Introduction Political Geography

AN INTRODUCTION TOPOLITICAL GEOGRAPHY

Old powers are falling. New states are emerging. The gap between East and West is narrowing. Yetthe developments in the Middle East and Eastern bloc, the increasing disparity between the rich andpoor nations, the intensification of economic competition between former political allies in the richcore, pose new threats and tensions for the New World.

An Introduction to Political Geography, in its first edition, helped to shape the study of thediscipline. Entirely revised and updated this new edition explores political and geographic changewithin the same accessible framework, emphasizing the need for a fluid approach to the study of theinternational order, the nation-state, as well as social movements.

Examining the North-South and East-West dimensions in the World Order and the rise of newcentres of power from an historical perspective, Part I provides a background for discussion ofcurrent trends and future developments. The nation state, the key unit that binds the generality ofworld order with the particularity of individual households, is introduced through analytic study inPart II, whilst Part III utilises detailed case studies to discuss social movements and the politics oftime and place.

Entirely revised and updated this new edition emphasizes the trend towards globalization butchallenges the traditional integration of the world systems approach. A new section on the politicalgeography of participation considers the concept of the global village, with its concerns for globaljustice and environmentalism. The extent to which active participation of people can determinesocial and political change prompts a range of original discussions.

John Rennie Short is Professor of Geography at Syracuse University, New York.

AN INTRODUCTION TOPOLITICAL GEOGRAPHY

Second editionJohn Rennie Short

London and New York

Second edition first published 1993by Routledge

11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003.

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canadaby Routledge

29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

© 1993 John Rennie Short

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted orreproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or

other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying andrecording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without

permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA catalogue reference for this title is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataShort, John R.

An introduction to political geography/John Rennie Short.—2. ed.

p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Political geography. I. Title.JC319.S52 1993

320.1´2–dc20 92–24742

ISBN 0-203-41872-7 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-72696-0 (Adobe eReader Format)ISBN 0-415-08226-9 (hbk)ISBN 0-415-08227-7 (pbk)

v

CONTENTS

Figures ixTables xiPreface to the second edition xiiiAcknowledgements xv

INTRODUCTION 1

Part I The Political Geography of the World Order

1 UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT: THE CAPITALIST WHIRLPOOL 5

2 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SUPERPOWERS: THE EAST-WEST FULCRUM 35

3 THE MULTIPOLAR WORLD 57

Part II The Political Geography of the State

4 THE STATE AND THE WORLD ORDER 71

5 THE NATION-STATE 91

6 THE STATE AS SPATIAL ENTITY 115

Part III The Political Geography of Participation

7 PEOPLE AND THE STATE 133

8 THE GLOBAL VILLAGERS 145

9 CITIZENS AND THE CITY 149

Postscript 167Index 172

FOR MY BROTHER, KEVIN

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FIGURES

1.1 Comparative statistics 5A.1 The Rostow model 71.2 The expansion of European formal empires: Europe and colonies as a percentage

of world surface area and population 131.3 Colonialism in Africa, 1880 141.4 Colonialism in Africa, 1914 141.5 Flows of capital 151.6 Mackinder’s world view 181.7 Middle East in 1930 191.8 Contemporary Africa 221.9 Rent commodity prices deflated by price of manufactures: 1870–1986 241.10 Selected statistics 301.11 Classification of countries 301.12 Growth rates in manufacturing 32

2.1 Early US expansionism 372.2 Eastern Europe, 1945–89 392.3 The bipolar world 472.4 Superpower alliances, 1990 522.5 The world centred on Moscow 532.6 The world centred on Washington 53

3.1 A multipolar world 593.2 Open trading areas in China 603.3 Japan 613.4 The European Economic Community, 1992 643.5 Europe in 2000 AD? 65

4.1 The British Empire 744.2 The world centred on London 754.3 Alternative models of state policy 774.4 The crises of the state 834.5 Categorization of state expenditures 85

K.1 Selected countries of the world, 1990 86

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5.1 The Kurdish ‘nation’ 915.2 Black homelands in South Africa, 1990 925.3 Minority areas in Europe 955.4 Republics of the Soviet Union, 1990 975.5 The United Kingdom 985.6 Federal system of the USA 995.7 The local state in England 1025.8 County committee structure 1035.9 Formal decision-making in local government 1045.10 Local states in the USA 1045.11 County government in Iowa 1055.12 Mayor-council form of governance 1065.13 Alternative form of mayor-council relations 1075.14 The commission form of governance 1075.15 The council-manager form of governance 1085.16 Central and local state 1095.17 Jurisdictional fragmentation in the St Louis metropolitan area 111

M.1 Command points and regional governments in UK in the event of a ‘national emergency’ 113

6.1 Physical and population size of selected countries 1186.2 Population and economic size 1186.3 Landlocked states of Africa 1196.4 The creation of new states 1206.5 Changes after the 1967 War 1206.6 The position in 1990 1216.7 Voting for Republican nomination for governor, Vermont, 1952 1226.8 Majority electoral support for George Wallace in 1968 Presidential election 1236.9 A simple model of voting 1236.10 Gerrymandering in Iowa 125

N.1 Cumulative frequency graph 126

7.1 The process of political exclusion 1367.2 Principal sub-divisions of pre-revolutionary France 1397.3 The departments of revolutionary France 1407.4 Resistance to the revolution, 1793–9 142

9.1 Typology of pressure groups 1509.2 Perspectives on power 1519.A An urban riot 1539.3 Central Berkshire in regional context 1559.4 London Docklands 1579.5 Value of non-dwelling building work completed in Sydney 1619.6 New building development approvals in Sydney CBD 1619.7 Working days lost per 1000 employees in the New South Wales construction industry 1639.8 Variation in wages and earnings of building workers, net of the consumer price 164

FIGURES

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TABLES

B.1 Income distribution in three countries 6

1.1 Distribution of mandates by the League of Nations 201.2 Current account balances 271.3 Commodity cartels 281.4 The debt crisis 29

2.1 The domino theory in US foreign policy 40

3.1 Events in Eastern Europe in 1989 583.2 Economic growth rates 61

4.1 Functions of the state 714.2 Changing geopolitical status, 1890–1990 724.3 Changing spheres of influence since 1960 734.4 Approaches to the state 78

5.1 Government spending in the USA 108

6.1 The neighbourhood effect 1236.2 Judicially inspired Congressional reapportionment 1246.3 Disparities in constituency population size, 1955–70 1246.4 Distribution of votes and seats in the 1987 General Election 1266.5 Votes per seat in the 1987 General Election 126

N.1 Changes in representation of state legislation, 1962–8 127

6.6 Three kinds of system 128

7.1 Levels of stability 1337.2 A repertoire of collective action 1377.3 The French revolutionary calendar 141

9.1 The major cleavages 152

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PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

A second edition of this book is long overdue. I wrote the first in the autumn and winter of 1979and the spring and summer of 1980. The book was a necessity. I had been given a lectureship atReading University in 1978 and was expected to teach political geography; this was the teachingcourse of the person who had retired. He left to go on a world cruise and I was lumbered withteaching a course for which I had no experience. I looked round the library. I was disappointed.There seemed nothing exciting or new in the political geography section, just tired texts on bounda-ries and frontiers. With the arrogance of youth and the confidence of the ignorant I decided to writemy own text.

The result was the first edition. My students seemed to like the course and the reviews were, onthe whole, favourable. On the whole is one way of saying that there were some real stinkers. ACanadian accused me of being anti-American, some thought I was too Marxist, others not Marxistenough, some said too theoretical, others not theoretical enough. Reading the reviews made merealize that you cannot please all the people all the time. All you can aim for is a measure ofintellectual honesty and as high a degree of integrity as possible.

A second edition gives me a number of opportunities. It allows me to bring the narrative sectionsup to date. The world has moved on and major changes have occurred especially in East-Westrelations. It also allows me to correct a number of errors. My favourite was on page 12, where amisprint had the Spanish first colonizing the islands of the Caribbean in 1934. One humourlessindividual wrote to me, again from Canada, criticizing me for my lack of historical knowledge. Anew edition gives me the chance to update the first third of the book and improve the last twothirds. Part I keeps its basic shape, while Parts II and III have been recast. I have tried to keep thegood points of the first edition while correcting mistakes, rewriting entire chapters and improvingthe whole exposition.

Note

This book was written at a time of rapid change in the political order. I have tried to include all themajor changes. However, by the time you read this, there will have been further developments, whichmay have affected national boundaries. The book reflects the state of the world in September 1992.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I have to thank a number of people who helped the second edition see the light of day. HeatherBrowning drew the maps and Mandy Jeffery typed a number of drafts of the entire manuscript, Iowe her a very special thanks. David Knight made extensive comments in an earlier version. Hiscomments were argumentative, stimulating and, ultimately, very generous.

1

The attempt is to find concepts and meth-ods which cast light on the real world in-stead of codifying it into the obsolete cat-egories of the academic establishment

(Castells, 1980)

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

A full understanding of society can only beachieved through analysing the strands whichlink spatial structures, political processes andeconomic systems. The overall aim of the bookis to analyse these connecting strands.

The traditional subject matter of geography—the relationships between people and nature, peopleand space, people and places—cannot be sepa-rated from political considerations. The explicitfocus on these considerations constitutes the gen-eral subject matter of political geography.

THE BACKGROUND

Peter Haggett once described geography as a LosAngeles of an academic city: all sprawling neigh-bourhoods and no centre. Like most big citiesthe neighbourhoods change over time, some re-taining their exclusivity while others, once fash-ionable, become rundown and dilapidated. Po-litical geography is an inner-city neighbourhood.It was important in the early development of adiscipline but was bypassed by the growth ofnew suburbs. More recently, however, it has be-come fashionable again. Political geography isin the process of academic gentrification.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centu-ries geography had a very strong political focus.Many of the early geographers such as PeterKropotkin, Sir Halford Mackinder and IsaiahBowman were explicitly concerned with the re-lations between politics and geography in boththeir published work and their public lives.Mackinder, for example, was a British MP, aHigh Commissioner in Russia and chairman ofvarious government committees. Bowman wasan adviser to US President Wilson at the Ver-sailles Peace Treaty meetings. Sadly, this con-cern with the very stuff of politics waned afterMackinder and Bowman. Geo-politics becamediscredited and political geography became anossified subdiscipline of a tired subject, oftentaught, never researched, a prisoner to outdatedtheories.

The surge of the new geography of the 1950sand 1960s bypassed political geography. Withspatial analysis as its theme, neo-classical eco-nomics as its accounting frame, and logical posi-tivism as its methodological underpinning, it couldnot accommodate a political geography. The em-phasis of neo-classical economics on the economyas a harmonious, self-regulating system, whereeach factor of production receives its fair reward,ignored questions of conflict and inequitable dis-tribution. The focus of logical positivism directedattention to verifiable empirical statements in par-ticular and data analysis in general and away fromthe operation of the more incorporeal power re-lations within society. A truly political geographycould not flourish in such a climate. The explicit

INTRODUCTION

2

analysis of politics was being taken over by an-other social science discipline, political science; adiscipline which, in the words of Cobban (1953),was a device for avoiding politics without achiev-ing science. Largely ignored by its discipline andlacking much theoretical sustenance from politi-cal science, it is little wonder that political geog-raphy was a moribund subject.

Things began to change in the 1960s and 1970s.The end of the post-war economic boom wasreflected by the social sciences in the growth ofapproaches which focused on power, conflict andthe inequitable distribution of life chances andresources. The change occurred in many disci-plines—witness the resurgence of Marxist econo-mies and the growth of radical sociology—andwas seen in the emergence of interdisciplinaryapproaches which did not accept the artificialdemarcation of knowledge suggested by tradi-tional academic disciplines. Human geographywas affected by these changes. The emergenceof a radical geography and the development of acritical awareness amongst geographers led toimportant questions of ‘Who gets what?’ and‘Why does who get what?’

The result was a new political geography, whichconsists of old topics re-examined and new ar-eas of enquiry. This rekindled interest is evidentin the growing number of textbooks devoted tothe subject, and the establishment of such jour-nals as Political Geography Quarterly in 1982and Environment and Planning C: Governmentand Policy in 1983. In this book we will concen-trate on three broad areas of interest of this newpolitical geography: the international order, thenationstate and social movements.

STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK

Part I examines the world order. Chapter 1 looksat the North-South dimension of the world or-

der and Chapter 2 considers the East-West split.A historical approach is taken in order to pro-vide a sound background to an examination ofcurrent trends and possible future developments.We need to look into the past to see the present.

In Part II the notion of the nation-state isintroduced. The state is a key unit of analysis; itprovides the explanatory glue that binds an un-derstanding of the world order with an analysisof events at the local level.

Part III discusses the political geography ofsocial movements and provides a discussion ofthe politics of location and the politics of place.

The three parts of the book have a differ-ent approach as well as different subject mat-ter. Part I is an historical exposition, Part II ismore analytical while Part III contains de-tailed case studies. A comprehensive politicalgeography should have room for all threeapproaches.

GUIDE TO FURTHER READING

Books quickly date. To keep up with recent de-velopments in political geography keep an eyeon two journals—Political Geography and En-vironment and Planning C: Government andPolicy. There is also an annual survey of thesubject in Progress in Human Geography. Thewriters change every three years so there is avariety of opinions. Also have a look at WorldGovernment (Oxford University Press, New York)edited by Peter Taylor.

Works cited in this chapter

Castells, M. (1980) ‘Cities and regions beyond thecrisis: invitation to a debate’, International Journalof Urban and Regional Research 4, 127–9.

Cobban, A. (1953) ‘The decline of political theory’,Political Science Quarterly LXVIII, 321–37.

INTRODUCTION

Part I

THE POLITICAL GEOGRAPHYOF THE WORLD ORDER

This section is concerned with the political geography of the world order. This is a huge, compli-cated topic. We can, however, simplify the picture by identifying a coarse-grained grid. Two sets ofco-ordi-nates are: the North-South division, as it is now known, of rich and poor countries and theEast-West split, which used to divide the capitalist and socialist blocs. Since the late 1980s the East-West division has become less relevant, but it is still important to see its evolution if we are tounderstand its disappearance.

Chapter 1 considers the North-South division, chapter 2 examines the East-West split andchapter 3 looks at the rise of new centres of power.

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In the newly opened up countries thecapital imported into them intensifiesantagonisms and excites against the in-truders the constantly growing resist-ance of the peoples who are awakeningto national consciousness; this resist-ance can easily develop into dangerousmeasures against foreign capital. Theold social relations become completelyrevolutionized, the age-long agrarian

isolation of ‘nations without history’ isdestroyed and they are drawn into thecapitalist whirlpool.

(Hilferding, 1910)

INTRODUCTION

Figure 1.1 shows a range of data for Bangla-desh and the USA. Behind these figures lie vastly

1

UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT: THECAPITALIST WHIRLPOOL

Figure 1.1 Comparative statistics

THE POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE WORLD ORDER

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BOX A: THE ROSTOW MODEL

In outline the Rostow model identifies five stages to economic growth:

1 Traditional society: characterized by limited technology, static social structure.2 Precondition take-off: rise in rate of productive investment and evolution of new elites3 Take-off: marked rise in rate of productive investment, development of substantial

manufacturing sectors and emergence of new social and political frameworkswhich encourage and aid sustained economic growth.

