

or by an external supranational body does 

not necessarily determine the rate of 

acceptance of such causes. Despite being 

an imperfect tool, EU conditionality can 

actually serve as an effective instrument to 

broaden the scope of rights of sexual 

minorities in the acceding countries. In just 

the space of eleven years, the Croatian 

capital city of Zagreb has transformed: 

while the first Zagreb Pride in 2002 was 

mostly remembered for the violent protests 

against the marchers, numbering around 

200, 103 the 2013 Zagreb Pride had around 

15,000 participants, and it went on without 

disruption. 104 

103 “Croatian Gays Join First 'Pride' March,” BBC 

News. 

104 “ALDE Party Vice President joins Ljubljana 

Pride,” Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe 

Party, last modified June 15, 2013, 


Although Kahlina does not 

unequivocally state that EU-inspired 

reforms in regards to LGBT rights has 

been completely counterproductive, she 

nevertheless argues against representing the 

EU as an “unambiguously liberating force” 

and that EU accession in fact facilitated 

turning “sexual citizenship into a contested 

terrain where the struggles between the 

competing visions of ‘Europeanness,’ 

national identity, and tradition take 

place.” 105 While the second part of this 

conclusion could be quite plausible, 

especially in regards to the debate on 

‘Europeanness,’ national identity, and 

tradition being probably partly encouraged 

by the LGBT rights movement, however, 

the impressively liberating force of the EU 

accession process should nevertheless also 

be recognized. It is not as ambiguous as 

the author professes. 

The accession process has firstly 

put forward a legal guarantee for sexual 

minorities that enables them to utilize their 

rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of 

speech. Over the first decade of the new 

millennium, this legal right has been 

translated into tangible changes for sexual 

minorities in the acceding countries. By 

asking for guarantees of a safe space for 

the LGBT community, EU accession has 

contributed by giving to this group a 

chance to give expression to its rights and 

identity. Thus, the EU-inspired legal rights 

have created a gateway for both the antigay 

and LGBT groups to bring this cultural 

conflict into the sphere of public debate. 

Now Zagreb, Belgrade, Podgorica and 

others can speak, both for and against, 

openly about these issues just like they do 

in Paris. Before the EU-inspired reforms, 

these debates were largely taboo, which is 

http://www.aldeparty.eu/en/news/alde-party-vicepresident-joins-ljubljana-pride. 



counterproductive to the LGBT rights 

movement. And from this perspective, 

even catalyzing protest against new laws is 

also a good thing in itself because it’s part 

of the public debate on something that was 

previously unmentionable. 

By allowing this issue to come out 

in public, even in the midst of violent 

protests, different stakeholders are given 

the opportunity to debate the merits and 

prioritization of the values that define their 

societies. What does it mean to be Serbian 

and European? Is this about a clash of 

values—is equal dignity, respect and rights 

of every human being, irrespective of one’s 

sexual orientation, exclusively a Western 

value or is it a universal human value? Like 

the Former Secretary of State Hillary 

Rodham Clinton once said: calling gay 

rights as such is by no means “creating new 

or special rights” for the LGBT people, it 

is only a way of “honoring rights that 

people always had.” 106 She went on to say 

that “[l]ike being a woman, like being a 

racial, religious, tribal, or ethnic minority, 

being LGBT does not make you less 

human. And that is why gay rights are 

human rights, and human rights are gay 

rights.” 107 

EU accession enables these 

societies to bring this kind of debate out in 

the open because in existing legal and 

social relations, inequality had already been 

institutionalized and unexamined. The law 

plays a unique role here as it makes an 

explicit and public promise that the 

legitimate authorities will act within 

particular boundaries 108 and allow this 

106 Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State, 

“Remarks in Recognition of International Human 

Rights Day,” U.S. Department of State, last modified 

December 6, 2011, 

http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/r 

m/2011/12/178368.htm. 

107 Ibid. 

108 Holzhacker, “State-Sponsored Homophobia,” 5. 


debate to take place. As such, stakeholders 

in the EU-acceding states are given the 

opportunity to negotiate whether these 

legal reforms are consistent with their 

national values. Law reflects community 

morality, and the importance of change in 

law cannot be underestimated because it’s 

also a testament of the changing values in 

society, which here is concluded via a 

negotiation process that is guaranteed in 

the EU space. Hence, in that sense, EU 

accession has in fact been an awesome 

liberator by allowing sexual minority 

groups to bring this debate out in the open. 

If a country wants to be member of 

an institution, it has to follow certain rules. 

And thus imposing non-discrimination 

provisions as a condition of entry into 

exclusive economic partnerships, like the 

EU, can be an effective way to ensure 

equal citizenship across the membership. 

This is more effective than non-binding 

resolutions, conventions and charters on 

human rights because of the legal 

enforcement and remedies available within 

the EU-acceding states and at the 

supranational judicial level. 

Although not currently on the 

agenda, the question could ultimately be 

posed as to whether the international 

landscape would look any different if we 

impose human rights provisions as a 

condition of membership into vital 

economic organizations like the WTO, 

IMF or World Bank? Although such 

organizations pursue a wholly different 

aim, could requiring strict adherence to 

human rights provisions from members, 

with sanctioning mechanisms in place, 

actually change the world for the better? In 

fact, the World Bank is currently reviewing 

its “lending policies to make sure that no 

loan assists discrimination” and has 

currently put on hold a $90m loan to 

Uganda after the country enacted one of 

the most severe and cruel anti-gay laws. 109 

While many argue that the poor are the 

ones who ultimately suffer from such cuts 

and not the politicians, a more appropriate 

strategy is not to cut all aid but rather to 

redirect the funds to international aid 

agencies and local NGOs like Britain 

currently does. 110 

Attaching economic sanctions to 

human rights violations can send a very 

strong signal to the world community. 

Redirecting funds to local NGOs and 

international aid agencies can paralyze, or 

at the very least take some power away 

from, local governments that are engaging 

in the persecution of minority groups. 

Imposing non-discrimination requirements 

at a supranational level is already having an 

impact on the advancement of sexual 

citizenship in the EU. The challenge of this 

century is for our world leaders to make 

the bold linkage between human rights and 

membership in supranational economic 

organizations. After two world wars, the 

Universal Declaration of Human Rights 

(UDHR) was adopted– the world 

community was united in its resolve that 

everyone was entitled to the rights and 

freedoms in that declaration, irrespective of 

one’s belonging to a minority group. 

However, we see that the translation of the 

UDHR into actually securing the rights of 

minorities in member countries is not 

109 “The World Bank: Right Cause, Wrong Battle,” 

The Economist, last modified April 12, 2014, 

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/216006 

84-why-world-banks-focus-gay-rights-misguidedright-cause-wrong-battle. 

110 Alex Whiting, “Western Donors Cut Aid to 

Uganda in Response to Anti-Gay Law,” Thomson 

Reuters Foundation, last modified February 26, 

2014, http://www.trust.org/item/20140226160032- 

td4jl/. In addition to the World Bank, the following 

countries, Denmark, The Netherlands, Norway, 

United States, Austria and Sweden, have also 

followed the same strategy by cutting or threatening 

to cut direct economic aid to the Ugandan 

government because of its anti-gay laws. 


necessarily effectual. But, the EU as an 

economic union, on the other hand, has 

succeeded not only in keeping Europe safe 

after two world wars, it has also actively 

augmented the rights of its citizens. Nondiscrimination 

on the basis of sexual 

orientation is de jure the current state of 

affairs in the EU member countries. It is 

this sort of economic union and 

interdependence that’s leading to a new 

order in world affairs. Rather than 

continually adopting human rights nonbinding 

resolutions, societies should maybe 

move toward an economic, social and legal 

belonging strategy, as magnificently 

employed by the EU. 

SÉHZAD M. 

SOOKLALL is a 

graduating law 

student at Yeshiva 

University Benjamin 

N. Cardozo School of 

Law and a concurrent 

Master of Arts in 

Politics candidate at 

New York University. 

Séhzad completed his 

first year law school 

curriculum at Tulane 

University after graduating summa cum laude 

from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge 

with a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication 

and a minor in International Studies. 

Additionally, he also holds a Master of Public 

Administration from the LSU College of 

Business. Séhzad would like to thank the 

following people—foremost his parents, 

Sahejakoom and Farozia Sooklall; his American 

parents, John and Annette Douthat; his uncle, 

Kader Parahoo, and his professors and 

supervisors: Dr. Carole L. Jurkiewicz, Josephine 

Mason Ellis, Morgan Russell, Sheri P. Rosenberg, 

Julia Harrington Reddy, Kammae Owens, and 

Hafida Lahiouel. Finally, Séhzad would like to 

thank these very important people for their 

constant love, support, and friendship: Thomas 

Kyle Bridges, Kathlyn Van Buskirk, and Barbara 

Douthat Chatelain. 


Does Official 

Development Assistance 

Contribute to Long- 

Term Growth and 

Stability in Afghanistan? 

David Esmati 

Since 2001, the United States and the 

international community have pledged 

$90 billion towards reconstructing 

Afghanistan’s infrastructure, education 

system, healthcare,and public institutions. 

With more than half of the disbursed aid 

spent on military and peacekeeping 

operations, the $57 billion in official 

development assistance (ODA) already 

disbursed represents only a fraction of the $90 

billion promised. Although the international 

community has explicitly made economic 

development a priority, the use of disbursed 

aid for security purposes proves otherwise. In 

order to analyze the impact of the ODA 

pledged so far, this article seeks to address the 

question: Does official development assistance 

contribute to stable economic and political institutions 

that can sustain economic activity and long-term 

economic growth in Afghanistan? 

Donor countries reassure the 

international community that their aid will 

positively impact the lives of millions of 

Afghans. According to the report released by 

the International Crisis Group, “[a]ccess to 

education has improved, with 6.2 million 

children attending school, 85 percent of all 

Afghans now have access to some form of 

healthcare, compared to 9 percent in 2002.” 1 

1 “Human Rights in Afghanistan,” Aid and Conflict in 

Afghanistan 210 (2011), The International Crisis 

Group, August 4, 2011, accessed October 13, 2013. 

However, the bulk of this aid is spent on 

security operations: the United States alone is 

spending $36 billion a year on security-related 

issues, resulting in $57 received per capita per 

Afghan citizen. 2 By relying on NGOs and 

foreign contractor companies, the donor 

community does not directly disburse ODA 

to the central government of Afghanistan, but 

rather directs the bulk of the aid to private 

contractors. Consequently, the Afghan people 

are not the beneficiaries of ODA. Instead, 

NGOs and contractors conducting projects 

are utilized on behalf of foreign donors. As a 

result, the pledged aid does not address the 

long-term development of Afghanistan’s 

economy. It does not address the lack of 

public institutions and the enforcement of the 

rule of law. The international community has 

failed to “adequately support state institutions 

such as parliament and the judiciary, that 

could provide a check on the power of the 

executive.” 3 ODA provided directly to 

domestic public institutions would lead to 

better development outcomes in Afghanistan. 

Long-term economic growth is a realistic 

outcome only when ODA ownership shifts 

from that of the recipient to the host country. 

The technical assistance provided by the 

international community coupled with state 

ownership of ODA contributes to an 

educated labor force in the long-term. 

http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/southasia 

/afghanistan/210aid-and-conflict-in-afghanistan.aspx. 

2 Matt Waldman, “Falling Short: Aid Effectiveness in 

Afghanistan,” Oxfam, March 2008, accessed on 

October 13, 2013. 

https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/A 

CBAR_aid_effectiveness_paper_0803.pdf. 

3 “Human Rights in Afghanistan,” The International 

Crisis Group. 


UNDERSTANDING OFFICIAL 

DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE 

There is a lack of consensus on the 

role of official development assistance. 

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, in 

Economic Backwardness in Political Review, stress 

that development aid primarily benefits the 

political elite, those individuals close to the 

governing body. 4 These individuals are ready 

to incur any costs to stay in power and 

sometimes “may block technological and 

institutional development” to do so. 5 This 

argument emphasizes the “political 

replacement effect,” in which those in power 

or close to the governing body want to 

maintain the status quo due to the 

destabilization of the existing system. 6 The 

fear of losing power forces the ruling class to 

decide whether they will adopt technologies 

and institutional changes that would 

undermine their control or not. Similarly, their 

model suggests that interest groups or 

monopolists seek to protect their interests by 

taking advantage of weak government 

institutions, and a lack of rule of law 

enforcement. 

Claudia R. Williamson highlights, in 

Exploring the Failure of Foreign Aid: The Role of 

Incentives and Information, the purpose of foreign 

aid and its implications for both the donor 

and the receiving state. She points out that 

“despite a large amount of time and resources 

devoted to development assistance, two 

competing theories have emerged: public 

interest versus the public choice perspective.” 7 

4 Daron Acemoglu, and James A. Robinson, 

“Economic Backwardness in Political Perspective,” 

American Political Science Review, February 2006, accessed 

on October 13, 2014. 

http%3A%2F%2Feconomics.mit.edu%2Ffiles%2F447 

1. 

5 Ibid. 

6 Ibid. 

7 Claudia R. Williamson, “Exploring the Failure of 

Foreign Aid: The Role of Incentives and Information,” 

The Review of Austrian Economics 23, no. 1 (2010), 

accessed October 13, 2013. 

Public interest theory, “argues that foreign aid 

is necessary to fill a financing or investment 

gap, and this will in turn lift countries out of a 

so-called poverty trap.” 8 The public choice 

theory “contends that foreign aid is ineffective 

and possibly damaging to recipient 

countries.” 9 The public interest theory holds 

that those involved with the distribution of 

aid seek to advance their narrow institutional 

interests. Williamson highlights three forms of 

aid channels that result from such special 

interest incentives. “Tied aid” is a regimen 

that “requires recipients to purchase a certain 

percentage of goods from the donor country, 

often overcharging recipients from being able 

to purchase goods cheaper elsewhere.” 10 For 

the U.S., this means about 75% of all aid 

spending has to go to back to U.S. companies. 

Food aid is another channel that 

Williamson highlights as a way for donors to 

benefit from the exchange at the expense of 

the recipients. The aid is “mainly in-kind 

provision of foods that typically could be 

purchased much cheaper in recipient local 

markets.” 11 As for technical assistance, she 

holds that it is often not beneficial for the 

host country because “donors usually require 

these technicians to be from the donor 

country.” 12 Instead of training the local and 

national capacity of the developing country, 

the recipient of the aid must make do with 

consultants who may or may not understand 

the political and cultural landscape of the 

region. And should the programs fail to meet 

their goals, a donor may act “as a budget 

maximizing bureaucracy calling for increases 

in foreign aid in order to increase its own 

budget and thus increase its agency” rather 

than adjust the programs. 13 

http://dri.fas.nyu.edu/docs/IO/12361/WilliamsonRA 

EAid.pdf. 

8 Ibid. 

9 Ibid. 

10 Ibid., 5. 

11 Ibid. 

12 Ibid. 

13 Ibid. 


Simply redirecting the aid to domestic 

institutions may not solve the problem. 

Actors within the recipient country, like the 

NGOs and special interest groups from the 

international arena, may have their own 

political agendas. Much of the disbursed aid 

goes to corrupt institutions. “Under the guise 

of official development assistance,” foreign 

aid “is aiding the ability of dictators to remain 

in power.” 14 As a result, the Good Samaritan 

dilemma emerges, in which the “recipients 

believe that future poverty will increase the 

likelihood of more foreign aid, aid could 

actually worsen incentives to invest” while 

“citizens now face an even stronger incentive 

to consume and become dependent on the 

donors.” 15 Accordingly, foreign aid has little 

to no effect on infrastructure and long-term 

development efforts. Acemoglu, Robinson, 

and Williamson all imply that foreign aid 

compromises state’s institutions and the rule 

of law. Since the involvement of foreign aid 

introduces external actors in the form of 

consultants and special interest groups, the 

competing interests of multiple actors does 

not allow for the state to follow policies that 

best address the economic needs of the 

people and the state as a whole. 

On the other hand, NGOs and 

international organizations have indeed 

contributed significantly to the development 

of Afghanistan. This was made possible in 

part by the Paris Declaration on Aid 

Effectiveness. It is a practical, action-oriented 

roadmap to improve the quality of aid and its 

impact on development. It ensures that 

recipient countries utilize their own strategies 

to better outline their needs, whilst improving 

the overall quality of public institutions. With 

the help of NGOs and other international 

organizations that adhere to the Paris 

Declaration principles, developing countries 

have been able to better coordinate efforts to 

avoid duplicating services. Less developed 

14 Ibid., 6. 

15 Ibid., 6. 

countries such as Afghanistan have been able 

to increase their standard of living and 

improve national healthcare partly due to such 

efforts. 

Nonetheless, in his book The End of 

Poverty, Jeffrey Sachs explains that the reason 

certain countries are rich and others are poor 

is because of multitude of barriers preventing 

the poor from climbing the economic 

ladder. 16 These barriers include: poverty and 

fiscal traps, physical geography, weak 

institutions and governance failure, cultural 

and trade barriers, lack of innovation, and the 

demographic trap. All of these factors 

demonstrate the intense complexity of 

obstacles that threaten to preclude economic 

development efforts in the world’s poorest 

countries. This further delineates the 

importance—but also the limits—of foreign 

aid. The proper implementation of 

development aid initiatives is of critical 

importance when domestic institutions and 

NGOs alike seek to navigate the abovereferenced 

challenges to socioeconomic 

development in poor countries. 

THE FRAMEWORK OF AID TO 

AFGHANISTAN 

With multiple channels of aid opening 

up to assist the Afghan Interim Authority in 

winter 2001, the international community, at 

the January 2002 Conference on the 

Reconstruction of Afghanistan in Tokyo, 

“pledged more than $4.5 billion in aid for the 

next five years, increasing to $9.7 billion for 

2001-2003.” 17 

16 Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities 

for Our Time (New York: Penguin, 2005). 


Crisis Group. 


Subsequently, in April 2004 at the 

Berlin Conference, “the international 

community increased its commitment to $8.2 

billion over three years.” 18 At the same time, 

U.S. non-military pledges rose from $250 

million in FY2003 to $720 million in 

FY2004. 19 At the 2006 London Conference in 

2006, donor countries pledged a further $10.5 

billion, and then $21 billion at the Paris 

Conference two years later. 20 Since 2002, the 

external assistance flowing into Afghanistan 

increased exponentially but without proper 

justification of how and where the ODA was 

needed and spent. The rise in ODA as a 

percentage of Afghanistan’s GDP conveyed 

the notion that the Afghan Central 

Government had successfully implemented 

programs to address the economic challenges. 

However, the overall amount of ODA 

given to Afghanistan has failed to distinguish 

between humanitarian, rehabilitation, and 

reconstruction needs. “[A]s a result, by 2006, 

roughly one-third of funds were directed 

towards humanitarian assistance rather than 

reconstruction or development projects that 

would have helped rebuild and revive a 

18 Ibid. 

19 Ibid. 

20 Ibid. 

devastated infrastructure and economy and 

the state’s capacity to deliver basic services.” 21 

And since the U.S. led the international 

community in providing both military and 

humanitarian or economic assistance, most of 

the aid was channeled through local proxies. 

These proxies included local warlords, special 

interest groups, and NGOs with connections 

to the inner circle of the Afghan presidential 

office. By concentrating power into the hands 

of these few, political figures received the aid 

and then channeled it to the most politically 

rewarding destinations. 

Moreover, the establishment of nonmilitary 

structures to channel funds 

throughout the 34 provinces of Afghanistan 

has created a loophole in which contractors 

and government officials have been able to 

operate without proper oversight from the 

international community. Since one of the 

primary objectives of international assistance 

is to make sure Afghanistan does not unravel 

into a series of fiefdoms, the conjoining of 

military and humanitarian assistance led to the 

creation of the Provincial Reconstruction 

Teams (PRT). The PRT program was 

established to “assist the Islamic Republic of 

Afghanistan to extend its authority in order to 

facilitate the development of a stable and 

secure environment in the identified area of 

operation, and enable Security Sector Reform 

and reconstruction efforts.” 22 The funding of 

these teams is solely up to its eleven donor 

countries. Therefore, the level of coordination 

between the Afghan government and its 

donors is often weak and heavily influenced 

by the political relationships with the donor 

country. Coupled with weak oversight, a 

majority of the PRT projects have produced 

poor results due to subcontracting or the 

transfer of large-scale projects to unqualified 

individuals. Because of this, the PRTs “have 

slowed the emergence and development of 

state institutions at local level, which 

21 Ibid. 

22 Ibid. 


jeopardizes the broader prospects for medium 

to long term state-building.” 23 

This also “hinders efforts to increase 

Afghan ownership of the development 

process,” when ownership of aid plays a key 

role in the long-term economic growth of a 

state. Stated as the central element of the Paris 

Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, “national 

ownership is critical to achieving development 

results.” 24 Hence, the Afghan government 

stresses the ownership of ODA, yet more 

than “two-thirds of foreign assistance 

bypasses the Afghan government.” 25 One 

consequence of this lack of ownership is that 

it “limits ability of ministries to recruit and 

retain qualified staff as they are attracted by 

higher salaries with donors or donor-funded 

projects.” 26 With majority of the funds being 

channeled through the external budget, 

instead of the “core” budget, the Afghan 

national government cannot build the human 

capacity needed to strengthen and maintain 

public institutions. 

MISUSE OF AID BY BOTH DONORS 

AND RECIPIENTS 

At the state level, international 

assistance to Afghanistan has yet to produce 

sustainable economic results. Lack of 

government accountability is still a major 

concern for citizens and international NGOs. 

According to an Integrity Watch Afghanistan 

(IWA) survey, “one in seven adults paid a 

bribe in 2010, 28 percent were to obtain a 

public service, including health and 

education.” 27 At the international level, NGOs 

and private contractor workers have taken 

advantage of weak regulatory institutions and 

a lack of legal enforcement. They have funded 

23 Waldman, “Falling Short: Aid Effectiveness in 

Afghanistan.” 

24 Ibid. 

25 Ibid. 

26 Ibid. 


Crisis Group. 

many state-building projects that are not 

properly assessed or do not meet state 

requirements. With the addition of high 

oversight budgets, the lack of oversight 

resulted in contract workers receiving 

disproportionately high salaries. For example, 

282 foreign advisors (including 120 

contractors) within the Afghan Interior 

Ministry are “absorbing a total of $36 million 

a year,” and “international staff reportedly 

outnumber the Afghans they advise by 45 to 

fourteen” in the ministry’s logistics arm. 28 

There is a self-perpetuating cycle here. 

Donor countries rely heavily on private 

contractors and NGOs to implement the 

majority of the ODA. In return, these groups 

exercise oversight of donor-funded projects 

since the Afghan government lacks the 

capacity to monitor all development 

assistance. Between 2007 and 2009, “USAID 

obligated 53 percent of its construction funds 

($2 billion of $3.8 billion)” to just two 

American contractors: the Louis Berger 

Group and Development Alternatives. 29 The 

overcharging and misuse of billions of dollars 

in administrative fees and personnel 

compensation has failed to produce public 

benefits and strengthen the rule of law. These 

projects, initially given to international 

construction firms have been subcontracted 

to either Afghan or other private firms in 

return for a percentage of the overall budget. 

In some large contracts, there were multiple 

layers of subcontractors, in each case taking a 

10-20% profit. 

Contractors and NGOs requiring 

substantial administrative fees coupled with 

billions of dollars in subcontracting profits are 

wasting much of the ODA requisitioned to 

complete national projects throughout 

Afghanistan. The Kabul Bank fraud, for 

example, highlights the “susceptibility of 

international assistance and the need for 

vigilant oversight in a corrupt and insecure 

28 Ibid. 

29 Ibid. 


environment.” 30 Providing both logistical and 

technical assistance to USAID, Deloitte 

Consulting was the lead organization in 

capacity building and supervision at 

Afghanistan’s Central Bank. However, 

Deloitte “failed to warn authorities” about the 

rampant corruption with the Kabul Bank. 31 

The reconstruction of the Khair Khana 

maternity hospital in Kabul is a striking 

example of the misuse of aid. In order to 

double the hospital’s capacity, the Italian 

government contracted UNFPA with $2.2 

million for the work. It was first 

subcontracted to the UN Office for Project 

Services (UNOPS), then an Italian contractor, 

and, finally, a local construction firm. This 

arrangement ultimately consumed about half 

of the project’s finances, and what was left 

was spent on poor quality building materials 

that posed a health hazard. 32 A further 

example of this sort of problem is the 

[continued on page ] 

30 Ibid. 

31 Ibid. 

32 Waldman, “Falling Short: Aid Effectiveness in 

Afghanistan.” 


Total planned and committed government and donor spending per capita, per province in 

2007 

Data Source: Oxfam. Afghan Ministry of Finance 

Completed, ongoing, planned and funded PRT spending per capita, per province 

Data Source: Oxfam. ISAF, May 2007 


construction of a short stretch of the road in 

the province of Badakhshan, linking the town 

center to the area airstrip. In an unfortunately 

familiar pattern, the road “was subcontracted 

to a private company by USAID for just 

under half a million dollars,” then “again 

subcontracted to an Afghan private 

construction company for a cost of just 

$250,000.” 33 

AFGHANISTAN CASE STUDY 

The disbursement of aid plays a vital role in 

impacting the lives of the Afghan people. In 

order to analyze whether official development 

assistance contributed to the economic 

growth throughout the provinces of 

Afghanistan, the study will assess the Afghan 

central government’s implementation of 

ODA separately from the international donor 

community. 

The difference in the amount of 

spending per capita throughout the provinces, 

as illustrated in both of the charts above, 

signifies the difference between the Afghan 

government and the international 

communities’ priorities in the provinces that 

need the most assistance. The security 

spending does not significantly help because it 

is spent in ways that only exacerbate 

unaccountability and donor preferences over 

local needs and rule of law. The amount of 

spending per capita by the PRTs in each of 

the 34 provinces, primarily led by 

international donors and private contractors, 

takes into account military and administrative 

costs for the total amount of spending. 

The regional disparity in ODA shows 

that the international community is looking to 

fund provinces that are the least militarily 

secure in the short term. The main focus of 

the PRTs and international assistance is in the 

south and southeast regions of Afghanistan, 

33 Ibid. 

areas where the Taliban’s insurgency is 

strongest. Provinces with the smallest 

populations, such as Badghis and Uruzgan, 

received the highest amount of PRT 

assistance. Meanwhile, the central 

government’s core budget spending mainly 

focuses on centralizing power in the 

provinces closest to Kabul. Although they 

emphasize development efforts in areas that 

are the least secure, they do not neglect 

provinces in the northern parts of the country 

to the same degree as international donors do. 

For example, the Afghan national government 

spent more in the provinces of Faryab and 

Badakhshan, installing irrigation systems and 

building agriculture infrastructure to help the 

local farmers of the region. The PRTs and the 

international community spent well below $50 

per capita in the same provinces. The 

northern provinces of Afghanistan have fertile 

soil and a climate more suitable for 

agriculture. By providing farmers the technical 

aid they need to maintain their crops yearround, 

the Afghan government’s technical 

assistance encourages the growth of the 

agriculture sector of the economy. 

The emphasis on quick impact 

projects led by the PRTs has not been 

accompanied by a strengthening of the 

Afghan government’s capacity to sustain the 

goals of these projects over time. The limited 

provincial development funds “undercut the 

government’s credibility, since districts or 

provinces might attract aid but have no funds 

to sustain projects once they are transferred to 

local authorities,” leading to the perception 

among Afghans that these projects are just 

another tool being used by external forces to 

impose control over them. 34 The multiple 

channels of funding are creating a rift between 

the provinces and the central government, 

both fiscally and ideologically. Shortsighted 


Crisis Group. 


development efforts have been difficult to 

sustain due to the PRTs and international 

communities’ biased funding mechanisms. 

Consequently, once the drawdown of foreign 

contractors, advisors, and security personnel 

began in December of 2014, provincial 

leaders lacked adequate funding to maintain 

development projects. The lack of skilled 

native talent overall, and within government 

offices in particular, due to the 

overrepresentation of foreigners and skewed 

hiring practices of locals is contribution to the 

unraveling of more than ten years of ODA to 

Afghanistan. 

FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION 

After spending $57 billion on 

humanitarian assistance over the past fourteen 

years in Afghanistan, the international 

community is looking for answers as to why 

Afghanistan’s dependence on aid has not 

fallen at a rate the World Bank and the 

international donor community had hoped it 

would. Afghanistan now more than ever, 

needs economic and technical assistance to 

ensure that it does not collapse into the same 

state it was a decade ago. The Taliban have 

once again started to rise in the southern 

provinces of Afghanistan. Furthermore, it is 

crucial to note that since the international 

community led the majority of the 

development efforts, the infrastructure has 

been built for their own security purposes, not 

civil reconstruction. As the younger 

generation of Afghans start to take advantage 

of the greatly expanded education system, the 

need for a coherent economic development 

effort is vital to reduce high unemployment. 

In the case of Afghanistan, 

Williamson’s “public choice perspective” can 

best describe the effort to rebuild 

Afghanistan’s weak and dependent economy. 

Weak rule of law and the lack of 

accountability have created an environment 

for private contractors and NGOs to reap 

millions of dollars in profits from ODA 

without creating sustainable infrastructure. As 

a result, national public works projects that 

can benefit millions of Afghans have been 

poorly managed and in some cases have not 

even been implemented. Weak oversight 

coupled with high corruption have led to 

backdoor deals between the political elite and 

the international donor community, 

marginalizing Afghan citizens in dire need of 

humanitarian assistance. The Karzai 

Administration has been under scrutiny by the 

World Bank, IMF, and the United States for 

taking advantage of Afghanistan’s weak 

financial regulatory bodies by using millions 

of dollars of foreign aid for personal gains. 35 

Ownership of ODA plays a significant 

role in the long-term economic growth of 

Afghanistan. Since most of the aid bypasses 

the Afghan government and is directly 

disbursed to private firms and NGOs, 

provincial governments and the central 

administration cannot build the capacity they 

need to operate with the proper funding to 

attract and train native talent. Instead of using 

contractors and NGOs, both the Afghan 

government and international aid agencies 

must take greater advantage of the local talent, 

and work to cultivate it. By doing so, national 

projects will be far more effective and 

sustainable because the morale of the people 

will change from that of being a recipient state 

to that of a developing state. 

The ODA given to Afghanistan has 

been utilized for short-term gains in security 

and economic development: as a result, 

neither has been advanced in the long run. 

Long-term security and economic growth in 

Afghanistan are most likely to occur when the 

international community accepts that the 

Afghan people have a greater part to play in 

development efforts. 

35 James Risen, “Karzai’s Kin Use Ties to Gain Power 

in Afghanistan,” The New York Times, October 5, 2010, 

accessed on October 13, 2013. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/world/asia/06 

karzai.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0. 


DAVID ESMATI is a 

second year M.A. 

student in International 

Relations. He earned his 

B.A. degree in 

International Relations 

Honors from the Wilf 

Family Department of 

Politics at New York 

University. He is interested in international security 

issues, Afghanistan-Pakistan, sustainable 

development, financing for development and postconflict 

recovery. His past work experience in 

related fields includes work with The Permanent 

Mission of Afghanistan to the United Nations, The 

United States Mission to the United Nations, NGOs 

and think tanks. 


From Operation Serval 

to Barkhane 

Understanding France’s 

Increased Involvement in 

Africa in the Context of 

Françafrique and Postcolonialism 

Carmen Cuesta Roca 

François Hollande did not enter office 

amid expectations that he would 

become a foreign policy president. 