4 Drive to maturity: impact of growth affects the whole economy.5 Age of high mass-consumption: shift toward consumer durables.

The model has been used to describe the experience of selected countries (see Figure A.1).Criticisms of the model have centred on its inability to identify casual mechanisms between thedifferent stages.

References

Baran, P.A. and Hobsbawm, E.J. (1961) ‘The stages of economic growth’, Kyklos 14, 324–42.Rostow, W.W. (1960) Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto. Cambridge Univer-

sity Press, Cambridge.Rostow, W.W. (1978) The World Economy. University of Texas Press, Austin and Landin.

Table B.1 Income distribution in three countries

BOX B: RICH AND POOR COUNTRIES

We have to be careful when we use the terms rich and poor when applied to whole countries. The realityis that there are rich people in poor countries and poor people in rich countries. Income is very rarelyevenly distributed throughout the population.

Source: World Development Report 1989, Table 30.

UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT

7

different life experiences. In Bangladesh most peo-ple rarely live beyond 50, they have to share aphysician with over 6000 other people and over1 in 10 of their children die before reaching theage of 1. Compare that with the USA where theaverage person lives to be 75, most people havebetter access to medical care and are less likelyto experience the agony of the death of a child.

These figures are the tangible effects of anuneven development in the world. Uneven in thesense of marked inequalities, development in thebroad sense of economic growth and socialprogress. Bangladesh and the USA are at thetwo extremes of the continuum of uneven de-

velopment, one very poor, the other very rich.They highlight the basic division of the worldinto rich and poor countries. This division hasbeen given a variety of names—developed-un-developed, First World-Third World, North-South.Whatever the labels used the basic question re-mains. How did it come about?

One model used to explain this variation hasbeen put forward by the US economist W.W.Rostow. He argues that economic growth hasbeen achieved by only a few countries. In therest, however, once the barriers of traditionalsociety are broken down, growth can be achieved,leading to the final stage of high mass-consump-tion: left to market forces and time all countrieswill look like the USA. Underpinning the modelis the notion that the international trading sys-tem is a harmonious system in which all coun-tries can benefit. The crucial policy questions ofthe Rostow model are: what are the best meth-ods of establishing the preconditions for growthand how can economic take-off be achieved?Poverty in the Rostow view of things results fromlack of involvement in world trade.

The alternative model, the core-peripherymodel, takes the very opposite stance: povertyarises from involvement with the world economy.The core-periphery model refers to the spatialdivision of the world and a set of economic rela-tionships. The core consists of the rich nations—Japan, North America and Europe while the pe-riphery consists of all other countries. This broad-scale division of the world economy marks offrich countries from poor, economically advancedfrom economically underdeveloped, dependentfrom relatively independent economies and eco-nomic development as growth from economicdevelopment as growing dependence. The richcountries of the ‘north’ constitute the core be-cause the international economy revolves aroundthem and they have been the moving force guid-ing the development of an integrated worldeconomy. The ‘south’ is peripheral in the sensethat its economies are articulated to the needs ofthe rich core countries and the pace and charac-ter of its development have been shaped by

Figure A.1 The Rostow model


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contactwith the core. There are, of course,elaborations to this simple structure:

• We can identify developed peripheral econo-mies such as Australia and South Africa wherethe extraction of minerals and the produc-tion of primary commodities has been asso-ciated with relatively high rates of internaleconomic growth and high average incomes.

• We can also identify semi-peripheral coun-tries which have achieved some level of au-tonomous economic growth. Two types canbe identified: countries such as Brazil, whichhave been moving in the direction of periph-ery to core, and countries such as Britain,which seem to be moving in the oppositedirection, from core to periphery.

THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Beginnings of the world economy

The growth of the core-periphery structure of theworld economy can be said to have started around1500. That date marks the beginning of Euro-pean overseas expansion and the articulation ofan international economy based on flows of goodsand people to and from Europe. The foundationsfor this expansion had been laid almost 350 yearsearlier. From about 1150 the increase in tradeboth within Europe and between Europe and theEast saw the development of a merchant class,the growth of urban trading centres—Genoa, Ven-ice, Naples and Milan in the south, the HanseaticLeague towns of Hamburg, Lubeck and Bremenin the north—and the beginnings of money beingused as a means of exchange. The merchants, theurban trading circuits and the use of money wereessential prerequisites for the development of long-distance trade.

Between 1500 and 1600 European overseasexpansion emanated from Iberia. The search forbullion, the demand for spices and the need forfuel (mainly wood) and food all gave impetus toexploration and when the Ottoman Empire ob-structed overland trade with Africa and Asia, Ibe-

ria was well placed as a base for forging newtrading links with the East. Portuguese merchantsstrung a number of trading posts along the mainsea routes to Africa, India and the Far East andships from Lisbon sailed regularly to Goa (India),Colombo (Sri Lanka), Malacca and Macao, col-lecting pepper, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.Contact in the East was limited to trade with theports. The most important developments in colo-nization took place in the Americas. The Spanishfirst colonized the islands of the Caribbean in thelate fifteenth century. Following the discoveriesmade by Cortes and Pizarro they then moved intoMexico and Peru. The Portuguese meanwhileobtained the eastern half of Brazil after the Papalsettlement of 1493, which divided the New Worldbetween two Old World powers.

Throughout the sixteenth century the Ameri-cas were the scene of extensive exploitation assugar plantations were created and the land wasplundered for gold and silver. Both the minesand plantations used slave labour. Initially, theindigenous Indians had been used but the ap-palling fatalities and the increasing demand ledto the growth of the slave trade. A rudimentarytriangular trade was developed, with ships sail-ing from Europe to West Africa, taking slaves tothe Americas and then returning to Europe withbullion and sugar. The sixteenth century thuswitnessed the growth of the core-periphery struc-ture from its early embryonic form. With theslave trade and the colonization of the Americasmore of the world was brought within the orbitof Europe’s trade. There were also the begin-nings of the international division of labour, withslave labour in the Americas providing primarycommodities for European markets. The goldand silver from Central America which flowedthrough the trading arteries of European mer-chant cities allowed the accumulation of moneyand commercial capital which eventually was tolay the basis for further economic growth. Theplunder from the Americas provided the basisfor investment in the early manufacturing indus-tries of Europe. The nature and the timing of theincorporation of American territories into the

UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT

9

European world economy was to determine thesubsequent development of these areas.

By the beginning of the seventeenth centuryboth Spain and Portugal were being hard pressedby other European powers. From 1600 onwardsthe power of Spain and Portugal began to de-cline as the struggle for commercial mastery wasdisputed between Holland, Britain and France.The centre of gravity in the core was beginningto shift.

The sharpening of conflict arose as the suck-ers of trade, which stretched out from the vari-ous countries, overlapped and struggled for sus-tenance in the same areas of the world. The con-flict was not restricted to the commercial rivalrybetween the great trading companies. Commer-cial rivalry escalated into conflicts between statesas each nation began, in varying degrees, to ac-cept the mercantilist idea that it was the busi-ness of the state to promote the economic inter-ests of the country and that this could best beachieved by stimulating foreign trade. For themercantilists, foreign trade was seen as the chiefmethod of increasing national wealth. Initially,it was thought that the best way to increase wealthwas to accumulate gold and silver; the Spanishoverseas expansion in the sixteenth century waspartly grounded in this belief. Eventually, theemphasis changed to a belief in the efficacy ofthe import of raw materials and the export ofmanufactured goods. The state was called uponto achieve conditions favourable to the balanceof trade, for as Thomas Munn counselled in 1622:‘We must ever observe this rule: to sell more tostrangers yearly than we consume of theirs invalue’ (quoted in Rude, 1972, p. 267). Favour-able conditions of trade meant that the contin-ued supply of raw materials had to be assuredand markets for finished goods had to be madesafe from foreign competition.

The mercantilists believed that the world’s to-tal wealth was fixed in quantity like a giant wealthcake and could not be increased; any increase inone nation’s slice of wealth could only be achievedat the expense of others. It thus followed that themost favourable conditions of trade were achieved

in colonial empires where the terms of trade wereshaped for the benefit of the merchants of the(metropolitan) country. For the mercantilists, colo-nies were simply branch plants providing valu-able commodities and offering secure markets.The overseas expansion of the core states in theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries was to allintents and purposes a commercial undertaking—an under-taking whose aim was to achieve a self-sufficient economic empire and whose driving forcewas mercantile capitalist.

The pace of colonial expansion and the size ofcolonial holdings were shaped by the changingbalance of forces between the core countries andtheir commitment to overseas expansion. In thefirst half of the seventeenth century the Dutchwere the most dynamic nation, their ships spin-ning a web of trading links as far as Indonesia,India and North and South America. The effi-ciency and aggression of the Dutch trading ma-chine were the envy of Europe and when LouisXIV’s minister Colbert attempted to invigoratethe French trading companies he modelled themon the Dutch. The solid faces which peer out fromthe canvases of Rembrandt, Vermeer and Halsbelonged to the most aggressive merchants of theirtime. The success of the Dutch attracted the re-taliatory action of other nations. In 1651 republi-can England passed the Navigation Act, whichlaid down the principle that trade with the colo-nies should only be carried on by English ships.The act was specially designed to defeat the Dutchhold over the shipping trade and to direct thevaluable entrepot trade (the re-export of colonialcommodities to Europe) towards England. Thewars with Holland which followed this act andwhich lasted on and off from 1652 to 1674 werethe military expression of the commercial rivalrybetween the two states. The ultimate English vic-tory allowed English merchants to establish trad-ing links with the Far East and India.

By the end of the seventeenth century Spain,Holland and Portugal were no longer major ac-tors in the struggle for power; the stage was domi-nated by Britain (England joined with Scotlandin the 1707 Act of Union) and France. Merchants


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in both countries were expanding their overseasoperations and the two commercial empires facedeach other in North America, the West Indiesand India. The pivotal position was held by theWest Indies. Throughout the eighteenth century,trade with the West Indies was the most valu-able of all colonial trade. France held the lucra-tive sugar plantation islands of Guadeloupe andMartinique and the triangular trade of slavesfrom Africa, and the return cargo of sugar fromthe Indies to Europe constituted about a quarterof all France’s commercial operations. This tri-angle of trade was even more important for Brit-ain. Since 1713 Britain had had monopoly con-trol over the supply of slaves to the SpanishAmerican empire and almost a third of Britain’scommercial operations consisted of the trade inmanufactured goods and rum to Africa, slavesfrom Africa to the Americas and the transfer ofsugar, cotton and tobacco from the Americas toBritain. The fine buildings and wealthy merchantsof Liverpool, Glasgow and Bristol were solidtestimony to the value of the Atlantic trade.

The conflict between France and Britain whichhad its roots in commercial rivalry took on greatersubstance in North America, where the disputeover claims to the huge hinterland became a ma-jor cause of the Seven Years War (1756–63). Brit-ain’s victory marked the beginnings of British pre-eminence in the colonial stakes. As Williams notes:

Of the imperial powers of Europe whichhad fought for dominance in the eight-eenth century Britain emerged supreme.The loss of the American colonies was morethan counterbalanced by gains in otherparts of the world. Britain’s merchantsdominated the trade routes in time of peace;her armed fleets controlled them in timeof war. With her massive financial andindustrial resources Britain was able toengage in full-scale war against France onthe continent, and at the same time en-large her colonial and commercial empireoverseas. By 1815 Britain’s imperial pre-dominance was unchallenged, and the

nation had entered an era of unprecedentedgrowth in which her overseas empire andtrade played an indispensable part.

(Williams, 1966, p. 188)

Industrial capitalism, empire and neo-imperialism

The nineteenth century marked a change in thecore-periphery structure. One country was to domi-nate the core while the core-periphery relation-ship was to develop from one of plunder andtransfer of primary commodities into the purchasein certain peripheral areas of goods produced inthe core. The story of the core-periphery in thefirst two-thirds of the nineteenth century is essen-tially the history of British hegemony in industrialproduction, colonial expansion and internationaltrading. Britain was the first country to experi-ence the ‘qualitative and fundamental transfor-mation’ of the Industrial Revolution (Hobsbawm,1968). Two distinct phases of industrializationcan be noted. In the first period, from 1780 to1840, cotton manufacturing was the leading sec-tor whereas coal and iron took that role in thesecond period, from 1840 to 1900. In both peri-ods a healthy export trade with the periphery, inassociation with a state prepared to formulateforeign policy to economic ends, were influential.

The cotton trade was intimately associated withBritain’s empire. The raw material initially camefrom the West Indies and North America while thecotton cloth and garments were sold to the colo-nial markets. At the zenith of cotton’s importancein 1830 one-half of all British exports consisted ofcotton products and over three-quarters of thesecotton goods went to the colonies in Africa, theWest Indies and India. By 1850 India alone wasabsorbing 25 per cent of all Lancashire’s cottonexports. This large and expanding export marketprovided the stimulus to continued production ofcotton even when the domestic market sufferedslumps and depressions. Britain’s large export marketgave an extra boost to domestic production. Brit-ain’s empire arose from the needs of commerceand industry while the empire helped create Brit-ain’s industry and commerce.

UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT

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In the second phase of industrialization thepace was set by the exploitation of coal and themanufacture of iron and steel. Coal provided thelife-blood, and iron and steel the railway arteriesfor this later phase of economic growth. Like thefirst, the second phase relied upon the continueddemand from foreign, especially colonial, mar-kets. By 1850 over 80 per cent of the iron andsteel produced in Britain was exported abroad,mainly for the construction of railways. The over-seas railway boom provided new investment op-portunities for British capital. In 1870 over 10per cent of all British overseas investment was inIndian railways, providing a return of 5 per cent.

A distinction can be drawn in British tradingarrangements between the formal, informal andsemi-formal empires.

• The formal empire was that part of the Brit-ish trading system which was also under di-rect political control.

• The informal empire was that constellationof countries and areas which were tied toBritain by trade and other economic linksbut with little or no explicit political con-nections. The distinction between the for-mal and informal empires is the differencebetween imperialism and neo-imperialism.

• The semi-formal empire consisted of coun-tries such as Persia and Egypt under the KhediveIsmail, whose finances and/or trading arrange-ments were in the hands of Britain, but whichwere not officially declared colonies.

The formal empire arose from the need to inte-grate countries into the British trading system andto safeguard those areas bordering the major trad-ing routes. India was the jewel in the crown of theBritish formal empire. Even the most liberal ofnineteenth-century thinkers and the most commit-ted free-trader could scarcely consider Britain withoutIndia. The British presence in India was initiallyrestricted to the areas around Bombay, Madrasand Bengal. Throughout the early nineteenth cen-tury Britain annexed the native states borderingthe initial footholds and signed treaties with the

more distant states. These treaties were often thefirst indication of future annexation. The Indianfilm director Satyajit Ray has brilliantly chronicledthe annexation of Oudh in his film The Chess Players(1977). The subsequent story is one of the Indianeconomy being made subservient to British inter-ests. Taxes, and especially the land tax, were topay for the British presence in India, including thecost of the civil administration. The cost of mili-tary expenditure outside India, such as the Afghanwar of 1839–42, was also charged to the Indianrevenue account. This lootish direction of revenueis estimated to have amounted to £27 million (in1865 prices) by 1870.