His 2012 presidential campaign carefully 

focused on domestic issues. Much like 

Nicolas Sarkozy and many of his 

predecessors, Hollande had declared, “I will 

break away from Françafrique by proposing a 

relationship based on equality, trust, and 

solidarity.” 1 After his election on May 6, 

2012, Hollande took steps to fulfill this 

promise. He became the first president of 

the Fifth Republic not to have an “Africa 

cell” 2 and appointed as his Africa adviser 

Hélène Le Gal, a diplomat with previous 

experience in East Africa and far removed 

from the old networks of France’s former 

colonies. 

Fast forward to January 2013. Four 

thousand French troops were deployed to 

Mali as part of Operation Serval, following 

the United Nations Security Council 

Resolution 2085 in December 2012 and an 

official request from the Malian interim 

government for French assistance. 3 That 

1 “Engagement 58,” Parti Socialiste, February 2, 2012, 

accessed December 1, 2014, http://www.partisocialiste.fr/articles/engagement-58. 

2 Founded during the Charles de Gaulle 

administration, this is a location where the President 

and his advisors take decisions on military support 

for African countries or for the ruling governments. 

3 United Nations, “Security Council Authorizes 

Deployment of African-Led International Support 

Mission in Mali for Initial Year-Long Period 

Meetings Coverage and Press Releases,” UN News 

same year, Hollande sent French troops to 

the Central African Republic (CAR) to curb 

ethno-religious warfare. During a visit to 

three African nations in the summer of 

2014, the French president announced 

Operation Barkhane, a reorganization of 

troops in the region into a counter-terrorism 

force of 3,000 soldiers. 

In light of this, what is one to make 

of Hollande’s promise to break with 

tradition concerning France’s African 

policy? To what extent has he actively 

pursued the fulfillment of this promise, and 

does continued French involvement in 

Africa constitute success or failure in this 

regard? France has a complex relationship 

with Africa, and these ties cannot be easily 

cut. This paper does not seek to provide a 

critique of President Hollande’s policy 

toward France’s former African colonies. 

Rather, it uses the current president’s 

decisions and behavior to explain why 

France will not be able to distance itself 

from its former colonies anytime soon. 

It is first necessary to outline a brief 

history of France’s involvement in Africa, 

with an emphasis on the exclusivity of 

France’s relationship with its former 

colonies and the period of “decolonization.” 

Interpretations of the term Françafrique (a 

French word used to described the special 

relationship between France and Africa) will 

be assessed, with particular attention paid to 

its neocolonial connotations, as well as an 

assessment of its utility and relevance as a 

tool of analysis. With this in mind, an 

examination of the French intervention in 

Mali will follow, with a focus on the 

Françafrique debate that has surrounded the 

conflict. Does the French intervention in 

Mali constitute change or continuity in 

terms of France’s colonial past? Why has 

this intervention, unlike others, been 

received with such popular support in 

France and Mali alike? The recent 

announcement of Operation Barkhane has 

also raised many questions concerning 

France’s involvement in Africa. This paper 

Center, December 20, 2012. 

www.un.org/press/en/2012/sc10870.doc.htm. 


will analyze different interpretations of this 

operation, while highlighting a fundamental 

aspect of the relationship between France 

and her former colonies: debt. In assessing 

Hollande’s decisions on African policy since 

his election in 2012, this paper examines 

France’s special relationship with its former 

colonies and explores the reasons why it 

continues to be difficult for France to break 

away from a Françafrique-style relationship 

with its colonies. 

A BRIEF HISTORY OF FRANCE IN 

AFRICA 

Historically, France has deep 

economic and political relations with Africa 

that date back to the 17 th Century. A 

distinction can be made between the First 

colonial empire, which had been mostly lost 

by 1814, and the Second colonial empire, 

whose beginning and end are marked by the 

takeover and independence of Algeria in 

1830 and 1862, respectively. This division is 

made because by 1814 France had lost most 

of the colonies gained in earlier years. The 

Berlin Conference of 1884 marked the 

beginning of organized conquest of the 

region, and aimed at regulating European 

colonization and trade in Africa. The 

federation of French West Africa (Afrique 

occidentale francaise) was established in 1904, 

and soon after in 1910, the federation of 

French Equatorial Africa (Afrique équatoriale 

francaise) was created. These federations 

grouped a number of French colonies 

together under the same authority in an 

effort to coordinate French colonization on 

the African continent. Countries today that 

were affected by this re-organization 

include: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, 

Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, 

Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Guinea, Libya, Mali, 

Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. 

It is important to note that France’s 

involvement with its colonies was very 

different from other European powers’ 

involvement in Africa. Britain’s colonial 

policy was primarily based on economic 

exploitation of its colonies, but France had a 

distinct mission. Metropolitan France 

additionally pursued a cultural and political 

assimilation policy that ignored regional 

cultures. This was done in a bid to enhance 

France’s international influence by 

extending to Africa the French values of 

human rights. This is the defining notion of 

France’s unique relationship with its 

colonies: “The British saw its colonies as 

foreign lands, the French saw them as a part 

of France, therefore France imposed its 

culture on Africa.” 4 This distinction still 

lingers today, and it adds a layer of 

complexity to the relationship between 

France and her former African colonies. 

The Brazzaville Conference of 1944 

marked a pivotal point in this relationship. 

Held in the capital of French Equatorial 

Africa, the conference assembled many 

prominent African leaders to discuss the 

revision of France’s relationship with its 

colonies. Many view this erroneously as the 

beginning of decolonization, when the 

reality is that, for Charles de Gaulle and 

other leading officials, the “aim of the 

conference was, on the contrary, to 

consolidate the colonial system definitively 

by renovating it.” 5 Even at this point, 

however, the idea of independence for 

African states was rejected among the 

French. As De Gaulle stated, “The aims of 

France's civilizing mission preclude any 

thought of autonomy or any possibility of 

development outside the French empire. 

Self-government must be rejected—even in 

the more distant future.” 6 

Yet, from the 1950s to the 1970s, 

independence became a reality for many 

French colonies. Many of these 

independences were achieved around the 

same time as each other and without 

4 Abdurrahim Siradag, “Understanding French 

Foreign and Security Policy towards Africa: 

Pragmatism or Altruism”, Afro Eurasian Studies, 3, no. 

1 (Spring 2014): 100. 

5 Yves Person, “French West Africa and 

Decolonization,” in The Transfer of Power in Africa: 

Decolonization, 1940-1960, ed. Prosser Gifford and 

Louis William Roger (New Haven: Yale University 

Press, 1982), 144. 

6 Donald A. Low, Britain and Indian Nationalism: The 

Imprint of Ambiguity 1929-1942, (Cambridge: 

Cambridge University Press, 1997), 16. 


considerable violence (with the exception of 

Cameroon). As such, France has continued 

to maintain its economic and political 

relations with its former colonies. 

Importantly, France has a special strategic 

security partnership with the African 

countries. At the time of independence, the 

French government created African national 

armies that would serve as branches of the 

French army overseas. 7 It was in this 

context that a number of bilateral security 

agreements were signed with each newly 

independent state: between 1960 and 1993, 

two-dozen agreements were signed between 

France and most of her former colonies. 8 

France has intervened militarily in Africa 

more than 50 times since 1960. 9 

Two of these interventions, 

Operation Serval and Operation Barkhane, 

require further investigation. Serval refers to 

a 2013 operation in which France 

intervened in Mali following the country’s 

request for assistance in the ousting of 

Islamic militants. Barkhane is France’s latest 

military endeavor in Africa, another 

counter-terrorist operation stretching from 

Mauritania to Chad that aims at limiting the 

mobility of jihadists in the region. The 

particularities of French colonial history in 

Central and West Africa lay the foundation 

for a unique relationship between France 

and its former African colonies. This helps 

explain why France still has such a 

connection to Africa, while other former 

colonial powers do not. 

FRANÇAFRIQUE 

Today this relationship is often 

referred to in France as la Françafrique. The 

term is not a new one, however, and its 

meaning has changed over time along with 

the shifting relationship between France and 

7 Guy Martin, “Francophone Africa in the Context of 

Franco-African Relations,” in Africa in World Politics, 

eds. John W. Haberson and Donald Rothchild 

(Boulder, CO: Westview 1995), 178. 

8 Xavier Renou, “A New French Policy For Africa?” 

Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 20, no. 1, (2002): 

10. 

9 Siradag, “Understanding French Foreign and 

Security Policy towards Africa”, 100. 

her former African colonies. It was in 1963 

that Felix Houphouët-Boigny, former 

president of Cote d’Ivoire, coined the term 

Françafrique. Initially Houphouët-Boigny’s 

notion of Françafrique was positive, and was 

used “to describe the common destiny and 

promote the special relationship between 

France and Africa that he supported and 

wanted to maintain.” 10 But today the term 

has negative connotations, often used to 

denounce France’s alleged neocolonial 

relationship with its former colonies. 

Andrew McKillop has described the notion 

of Françafrique as “a colonial hangover.” 11 

François Xavier Vershave, founder of the 

NGO Survie, used the term Françafrique to 

describe “the unsullied tip of the iceberg [of 

Franco-African relations]: France as the best 

friend of Africa, development and 

democracy.” 12 What lies beneath is a 

complicated connection that many believe 

signifies France’s enduring domination of its 

former colonies. 

In 2012, Hollande promised to 

move away from Françafrique behavior. 

During his first visit to the continent, in 

Senegal, Hollande declared, “The time of 

Françafrique is over: there is France, there is 

Africa, and there is the partnership between 

France and Africa, with relations based on 

respect, brightness, and solidarity.” 13 Yet 

just three months later, he sent French 

troops to Mali, after having expressed that 

he would not send French troops on the 

10 Tony Chafer, “Hollande and Africa Policy,” Modern 

Contemporary France, 22, no. 4 (2014): 529. 

11 Andrew McKillop, “What’s Really Behind France’s 

Sudden Scramble to Save Central Africa”, 21 st Century 

Wire, December 6, 2013, accessed on Nov. 30, 2014, 

http://21stcenturywire.com/2013/12/06/whatsreally-behind-frances-sudden-scramble-to-savecentral-africa/ 

12 Francois X. Vershave, “Defining Francafrique”, 

Survie, February 18, 2006, accessed Nov. 27, 2014, 

http://survie.org/francafrique/article/definingfrancafrique-by-François 

13 “François Hollande à Dakar: ‘Le temps de la 

Françafrique est révolu,’” Le Monde, October 12, 

2012, accessed November 27, 2014, 

http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2012/10/12 

/hollande-exprime-sa-grande-confiance-dans-lesenegal-et-l-afrique_1774886_3212.html 


ground, 14 but would instead support an 

African-led force to deal with the crisis. The 

French intervention in Mali is highly 

complex in a number of ways, evident 

through the multitude of interpretations 

concerning French involvement in the 

conflict. 

UNDERSTANDING OPERATION 

SERVAL 

Operation Serval was a successful 

effort to push Islamic militants out of Mali. 

It was President Hollande’s first 

intervention in the region, spanning a total 

of 19 months, from January 2013 to July 

2014. On January 11, 2013, after new 

clashes between the army and insurgent 

groups, President Hollande announced the 

launching of a military operation: Serval. 

Just a day later, hundreds of French troops 

were involved in the military operation in 

Mali. The French army, navy, and air force 

were all deployed to assist in the operation. 

It was led by approximately 4,000 French 

troops supported by 2,000 Chadians and 

implemented in coordination with the 

Malian army. In fact, assistance from France 

was specifically requested from the Malian 

government. The operation was considered 

a success. Three of the five Islamic militant 

leaders were killed and the militant groups 

were driven from cities and later from the 

mountains of Adrar. 15 

President Hollande celebrated this 

triumph on a visit to the capital of Bamako 

where, clearly impressed by the strength of 

the popular welcome in the streets, he 

claimed, “I have just, without a doubt, 

experienced the most important day of my 

14 “François Hollande: ‘Je viens pour ecrire avec 

l’Afrique une nouvelle page,’” RFI, November 10, 

2012, accessed December 3, 2014, 

http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20121011-Françoishollande-afrique-francophonie-sommet-interviewnouvelle-page/ 

15 Isaline Bergamaschi, “French Military Intervention 

in Mali: Inevitable, Consensual, Yet Insufficient,” 

Stability: International Journal of Security and Development, 

2, no.2 (2013), accessed December 3, 2014. 

http://www.stabilityjournal.org/rt/printerFriendly/s 

ta.bb/70 

political life.” 16 The intervention received a 

huge amount of popular support from 

Malians, and France’s action “has very 

seldom been accused of neocolonialism 

internationally.” 17 This may be in part due 

to historical reasons and the fact that Mali 

doesn’t quite fall under the category of the 

French pré carré, a term used to describe 

France’s sphere of influence in Africa: the 

country assumed one of the more radical 

positions towards Paris, unilaterally 

declaring independence in 1960. 

This is why Tony Chafer, professor 

of French Area studies at Portsmouth 

University, argues, “the presentation of 

France’s military intervention in the country 

in 2013 as the latest avatar of the Françafrique 

tradition is at the very least misleading, 

insofar as it fails to take account of the 

complex, often tense nature of Franco- 

Malian relations in the post-colonial 

period.” 18 This refutes the notion of 

Françafrique as a model of analysis for the 

French intervention in Mali as it 

oversimplifies a long and complex history 

between France and Africa. 

The intervention in Mali also 

received praise, in part due to Hollande’s 

reluctance to intervene in Africa, a striking 

contrast to former president Nicolas 

Sarkozy. Sarkozy had a history of using 

aggressive foreign relation moves to gain or 

maintain popularity at home. In August 

2008, for example, he succeeded 

in negotiating a Russo-Georgian ceasefire 

without being invited to be a 

peacemaker. In 2011, Sarkozy took France 

to war in Libya without informing his 

parliament or foreign minister, Alain Juppé. 

In opposition, “the trouble taken by 

Hollande to seek African opinion before 

16 Ben Clift, and Raymond Kuhn, “The Hollande 

Presidency 2012-14,” Modern and Contemporary France, 

22, no. 4 (2014): 432. 

17 Isaline Bergamaschi and Mahamadou Diawara, 

“The French military intervention in Mali: Not 

exactly Françafrique but definitely postcolonial,” in 

Peace operations in the francophone world: global governance 

meets post-colonialism, ed. Bruno Charbonneau and 

Tony Chafer (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014), 137. 

18 Chafer, “Hollande and Africa Policy,” 516. 


going ahead with military intervention 

contrasted with past practice.” 19 

Yet, despite Hollande’s “subtler ear 

for the tone of African diplomacy,” 20 France 

still has a vested interest in the region, many 

aspects of which also contributed to 

France’s decision to intervene in Mali. 

Although France does not have specific 

economic interests in Mali, it certainly has 

economic interests in the wider region. 

Nigerian uranium, for instance, is central to 

France’s energy security: one quarter of 

France’s electricity production relies on 

uranium. There is also speculation 

concerning an interest in oil in the north of 

Mali that could be considered a new 

potential economic gain. However, 

Bergamaschi and Diawara assert, “the 

presence of oil resources has been suspected 

for a long time but never clearly and 

formally established.” 21 

French political motivations behind 

intervention should also be considered. 

France is a permanent member of the UN 

Security Council, and thus, has international 

obligations specifically to West Africa, 

where it has troops stationed in Senegal, 

Côte d’Ivoire, and Chad. As Chafer 

postulates, “faced with the threat of an 

Islamist takeover, the prospect of a 

humanitarian disaster and a request from the 

Malian government to intervene, it would 

have been extremely difficult for France to 

refuse.” 22 Chafer’s interpretation, that 

France is simply honoring its international 

obligations, may be overly generous. As 

Bergamaschi and Diawara explain, “acting 

for stability in Africa remains a key tool to 

defend the French seat at the UN Security 

Council.” 23 It should also be noted that 

African countries provide a valuable source 

of supportive votes for France at the UN. 

Although France may have simply been 

fulfilling its international duty, the benefits 

of intervention in this sense are undeniable. 

Even if circumstances forced France to 

intervene in Africa, to be present militarily 

in a number of African countries requires a 

type of Françafrique behavior. 

BARKHANE: CASTING FURTHER 

DOUBT 

In the summer of 2014, Hollande 

declared the objectives of Operation Serval 

accomplished, 24 but victory in Mali is not as 

absolute as has been suggested. This is 

demonstrated by the announcement in July 

2014 of a new military operation in the 

region: Operation Barkhane. Unlike Serval, 

Barkhane is preventative in its intent. While 

Serval aimed at fixing a problem that was 

deteriorating in Mali, Operation Barkhane 

has been labeled as a counterterrorist 

operation, although many specifics remain 

unclear. Hollande has said the Barkhane 

force will allow for a "rapid and efficient 

intervention in the event of a crisis” 25 in the 

region. This summer, Hollande began a 

three-nation visit to Africa, stopping in Côte 

d’Ivoire, Niger, and Chad. The focus of the 

visit was related to security, with Operation 

Serval coming to a close, only to be replaced 

by Operation Barkhane. Named after a 

crescent-shaped sand dune in the Saharan 

desert, the operation involves the 

deployment of 3,000 military personnel 

across the vast Sahel region, backed by six 

19 Paul Melly and Vincent Darracq, “A New Way to 

Engage? French Policy in Africa from Sarkozy to 

Hollande,” Chatham House Africa 2013, 10, accessed 

December 1, 2014. 

http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamh 

ouse/public/Research/Africa/0513pp_franceafrica.p 

df 

20 Ibid., 10. 

21 Bergamaschi and Diawara, “The French military 

intervention in Mali,” 141. 

22 Chafer, “Hollande and Africa Policy,” 524. 


intervention in Mali”, 141. 

24 Sara M. Llana, “Mali, one year later: France's mission 

accomplished – but much left to do,” Christian Science 

Monitor, January 11, 2014, accessed December 1, 2014, 

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2014/0 

111/Mali-one-year-later-France-s-missionaccomplished-but-much-left-to-do 

25 “Hollande announces new military operation in 

West Africa,” France 

24, July 19, 2014, accessed March 14, 2015. 

http://www.france24.com/en/20140719-hollandeannounces-new-military-operation-west-africa/. 


fighter jets, 20 helicopters and three drones. 

The mission forms a belt of French military 

presence in five African countries: Burkina 

Faso, Mali, Chad, Niger and Mauritania. 

In an article published prior to the 

French president’s three-nation visit this 

summer, France 24 speculated, “mission 

accomplished or mission creep?” 26 Another 

article described Operation Barkhane as “a 

blurred French strategy.” 27 The notion of 

mission creep describes a gradual shift in 

objectives during the course of a military 

campaign, often resulting in an unplanned 

long-term commitment. Operation 

Barkhane can be interpreted as a form of 

“mission creep” in that it is the expansion of 

a project (Operation Serval), following initial 

successes. Mission creep is considered 

dangerous because it tends to forge a path 

of increasingly ambitious attempts at victory 

that ultimately result in great failure. 

Understood in these terms, the transition 

from Serval to Barkhane is inconsistent with 

Hollande’s promise to break from 

Françafrique, and Operation Barkhane may 

see French troops remain in the region for a 

number of years. 

Some have dubbed Mali as the next 

Afghanistan, 28 comparing Operation Barkhane 

to the U.S. “war on terror.” Using the same 

term coined at the dawn of U.S. involvement in 

Afghanistan, this labeling provokes many 

pejorative conceptions of the motivations 

behind the operation. If the notion of 

Françafrique is based on the exploitation of 

African countries for the advancement of 

France’s own power, viewing Operation 

26 Leela Jacinto, “It’s time for Africa again as 

Hollande starts three-nation visit”, France24, July 16, 


http://www.france24.com/en/20140716-francewest-africa-hollande-sahel-ivory-coast-niger-chad/. 

27 Sarah Diffalah, “DeServalàBarkhane:lamissionfrançaise 

loind'êtreterminée,” LeNouvelObservateur,July 16, 2014, 

accessed December 1, 2014, 

http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/guerre-aumali/20140715.OBS3744/mali-de-serval-a-barkhanela-mission-francaise-loin-d-etre-terminee.html. 

28 Mark Doyle, “Mali: Dangers of dealing with 

‘Afghanistan of West Africa,’” BBC News, June 14, 


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18427541 

Barkhane in a similar light as the “war on 

terror” suggests that France is using the 

justificatory framework of counter-terrorism to 

remain involved in the region and benefit from 

this involvement. Such benefits include 

defending France’s position in the UN, as well 

as in the international arena. 

Hollande declared, during his 

presidential speech at Niemey, “Operation 

Barkhane is a structure built to accompany 

Africans and allow them to ensure their own 

security.” 29 The operation was presented as a 

way to regionalize counterterrorist movements, 

and to protect both the security of countries in 

the West and Central Africa, and that of 

France. Hollande has made sure to present 

Operation Barkhane under his initial promise 

to break away from Françafrique, just as he did 

with Operation Serval. There is one distinct 

difference, however. Operation Serval was 

launched after the interim Malian president 

Dioncounda Traoré asked for the assistance of 

the UN and of France. Operation Barkhane 

has no such precedent; it merely constitutes a 

continuation of the work of Operation Serval. 

Under Operation Serval, the French 

president and his advisors made claims to 

support Africans in their own development 

and security, when the role played by the 

French military was much more significant in 

reality. Hollande stated in late 2012, “France 

will not, in any case, intervene in Mali.” 30 Due 

to UN support, the mission was presented as 

multilateral. Once French troops arrived in 

Mali, France worked hard to ensure legality 

through the UN framework, making the case 

for an interpretation of UN Resolution 2085. 

This resolution, however, only authorized an 

29 Laurent Lagneau, “Selon M. Le Drian, l'objectif de 

l'opération Barkhane est “l'éradication du terrorisme 

jihadiste,”” Zone Militaire, July 22, 2014, accessed 


http://www.opex360.com/2014/07/22/selon-m-ledrian-lobjectif-de-loperation-barkhane-leradicationdu-terrorisme-jihadiste/. 

30 Ursula Soares, “Opération militaire au Mali : la 

France n’interviendra pas «elle-même»,” Radio France 

Internationale, November 13, 2012, accessed 


http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20121113-operationmilitaire-mali-france-interviendra-pas-elle-memeunion-africaine-addis-abeba-conseil-securite/. 


African-led mission. 31 Bergamaschi and 

Diawara claim “France’s decision to 

intervene was unilateral,” 32 but more 

accurately, it was a bilateral decision, 

considering support was in fact requested by 

Mali. Had it not been, France may not have 

intervened. This is not to say France acted 

solely out of obligation or as a response to 

Mali’s cry for help, but rather that such a 

request provided an opportunity upon 

which France could capitalize. 

African responses to French 

intervention and involvement in the region 

are demonstrative of France’s special 

relationship with its former colonies. 

Despite the domination of the period of 

colonization, most countries achieved 

independence peacefully and responsibility 

rather than blame emerged in the discourse 

of the time. 

THE QUESTION OF DEBT 

The expectation that France can and 

should continue to help its former African 

colonies is inextricably linked to the notion 

of debt: France’s debt to Africa for the 

period of colonization as well as their debt 

for African military participation in several 

wars including the two world wars. Those 

African soldiers who served France are 

known as tirailleurs sénégalais (Senegalese 

infantrymen), despite recruitment not being 

limited to Senegal. It was during this time 

that Blaise Diagne, mayor of Dakar, 

“cultivated the expectation that those who 

served would be rewarded both symbolically 

and materially.” 33 This notion of “blood 

debt” (dette de sang) or colonial debt is still 

noticeably present today. 

Hollande was welcomed warmly in 

Cote d’Ivoire during his three-nation visit to 

31 United Nations, Resolution 2085, December 20, 


http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?sy 

mbol=S/RES/2085. 


intervention in Mali: Not exactly Françafrique but 

definitely postcolonial,” 143. 

33 Gregory Mann, Native sons: West African veterans and 

France in the twentieth century, (Durham: Duke 

University Press, 2006), 70. 

Africa in July 2014. Fraternité Matin, the 

local Ivorian governmental news outlet, ran 

a piece on the day of the French president’s 

visit to Abidjan that stated, “Even if France 

does not, at this moment, provide support 

economically, she still has a lot to contribute 

for the reconstruction of our 

infrastructure.” 34 There is a tendency to 

think France is responsible for development 

in its former colonies: both from citizens of 

former French colonies, and from within 

the French government itself. 

This notion of debt may help to 

explain why the French intervention in Mali 

was received with such popular support in 

the country. During a speech delivered in 

Bamako in February 2013, the French 

president said, “I remember that when 

France was attacked, when she was looking 

for assistance and allies, when she was 

threatened, when her territorial unity was at 

stake, who came to support her then? Africa 

did, Mali did, thanks to Mali. Today we are 

paying our debt to Mali.” 35 Even the choice 

of the Chadian capital N’Djamena as the 

headquarters of Operation Barkhane could 

be interpreted as a reward for Chad’s timely 

intervention in Northern Mali. In early 2013 

Chad sent troops to support Operation 

Serval, providing essential support to France 

with their experience in desert warfare. 

During a speech delivered in front of the 

French community at N’Djamena 

announcing the launch of Operation 

Barkhane, Hollande thanked Chad a number 

of times, stating, “I wanted to express to 

you my gratitude.” 36 His presentation of this 

34 Venance Konan, “Akwaba, Hollande!”, Fraternité 

Matin, July 17, 2014, accessed December 2, 2014, 

http://www.fratmat.info/edito/item/17429-akwabahollande. 

35 François Hollande, cited in Bergamaschi and 

Diawara, “The French military intervention in Mali: 

Not exactly Françafrique but definitely postcolonial,” 

146. 

36 Francois Hollande, “Discours du président 

François Hollande devant la 

communauté française à Ndjamena,” Elysee, July 19, 


http://www.elysee.fr/assets/pdf/discours-dupresident-François-hollande-devant-la-communautefrancaise-a-ndjamena-2.pdf 


new operation within a context of 

appreciation demonstrates that a form of 

postcolonial debt still exists between France 

and its former colonies, and is being used as 

a way to justify involvement in the region. 

France’s notion of debt to its former 

colonies is a dangerous one. It perpetuates a 

postcolonial political community that makes 

it extremely hard for France to cut ties from 

her former African colonies. The notion of 

debt is problematic in two ways. First, it 

provides a justification for France to stay 

involved in African affairs. Second, it 

normalizes French involvement in Africa 

among the African population. 

The central role to be played by 

Chad in Operation Barkhane is also 

concerning, given that the President of 

Chad since 1996, Idriss Déby, is widely 

considered to be a dictator. 37 Déby‘s 

administration is widely believed to be 

responsible for the disappearance of the 

opposition leader, Ibni Oumar Mahamat 

Saleh. 38 Saleh disappeared after his arrest by 

the Chadian government in 2008. 

Previously, he served in the Chadian army 

and was made commander-in-chief under 

Hissène Habré. In 1985, he was removed 

from his post and sent to Paris to pursue a 

course at the École de Guerre. 

THE ROLE OF LEADERSHIP IN THE 

FRANCAFRIQUE RELATIONSHIP 

One fundamental aspect of 

Françafrique has been the close bond shared 

by French and African leaders. Many 

African leaders at some point attended 

university in Paris, or elsewhere in France, 

where they met their French counterparts. 

This was the case with many prominent 

37 Joshua Norman, “The world’s enduring dictators: 

Idriss Déby, Chad,” CBS News, June 19, 2011, 

accessed December 9, 2014, 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-worldsenduring-dictators-idriss-Déby-chad-19-06-2011/ 

38 “Chad: Repressive tactics against government 

critics must come to an end,” Amnesty International, 

October 24, 2013, accessed April 11, 2015, 

https://www.amnesty.org/en/articles/news/2013/1 

0/chad-repressive-tactics-against-government-criticsmust-come-end/. 

figures, of which Leopold Sédar Senghor 

and Georges Pompidou are good examples. 

Senghor served as Senegal’s first president 

for over two decades, and Pompidou was 

Prime Minister of France and later President 

from 1969 until his death in 1974. Their 

friendship began in 1929-30 and Senghor 

once admitted in an interview that it was 

Pompidou “who converted me to 

socialism.” 39 It is interesting to note that 

Déby also has this academic connection 

with France, but what is even more 

concerning is the new relationship between 

Hollande and Déby. 

Recently, with the announcement of 

Operation Barkhane and the use of Chad as 

the headquarters of the mission, Hollande 

has established diplomatic relations with 

Déby. During his speech at N’Djamena on 

July 19, 2014, Hollande stated, “We have a 

deep seeded relationship of cooperation 

with Chad. And a solid and precious 

relationship with Déby.” 40 However, one 

reporter at the summit tweeted that 

Hollande in fact left at the start of Déby’s 

speech and only returned upon its close: 

“@fhollande has returned to the room to 

listen to Paul Biya after blowing off Déby’s 

speech @OIFfrancophonie #NAOIF14.” 41 

From this account, it seems that the 

relationship between the two leaders may 

not be as amicable as initially perceived. 

This does not, however, diminish the 

concern caused by collaborating with a 

dictator known to disregard human rights. 

It is, of course, far too easy to judge 

President Hollande for his actions, especially 

in the context of Françafrique, when the 

reality is that, “military interventions in Mali 

39 Leopold S. Senghor, cited in Jean-François Sirinelli, 

“Deux etudiants “coloniaux” à Paris à l’aube des 

anneés trente,” Vingtième Siècle, 18, (April – June 

1988): 81. 

40 Lénaïg Bredoux, “Hollande au Tchad: Comment 

Idriss Déby est redevenue le meilleur ami de la 

France,” Makaila, plume combattante et indépendante, July 

19, 2014, accessed December 3, 2014, 

http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/1907 

14/hollande-au-tchad-comment-idriss-Déby-estredevenu-le-meilleur-ami-de-la-france. 

41 Thierry Hot’s Twitter account, accessed December 

3, 2014, https://twitter.com/Hotthierry1 


and Central Afrique mean there is no way 

around the despot Idriss Déby.” 42 Chad 

holds a very important position 

geographically in the region. It is true, 

however, that upon his election, Hollande 

not only promised at break from the old 

days of Françafrique, but also went so far as 

to condemn Déby. That has all changed 

now, in the name of security, and Chad is 

presented as vital, militarily (as proven 

during Operation Serval) and geographically, 

to the success of Operation Barkhane. 

CONCLUSION 

It certainly is problematic to 

substantiate claims that Hollande’s actions 

comprise a definite return to Françafrique. As 

Chafer’s argument highlights, the use of 

Françafrique as a tool of analysis 

oversimplifies a very complex relationship. 

The fact that a relationship exists at all 

cannot be construed as Françafrique 

behavior, given France’s complicated history 

with Africa as well as their economic ties to 

the continent. It should be recognized that 

France’s role in Africa will always be shaped 

by history, by economics, and by 

international pressures. France has a very 

unique historical position concerning Africa, 

and this aspect of the relationship will not 

change: it is a factor that will always shape 

France’s policy toward Africa. Yet close 

historical bonds do not necessarily indicate a 

future of Françafrique, just as the very 

existence of a close relationship doesn’t 

immediately indicate a return to Françafrique. 

The root of the problem may be that 

Hollande’s promise to break with 

Françafrique was simply too ambitious, and 

unrealistic. The mistake the president has 

made is not in simply maintaining a 

relationship with former colonies, or even 

supporting them (this may very well always 

be the case due to deep historical roots), but 

with trying to utterly deny the power of 

such a deep-seeded bond as he did back in 

2012. Hollande’s presidency has proven that 

42 Bredoux, “Hollande au Tchad.” 

completely avoiding Africa is not a viable 

option for France. As Mustapha Tossa, 

editor-in-chief of Monte Carlo Doualiya, 

France 24’s Arabic language sister radio 

station, explains, “The fact is, France was 

forced to intervene in Africa, to be present 

militarily in a number of African countries, 

which requires a type 

of Françafrique behavior. So, Françafrique is 

still alive under François Hollande. And I 

do not see how he can get rid of it since 

France is so engulfed in protecting its allies 

and interests in the region.” 43 It is for this 

reason that no matter how lightly President 

Hollande treads in Africa; he will always fall 

under criticism concerning the Françafrique 

nature of his policies, as will presidents to 

come. 

While it is right to be skeptical of 

President Hollande’s motivations behind 

Operation Serval and Operation Barkhane, 

it is most certainly true that thus far, he has 

proceeded with more caution toward Africa 

than any other president before him. 

Hollande’s desire to lead France away from 

Françafrique may be genuine, but reality and 

circumstance will not permit him to fully 

follow through on his promise. 

CARMEN CUESTA 

ROCA is a Masters 

student in Journalism 

and French Studies at 

NYU. An avid learner of 

new cultures and 

languages, she hails 

from the UK, but has 

Spanish heritage. 

Carmen is working 

toward a career in 

journalism - currently a 

local news junkie - but she hopes to spend 

her post-NYU days reporting 

internationally. This summer she will travel 

to Haiti to report for her thesis and on other 

stories. 

43 Mustapha Tossa, quoted in Jacinto, “It’s time for 

Africa again as Hollande starts three-nation visit.” 


China’s Economic 

Espionage 

Stealing, Not Destroying 

Reema Hibrawi 

This paper seeks to examine the 

economic espionage threat to the 

national security of the United States 

from the Chinese government in the private 

and public sector. In this paper, economic 

espionage will refer to the unauthorized 

access and use of information by a foreign 

entity for strategic, tactical, or economic 

purposes. 1 The theft of trade secrets with the 

intent of an economic benefit by a foreign 

power, also falls under economic espionage. 2 

The key research questions of this paper are: 

1) Which U.S. targets are pursued by the 

Chinese government? 2) Why is China 

engaging in economic espionage against the 

U.S.? 3) What are the implications for U.S. 

national security? 

This paper seeks to specifically discuss 

the economic, military, and security risks to 

U.S. national security. Economic risks include 

the loss of trade secrets and competitive 

advantage. Military risks include the theft of 

strategic information on operations, 

equipment, and personnel. 3 Security risks refer 

1 Economic Espionage Act of 1996: Title 18 Crimes and 

Criminal Procedure, Part I Crimes, Chapter 90 

Protection of Trade Secrets, Pub. L. No. 104-294, 110 

Stat. 3488 (Oct. 11, 1996), codified at 18 U.S.C. §1831. 

Passed as part of the National Information Infrastructure 

Protection Act of 1996. 

2 Charles Doyle, “Stealing Trade Secrets and Economic 

Espionage: An Overview of 18 U.S.C. 1831 and 1832,” 

Congressional Research Service (July 25, 2014). 

3 Testimony of Larry M. Wortzel, “Cyber Espionage 

and the Theft of US Intellectual Property and 

Technology,” before the House of Representatives, 

to infrastructure and government functions 

that rely on digital networks. The main focus 

will be on Chinese government network 

exploitation and attacks, as well as intellectual 

property theft. 4 

The analysis predicts that the Chinese 

government will continue to focus on 

persistent and aggressive economic espionage 

of the United States. This judgment is made 

due to the vast information from private 

security consulting and public intelligence 

agencies on attacks originating from China, 

and the current Chinese cyber strategy. It is 

less clear how the Chinese will continue to use 

economic espionage as a tool to maintain their 

economic growth. This uncertainty is due to 

the opaque and complex internal strategy on 

China’s economic espionage. This may or may 

not be the main tool or focus for China’s 

economic growth moving forward. Just as 

uncertain but highly probable is that the 

Chinese will continue to resist ratifying an 

international legal framework for cyber 

monitoring and security that is restrictive. 

This is based on failed negotiations in the 

past, and China’s continued focus on 

maintaining legitimacy through its domestic 

and foreign policies. 

RATIONALE 

Historically, China is not known for 

its prowess in modernity. It has lagged behind 

the U.S. in innovation and resources in much 

of the 20 th Century. China was inefficient, 

stagnant, and poor due to tight economic 

control and isolation by the state. 5 A shift 

occurred in the late 1970’s, with the 

Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee 

on Oversight and Investigations (July 9, 2013). 

4 Mark Lowenthal, Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, 6 th 

Edition (Sage/CQ Press, 2014), 456. 

5 Wayne Morrison, “China’s Economic Rise: History, 

Trends, Challenges, and Implications for the United 

States,” Congressional Research Service (October 9, 2014). 


implementation of free market reforms 6 China 

continued to push for foreign direct 

investment (FDI) to this economic 

development. 7 It has become more influential 

as a result of improving its technology and 

intelligence capabilities. 8 This includes the 

modernization of its signal intelligence 

(SIGINT). 9 It has also shown space-borne 

capabilities in the form of anti-satellite 

(ASAT) tests in 2007 and 2013. 10 In the 

education sector, the state has emphasized 

science fields to continue this growth. There 

has since been an increase in Chinese students 

attending physics and computer science 

programs in U.S. universities and graduate 

programs. 11 This is seen as both an effort to 

modernize the population and develop cyber 

hacking capabilities for state use. The aim of 

modernizing into an information and 

industrial society has inspired the 

Informatization Plan of 2006. 12 One of the 

main goals is to close the digital divide. 13 

China is on track to do just that as illustrated 

by its successful economic espionage on U.S. 

civilian and military organizations. 14 With its 

growing power as a world economy and 

6 Beina Xu and Eleanor Albert, “The Chinese 

Communist Party: Backgrounders,” Council on Foreign 

Relations (November 17, 2014). 

7 Jim Lewis, “China Economic Reform Timeline: Jim 

Lewis Blog,” Center for Strategic & International Studies 

(December 11, 2014). 

8 Wayne Morrison, “China’s Economic Rise: History, 

Trends, Challenges, and Implications for the United 

States,” Congressional Research Service (October 9, 2014). 

9 Mark Lowenthal, Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, 456. 

10 Ibid. 

11 Ibid. 

12 Amy Chang, “Warring State: China’s Cybersecurity 

Strategy,” Center for New American Security (December 

2014). 

13 Zhongzhou Li, “China’s Information Strategy and its 

Impact on Trade in ICT Goods and ICT Services,” 

UNCTAD Expert Meeting, in Support of the 

Implementation and Follow-Up of WSIS: Using ICTs 

to Achieve Growth and Development (December 

2006). 

14 Ibid. 

increasing need for resources, Chinese 

intelligence and technology capabilities have 

improved to meet these demands. 

IMPORTANCE TO THE U.S. 

Along with these developments, the 

cyber domain is relatively new and 

unregulated, which makes economic 

espionage without consequences more 

prevalent. There are no legal frameworks to 

monitor cyber security at the international 

level, 15 and no precedent exists in policy at the 

domestic or international level. 16 The 

sovereignty of digital information is a point of 

contention between states like China and the 

U.S.; China prefers a more flexible 

interpretation which will not affect its 

domestic and political stability. 17 This has led 

to stalled agreements on international cyber 

security and norms. 18 The U.S. infrastructure 

is reliant on digital networks for its electricity, 

water, transportation, flight travel, and the 

economy. 19 Like most industrialized states, the 

U.S. is more vulnerable to economic 

espionage due to the level of integration 

between digital networks and national 

infrastructure. 20 Government social services 

like healthcare, industry, and commerce have 

transferred to digital structures. Besides the 

government, the public also is increasing its 

use and trust of digital technologies. 21 One 

third of the world is digitally connected and 

15 James Clapper, Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US 

Intelligence Community (January 29, 2014). 

16 Michael Hayden, “The Future of Things ‘Cyber’,” 

Strategic Studies Quarterly (Spring 2011). 


Strategy,” Center for New American Security (December 

2014). 

18 Ibid. 

19 White House Online, “International Strategy for 

Cyberspace” (May 2011). 

20 James Clapper. Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US 

Intelligence Community (January 29, 2014). 

21 Ibid. 


this is likely to increase as more countries 

modernize and develop technology. 22 

For these reasons, the Director of 

National Intelligence (DNI) threat assessment 

of 2013 lists cyber security as a current and 

growing future threat to the U.S. and 

highlights China and Russia as the most 

pervasive and persistent in attacks against the 

U.S. 23 Chinese programs infiltrated over 1,295 

computers in 103 nations. 24 They target U.S. 

national defense and national lab sites, 25 as 

well as cyber and technology firms. 26 These 

are substantial motivations for cyber security 

and protection from economic espionage as a 

key strategic initiative for the most recent 

Department of Defense (DoD) strategy of 

2011. 27 The executive branch also lists 

cybercrime as a key focus in the White House 

International Strategy for Cyberspace. 28 

ANALYSIS 

China has persistently denied 

existence of cyber units or economic 

espionage. It describes these claims as 

fictitious and baseless. 29 In 2010, of 614 

known advanced persistent threats (APT) 

with distinct IP addresses attacking 

infrastructure systems, 100% were found 

22 Ibid. 

23 Ibid. 

24 A study undertaken by the University of Toronto in 

2009, in Mark Lowenthal, Intelligence: From Secrets to 

Policy, 457. 

25 Mark Lowenthal, Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, 457. 

26 Mandiant Online. “APT1: Exposing One of China’s 

Cyber Espionage Units.” A private security consulting 

service periodically releases cyber threat reports against 

the US and private sector companies. 

27 Department of Defense, “Department of Defense 

Strategy for Operations in Cyberspace” (July 2011). 

28 White House Online, “International Strategy for 

Cyberspace” (May 2011). 

29 Adam Segal, “Axiom and the Deepening Divide in 

U.S – China Cyber Relations,” Council on Foreign 

Relations (October 29, 2014). 

operating out of Shanghai. 30 A prominent 

espionage unit, referred to as APT1, has 

instigated massive attacks and continues to 

steal huge quantities of information. 

Hundreds of investigations on economic 

espionage found that most activities 

originated in China and with government 

knowledge. 31 The extent of the attacks and 

resilience of the group suggest they have 

strong financial backing in addition to a 

sophisticated structure. With the highly 

monitored Chinese environment, it is unlikely 

the state is unaware. Evidence suggests the 

state must be supporting these activities 

because its attacks have not stopped. 32 The 

top industries include information technology, 

high-tech electronics, aerospace, public 

administration, and satellites and 

telecommunications. 33 Strong evidence shows 

that APT1 is Unit 61398 which is the People’s 

Liberation Army (PLA) Third Department 

cyber espionage unit. Cyber activity originates 

in the same area where Unit 61398 is 

located. 34 The same structure, mission, and 

methodology exists in both units. The 

similarities between the two groups are 

difficult to ignore. The sophistication and 

investment in this espionage unit explains the 

assessment of China continuing persistent 

economic espionage against the U.S. as likely. 

The U.S. must continue to prepare for China’s 

espionage activities. 

Of exemplary importance, Unit 61398 

targets civilian technology and proprietary 

information. Evidence shows that APT1 

started stealing data as early as 2006. 35 

Information that is targeted includes strategic 

plans, goals, calendar items, optimization 

30 Mandiant Online. “APT1: Exposing One of China’s 

Cyber Espionage Units,” 2013. 

31 Ibid. 

32 Ibid. 

33 Ibid. 

34 Ibid. 

35 Mandiant Online. “Trends: Beyond the Breach, 2014 

Threat Report.” 


processes, and joint venture information. 36 

This suggests that the attacks are meant to 

understand how executives and decision 

makers think. 37 China is looking to gain 

influence through several means: economic, 

political, diplomatic, and military platforms. 

China-based attacks steal ideas and the 

process to developing those ideas. The cost 

for these activities is minimal. Risk is low and 

gaining access to large quantities of 

information can be done quickly by 

manipulating networks, e-mail, and digital 

downloads to external storage devices. 38 

Detection is difficult over networks because 

the location of the perpetrator can also be 

masked. 39 

U.S. private sector firms, academia, 

and private citizens of various countries are 

prime targets for China. Evidence shows that 

Marathon Oil, ExxonMobil, and 

ConocoPhillips were hacked in the summer of 

2008 and lost data detailing the quantity, 

value, and location of oil discoveries around 

the world. The loss of such data per company 

ranges in the millions of dollars. 40 The 

Chinese are the most pervasive and relentless 

actors in economic espionage, besides 

Russia. 41 The U.S. is the leader in 

technological and economic development 

which makes it a target by its competitors, and 

especially China. 42 Information and stolen 

data is provided to Chinese state owned 

enterprises which cuts costs, research and 

development timelines, and improves the 

competitive edge of these industries. 43 The 

economy as a whole can also be damaged by 

the compromise of private sector trade 

secrets, which can affect job creation, profits, 

and future innovation. 44 

Military economic espionage has 

targeted several DoD weapons systems 

including ballistic-missile defense systems, 

Black Hawk helicopters, and combat ships. 45 

Military operations and the individuals 

involved are compromised when military 

documents are stolen. China seeks 

information on the manufacture of weapons 

and their systems to replicate and counter 

their designs. This is an effort to modernize 

the state and improve its military capabilities. 

Evidence of this is seen through its antisatellite 

tests to counter U.S. military use of 

satellites for offensive behavior. 46 More 

specifically, evidence has also shown that 

Chinese hackers stole classified information in 

February 2012 about the technology behind 

the F-35 joint strike fighters. 47 

CHINESE STRATEGY 

Currently, China’s cyber strategy is an 

extension of its national security strategy. This 

36 Ibid. 

37 Ibid. 

38 “Foreign Spies Stealing US Economic Secrets in 

Cyberspace,” Counterintelligence Security, Office of 

the National Counterintelligence Executive, Report to 

Congress on Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial 

Espionage, 2009-2011 (October 2011). 

39 Ibid. 

40 “Cybersecurity: A list of significant cyber events 

since 2006,” Center for Strategic and International 

Studies (April 2015). 






42 Ibid. 

43 Testimony of Larry M. Wortzel, “Cyber Espionage 

and the Theft of US Intellectual Property and 

Technology,” before the House of Representatives, 

Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee 

on Oversight and Investigations (July 9, 2013). 






45 Ibid. 

46 Mark Lowenthal. Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, 457. 

47 “Cybersecurity: A List of Significant Cyber Events 

Since 2006,” Center for Strategic and International 

Studies (April 2015). 


is to maintain legitimacy of the Chinese 

Communist Party (CCP). It is likely China will 

resist ratifying an international legal 

framework to maintain legitimacy. The CCP 

maintains legitimacy by ensuring domestic 

stability, military modernization, economic 

growth, and territorial integrity. 48 

In order to become a better innovator 

of information and industry, Chinese 

domestic policy needs to focus on technology 

and science and the current leader in both 

technology and innovation is the U.S. It 

follows that China’s main targets are U.S. 

private companies, military, and government. 

Chinese economic espionage serves several 

purposes: political, military, and economic. 49 

China is simultaneously maintaining 

legitimacy, anticipating cyber conflict, and 

growing its economy. For these reasons, it is 

likely that China would use economic 

espionage as an integral tool for economic 

growth and other domestic policy objectives. 

Understanding that China seeks economic 

espionage for several reasons, mostly to 

maintain power and economic growth, is 

important in anticipating future U.S. targets. 

It has been argued that China is using 

economic espionage solely for military 

offensive strategy or economic growth. Either 

premise is too simplistic and overlooks the 

Chinese style of governance in the last 

century. As previously mentioned, a major 

objective of the CCP is to maintain its 

legitimacy. All policies, both domestic and 

foreign, are shaped by this priority of self- 






49 James Lewis and Simon Hansen, “China’s 

cyberpower: International and Domestic Priorities,” 

Australian Strategic Policy Institute (November 12, 2014). 

preservation. 50 Because a major objective of 

the CCP is to maintain its political legitimacy, 

it is prone to using economic espionage to 

meet both objectives—military prowess and 

economic development, as both are important 

contributors to CCP’s legitimacy. The 

combination of military and economic growth 

is a stronger method of maintaining authority 

than either alone. The CCP has been in power 

for over eighty years, and has remained in 

power by maintaining political and economic 

stability. 51 Chinese President Xi Jingping has 

also emphasized the importance of cyber 

technology in China’s pursuit of power 

through the 2006 Informatization Plan, and in 

recent national security law drafted specifically 

to establish “systems of cyber and 

information security and national cyber 

sovereignty.” 52 This law highlights the 

importance of cyber technology and security 

for Xi and the CCP in maintaining legitimacy. 

Economic espionage is likely to continue to 

be a tool for that end. 

The U.S. does not have complete 

information about the motivations and 

patterns of Chinese economic espionage. This 

is because not every Chinese economic 

espionage attack has been successful or 

detected. 53 The limitations of the CCP cyber 

strategy is also unknown. Few public 


Strategy,” Center for New American Security (December, 

2014). 

51 Beina Xu; Eleanor Albert, “The Chinese Communist 

Party: Backgrounders,” Council on Foreign Relations 

(November 17, 2014) ; Amy Chang, “Warring State: 

China’s Cybersecurity Strategy,” Center for New American 

Security (December 2014). 

52 “China defines overall national security outlook in 

draft law,” People’s Daily (April 20, 2015). 

53 Testimony of Dr. Larry M. Wortzel before the 

House Armed Services Committee, “China’s Military 

Modernization and Cyber Activities,” Strategic Studies 

Quarterly 8, no. 1: 3-22. International Security and Counter 

Terrorism Reference Center (Spring 2014). 


documents exist on this secretive program. 54 

There are assumptions that the CCP would 

not steal information that could be seen as an 

act of war. Yet there is no evidence from the 

CCP or Xi if this assumption is accurate. The 

CCP may have its own unspoken rules about 

what to collect and what not to prioritize. 

This standard may be an understanding within 

the top leadership culture, not documented 

officially, and also kept secret. 

The highest priority for the Chinese 

government is maintaining domestic stability. 

If this were to change, China would be forced 

to focus on domestic rather than foreign 

policy. It is not likely that espionage acts 

would stop, but the attacks would decrease as 

focus is shifted to the domestic sphere and 

managing censorship or internal attacks. If 

China agrees to ratify an international legal 

framework, this might also alter the structure 

of China’s economic espionage units. China 

still believes it needs the information provided 

by its economic espionage units to modernize 

and grow, so again economic espionage would 

continue. 

CONCLUSION 

The aim of Chinese espionage has 

historically been to gain an economic edge 

over its competitors. Because espionage has 

been a relatively low-cost method to obtain 

important technology for economic 

development, and because China needs these 

technologies at its current level of 

development, it is likely that such economic 

espionage will continue. On the other hand, 

this paper has found that China has not used 

its stolen information for military aggression, 

although it targets military intelligence in both 

nuclear and satellite classified information. 55 It 

is unlikely China will have a major cyber- 


Strategy,” Center for New American Security (December, 

2014). 

55 Ibid. 

attack on U.S. infrastructure that would cause 

wide scale disruption. 56 It is also unlikely 

China will use cyber warfare in the next three 

years unless it believes its vital interest, the 

political legitimacy of the CCP regime, is 

violated. 

FURTHER READINGS: 

Chang, Amy. “Warring State: China’s 

Cybersecurity Strategy.” Center for New 

American Security. December, 2014. 

“Cybersecurity: A List of Significant Cyber Events 

Since 2006.” Center for Strategic and 

International Studies, April 2015. 

Mandiant Online. “APT1: Exposing One of 

China’s Cyber Espionage 

Units.” https://www.mandiant.com/resource 

s/mandiant-reports/. 

Segal, Adam. “Axiom and the Deepening Divide 

in the U.S – China Cyber Relations.” Council 

on Foreign Relations: Net Politics. October 29, 

2014. 

White House Online. “International Strategy for 

Cyberspace.” May 2011. 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/fil 

es/rss_viewer/international_strategy_for_cyb 

erspace.pdf. 

Wong, Edward. “For China, Cybersecurity is Part 

of Strategy for Protecting the Communist 

Party.” The New York Times. December, 3, 

2014. 

56 Adam Segal, “The code not taken: China, the United 

States, and the future of cyber espionage,” Bulletin of the 

Atomic Scientists (2013). 


Reema Hibrawi is a Syrian-American with an 

international background having lived and 

studied in the Middle East, Europe, and the US. 

Her educational background includes a 

Bachelor's of Science in Business 

Administration with a focus in HR, and 

currently is pursuing a Master's of Arts in 

International Relations at New York University. 

Currently a corporate planning intern at the 

Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) her career 

goals include continuing to work on 

international affairs and project management 

within civil society and international 

organizations, or think tanks with a 

concentration on post-conflict development, 

and diplomacy and civil society. 


The Anti-Communist 

Myth 

A critical examination of 

aggregate U.S. foreign policy 

analysis of the Cold War 

Dylan Heyden 

With the exception of being 

located on the same continent, 

there are perhaps no two South 

American countries that are more different 

than Argentina and Bolivia. Still, in light of 

their differences it is quite common for 

scholars to lump the two together along 

with other South and Central American 

countries when analyzing U.S. foreign 

policy pertaining to Latin America. This 

tendency is most evident in scholarly 

analysis of the Cold War era that often 

frames U.S. foreign policy decisions as 

being exclusively anti-communist. 

This paper examines U.S. foreign 

policy toward Argentina and Bolivia during 

the presidential administration of Richard 

Nixon. It postulates that the U.S. support 

of a coup in Bolivia and lack thereof in 

Argentina indicate the administration’s 

nuanced approach in foreign policymaking. 

It also argues that anti-communism was 

only one of a variety of factors to influence 

U.S. interventions in the region. This 

analysis seeks to expand current views on 

the transitory nature of Richard Nixon’s 

presidency vis-à-vis the Cold War, and the 

calculative and meticulous nature of the 

Richard Nixon-Henry Kissinger foreign 

policy-making mechanism. To do so, the 

first section will provide background 

information about the issue at hand— 

aggregated analysis that paints U.S. policy 

in Latin America with a broad brush. The 

second section will explain the historical 

context of the U.S.-backed coup in Bolivia, 

and its precursors. The third section will 

highlight the parallel sociopolitical situation 

in Argentina and identify a few similarities. 

The concluding section demonstrates that 

because the purely anti-communist thesis 

breaks down in the comparison of just two 

case studies, nuanced analysis that focuses 

on individual countries is more apt to 

explain the variety of factors guiding U.S. 

foreign policy decisions during the Cold 

War era. 

BACKGROUND 

Argentina and Bolivia occupy the 

same continent, share an official 

language—Spanish—but have little else in 

common. The first, a particularly large 

country with a culture of tango, mate, and 

strong European roots, takes pride in its 

heritage of gauchos de La Pampa 

(romanticized “cowboys”), asados 

(barbecues), and contributions to Latin 

American literature. Argentina has an 

immense coastline, but its crown jewel is its 

vibrant capital city, Buenos Aires, which is 

often referred to as the Paris of South 

America. Bolivia, on the other hand, is 

landlocked (and has been since the 19 th 

century). This is in some ways analogous to 

its current geopolitical predicament—being 

backed into a corner by three major South 

American players: Chile, Argentina, and 

Brazil. Bolivia is also smaller both in area 

and population than most of its neighbors 

(inhabitants number 10.5 million whereas 

the Buenos Aires metro area alone boasts 

15 million). 1 The ethnic makeup of Bolivia, 

1 Central Intelligence Agency, “South America: 

Bolivia,” The World Factbook. 

https://www.cia.gov/llibrary/publications/theworld-factbook/geos/bl.html; 

Central Intelligence 


which is mostly indigenous, is also of stark 

contrast to the country’s paler Argentinian 

counterparts, and the people’s habit of 

choice is chewing coca leaves or steeping 

them in a tea as opposed to drinking mate. 

In spite of these differences, it is 

quite common for scholars to focus their 

analysis of the impacts of U.S. foreign 

policy on the region—grouping the two 

countries together along with other South 

American nations and even Mexico, the 

Caribbean, and Central America. This is 

especially true in the context of the Cold 

War. For instance, Peter H. Smith says of 

the period that: 

The United States sought to 

extend and consolidate its 

political supremacy 

throughout the hemisphere. 

Launching an anticommunist 

crusade, the United States 

institutionalized military and 

political alliances with the 

nations of the region [and] 

offered to collaborate with 

authoritarian regimes so long 

as they were anticommunist. 2 

He argues, “By the mid 1950s, 

Washington laid down policy lines that 

would continue through the 1980s.” 3 

Spanning nearly 44 years (1947-1991), any 

claims about “Latin American” history, or 

U.S. foreign policy with respect to the 

region during this time deserve a great deal 

more nuance. While the Cold War was a 

period often characterized by monolithic 

anti-communist foreign policy, U.S. foreign 

policy towards Latin America was much 

Agency “Country Comparison: GDP - per Capita 

(PPP),” The World Factbook. 

2 Peter H. Smith, Talons of the Eagle: Dynamics of U.S.- 

Latin American Relations (New York: Oxford UP, 

1996), 117. 

3 Ibid. 

more fluid, and varied from country to 

country. The goal of the United States for 

Latin America as early as the mid-1950s, as 

Smith identifies, was to mitigate the 

“communist threat”. 4 The strategies of 

doing so, however, and the value ascribed 

to this policy depended as much on the 

global and regional context as on the 

person sitting in the oval office. Even a 

blanket statement like the “threat of 

communism” does not take into 

consideration the continuum of populist 

and leftist movements that had to be 

evaluated by U.S. foreign policy makers for 

their viability as threats to the United 

States. Moreover, different U.S. officials 

would likely describe what constitutes a 

threat differently. 

Shrouded in mystery, due in part to 

the social peculiarities of both figures, the 

Nixon-Kissinger relationship with respect 

to U.S. foreign policy is often represented 

as quintessentially Cold War. Early in his 

presidency, Nixon was an anti-communist 

ideologue with the primary objective of 

stopping the spread of communism. 5 

Kissinger, however, was very much a 

product of the realist school of thought in 

international relations and viewed power 

and its maintenance and protection as 

being at the core of the pursuit of U.S. 

interests. It was ultimately Kissinger’s 

realist approach in the calculation of 

foreign policy that came to heavily 

influence Nixon. 6 The vision of the duo as 

manipulative architects, bending 

international actors to their will for the 

sake of an anti-communist crusade, 

4 Ibid. 

5 Larry Ceplair, Anti-communism in Twentieth-century 

America: A Critical History (Santa Barbara, CA: 

Praeger, 2011), 144. 

6 Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, 

Volume E-10, eds. Erin Mahan and Edward C. 

Keefer (Washington: Government Printing Office, 

2010), Preface. 


though, is overstated—at least insofar as 

the belief that they were motivated solely 

by the perception that communism as an 

ideology was an inherent danger. This is 

illustrated by the U.S. intervention in 

Bolivia and lack thereof in Argentina 

during the Nixon administration. 

In both Bolivia and Argentina there 

existed similar characteristics that would 

have satisfied the pretexts for intervention 

if ideology were the primary motivation. 

However, because the U.S. response to the 

situations in both countries proved to be 

more discerning, the “crusade against 

communism” thesis loses credibility. 

Instead, it is likely that ideology was not a 

primary concern. Rather, a confluence of 

factors influenced Nixon and Kissinger in 

their decision-making processes including 

economic interests, U.S. national security, 

and continued preeminence in the region. 

Insofar as the rise of popular politicians in 

Latin America threatened geopolitical 

order, Nixon-Kissinger policy sought to 

squash it. When less viable threats were 

identified, though, there existed more 

political and ideological liberty for Latin 

American leaders than many scholars 

identify. 

PRETEXTS TO THE BANZER 

REGIME IN BOLIVIA 

In April 1971, the United States 

supported a coup d’état in Bolivia that 

brought Hugo Banzer to power. The 

growing revolutionary fervor that justified 

this intervention in the eyes of the United 

States began with the non-democratic 

ascension of René Barrientos Ortuño to 

the presidency in 1964. He promised to 

realign Bolivia on the path of revolution 

that began in 1952 and later fizzled. 

Barrientos Ortuño believed that the 

previous 12-year regime of single party rule 

in the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement 

(MNR) had been led astray. 7 While 

Bolivia’s economy greatly benefited from 

Barrientos’ policies, he found few 

supporters particularly in the rural regions 

due to his continued efforts to subdue the 

labor force. After Barrientos’ untimely 

demise in 1969, General Alfredo Ovando 

Candia, who had been co-president with 

Barrientos until January 1966, assumed the 

presidency. 8 

Partially aligning himself with the 

populist contingent of the increasingly 

radical public, Ovando sought to end 

Bolivia’s favoritism of the U.S. by 

nationalizing Gulf Oil Company’s holdings. 

In a memo to the President dated 

September 26, 1969, Kissinger argued that 

Ovando’s presidency could threaten U.S. 

interests. In particular he stated that: 

Mining and oil 

investments…will 

undoubtedly be affected by 

the change of government. 

Gulf Oil, which has drawn 

fire in the Bolivian congress 

and press, will probably be 

the first to feel pressure at 

least in the form of requests 

for greater share of profits 

through higher taxes, 

royalties or creation of mixed 

companies. 9 

7 Dennis M. Hanratty & Rex A. Hudson, “A 

Country Study: Bolivia,” Country Studies, Library of 

Congress Federal Research Division, December 

1989. 

8 Ibid. The official story is that Barrientos died in a 

helicopter crash, but many of the details are still 

unknown. There is speculation that his death may 

have been part of some sort of plot, but this has not 

been proven. 




2010), Document 79. 


While correctly predicting that Gulf Oil 

holdings would be compromised by regime 

change, Kissinger’s predictions of potential 

outcomes proved much less severe. After 

Ovando elected to nationalize Gulf Oil 

holdings, Kissinger mentioned in another 

memo to President Nixon, “nationalization 

of Gulf, the largest foreign investment, was 

in many ways a ‘revolutionary’ symbol and 

a watershed…The nationalistic 

elements…moved suddenly.” 10 Kissinger’s 

memo expresses concern for U.S. 

“interests,” in this case economic, and also 

a concern for “revolution” and 

“nationalism,” but neither are directly 

rooted in the threat of communism. In 

this way, the origins of what would become 

the deteriorating political situation in 

Bolivia were not of ideological concern at 

the onset. Only insofar as they led to 

policies in Bolivia that threatened U.S. 

private interests did Kissinger choose to 

highlight them. 

Over the course of his presidency, 

Ovando’s oscillation between populist and 

nationalist rhetoric, while in some instances 

courting the right, further polarized the 

country and the military. This paved the 

way for the coup against him and the 

emergence of José Torres González. 

Torres was a left-wing general who took an 

even more aggressive stance against the 

United States. Although at times, Kissinger 

alluded to the fact that Torres might have 

pursued a moderate course with U.S. 

support, and that members of Torres’ 

cabinet were fairly moderate. 11 During this 

time, the U.S. pursued a policy of selling 

tin to Bolivia from the U.S. government’s 

stockpile, which ended indefinitely on 

April 9, 1971. 12 Torres’ response shortly 

after was “favorable” according to a note 

from Kissinger to Nixon. The memo 

states, “[Torres] said he valued cordial 

relations with the U.S. ‘more than with any 

other country’ and he took your action as a 

clear sign of the U.S. concern for Bolivia 

and for its problems.” 13 What remains 

unclear is what later provoked Torres to 

expel the Peace Corps from Bolivia. 