The terms of trade were manipulated to fosterthe sale of British manufactured goods. In theearlier decades of the nineteenth century Indiahad a flourishing cottage industry of cotton manu-facturing centring on Dacca. Trade relations werestructured in a deliberate policy of de-industriali-zation. The duty paid in India for British silk andcotton goods was only 2 per cent while the Britishtariff on silk and cotton goods made in India was10 per cent. Encouragement was also given to theIndian production of commodities necessary forBritish industry. Less tax was levied on land givenover to cotton production than any other crop.The result was twofold. India began to supplymore of Britain’s raw cotton imports and, sinceless land was given over to food production, thepoorer people suffered more from periodic fam-ine and food shortages. The economic history ofBritish involvement in India contains all the ele-ments of the general core-periphery relationshipthat emerged around the world in the nineteenthand early twentieth centuries.

India became an integral part of the Britisheconomy as a source of raw materials, a purchaserof manufactured goods and a site for large-scalecapital investment. Subsequent Indian developmentwas shaped by this colonial experience. Other partsof the formal empire often turned out to be lessattractive propositions. The incorporation ofother, less wealthy areas into the British empirecan be seen as miscalculations, speculative ven-tures proved wrong or attempts to control the


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trading routes to and from the richer parts of theempire.

The history of British colonial expansion inAfrica, in contrast, has been termed a giant foot-note to the history of British control in India.Although this may overstate the case, an impor-tant element of British foreign policy in Africacan be seen as a concern for the security of trad-ing routes to India.

Imperialism could be a costly business. Therewere many Victorians who considered overseaspossessions too great an expense. Gladstone ex-pected the formal empire to crumble and Disraelihoped that it would. The Utilitarians, Benthamand Mill, considered colonies a burden and theManchester School continued to preach the ben-

efits of free trade. In one sense the critics werecorrect. Imperialism and the existence of the for-mal empire were a sign of failure, namely theinability to integrate an area or country into theBritish trading system without imposing politi-cal, military and administrative control.

The economic success story of British capital-ism in the nineteenth century was not the formalempire but the informal one. In Latin America, forexample, imperialism scarcely seemed worthwhilewhen investments in trade, railways, shipping andpublic utility companies were receiving rates ofreturn almost 2 per cent higher than the yieldin British colonial government securities (Platt,1977). Latin America was incorporated into theworld economy but not into the formal empires of

BOX C: HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF CORE-PERIPHERY RELATIONS

A thumbnail sketch of core-periphery relations up until 1945 would highlight three major points:

1 From the sixteenth to the nineteenth century the general story is one of incorporation of much ofthe world into the core’s sphere of influence. Much of the world’s history is a product of thisincorporation. The incorporation involved a variety of methods from colonization, the indirectcontrol of informal imperialism through the control of collaborative elites, to the direct control offormal imperialism which increased in the last half of the nineteenth century.

2 This incorporation involved a definite division of labour. Initially the periphery provided a sourcefor raw materials, then it developed as a site for capital investment and as a market for goodsproduced in the core. This relationship laid the basis for underdevelopment because there wasunequal exchange of cheap raw materials and expensive manufactured goods. The terms of tradelaid the basis for the accumulation of wealth and economic growth in the core. The industrialrevolution in Britain, for example, owed much of its origins to the colonies which were a source ofcheap raw materials and a large secure market for manufactured goods.

3 Most of the conflicts in Europe were caused by the battle for supremacy of the core.

Century Competing powers16th Spain, Portugal17th Spain, Netherlands, England, France18th Britain, France19th Britain

In the periphery, resistance to core domination fuelled a whole variety of liberation struggles.

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core states because there was no need for formalimperialism. The ruling elites of Latin Americaaided and desired the involvement of foreign capi-tal. British interests in Latin America were hugeand ranged from shipping and railway compa-nies, banks and insurance companies, to controlof the Peruvian guano and Chilean nitrate in-dustries and ownership of the many utility com-panies supplying urban transport and piped wa-ter. Incorporation into the world economy pro-duced the typical pattern of Latin America pro-viding the raw materials while Britain, and laterthe other core states, sold manufactured goodsand invested the capital necessary for the exploi-tation and transport of these raw materials andprimary commodities. By 1913, £999 million,roughly a quarter of all British capital invest-ment overseas, was invested in Latin Americawith almost a quarter of this total being investedin Argentine railways. The form of this economicdevelopment was to mould the economies of LatinAmerica to the needs of the core and to makethem dependent on the export of a narrow rangeof primary products, e.g. nitrates in Chile, beef

in Uruguay and Argentina, coffee in Brazil. Thepolitical consequences of this incorporation in-volved the maintenance and strengthening of theconservative power of landowners.

The age of imperialism

From the abolition of the Corn Laws in 1846 tothe economic depression of 1873 Britain was thecore power. British manufactured goods weresold throughout the globe, British capital wasinvested in most areas of the financial world andthe economies of more and more peripheral ar-eas were orientated towards Britain. The trad-ing universe revolved around the ‘economic sunof Britain’. The depression of 1873 marks a turn-ing-point in the order of things. Other powerssought to construct tariff walls in order to pro-tect their growing industries and to stimulatetheir own industrial base. Other countries beganto catch up in the race to industrialize and theshifting of the centre of economic gravity in thecore due to increased competition between thenational economies is the essential ingredient ofthe age of imperialism. This age, which can beloosely dated as twenty years on either side of1900, marks the extension of formal empires ona vast scale. The extent and pace of imperialexpansion can be seen in Figure 1.2.

The age of imperialism has to be seen in termsof the rise of countries eager to achieve indus-trial growth and a place in the economic core ofthe world economy. The fusion of economic andpolitical interests in the growth of neo-mercan-tilism is most clearly shown in the case of Ger-many. Welded together under Bismarck, Germanyentered the last decades of the nineteenth cen-tury as a relative laggard in the race to industri-alize. This was soon to change. A series of tariffmeasures protected German industry and by 1890Germany surpassed Britain in the level of steelproduction. A strong school of neo-mercantilistthought began to emerge as the German Histori-cal School was promoting protection for indus-try at home and the possession of colonies over-seas. In all the major powers there was a grow-

Figure 1.2 The expansion of European formalempires: Europe and colonies as a percentage of

world surface area and population


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ing body of opinion espousing the neo-mercan-tilist case based on

the desire to build up a powerful nationaleconomy augmented by overseas posses-sions, whose production is geared to theneeds of the mother country, while sharplydelimiting similar rival systems and evenisolating them from the entire home andcolonial economy.

(Gollwitzer, 1969, p. 63)

The force of this economic nationalism was soonfelt in the international arena. In Africa, for ex-ample, European influence in 1880 was restrictedto the Cape Colony, small areas of North Africaand some fringe coastal areas (Figure 1.3). Giventhe neo-mercantilist spirit, when Britain announcedunilateral control of Egypt in 1882 and Germanyclaimed territory throughout Africa, the stagewas set for large-scale partition. The atmosphereof claims, counter-claims, open hostility and ri-valry was partly cleared by the Berlin-Africa con-ference called by Bismarck in 1884. The confer-ence defined the conditions for future claims and

although it achieved little by way of agreementover territory and spheres of influence ‘by draw-ing up the rules of the game, it declared the gamein progress’ (Fieldhouse, 1966, p. 213). By 1890the game was almost over and by 1914 the wholeof Africa, apart from Liberia and Ethiopia, hadbeen partitioned amongst the European powers(see Figure 1.4).

The economic forces stoking the engine ofimperialism were given serious consideration bya number of contemporary writers. Two in par-ticular deserve special attention because theirwritings have had such a profound effect on sub-sequent interpretations of imperialism.

Hobson and the tap-root of imperialism

Hobson’s study of imperialism was first pub-lished in 1902, when the British empire wasat its greatest extent. (The following quotesare taken from the 1938 third edition.)Hobson distinguished between colonialismand imperialism. Colonialism was defined asthe migration of part of a nation’s popula-tion to sparsely peopled foreign lands which

Figure 1.3 Colonialism in Africa, 1880 Figure 1.4 Colonialism in Africa, 1914

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eventually obtained some form of self-govern-ment. Colonialism, according to Hobson, was agenuine expression of nationality. Hobson hadno quarrel with the colonial experience of Canadaor Australia, though he seems to have given lit-tle consideration to the plight of the original in-habitants. Imperialism, on the other hand, wasan artificial simulation of nationalism, involv-ing costly expenditure and grave political risks.

Hobson argued that since 1870 Britain hadobtained colonies, especially in Africa, which heldvery few commercial attractions, provided littleroom for emigration and gave only minimal trade.Why, given this background and the politicalrisks involved, had Britain pursued this policy ofimperialism? Hobson’s reply was that certainsectional interests had guided foreign policy totheir own ends. There were clearly identifiableinterest groups which benefited from an aggres-sive imperial policy. Armaments manufacturersand army interests benefited from the increasein military and defence expenditure and ship-ping interests gained from the increased traffic,but the greatest gains accrued to capital inves-tors. The most important economic impulse toimperialism was the influence of investors eagerfor Britain to take over foreign areas in order tosecure new areas for profitable investment.

The economic drive to imperialism, accord-ing to Hobson, was the increase in the volume of

production and capital accumulation on the onehand and the unequal distribution of income onthe other. The increase in production meant anincrease in wealth (see Figure 1.5). This wealthflowed in two channels. One flowed to labour inthe form of wages and the other to capitalists inthe form of profit, which went to the purchaseof consumption goods, to reinvestment, or washeld in the form of savings. Hobson argued that,in terms of this latter channel, there was a limitto the amount which could be spent by capital-ists on consumption goods and, because of thecheapness of labour, there was little need forlarge capital investment. The relatively low levelof wages and hence the restricted purchasing powerof workers also meant that there was little scopefor capital investment in consumer goods pro-duction for the home market. The level of capi-talist savings, therefore, grew and grew. Therewas underconsumption because of the unequalsurplus capital seeking profitable investment. Theeconomic tap-root of imperialism was

the endeavour of the great controllers ofindustry to broaden the channel for theflow of this surplus wealth by seeking for-eign markets and foreign investments totake off the goods and capital they cannotsell or use at home.

(Hobson, 1938, p. 85).

Hobson not only described imperialism, he dis-cussed possible methods of stopping it. He be-lieved that it should be stopped because it raisedthe possibility of war while diverting energy awayfrom social reform at home. Hobson’s answerwas to create a genuine democracy based uponthe people’s will, so that the state should not be-come involved in foreign policy adventures forthe sake of a rich minority and that it shouldequalize the distribution of income so that sur-plus capital and underconsumption could not rise.

Lenin and imperialism as moribund capitalism

Hobson’s arguments provided part of the basis forLenin’s analysis of the economic forces behind impe-

Figure 1.5 Flows of capital


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rialism. In his pamphlet Imperialism, the HighestStage of Capitalism, written in Zurich in 1916 andpublished in Petrograd in 1917, Lenin drew uponthe work of Hobson and Hilferding. From Hobson,Lenin borrowed the timetable of imperial expan-sion, the notion of surplus capital and the fact thatgroups of investors influenced policy to secure prof-itable investment opportunities. From Hilferding’sFinance Capital, published in German in 1910,Lenin took the concept of the increasing concen-tration of economic activity and banking into largerand larger combines producing a new form of capi-talism, one in which the banks controlled the flowof investment to large-scale industrial concerns.Hilferding had termed this new capitalism ‘financecapitalism’.

With the rise of finance capital comes thegrowth of surplus capital seeking profitable spheresfor investment. Returns are highest in the pe-riphery because capital is scarce, land prices andwages are low and raw materials are relativelycheap. The era of finance capital is thus markedby the export of capital to the periphery by themonopolies (oligopolies) which form internationalcartels, each competing against the others in theworld market. The competition between thesecartels (we would now call them multinationals)parallels the competition between nation-states.Indeed, the drive for colonial possessions ema-nates from these cartels, which seek to maintaintheir profitable enterprise.

To the numerous ‘old’ motives of colonialpolicy, financial capital has added the strug-gle for the sources of raw materials, for theexport of capital, for ‘spheres of influence’,i.e. for spheres for profitable deals, conces-sions, monopolists’ profits…and finally foreconomic territory in general.

(Lenin, 1965 edition, pp. 149–50)

For Lenin, imperialism was defined as capitalismin that stage of development in which there was:

(a) concentration of production and capital inthe hands of monopolies (oligopolies)

(b) the merging of bank capital with finance capitaland the emergence of a final oligarchy

(c) the export of capital on a large scale(d) the formation of multinational combines which

divided and demarcated the world economy(e) the territorial division of the world amongst

the biggest capitalist powers(f) the creation of a privileged section in the

proletariat in the imperial nations and thegrowth of opportunism in the working-classmovement, which militated against socialrevolution in the core. The revolutionary epi-centre had shifted to the periphery.

The work of Hobson and Lenin has providedthe base point for many subsequent studies ofimperialism. Some of their work has been se-verely criticized. Both writers place too great anemphasis on underconsumption in the core econo-mies. Subsequent history, however, has shownthat overseas investment can increase while homeconsumption is increasing. Both writers also placetoo great an emphasis on the formal empires.The twentieth-century period of decolonizationhas demonstrated that explicit political domina-tion of the periphery by the core is not a neces-sary condition for the survival of capitalism.

The analysis and predictions of Lenin andHobson have, by and large, been overtaken bysubsequent events. For contemporary analysis,however, they have left as legacy a number ofimportant topics and key questions. In particu-lar, they drew attention to:

• the export of capital• the importance of overseas markets for core

economies• the power of multinationals in guiding for-

eign and domestic policy• the crucial relationship linking economic in-

terests and political conflict between corestates.

They also raised the following questions:

• What is the form of the relationship betweencore and periphery?

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• Who benefits from such relationships?• What are the effects of such economic ties

on the political relations between core coun-tries, within core countries and between coreand peripherv?

We can return to our historical exposition byconsidering this last question in the context ofthe age of imperialism. The overseas expansionof the great powers had a number of implica-tions for relationships between these powers. Therapid partition of the Far East and the scramblefor Africa were part cause and part effect of thesharpening of conflict between the great pow-ers. According to the neo-mercantilist doctrinesthe world’s surface was finite, markets limitedand, since overseas markets were essential, thecolonial advance of one nation could be pur-chased only at the expense of another. This ex-pression of national material interests caused thecolonial collisions which studded the history ofthis period. Like great tectonic plates the spheresof influence of the imperial nations shunted to-gether to cause violent eruptions at various points.The cataclysm was reached in 1914.

The relationship between the core and theperiphery can be considered in terms of the roleof the local elites and the anti-colonial reaction.The age of imperialism was one in which pe-ripheral areas were incorporated into the worldeconomy. Imperialism was the political functionof the process of integrating areas into theeconomy. Robinson (1972) has argued thatwhether an area was incorporated into the for-mal or informal empire depended upon the char-acter of the elites in the area. Collaborative eliteswere those which aided or facilitated Europeaneconomic penetration, non-collaborative elitesfought against such incorporation. Where therewere strong collaborative elites, such as the land-owners of Latin America, there was little needfor direct political control by core states. Butwhere the elites did not encourage incorpora-tion into a European-dominated world economy,formal political control was necessary. The his-tory of the British in India is one of imposing

authority in the face of elite opposition. Britishexpansion in India was backed by force and forcecontinued to be the basis of British rule. Thetransition from informal to formal empire statuswas based on the need for the core state to up-hold a collaborative system that was breakingdown and to forestall the actions of other corestates. As Kiernan (1974) wryly notes, you onlyneed to intervene in a banana republic when thebananas fail to arrive.

The imposition of formal colonial power oftenprovoked an anti-colonial response; in Africa, forexample, French intervention provoked large-scaleuprisings in Tunisia and the British faced rebel-lions in Egypt and Sudan. In the Philippines USinvolvement sparked off a costly war with na-tionalist forces which lasted from 1898 to 1902.Often such anti-colonial movements were weak,more often than not they were defeated, but bykeeping the flame of resistance alive they pro-vided the basis for the process which ultimatelyled to the collapse of formal imperialism.

Within the core countries imperialism was the‘moving force of the age’ (Gollwitzer, 1969). Glo-bal politics assumed a central role in governmentpolicy and imperialism was an ideology whichpermeated the very pores of society. The charac-ter of internal politics was interwoven with thenature of foreign policies. Imperialism partiallyreduced social tension on the domestic scene bypromoting a unifying theme of national chauvin-ism. Imperialism as a unifying force was particu-larly strong in Germany, where the state used for-eign policies to cope with potential domestic cri-ses caused by rapid economic growth (see Hehler,1972). Such policies were not new; according toShakespeare, Henry IV counselled his son to

Be it thy course to busy giddy minds Withforeign quarrels.

(Henry IV, Part 2)

In the age of imperialism, however, aggressive for-eign policies to secure economic gains were usedto counter the rise of working-class militancy. CecilRhodes notes, ‘I have always maintained that the


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British Empire is a matter of bread and butter. Ifyou wish to avoid civil war then you must be-come an imperialist’ (quoted in Gollwitzer, 1969,p. 136). In the UK most of the imperialist pres-sure groups tied their foreign policy objectives todefinite national goals which would vitiate thepotential for social unrest. The Liberal imperial-ists were strong advocates for social reform andthe Tariff Reform League emphasized the fullemployment opportunities that would follow fromthe abandonment of free trade. Lenin’s point wasthat imperialism had been too successful in theserespects. He argued that the imperialist policiesof the core countries, especially Britain, had cre-ated a privileged section of the working class.Since this labour aristocracy had a stake in theexisting state of affairs he thought it unlikely thatthey would adopt a revolutionary posture. Thewealth of imperialism had blunted the revolu-tionary edge of the working class in the core butthe process of imperialism had raised the possibil-ity of revolution in the periphery.

Geography and geo-politics

The effects of the ‘moving force of the age’ can beseen in the development of geography as an estab-lished discipline. The number of geographical soci-eties grew enormously in Europe over this forty-year period. Overlying natural curiosity in the ex-ternal world, a curiosity increasingly whetted byimprovements in transport, was now placed thedemands of national security, national wealth andinternational prestige. Geography was, as Mackinderhad it, ‘enlisted as an aid to statecraft and strat-egy’. The close connection between geographicalresearch and national interest can be seen in thesociety formed in Germany in 1878 under the title‘Society for Commercial Geography and Promo-tion of German Interests Abroad’ and in the tenorof contemporary geographical publications.Younghusband’s (1910) book, for example, pub-lished under the title India and Tibet gives a moraljustification for the British invasion of Tibet in 1904.

Perhaps the most famous geographer of the agewas Halford Mackinder and his celebrated paper

‘The geographical pivot of history’ encapsulatedthe relations between national interests and ge-ography. This paper was first read to the RoyalGeographical Society in London in 1904. It isimportant to remember the context. Mackinderwas writing at a time when various groupings ofimperialist powers were emerging. Two yearsbefore Mackinder read his paper Britain had signeda treaty with Japan in order, as the two coun-tries saw it, to deter Russian expansion; two weeksafter the RGS meeting the Russo-Japanese warbroke out.

Mackinder’s paper begins by drawing atten-tion to the fact that the age of overseas expan-sion was over. The world now formed a closedpolitical system, the imperial powers were fac-ing in on each other and political activity on thepart of any one power would find an echo and aresponse in the others. On the basis of cursoryhistorical evidence Mackinder then argued thatthe pivot region of world politics was the hugearea of Euro-Asia (see Figure 1.6). This core area,the heartland, occupied a key strategic positionin the world alignment of powers because it pressedupon the borders of many countries. It was nowcontrolled by the Russians, who could developthe economic potential of the region free fromany oceanic (British) influence. Around this pivotarea Mackinder delimited an inner crescent ofmarginal states and an outer crescent of oceanicpowers including Britain, the USA and Japan.Mackinder drew two strategic conclusions fromhis analysis:

Figure 1.6 Mackinder’s world view

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• Russia (or whoever controlled the pivot area)should be prevented from expanding intothe marginal lands because this would pro-vide the basis for world domination. To pre-vent such an occurrence, signalled by thethreat of a Russo-German alliance, a stablemiddle tier of independent states should becreated between Russia and Germany.

• In the event of such a threat overseas powersshould support armies in the bridgeheads ofFrance, Italy, Egypt, India and Korea so as toforce the pivotal powers to deploy land forces.

The British presence in India, for example, wastherefore a necessary bulwark against the ex-pansion of the pivot-area state into the south ofthe Euro-Asian land mass. In other words,Mackinder was giving a strategic rationale tothe British presence overseas, a presence sancti-fied by the need to save world democracy andlegitimated by the course of historical develop-ment in the post-Columbus era.

The close alliance of geography, geo-politicsand national strategy was also found in the USAand Germany. In the USA, Bowman’s (1922) bookNew World: Problems in Political Geographysketched out the implications of the 1919 peacesettlement, as well as implicitly outlining an in-creased world role for the USA. Geo-politics reachedits zenith (or maybe its nadir) in Germany, whereHausofer expanded Mackinder’s work around theframe of German national interest. It was Hausoferwho coined the term lebensraum to justify Ger-man expansion into Eastern Europe. The study ofgeo-politics has yet to recover from this experi-ence; the damage to Eastern Europe was moreserious. With the age of imperialism came thegrowth and strengthening of the world economyand the expansion of formal empires. The periph-ery was now used by the core economies as asource of raw materials, a market for manufac-tured goods and as a sphere for large-scale capitalinvestment. The expansion of formal empires in-volved the extension of great power rule through-out the globe. An inter-dependent world economyand political system had been created.

THE CONTEMPORARY SCENE

Since 1945 core-periphery relations have beenaffected by a number of changes. Here we willexamine two of the most important—decolonization and economic imperialism. Thefirst suggests political independence, while thesecond indicates continued economic dependence.

Decolonization

Prior to the First World War anti-colonial feel-ing manifested itself in xenophobic outburstsagainst foreigners, but with some notable excep-tions there were few stable mass movements andthe small parties promoting national liberationwere, by and large, formed around tiny groupsof intellectuals.

Inter-war period

In the inter-war period there was a weakening ofthe imperial drive in the core countries. The im-mediate post-war era saw the growth of interna-tional policing and the Woodrow Wilson belief in

Figure 1.7 Middle East in 1930


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the need for a new form of colonial relationship.Such beliefs were crystallized in the League ofNations mandate system for former German andOttoman territories. Under this system the formercolonies of the defeated powers were dividedinto a threefold categorization:

• Mandate A territories were ruled by eitherBritain or France, on behalf of the councilof the League, with the intention that suchterritories would soon receive independence.

• Mandate B territories were thought unlikely toachieve independence except in the long term.

• Mandate C territories were thought incapa-ble of being independent.

Table 1.1 notes the distribution of mandatesthroughout the world, while Figure 1.7 showsthe pattern in the Middle East. The interestingthing about the mandate system is that it intro-duced the notion, new in international affairs,that former colonial territories could become in-dependent, albeit after a period of time.

The inter-war period also saw the beginningsof much more vociferous anti-colonial feeling inEurope. The clarion call was sounded in the So-viet Union, where the Bolshevik Revolution hadushered an explicitly anti-colonial power ontothe world stage. The First Congress of the Com-munist International in 1919 stated: ‘SocialistEurope will come to the aid of liberated colonieswith its technology, its organization, its spiritualforces in order to facilitate this transition to aplanned and organized socialist economy’. Atthis time Bolshevik Russia had precious little tech-nology, weakened spiritual force and a shatteredorganization; but the rhetoric was there and gavesome hope to liberation movements and unset-tled the colonial powers. The growth of criti-cism elsewhere in Europe varied from outrightcondemnation by Marxists to the more muted,measured tones of reprobation from such reformistgroups as the British Labour Party.

In the peripheral areas of formal empire thegrowing pressure for some form of independ-ence was strengthened by the economic depres-sion of the 1930s. Deteriorating living condi-tions in the rural areas and mass discontent inthe cities were given form and substance by theemerging intelligentsia and the growth of work-ers’ movements. In India, Gandhi’s first inde-pendence campaign began in 1920, the secondin 1930. In Indonesia there was an attemptedrebellion against the Dutch in 1926 which wasprimarily led by the local communist party. InIndo-China urban strikes and rural unrest brokeout in the 1930s as the French sought to imposecontrols and checks on demands for independ-ence. In Africa south of the Sahara, by contrast,things were relatively peaceful. There were fewdemands for independence since the policies ofindirect rule had strengthened tribalism. Therewas thus little history of clearly demarcated na-tions; workers’ movements or intellectual eliteshad yet to develop on any significant scale.

The post-war period

The turning-point in the retreat from empire came

Table 1.1 Distribution of mandates by the Leagueof Nations

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with the Second World War. In the immediatepost-war period the balance of forces was clearlyswinging towards decolonization. The UnitedNations provided the forum for anti-colonial sen-timents, and the Soviet Union and newly inde-pendent countries supplied the voices. The posi-tion of the USA, the world power, was more am-bivalent. On the one hand the USA had an ex-plicit anti-colonial stance and was eager to makefriends and trading partners with the nations emerg-ing from the struggle of the nationalist move-ments. But, on the other hand, US foreign policyafter 1947 was dominated by the cold war andthe aim of containing communism. Such a policywas based upon an alliance with the colonial powersof France and Britain, whose colonies providedvaluable raw materials and strategic bases in thestruggle against communism. To provoke too rapida decolonization in these territories, US State De-partment officials argued, was to weaken the powersin the anti-Soviet alliance. The policy of the USAvaried accordingly. In Indonesia the USA was hesi-tant about the anti-Dutch nationalists but did notintervene. In Indo-China, however, the anti-colo-nial struggle was seen through the ideological fil-ters of the cold war. The US policy-makers ar-gued that France had to win in Vietnam to with-stand the threat of Russian tanks sweeping throughthe plains of Europe. It was a simple step, there-fore, to see Vietnamese nationalist movements asa communist plot, pure and simple. When theFrench began to falter the US provided moneyand aid. By 1954 the US was paying 70 per centof the French military budget in Indo-China.

In the periphery the process of decolonizationoccurred in two distinct phases in different partsof the world. In the first period, from 1945 to1954, anti-colonial movements were strongestin Asia. The Japanese victories in the war hadinvolved the destruction of European influenceand given added impetus to all Asian nationalistmovements. In British colonies there was a rela-tively peaceful transfer of power because the con-cept of the British empire had slowly been evolv-ing, in response to nationalist pressures, towardsthe notion of a federation of states. British colo-

nies were therefore bound, at least theoretically,for independence and the concept of empire en-tailed the prospect of independence. The processof decolonization was less peaceful in Indonesiaand Indo-China. Both France and Holland wantedto return to the old relationship. The concept ofthe French Union, which the French establishedin 1954, entailed no prospect of independence.The Dutch in Indonesia were involved in quell-ing popular unrest in 1947 and 1948 until thestrength of the liberation forces and the weightof international opinion resulted in independ-ence in 1949. The tragedy of the nationalistmovements in Indo-China was that their successin the early 1950s came at a time when the USAwas seeing the periphery as the battleground onwhich to fight the communists. The liberationforces in Indo-China were dragged into the orbitof superpower intervention.

The decolonization in Asia strengthened anti-colonial forces in Africa where the second phase ofthe process began when Sudan achieved independ-ence in 1956. Thereafter, independence for Britishcolonies followed apace, each new state increasingthe weight of precedence. Ghana obtained inde-pendence in 1957, Kenya in 1963, and Tanzania in1964. Most of the French colonies achieved inde-pendence in 1960. The last colonial power left Af-rica in 1975 when the revolution in Portugal, partlycaused by the cost of her colonial wars, meantovernight independence (after years of struggle)for Mozambique, Angola and Guinea-Bissau. Itwas another four years before Zimbabwe achievedindependence and Namibia was controlled by theSouth African government until 1990.

Most of the sub-Saharan nationalist movementshad no history of nationalism to rationalize theiractions. The struggle for independence took placewithin the boundaries of colonial rule and thecolonial boundaries were taken as the frameworkfor new national boundaries. The present politi-cal map of Africa (Figure 1.8) bears a strikingresemblance to the boundaries of the formal em-pires shown in Figure 1.4. The colonial legacyhad its drawbacks. It perpetuated those stateswhose existence and boundaries were caused by the


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machinations of competing colonial powers. TinyGambia in West Africa, for example, is 300 mileslong and only 20 miles wide in places; its bounda-ries and orientation refer more to French and Britishrivalry in the nineteenth century than to contem-porary social, cultural and economic realities. Simi-larly, the long sliver of the Caprivi Strip in Na-mibia, which touches Zambia and Botswana andZimbabwe, owes more to nineteenth-century de-mands by Germany for access to the Zambeziriver than anything else. The colonial boundariesalso cut across tribal groupings throughout thecontinent. Many states were created which hadan internal mosaic of tribal groupings or a small

number of tribal groups, often locked into per-manent conflict. After independence the unifyinginfluence of anti-colonial liberation struggles could,and sometimes did, break down into tribalism. Amajor problem for politicians in Africa has beento weld different tribal groupings into nation-states. The motto of Zambia, ‘One Zambia,one nation’, is as much a plea as a slogan.Sometimes the tribal and ethnic differences canerupt into civil strife. Perhaps the most tragicto date was in Nigeria, where army officers ofthe Ibo tribe proclaimed the independent stateof Biafra in eastern Nigeria in 1967. The bloodycivil war lasted for three years. Nigeria had

Figure 1.8 Contemporary Africa

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achieved political freedom, but like many otherAfrican nations, it remained a prisoner of thepolitical geography of colonization.