Regardless, a transcribed conversation 

from two months later illustrates Kissinger 

and Nixon’s concerns regarding Bolivia, 

and potentially orchestrating a coup. The 

text reads: 

(Kissinger): We are having a 

major problem in Bolivia, 

too… I’ve told Karamessines 

to crank up an operation 

post-haste… 

(Nixon): What does 

Karamessines think we need? 

A coup? 

(Kissinger): We’ll see what 

we can, whether—in what 

context. They’re going to 

squeeze us out in another 

two months. They’ve already 

gotten rid of the Peace 

Corps, which is an asset, but 

now they want to get rid of 

USIA and military people… 

(Nixon): Remember, we gave 

those goddamn Bolivians 

that tin. 14 


Document 80. 


Document 95. 


Document 99. 


Document 98. 


Document 101. 


Weeks later, the CIA proposed potential 

covert actions that could be taken by the 

United States to topple the Torres regime. 

On August 19, 1971, NSC staffer Arnold 

Nachmanoff confirmed with Kissinger that 

opposition forces in the country’s capital, 

La Paz, were well aware of American 

support of a coup. 15 Ultimately, Colonel 

Hugo Banzer, who proved more favorable 

to U.S. interests, led a coup in August 1971 

that resulted in Torres’ exile. 

In light of all of this, the “dealing 

with the communist threat” paradigm 

seems nonexistent. The only mention of 

communism at all is Ambassador Ernest V. 

Siracusa’s remarks in June 1971 that failure 

to support opponents of the Torres 

regime, “might leave the door open for 

communists to gain yet another foothold in 

the Americas.” 16 Even so, the Ambassador 

mentions in a later memo that a coup may 

not be wise either, as the political climate 

of the situation is unstable, and a successful 

coup may simply result in the rise of 

another leftist leader. 17 In spite of this one 

remark, Nixon and Kissinger’s exchanges 

do not include any mention of 

communism. Therefore, in the context of 

Bolivia, the notion of a “communist 

crusade” is at best a secondary explanation. 

Compared to more significant U.S. 

interests like maintaining influential 

preeminence and the recuperation of 

financial losses due to the nationalization 

of various Bolivian industries, anticommunism 

was a less influential 

justification for the coup, if at all. 

Identifying the similarities and 

differences between the Bolivian 

experience during the Nixon 


Document 107. 


Document 76a. 


Document 106. 

administration and the Argentinian 

experience until Nixon’s resignation in 

1974, illuminates the nuances of the 

Nixon-Kissinger approach to U.S. foreign 

policy and its break with the traditional 

understanding of U.S. policy toward the 

region. 

ARGENTINA: THE 1973 COUP 

THAT NEVER WAS 

Richard Nixon was elected in the 

U.S. just as the Argentinian Revolution 

celebrated its third year. The Argentinian 

president at the time, Juan Carlos Onganía, 

had come to power after a coup that 

ousted center-left president Arturo 

Umberto Illia. 18 The regime proved to be 

an oppressive one that greatly limited civil 

liberties. Public approval for Onganía and 

his successors Roberto Levingston and 

Alejandro Lanusse, who remained in power 

until 1973, were at an all-time low. At the 

same time, the Argentinian political system 

was significantly impacted by the legacy of 

former president Juan Domingo Perón. 19 

Perón, who was forced into exile in 

1955, served as president of Argentina for 

two terms (1946-1955). 20 A difficult 

political figure to categorize in terms of 

ideology, Perón was known as a president 

who favored labor groups like the General 

Confederation of Labor (CGT), but also 

cited his admiration for the fascist regimes 

of Europe that fought in World War II. 

After his numerous political successes, he 

became a hero among Argentinians in spite 

of his eighteen years in exile. In fact 

Argentinians loved him more because of it. 

In exile, Perón remained an active critic of 

the military regimes that replaced him and 

18 Robert A. Potash. The Army & Politics in Argentina 

(Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1969). 

19 Ibid. 

20 Joseph A. Page. Perón̤: A Biography (NY: Random 

House, 1983). 


continued to build relationships from his 

temporary home in Franco’s Spain. His 

legacy in Argentina was a new political 

ideology specific to the country’s politics 

called Peronism. 21 It drew from Peron’s 

ideas to create a “third way” in the Cold 

War context that avoided the two extremes 

of capitalism and communism. The 

nostalgia built around the figure of Perón 

among Argentinian society is what led 

organizations like the Peronist Armed 

Forces (FAP), Montoneros, and People’s 

Revolutionary Army (ERP) to launch 

radical campaigns in his name against the 

repressive regimes of the Onganía, 

Levingston, and Lanusse. 22 These groups 

resorted to acts of terror as a result of the 

worsening sociopolitical situation. 

Peronists were presumed responsible for 

the bombing of the Sheraton Hotel in 

Buenos Aires. 23 The Montoneros resorted 

to similar acts of terror: in 1970 they 

kidnapped and executed former anti- 

Peronist president, Pedro Eugenio 

Aramburu. 24 The ERP was also responsible 

for waves of bombings and arson attacks in 

the early 1970s. 25 Perón’s degree of 

connection with these groups remains 

disputed, but the emergence of these 

groups is demonstrative of an increasingly 

radical population during this period. 

Perón later returned to Argentina 

in 1973 after a return to democracy. He 

was banned from participating in the 

elections, but his selection for President, 

Héctor Cámpara won by a sizeable margin. 

The perspective of the U.S. State 

21 James P. Brennan. Peronism and Argentina 

(Wilmington, DE: SR, 1998). 

22 Thomas C. Wright, Latin America in the Era of the 

Cuban Revolution (New York: Praeger, 1991). 

23 “Peronists Blamed in Hotel Bombing," The Free 

Lance-Star, October 17, 1972. 

24 James Ciment, World Terrorism: An Encyclopedia of 

Political Violence from Ancient times to the Post-9/11 Era 

(Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2011), 167. 

25 Ibid. 

Department on Perón’s return is difficult 

to ascertain as declassified documents end 

in 1972. A telegram from that year, 

however, predicts that a triumphant return 

of Perón would be a positive development 

for Argentina, even though Perón’s 

ideology influenced the emergence of 

militant leftist groups. 26 The Nixon 

administration ultimately did not elect to 

intervene in Argentina. This idea is a clear 

demonstration of the administration’s 

nuanced approach in the region. 

In Bolivia, for example, Nixon 

expressed his concerns with guerilla 

movements that threatened Bolivian 

stability, so much so that he asked the 

Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) 

director to look into it further. 27 On the 

other hand, in Argentina with a growing 

number of insurgent groups, some steeped 

deeply in Marxist ideology, there exists no 

mention in declassified State Department 

documents of the risks to Argentinian 

security (and therefore U.S. national 

security and interests) that these groups 

posed. Within the report that favors the 

return of Perón, for example, there is no 

indication as to how Perón’s return might 

affect these groups and their operations. 

This lack of concern for the militant left in 

Argentina represents nuanced 

understanding that although high profile 

acts of terrorism were occurring, the 

country was ultimately not at risk of a 

takeover by the militant left as much as 

Bolivia. In addition, it represents a careful 

analysis of the aims of both types of armed 

militant groups. Those found in Bolivia 

threatened the country’s stability, and were 

largely led by Che Guevara, who had 




2010), Document 76. 


Document 92. 


already proven himself a successful 

commander in the realm of revolutionary 

uprisings. The FAP, ERP, and Montoneros 

in Argentina, however, were more likely 

associated with the fringes of the political 

system without any potential for complete 

disruption of the political order and the 

political system. Indeed, their violent 

actions were more reactionary than 

revolutionary. 

Additionally, Héctor José Cámpora 

decided to normalize diplomatic relations 

with Cuba immediately after his election. 

By this time Cuba was aligned with the 

Soviet bloc. The United States, however, 

took no recourse in Argentina. Therefore, 

it can be assumed that at the very least the 

U.S. tolerated Campora’s move. This 

supports the claim that the Nixon- 

Kissinger foreign policy mechanism was 

capable of acknowledging the fact that a 

country—at limited risk to communist 

insurgents—could successfully establish a 

relationship with another country under 

the Soviet umbrella while remaining 

outside of the Soviet sphere of influence. 

This calls into question the United 

States’ “global crusade against 

communism” thesis. If the U.S. had been 

concerned solely with the spread of the 

ideas of communism throughout Latin 

America, a different reality would have 

emerged. The U.S. would have been much 

less discriminate, eliminating any and all 

potential communist groups. This kind of 

indiscriminate squashing across the 

continent, however, is precisely what did 

not occur under Nixon. Similarly, a reversal 

of the proverb “the enemy of my enemy is 

my friend” to “the friend of my enemy is 

my enemy” would have been more 

apropos. 28 As Argentina normalized 

diplomatic relations with Cuba, the Nixon 

28 Kautạlya & L. N. Rangarajan. The Arthashastra 

(New Delhi: Penguin India, 1992). 

administration did not impose this 

doctrine. In this sense, the blanket of anticommunism 

and its application as the 

guiding principle behind all overt and 

covert foreign policy actions taken by the 

United States in Latin America—at least 

during the Nixon administration—has 

considerably lost steam. 

CONCLUSION 

The countries that make up Latin 

America have understandable similarities, 

yet this often causes scholars to group the 

entire region as a single bloc. The reality is 

each country has its own idiosyncrasies, 

and U.S. foreign policy during the Cold 

War, as it relates to Latin American 

countries, illustrates these distinct qualities. 

In addition to the fact that context is often 

considered in policymaking, the ways in 

which foreign policy is enacted also 

depends on the leadership involved. 

Looking strictly at one president, Richard 

Nixon, it has become clear that even within 

the same larger global context, there were 

no preordained indicators that would 

precipitate a certain type of response. 

Yet in examining both Bolivia and 

Argentina, there are some noteworthy 

similarities in their respective narratives 

during the Nixon period. For one, Torres 

and Perón were similar leaders in that their 

ideologies were complex and could not 

simply be described as communist, 

socialist, or Marxist. In some ways this 

made their behavior unpredictable, 

particularly in the case of Torres. Second, 

both countries were in a relative state of 

sociopolitical turmoil during their 

respective leaders’ times in power (in this 

case after Perón’s exile). Finally, both 

exhibited some degree of repudiation for 

the United States. In the case of Torres, 

this manifested itself through his expulsion 

of the Peace Corps and nationalization of 


different assets. With Perón, this was 

expressed through an adherence to a “third 

way” foreign policy by seeking to forge a 

nonalignment path between the U.S. and 

Soviet Union. The result in both countries, 

however, was entirely different; in Bolivia 

the U.S. orchestrated a coup, and in 

Argentina the U.S. pursued a policy of 

economic assistance. 

The specific rationale that lies 

behind each of these decisions is cryptically 

represented in declassified correspondence 

between Nixon and Kissinger, but what the 

discrepancy indicates is that U.S. foreign 

policy towards Latin America during the 

Nixon administration was more fluid than 

is typically understood in scholarship. In 

addition, what is commonly thought to be 

the unitary thread in all foreign policy 

decisions during the Cold War, the specter 

of communism, did not play a significant 

role in the United States’ decision to act in 

Bolivia or not to act in Argentina. Instead, 

it was a confluence of factors. These 

examples demonstrate the calculated nature 

of the Nixon-Kissinger foreign policy 

agenda. By separating just two countries 

that are often analyzed as components of 

the Latin American bloc, more detailed and 

complex insights begin to take shape. This 

is indicative of one of the many pitfalls of 

aggregate foreign policy analysis—that is 

characterizing U.S. foreign policy as being 

consistent toward certain regional, 

economic, or ideological groupings. The 

fact is this form of grouping lacks the sort 

of local context required to understand the 

intricate nature of the U.S. foreign policy 

making mechanism. 

DYLAN HEYDEN is a first year M.A. student in 

International Relations. He graduated magna 

cum laude from the University of San Diego in 

2013, with a B.A. in International Relations & 

Spanish. Some of his prior research experiences 

include working for the University of San Diego's 

Trans-Border Institute analyzing rule of law in 

Mexico and U.S.-Mexico relations, and traveling 

to Nicaragua as a USD Changemaker Scholar to 

pursue his senior thesis. 


An Appraisal of the Joint 

Development Approach 

to the South China Sea 

Dispute 

Prospects and Challenges 

Guan Hui Lee 

The issue of overlapping sovereign 

claims over land and maritime 

resources in the South China Sea has 

been a major source of conflict between 

China, 1 Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, 

Brunei and Indonesia. This analysis examines 

aspects of the joint development approach as 

a conflict prevention tool in the South China 

Sea dispute. It first seeks to explain the 

underlying logic behind joint development 

and the reasons why the approach was able to 

come to fruition from 2005 to 2008, in the 

form of a Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking 

(JMSU) between the state-owned oil 

corporations of China, Vietnam and the 

Philippines. It then proceeds to explain why 

the joint development approach used from 

2005 to 2008 is neither likely to be applied nor 

sufficient to resolve the dispute at present, 

given the recent development of affairs in the 

region by the parties involved. The analysis 

concludes with three conditions that are 

necessary for joint development to be a 

realistic conflict management strategy in the 

South China Sea. 

1 Throughout the paper, use of the term “China” 

pertains to both the People’s Republic of China and the 

Republic of China (Taiwan). 

THE PROBLEM 

The dispute over sovereign rights in 

the South China Sea is a long-standing one. 

This chiefly concerns the sovereignty of the 

Paracels and the Spratly Islands, as well as the 

waters around them. The People’s Republic of 

China and the Republic of China (Taiwan) 

share a common perspective in this dispute, 

but so far only Beijing has been actively 

dispatching navy patrol boats to the region. 

China bases its claims on historical grounds— 

specifically from maps dating back to 1947 

during the Kuomintang period which contain 

an eleven-dash line maritime boundary that 

effectively includes almost all of the South 

China Sea. However, China has never 

established effective control over the full 

extent of their claim. To date, China only 

effectively controls the Paracels, which were 

forcibly taken over from Vietnam in 1974, 2 

and parts of the Spratly Island group. 

However, the largest land feature in the 

Spratlys, Itu Aba, has always been 

administered by Taipei and not Beijing. 3 

Despite this, in May 2009, Beijing formally 

submitted a map with a nine-dash line 4 to the 

UN Commission on the Limits of the 

Continental Shelf (CLCS), defining areas 

included in the 1947 maps as “historic 

2 Congressional Research Service (CRS), “Maritime 

Territorial Disputes in East Asia: Issues for Congress,” 

CRS R42930, 23 January 2013. 

3 Ralf Emmers, “The Changing Power Distribution in 

the South China Sea: Implications for Conflict 

Management and Avoidance,” Political Science 62, No. 

118 (2010). 

4 Beijing revised the original eleven-dash line into a 

nine-dash line under Zhou Enlai after 1949. Claimed 

areas implied by both versions have remained 

essentially unchanged. 


waters.” 5 The nine-dash line not only includes 

all of the Paracels and the Spratlys, but also 

overlaps with Brunei’s claim of Louisa Reef, 

and reaches as far south as the eastern waters 

of Natuna Island, to which Indonesia stakes a 

claim. 6 Vietnam likewise lays claim to the 

Paracels and the Spratlys on both a historical 

basis and on current effective control (it 

controls 21 of the Spratly Islands). Malaysia, 

on the other hand, bases its claims on the 

natural prolongation of its continental shelves 

off Peninsula Malaysia and Borneo, which 

leads it to claim the southern islands in the 

Spratly archipelago. 7 In 2009, Vietnam and 

Malaysia submitted a joint claim to UN CLCS 

on areas of the South China Sea beyond their 

200 nautical mile exclusive economic zones 

(EEZ). It was believed that this sparked 

China’s response in the form of the nine-dash 

line. In June 2012, Vietnam’s National 

Assembly passed a Maritime Law that lays 

down formal claims to the Paracels and the 

Spratlys. 8 

Lastly, the Philippines’ claim is based 

on contiguity of the continental shelf, and a 

1978 Presidential Decree that declared 

sovereignty over what was called the 

“Kalayaan Island Group” (KIG), which 

5 Sam Bateman, “Regime building in the South China 

Sea— Current Situation and Outlook,” Australian 

Journal of Maritime and Ocean Affairs 3, No. 1 (2011), p. 

29. 

6 Thao Nguyen Hong and Ramses Amer, “A New 

Legal Arrangement for the South China Sea?” Ocean 

Development and International Law No. 40 (2009). 






CRS R42930, 23 January 2013. 

includes the east and northeast parts of the 

Spratlys. 9 The Philippines and China also 

compete over the sovereignty of Scarborough 

Shoal, a 150 square kilometers shoal that is 

situated to the northeast of the Spratlys. In 

terms of effective control, the Philippines 

currently occupies eight islands in the eastern 

Spratlys that were considered terra nullius. 10 

Fig. 1: Map of the South China Sea showing disputed 

claims by various countries, including PRC’s/ROC’s 

“nine-dash line” (Congressional Research Service 

(CRS), “Maritime Territorial Disputes in East 

Asia: Issues for Congress.” CRS R42930, 23 

January 2013) 

There are several elements of this 

dispute that are relevant to conflict 

management approaches. First, the South 

China Sea dispute is a complex web of 

bilateral and multilateral disputes. Some 

islands, like the Spratly Island group, are 

contested by China, Taiwan, the Philippines, 

Malaysia and Vietnam to various extents, 

whereas other islands, like the Paracels, are 

9 Leszek Buszynski, “The South China Sea Maritime 

Dispute: Legality, Power, and Conflict Prevention,” 

Asian Journal of Peacebuilding 1, No. 1 (2013). 

10 Ibid, 6. 


essentially just part of a bilateral dispute 

between China and Vietnam. This complicates 

conflict management because each friction 

point will then have to be dealt with 

individually, as not all countries have a stake 

(or an equal stake) in all of the disputed 

territories. 

Second, a major point of contention 

lies in whether some of the islands in question 

are legally recognized as “islands,” which are 

entitled to their own 200-mile EEZs, or 

whether they are merely “rocks,” which are 

given only 12nm territorial sea. 11 According to 

UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 

(UNCLOS) Article 21, Paragraph 3, “rocks 

which cannot sustain human habitation or 

economic life of their own shall have no 

exclusive economic zone or continental 

shelf.” 12 On this issue, China firmly believes 

that the islands in question are undeniably 

“islands” in the legal sense and hence generate 

their own EEZs, even though some of these 

islands are fully submerged at high tide and 

are incapable of sustaining economic life. 

Third, because not all countries have 

defined the boundaries of their claims in an 

official legal manner, UNCLOS cannot be 

used to resolve the existing disputes. 

UNCLOS stipulates that “countries with 

overlapping claims must resolve their claims by 

good faith negotiations,” 13 but with claims 

from each party not having been defined 

precisely, UNCLOS cannot be properly 

applied to the South China Sea situation. 

Moreover, China made a statutory declaration 

on 25 August 2006 to the UN Secretary 

General that it would not accept any 

international court or arbitration in disputes 

over sea delimitation or territory. 14 This means 

that the option of international arbitration as a 

conflict resolution tool is essentially a nonstarter. 

Competition over energy resources 

has been identified as a key driving force 

behind the current dispute. A preliminary 

Chinese survey in 1989 estimated that the 

Spratlys held deposits of 25 billion cubic 

meters of natural gas and 105 billion barrels 

of oil. 15 The US and Russia reported much 

lower estimates in their own surveys (15.8 

billion and 7.5 billion barrels of oil, 

respectively), but even those numbers serve to 

prove that the potential oil and gas resources 

under the South China Sea are extremely 

tempting to countries that border it. If 

resource exploitation is indeed a core 

underlying objective of the South China Sea 

claimants, one conflict management approach 

could be to reframe the issue from one of 

sovereignty to one of joint resource 

development and management. The next 

section examines the logic behind joint 

development in conflict management 

literature, and the brief use of this approach 

from 2005 to 2008 in the Spratlys by China, 

Vietnam and the Philippines, in the form of a 

tripartite agreement — Joint Marine Seismic 

Undertaking (JMSU). 



Development and International Law No. 40 (2009), p. 340. 

12 Ralf Emmers, “The Prospects for Managing and 

Resolving Conflict in the South China Sea,” Harvard 

Asia Quarterly XII (3&4) (Winter 2010), p. 16. 

13 Ibid, italics mine. 

14 David Scott, “Conflict Irresolution in the South 

China Sea,” Asian Survey 52, No. 6 (Nov/Dec 2012), p. 

1022. 

15 Craig Snyder, “The Implications of Hydrocarbon 

Development on the South China Sea,” International 

Journal 52, No. 1 (Winter 1996/1997). 


THE LOGIC OF JOINT 

DEVELOPMENT AND ITS 

APPLICATION IN THE SOUTH 

CHINA SEA 

The theory and practice of conflict 

management is replete with notions of joint 

development. William Zartman makes an 

oblique reference to joint development when 

he notes that the key to successful preventive 

diplomacy is using the right tactics to change 

relevant stakes and attitudes. 16 According to 

him, preventive diplomacy should change the 

perception of stakes from zero-sum to 

positive sum, and the attitude of conflict 

parties from conflictual to accommodative. In 

the case of territorial disputes, Zartman 

asserts that preventive diplomacy should shift 

the nature of claims from territorial 

possession to “some lesser form of 

concern.” 17 In the case of the South China 

Sea, viewing the conflict as a joint 

development puzzle instead of a zero-sum 

sovereignty contest addresses the issue of 

access to resources that sovereignty claims are 

presumed to entail. In addition, it also avoids 

stoking fear in non-claimant countries like 

Japan, India and the US, who would be 

concerned about freedom of navigation in the 

South China Sea if the dispute were to be 

framed as a sovereignty issue. 

Zou Keyuan defines the 

characteristics of joint development with a 

definition given by the British Institute of 

International and Comparative Law: 

16 William I. Zartman, Preventive Negotiation: Avoiding 

Conflict Escalation (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 

2001), p. 7. 

17 Ibid, p. 12. 

(a) is an arrangement between two 

countries; 18 

(b) is usually concerned with an 

overlapping maritime area; 

(c) can be used as a provisional 

arrangement pending the settlement of 

the boundary delimitation disputes 

between the countries concerned; 

(d) is designed to jointly develop the 

mineral resources in the disputed area or 

a defined area shared by two countries. 19 

This is particularly useful to the South 

China Sea because joint development does 

not pay attention to boundary delimitation 

claims among disputants. Hence, countries 

that participate in joint development need not 

worry about the possibility of having their 

sovereignty claims weakened. 20 

Sam Bateman defines joint 

development as “a functional approach that 

exploits the common interests of claimant 

countries,” 21 and lists steps by which joint 

development can be achieved: identifying a 

particular function to cooperate in; defining 

the area of joint development; finding a 

formula to share costs and resources; 

establishing a management body. Craig Snyder 

further explains what these “common 

interests” may be. Commercial benefits and 

18 This is because there has yet been an ongoing, fully 

functional multilateral joint development arrangement 

that has been established in international law. 

19 Zou Keyuan, “Joint Development in the South 

China Sea: A New Approach,” The International Journal of 

Marine and Coastal Law 21, No. 1 (2006), p. 90. 

20 Mark J. Valencia, “In Response to Robert Beckman,” 

RSIS Commentaries 53 (2007). 

21 Sam Bateman, “Regime building in the South China 

Sea— Current Situation and Outlook,” Australian 

Journal of Maritime and Ocean Affairs 3, No. 1 (2011), p. 

30. 


technology transfer, according to him, can be 

strong incentives for countries to engage in 

joint development. He asserts that if “the 

desire to develop hydrocarbon resources 

outweighs the desire to win a boundary 

dispute,” 22 a joint development agreement is 

an inherently feasible conflict resolution tool. 

There have been instances where joint 

development was used in Southeast Asia to 

mitigate resource disputes. The Timor Gap 

Treaty in 1989 between Indonesia and 

Australia was an extensive case of joint 

development, where both countries 

established twelve separate joint development 

zones for each area of overlapping claims in 

the Timor Sea. 23 Malaysia and Thailand agreed 

in 1990 to a Joint Development area to 

manage natural gas reserves in disputed waters 

in the Gulf of Thailand. 24 In 1992, Vietnam 

and Malaysia signed a memorandum of 

understanding over oil exploration and 

production in the Gulf of Thailand. 25 

The 2005 JMSU was the first attempt 

at a multilateral joint development agreement 

in the South China Sea. Instead of a 

government-level memorandum of 

understanding, it was a commercial agreement 

between the state-owned oil corporations of 

China, Vietnam and the Philippines — 

CNOOC, PetroVietnam, and PNOC-EC, 

respectively. 26 JMSU dictated protocols with 

regard to seismic exploration of hydrocarbons 

in specific parts of the South China Sea, and 

stated that the three parties “jointly owned” 

data and information acquired through such 

seismic work. 27 However, after “the 

Philippines… ha[d] made breathtaking 

concessions in agreeing to the area of study, 

including parts of its own continental shelf 

not even claimed by China and Vietnam,” 28 

Philippine legislators protested against the 

continuation of JMSU, claiming that JMSU 

did not conform to Philippine state laws on 

oil exploration within Philippine territory. The 

agreement was hence allowed to expire in July 

2008. 

Although no actual exploitation was 

conducted under JMSU, the seismic surveys 

conducted under JMSU would qualify as joint 

development. After JMSU expired in 2008, 

the Philippines under President Benigno 

Aquino suggested a similar proposal — Zone 

of Peace, Freedom, Friendship and 

Cooperation (ZoPFFC). Alluding to the 

concept of joint development, the ZoPFFC 

proposed by the Philippines would 

“segregate” disputed areas from non-disputed 

areas, and “establish a joint agency to manage 

seabed resources and fisheries” in the 



Journal 52, No. 1 (Winter 1996/1997), p. 152. 




24 David Scott, “Conflict Irresolution in the South 

China Sea,” Asian Survey 52, No. 6 (Nov/Dec 2012), p. 

1040. 



Journal 52, No. 1 (Winter 1996/1997), p. 154. 




27 Christina E. Tecson, “Exploring Exploration: Fitting 

the Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking and Oil 

Exploration Laws into the Mold of Section 2, Article 

XII of the 1987 Constitution,” Ateneo Law Journal 55, 

No. 149 (2010), p. 187. 

28 Barry Wain, “Manila’s Bungle in the South China 

Sea,” Far Eastern Economic Review 171 (January/February 

2008), p. 45. 


disputed areas. 29 However, this idea did not 

come to fruition because the boundaries 

claimed by each country have not all been 

precisely defined, and hence it is impossible to 

delineate ‘disputed areas’ from ‘non-disputed 

areas.’ 30 Moreover, China’s stance was 

extremely critical of the Philippines’ proposal, 

as the state-run media called it a “trick 

designed to encourage the United States to 

meddle in the South China Sea.” 31 

THE LOW LIKELIHOOD OF 

JOINT DEVELOPMENT IN 

TODAY’S CONTEXT 

Given the ostensible benefits of joint 

development in the South China Sea, why has 

there not been sustainable progress in that 

direction? This paper argues that the current 

political conditions in the South China Sea 

have not met the prerequisites of the joint 

development approach to become a 

sustainable solution for the region. 

Specifically, this paper will discuss three key 

reasons that present as obstacles to joint 

development: (1) the growing power 

asymmetry between the disputants; (2) the 

lack of an institutionalized mechanism to 

enforce and regulate joint development, in 

particular the inability of ASEAN to fill that 

capacity; (3) the association with identity 

politics and nationalism. 

First, the growing power asymmetry in 

China’s favor strengthens the notion of a 

29 Ian Storey, “ASEAN and the South China Sea: 

Movement in Lieu of Progress,” China Brief 12, No. 9 

(27 April 2012). 



CRS R42930, 23 January 2013, p. 12. 

31 Ibid 28, p. 10. 

security dilemma. From 2000 to 2011, China 

has increased its announced defense budget 

by an average of 11.8 percent annually. 32 The 

PLA Navy has also expanded a major base on 

Hainan Island for submarines and vessels, 

signaling its increasing military presence in the 

South China Sea. China’s actions naturally 

alarmed its Southeast Asian neighbors, who 

have also started strengthening their military 

capabilities, thus raising the specter of a 

security dilemma. Vietnam, for example, 

announced in 2010 its purchase of six Russian 

Kilo-class submarines. 33 

As a result of the growing asymmetry 

in military forces, there is a prevailing 

perception among the Southeast Asian 

disputants that China is seeking to gain 

control over the disputed islands by force. 

Recent actions taken by the Chinese in the 

region have lent credence to this perception. 

For instance, Vietnam has alleged on several 

occasions that Chinese maritime surveillance 

vessels have severed the exploration cables of 

Vietnamese survey ships. 34 The 2012 

Scarborough Shoal standoff between China 

and the Philippines further indicates the 

tendency for military presence in the region to 

escalate the conflict. The Chinese motivation 

behind these actions is presumably to 

strengthen its hand on legal grounds. Since 

“first discovery” is not a sufficient basis to 



CRS R42930, 23 January 2013. 




118 (2010). 





claim legal sovereignty, China has been 

attempting to establish ‘administrative and 

physical’ control over the disputed islands in 

order to demonstrate sovereignty. To illustrate 

a case in point, Indonesia lost an International 

Court arbitration against Malaysia over the 

Ligitan and Sipadan islands in 2002 because it 

failed to protest the construction of 

lighthouses by Malaysia since 1963. 35 

The absence of a security guarantee to 

the weaker parties of the South China Sea 

dispute is inimical to the joint development 

approach. The logic of joint development 

assumes adequate ‘goodwill’ between the 

disputants to negotiate and follow rules 

established by a certain joint development 

agreement. However, without a security 

guarantee, weaker parties are not sufficiently 

assured that the stronger parties are 

committed to a joint development approach, 

since it may be feasible for the stronger 

parties to achieve complete victory by 

exercising military force. In fact, China’s 

actions post-JMSU have fed perceptions 

contrary to the spirit of joint development. 

Second, there is a notable lack of a 

supranational authority to establish and 

enforce the terms of joint development. The 

Association of Southeast Asian Nations 

(ASEAN), a potential candidate in this regard, 

has been particularly unhelpful so far. Because 

ASEAN’s operations rely on an informal style 

of diplomacy and consensus building, it is 

often considered too weak to institutionalize 

negotiations under a joint development 

framework, let alone enforce the terms of a 




possible joint development outcome. 36 Huge 

disagreements between ASEAN states have 

also impeded the viability of ASEAN to enter 

as an impartial actor in this dispute. 

Cambodia, in particular, adopts the Chinese 

stance on this issue, and rejects any 

“institutionalization” of the South China Sea 

dispute. 37 Opinion among ASEAN members 

on this issue has been so divisive that the 

2012 ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting, 

chaired by Cambodia, failed to produce a joint 

communiqué because of major disagreements 

over a unified stance on the issue. 

Because there is no suitable candidate 

to administer joint development agreements 

on the South China Sea issue, it is difficult to 

envision joint development on the issue going 

beyond the level achieved by JMSU. It is 

important to note here that JMSU succeeded 

in part because it was a commercial 

agreement, which entailed that it did not 

invoke the application of international law 

that regulates interstate behavior. Important 

details of joint development, such as the 

delimitation of the joint development area, 

taxation of revenues generated by joint 

development, and a dispute settlement 

mechanism, cannot be established without the 

institution of a governing body. Without a 

governing body, countries can jeopardize 

existing joint development agreements 

according to their individual state interests. 