Economic imperialism

Despite the political independence gained by pe-ripheral countries, economic independence hasbeen a more difficult goal to achieve. Politicalimperialism has been replaced by economic im-perialism, which we can define as the effectiveeconomic control of the periphery by the core.Six aspects of this relationship will be consid-ered:

1 The legacy of the past2 Division of labour and terms of trade3 Multinationals4 Aid5 Cartel power6 Debt repayments

The legacy of the past

The history of colonialism and neo-imperialismimposed a definite structure on the world economy,one in which the economies of peripheral areaswere orientated towards the needs of the core.At best the penetration of the periphery resultedin the growth of an export cash-crop economyand export-orientated enclaves which suppliedraw materials to the core but did not engender

local growth. The profits of such concerns wererepatriated or used to buy foreign equipment,and local wages were used to buy foreign goods.The multiplier effects were exported to the core.

The growth of efficient cash-crop economiesand limited industrial growth, against the back-ground of large population growth, produced alarge-scale marginalization of the masses. Un-able to find a living on the land, they moved tothe cities but many were unable to obtain jobs inthe town. The economy and cities of many pe-ripheral countries sagged and continue to sagunder the weight of the underemployed and un-employed.

Frank’s (1969) work on Latin America sug-gests that the most underdeveloped regions arethose which had the longest and most sustainedcontact with the core. In similar vein Baran(1957) has contrasted the economic historiesof India and Japan. India had been incorpo-rated into the world economy in the nineteenthcentury when the process of de-industrializa-tion and growth of cash crops led to Indiasupplying the raw materials for, and buyingthe manufactured goods of, the British economy;in effect, the development of under-develop-ment. Japan, by contrast, was not incorpo-rated into the world economy. Owing to a com-plex combination of factors—the lack of naturalresources, the subtle checks and balances oncompeting colonial powers and the nature ofJapanese society—Japan remained relatively free

BOX D: POST-WAR CORE-PERIPHERY RELATIONSHIPS

1 Decolonization has reduced the size of formal empires of core countries.2 Decolonization has not been absolute. There are still fragments of empire, e.g. French possessions

in the Pacific, Britain’s continuing control over Hong Kong and the Falklands.3 Core countries still exercise control:

• Directly, through agreements which are colonial in fact if not in name, e.g. the TrustTerritory of the Pacific controlled by the USA.

• Indirectly, through economic relations, terms of trade, patterns of investment and financialrelationships.


24

from either US or European colonialism. It isthis fact, according to Baran, that underpins sub-sequent Japanese economic growth and devel-opment.

Division of labour and terms of trade

The expansion of capitalism in the nineteenthand twentieth centuries spread the tentacles oftrade throughout the world. The peripheral ar-eas had a specific role to play in the interna-tional economic order, as their economies wereorientated towards the export market to meetthe needs of the core. Individual peripheral coun-tries became dependent on a narrow range ofprimary commodities according to the patternof climatic conditions and resource endowment.The economics of many peripheral countries be-came precariously balanced on the export per-formance of just one or two commodities. Evenby 1986 90 per cent of Zambia’s exports, forexample, were in the form of copper. In Jamaica60 per cent of exports were either bauxite oralumina, while 90 per cent of the export trade ofMauritius was sugar. Countries dependent on anarrow range of primary commodities are sub-ject to periodic shocks caused by rapid fluctua-tions in commodity prices. Economies subject tosuch shocks are unlikely to experience real and

sustained economic growth. Moreover, throughoutmost of this century there has been a wideningdisparity between the prices of primary and manu-factured goods (see Figure 1.9).

The relationship between core and periph-ery has been elaborated (and sometimes mys-tified) by the concept of unequal exchange.Mandel (1962, Chapter 13) uses the term withinthe labour theory of value to argue that com-modities from the periphery involve more la-bour than commodities produced in the core,due to the differences in labour productivity.The exchange of commodities between coreand periphery at world prices thus involves atransfer of value from periphery to core. Theform of the division of labour and the terms oftrade involved in the world economic systemhas led to a transfer of wealth from peripheryto core.

Multinationals

The threads which link periphery to core arespun by large multinational companies. Thesefirms dominate the economic scene and the formof their activities maintains the core-peripherystructure. Profits earned in the periphery can besiphoned off to shareholders in the core. Thisextraction can take the form of:

Figure 1.9 Real commodity prices deflated by price ofmanufactures: 1870–1986

Source: IMF

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• repatriated declared profits• royalty payments• transfer pricing arrangements• internal accounting mechanisms

The strategy of multinationals is based on crite-ria of profitability and market share rather thanthe development needs of the peripheral coun-tries in which they operate. The chairman of aUS-owned British subsidiary put the duties andloyalty of a multinational company executivevery clearly:

[He] must set aside any nationalistic atti-tudes and appreciate that in the last resorthis loyalty must be to the shareholders ofthe parent company, and he must protecttheir interests even if it might appear thatit is not perhaps in the national interest ofthe country in which he is operating. Ap-parent conflicts may occur in such mattersas the transfer of funds at a period of na-tional crisis, a transfer of production fromone subsidiary to another, or a transfer ofexport business.

(quoted in Tugendhat, 1973, p. 23)

The sentiments expressed by this executive take onpotent meaning in peripheral countries where for-eign-owned multinational companies dominate theeconomy. The economies of most peripheral coun-tries are dominated by companies whose opera-tions are guided by the dictates of profitability laiddown in the core for the benefit of share-holders inthe core. Such an arrangement need not necessar-ily lead to or contribute to the development ofunderdevelopment. In many cases it does.

Individual multinationals may be so powerfulas to influence national policies to benefit theircontinued operations and profitability. Power isexercised in a number of ways. Indirectly, certainmultinationals may seek to influence governmentpolicy by lobbying political decision-makers. Thelarge companies will have considerable expertisein various forms of public relations exercises. Moredirect influence can also occur and the economic

and political history of the peripheral world islittered with the effects of direct multinationalcompany involvement on the course of politicalevents. In 1910 the US-based United Fruit Com-pany engineered an invasion of Honduras; in 1954the same company in association with the CIAaided a rebellion in Guatemala which over-threwa government committed to land reform; in 1953the major oil companies helped the over-throw ofthe Iranian government which was consideringnationalizing the oil fields. More recently, the In-ternational Telephone and Telegraph Company(ITT) directly involved itself in the internal affairsof Chile. From 1970 to 1972 ITT was involved inboth overt and clandestine attempts to preventthe election of Salvador Allende and its actionsaided the military over-throw of his democrati-cally elected government.

The ultimate expression of multinational involve-ment is non-involvement, when the state is essen-tially an adjunct of the corporation. The bananarepublics of Central America were the clearest ex-pression of this relationship, and even today sucharrangements can still be found. The recent politi-cal development of the Dominican Republic, forexample, is to all intents and purposes the story ofthe state meeting the needs of one US company.

Subsidiary companies in peripheral countriesseek to establish and maintain the availability ofgoods, raw materials and profits for their parentcompanies. Such aims could be achieved by pro-moting autocentric growth, income redistribu-tion and a freer political climate. More often,however, the aims are achieved by backing thestatus quo. Recently, peripheral states have beendemanding a greater say in the activities of mul-tinationals. The threat, both actual and poten-tial, of nationalization has involved companiesin reaching planning agreements with periph-eral states. This is an important trend but onewhich does not overturn the basic relationshipof dependence. For that to happen, ‘what willhave changed is that investment, productionprocessing, and prices will no longer be institu-tionally tied to the needs and strategies of globalenterprises’ (Girvan, 1976, p. 50).


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Aid

An important strand in the core-periphery rela-tionship is the aid contributions from core toperiphery. In the immediate post-1945 periodaid contributions were minimal. Both the USAand Europe were concerned with the reconstruc-tion of the war-damaged European economies.Western interest in aid began as a response tothe fear of Soviet influence in the periphery. TheTwentieth Congress of the Communist Party ofthe Soviet Union in 1956 placed the USSR in anew posture with respect to the Third World.Emphasis was to be placed on aiding, at the leastwith ideological encouragement and at the mostwith money and guns, the revolutionary move-ments and nationalist governments in the pe-riphery. The Western powers, especially the USA,countered the Soviet moves and began to use aidin the periphery to provide the basis for eco-nomic development which would maintain po-litical stability and hence keep countries withinthe Western sphere of influence. The rise and fallof aid payments roughly corresponded with thehigh and low temperatures of the cold war.

The failure of aid to stimulate autocentricgrowth is also due in part to the form of aid. Atbest, aid has resulted in the construction of aninfrastructure which promoted increased exploi-tation of a country’s resources. Often this ex-ploitation benefits the multinationals more thanthe local inhabitants. Aid for infrastructure merelymaintains the economic relationship between thecore and the periphery. At worst, aid can in-crease the dependency of the periphery on thecore. Four aspects are important:

• The peripheral countries became burdenedwith debt service. From 1965 the rise in aiddebt payments has meant that for most pe-ripheral countries such payments are nowgreater than the capital received. The debt-service ratio of developing countries dou-bled from 1970 to 1980.

• Aid has been tied to the purchase of goodsand services from the donor countries. USaid under the Alliance for Progress scheme

in Latin America was distributed on the un-der-standing that recipients would buy USgoods, which were often more expensive thanEuropean and Japanese goods. Such restric-tions and additional expenses led the presi-dent of Colombia to note that, ‘Colombiahas received two program loans under theAlliance. I don’t know if we can survive athird’ (quoted in LaFeber, 1976, p. 24).

• Aid has been used to maintain and reinforcethe political links of dependence. Westernaid has been given to discourage nationali-zation, to bolster governments friendly tothe West, to stop the advance of left-wingparties and in general to maintain the statusquo. Aid given by the USSR was similarlylinked to political ends; it was given to main-tain friendly socialist and non-aligned states.

• The organizations which allocate aid and de-velopment funds do so from the perspective ofthe core economies. The International Mon-etary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, forexample, are organizations set up by core coun-tries to administer aid to peripheral countriesin such a way as to maintain existing tradinglinks and economic systems. The IMF in par-ticular has come in for innumerable criticismsfrom peripheral countries for the kind of eco-nomic and social restrictions it places on re-ceivers of aid. It has been argued that IMFconditions are so deflationary that they causereal hardship for the mass of the population.

Cartel power

We have noted in previous pages that many pe-ripheral countries were, and still are, dependenton the export to the core of a few primary com-modities. Against the background of worseningterms of trade many commodity-producing coun-tries began to form cartels. The most importantso far has been the oil cartel. The oil industry wasdominated by the large multinational firms, theSeven Sisters as they were called, who determinedrates of exploitation and the price of oil. When in1959–60 the oil companies sought to decrease

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the price of oil from $2.08 to $1.80 a barrel theeffect on the oil producers was serious. Venezuela,a country where oil made up 90 per cent of ex-ports, attempted to fight the price change. Whenthis was successful Venezuela held talks with MiddleEast oil producers with the aim of providing acommon front in negotiations with the oil com-panies in order to secure high prices. The result ofthese talks was the setting up of OPEC (Organi-zation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) in 1960.The Original members were Iraq, Iran, Kuwait,Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. A year later Qatarjoined and two years later Indonesia and Libya.During the 1960s Algeria, Ecuador, Gabon, Ni-geria and Abu Dhabi joined the cartel. It had onlylimited success in its early days but as continuedeconomic growth in the core sucked in raw mate-rial imports from the periphery the stage was setfor the exercise of cartel power.

Oil was the life-blood of the economic boomof the early 1970s and OPEC began to bargainsuccessfully with the oil companies. In a series ofagreements OPEC managed to get the price ofPersian Gulf oil (the benchmark of the oil trade)raised to $2.48 a barrel in 1972. Then, as infla-tion reduced the value of OPEC receipts, as de-mand continued to outface supply and as thefourth Arab-Israeli war broke out on Yom Kippur,OPEC used its cartel power with devastating ef-fect. OPEC was dominated by Arab nations, whowanted to press home a political as well as aneconomic point. In December 1973 OPEC uni-laterally raised the price of oil to $11.65 a barrelto take effect from January 1974. Later, OPECmembers had control over pricing and produc-tion levels, and a second major price increase in1979 took the price of oil to over $30 a barrel.The effects of OPEC actions have been global.Indeed, the economic history of the 1970s hasquite simply been one of unfolding implicationsof OPEC actions. The hike in oil prices meant aredistribution of wealth. Formerly poor oil pro-ducers became some of the richest countries inthe world. In the case of Iran the money wasused by the Shah to carry out an extensive pro-gramme of modernization which carried the seeds

of its own destruction. For the core countries therise in oil prices had important effects but on thepoorer peripheral countries the effects were se-vere. Unable to afford the increased prices, thepoor oil-importing countries had to borrow on ahigh scale (see Table 1.2). By 1979 the interna-tional banks had lent $150 billion to oil-import-ing countries in the periphery.

The exercise of cartel power by OPEC signalledan important change in the structure of the worldeconomy. The success of OPEC provided an ex-ample to other commodity producers. The numberand composition of cartels formed before and af-ter OPEC is shown in Table 1.3. In the short termthese cartels can wield considerable muscle. Inthe long term, however, demand and supply aremore elastic and producers have to fine-tune theprice, otherwise their actions will encourage sub-stitution and hence undermine their source of in-come. Commodity power waxes and wanes inresponse to the general economic climate; duringboom periods imports are sucked into the coreand the peripheral producers have considerablepower, but during downturns and recessions thesupply of commodities tends to exceed demand.

The success of a commodity cartel will dependupon sophisticated market knowledge, predictiveability and effective co-operation between pro-ducers. Cartels tend to be strong when just a fewcountries dominate production levels and weakerwhen a larger number of countries are involved.The greater the degree of similarity between themember countries, the greater the effective co-operation within the cartel. OPEC, for example,owes much of its strength to the shared Arab andMuslim experience. The strength of the cartel will

Table 1.2 Current account balances

Source: World bank


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also depend on the nature of the commodity. Oilcan be kept in the ground or conveniently storedfor long periods of time. Bananas, by contrast,have to be sold quickly; the sellers have onlylimited power to withhold their produce. If theywait too long their crops, and hence their prof-its, are ruined.

Despite the problems of successfully wieldingcartel power, producers’ associations are nowan important element of the contemporary eco-nomic and political scene. Their importance islikely to grow as natural resources become scarcerand as an increasing proportion of these scarceresources are located within the periphery. Thelessons of OPEC have been learnt…by both sides.After the oil price rises of the 1970s, for exam-ple, core countries sought to minimize their de-pendence on oil imports through substitution,energy conservation programmes and searchingfor oil deposits. The exploitation of the NorthSea oil and gas resources was in part a functionof oil price increases. A balance has been struckin the world economic order as primary produc-ers seek to increase the price of their commodi-ties. Importing countries, by contrast, seek toget these commodities as cheaply as possible.The resulting price is a function and a reflectionof the balance of power.

Debt

An important element in contemporarycoreperiphery relationships is repayment of debt.In the 1970s and 1980s banks in the core lentmoney to many peripheral countries in order tofinance development. The emphasis was on bigprestige sites, car factories, petro-chemical com-plexes and the like. The conditions looked fa-vourable—interest rates were low and, as Figure1.9 shows, prices for primary goods were rela-tively high. Banks could see profits and the elitescould see material gain.

The crunch came in the late 1970s in a mix-ture of interest rate increases which reached acrippling 21 per cent and a slump in the worldeconomy. Many countries were stranded withhigh debt payments and reduced national in-come. The result was a debt crisis. The firstindication of this crisis came in 1982 whenMexico announced that it could no longer payits debts. This sent the banks into a panic:they had lent so much they had to carry onlending to enable Mexico to continue payingits debt. The scale of the debt crisis is enor-mous. In 1988 it was estimated that total ThirdWorld debt amounted to $1000 billion (seeTable 1.4).

Table 1.3 Commodity cartels

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In order to pay off these debts punitive fiscalmeasures were taken as governments reducedsubsidies, and sought to decrease imports andincrease exports. The result was a marked cut inthe standards of living. In 1982, for example,wages in Mexico were halved and basic foodprices were increased. The result was widespreadmalnutrition.

The debt burden was carried by the ordinarypeople of the Third World as austerity measureswere introduced and standards of living werereduced. Susan George (1988) uses the term fi-nancial low intensity conflict to describe the erosionof living standards. The language is suitably mili-taristic: as one Brazilian commentator noted, theThird World War has already started, a war whosemain weapon is interest payments.

The people who have to pay the debt are notthose who benefited from the spending of bor-rowed money. Less than 10 per cent of the vastsum involved was used for productive invest-ment. The rest was wasted in ill-conceived projects,graft and backhanders. The leakage of corrup-tion was a flood which reached only a few veryrich individuals. These elites are cushioned fromthe debt burden; the vast majority of the popu-lation did not benefit from the spending but haveto suffer the costs of repayment.

POSTSCRIPT

The core-periphery concept is a simple model.Like all models it is an abstraction from the rich-ness of reality. In reality, neither the core nor theperiphery are homogeneous. We began this chapterby comparing selected figures for Bangladesh andthe USA. Figure 1.10 shows how these are endpoints of a continuum through such countries asSaudi Arabia and Brazil. Figure 1.11 shows themore detailed subdivisions of the world as usedby the World Bank. The differences within theperiphery have been increasing. We can identifyfour distinct groups:

Oil-producing countries. Since 1974 the in-come of oil-producing countries has increasedenormously. Vast oil revenues have flooded intowhat used to be relatively poor countries. Takethe case of Saudi Arabia. In 1965 its economywas based on the export of a single commodity:oil. After the oil price rise of the 1970s this re-source increased in value fourfold. This fed throughto improvements in health. Life expectancy, whichwas about the same as in Bangladesh in 1965,improved while the population/physician figuretumbled to almost the same as that for the USA.

The oil producers are eager to diversify theireconomies. Dependence on a single commodityis a precarious position, as shown by the declinein the real price of oil in the 1980s. The oil pro-ducers have to widen their export base beforethe oil wells run dry if they are to constitute anarea of autocentric growth outside of the core.

Middle income countries. These constitute amixed bag and include Brazil, Mexico, Greeceand the Philippines. These countries experiencedaccelerated rates of growth in the 1960s and1970s. This growth was caused by:

(a) development of import substitution industries;(b) increases in commodity prices;(c) development of manufacturing industries.

In terms of (c) there has been what Peter Dickens(1986) refers to as a global shift in manufacturingemployment, as capital investment flowed to thosecountries with cheap and docile labour forces. The

Table 1.4 The debt crisis

Source: World Bank


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Figure 1.10 Selected statistics

Figure 1.11 Classification of countries

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middle-income industries provided a profitablesource of investment. A new international divi-sion of labour is beginning to emerge in whichincreasing amounts of routine manufacturingprocesses are located in the middle-income bloc.

There have been some differences within thisgroup. South Korea and Taiwan benefited fromhigh influxes of capital as part of the USA’s anti-communist strategies and Hong Kong and Sin-gapore have developed as free-trade zones wherethe ideology and politics of growth and enter-prise are strong. In Brazil and Mexico vast min-eral resources have contributed to economic de-velopment.

For all these countries an important elementin economic growth has been their ability to at-tract foreign capital because of low labour costs.Industrial growth has changed from import sub-stitution and tariff-jumping industries to the de-velopment of industries selling goods on the worldmarket. Multinationals have been attracted bycheap labour and governments which maintainorder and allow relatively high levels of profitrepatriation.

Growth has not been without its problems.The huge debt burdens of the 1970s and 1980scontinue to plague many countries. The invest-ment in industry by both private and state capi-tal has made these countries very dependent on

food imports and hence puts adequate nutritionon an unstable basis.

The benefits of economic growth have beenunevenly distributed. Growth has been concen-trated in the cities of selected regions. The proc-ess of uneven development has widened regionaldisparities and rural/urban differences in livingstandards. The resultant rural migration to se-lected urban centres swells the population of thecities and overwhelms the education and medi-cal facilities. The process of rapid growth of capital-intensive industries against the background ofagriculture shedding labour tends to produce themarginalization of a large proportion of the popu-lation. The under-employed and unemployed donot gain from investment in industry. Thismarginalization is reflected in a growing dispar-ity between rich and poor.

In the 1980s growth began to falter. Thiswas a result of crippling debt repayments, theemergence of even cheaper labour areas, adownturn in the world economy and newgrowth in the cores. As Figure 1.12 shows,growth rates in manufacturing fell relative toricher countries. The industrial growth of the1970s was in the middle-income countries butin the 1980s growth took place in the richercountries.

Low income countries. Such countries include

BOX E: SUMMARY OF RECENT CHANGES IN WORLD ECONOMY

1 Low income countries have continued to remain poor. In relative terms their position has wors-ened and in a few cases, for example Ethiopia, their economic position has worsened in bothrelative and absolute terms.

2 Those peripheral countries with substantial oil deposits increased their export earnings. Dramaticrises in the 1970s have been followed by declining growth rates as the price of oil has fallen.

3 There has been a growth in manufacturing in selected countries of the periphery. We can nowidentify a subset of rapidly industrializing countries. Growth was greatest in the 1960s and 1970s.Recession and spiralling interest rates have placed an enormous debt burden on many of thesemiddle-income countries.

4 In both relative and absolute terms the core countries have got richer.


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Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Indonesiaand Haiti. These low income countries, thirty-seven in all, constitute 40 per cent of the world’spopulation but have only 3 per cent of the world’swealth. Economic growth in these countries hasbeen slow; their industrial base is slight and com-modities few. Continued population increases andthe price rise in imports have hamstrung strate-gies of economic growth. The disparities betweenlow income countries, and the rest of the periph-ery and the core continue to grow and all theforecasts suggest that things will get worse. Thenumbers in poverty will increase, both absolutelyand relatively, and the concept of the quality oflife will be for the majority of people in thesecountries a meaningless abstraction. The posi-tion of these people constitutes a festering sorein the world body.

Transitional societies of Eastern Europe. Thedemise of state socialism in Eastern Europe hascreated a transitional category, as former com-munist countries move from state planning tosome form of market economy. The situation iscomplex and constantly fluctuating as some coun-tries break up, others are absorbed into larger

entities, e.g. East Germany, and in others vary-ing degrees of state control are maintained.

TOWARDS A NEWINTERNATIONAL

ECONOMIC ORDER?

In the immediate post-war period the trading ar-rangements of the world were established by corecountries in general and the USA in particular.When GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs andTrade) was set up in 1947, the development inter-ests of the peripheral countries were not on theagenda and the peripheral countries were all butignored. Things began to change, however, as pe-ripheral states responded to continuing inequali-ties in wealth and deteriorating economic condi-tions. Because of the changing composition of theUnited Nations in the wake of decolonization thisorganization became a forum for peripheral opinionand international action. In December 1964 a UNresolution set up UNCTAD (United Nations Con-ference on Trade and Development). UNCTADhad three aims—to increase aid, to remove tariffson the export of goods manufactured in the de-veloping countries and to introduce commodityagreements which would protect peripheral coun-tries from rapid and deleterious fluctuations incommodity prices. Despite its limited successUNCTAD was a pointer to the course of futureNorth-South relations.

More recently, the relationship between coreand periphery or North-South, as it is sometimescalled, has been dominated by the periphery’s de-mand for a new economic order. In 1974 the UNendorsed the establishment of a ‘New Interna-tional Economic Order’. The success of cartel powerhad given the old demands a new confidence. Thenew order was declared in the belief that:

the present international economic orderis in direct conflict with current develop-ment in international political and economicrelations…irreversible changes in the rela-tionship of forces in the world necessitatethe active, full and equal participation of

Figure 1.12 Growth rates in manufacturingSource: World Development Report, 1989, Table 2

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the developing countries in the formula-tion and application of all decisions thatconcern the international community.(Quoted in Erb and Kallab, 1975, p. 186)

Similar sets of conclusions were reached by theBrandt Commission, whose report North-South:a Programme for Survival, published in 1980,also argued for changes in the old order. The re-port called for aid to be increased to 0.7 per centof core countries’ GDP, an international energypolicy and large-scale investment in Third-Worldagriculture. The report argued from a position ofenlightened self-interest. With under-utilization ofresources in the core and poverty in the peripheryit would seem sensible, the report suggested, toincrease effective demand in the periphery.

Another report in 1987, Our Common Fu-ture, elevated the need for changes in core-pe-riphery relations. The future course of core-pe-riphery relations is likely to oscillate betweenthe demands for a global New Deal and the de-mands for increased protection for jobs in thecore countries. The demands for protection willbe greatest in the weakest sectors of the coreeconomies. The course of events will be decidedby the balance of international economic powerand national political power.


Good historical studies of the evolution of the worldeconomy include:

Barraclough, G. (ed) (1978) The Times Atlas of WorldHistory. Times Books, London.

Braudel, F. (1982) Civilization and Capitalism 15th-18th Century, Vol 2. The Wheels of Commerce.Collins, London.

Braudel, F. (1984) Civilization and Capitalism 15th-18th Century, Vol 3. The Perspective of The World.Collins, London.

Wallerstein, I. (1974) The Modern World System.Academic Press, New York.

Wallerstein, I. (1979) The Capitalist World Economy.Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Wallerstein, I. (1988) The Modern World System. Asecond era of great expansion of the capitalist worldeconomy 1730s–1840s. Academic Press, San Diego.

On the nineteenth century and the rise of Britain thework of Eric Hobsbawm is rarely bettered.

Hobsbawm, E.J. (1968) Industry and Empire.Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London.

Hobsbawm, E.J. (1975) The Age of Capital 1848–1875. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London.

Hobsbawm, E.J. (1987) The Age of Empire 1875–1914. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London.

The single most reliable book on imperialism is:

Gollwitzer, H. (1969) Europe in The Age of Imperial-ism. Thames and Hudson, London.

The death of formal empires is covered by:

Grimal, M. (1978) Decolonization. Routledge andKegan Paul, London.

Various aspects of contemporary core-periphery rela-tions are discussed by:

Alavi, M. and Shanin, T. (eds) (1982) Introduction tothe Sociology of Developing Societies. Macmillan,London.

Brett, E.A. (1985) The World Economy Since TheWar: The Politics of Uneven Development.Macmillan, London.

Casson, M. (1986) Multinationals and World Trade.Allen & Unwin, London.

Crow, B. and Thomas, A. (1983) Third World Atlas.Open University Press, Milton Keynes.

Dickens, P. (1986) Global Shift. Harper and Row,London.

George, S. (1988) A Fate Worse Than Debt. Penguin,Harmondsworth.

Harris, N. (1987) The End of The Third World. Peli-can, London.

Hayter, T. (1983) The Creation of World Poverty.Pluto Press, London.

Kidron, M. and Segal, R. (1984) The New State ofThe World Atlas. Pan, London.

Knox, P. and Agnew, J. (1989) Geography of TheWorld Economy. Edward Arnold, London.

Singer, H.W. and Ansari, J.A. (1988) Rich and PoorCountries. Consequences of International Disor-der. Unwin Hyman, London.

Thrift, N. (1986) ‘The geography of international eco-nomic disorder’, in R.J.Johnston and P.J.Taylor,(eds) A World in Crisis? Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

Programmes for reform are summarized in:

Brandt, W. (1980) North-South: a Programme forSurvival. Pan, London.


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World Commission on Environment and Develop-ment (1987) Our Common Future. Oxford Uni-versity Press, Oxford.

Relevant journals

Development and ChangeEconomic Development and Cultural ChangeEconomistJournal of Developing AreasJournal of Development EconomicsJournal of Development StudiesNew InternationalistSouthStatistical Yearbook—published by United Nations

each year since 1948, contains comparative statis-tics on trade, demography, health and welfare.

Studies in Comparative International DevelopmentThird World AffairThird World QuarterlyWorld Bank Atlas—published each yearWorld DevelopmentWorld Development Report—published each year by

the World Bank; contains a wealth of statisticaldata

World Economy

Other works cited in this chapter

Baran, P. (1957) The Political Economy of Growth.Monthly Review Press, New York.

Bowman, I. (1922) The New World. Problems in Po-litical Geography. Harrap, London.

Erb, G.F. and Kallab, V. (1975) Beyond Dependency:the Developing World Speaks Out. Overseas De-velopment Council, Washington, DC.

Fieldhouse, D.K. (1966) The Colonial Empires. Weiden-feld & Nicolson, London.

Frank. A.G. (1969) (2nd ed) Capitalism and Under-development in Latin America: Historical Studies

of Chile and Brazil. Monthly Review Press, NewYork.

Girvan, N. (1976) Corporate Imperialism: Conflictand Expropriation. Monthly Review Press, NewYork.

Hehler, H.U. (1972) Industrial growth and early Ger-man imperialism in R.Owen and B.Sutcliffe (eds)Studies in the Theory of Imperialism. Longman,London.

Hilferding, R. (1910) Das Finanzkapital. Vienna.Hobson, J.A. (1938) (3rd ed) Imperialism—a Study.

Allen & Unwin, London.Kiernan, V.G. (1974) Marxism and Imperialism. Edward

Arnold, London.LaFeber, W. (1976) America, Russia and The Cold

War 1945–1957. John Wiley, New York.Lenin, V.I. (1965) Imperialism, the Highest Stage of

Capitalism. Progress Publishers, Moscow.Lichteim, G. (1974) Imperialism. Penguin,

Harmondsworth.Mandel, E. (1962) Marxist Economic Theory. Mar-

lin, London.Platt, D.C.M. (ed) (1977) Business Imperialism 1840–

1930. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Rees, J.F. (1929) ‘Mercantilism and the colonies’, in

J. H.Rose, A.P.Nearton and E.A.Bervans (eds) TheCambridge History of The British Empire, Vol-ume 1, Cambridge.

Robinson, R. (1972) ‘Non-European Foundations ofEuropean Imperialism. Sketch for a theory of col-laboration’, in R.Owen and B.Sutcliffe (eds) Stud-ies in the Theory of Imperialism. Longman, Lon-don.

Rude, G. (1972) Europe in The Eighteenth Century:Aristocracy and the Bourgeois Challenge. Weidenfeld& Nicolson, London.

Tugendhat, C. (1973) The Multinationals. Penguin,Harmondsworth.

Williams, G. (1966) The Expansion of Europe in TheEighteenth Century: Overseas Rivalry, Discoveryand Exploitation. Blandford, London.