Third, the emphasis on a nationalistic 

element to the South China Sea dispute post- 

36 Ioana-Bianca Berna, “Managing Intra-Regional 

Conflicts in Southeast Asia: The Case of the South 

China Sea,” Journal of Defense Resource Management 4, No. 

2 (2014). 

37 Ian Storey, “ASEAN and the South China Sea: 

Movement in Lieu of Progress,” China Brief 12, No. 9 

(27 April 2012), p. 12. 


JMSU has demonstrated that the conflict is 

still being viewed through the lens of national 

sovereignty. As mentioned earlier, the premise 

of joint development is to induce perceptual 

change in disputants, from viewing the 

conflict as a zero-sum sovereignty contest to a 

positive-sum resource allocation problem. 

However, the prominence of nationalistic 

sentiment on the issue in recent years has 

invited the participation of the general public 

in the various claimant countries, and 

effectively escalated the conflict. At present, 

the prospects of successful joint development 

are dim, because of the association of the 

sovereignty claims with national pride, which 

has increasingly solidified the framing of the 

problem as that of national sovereignty 

instead of resource allocation. To name a 

precedent, the joint development agreement 

between China and Japan on the 

Chunxiao/Shirakaba gas fields in 2008 has 

been jettisoned by nationalistic Chinese public 

opinion, which deemed the agreement as 

“betraying the national interests and forfeiting 

China’s sovereignty.” 38 

Aside from this, the professional 

autonomy of the PLA Navy allows it to frame 

its own operating goals within the broad 

policy parameters set by the Chinese 

leadership. 39 This means that there is a side 

incentive for the Chinese military to pursue 

the South China Sea dispute as a national 

sovereignty issue to an extent that may be 

outside the control of the Chinese leadership 

bureaucracy. 







The idea of a joint development 

approach cannot move forward when national 

sovereignty is regarded by conflict parties as 

their utmost priority. In fact, the JMSU failed 

to be a sustainable solution because there is a 

strong tendency among claimants that joint 

development “should not be attempted in an 

area which a claimant believes to be its own, 

and should only be attempted in areas outside 

its claims.” 40 A ‘without prejudice’ clause 

seems to be a precondition for joint 

development. Without the provision of such a 

clause, any attempt to cooperate will be seen 

as a ‘sell-out’ on a disputant’s sovereignty 

claims. 41 

STEPS TO ENHANCE THE 

FEASIBILITY OF AN EVENTUAL 

JOINT DEVELOPMENT 

APPROACH 

The first two obstacles outlined in the 

previous section point to the need of an 

institutionalized regime to act as a security 

guarantee for conflict parties to participate in 

joint development. For that to be a reality, 

claimant countries need to “freeze” their 

existing territorial claims and commit to the 

concept of joint development. 42 The 

purported rationale behind China’s increased 

military assertiveness in the South China Sea 

is that it sees room for conflict escalation at 




41 Mark J. Valencia, “In Response to Robert Beckman,” 

RSIS Commentaries 53 (2007). 




118 (2010), p. 131. 


little cost to itself. However, one could also 

note that there are limits to such behavior, as 

China is aware of its dependence on regional 

and international economic order, and hence 

would not at present ‘cross the Rubicon’ by 

attempting to militarily force a resolution of 

this dispute in its favor. Judging from this 

fact, increased military balancing by the 

United States may force China to reevaluate 

its costs and benefits from its current actions 

and hence induce a more amenable position in 

China. However, there is also the danger of 

descending into a brinkmanship contest that 

results in further escalation of the conflict. 

Therefore, a delicate balance of military and 

diplomatic measures needs to be carried out 

on the part of the United States. 

Zou suggests the establishment of a 

supranational “Spratly Management 

Authority” to regulate joint development in 

the Spratly Islands. 43 In particular, he points 

out that Rifleman Bank is an ideal place to 

begin joint development, as it falls outside the 

200-mile EEZ of Vietnam, outside the 

continental shelf limits of Brunei and 

Malaysia, and outside of the Philippine claim 

of the “Kalayaan Island Group.” This is, 

nevertheless, subject to China’s and Vietnam’s 

‘compromise’, as Vietnam currently occupies 

Rifleman Bank, whereas China claims 

sovereignty over it. Mark Valencia et al. also 

proposes a regional organization that “grants 

permits for exploration and joint 

development, and would direct financial 

resources of claimants into a common fund to 

promote joint exploration efforts.” 44 

43 Ibid 39, p. 96. 



Asian Journal of Peacebuilding 1, No. 1 (2013), p. 55. 

These proposals seem far-fetched 

without the appropriate change in perceptions 

of stakes and attitudes. More support can be 

given to official or Track II workshops that 

discuss the establishment of functional 

frameworks on the South China Sea issue. For 

example, Indonesia has hosted informal 

Workshops on Managing Potential Conflicts 

in the South China Sea (SCSW) since the early 

1990s. 45 The Council for Security Cooperation 

in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) Study Group on 

Maritime Security has also been a informal 

multilateral platform where representatives 

from each country have highlighted issues 

indicative of their country’s main concerns in 

the South China Sea dispute, including 

information sharing and law enforcement. 46 

While ASEAN may not be the ideal regional 

organization to preside over this dispute, it 

can contribute to confidence building 

measures (CBMs) on an official level, such as 

in maritime security dialogues under the 

ASEAN Regional Forum or the ASEAN 

Defense Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM+). 47 

Nguyen Dang Thang advocates that joint 

development can adopt a neo-functionalist 

approach, first taking place in a fisheries 

arrangement before proceeding to an oil and 

gas arrangement, with the latter considered as 

45 Mikael Weissmann, “The South China Sea Conflict 

and Sino-ASEAN Relations: A Study in Conflict 

Prevention and Peace Building,” Asian Perspectives 34, 

No. 3 (2010). 

46 Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific 

(CSCAP), “1st Meeting of the CSCAP Study Group on 

Maritime Security,” Australian Journal of Maritime and 

Ocean Affairs 5, No. 2 (2013). 

47 Ioana-Bianca Berna, “Managing Intra-Regional 

Conflicts in Southeast Asia: The Case of the South 

China Sea,” Journal of Defense Resource Management 4, No. 

2 (2014). 


a more sensitive area of cooperation. 48 In sum, 

these confidence building measures should be 

regarded as a first step towards a realistic 

conception of joint development in the South 

China Sea. 

CONCLUSION 

The concept of “joint development” is 

a tempting option for a potential resolution of 

the South China Sea sovereignty issues, given 

that it has been attempted previously in other 

regional disputes. However, in order for joint 

development to come to fruition, claimant 

countries have to temporarily “freeze” or 

suspend their zero-sum sovereignty claims 

and commit to a positive-sum resource 

allocation problem. Unfortunately, one has yet 

to see this happen in the context of the South 

China Sea, especially with China’s growing 

naval power, and the continued lack of a 

supranational authority presiding over the 

issue. Various measures can contribute to this 

mindset change. ASEAN can be a vehicle for 

establishing CBMs on an official level, or even 

in the form of closed-door meetings, where 

disputants are deemed to be more honest 

about their priorities and interests. A neofunctionalist 

approach, for example, by 

starting with a fisheries arrangement before 

proceeding to an oil and gas arrangement, 

should also be considered in the hope of 

eventually leading to the settlement of core 

disputes. 

GUAN HUI LEE is a first-year Master's 

student majoring in International 

Relations. He received his undergraduate 

degree in IR from 

Peking University 

in 2013. His 

academic interests 

include U.S. 

foreign policy, 

political theory 

and U.S.-China 

foreign relations. 

His senior thesis 

compared aspects 

of Reaganite neoconservatism and the 

2010 Tea Party conservative movement. 

He is currently interning at the National 

Committee on U.S.-China Relations, where 

he has the opportunity to interact with 

like-minded people in his field. 

48 Thang Nguyen Dang, “Fisheries Cooperation in the 

South China Sea and the (Ir)relevance of the 

Sovereignty Question,” Asian Journal of International Law 

2 (2012). 


Is Sustained Economic 

Growth in Russia’s 

Future? 

Joel Alexander 

Russia’s economic history is one told 

through booms and busts. Since 

the collapse of the Soviet Union, 

Russia has witnessed growth intermitted by 

crises in 1998 and 2008. Each crisis wiped 

out the preceding economic progress, 

ultimately keeping Russia in a state of 

overall stagnation. From 1991 to 2008, 

Russia’s economy transformed from a 

communist economy to a fledging capitalist 

economy. Despite its transformation, 

however, Russia’s economy battles with the 

prototypical problem of an authoritarian 

structure—achieving sustained growth. 

However, growth in Russia is not about 

overcoming the remnants of its communist 

society, nor is it about adopting liberal 

capitalism. Jack A. Goldstone addresses 

this problem in his essay “Efflorescences 

and economic growth in world history: 

rethinking the "rise of the west" and the 

industrial revolution,” where he reexamines 

the distinction between pre-modern and 

modern economies, ultimately calling for a 

separation of liberal Western economics 

from modern economic growth. 

Goldstone critiques the normative 

approach of analyzing economic growth in 

world history that specifies two norms— 

modern economic growth stemming from 

Western nations and pre-modern 

unsustainable growth from non-Western 

nations. This distinction rests on the 

assumption that pre-modern societies 

could not achieve sustained growth 

because of structural and political problems 

in how those countries were managed. 

Moreover, this approach claims that 

Western nations were better suited 

structurally, politically, and culturally to 

evolve and achieve sustained economic 

growth, thus making them modern 

economies. Goldstone purports that such a 

normative approach is a fallacy. Employing 

a historical analysis, he asserts that every 

nation goes through periods of growth, 

stability, stagnation, and crisis. He 

proscribes their ability to achieve sustained 

growth to their own unique cultural 

contents and organizational frameworks— 

or their own “peculiar local phenomena,” 

—which allows a nation to better utilize its 

human capital and resources to achieve 

sustained growth. To arrive at this analysis, 

Goldstone uses the theoretical lenses of 

efflorescence. Goldstone’s notion of 

“efflorescence” is a more 

multidimensional, holistic concept of 

economic growth, compared to the binary 

theories of growth that postulated a zerosum 

growth or no-growth environment. 

Moreover, efflorescence allows for the 

equalizing of both Eastern and Western 

nations, refuting that the liberal Western 

economic model definition of economic 

growth. By seeing all pre-modern history as 

punctuated by efflorescences, Goldstone 

argued, “growth and prosperity were not 

monopolies of the modern or Western (or 

even "capitalist") worlds.” 1 If all economies 

went through periods of efflorescence, and 

it was a “peculiar local phenomena” that 

allowed them to achieve sustained growth, 

the question is no longer how much a 

country emulates Western liberal 

economies, but rather, which intrinsic 

aspects of a country will promote a 

transition away from unsustainable growth 

to modern economic growth? 

1 Jack A. Goldstone, “Efflorescences and Economic 

Growth in World History: Rethinking The ‘Rise Of 

The West’ and The Industrial Revolution,” Journal of 

World History 13, no. 2, (2002), 47, 377-378. 


This lens is particularly helpful 

when understanding Russia’s political 

economy in boom and bust cycles. This 

paper clarifies that Russia witnessed 

periods of efflorescence after the 1998 

Asian financial crisis and then again after 

the 2008 global financial crisis. Specifically, 

there were factors of Russia’s economy 

that promoted efflorescence and those that 

stifled efflorescence, leading to 

unsustainable growth. After transitioning 

from a communist society to a semicapitalist 

economy, Russia experienced a 

period of economic growth, which was 

ultimately undermined by its Oligarchconducive 

policies. Later its economic 

growth advanced and then declined 

because of the economy’s dependence on 

natural resources, namely oil and gas. 2 

Then, in 2010, Russia witnessed a rise of a 

peculiar phenomenon. The phenomenon 

stemmed from a mixture of Russia’s 

growing middle class and the demands they 

imposed on the political system, and 

Russia’s apparent top-down approach to 

innovation and investment in its human 

capital. First, this paper will reanalyze 

Russia’s political economy through an 

explanation and exploration of Goldstone's 

efflorescence theory. It will then clarify the 

drivers for and against sustained 

efflorescence in Russia, which stem from 

the country’s own peculiar local 

characteristics rather than from the 

absence of liberal capital reforms. 

GOLDSTONE’S EFFLORESCENCE 

THEORY 

In his seminal work on 

Efflorescence Goldstone makes a 

distinction between the historical 

2 This economic phenomenon is known as “Dutch 

Disease,” and will be enumerated on at later points 

in the analysis. 

understanding of modern and pre-modern 

nations. This is important for Goldstone 

because it allows for the “rethinking of the 

‘rise of the West,’” which takes the strength 

from those advocates that assume 

modernization has a Western façade. By 

studying economic growth from the 10 th 

century to the early 18 th century, Goldstone 

disproves the historical fallacy of the rise of 

the West. He finds that the trends 

observed in Europe which were “proof of 

‘early modern’ character,” such as technical 

innovations, and extensive trade networks, 

to name a few, were also manifested 

outside Europe prior to the eighteenth 

century. 3 There is no sufficient connection 

between the “rise of the West” and 

sustained economic growth. Goldstone 

begins by inventing the neologism 

“efflorescence” and deconstructing our 

customary methods of conceptualizing 

growth. 

In the absence of an economic 

crisis, there may be growth, stagnation, or 

stability; each phase is cyclical and as 

important as the next. Efflorescence is the 

converse of a crisis: “a relatively sharp, 

often unexpected upturn in significant 

demographic and economic indices, usually 

accompanied by political 

expansion…institution building, and 

cultural synthesis”. 4 Without the distinction 

of efflorescence, the toolkit for 

understanding economic growth stems 

from two classifications. First, there is 

Kuznetzian/Schumpeterian Growth where 

growth is defined by internally driven and 

self-sustaining rapid increases in indices 

such as income per capita, and total output. 

This process occurs through creative 

destruction, whereby older technologies and 

firms are replaced by more efficient 

3 Goldstone, “Efflorescences and Economic 

Growth in World History: Rethinking The ‘Rise Of 

The West’ and The Industrial Revolution,” 6. 

4 Ibid, 9. 


substitutes. Second, there is 

Extensive/Smithian Growth, which is 

growth that lacks significant technological 

improvements, as in the Kuznetzian 

model. Instead, higher incomes per capita 

and total output increase because of a 

country’s comparative specialization 

expanding trade and the mobility of 

specific resources. According to the theory, 

this growth is not sustainable and will 

eventually be counterbalanced by the 

leveling off population growth, and/or the 

depletion of resources—known as 

Malthusian constraints. Goldstone opines 

that those two distinctions of growth 

create a zero and one binary of growth or 

stagnation. Efflorescence, can account for 

a country’s growth that does not fit the 

characterizations provided by only an 

Schumpeterian-type or Smithian-type of 

growth. 

Equipped with Goldstone’s theory, 

this paper re-contextualizes the story of 

Russia as one of various efflorescences, 

which have cyclically emerged and then 

contracted. Analyzing Russia through the 

lens of efflorescence theory can help 

identify the various reasons why 

efflorescence waned in Russia, and ways in 

which it may evolve to a more sustainable 

efflorescence and thus achieving “modern” 

economic growth. However, before one 

can speak of the Russian experience with 

efflorescence, it is first necessary to 

understand how efflorescence occurs. 

According to Goldstone, efflorescence 

tends to occur under the following 

conditions: 

(1) During periods when 

international trade and 

sustained contact lead to a 

mixing of cultures and ideas; 

and (2) in places that are 

centers of international trade, 

in which people, goods, and 

techniques are focused on 

meeting multiple commercial 

demands. One could add as a 

third factor that (3) such 

efflorescences also seem 

more likely during periods of 

reconstruction following a 

collapse or massive challenge 

or change in government or 

society that unleashes new 

energies or social groups or 

provides integration and 

order over larger territories. 5 

Conversely, efflorescence is unlikely in 

societies isolated from cross-cultural 

influences or in societies that depend on a 

few commodities, which make the 

countries vulnerable to global shifts and 

limit their ability to diversify toward 

“multiple commercial demands” 6 . It is also 

unlikely during periods of unchallenged 

political order, where elites reject creative 

reconstruction and instead enforce 

conformity to existing practices. 

Many times in Russia, periods of 

oscillating efflorescence were due to 

fluctuations in the oil and natural gas 

markets. Russia faces a significant threat 

from negative impacts on its economy 

stemming from overreliance on a small set 

of commodities, specifically oil and gas. In 

the occurrence of the economic 

phenomenon termed “Dutch Disease,” 7 

overreliance on natural resources distorts 

the economy because the country slackens 

its other means of revenue generation (tax, 

infrastructure, investment) and depends on 

the revenues from a single set of 

commodities. 

5 Ibid, 31 

6 Ibid. 

7 The term stems from the 1960s and 1970s, a 

period when the Dutch economy became too 

specialized in the export of natural resources, 

ultimately crowding out other industries. 


Structurally, it is difficult to claim 

that economic “backwardness,” stemming 

from Russia’s authoritative policies and its 

integrated economic structure, was the 

main cause for Russia’s unsustainable 

growth and waning efflorescence. In fact, 

after the collapse of the Soviet Union, 

some domestic reforms such as liberal 

market reform and cultural change from 

tacit compliance to glasnost—a period of 

free speech and expression—brought on 

temporary efflorescence. However, 

Russia’s domestic reforms, such as 

perestroika under Soviet Union President 

Mikhail Gorbachev played a notable role in 

creating an entrenched oligarchic 

community in Russia, which still holds 

significant power and works to reinforce 

conformity to a natural resource, their 

pecuniary base. 8 As Goldstones makes 

clear, elite entrenchment diminishes 

efflorescence. These conditions constitute 

aspects of Russia’s “peculiar path.” 

Efflorescence opens the door to 

understanding Russia’s growth trajectory 

more effectively, which may have posed 

illusive if the country was analyzed under a 

strict Schumpeterian or Smithian 

framework, or under the belief that 

modernization needs to mimic Western 

economies. Thus, by separately examining 

Russia’s efflorescences after the 1998 and 

2008 crisis, we uncover the mechanisms 

driving and destroying a sustainable 

efflorescence in Russia. 

8 Perestroika literally means “restructuring.” It was a 

policy implemented to introduce market-like 

reforms into the Soviet System. Its most 

prototypical reform was privatization with 

vouchers. These vouchers are chiefly responsible 

for what we now term “Russian oligarchs.” 

1998 AND 2008 CRISES 

Russia underwent a seven-year 

period of efflorescence after the creation of 

the Russian Federation in 1991. Faced with 

a challenging economic situation, the 

economy made incremental movements 

toward positive GDP growth from 1991 to 

1997. In transitioning from a fiscal deficit 

representing -12.6 percent of GDP in 1994 

to a fiscal surplus of 1.4 percent of GDP in 

1997, Russia’s efflorescence changed the 

economic landscape, increasing the quality 

of life for its citizens and reconstructing its 

position in the global economy. 9 The 

growth from 1994 to 1997 relates directly 

to factors one and two of Goldstones 

causes for efflorescence: increased 

international trade, heightened 

international connections, and a period of 

reconstruction following the collapse the 

old regime. Both the World Bank (WB) 

and the International Monetary Fund 

(IMF) supported the formation of the 

Russian Federations, which also helped 

attract foreign investment. Moreover, to 

address its fiscal deficit, the Russian 

government engaged in financial 

innovations such as creating Government 

Short-Term Commitments (GKO)—shortterm, 

zero-coupon Russian government 

treasury bills—which provided noninflationary 

means toward financing budget 

deficits. 

Unfortunately, this period of 

efflorescence ended abruptly. Unlike the 

trends for successful efflorescence that 

Goldstone outlines, Russia’s international 

trade did not meet enough commercial 

demands. The geographical distribution of 

Russian foreign trade changed after the 

collapse of the Soviet Union. In 1985, 

around 55 percent of Soviet exports and 

9 Iris van de Wiel, “The Russian Crisis 1998: 

Economic Research,” (The Netherlands: 

Rabobank, 2013). 


imports were within the Eastern Bloc, or 

Comecon countries. 10 By 1991, only 23 

percent of exports and imports were with 

the former Comecon member states. 

However, after 1991, trade with advanced 

economies such as Europe, Japan, and the 

U.S. were growing but not enough to 

compensate for the falloff in trade with 

past allies. Moreover, oil, natural gas, 

metals, and minerals, accounted for 65 

percent of total exports in 1993 indicating 

that Russia’s export sector was nascent. 11 

Additionally, the change in the government 

after the collapse of the Soviet Union 

brought about new institutional problems, 

namely corruption. The broader fragility of 

Russia’s economy would become more 

apparent over time. 

Owing to burgeoning global 

financial interconnections, the Asian Crisis 

of 1997, which started with the collapse of 

the Thai baht currency in July, kick-started 

a global economic crisis. 12 Russia felt the 

reverberations of the Asian Crisis as 

investor speculation against the Russian 

ruble caused a devaluation of the currency. 

Between defending their currency by 

spending almost USD 6 billion of foreign 

exchange reserves and the tumble in world 

commodity prices, Russia experienced its 

most severe crisis in August of 1998. 13 

Eventually, defending the currency failed 

and the ruble devalued. Russia defaulted on 

10 The Comecon countries are: Soviet Union, 

Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German 

Democratic Republic (East Germany), Hungary, 

Romania, Poland, Cuba, the Mongolian People's 

Republic (Mongolia), and Vietnam. 

11 Glenn E. Curtis, “Foreign Economic Relations” 

in Russia: A Country Study ed., (Washington: GPO 

for the Library of Congress, 1996). 

12 This was purportedly due in large to massive 

currency speculation by New York hedge fund 

manager George Soros, after he shorted the 

currency that year. 

13 “National Wealth Fund Statistics,” Russian 

National Wealth Fund. 

http://old.minfin.ru/en/reservefund/index.php 

its GKOs and coupon-bearing Federal 

Loan Bonds (OFZ), and announced a 90- 

day moratorium on payments to foreign 

creditors by commercial banks: effectively, 

a sovereign default. 14 

Adding to the destruction, Russia’s 

dependency on world energy prices 

exacerbated the damage. From 1991 to 

1997, rising oil and energy prices led to 

Russia’s efflorescence. However, in the 

wake of the Asian crisis, the natural 

commodities market plummeted with 

energy prices, sliding from 1997 onwards, 

further burdening Russia’s economy. The 

torrents of economic mayhem affected 

Russia throughout 1998 and by the 

beginning of 1999, actual GDP, and GDP 

growth were both below their pre-1996 

levels. 

Luckily, by the late-1990s investor 

sentiment started to relax, capital flight 

slowed and world commodity prices 

bounced back. The price of crude oil, 

which played a big role in pulling the 

Russian economy out of efflorescence 

between 1998 and 1999, conversely stoked 

efflorescence after 1999. The price rose to 

an average $10 USD per barrel higher than 

the previous 5 years. The commodity 

boom bolstered the rate at which the 

Russian economy was able to recover from 

the 1998 crisis. During the third quarter of 

1999, Russia’s annual GDP grew by 11.5 

percent and then by 12.1 percent in the 

fourth quarter of 1999. 

If the 1998 crisis was the first and 

only crisis to have impacted Russia, foreign 

analysts and Russians alike would have 

easily overlooked the apparent signs of a 

fragile economy. Emphasis would have 

been placed on Russia’s rapid recovery, and 

its high dependency on oil and energy 

would have been praised as a successful 

14 Wiel, “The Russian Crisis 1998.” 


hedge. Analysts could have claim that it is 

inevitable for a nascent market economy 

recovering from the collapse of a 

communist society to face initial hardship. 

However, Russia’s deep structural 

economic weaknesses were revealed by 

crisis in 2008. In 2009, Russian Specialist, 

Jeffery Mankoff, criticized Russia’s internal 

economic mechanics that persisted since 

the 1998 crisis: 

[A] foreign policy based on 

the revenues from highenergy 

prices is necessarily 

hostage to fluctuations in the 

global energy market, as 

indeed it was during the 

Soviet Union’s economic 

boom of the 1970s and the 

subsequent bust of the 1980s. 

Moreover, Russia’s economy 

is still inflexible and 

uncompetitive. 15 

The 2008 crisis proved that future 

efflorescence in Russia would be 

unsustainable if the country saw no 

structural changes. The Russian economy 

could not sustain growth because it 

suffered from internal weaknesses and an 

over-reliance on one commodity. 

However, structural reform can be a very 

tough pill to swallow, especially if structural 

inefficiency allowed for quick recoveries 

from two financial crises. 

Russia may have suffered the most 

of all the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and 

China) countries at the onset of the 

financial crisis, but Russia grew faster 

before the crisis, and its recovery was 

quicker thanks to its oil dependency. As 

Clifford Gaddy and Barry Ickes succinctly 

exemplify: 

15 Jeffrey Mankoff, Russian Foreign Policy: The Return 

of Great Power Politics. (USA: Rowman & Littlefield, 

2009), 48. 

This is worth 

repeating…Russia is still 

significantly richer in 2010 

than it would have been had 

it grown at a rate as fast as 

the next-fastest BRIC 

[country] since 1999. Russia 

clearly would not have gained 

from having “diversified” 

away from energy in 1999. 16 

Russia’s growth was in large part due to its 

massive reserve fund, and the revenues that 

it had built through natural resource sales. 

The reserve fund, a product of the 

stabilization fund put in place after the 

1998 crisis, gave Russia access to foreign 

currency that it could spend to fight off 

capital flight and bolster the depreciating 

currency. 

Unlike other countries that were 

forced to invoke significant monetary 

policy mechanisms which lead to inflation 

and devalued currencies, Russia could 

offset most of the pain by drawing upon its 

reserves fund. This allowed the country to 

curtail unnecessary monetary policy, which 

could prove problematic after external 

shocks subside and business-as-usual 

returns. During the financial crisis, Russia’s 

increase in expenditures outpaced the 

revenues raised by the government, leading 

to a budget deficit by 2009. Additionally, 

Russia spent 22 percent of its total 

reserves, or USD $1.3 billion from 2008 to 

2009. This illustrates that in order to 

counteract the 2008 crisis, Russia spent an 

excessive amount of its reserves and 

diminished its fiscal balance. 

To recover, four years of building a 

healthy fiscal balance disappeared, and a 

year worth of reserves evaporated. The 

16 Clifford G. Gaddy and Barry W. Ickes. “Russia 

After The Global Financial Crisis.” Eurasian 

Geography and Economics 51, no.3 (2010), 291. 


sheer amount spent to offset the crisis is a 

cause for concern. Without oil revenues 

replenishing its reserves, Russia could not 

justify spending such large sums. 

Moreover, during the second half of 2008, 

Russia’s stock market had shed more than 

90 percent of its value. By 2009, after such 

large fiscal injections consumer spending 

still shrank by 7.9 percent, indicating that 

Russian’s were worried about the future of 

their economy. 17 For the first time since 

1999, Russia again ran a budget deficit. 

In light of this, we see that the 

reserves built via the high dependency on 

oil only points to a more integral flaw. The 

effects of the 2008 crisis highlighted 

Russia’s Dutch disease, and its vulnerability 

to the sways of the international 

environment. Because oil revenues are 

accumulated through export sales, Russia’s 

government budget depends on oil prices, 

and international demand/supply 

dynamics. Ultimately, Russia’s dependency 

on oil helped to revive the economy from a 

crisis, but it also jeopardized it when those 

commodity prices tumbled. Gaddy and 

Ickes point out this observation as well 

when he states: 

First, the crisis has reminded 

us of how thoroughly 

dependent Russia is on oil 

and gas. Looking at the 

period before the crisis, 

during the crisis, and now in 

the rebound, the picture is 

unambiguous. Very few 

important developments, 

positive or negative, cannot 

be traced back to fluctuations 

in the volume of wealth—the 

rents—that accrue to Russia 

from these resources. 

(Resource) addiction’s most 

pernicious feature is that it is 

self-reinforcing, which means 

that it continually deepens 

and reproduces 

backwardness and 

inefficiency in the Russian 

economy. 18 

Ultimately, both crises of 1998 and 2008 

draw out the pertinence in understanding 

how efflorescence occurred in Russian. 

After the 1990 collapse of the Soviet 

Union, Russia experienced a brief 

efflorescence that was stumped because its 

export was still immature. After the 1998 

crisis, Russia’s dependence on oil allowed 

for another efflorescence, but overreliance 

on oil and gas revenues limited its 

expansion along multiple economic 

indicators, ultimately creating a short-term 

efflorescence, restricting it in the long run. 

Nevertheless, disagreement still 

exists on whether the 1998 and 2008 crises 

illustrate Russia’s dependency on a few 

commodities. Many of the country’s 

analysts and economists question whether 

Russia, in fact, suffers from “Dutch 

disease.” To find answers they often 

evaluate the future of Russia’s natural 

resource sector to consider its ability to rely 

on oil and gas exports and what 

relationship that has on Russia’s willingness 

to diversify its economy. 

OIL AND ENERGY 

If one does not look deeply into 

the problem, Russia’s dependency on its 

natural resources may appear positive 

rather than negative. It may be true that the 

Reserves Fund and National Wealth Fund 

have had beneficial impacts on Russia’s 

17 Mankoff, Russian Foreign Policy: The Return of Great 

Power Politics. 

18 Gaddy and Ickes. “Russia After The Global 

Financial Crisis,” 282. 


economy. However, a closer look at the 

long-term perspective exposes the negative 

effects of overreliance on such funds. 

Russia’s exports in the oil and gas sector 

accounts to 70 percent of its exports or 28 

percent of its GDP. To place that in 

context, India’s oil sector, for example, is 

only 18 percent of all exports. 

Comparatively, for the U.S., capital goods, 

industrial goods, and consumer goods 

together make up 65 percent of all 

exports. 19 Because Russia can generate 

revenue and saving from oil and gas sales, 

it is dis-incentivized to innovate new 

avenues of wealth creation. 

This level of dependency has 

proven to be problematic before. Firstly, 

Russia’s economic growth closely tracks 

worldwide oil demand and price. Secondly, 

when oil price is stable but other exports 

and sources of revenue are not developed, 

the economy approaches decline. In 2012, 

Russia’s economic growth was 3.4 percent, 

the lowest level since 1990 minus the 

global recession of 2008-2009. This was 

primarily because the volume of Russia’s 

exports other than oil and gas had declined 

amid worldwide recessions. 20 

High correlations between crude oil 

prices and Russian trade and exports 

exemplify structural risk. For example, 

trade mainly mirrored the movements of 

Urals oil prices in 2011 and 2012 rising to 

$400 million in 2011 when oil prices 

reached $120, and falling together by the 

middle of 2012 when oil sank below 

$100. 21 Additionally, the trend in export 

follows that of global oil demand. The 

figures illustrate Neil Rubinstein’s claim 

that “when oil prices have been high, 

Russia has grown its economy and 

balanced its budget; when they have been 

low, growth has reversed, and deficits have 

returned.” 22 

Furthermore, in 2003, 40 percent 

of Russia’s revenues were based on oil and 

gas taxes. That number increased by 8 

percent through 2010. 23 Thus, with this 

trend we see that when demand for oil 

decreases, revenues also decrease because 

fewer taxes are collected Additionally, the 

reliance on oil has linked Russia to the 

global world more integrally in many ways. 