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What is known as the ‘Cold War’ is thecentral human fracture, the absolute poleof power, the fulcrum upon which powerturns, in the world. This is the field-of-force which engenders armies, diplomaciesand ideologies, which imposes client rela-tionships with lesser powers and exportsarms and militarisms to the periphery.

(E.P.Thompson, 1980)

It is profoundly moving to see the forms ofthe old cold war declining before one’s eyes,but declining most of all on the other side.The cold war has not been an heroic epi-sode, an occasion for triumphs, but the mostfutile, wasteful, humanly destructive, no-through-road in history. It has led to con-ceivable investment in weapons with in-conceivable destructive powers, whichhave—and which still do—threatened thevery survival of the human species, and ofother species perhaps more worthy of sur-vival. It has nourished and reproduced re-ciprocal paranoias. It has enlarged authori-tarian powers and the licence of overnightsecurity survivors. It has abandoned im-agination with a language of worst caseanalysis, and a definition of half the hu-man race as an enemy other.

(E.P.Thompson, 1990)

INTRODUCTION

The second main dimension of the post-war worldorder is the dichotomy between East and West.

The two blocs were headed by two countries,the USA and the USSR, and their interactionstructured the post-war international politicalscene. World affairs from 1945 to 1990 weredominated by the USA and USSR.

In the following pages we will be examiningthe rise of these superpowers—a difficult task.Discussions regarding Soviet foreign policy werebedevilled by lack of information and massiveinferences were made from the merest scrap ofdata or the slightest reshuffling of the party hier-archy. The Kremlin was, and is, not the mostopen of government centres and Winston Church-ill’s remark in 1939 still has some credence, ‘Icannot forecast to you the actions of Russia. It isa riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma’.More-over, the whole debate concerning the East-West split in world affairs has been contami-nated by ideological axe-grinding, faulty judge-ment and just plain lies. Many analysts cut theiranalytical teeth during the cold war, with theresultant tendency to see the conflict as one ofthe good guys against the bad, freedom againsttyranny, right against wrong. It is difficult toescape from this ideological fog which surroundsand envelops the truth in its stultifying embrace.But the attempt should be made.

THE USA

The roots of expansionism

The role that the USA played in the post-warworld had its roots in earlier American history.From the very beginning the process of nation-

2

THE RISE AND FALL OFTHE SUPERPOWERS:

THE EAST-WEST FULCRUM


36

building inevitably involved the USA in rivalrywith the empires of Britain and Spain. By seek-ing to obtain more territory from other imperialpowers the republic was stamped with the birth-mark of expansion. In the north the USA soughtto expand at the expense of the British empireand serious thought was given to ‘liberating’Canada in 1812, but the US forces were militarilydepleted by the Canadians. In the south and west,California, Texas and New Mexico were wrestedfrom Mexico. In the drive to the west the nativeIndian populations were subjugated. In no othercountry, apart from the USSR, has expansion offrontiers played such a role. The effects havereceived conflicting interpretations. Turner (1963)associates democracy in the USA with the exist-ence of an expanding frontier. The open lands ofthe west, according to Turner, provided a safetyvalve to the build-up of social pressure in theeast: they ensured freedom and economic equal-ity. Democracy and expansion went hand in hand.Democracy gave vitality to expansion and con-tinued expansion ensured democracy. A belief inthe Turner thesis has been one of the many strandswhich have made up post-war US foreign policy;it has often been argued that the USA’s globalrole ensured democracy at home.

An alternative thesis has been suggested byW.A.Williams (1961), who argued that expan-sion has been a method for avoiding democracyand that it has diverted attention away from thecreation of a truly democratic nation. Critics ofUS 1960s involvement in Vietnam, for example,adopted a position not dissimilar to Williamswhen they argued that the war deflected atten-tion from social reform and civil rights.

By the early nineteenth century the USA wasmapping out spheres of influence. In the MonroeDoctrine, enunciated in 1823, the USA propoundedfour principles for the conduct of internationalaffairs:

1 the USA would not intervene in Europeanaffairs;

2 it would respect existing colonies of Euro-pean powers;

3 recognized republics in South America shouldnot be colonized;

4 any attempt to do so would be interpretedas an unfriendly act towards the USA.

The doctrine was partly defensive, partly expan-sionist. The USA was attempting to dissuade fur-ther European penetration in Latin America and,by telling the Europeans to keep clear, the waywas to be left open for the exercise of US influ-ence. Latin America was to be within the USA’ssphere of influence.

The expansion of both the formal and theinformal US empires only really developed afterthe Civil War. Although Walt Whitman couldwrite in 1860:

I chant the new empireI chant America the new mistress

this represents conceit rather than political reality.Prior to the Civil War there were limits to overseasexpansion. The economy was only just beginningto realize its enormous potential and much timeand energy was expended on westward expansion.The Civil War (1861–65) slowed expansion butafter it ended momentum was regained.

Superimposed upon the forces of empire-build-ing were the forces of industrialization in theeconomy and the drive of finance capitalism.Throughout the latter half of the nineteenth cen-tury there was a growing commercial impetusfor expansion, shown in the consensus amongstbusinessmen, financiers and political leaders thatfurther expansion was necessary to provide safeinvestment sites for their accumulating capital,possible markets for manufactured goods and asa method of preventing economic depression andsocial unrest at home.

In Asia the main focus of the USA’s de-signs was China (see Figure 2.1). Alaska wasacquired from Russia in 1867 partly as a backdoor to Canada, partly as a stepping-stoneto Asia. In the same year Midway Island wasannexed as a coaling port for US ships ontheir way to Asia. Pearl Harbour was an-nexed in 1887 for the same purpose and in1893 the Hawaiian Islands as a whole were finally

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SUPERPOWERS

37

annexed. The Philippines and Guam were alsoobtained in 1898 as the victor’s rewards in theSpanish-American war.

American business and finance lobbies wereeager to get a share of the fabled hugeness of theChinese market. Fearful of being eased out bythe other imperial powers the US State Depart-ment in 1889 issued a series of Open Door noteswhich called for equal access to China. It was inChina that the USA first came into conflict withRussia. The Russians were advancing eastward,the Americans westward. The designs of the USAon Manchuria were thwarted by the Russo-Japa-nese treaties of 1907 and 1910 which dividedManchuria between the two signatories. The rootsof the conflict between the two superpowers werethus put down well before the Bolshevik Revo-lution.

There was also US expansionism into the Car-ibbean after Spain’s defeat in the Spanish-American

War. Puerto Rico was annexed at the same timeas the Philippines; Cuba was not made part ofthe formal empire but under the Platt Amend-ment of 1901 it had restrictions placed on itsforeign relations and the size of the national debt.It also had to support US actions and providemilitary and naval bases for the US armed forces.Despite this supposed political independence theUSA directly intervened in 1906, 1911 and 1917to quell domestic upheavals which threatenedUS business interests. The USA was active else-where in the Caribbean. Punitive expeditions weresent to Mexico in 1911 and 1916, and a numberof other countries experienced indirect involve-ment in the form of being declared protectoratestates under US guidance (see Figure 2.1).

By the time the nineteenth century turned intothe twentieth the infrastructure of expansion hadbeen laid. Overseas possessions had been gainedand an economy was developing which was de-

Figure 2.1 Early US expansionism


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pendent on overseas trading and financial links; un-derlying the economic and political forces was anideology which in the name of free enterprise anddemocracy was willing to sanction interference abroad.

The rise to globalism

The end of the Second World War saw the USAemerge as the richest and most powerful nationon earth. Subsequent policy was based on main-taining this position. The most important charac-teristic of post-war US foreign policy has been theessential oneness of economic, political and secu-rity interests. Economic goals, political aims andstrategic considerations were fused into an essen-tial unity in US policy-making. The USA has akey role in the world economy and is intimatelyassociated with overseas economies, which it needsfor supplies of raw materials, as sites for capitalinvestment and as markets for agricultural andindustrial produce. Foreign-policy objectives areprimarily aimed at maintaining and servicing theselinks. The symmetry of economic, political andmilitary objectives was perhaps best described bya former treasurer to the General Electric Com-pany. ‘Thus our search for profits places us squarelyin line with the national policy of stepping upinternational trade as a means of strengtheningthe free world in the Cold War confrontation withCommunism’ (quoted in Magdoff, 1969).

The early years

As the Second World War drew to a close theUSA attempted to secure an Open Door policy.To this end the Bretton Woods conference in1944 created free-trading arrangements (allow-ing the USA access to British home and colonialmarkets) and the international organizations ofthe International Monetary Fund (IMF) and theWorld Bank. Since voting rights on these organi-zations’ committees were in proportion to fi-nancial contribution and because the USA wasthe largest single contributor, it effectively con-trolled the institutions. Post-war economic growthwas to be financed and controlled by the USA.

In Eastern Europe the Open Door was to beslammed shut. The Red Army had marched fromRussia to the gates of Berlin and was in controlof most of Eastern Europe. The USSR wantedgovernments friendly to it installed to act as adefensive buffer against possible attack. The USSRalso wanted the resources and machinery of East-ern Europe to replace its shattered economy. TheUSA, on the other hand, wanted the door leftopen for trade and investment. When the USSRextended its sphere of influence in the region thescene was set for conflict. From the Soviet per-spective it was essential to hold Eastern Europeas a defence against attack and as a reservoir ofresources and transportable machinery: the claimsof the Western allies ignored the world positionthat the USSR was entitled to after its role in thewar, a war in which 20 million Soviet citizensdied. From the viewpoint of the Western allies,Soviet actions were all preludes to attempted worlddomination.

In such a climate of mutual distrust, battle lineswere drawn up. In 1946 Churchill, in a speech atFulton, Missouri, noted that ‘from Stettin in theBaltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtainhas descended across the continent’ (see Figure2.2). According to the State Department in Wash-ington, uprisings in Greece and Turkey were in-spired by the USSR, whose ultimate aim was worldconquest. Greece and Turkey were considered front-line states; if they fell, then, like a set of uprightdominoes which have been pushed over, Europewould also fall. This was the beginning of thedomino-theory motif in US foreign policy. It wasa policy that, as Table 2.1 demonstrates, was infi-nitely adaptable across space and time.

The years of ‘irreconcilable conflict’

The response to the perceived Soviet threat wastwofold. First, the Truman Doctrine, announcedin March 1947, stated that it was the policy ofthe USA to support ‘free peoples who were resist-ing attempted subjugation by armed minoritiesor by outside pressure’. The term ‘free’ was neverdefined, but was interpreted in terms of openness


39

to US business interests and receptivity to USstrategic considerations. The doctrine’s promisebecame a useful fall-back for any dictator facingsocial unrest; the blame could always be placedon the influence of communist organizers. Anygovernment in a sensitive area could use the com-munist bogey to get US aid to bolster its powerand authority. Conceived as a tract for freedom,the doctrine became a blueprint for repression.

The second response was the MarshallPlan, unveiled in June 1947, which involved$17 billion aid to Western Europe. The moneywas to generate economic growth so as to coun-ter the influence of communist and socialistparties; Western Europe would then be astronger bulwark against the Soviet Union andits economic development would boost theUS economy. In the Marshall Plan, as in otherUS policies, economic considerations were

Figure 2.2 Eastern Europe, 1945–89


40

interwoven with political goals and strategicobjectives.

Elaborations to the initial Truman Doctrinewere to provide the basis for post-war US for-eign policy. The policy was essentially one ofbuilding up armed forces of both nuclear andconventional types. The USA was to act as theworld’s policeman in the defence of ‘democracy’and ‘free enterprise’. The expansion of the USSRwould be stopped in its tracks and US businesswould be allowed to prosper. Such a policy in-volved a system of: 1 alliances2 containment of Soviet ‘advances’3 interventions: direct, small-scale, military and

economic involvement where appropriate. Alliances: In 1938 the USA had no military alli-ances and no troops stationed on foreign soil. In1959 the USA had 1400 foreign bases in 31 coun-tries, and by 1989 military alliances had beensigned with 50 states and just over 1.5 million

service personnel were stationed across 117 coun-tries. The three most important alliances wereNATO, SEATO and CENTO, which tied theUSA and its allies to involvement in, respectively,Western Europe, South-East Asia and CentralAsia. The NATO treaty was signed in 1949 byBelgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy,Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portu-gal, Britain and the USA. Later signatories wereGreece, Turkey and West Germany. The SEATOorganization lasted from 1945 to 1975 and in-cluded Australia, Britain, France, New Zealand,Pakistan, the Philippines and the USA. Signed in1955, the CENTO treaty involved Britain, Iran,Pakistan, Turkey and the USA. From the US view-point such alliances bound together the coun-tries on the edge of a supposedly expanding So-viet empire; they were the mortar which boundthe crumbling edges of an unstable edifice. Forthe USSR the alliances were interpreted as a policyof encirclement, a giant noose drawn around theneck of the Soviet state.

Containment: The USA sought to halt per-ceived Soviet expansion by a policy of contain-ment. The USA was to provide countervailingpressure wherever in the world Soviet-inspiredrevolution was seen to exist. This policy of con-tainment led to US troops fighting in Korea andSouth Vietnam.

When the North Koreans attacked the Southacross the 38th parallel on 25 June 1950 it wasquickly perceived in Washington as an expan-sionist move of world communism. The inva-sion threatened the stability and the markets ofthe whole of Asia. The USA was quick to act.On 27 June it managed to push through a reso-lution in the UN calling for assistance to SouthKorea and by September 1950 troops led byGeneral Mac-Arthur had landed at Inchon. Thebattle lines swung backwards and forwards. TheUN forces, 90 per cent of whom were from theUSA, reached the Chinese border by October1950 but by January 1951 a combined Chineseand North Korean force had pushed the frontback into South Korea. The war dragged on un-til 1953, when an armistice was signed. The peace

Table 2.1 The domino theory in US foreign policy


41

treaty kept the border at the 38th parallel. Ap-proximately 5 million people had died by theend of the war; the frontier remained the sameas at the beginning.

In its desire to end the war quickly the USAused the threat of massive retaliation. Eisenhowerhad threatened the Chinese with nuclear weap-ons if the treaty was not signed quickly. Contain-ment could now be achieved by virtue of nuclearsuperiority. The problem with massive retaliation,however, was that it was an all-or-nothing re-sponse, useful to counter the great threat but use-less against small-scale liberation movements.

The policy of containment in the context ofliberation movements reached its culmination inVietnam. After the French defeat at Dien BienPhu in 1954 the USA shouldered more of theburden of fighting, as part of the policy of con-tainment. Officials agreed that it was importantto show the communists, especially the Chinese,that liberation movements would not succeed.The Third World had to be shown that the USAwould stand up against perceived communistincursions. Containment had to be pursued, itwas argued, for if Vietnam fell it would heraldthe fall of South-East Asia to the communists.Other dominoes would keel over. Importantmarkets and vital raw-material supplies wouldthus be withdrawn from US economic influence.The USA fought in Vietnam to preserve its eco-nomic might, to bolster its image as the world’spoliceman and to impose its world view on theunfolding of events in the periphery. Even a briefdiscussion of the events makes salutary reading.