As presented, both crises of 1998 and 2008 

were based on external tremors. More 

threats from external sources may lie 

ahead. By investing in a diversified 

economy, Russia can decouple its growth 

from natural resource rents, allowing it to 

have sectors of its economy insulated from 

external shocks. 

Though Russia’s dependency on oil 

does not pose immediate threat to its 

economy, a series of future problems will 

affect its growth in the long term. Crude oil 

prices are on a slow decline in recent years. 

Decreasing oil and gas demand in Europe, 

Russia’s number one importer of oil and 

gas, is also a cause for concern. Fiscal and 

monetary instability in Europe led to an 

economic slowdown for Russia in the 

second half of 2012. Additionally, Europe 

is continuously looking for new sources of 

energy to deter its reliance on Russian oil 

and gas. In response, Russia has turned to 

strategic relations with China. The growing 

population and expanding economy of 

China has prompted the need for higher 

19 Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE) and 

Roubini Global Economics, “Oil Security Index,” 

www.OilSecurityIndex.org, October 2013. 

20 The National Institute for Defense Studies, “East 

Asian Strategic Review” (Tokyo, The Japan Times, 

Ltd., 2013), 254. 

21 Ibid. 

22 Neil Robinson, ed., “Russia's Potential Role in 

the World Oil System” in Political Economy of Russia 

(USA: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012), 156. 

23 Robertson and Graeme, “Russian Protesters: Not 

Optimistic But Here to Stay,” Russian Analytical 

Digest, 20, no.115 (2012). 


natural resource consumption. However, 

between China’s slowing economy and its 

own endeavors for acquiring natural 

resources abroad, the short-term likelihood 

of China bringing a big boost to the 

Russian economy is low. 

At the writing of this report, based 

on the rising stockpiles of crude oil in the 

U.S. and higher-than-expected production 

of oil in Libya, crude oil prices have been 

on a continuous decline since November 

2013. 24 This decline in oil prices mirrors a 

stagnating Russian economy. Based on 

Roubini Global Economics’ projections, 

Russia’s GDP growth for 2014 will be as 

low as 2 percent and its current growth is 

about 1.4 percent. 25 In the past, Russia has 

been consistently lucky with the strength of 

oil prices. However, in this case, strength 

can be equivalent to overreliance. It is 

important not to ignore how Russia’s 

efflorescences have emerged cyclically due 

to changes in the oil price. It is 

understandably beneficial to recover 

quickly from a crisis, but it is just as bad to 

have a country’s growth stripped from it 

because of resource prices. If Russia is to 

aim for sustained economic growth and 

efflorescence that maintains stride long 

enough to become a modernizing 

economy, diversification is needed. The 

question is, as asked in Thane Gustafson’s 

book, Wheel of Fortune: The battle for power and 

oil in Russia, is Russia “a classic petro-state,” 

with its “hypertrophied hydrocarbon 

industries inflicting a ‘resource curse’ on 

non-energy industries suffering from 

Dutch disease.” 26 The answer to such a 

24 ICN.com, “Oil Set For First Three-Week Slide In 

2013: Commodity Market Commentaries,” 

Oilngold.com, April 19, 2013. 

25 “Russia Country Analysis,” Roubini Global 

Economics. Accessed on December 2013, 

https://www.roubini.com. 

26 Thane, Gustafson, Wheel of Fortune: The Battle for 

Oil and Power in Russia, (USA: Harvard University Press, 

2012). 

question continues to be elusive because of 

the recent changes in Russia’s economic 

growth plan. 

Currently, Russia is investing in 

infrastructure, using the National Wealth 

Fund as a source of revenue. Here it is 

important to note the change in strategy. 

Instead of using those reserves to avoid 

diversified investment, Russia appears to 

be changing its approach. Additionally, 

Russia is attempting to provide incentives 

for companies to explore the East Siberian 

and Far East Greenfields as well as the 

offshore arctic Bluefield for untapped oil 

reserves where oil is harder to access but of 

higher quality. 27 Here we see a positive 

relationship with its oil rents whereby 

Russia rolls over surplus into productive 

investments. Nonetheless, this trend is 

nascent and it cannot be guaranteed to 

persist. Moreover, oil is only one particular 

bottleneck Russia may be facing in regards 

to maintaining efflorescence. 

Goldstone addresses that selfsustaining 

growth is not dependent on a 

“cluster of innovations,” or by alleviating a 

particular bottleneck, “rather it is a matter 

of developing a particular approach to 

production and technological innovations.” 

Additionally, he claims, “it is long overdue 

to incorporate changes in social 

attitudes…into our conceptions of what 

underlay the sudden onset of selfsustaining 

and accelerating growth.” 28 In 

accord with his statement, I turn to the 

regime of Vladimir Putin and to the 

developments in Russia’s civil society after 

the 2011 protests. 

27 Ibid. 

28 Goldstone, “Efflorescences and Economic 

Growth in World History: Rethinking The “Rise Of 

The West” and The Industrial Revolution,” 31. 


POST-PROTEST AND PUTIN’S 

RUSSIA 

In his theory of efflorescence, 

Goldstone points out that efflorescences 

are usually accompanied by massive 

challenges against the social order or 

challenges against governments. Thus, the 

social fabric of a country is as important to 

efflorescence as any other indicator. In this 

regard, Russia has a recent trend worth 

noting. By late 2011, civil society started to 

visibly stir in Russia. Protests began to pop 

up in Moscow and other major Russian 

cities. Many Russian specialists watched 

attentively as protesters amassed, calling 

for a structural change and the stepping 

down of President Putin. In December, 

Putin reinforced the idea of a tandem 

leadership between himself and then 

President Dmitry Medvedev—announcing 

that he would be swapping positions with 

Medvedev for Presidency over Vice- 

Presidency. Not long after this 

announcement, discontented protestors 

took to the street to express their views on 

domestic corruption. Chants for “Rossiya 

bez Putina - Russia, without Putin,” could 

be heard en masse roving down the busy 

streets of Moscow. Financial instability 

amongst the population has caused some 

citizens to worry about the conditions of 

their country. Moreover, due of the rising 

middle class, the amount of educated 

civilians who are aware of corruption rose. 

By December 2011, it became apparent 

that the changing dynamics of Russia’s civil 

society would pose significant challenges to 

the government. These events will have 

much to do with the potential durability of 

efflorescence in Russia post the 2008 crisis. 

It is important to place these 

challenges amidst the phenomenon of 

creative destruction. This concept, as 

previously referenced, pertains to the 

elimination of older technologies as more 

efficient alternatives are developed. As 

society unleashes new energies that aim to 

provide a new structure more capable of 

sustaining efflorescence, older structures 

are challenged and dissolved. However, 

Goldstone warns that many times a 

country falls into Caldwell’s law, which 

states that when new productive practices 

or forces cause growth in an economy, they 

will also create interest groups vested by 

the political and social elite. These interest 

groups constrict future creative destruction 

because they desire to reap the benefits 

from the monopolies they have acquired. 

Thus, such groups generate stagnation, and 

decline of efflorescence. For Russia, 

Caldwell’s law depicts the country’s schism 

between its citizenry—Oligarchy vs. the 

budding middle class. Goldstone explains 

that when this occurs, “only a major social 

or political upheaval is then likely to create 

new opportunities for major episodes of 

growth.” 29 Many indeed thought this 

particular upheaval was occurring in Russia 

during 2011. Graeme Robertson stated, 

“Russia had woken up.” 30 His words were 

mirrored by a series of academics and 

analysts who saw 2011 as the time for civil 

society in Russia to start its engine toward 

Russia 2.0. Unfortunately, such changes are 

much harder to initiate than initially 

thought. 

In 2012, Putin regained his 

presidency. A vast amount of the 

protestors had been arrested before and 

after the State Duma elections and Putin’s 

inauguration. By June 2012, legislation was 

passed to sharply raise the fines imposed 

for engaging in unauthorized 

demonstrations, and in October Russia’s 

criminal code was amended to classify such 

29 Ibid. 

30 Graeme Robertson, “Russian Protesters: Not 

Optimistic But Here to Stay.” Russian Analytical 

Digest 20, no.115 (2012). 


activities as acts of treason. 31 As it became 

more difficult for massive social uprising to 

form, confidence in reforms diminished. 

Cases such as the “Pussy Riot” arrests have 

frightened many youths who do not want 

to be jailed. Harsh fines have made 

protesting a sport for the wealthy. 

Evghenia Sleptsova, a Russian 

economic analyst writing on Russian 

Growth, states, as well as many others, that 

“Putin’s model of governance, whereby the 

population gives up part of democracy in 

return for economic stability, [is] adding to 

the political risks.” 32 In order to enjoy the 

fruits of economic growth, people are 

coerced to deal with the system. This 

method appears counter intuitive and 

ineffective in light of Goldstone’s 

efflorescence theory. Goldstone warns 

against conforming to existing practices 

enforced by elite command. By siding with 

the status quo, Russia begs for its own 

stagnation. Indeed, such stagnation has 

already arrived. 

The government acknowledged its 

own sluggishness during fiscal year 2013, 

and has abandoned its hopes of 4 percent 

GDP growth, forecasting downward to 2.5 

percent. 33 Thus, Robertson’s statement is 

brought back in the form of a question: will 

Russia wake up? Analyst Sleptsova stated 

that: 

By slashing the long-term growth 

forecast the government effectively 

admits that growth will continue to 

track the stagnant oil prices and 

demand, and does not expect any 

significant economic break-through 

or diversification of the economy. 

31 The National Institute for Defense Studies, “East 

Asian Strategic Review 2013.” 

32 Evghenia Sleptsova, “Russian Growth: Slowing 

Down and Not Much Acceleration in Sight.” 

Roubini Global Economics.com, November 11, 2013. 

33 Ibid. 

Therefore, as stagnant hydrocarbon 

revenues and restrictive fiscal 

policy will constrain public 

investment, and private sector 

investment will continue to be 

suppressed by weak rule of law and 

corruption, investment will serve as 

a drag on growth. 34 

It must be said, however, that it is unfair to 

tell this tale as if the Russian government is 

not ostensibly aiming to suppress 

stagnation-causing policies. Putin has 

implemented a series of small fixes, which 

have boosted Russia’s 2013 World Bank 

rating up 20 points from 112 th to 92 nd , 

signifying that Russia is taking steps toward 

improving its business climate. Moreover, 

Putin ambitiously states that he wants that 

ranking to rise to 20 th place by 2018. 

Additionally, Russia plans to spend 13.6 

billion rubles on public infrastructure. 

However, many see these changes as only 

minimal—maintaining stagnation, but not 

spurring efflorescence. Specialists at The 

Economist are also skeptical. They state that 

“profound reforms” will now be needed. 

Mirroring the statement of Sleptsova, they 

call particularly for reforms to the courts, 

legal system, judiciary system, and law 

enforcement. 35 With an anachronistic 

examination of economic growth, it may 

seem that such changes will only stem from 

Schumpeterian growth and the adaptation 

of liberal democratic reforms. However, 

this author cautions against overt cynicism 

and instead encourages moderated caution 

in regards to the Russian government’s 

ability to implement the needed reforms. 

Ultimately, the question is, how 

threatened is the Russian system by its 

inability to allow creative destruction to run 

34 Ibid. 

35 “The S word; Russia's economy,” The Economist, 

November 9, 2013. 


its course? Currently, Russia is taking steps 

that prove it can liberate itself from an 

overreaching government and a corrupt 

oligarchic system. One interesting 

movement in this direction has been the 

reappointment of Alexey Kudrin, former 

liberal Finance Minister from 2001. Putin 

appointed Kudrin to the Presidium of the 

Economic Council on October 31 2013. In 

2012, Silvana Malle, former head of the 

Non-Member Economies Division at the 

OECD Economics Department stated, 

“Alexey Kudrin have been pointed out as 

possible leaders of alternative parties” 36 

During the 2008 economic crisis, Kudrin 

played a key role in steering the country 

through the global financial crisis, famously 

quitting his position as Russia’s military 

budget ballooned against his will. 

Furthermore, developments such as the 

government voting to allow free mayoral 

elections in Russia’s largest cities, illustrate 

that creative destruction can be 

implemented from the top down. 37 

CONCLUSION 

By examining Russia under the lens 

of Goldstone’s historical economic 

efflorescence, a less ambiguous and 

evolving picture of Russia’s current 

situation surfaces. Over the years, Russia 

has established a consistent reliance on its 

key resources and over-utilization of 

political power to ride out its crises. These 

tactics were not predominantly all bad 

choices. They have allowed Russia to grow 

on many occasions. However, the bigger 

picture is also visible. The purpose of 

36 Silvana Malle, "The Policy Challenges of Russia's 

Post-Crisis Economy," Post-Soviet Affairs 28, no.1, 

(2012), 82. 

37 Yulia Latynina, “How Yevgeny Roizman Became 

Mayor,” (The Moscow Times, September 18, 2013). 

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article 

/how-yevgeny-roizman-becamemayor/486235.html. 

efflorescence is to foster sustained 

economic growth and to evolve into a 

flourishing and modernizing economy. It is 

during this final transition that Russia's 

methods lose their appeal. High reliance on 

oil encourages resource addiction, allowing 

Russia to finance many of its problems and 

recover quickly from shocks. However, 

such reliance also causes Russia to 

strengthen only a few commodities sectors 

instead of diversifying. In an evolving 

world, such tactics are risky. Oil may not 

disappear, but developed countries 

throughout the world are investing in new 

technologies. Europe is pedantically 

watching its reliance on Russia, and China 

is voraciously scouring the globe for its 

own means to development. However, in 

contrast, this essay has also illustrated 

aspects that may lead to sustained 


In recent years, a tendency for the 

government and private corporations to 

turn to various investments, such as their 

military modernizations, investments in 

infrastructure, and the expansion of oil 

exploration technologies may enable Russia 

to overcome some of its bottlenecks. In 

Russia, as with all nations, it is important to 

heed Goldstone’s insight: every economy 

overcame economic stagnation in a way 

specific to its own resources and 

conditions. The future investments Russia 

plans to make, and the investments it has 

already made, point to a new and 

interesting occurrence of top-down 

reforms. This method is yet to be fully 

tested; however, it does not automatically 

call for skepticism. 

Russia’s future falls heavily on three 

developments: First, Russia needs to 

follows its proposed projects to limit its 

resource dependency. Second, Russia must 

address its legal system to stave off 

corruption, and implement reforms that 

may lead to creative destruction. Finally, as 


the social attitudes, and the civil conditions 

in Russia evolve we can heed Goldstone’s 

claim: 

It just so happened that in the 

background of …efflorescences – 

that of eighteenth-century 

England—there lurked a particular 

cultural content … that combined 

with that otherwise normal 

efflorescence to create wholly novel 

breakthroughs… 38 (Emphasis 

added.) 

Cultural content was the creation of a 

“scientific culture” in England, which led a 

rich culture in experimentation eventually 

leading to the invention of the steam 

engine. This cultural content will always be 

different and specific to a country. For 

Russia, a cultural content may be budding 

in its civil society’s changing temperament. 

Larger swaths of Russian citizens now 

express new desires and demands; they 

want a new way to structure their lives 

based on less corruption, more freedom to 

protest, advanced avenues for 

entrepreneurship by shrinking oligarchic 

monopolies, and enhanced access to the 

global economy which brings with it a vast 

array of goods. It is possible that among 

those many demands lay the fodder for 

structural change in Russia. 

Regrettably, over time, the ability of 

Russia’s civilians to cause upheavals against 

the system seem to be combatted by strict 

laws and centralized power. As the world 

around Putin gives birth to more protests 

and rebellions, he appears to become more 

cautious of domestic ruckus. Depending 

on the tide of civil society, Russia could be 

compelled to meet the demands of its 

middle class. Those citizens, who want 

more than abstract GDP growth, will 

demand for the diversification of their 

economy. As civil unrest strains the powersharing 

structure between the government 

and the oligarchs it is undeniably important 

when considering Russia’s ability to break 

from its “otherwise normal” oscillations 

between efflorescence and stagnation, to 

look for the creation of a “cultural 

content.” Such content will define Russian 

society in a way best suited for advanced 

growth. This will be both a structural 

change and consequently, a change in the 

collective mentality. 

As Russia continues its struggle to 

sustain efflorescence, analysts should 

consider a Russia-specific phenomenon as 

the solution. It is only in this way that 

observers will understand more holistically 

the potential for sustained, and enduring 


JOEL ALEXANDER graduated with a bachelor's 

degree in Political Science from Columbia 

University, and is currently pursuing a master's 

degree in Global Affairs at New York University’s 

Center for Global Affairs in the International 

Business and Economics concentration. He is 

currently the Vice President for the Society of 

International Business and Economics at NYU. 

38 Goldstone, Jack A, “Efflorescences and 

Economic Growth in World History: Rethinking 

The “Rise Of The West” and The Industrial 

Revolution,” 376. 


Iraq: State Or National 

Collapse? 

Paul Mutter 

I 

I 

n the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, 

Iraq has lacked a strong sense of 

nationhood and a stable civil society. In 

their place rose a “fierce state” that prioritized 

the maintenance of security services to uphold 

the leaders’ power and an “uncivil society” of 

the country’s ruling class who existed apart 

from the lumpen masses but were barred 

from associating and organizing freely. 

Following U.S. occupation in 2003, Iraq’s 

“fierce state” and “uncivil society” unraveled 

quite rapidly. In the absence of a state for all 

its citizens, or more inclusive civil society 

institutions, sectarianism became the primary 

mode of political association. It is in sectarian 

terms that disputes are still framed, and armed 

camps organized. The question is, why have 

state building efforts failed across the 

spectrum in Iraq: is it because of the 

authoritarian state’s inherent weakness there, 

or because the depths of Iraqi sectarianism 

defy attempts to forge a common 

nationalism? 

The underlying problem, in fact, lies in 

the structural weaknesses of the Iraqi state. 

Iraq was and is a “fierce state,” but not a 

strong one, and this has been the case since its 

establishment as a nominally independent 

country in 1932. The fundamental weaknesses 

predate the U.S. occupation, which merely 

exposed them for the international stage. A 

“fierce state” seeks to control all aspects of its 

peoples’ lives to prevent them from acting on 

their rights as citizens. 1 And Iraqi uncivil 

1 M. E. Bouillon, “Iraq’s State-Building Enterprise: 

State Fragility, State Failure and a New Social 

Contract,” International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi 

Studies 6, no. 3 (2012): 286, accessed May 5, 2014. 

http://ezproxy.library.nyu.edu:15301/eds/pdfviewer/p 

society—which consisted of state-mandated 

membership for the ruling class in party 

organizations—was still basically tribal (as 

were most illegal associations outside of 

official circles). The Americans’ forced 

removal of this type of uncivil society in 2003 

saw a proliferation of multiple uncivil societies 

organized along ethnosectarian lines. 2 

Whether ex-Baathists, Shia militias, the 

Kurdish Regional Government, the U.S.- and 

Iran-backed federal government, or Sunni 

tribal gatherings, the rush to compete in this 

new order resulted in massive insecurity and 

violence. Sectarian rhetoric often served as 

cover for pursuing nakedly materialistic goals 

and vendettas. Iraq established a Shiadominated 

federal system, but the limited 

rights this system observes with respect to 

non-Shia means that Iraq will continue to be 

wracked by multiple insurgencies. Even now, 

the most forceful opponents of the 

government are ex-Baathists and Sunni tribes 

who see the naked sectarianism of al Qaeda in 

Iraq (now reorganized as the “Islamic State of 

Iraq and the Levant”) as a vehicle to advance 

their interests. 

THE NATURE OF “STATE” 

Why does the prewar condition of the 

Iraqi state matter? As M. E. Bouillon has 

noted, after the 1920s, “the state [in Arab 

countries] evolved from coveted prize and 

target of societal competition to instrument in 

the hands of those who had managed to 

capture it.” 3 This is what is meant by the 

fierce state in the literature. But “fierce” does 

not necessarily refer to a strong and stable 

dfviewer?sid=012545a9-6521-4dc9-915aa3e4383c5b05%40sessionmgr111&vid=8&hid=104. 

2 Phil Williams, “Criminals, Militias, and Insurgents: 

Organized Crime in Iraq,” Strategic Studies Institute 

(2009): xiii, accessed May 5, 2014. 

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/ 

pub930.pdf. 

3 Bouillon, “Iraq’s State-Building Enterprise,” 283. 


state. The fierceness of the state lies in its 

need to enforce its rule through violence and 

control the distribution of resources to 

concentrate (rather than dilute) power in the 

hands of a ruling coalition. What happened 

after 2003 was not a reverse of the process 

that Bouillon saw occurring between the 

1920s and the 1960s (when Iraqi Baathists 

seized power) but a revival across multiple 

coalitions. The paramount challenge for 

nation building in Iraq is less a matter of 

creating a coherent nationalism for all people 

within the border, than creating a state 

structure and rule of law within it. Francis 

Fukuyama's point that "reconstruction is 

possible when the underlying political and 

social infrastructure has survived conflict or 

crisis" is applicable here because in questions 

of building a nation, reconstruction is only 

possible if the machinery of state has survived 

intact. 4 State structure is a prerequisite to a 

successful nation. 5 

In Iraq, the rapidity and scale of "de- 

Baathification" meant that this premise was 

completely undone. 6 Iraqi functionaries forced 

out by the U.S. occupation authorities became 

rejectionists quite rapidly, aided by access to a 

cornucopia of arms caches and a lack of 

American troops to put out all the fires they 

set. The resulting sectarian conflicts in Iraq 

show, as Hawzhin Azeez suggests, “an 

attempt to forge their own sense of social 

consensus” but this presumes that an Iraq 

where the Sunni-Shia divide is still so raw is 

one that can actually agree on state structures. 7 

The question of “the nation” cannot be 

4 Francis Fukuyama, Nation-Building: Beyond Iraq and 

Afghanistan, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University 

Press, 2010), Kindle locations 146-147. 

5 Ibid., Kindle locations 3916-3918. 

6 RAND. “Chapter Ten: Iraq.” In America’s Role in 

Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq. Eds. Dobbins, 

James et al. (Santa Monica: RAND, 2003), 166. 

7 Hawzhin Azeez, “Reconstructing Iraq: Iraq Statebuilding, 

Nation-building, and Violence,” Nebula 7, no. 

4 (2010): 80, accessed on May 5, 2014. 

http://nobleworld.biz/images/Azeez.pdf. 

decided without prior acceptance of powersharing 

norms short of internecine warfare. 

With several of the country’s major cities still 

under the control of the so-called Islamic 

State and much of the Kurdish north acting 

independent of Baghdad, such norms remain 

an illusion. 8 True, even with an extensive 

welfare state and security apparatus in place, 

the state was weak in Iraq because of the 

Baathist’s long rule: one elite group captured 

the state, refusing to countenance any other 

kind of arrangement or power-sharing 

structure that would diminish its powers. 9 

This is what made Iraq’s top 1-10% of 

citizens—the people who ran the various 

ministries and security services—an uncivil 

society. They were committed to an order that 

barred them and the rest of the population 

from forming alternative, non-state forums to 

associate in. 10 

Iraqi states in the modern era have all 

been weak on the institutional level. Violence 

was commonly used to settle disputes among 

the ruling classes repeatedly: first in 1920 and 

1941, against the British, again in 1958 against 

the pro-British monarchy, and in 1963 with 

the establishment of the Baathist dictatorship. 

But the fierce state of Saddam Hussein was 

also weak in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s 

because of the way the state was organized: as 

a "totalitarian, patrimonial system" that also 

"was an amalgam of a single-family and a 

8 Michael Barnett, “Building a Republican Peace: 

Stabilizing States after War,” International Security 30, no. 

4, (2006): 89, accessed May 5, 2014. 


dfviewer?vid=9&sid=012545a9-6521-4dc9-915aa3e4383c5b05%40sessionmgr111&hid=104. 

9 Abbas Kelidar, “States without Foundations: The 

Political Evolution of State and Society in the Arab 

East,” Journal of Contemporary History 28, no 2 (1993): 

324, accessed May 5 2014. 

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/260713?uid=3 

739808&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=211037528 

35571. 

10 Nazih Ayubi, Over-Stating the Arab State: Politics and 

Society in the Middle East, (London and New York, I. B. 

Tauris, 1995: 22. 


single-party system.” 11 

A strong state structure, according to 

Abbas Kelidar, is necessary for the growth of 

nationalism. This has proven elusive in Iraq 

because “a powerful force of national and 

social mobilization has been incapable of 

serving as the foundation of political 

organization” due to a lack of shared 

historical identities within its borders. 12 Across 

the whole of the Middle East, multiconfessional 

political movements in other 

post-Ottoman Arab states often failed to 

agree on how to share power because the 

"state" was not seen as a legitimate 

participatory venue. The frequent recourse to 

violence suggested less a weak sense of 

nationhood than a dearth of acceptable 

power-sharing arrangements. 13 So, the contest 

for power among these factions has 

historically ended with one or two of them 

capturing the state and resorting to divideand-rule 

politics. These factions fail to agree 

on power-sharing arrangements, instead 

resorting to officially sanctioned violence to 

maintain the status quo and, for the 

persecuted have-nots, insurgency. 14 

The late dictator’s policies were not 

“conducive to the development of an 

integrative condition in which a coherent 

11 Faleh Jabar, Postconflict Iraq: A Race for Stability, 

Reconstruction, and Legitimacy, (Washington, D.C.: USIP, 

2004): 7, accessed May 5, 2014. 

http://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/sr120.pdf. 

12 Kelidar, “States without Foundations,” 320. 

13 As’ad AbuKhalil, “The Longevity of Arab Regimes: 

Causes of Oppression,” in Modern Middle East 

Authoritarianism: Roots, Ramifications, and Crisis. Eds. 

Benoun, Noureddine; Kia, Mehrdad; and Kirk, Mimi. 

(New York: Routledge, 2014). 50. 

14 North Yemen, now part of the Republic of Yemen, 

was another example of such a polity, a state where 

there was barely any “state” beyond the barracks. 

Whether under a monarch (before 1962), generals’ 

clique (from 1974) or nepotistic family of bureaucrats 

(to 2011), coups were depressingly common in North 

Yemen because there was no other “accepted” 

mechanism for the transfer or modification of power. 

The North Yemeni state was also a fierce state, then. 

sense of political identity and stable political 

institutions could be established on firm 

foundations.” 15 Military institutions showed 

similar favoritism, failing to become vehicles 

for shared national identity given the high 

concentration of Sunni Arab officers and 

specialists (in other countries, like Lebanon or 

North Yemen, one could see Christians or 

Shia in similar positions). The Shia and 

Kurdish insurgencies in Iraq were, from the 

insurgents’ perspective, the only logical 

responses to this situation: to be 

acknowledged, they had to fight the state 

because no other form of protest was 

“legitimate.” 

“State-building in the Middle East” 

says Stephen Townley, “may function best at 

the sub-state level” precisely because it 

requires varied groups lacking a concrete 

national identity accepting that they need to 

agree on a set of rules to provision their own 

constituencies and then, moving forward, 

interact with others. 16 This has been how 

Iraqis have groped towards building a “new” 

Iraq since 2003: by attempting to renounce 

winner-take-all political violence in favor of 

negotiated transfers of authority and other 

arrangements, like revenue sharing. 17 The 

process is far from complete. Though the 

“nation” of Iraq is a fragile one, the real 

problem at hand is the failure of an Iraqi state 

to provide a secure space for citizens of 

different associations present to see 

themselves a part of, and have a stake in 

maintaining, the state even if it makes them 

more insecure and less privileged relative to 

other groups. 

15 Kelidar, “States without Foundations,” 327. 

16 Stephen Townley, “Perspectives on Nation- 

Building,” The Yale Journal of International Law 30, no. 

347 (2005: 359, accessed May 5, 2014. 

http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hei 

n.journals/yjil30&div=13&id=&page=. 



THE IRAQ FIERCE STATE: FEET OF 

CLAY 

The Iraqi state was, in short, “over 

stated”: it was imagined to be much stronger 

than it was simply because it projected such 

an image. 18 So how were the Iraqi Baathists 

able to build a state that was, at its core, 

extremely weak as a set of institutions and 

norms despite its authoritarian longevity? The 

Baathist regime, set up in 1963, endured until 

2003, with only a short interruption of its rule 

in the late 1960s. The three basic conditions 

of the “fierce state” existed throughout this 

period. A “democracy of bread” that was the 

oil-subsidized welfare system, a brutal internal 

policing mechanism, and a rallying cry of 

exclusivist nationalism over competing 

ideologies such as communism, pan-Arabism, 

and Islamism. 19 

The Baathist authorities offered Iraqis 

a “choice,” so to speak: accept a social 

contract that stultifies civil society in exchange 

for welfarism. Such states appear strong, but 

rely on the consent of the (un)governed: any 

form of mass protest or security disturbance 

has the potential to bring down the whole 

edifice if not crushed immediately, which is 

why the Baath Party responded so brutally 

both to attempted insurgencies and the 

mildest forms of dissent. 20 

Joining the Baathist Party was a 

prerequisite for career advancement, and was 

predicated on stifling any unapproved or 

potentially disruptive associations. 21 The 

Punishment Law 111 (Section 200) of the 

Baath Party’s charter allowed the regime to 

sentence party members to death if a member 

had any unlicensed affiliations with other 

political movements in Iraq—which is to say, 

all of them. Special attention was also paid to 

inductees who had been active in any 

movement that was banned after 1968, since 

this meant they had had such associations. 22 

Informing on colleagues was encouraged, and 

torture was common as well. 23 All of this 

helped the state prevent the emergence of 

civil society by promoting distrust and 

isolation: members of Saddam Hussein's 

family were not even immune from such 

checks on their power if they were seen by 

him to have stepped out of line. 24 Even the 

military remained divided, under suspicion, 

and, given the shortages plaguing the country 

after 1991, a competitor in internal “politics.” 

Although Western and Arab intelligence 

services expected palace coups to take place 

against Saddam Hussein during the 1990s, the 

officer corps remained loyal to him. 

Uncivil society building in Iraq also 

meant breaking up tribal associations, because 

these could serve as the basis for reforms, 

demands, and agitation. Tribes were, and are, 

central to Iraqi political organization: 

“Saddam co-opted the tribal organizations 

that undergirded Iraq,” according to Peter 

Van Buren, “manipulating the local sheiks 

toward his own ends by giving power to 

some, money to others, and depriving those 

who crossed him of both.” 25 The Baath Party 

divided and ruled tribes by creating two levels 

of leadership within each of them that would 

18 Ayubi, Over-Stating the Arab State, 3. 

19 RAND, “Chapter Ten: Iraq,” 178. 

20 Stephen Kotki,. Uncivil Society: 1989 and the Implosion of 

the Communist Establishment, (New York: Random House 

Publishing Group, 2009): Kindle location 2776. 

21 Phebe Marr, “Where Is Iraq Headed?” American 

Foreign Policy Interests 25 (2003): 368, accessed May 7, 

2014. 



22 Mark Magnier, “Documents Reveal Extent of Baath 

Party Rule,” The Los Angeles Times, April 6, 2003, 

accessed May 2, 2014. 

http://articles.latimes.com/2003/apr/06/news/warbaath6. 

23 Marr, “Where Is Iraq Headed?” 370. 

24 AbuKhalil, “The Longevity of Arab Regimes,” 45. 

25 Peter Van Buren, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose 

the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, (New 

York: Henry Holt and Co., 2011): Kindle location 75. 


e at odds with one another. 26 

Efforts to create a strong state in Iraq 

largely failed due to domestic political 

maneuverings, but uniquely among other 

fierce states in the Middle East, external 

factors had a significant impact. No other 

Middle Eastern dictatorship has ever been as 

sanctioned as Iraq between 1991 and 2003. 27 

These external factors crippled what state 

infrastructure did exist prior to 2003, and 

undermined (though did not collapse) uncivil 

society’s bargain with the state. Yet people's 

“strategies of survival” did become less 

dependent on state agencies than on the 

United Nations, their extended families, and 

local notables with access to humanitarian 

goods and permits. Saddam Hussein 

exacerbated these developments when he 

turned a blind eye to rampant government 

corruption to focus on placating his most 

important loyalists. As for the rest of the 

population, sixty percent of Iraqis lived below 

the poverty line by 2003, and an equal number 

received their daily bread from the UN's Oil 

for Food program. 28 Even the usually wellprovisioned 

internal security services were not 

unaffected: their duties in Baghdad Province 

increasingly fell to hastily deputized Sunni 

militias, simply due to the cost saving 

measures this move produced. 29 

While Baathism prevented the 

emergence of civil society under Saddam 

Hussein's rule, internal conflict did not “end” 

when the Baathist took power. Iraqi Shia, 

26 Williams, “Criminals, Militias, and Insurgents: 

Organized Crime in Iraq,” 26. 

27 RAND, “Chapter Ten: Iraq,”163. 

28 Hasan Latif Kathim al-Zubaydi, “Iraq's Poverty Since 

the 1980s—A Story of National Decline,” Niqash, 

January 9, 2007, accessed on May 5, 2014. 

http://www.niqash.org/articles/?id=1986. 

29 Eric Davis, “Sectarianism, Historical Memory, and 

the Discourse of Othering: The Mahdi Army, Mafia, 

Camorra, and ‘Ndrangheta,” in Uncovering Iraq: 

Trajectories of Disintegration and Transformation. Eds. 

Toensing, Chris and Kirk, Mimi, (Washington, D.C.: 

Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, 2010): 91. 

especially, continued to exist outside of the 

state structure and build their own networks, 

states within states. Kurdistan was effectively 

independent after 1995. These disputes could 

not simply be frozen by the regime’s policies, 

and exploded after 2003. 30 As one Iraqi man 

asked Foreign Service Officer Van Buren 

during his tour in Anbar Province, “when will 

you [Americans] close the door you opened in 

our country?” 31 This is the reality that the U.S. 

and Iraqis faced in 2003, “a plethora of social, 

institutional, economic, and cultural forces, 

hitherto dormant, emerged in full force”— 

and no one was ready for what came next. 32 

Sunnis have reacted to their diminished power 

by resorting to violence, which spurs Shias to 

press harder against them—while the Shias' 

act of holding onto power through force 

means they are fanning the flames of the 

Sunnis’ rejectionist position. 

It was extremely unlikely that national, 

democratic institutions could function 

effectively in these conditions. 33 They did not, 

and this outcome reflected an absence of 

“civic culture” among communities. The 

process has unfolded differently among 

various communities in Iraq, but several 

commonalities are present, and these play 

against one another across group actors. 

STATE COLLAPSE: THE SUNNI VIEW 

The Sunni experience in the “new” 

Iraq has been especially jarring, and indicative 

of the challenges of state building that Iraq 

faces. 34 The Sunnis in Iraq had, until 2003, 

been the ruling class, initially due to the Turks 

and the British. Though nationalist and 

secularist regimes after WWII tried to 

subsume Sunni identity in uncivil society 

30 Davis, “Sectarianism, Historical Memory, and the 

Discourse of Othering,” 93. 

31 Van Buren, We Meant Well, 90. 

32 Jabar, Postconflict Iraq, 14. 





ased on patronage and the politics of fear, 

that privileged tribalism never disappeared. As 

noted above, Sunni tribal autonomy grew 

during the 1990s due to the impoverishment 

of the state after the First Gulf War. 35 Because 

they were denied the ability to form free 

associations, Sunni leaders had become used 

to in-group welfarism and corruption, the 

latter simply an extension of welfare and 

patronage politicking. This uncivil society was 

effectively forced to disband by the Coalition 

Provisional Authority (CPA) in 2003, putting 

over half a million people out of work. These 

men and women fell back on tribal, familial, 

and criminal network that had emerged in 

place of an authentic civil society. Forcing all 

of these individuals out of their jobs proved 

to be an undesirable undertaking from a 

security standpoint. It meant renegotiating a 

social contract and finding capable 

administrators in impossibly short time. 36 

Iraqis finally had the chance to build a civil 

society but could not depend on paid 

employment, safe travel, or even regular 

access to water and electricity. 

Then came the 2005 national 

elections. The electoral list that year was very 

closely identified with the CPA by Sunnis, as 

well as the U.S. and Iran more broadly, both 

of whom were resented for expanding their 

influence into the country. 37 The Sunnis had 

been stripped of power, while the Iraqi Shia— 

despite having experience organizing their 

communities—had never run anything at the 

national level. In this situation, the barriers to 



36 Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military 

Adventure in Iraq, 2003 to 2005, (New York: Penguin 

Group US, 2006): Kindle location, 161-2. 

37 Bellin, “The Robustness of Authoritarianism in the 

Middle East: Exceptionalism in Comparative 

Perspective.” Comparative Politics 36:2, 2004. 

. Accessed 5 

May 2014. 150. 

national unity were tremendous because the 

short-term incentive for Iraqi politicians was 

to build up competing, exclusivist state 

capacities within their particular 

ethnosectarian associations. 38 In Sunni areas, a 

U.S. military survey noted at the time, “the 

vast middle ground does nothing to stop 

[Baathist insurgents] and to date does not see 

it in their interest to help us corner them.” 39 

Though the 2005 elections had been 

demanded by many Iraqi leaders—taken as a 

sign of a willingness to build a state where 

power would be contested through 

institutions—the process arguably ended in 

failure. 40 Those appointed were meant to 

represent a balance of émigré and domestic 

politicians, and the country’s largest ethnic 

groups. This approach was unreflective of the 

new social spaces emerging within the 

country. It signaled to Iraqis that the central 

state was not worth supporting, but was 

worth capturing. This led to some of the first 

waves of attacks on those associated with the 

occupation had focused on perceived 

collaborators with the occupying forces. 41 

Another significant challenge was that Sunnis 

simply refused to “buy in” to a unified state 

due to Shias controlling distribution of basic 

resources and welfare assistance. 

The Sunni tribal “Sons of Iraq” 

movement had the potential to be a 

significant moment in state building. It was, 

however, ultimately compromised by the 

inability of the central government to accept 

the legitimacy of the movement and give up 

some of its power by recognizing the Sons' 

security gains against their common enemy, al 

Qaeda in Iraq (AQI, now ISIL or the “Islamic 

State”). Prior to the movement's formation, 

38 Wayne White, “The Saga of Iraqi Electoral 

Disappointment,” LobeLog, May 8, 2014, accessed on 

May 8, 2014. http://www.lobelog.com/the-saga-ofiraqi-electoral-disappointment/. 

39 Ricks, Fiasco, 216. 


41 Ricks, Fiasco, 215. 


the incessant attacks on Sunni communities 

by Shia militias and AQI led many Sunnis to 

decide not to trust the new authorities since 

“the very force that was designed to protect 

them [the Iraqi national police] preyed on 

them instead.” 42 In response to this, and the 

depredations of AQI, Sunni leaders in the 

western reaches of the country began 

organizing themselves into self-defense 

leagues and soliciting U.S. assistance, which 

from 2007 to 2009, was provided in 

significant quantities. Yet when Sunni leaders 

went to Baghdad to obtain official blessing, 

the government of Nouri al-Maliki only 

reluctantly granted it. Maliki and his pro-Iran 

coalition had to be dragged into supporting 

the “Awakening.” 43 Baghdad eventually 

reneged on promises to integrate Sunnis from 

these self-defense units into the security 

apparatus, and the Shia-dominated police 

were especially hostile to them. This has 

become even more pronounced since 2014 

with the upgrading of many Shia militias’ 

capabilities by the Baghdad government (and 

Iran) to take over counterinsurgency 

operations from the national army that 

collapsed before the onslaught of the Islamic 

State due to mass desertions. Though some 

token Sunni militias fight alongside these 

heavily armed irregulars, Shia formations like 

Katib Hezbollah and the Badr Organization 

far outnumber them and the regular Iraqi 

National Army forces, and have ethnically 

cleansed Sunni or Kurdish areas in the north 

and west of the country. 

Even before this, the Shia leadership 

saw few reasons, after the U.S. troop 

withdrawal negotiated by the Bush 

Administration took effect, to accede to 

further American pressure to recognize the 

Sons. This, in turn, convinced some Sunni 



43 Thomas E. Ricks, The Gamble: General Petraeus and the 

American Military Adventure in Iraq, (New York: Penguin 

Group US, 2009): Kindle Locations 1456-1457. 

groups they were better off keeping their arms 

and rejecting vague promises of recognition 

and salaried positions. 44 The new wave of 

violence in the Sunni-majority Al Anbar 

Province that began in 2013—several years 

after the supposed success of the 

“Awakening”—was precipitated by the 

Baghdad authorities' cracking down on 

opposition Sunni politicians there. 45 Prior to 

that, as a result of the questionable 2010 

election results that returned Maliki to power, 

“Sunnis lost faith in the political process and 

the jihadists were once again able to make 

inroads among them.” 46 

STATE BUILDING: THE SHIA VIEW 

For Iraqis to accept the idea that “the 

costs of democratic politics [were] preferable 

to the costs of resorting to violence in terms 

of achieving their goals of acquiring power” is 

a tall order in light of their country’s history. 

But, Shia parties in the country have started to 

accept this principle to a degree. 47 This is 

because of a conscious decision to contest 

authority by becoming authority, rather than 

operating outside of the system. 

Unfortunately, intimidation and patronage are 

44 Joel Wing, “Continued Problems Integrating The 

Sons of Iraq,” Musings on Iraq, August 10, 2010, 

accessed on April 28, 2014. 

http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2010/08/continu 

ed-problems-integrating-sons-of.html. 

45 Dexter Filkins, “What We Left Behind,” The New 

Yorker, April 28, 2014, accessed on May 7, 2014. 

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/04/28/1 

40428fa_fact_filkins?currentPage=all. 

46 Joel Wing and Peter Mansoor, “Inside The Surge An 

Interview With Prof Peter Mansoor Former Executive 

Officer To Gen Petraeus,” Musings on Iraq, December 

31, 2013, accessed on May 7, 2014. 

http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2013/12/insidesurge-interview-with-prof-peter.html. 

47 Eric Davis, “Islamism, Authoritarianism, and 

Democracy: A Comparative Study of Egypt and Iraq,” 

in Modern Middle East Authoritarianism: Roots, 

Ramifications, and Crisis. Eds. Benoun, Noureddine; Kia, 

Mehrdad; and Kirk, Mimi, (New York: Routledge, 

2014), 218. 


still accepted means to contest others for 

power, whether against other Shia factions or 

those outside that community. Such actions 

have done little to foster a less-exclusivist 

ideal of nationalism. The paradox is that 

building a stronger central state has led to 

sub-national groupings increasing their power 

at the state’s expense by siphoning off 

resources. 48 

It is more appropriate to compare 

Shia militias and their affiliated 

political/welfare arms with criminal 

organizations than with purely sectarian 

vehicles for power. 49 The Shia leadership in 

Iraq as whole, despite sectarian and regional 

differences, has shared a common historical 

experience in that they had been ruled by 

foreigners, deliberately neglected by the state 

after independence, and viewed as inherent 

troublemakers or the indolent poor. Because 

successive governments in Baghdad “failed to 

demonstrate any form of civil commitment 

toward the local population,” multiple “extralegal 

social organizations” arose at the 

expense of a common national identity. 50 

Since the 1920s, Shia sectarian identity has 

hardened as community leaders built up their 

own state within a state to provide services to 

neglected communities. The Baathists' 

crushing of Iraqi nationalists, communists, 

and pan-Arabists after seizing power in 1963 

further solidified Shia identity. The Baathists 

destroyed actors who could or would bridge 

the gaps to the much larger Shia population. 

Once these movements were taken care of, 

active measures against prominent religious 

figures in the predominantly Shia cities of 

Najaf and Karbala began in earnest in the 

1970s. These sweeps culminated in a series of 

mass killings in 1992 following a failed 



49 Davis, “Islamism, Authoritarianism, and 

Democracy”. 207. 



uprising in the south of the country by 

Iranian-backed Shia insurgents. 

After this failed uprising, Muqtada al- 

Sadr came to represent the new approach to 

politics and state building. His father, 

assassinated by the Baathist secret police in 

1999, had set the groundwork for him, by 

turning to the UN for relief aid under the 

sanctions regime and using this aid to 

organize a committed following. But, the elder 

al-Sadr differed from his predecessors who 

had founded Iraq’s first Islamist party (Da'wa) 

in that he sought to become part of the state 

apparatus in order to co-opt it. 51 The Sadrists’ 

model was not unlike Hezbollah’s in Lebanon: 

a charity, an army, and an electoral list all at 

the same time. The divide was, according to a 

2003 report in The Baltimore Sun, between 

“older ayatollahs … counseling patience with 

the occupation” and “the younger faction 

[that] wants to found an Islamic state” around 

the younger al-Sadr. 52 

Sadr, who took a more conciliatory 

tone with the U.S.-backed government at the 

start than other aspiring political strongmen, 

revolted in 2004 after a crackdown on his 

organization. His forces took over local 

government offices and disarmed the police in 

Shia communities. 53 Faced with a determined 

U.S. response, Sadr eventually backed down 

and announced that he regarded the interim 

elections set for 2005 as legitimate. But his 

insurrection had proven a point. 54 Sadr was 

51 Robert Baer, The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New 

Iranian Superpower, (Crown Publishing Group, 2008): 

Kindle locations 731-3. 

52 New York Times News Service, “Blast kills 90, top 

Shiite cleric,” The Baltimore Sun, August 30, 2003, 

accessed on May 8, 2014. 

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2003-08- 

30/news/0308300269_1_najaf-al-hakim-importantshiite. 


54 Tareq Y. Ismael and Max Fuller, “The disintegration 

of Iraq: the manufacturing and politicization of 

sectarianism,” International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi 

Studies 2, no. 3 (2008): 465, accessed May 7, 2014. 



very successful in building a shadow state that 

could and still does provide security for his 

followers. 55 Sadr, like other Shia leaders, 

decided in the wake of his initial military 

actions against the U.S. and its Iraqi 

collaborators that his organization had the 

chance to take “control of a state apparatus 

stripped bare by the looting,” in “an 

opportunity to obtain resources and benefits 

long denied them.” 56 So even as the country 

fell into civil war, some Shia leaders opted in 

to the U.S.-backed order. Even the popular 

Ayatollah Sistani, who had earlier railed 

against the country's first elections, reversed 

course and publicly backed the process. 

Acquiring control of the state would produce 

an even greater chance to provision the Shia 

community, so that by 2006, Prime Minister 

Nour al-Maliki led the opting-in of Iraqi Shia to 

form a central government. For Maliki and 

company the Americans “became adjudicator 

and enforcer in criminal disputes dressed up 

as political differences, siding with one set of 

violent armed groups engaged in criminal 

activities against other groups judged more 

dangerous.” 57 Sadr's militia, too, “bought in” 

when faced with the prospect of further 

armed conflict with the U.S. and Maliki's 

security services. His organization was 

ostensibly disbanded, with its gunmen folded 

into the security services or national 

parliament. Yet while it may have given up its 

paramilitary operations, the group’s political 

leaders remained committed to providing 

welfare services and “protection” to Shia 

communities in a long line of Shia state within 

a state activities. 58 In any event, the Sadrists 

remobilized their paramilitary wing in 2014 in 


55 Ibid., 460. 



57 Ibid., xv. 



order to fight the Islamic State after the 

national army’s repeated failures to do so. 

Although the Sadrist organizations 

decided that the best bet for their future was 

to sign on to a broader Shia bloc, they have 

long dropped hints that they are willing to 

return to the barricades. It is incorrect to 

imagine that Sadr has full control over them 

in this respect, or that his own followers’ 

actions do not tie his hands because the 

organization has a very ill-defined power 

structure since it aspires to be a big tent 

movement over its rivals, including members 

of Sadr's own family. 59 “The Mahdi Army has 

become a worrisome burden on the Sadrist 

movement, which seeks to become a political 

faction that does not work with weapons,” 

reported an Iraqi journalist in 2013, adding 

that most of the movement’s leadership 

outside of Sadr’s own circle subscribes to the 

view that the electoral process cannot be 

trusted to protect their communities’ 

security. 60 This sort of behavior is driven by 

lack of security, but it is also driven by the 

common themes of “political ambition, and 

the imperatives of resource generation” in a 

country where state capture is the objective of 

most organized political actors. 61 

The Sadrists and the current ruling 

coalition now find themselves confronted 

with Shia militias like Asaib Ahl al-Haq, which 

while declaring its support for a united Shia 

bloc in parliament uses intimidation to 

59 Harith Hasan, “Is Muqtada al-Sadr retiring or 

repositioning?” Al-Monitor, Transl. Rani Geha, Al- 

Monitor, February 21, 2014, accessed on May 7, 2014. 

http://www.almonitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/02/sadr-decisionretire-repositioning.html#ixzz312eE9Ld7. 

60 Ali Abel Sadah, “Sadr Reconsiders Political Role, 

Mahdi Army,” Transl. Sahar Ghoussoub, Al-Monitor, 

August 28, 2013, accessed on May 7, 2014. 

http://www.almonitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/08/iraq-clashesmahdi-army-asaib-ahl-al-haqsadr.html#ixzz312cdBVDx. 


Organized Crime in Iraq,” xi. 


compete with its fellow Shia. 62 Within the Shia 

communities of Iraq, then, is a lack of 

acknowledgment for “a larger and more 

diverse cultural and political universe.” 63 Even 

at the height of his power, Maliki only directly 

controlled a few military units: he was 

otherwise very reliant on former members of 

the Badr Organization, who were at odds with 

the Sadrists. 64 A proliferation of such 

organizations weakens state structures and the 

idea of an “Iraqi nation” through 

parochialism. The Sadrists, in particular, are 

characterized by vigilantism and extensive 

local autonomy that cannot easily be reined 

in. 65 Newer groups formed in the wake of the 

army’s 2014 disasters, are much more 

assertive in using armed action to carve out a 

space for themselves. One of these new 

militia leaders, when asked by a reporter “will 

you train the security forces, or bring your 

own men?” in the event of further jihadist 

attacks on Shia communities said that he 

would bring his own men in. 66 Though there 

is no reason to doubt that sectarian beliefs are 

sincerely felt as part of their worldview, it is 

worth noting that religious fiat is merely the 

tool that paramilitaries use to win political 

power by force. 

62 Ali Mamouri, “The Rise of 'Cleric Militias' in Iraq.” 

Transl. Tyler Huffman, Al-Monitor, July 23, 2013. 

http://www.almonitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/08/iraq-clashesmahdi-army-asaib-ahl-al-haqsadr.html#ixzz312cdBVDx. 



64 Thomas E. Ricks, “The Best Defense Iraq, the 

unraveling (VI): looming intra-Shia violence?” Foreign 

Policy, April 24, 2009, accessed on May 5, 2014. 

http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/24/ira 

q_the_unraveling_vi_looming_intra_shia_violence. 



66 Watheq al-Battat, “Iraqi Shiite Militia Leader Watheq 

al-Battat: I Would Support Iran in a War against Iraq,” 

MEMRI, October 23, 2013, accessed on May 7, 2014. 

http://www.memri.org/clip_transcript/en/4046.htm. 

CONCLUSION: IRAQ’S 

INSTITUTIONAL ANEMIA 

As Toby Dodge writes, Iraq was 

imagined by its American occupiers as a 

country where the central government's 

“capacity is ultimately grounded in the extent 

to which its administrative staff successfully 

upholds the claim to the monopoly of the 

legitimate use of physical force in the 

enforcement of its order.” 67 The dictum that 

“the real goal is to create as many Iraqis as 

possible who feel they have a stake in the new 

Iraq” sounds like an effective solution, but the 

reality is that without an agreed-upon “Iraqi 

state,” the violence will continue within and 

among armed factions. 68 This underlines just 

how much the Government of Iraq has failed 

to create conditions conducive to the 

formation of a sense of national identity (or 

even sectarian identity) that, if felt across the 

political spectrum, would help reduce violence 

within Shia communities, and against outgroups 

like the Sunnis or other minorities by 

the Shia-dominated security services. 69 

A state structure that Iraqis of all 

creeds and ethnicities can accept as legitimate 

requires “space for societal actors to 

determine for themselves what the good life is 

and how to achieve it.” 70 Ultimately, the state 

can only be accepted as legitimate when it 

operates in “a regularized fashion.” 71 The only 

way forward is for civil society—which 

despite all of the setbacks and catastrophes of 

the past decade (and its stunting under 

67 Toby Dodge, “Iraq: the contradictions of exogenous 

state-building in historical perspective,” Third World 

Quarterly 27, no. 1 (2006): 189, accessed May 7, 2014. 



68 Ibid., 190. 

69 Dahr Jamail, “Maliki's Iraq: Rape, Executions and 

Torture,” Truthout, March 21, 2013, accessed May 20, 

2014. http://truth-out.org/news/item/15246-malikisiraq-rape-executions-and-torture. 

70 Barnett, “Building a Republican Peace,” 90. 



Saddam Hussein and other autocrats) has 

grown tremendously with the loosening of 

censorship and state patronage—to develop, 

and learn “the arts of consensus building, 

[and] compromise.” 72 The challenge remains: 

that civil society move toward underwriting a 

state structure, especially, a working legislative 

process and a national army not beholden to 

different tribal leaders and bureaucratic 

factions. 

Now that some factions have started 

to grope towards a consensus of state power, 

they can no longer ride out in opposition and 

must make compromises to compete within 

the framework set by the central government. 

This often means cooperating with an outgroup 

and enforcing conformity among 

internal dissenters. Ideally, this should 

strengthen the community's sense of being 

protected by the state and thus, part of a 

single nation within the state's borders. But in 

order to placate core constituencies, some 

groups will brutalize and extort both Sunni 

and Shia citizens. Clearly, a civil society that 

does not resort to violence to win a share of 

the pie is still a long way off in light of the 

Shia parties’ recent debates over how to do 

just that. 73 

The door the Americans opened is 

not going to close anytime soon, so a 

“national identity” will likewise remain elusive, 

especially as the counterinsurgency against the 

Islamic State takes on a more sectarian 

character. Shia militias persecute all Sunnis in 

an area of operations, regardless of their 

complicity. Kurdish forces have evicted non- 

Kurds from their areas of operation for 

“security reasons,” and Sunni communities 

have turned on their non-Sunni neighbors, 

especially if they are part of Iraqi’s smallest 

minority groups (and therefore, the least 

militarily-organized or influential). The Iraqi 

state remains over stated, and increasingly, so 

is the concept of a common Iraqi nationality 

whose survival is now in much more doubt 

than it ever was during the first years of the 

Iraqi Civil War. 

PAUL MUTTER is a graduate student at NYU 

pursuing an MA in International Affairs. He is a 

blogger for the Foreign Policy Association, and 

also writes for War Is Boring, The Arabist and 

Souciant Magazine. 




Power to the 

Babushkas? 

Reconsidering the Relationship 

between Russian Politics and 

the Elderly 

Ilaria Parogni 

“P 

arty for everybody! Dance!” 

This was the refrain of a song 

performed by Buranovskiye 

Babushki, a group of elderly women from 

the Russian village of Buranovo Udmurt 

Republic, during the 2012 Eurovision 

Song Contest. The number was a success, 

and the group finished in second place in 

the contest. 1 In the often-bizarre setting of 

Eurovision, the image of this colorful 

group of smiling grandmothers mixing 

folk tradition with pop seemed perfectly 

placed. Yet, it was much more difficult to 

conciliate it with the ideas most 

commonly associated with the elderly as 

the poor, disgruntled, and most progovernment 

segment of the Russian 

population. 2 

1 Eurovision Song Contest, About Buranovskiye 

Babushki (December 10, 2014), 

http://www.eurovision.tv/page/history/year/part 

icipant-profile/?song=26973. 

2 OECD. OECD Reviews of Labour Market and Social 

Policies: Russian Federation 2011 (December 2011): 

162, http://www.oecdilibrary.org/employment/oecd-reviews-of-labourmarket-and-social-policies_20743408; 

Denis Pinchuk, “Russian Pensioners Protest 

against High Food Prices,” Reuters (November 3, 

2007), 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/11/03/usprotest-russia-food-idUSL0312283020071103; 

This contrast reveals the power of 

stereotypes (and, yes, Buranovskiye 

Babushki themselves could be said to 

embody a stereotype) in shaping the ways 

in which observers cast an entire social 

group. In an attempt to go past the 

stereotypes associated with the Russian 

elderly as a homogeneous group of 

enfeebled victims of state neglect, I will 

explore the political significance of the 

elderly in contemporary Russia, 

highlighting the potential impact that 

members of this demographic can have 

on politics. 3 By looking at how voting 

patterns and issues related to Russian 

pensioners have both constrained and 

facilitated certain political outcomes, I will 

bring attention to the precariousness of 

the relationship between the Russian 

government and the country’s older 

citizens. 

In the first section, I will discuss 

the connection between politics and old 

age in Russia, focusing on the main 

themes defining their exchange and the 

challenges in researching this subject due 

to the limited scholarship and data 

available. In the second section, this 

report will offer an overview of instances 

in post-Soviet history from 1991 on that 

reveal recurring patterns in Russian 

politics vis-à-vis its senior citizens. In the 

final section, I will show how these 

patterns might be a destabilizing factor in 

the current political environment and a 

Aleksei Levinson, “The Institutional Framework 

of Old Age: Old Age as Gender,” Sociological 

Research 52, no. 3 (May–June 2013): 53. 

3 Aleksei Levinson, “The Institutional 

Framework,” 53; 

Andrea Chandler, “Democratization, Social 

Welfare and Individual Rights in Russia: The Case 

of Old-Age Pensions,” Canadian Slavonic Papers / 

Revue Canadienne des Slavistes 43, No. 4 (December 

2001): 429. 


potential danger to the longevity of the 

Putinist enterprise. As unfavorable 

economic circumstances are exacerbated 

by the imposition of economic sanctions 

by the West and declining oil prices, could 

Russia’s pensioners rise in revolt against 

the system? 

POLITICS AND OLD AGE: THEMES 

AND CHALLENGES 

Politics and society can interact in 

different ways depending on the political 

system in place and the level of 

development of civil society. In the 

majority of cases, however, this 

interaction is reciprocal—society defines 

and constrains politics as much as politics 

shapes society. This is, of course, also true 

of Russia. Various scholars, including 

Anna Arutunyan in The Putin Mystique, and 

Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy in Mr. 

Putin: Operative in the Kremlin, have adopted 

this outlook. 4 Both present in-depth looks 

4 Anna Arutunyan, The Putin Mystique. Inside Russia’s 

Power Cult. Northampton, (MA: Olive Branch 

Press, 2014). 

In her book The Putin Mystique, Arutunyan (2014) 

investigates the roots of Vladimir Putin’s popular 

regime. Her study delves into the inner workings 

of the Russian mind by analyzing the relationship 

between the ruled and the ruled. Arutunyan 

highlights the quasi-sacral aspect of this bond 

through a series of portraits of individuals 

belonging to different groups: the “subjects” 

(regular citizens), the “oprichniki” (the security 

apparatus), and the “boyars” (the oligarchs). The 

author looks back to history to highlight elements 

of continuity in Russia’s penchant for the cult of 

power and power leaders, highlighting how 

Russians experience state power as a “mystical 

entity” able to act to establish order when laws fail. 

In Arutunyan’s account, Putin exploits the 

mystique surrounding the figure of the president as 

a god-like figure. 

at the state established by Putin and his 

inner circle through the prism of his 

relationship with his subjects, thus 

discarding the view of the current regime 

as a monolithic dictatorship solely defined 

by those in power. 

The notion of society as a 

“victim” of politics is an easy trap to fall 

into when the elderly are involved, 

especially in Russia. Ever since the 

collapse of the Soviet Union, as the 

economic crisis engulfed the country, 

images of Russian babushkas 

(grandmothers) begging on the streets of 

Moscow have become tragically iconic. 

Pensions in Russia, for both civilian 

workers and military servicepeople, are 

Fiona Hill and Clifford J. Gaddy, Mr. Putin: 

Operative in the Kremlin, (Washington, D.C.: 

Brookings Institution Press, 2013). 

In Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin, Hill and Gaddy 

(2013) offer an overview of Russia under Putin 

through a thoughtful analysis of various identities 

associated with the Russian leader. Each identity – 

the Statist, the History Man, the Survivalist, the 

Outsider, the Free Marketer, and the Case Officer 

– is connected with a specific moment in Putin’s 

personal history. In their assessment, the various 

identities define Putin’s role as CEO of the 

country as a corporate empire (“Russia, Inc.”) in 

which the private commercial interests are tied 

together with those of the Russian state. The result 

is a state that operates on two levels: the formal 

political institutions and the informal system, 

“which provides access to prestigious positions 

and a whole array of perks and privileges, 

including the possibility of self-enrichment” (p. 5). 

The authors argue that the model envisaged, 

however, cannot work on a mass scale because the 

widespread corruption that prevents the model 

from functioning is also the glue that holds the 

system in place. 


extremely low by European standards. 5 

Foreign and Russian media often 

emphasize the struggles and gloomy 

outlook faced by the older portion of the 

population. 6 And yet, anyone who has 

visited Russia over the last few years will 

likely have encountered the feisty and 

tougher side of the country’s senior 

citizens, be it in the form of a pensioner 

chanting communist slogans at a protest 

or a museum guard shouting at the 

tourists getting too close to the paintings 

in St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum. 

Scholars have replicated the 

tendency to assume that the Russian 

elderly are passive victims by depriving 

them of attention as agents of change. No 

study thus far has captured the ways in 

which the relationship between the state 

and the elderly is structured in Russia. 

Most of the scholarship dedicated to 

issues affecting Russian pensionery 

(pensioners) focuses on pension law and 

reform, often taking a top-down approach 

to these issues. 7 Even when scholars have 

been able to appreciate that the exchange 

5 The Associated Press, “How Retirement Systems 

Vary, Country to Country,” Finance Yahoo, 

(December 30, 

2013),http://finance.yahoo.com/news/retirementsystems-vary-country-country-055009752.html; 

Andrew E. Kramer, “Russia Raises Some Salaries 

and Pensions for Crimeans,” The New York Times, 

(March 31, 2014), 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/world/eur 

ope/russia-raises-pensions-for-crimeans.html. 

6 “What it means to get old in Russia,” RT (Russian 

Today), (February 10, 2011), 

http://rt.com/news/old-russia-elderly-people/. 

7 For example: Linda J. Cook, Postcommunist Welfare 

States: Reform Politics in Russia and Eastern Europe, 

(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007); 

Theodore P. Gerber and Jonas Radl (2014). 

“Pushed, Pulled, or Blocked? The Elderly and the 

Labor Market in Post-Soviet Russia,” Social Science 

Research 45 (May 2014): 152-169. 

is far from unilateral, as is the case with 

Andrea Chandler’s 2004 study of pension 

reform in post-Soviet Russia, this 

approach has not developed into a deeper 

study of the relationship. 8 

There is an absence of a solid 

body of qualitative and quantitative data 

analyzing the political behavior of the 

elderly, which partly explains why scholars 

have paid little attention to the issue. Only 

a few surveys focus on political attitudes 

and preferences by age group in Russia, 

and polling data on the voting behavior of 

the elderly is even rarer. 9 Moreover, an 

analysis of electoral results and data issued 

by Russian government organizations 

cannot avoid facing questions regarding 

the veracity of the materials available due 

to repeated reports of fraud and 

irregularities in the Russian electoral 

process. 10 

It is therefore important to initiate 

a discourse on this topic. While academics 

still debate the possibility of a recovery 

from the demographic crisis that hit 

Russia in the 1990s, it is now increasingly 

difficult to argue against the idea of its 

population growing older as life 

expectancy and fertility rate continue to 

8 Andrea Chandler, Shocking Mother Russia: 

Democratization, Social Rights, and Pension Reform in 

Russia, 1990-2001, (Toronto, Canada: University of 

Toronto Press, 2004). 

9 “Faktory Elektoral’nogo Vybora,” FOM 

(December 18, 2003), 

http://bd.fom.ru/report/cat/elect/parl_el/dd034 

929; 

“Vyborye Prezidenta: Kak Golosovali Sotsialnye 

Gruppy.” Levada Tsentr (March 27, 2012): 

http://www.levada.ru/27-03-2012/vyboryprezidenta-kak-golosovali-sotsialnye-gruppy. 

10 James Balls, “Russian Election: Does the Data 

Suggest Putin Won Through Fraud?” The Guardian, 

(March 5, 2012), 

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/201 

2/mar/05/russia-putin-voter-fraud-statistics. 


ise. 11 Moreover, the notion according to 

which Russian pensioners are among the 

most politically active segments of the 

population and some of Putin’s most loyal 

supporters has become so commonplace 

both in academia and the media that it 

deserves to be put to the test. 

A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW 

In Soviet times, the Russians 

developed the country’s first national old 

age pension system, and kept improving 

benefits for selected categories of 

workers. 12 The cornerstone of the Soviet 

approach to pensions was the 1956 

Pension Law, which made the state solely 

responsible for pensions and guaranteed 

pensions automatically after a certain 

number of years spent working. 13 The 

system might have prevented the 

accumulation of personal wealth, but it 

was fairly generous and, above all, 

universal. 14 

With the dissolution of the USSR, 

the situation worsened dramatically for 

the Russian elderly. Even before the 

collapse, social scientists and economists 

11 Max Fisher, “Did Russia Just Overcome Its 20- 

Year Demographic Crisis?” The Washington Post 

(November 1, 2012), 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldvie 

ws/wp/2012/11/01/did-russia-just-overcome-its- 

20-year-demographic-crisis/; 

Aleksei Levinson, “The Institutional Framework,” 

53. 

12 Andrea Chandler, Shocking Mother Russia, 24. 

13 Andrea Chandler, “Democratization, Social 

Welfare,” 418. 

14 Linda J. Cook, Postcommunist Welfare States, 2; 

John B. Williamson and Michelle L. Maroto, “The 

Political Economy of Pension Reform in Russia: Why did 

Russia Adopt the World Bank Model?” Presented at 

100th Annual Meeting of the American 

Sociological Association held in Philadelphia, PA, 

August 13-16 (2005): 3. 

among the proponents of Mikhail 

Gorbachev’s perestroika had included the 

pension law among the targets of their 

restructuring efforts. 15 After 1991, a 

reform program was supposed to be 

gradually implemented between 1990 and 

1992, but, as aptly pointed out by 

Chandler, the situation was “overtaken by 

events.” 16 The adoption of “shock 

therapy” under Boris Yeltsin and the 

economic crisis that followed directly 

affected the life of the population at large, 

with poverty, inequality, and 

unemployment growing exponentially. 17 

By 2001, Chandler had identified the 

plight of pensioners in Russia as “one of 

the most tragic social consequences of the 

collapse of communism.” 18 

The elderly were among the most 

severely affected, with their meager 

pensions losing their value as inflation 

wiped out many families’ savings. 

Payments were increasingly delayed, as the 

budget deficit inherited from the 

communist era became unbearable. 19 

Meanwhile, the liberalization process was 

investing politics too. Competitive 

elections, as well as the competition 

between the legislative power represented 

by the State Duma and the executive 

power of the presidency before 1993, 

ensured that discussion of poverty among 

the elderly became a highly politicized 

issue. 20 

15 Linda J. Cook, Postcommunist Welfare States, 56. 






19 Andrea Chandler, Democracy, Gender, and Social 

Policy in Russia: A Wayward Society. (Croydon, UK: 

Palgrave Macmillan, 2013): 87. 




From this point of view, Russia’s 

senior citizens were among the “victims” 

of circumstances. On a different level, 

however, one could argue that politicians 

were equally constrained by their reliance 

on popular support. In his essay “The 

Collapse of Civility in Russia: The Young 

and Aged in a Failed Society,” Ronald E. 

Jones illustrates how maintaining support 

among the older portion of the population 

was considered essential by the Soviet 

authorities, as a generous pension and full 

employment were the two core values of 

the system. 21 In an attempt to maintain 

this support, they would rely on shortterm 

solutions, such as increasing 

pensions to specific groups of workers, 

without considering the structural changes 

that would have been required for the 

system to become sustainable in the long 

run. 22 

This tendency to rely on shortterm 

solutions has, according to Chandler, 

become an institutionalized habit in 

Russia. 23 As the pension arrears threatened 

Yeltsin’s popularity ahead of the 1996 

presidential elections, for example, the 

Russian president publicly condemned the 

issue and used his authority to unblock 

the payments. 24 His inner circle fully 

supported this measure. 

Another issue that Yeltsin had to 

face was the emergence of the elderly as 

an active force in the political arena. In 

particular, as pensioners disillusioned with 

capitalism filled the ranks of the 

Communist Party of Russia, as well as the 

smaller Party of Pensioners, opposition 

parties made the protection of pensioners’ 

rights a top platform plank. 25 This directly 

threatened Yeltsin’s position in power, as 

many of those who had personally 

experienced the disastrous consequences 

of the economic crisis opposed his 

reelection, supporting Communist leader 

Gennady Zyuganov instead as he 

promised a return to Soviet-style 

welfarism. Many have argued that Yeltsin 

might have lost, had he not relied on the 

oligarchs to rig the elections. 26 

CAN RUSSIAN PENSIONERS 

BRING DOWN THE SYSTEM? 

A defining aspect of the 

relationship between the state and the 

elderly in Russia is the fact that economic 

concerns have often created situations of 

imbalance, with discontent leading to 

active opposition. As argued by Chris 

Gilleard and Paul Higgs in The Power of 

Silver: Age and Identity Politics in the 21 st 

Century, while political militancy among 

the elderly has failed to materialize in the 

West, it is much more likely to develop in 

post-Communist countries. 27 This partly 

explains the narrative according to which 

Putin has the support of the older 

population, since his arrival on the 

political scene coincided with the gradual 

improvement of the economic situation 

within the country. The favorable 

economic conditions allowed the Russian 

leader to complete the deferred reform of 

the pension system with the introduction 

of a centralized national pension fund. 

21 Ronald E. Jones, “The Collapse of Civility in 

Russia: The Young and Aged in a Failed Society,” 

Sociological Inquiry 72, Issue 3 (Summer 2002): 413. 

22 OECD, OECD Reviews, 3. 

23 Andrea Chandler, Shocking Mother Russia, 26. 



25 Stephen White, “Soviet Nostalgia and Russian 

Politics,” Journal of Eurasian Studies 1(2010): 7. 

26 Anna Arutunyan, The Putin Mistique, 174. 

27 Chris Gilleard and Paul F. D. Higgs, “The 

Power of Silver: Age and Identity Politics in the 

21st Century,” Journal of Aging & Social Policy 

21(2009), 12. 


The system transitioned towards a “multipillar 

arrangement,” bringing together 

features of different pension schemes, 

including mandatory and voluntary 

provisions, as well as a pay-as-you-go 

system of contributions and pre-funding 

to finance benefits. 28 This coincided with 

visible improvements in the lives of 

Russian pensioners that happened to 

coincide with the reforms’ timing: most 

arrears in pensions and benefits were 

eliminated, and the average pension rose 

above the above subsistence level. 29 

Yet even Putin approached the 

elderly with care, cultivating support 

among the interested parties through 

public speeches and pension increases, 

timed to coincide with the introduction of 

the reforms. 30 Moreover, the government 

was able to absorb the Party of Pensioners 

within the “managed opposition”— 

showing the importance placed on 

defusing its political independence. 

Having merged with other two parties to 

form “Just Russia,” the Party of 

Pensioners led by Igor Zotov left this bloc 

in 2012 to form the Russian Pensioners 

For Justice Party. 31 The “new” pensioners’ 

party has consistently supported Vladimir 

Putin and United Russia. 32 

All of this effort on the 

government’s part might be justified. 

After all, Russian pensioners have gone 

rogue under Putin before. When a law 

came into effect in 2005 that replaced 

28 OECD, OECD Reviews, 174. 


30 Andrea Chandler, Shocking Mother Russia, 143; 

157. 

31 “Istoriya Partii,” Rossiyskaya Partiya Pensionerov za 

Spravedlivost, http://www.ppzs.ru/2013-06-23-14- 

42-57/история6-23-14. 

32 “Rossiyskaya Partiya Pensionerov,” FOM 

(March 31, 2005), 

http://bd.fom.ru/report/map/projects/dominant 

/dom0513/dd051332/printable/. 

longstanding social benefits (including 

free public transportation and healthcare) 

with monthly cash payments, groups of 

pensioners took to the street to express 

their opposition to it. In a comment piece 

published in The Nation, Katrina vanden 

Heuvel described the protests as “the 

largest, angriest and most passionate since 

Putin came to power,” hinting that they 

could pose a serious challenge to the 

stability of his regime. 33 The Russian 

leader’s response—doubling increases in 

pension payments and reintroducing free 

public transport—proved that Russian 

pensioners could exact concessions from 

the authorities much more than previously 

imaged. 34 This approach brings to mind the 

policies pursued by the leader of another 

post-Soviet country: the Belarusian 

president Alexander Lukashenko. In 

power since 1994, and dubbed by the 

West as “Europe’s last dictator,” has often 

relied on the country’s older demographic 

groups for support. To maintain his 

power base, throughout the years he has 

repeatedly increased pensions. 35 President 

Lukashenko has fully embraced the image 

33 Katrina vanden Heuvel, “Babushkas vs. Putin,” 

The Nation (January 20, 2005), 

http://www.thenation.com/article/babushkas-vsputin. 

34 Claire Bigg, “Protests Across Russia Force Putin 

to Double Increase in Pension Payments,” The 

Guardian, (January 18, 2005), 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jan/19 

/russia. 

35 “Pensions Increased by 15.3 Per cent in 

Belarus,” BBC Monitoring International Reports 

(September 22, 1998); 

President of the Republic of Belarus, Alexander 

Lukashenko Signs Decree on Raising Pensions, (October 

24, 2014): 

http://president.gov.by/en/news_en/view/alexan 

der-lukashenko-signs-decree-on-raising-pensions- 

10065. 


of president as champion of the elderly, 

speaking out, for example, against the 

unpopular proposal of increasing the 

country’s retirement age. 36 The Belarusian 

strategy, while feasible in the short term, 

however, could prove financially 

unsustainable in the future, as highlighted 

in a 2009 study by the European 

Commission. 37 In contrast, Ukraine, a 

country facing severe economic and 

security issues, has had to deal with 

pressure from Europe to take a tougher 

stance in the pension sector. In March 

2015, the Ukrainian government approved 

pension cuts alongside a whole set of 

other austerity measures, hoping to get 

financial help from the IMF in exchange. 38 

Pensions in Ukraine were lower than in 

Russia even before the cuts, as proved by 

the increase in pension size experienced 

by the residents of Crimea following the 

Russian annexation of the peninsula in 

2014 and their adjustment to Russian 

rates. 39 Ever since Putin’s return to the 

presidency in 2012, Russian experts have 

36 “Lukashenko Speaks against Raising Retirement 

Age in Belarus,” Belarus Bureau Prime-Tass (March 

16, 2012), http://www.primetass.by/english/print.asp?id=98447. 

37 European Commission, Social Protection and Social 

Inclusion in Belaru (2009), 

http://ec.europa.eu/social/BlobServlet?docId=43 

46&langId=en. 

38 Anastasia Forina, “Verkhovna Rada Revises $20 

Billion Budget, Cuts Pensions in Hopes of $25 

Billion in Loans,” Kyiv Post (March 13, 2015), 

http://www.kyivpost.com/content/politics/verkh 

ovna-rada-revises-20-billion-budget-cuts-pensionsin-hopes-of-25-billion-financial-aid-382405.html. 

39 Andrew E. Kramer, “Russia Raises Some 

Salaries and Pensions for Crimeans,” The New York 

Times (March 31, 2014), 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/world/eur 

ope/russia-raises-pensions-forcrimeans.html?_r=2. 

noted how the government has moved 

closer to the Russian Orthodox Church 

and presented itself as the promoter of 

traditional values and nationalism. To 

some, like Arutunyan, this was a move 

aimed at creating a split within the 

opposition. 40 Yet, it could be argued that 

the move is also a way to capture the 

favor of the part of the population that 

traditionally has a more conservative 

outlook on the issues targeted, including 

homosexuality and respect for religious 

authorities. Putin’s nod to the patriotic 

sentiment of the country, as embodied by 

the great fanfare that surrounds 

celebrations honoring World War II 

veterans, can be explained in a similar 

way. 41 

Finally, looking at the mass 

protests that took place in Russia between 

2011 and 2013, it is also important to 

notice that they saw the participation of 

people belonging to all age groups: the 

young, the middle-aged, and the elderly. 42 

So far, this essay has highlighted 

the patterns that dominate the relationship 

between the Russian authorities and the 

elderly. The main goal of this approach 

has been to provide foundation to the 

thesis according to which the current 

situation in Russia might prove to be a 

defining moment for the country’s 

politics, and that one of the reasons for 

this might be the complexity of the 

exchange between politics and the older 

segment of population. 

Against the backdrop of the 

Ukrainian crisis, Russia faces severe 

40 Anna Arutunyan, The Putin Mystique, 266. 

41 “Putin Thanks WWII Veterans for Their 

Heroism during War,” ITAR-TASS (May 9, 2014), 

http://itar-tass.com/en/russia/731040. 

42 Anton N. Oleinik, “Mass Protests in the 

Context of the Russian Power Regime,” Russian 

Social Science Review 54, no. 3 (May- June 2013), 2. 


economic issues, including rampant 

inflation, an impending recession, and 

declining oil prices. The situation has been 

exacerbated by the introduction of 

economic sanctions by Western countries 

in response to Russia’s position over 

Crimea. 43 In response to the economic 

downturn, the Russian government has 

targeted pensions in particular. In August 

2014 the government dipped into pension 

funds, diverting $8 billion in contributions 

earmarked for retirement schemes 

towards government spending. 44 In 

October 2014, in an even more 

controversial move, the Russian State 

Duma passed in its first reading a bill, 

known as the Rotenberg Law, which 

would allow citizens and companies who 

have lost property abroad due to the 

economic sanctions to seek 

reimbursement from the state. 45 

According to both Western and Russian 

media, it is likely that the money to 

finance the refunds will be taken from 

pension funds. 46 Former Finance Minister 

43 Moody’s, Moody's: Russia Sanctions Exacerbate the 

Country's Economic Challenges But Liquidity Crisis 

Unlikely in the Short-Term (July 14, 2014), 

https://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys- 

Russia-sanctions-exacerbate-the-countryseconomic-challenges-but-liquidity--PR_305457. 

44 Allison Schrager, “Unlike Russia, the U.S. 

Government Won't Take Your Pension Outright,” 

Bloomberg Businessweek (August 18, 2014), 

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-08- 

18/russia-seized-citizens-pension-funds-dot-couldthat-happen-in-the-u-dot-s-dot. 

45 Sam Skove, “Russia's State Duma Passes Law 

Compensating Western Asset Seizures in First 

Reading,” The Moscow Times (October 8, 2014), 

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/articl 

e/russias-state-duma-passes-law-compensatingwestern-asset-seizures-in-firstreading/508651.html. 

46 Alexey Eremenko, “Cabinet Wants to 

Compensate Russian Victims of 'Illegal' Asset 

Seizures Abroad,” The Moscow Times (2014, 

Alexei Kudrin has severely condemned 

the renewed reliance of the government 

on pension savings as a move that 

threatens the long-term stability of the 

system. 47 “The concentration of resources 

at the expense of long-term stability—this 

is the result of the view that the task is to 

‘withstand’ the next two or three years,” 

Kudrin wrote in a column for Russian 

newspaper Kommersant. 48 

Kudrin’s words echo the 

considerations made in this essay 

regarding the tendency showed by Russian 

authorities towards preferring short-term 

solutions over long-term planning. 

Moreover, as previously highlighted, the 

relationship between politics and Russia’s 

senior citizens tends to shift whenever the 

economic conditions undergo a dramatic 

change—like it is the case in today’s 

Russia. The behavior of the Russian 

government, willing to return on its steps 

when facing discontent among the elderly, 

due to its unpopular policies, proves that 

Russian pensioners are perceived as a 

volatile yet important segment of the 

population. And while it is true, as 

pointed out by Mariya Riekkinen of 

Finland’s Åbo Akademi University, during 

October 2, 2014), 


e/russian-government-backs-rotenberg-bill-toblunt-western-sanctions/508304.html; 

Moskovskiy Komsomolets, Krepostnaya Rossiya 

(October 2, 2014), 

http://www.mk.ru/politics/2014/10/02/krepostn 

aya-rossiya.html. 

47 Reuters, “Kudrin Joins Growing Criticism of 

State's Use of Pension Savings,” The Moscow Times 

(August 8, 2014), 


e/kudrin-joins-growing-criticism-of-state-s-use-ofpension-savings/504810.html. 

48 Alexey Kudrin, “Pravila Igry,” Kommersant 

(August 8, 2014), 

http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2540459. 


a Skype interview in November 2014, that 

today’s pensioners will not be affected by 

Russia’s decision to dip into pensions 

funds, the situation sets the scene for a 

future in which the elderly might see their 

pensions threatened. 49 

One must also not forget the fact 

that Russian pensioners have consistently 

proved to be politically active and 

heterogeneous in their approach to 

politics. 50 From Communists to convinced 

Putinists, from anti-Putin liberals to 

grandparents who rarely vote, the elderly 

will turn out on the streets to protest. This 

could prove to be a double-edged sword 

for Putin. Even though so far he has 

proven to be able to control the political 

outcome and has restrained discontent 

among the elderly, such a multi-layered 

social group can become unpredictable in 

situations of crisis and more difficult to 

manage. 

CONCLUSION 

According to the views of the 

economists of The Russian Presidential 

Academy of National Economy and 

Public Administration (RANEPA), Russia 

is too old for a revolution. 51 RANEPA 

bases its assumption on two main 

observations: that the group of Russians 

aged 55 and older will grow much more 

solidly than the other age groups, and that 

in the 2012 presidential elections the 

majority of older votes went to Putin. 

RANEPA is only one of the many 

organizations guilty of oversimplifying the 

49 Skype interview with Mariya Riekkinen, Åbo 

Akademi University, Finland on November 17, 

2014. 

50 Aleksei Levinson, “The Institutional 

Framework,” 55. 

51 “Rossiya Slishkom Stara Dlya Revolutsiya,” 

Finmarket.ru (December 13, 2013), 

http://www.finmarket.ru/main/article/3577467. 

relationship between Russian politics and 

the elderly. 

As illustrated in this essay, 

scholars, the media and politicians too 

often regard the elderly as victims and 

subjects of the state, rather than as 

participating actors with the potential to 

push for policy changes. At the same time, 

the relationship between the Russian 

government and its pensioners remains 

understudied. This led to an 

underestimation of the complexities of 

this relationship and their relevance when 

trying to assess and predict the ways in 

which the current political situation in 

Russia will evolve. 

It is for this reason that this report 

recommends a framework that highlights 

a few features in the relationship that 

might hint at a shift in the balance. 

Namely, Russia’s tendency to rely on 

short-term solutions instead of focusing 

on long-term stability; the defining quality 

of economic factors in shaping the ways 

in which the government is constrained by 

or able to rely on the support of the 

elderly; the high levels of political activism 

and the heterogeneity of the politically 

active pensioners as a complicating factor 

in Russia’s attempt to manage the 

opposition. As the economic climate 

deteriorates further, those elements can 

become increasingly important. The fall of 

the ruble’s value and a food ban on some 

Western imports in response to the 

sanctions appear to have driven up the 

cost of basic foods, which is a major 

concern for the elderly given their special 

dietary needs and fixed incomes. 52 A 2014 

money-saving health care reform 

52 “Russians Feel the Pinch of Rising Food Prices 

as Inflation Bites,” The Moscow Times (February 19, 

2015), 

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article.php?id 

=516256. 


threatens the quality of the services 

delivered by Russian hospitals. 53 All are 

issues that promise to become primary 

concerns for the elderly. 

So, is Russia “too old for a 

revolution?” It is unlikely that Russian 

babushkas will be the force driving an 

actual revolution, especially if one 

subscribes to the theory according to 

which Russia’s revolutionary path has 

more often being forged by the 

intellectual and/or political elites rather 

than by the masses. 54 Yet, the complexity 

of the relationship between politics and 

the elderly shows that the ground might 

be fertile for a disruption of the status 

quo. For that, Russia might just be old 

enough. 

53 Nataliya Vasilyeva, Thousands of Hospital Staff to Be 

Sacked in Russian Healthcare Reforms (November 28, 

2014), 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/euro 

pe/thousands-of-hospital-staff-to-be-sacked-inrussian-healthcare-reforms-9891710.html. 

54 Sergei V. Kulikov, “Revolutions Invariably 

Come from Above. The Fall of Tsarism through 

the Prism of the Elite Circulation Paradigm,” 

Russian Studies in History 47, no. 4 (Spring 2009), 8– 

39. 


FURTHER READING: 

Arutunyan, Anna. The Putin Mystique. Inside 

Russia’s Power Cult. Northampton, 

MA: Olive Branch Press, 2014. 

Chandler, Andrea. Shocking Mother Russia. 

Democratization, Social Rights, and 

Pension Reform in Russia, 1990-2001. 

Toronto, Canada: University of 

Toronto Press, 2004. 

Cook, Linda J. Postcommunist Welfare States. 

Reform Politics in Russia and Eastern 

Europe. Ithaca: Cornell University 

Press, 2007. 

Gerber, Theodore P. and Radl, Jonas. 

Pushed, Pulled, or Blocked? The 

Elderly and the Labor Market in 

Post-Soviet Russia. Social Science 

Research 45, 2014. 

Hill, Fiona and Gaddy, Clifford J. Mr. 

Putin: Operative in the Kremlin. 

Washington, D.C.: Brookings 

Institution Press, 2013. 

Oleinik, Anton N. Mass Protests in the 

Context of the Russian Power 

Regime. Russian Social Science 

Review, vol. 54, no. 3, May–June, 

2013. 

vanden Heuvel, Katrina. Babushkas vs. 

Putin. The Nation. January 20, 

2005. 

ILARIA PAROGNI is an MA candidate in 

Journalism and Russian and Slavic 

Studies at New York University. She 

graduated with honors from University 

College London with a BA in European 

Social and Political Studies. Previously, 

she served as Director of Social Media at 

Russia Beyond the Headlines and was 

the co-founding editor of The Kompass, a 

website on Russian culture in the UK. 

Her work has been published by the 

Huffington Post, The Telegraph, Russia 

Direct, NewEurasia.net, Bedford & 

Bowery and others. 


From Multi-Party to 

Two-Party System 

The Applicability of Duverger’s 

Law and the Taiwanese Election 

Reform 

Pei-Yu Wei 

T 

he Republic of China (ROC), more 

commonly known and accepted as 

Taiwan, has been ruled by the 

Kuomintang (KMT) for the greater part of 

its history. After the Nationalist Party fled to 

the island of Taiwan following the loss of 

China to the Mao-led Chinese Communist 

Party, the KMT froze the constitution 

granting voting rights to citizens. It was not 

until 1986 that the government lifted its 

restrictions on political participation, and 

the first direct presidential election was not 

held until 1996. 

The elections of the Legislative 

Yuan, the highest legislature body in 

Taiwan, were also democratized in 1992, 

and the majority of legislators were elected 

under the Single Non-transferable Vote 

System (SNTV). Under the SNTV system, a 

voter casts one vote for one candidate in a 

multi-candidate race for multiple seats, and 

the candidates with the highest number of 

votes are elected. 1 In 2004, electoral reforms 

were put into place due to increasing public 

pressure against the negative aspects of the 

SNTV system, which included the 

cultivation of party factions and the 

opportunities for radical candidates who 

held niches in agendas and target only a 

specific minority to be elected. 2 

1 Specifically, of the 225 members, 168 were elected 

under the SNTV system, 8 were elected to represent 

the aboriginal population, 8 were elected to represent 

overseas Chinese under proportional representation, 

and 41 were elected under proportional 

representation. 

2 Hans Stockton, “How Rules Matter: Electoral 

Reform in Taiwan,” Social Science Quarterly 91, no. 1 

(2010): 21-41. 

Among the changes undertaken 

were the halving of the number of 

legislators to 113, and switching to a system 

of mixed member parallel (MMP), in which 

voters essentially participate in two separate 

elections, with one ballot for parties where 

the seats are decided through proportional 

representation, and another ballot for 

candidates where the winners are decided on 

a first-past-the-post basis. In the new 

system, 73 constituency seats are decided 

through the single member district (SMD) 

system, and 34 seats from party lists are 

decided through proportional 

representation. In addition, the party seats 

are allocated proportionally for parties that 

have gained at least five percent of the total 

party votes cast in the election cycle. The 

new system was enacted in the 2008 

Legislative elections. 3 

This paper will examine the 

applicability of Duverger’s Law on the 

electoral system before and after the reform. 

Duverger believes that under proportional 

representation systems, voters will be 

induced to vote based on their own 

preferences. However, under plurality 

systems, where only the candidate with the 

most vote(s) win the position, people tend 

to vote “strategically” for the candidate that 

they believe has the best chance of winning. 

This paper finds that while the law generally 

holds for the SNTV system and the SMD 

component of Taiwan’s MMP system, 

namely the constituent vote, the smaller 

parties’ ability to be represented in the 

legislature are actually being constricted, 

contradictory to the intention of Duverger’s 

Law. The paper will be divided into three 

components. First, it will briefly outline the 

theory of Duverger’s Law and the 

methodology applied in the paper. Then, an 

empirical analysis from the data available 

will follow. It will draw comparisons and 

provide explanations of the differences 

between the two results and between the 

results and expectations of the theory. 

3 Jih-wen Lin, “The Politics of Reform in Japan and 

Taiwan,” Journal of Democracy 17, no. 2 (2006): 118- 

131. 


Lastly, possible explanations for the 

deviations of the actual outcomes from the 

predicted ones will be offered, and 

conclusions drawn. 

DUVERGER’S LAW AND METHODOLOGY 

Duverger’s Law links the number of 

parties to the electoral system. Duverger 

finds that two-party systems often develop 

under plurality voting rules, in which every 

person only has one vote to cast for a 

candidate competing for a single seat in a 

district or a region (this is also known as the 

SMD system) 4 . Duverger provides two 

reasons for this phenomenon: the “fusion” 

or the coming together of weak parties to 

retain competitiveness, and the elimination 

of the weaker parties by the stronger parties 

through their superior resources and voters’ 

strategic voting. Proportionality as electoral 

rule, on the other hand, encourages the 

formation of multi-party systems, since 

voters understand that their votes are more 

likely to influence the formation of the 

government. It is not impossible for twoparty 

systems to form, but it is 

comparatively more difficult under 

proportionality systems than it is under 

plurality systems. These observations 

combined make up what is known as 

Duverger’s Law. 

From these two rules further 

expectations could be inferred about 

different systems. In the SNTV system, 

similar to the SMD, voters only have one 

vote, with the major difference being that 

there are multiple seats up for contest. 

Hence, Duverger’s Law, when applied to 

SNTV, predicts that in districts with M seats 

open for election, there will be M+1 viable 

candidates contesting for them. 5 The 

empirical study on the SNTV system in 

4 Maurice Duverger, “Factors in a Two-Party and 

Multiparty System,” in Party Politics and Pressure 

Groups: A Comparative Introduction, Maurice Duverger 

(New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1972), 23-32. 

5 Steven R. Reed, “Structure and Behaviour: 

Extending Duverger's Law to the Japanese Case,” 

British Journal of Political Science 20, no. 3 (1990): 335- 

356. 

Taiwan done by Hsieh and Niemi provides 

evidence to support this. It also shows that 

the larger the district magnitude, the lower 

the level of strategic voting, since it would 

be more difficult for candidates and voters 

to calculate the probabilities of winning. 6 

This means that the more seats that are up 

for grabs in a single district, the more the 

voters will vote based on their real 

preferences and not because they believe 

that certain candidates stand higher chances 

of winning. Thus, in larger districts, the 

results will be more proportional in nature, 

and with a higher possibility of having more 

than M+1 candidates competing. 

Although there have not been many 

studies done on the applicability of 

Duverger’s Law to mixed systems, it is still 

possible to formulate expectations to the 

outcomes of the elections. Since Taiwan’s 

system is an unlinked parallel one (MMP), 

there is a relatively clear separation between 

the proportional representation (PR) and the 

SMD aspects of the ballots. It is true that in 

a mixed system, the party leaders or 

decision-makers may have other 

considerations. These include the placement 

of candidates on the party list or running in 

constituencies, and of candidates deciding 

whether to vie for a higher place on the 

party list or run in “safe constituencies.” 

However, for voters, since the party vote 

and the constituent vote are largely 

unconnected, it is safe to assume that their 

decisions for the two votes would also be 

separated instead of being interconnected. 

This is because voters do not need to 

consider the effects of splitting their ballots 

among different parties or candidates on the 

overall representation of their preferred 

parties. Therefore, for the SMD portion of 

the seats, we can expect to observe the 

dominance of two parties, while for the PR 

seats we can expect to see the presence of 

smaller parties, as per Duverger’s theory. 

Whether the system leans towards a two- 

6 John Fuh-sheng Hsieh and Richard G. Niemi, “Can 

Duverger’s Law be Extended to SNTV? The Case of 

Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan Elections.” Electoral Studies 

18, no. 1 (1999): 101-116. 


party system or a multi-party system 

depends on the relative ratio of the PR seats 

and the SMD seats. 7 

This paper will utilize the data of the 

Legislative Yuan elections from 1992 to 

2012, which comprises seven election cycles, 

because 1992 was the first year of direct 

legislative elections. Thus, to avoid the 

problem of regime change, this paper will 

not consider the data before 1992. The next 

section will examine the makeup of the 

different legislatures for each election cycle, 

a general empirical pre-reform and postreform 

comparison. 

EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS 

This section will analyze the seven 

Legislative Yuan elections individually, and 

then the pre-reform and post-reform 

differences will be examined 

comprehensively. Due to the number of 

new parties participating in each election 

cycle and the fluidity of small parties, apart 

from the few large parties that have 

maintained a somewhat steady presence in 

the elections since democratization, the 

majority of the parties participating in

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