The Geneva Convention of 1954 establishedthe division of Vietnam into North and Southalong the 17th parallel. The convention also statedthat elections should be held. They never were inthe South because the USA feared that Ho ChiMinh would win—and this from the upholderof democracy and freedom. From 1955 onwardsthe USA supported Ngo Dinh Diem and pro-vided military aid. Diem’s regime was very un-popular; it was seen to be corrupt and repressiveand Diem was a rich Catholic in a country wherethree-quarters of the population were poor Bud-dhists. Resistance to Diem hardened and in 1960

delegates from a number of nationalist groupsformed the National Liberation Front (NFL) withthe aim of replacing Diem. In the post-war con-text Diem could raise the spectre of communistinsurgents to receive yet more aid. The scenewas set. The USA was, as it saw it, trying todefeat communism in south Vietnam, but by la-belling critics of the Diem regime as communistsit did more to strengthen the hand of the com-munists in the NFL than anything else. All crit-ics of the corrupt regime, of whatever affilia-tion, became by definition communists or com-munist sympathizers.

The war escalated during the 1960s. In 1960there were fewer than 800 US ‘advisers’ in Viet-nam. By 1963 this had risen to 17000 troops, byearly 1965 to almost 170000, until in 1969 555000US troops were stationed in Vietnam. Becausethe strategists believed that the liberation move-ment was a communist plot masterminded fromthe North and since the NFL was receiving sup-port from there, US strategy focused on the North.President Johnson deceived the US Congress aboutthe supposed Gulf of Tonkin incident and in thesubsequent resolution of the same name the Presi-dent was given a blank cheque to pursue mili-tary ends. The cheque was cashed in with thesaturation bombing of the North. By 1969 overseventy tons of bombs had been dropped forevery square mile of North Vietnam. As the warescalated, so did the casualties. During the mid-to late-1960s, US casualties rose to approximately250 a week and the full horrors of the war werebeing seen in most sitting-rooms, courtesy of tel-evision. As the casualties increased and the con-cept of an American military victory faded fromsight, resistance to the war began to grow in theUSA. As the war proceeded further to suck inmen, money and material in a maelstrom of deathand destruction, protest spread from the studentsand intellectuals to the rich and powerful. In1968 peace talks began in Paris and Nixon be-came president with vague murmurings of puttingan end to the war.

The winning of the peace proved as bloody asthe attempt to win the war. Nixon’s policy ofVietnamization involved reducing the number


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of US land troops by increasing aid to the Southand by providing more US air power. In order todestroy the supply routes from the North, USand South Vietnamese troops invaded Cambo-dia in 1970 and the US Air Force provided coverfor the South Vietnamese invasion of Laos in1971. Criticism of the war continued and by1973 Congress had prohibited the reintroduc-tion of US forces in South Vietnam. As the USApulled out and the North Vietnamese advanced,the regime in the South collapsed. By 1975 Viet-nam, Laos and Cambodia all had communistgovernments. The policy had failed; it had costthe lives of 46000 US service personnel, 2 mil-lion Asian troops and 1.5 million civilians.

Small-scale intervention. Vietnam was a fail-ure. The USA had paid a high price in its unsuc-cessful bid to contain a national liberation move-ment. Elsewhere, the USA had achieved economicand military objectives by a series of successfulsmallscale operations. The following are only atiny proportion of US activities.

In Latin America, the Monroe Doctrine wasinterpreted as a justification for US intervention.In 1953, for example, the President of Guatemalaconfiscated the property of the United Fruit Com-pany. In 1954 the USA airlifted arms to rebels innearby Nicaragua and Honduras. The CIA andthe US embassy in Guatemala aided the coup whichinstalled army officers acquiescent to the demandsof the United Fruit Company. In the DominicanRepublic the US government gave support to acoup d’état in 1962 which replaced the radicalpresident Juan Bosch by the conservative ReidCabral. When unrest against the unpopular Cabralbroke out in 1965 order was restored by the pres-ence of 23 000 US marines who landed in thecapital of Santo Domingo. The very success ofthe operation gave further support to those in thePentagon and the State Department who arguedfor greater resolve in containing communism inSouth Vietnam and for more direct US involve-ment in South-East Asia. In 1983 US marines landedin Grenada and in December 1989 US troops in-vaded Panama in the most recent example of thevitality of the Monroe Doctrine.

The US government also intervened in the MiddleEast. In 1953 an Iranian nationalist movementheaded by Mohammed Mossadegh confiscatedthe holdings of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.The move was widely supported within Iran, wherein the same year Mossadegh had received over 90per cent in a plebiscite. The US government wasless pleased. All aid to Iran was cut and arms,equipment and money given to the Shah to helpin his bid to regain power. The bid was successful.In the ensuing discussions the US oil companiesreceived 40 per cent of Iran’s oil production, towhich the USA had previously been denied accessby the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Company.More direct US involvement took place in Leba-non. In 1958 the US government feared restric-tions on Middle-East oil supplies. Nasser’s brandof Arab nationalism was gaining support and inthe Lebanon civil war was being waged betweenMaronite Christians and pro-Nasser Moslems.When the Christian president asked for supportthe USA landed 14000 troops on Lebanese beaches.Dulles explained to Congress, ‘It was time to bringa halt to the deterioration in our position in theMiddle East.’

The recorded interventions are only the tip ofthe iceberg. Submerged beneath the waves ofsecrecy lie the endeavours of the CIA to bolsterfriendly governments, topple unfriendly ones, getrid of troublesome politicians and advance thecause of US interests.

Reiteration of the Truman Doctrine

The Truman Doctrine has been the corner-stoneof US foreign policy since it was announced in1947. In various forms, at different times and inchanging circumstances, it has been reiteratedby successive presidents. In 1957 the EisenhowerDoctrine promised US military and economic aidto any nation in the Middle East which requestedhelp against communist-inspired aggression.Kennedy’s position was eloquently stated in his1961 inaugural address, ‘…we shall pay any price,bear any burden, meet any hardship, supportany friend, oppose any foe, in order to assurethe survival and success of liberty. This much we


43

pledge—and more.’ In justifying the landing ofmarines in Santo Domingo the Johnson Doc-trine of 1965 announced, ‘American nations can-not, must not and will not permit the establish-ment of another Communist government in theWestern Hemisphere.’

As the full cost of containment was being paidin Vietnam and as domestic criticism increased,the policy-makers sought to spread the costs ofcontainment. The Nixon Doctrine announced in1969 was the Truman Doctrine writ in an era ofretrenchment. The doctrine stated that, whilethe USA would keep all its treaties, it would‘look to the nation directly threatened to assumethe primary responsibility of providing the man-power for its defense’. The Nixon Doctrine wasfighting the containment war by proxy. The USAwould provide the aid and the hardware, andthe client states, such as South Vietnam, woulddo the actual fighting. Regional client states wereestablished to defend US interests in certain ar-eas of the world. In the Middle East this rolewas performed by Iran under the Shah. The CarterDoctrine was announced in January 1980, inresponse to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.The doctrine indicated an overall increase in thedefence budget and renewed emphasis on UScommitments in the oilrich states of the MiddleEast. Carter stated:

An attempt by any outside force to gaincontrol of the Persian Gulf region will beregarded as an assault on the vital interestsof the United States. It will be repelled byuse of any means necessary, including force.

Throughout the postwar years the USA has fol-lowed a path which has meant global involve-ment and global responsibilities.

THE USSR

The legacy of the past

When the Bolsheviks sought to capture state powerin 1917 their ultimate prize was a huge empirewhich sprawled from Europe to Asia, and from

the Arctic almost to India. It was an empire whichabutted many countries and contained many dif-ferent nationalities and ethnic groups. Russian ex-pansionism in the nineteenth century was to leaveits legacy on twentieth-century Soviet politics. Theprize was not easily obtained and it was not until1921 that the Bolsheviks secured victory againstthe Western powers and the White Russians.

The geo-politics of the country and the earlyexperiences of the Soviet state influenced subse-quent foreign policy. The feelings of vulnerabilitycaused by the shared borders with so many, oftenhostile, neighbours were reinforced by the West-ern powers’ attempt to strangle the socialist stateat birth. In the civil war between 1917 and 1920Britain, France and the USA supplied aid and troopsto the Whites; in 1918 Bolshevik control was lim-ited to a circle of 500-kilometer radius with itscentre in Moscow. It is impossible to comprehendsubsequent Soviet policy without noting its in-nate distrust of the world’s capitalist countries.The warlike stance of these powers meant thatSoviet policy was formulated from the position ofa state encircled by aggressive nations.

The early years (1917–47)

Soviet foreign policy before the Second WorldWar was one of caution in the face of perceivedcapitalist aggression. Care had to be exercised indefending the first socialist homeland and theemphasis was on pursuing peaceful co-existenceand utilizing contradictions within the capitalistcamp. The policy of peaceful co-existence wasvery largely determined by the backward stateof the Russian economy. The country was shat-tered by the experience of the First World War(1914–18). It has been estimated that 16 millionRussians died in the war against Germany andthe ensuing civil war. A further 5 million haddied of starvation and 2 million of typhus. Theravages of war imposed a conciliatory attitudetowards the West. The term ‘peaceful co-exist-ence’ was first coined by Lenin in 1917 as arealistic short-term response to the Soviet posi-tion. Thereafter, changes in foreign policy beganto reflect the course of internal politics.


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The body of doctrine which the Bolsheviks usedto outline their policies was notably deficient inits coverage of the state. Marx had little to say onthe politics of the state in capitalist society andeven less on the role of the state in the transitionalperiod. The Bolsheviks had to create their theo-ries and their own state in the crucible of practice.In the initial period politics were determined bythe obvious constraints. At the treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918 Russia signed an humiliating peacetreaty with Germany in order to secure the life ofthe revolution. In the treaty Russia lost Finland,the Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.Petrograd (which became Leningrad and is nowSt Petersburg) was so close to the border that thecapital was shifted to Moscow. At home, the NewEconomic Policy was introduced to get the peas-ants to produce food to feed the starving urbanworkers. This policy, announced in 1921, broughtthe possibility of profits to peasants and returnedsmall factories to private ownership. Private re-tail trade was also allowed and encouraged. Asthings began to improve, the economy got mov-ing and most countries recognized the new state.By 1925 the possibility of alternative interpreta-tions was raised. The tyranny of circumstanceswas beginning to lift.

The alternatives were raised in the leadershipstruggle between Trotsky and Stalin. Trotskybelieved that socialism could not survive in onecountry, especially not in one as backward asRussia. The emphasis should be on encouragingworld revolution, not only for its own sake butto ensure the continued existence of socialism inRussia. Only by encouraging socialist revolu-tion in other lands at the time, combining theirresources, knowledge and culture, could Sovietsocialism prosper. Trotsky’s belief in permanentrevolution was Marxist internationalism writ large.For Stalin, in contrast, socialism in one countrywas a real possibility. Stalin believed that Eu-rope would not rise in revolution. The functionof Soviet policy was not, therefore, to spreadrevolution but to secure the existence of the So-viet Union. Trotsky offered further tribulationsand pointed to Russian inadequacies while Sta-lin fused socialist rhetoric with gut nationalism.

Trotsky’s banishment in 1929 put the final sealon Stalin’s victory and stamped the nature ofsubsequent policies.

The Comintern (Communist International) hadbeen set up in 1919 in Moscow as a worldwideassociation of revolutionary Marxist parties. Fromits birth to 1923 it followed a policy of promot-ing revolution. Thereafter, with Stalin’s victoryover Trotsky and the failure of revolutionarymovements in Europe, it became a creature ofthe Soviet Union Communist Party in generaland Stalin in particular. From 1923 to 1928 theComintern pursued a moderate line, a united-front policy in association with the view of thestabilization of capitalism. This policy changedas it came to be believed by Soviet theoreticiansthat capitalism was moribund. From 1928 to1934 an ultra-left policy was adopted which com-mitted communist parties to the direct conquestof power and the dismissal of all other politicalparties in capitalist countries. This policy led theGerman Communist Party to reject any idea of asocialist-communist coalition against the Nazis.Subsequent events showed this to be a disas-trous mistake. It was only in 1935 that a popu-lar-front policy was adopted. The emphasis wasnow on combining with other parties to form aplatform of popular resistance against fascism.Even then, the Comintern had to change its policyovernight in August 1939, when Stalin concludedthe Nazi-Soviet Pact.

Stalin’s pact with Germany was an attempt tostave off an attack against the USSR. The Germanrearmament programme of the 1930s and Ger-man expansion into Austria and Czechoslovakiahad brought only limited British and French re-sponse. When Britain and France signed the Mu-nich Agreement with Germany and Italy in 1938Germany was awarded part of Czechoslovakia asone of its ‘legitimate claims.’ Neither Czechoslova-kia nor the USSR were present at Munich. For theSoviets then, Britain and France seemed content todeflect Nazi aggression towards the USSR. Sovietvulnerability was increased when the USSR andBritain failed to reach any agreement over policyin 1939. The Soviets therefore signed a pact withGermany in 1939. When the Germans invaded the


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Soviet Union in 1941, Britain and the USSR be-came allies in the fight against Hitler.

The cold war, phase one (1947–64)

The roots of the cold war lie in the hot war of1941–5. From the Soviet perspective the USSRhad borne the brunt of the war. Up until 1944 italone had faced the German army in Europe andthe Soviet losses of 20 million dead were the larg-est for any Allied country. The failure of the Alliesto open a second front until 1944 was bitterlyresented. Three things had been learned by com-munist policy-makers in the experience of war: • do not trust the West• the USSR, by virtue of its sacrifice, had earned

a place amongst the world powers• the new international order had to secure

for the Soviet Union a good defensive buffer,access to sea routes and economic resources.

Conflict with the USA crystallized in EasternEurope. Battle lines were drawn through the centreof Europe. For the Soviets the enunciation of theTruman Doctrine (1947), the implementation ofthe Marshall Plan (1947) and the creation ofNATO (1950) were all acts aimed at them. Theywere all actions indicating a course of Westernaction leading to war and the destruction of theSoviet Union. The Soviet response was fourfold. 1 The setting up of Cominform (Communist

Information Bureau) in 1947. At its incep-tion the Soviet delegate Zhdanov outlinedthe two-camp analysis of the world order.The world, as pictured by Zhdanov, was di-vided into the socialist and capitalist camps.The division was marked by mutual hostil-ity and conflict, with the USSR as a besiegedcamp hemmed in by non-communist forces.The two-camp analysis provided the basisfor Soviet foreign policy until Stalin’s death.

2 The Soviet Union tightened its grip on East-ern Europe. Comecon (Council for MutualEconomic Assistance) was set up in 1949 to

pull the satellite states in Eastern Europe fur-ther into the Soviet orbit. Many of the satel-lites were stripped of movable goods andcommunist governments were set up whichrepressed any unrest. Repression became morepronounced in 1948 when Yugoslavia ‘de-fected’ from the Soviet camp.

3 The Warsaw Pact was established in 1955after West Germany joined NATO. The So-viets were very wary of German rearma-ment and the Allied policy of bringing Ger-many into NATO was seen as an aggressiveact which had to be countered.

4 Since Soviet attitudes to the Third Worldwere refracted through the prism of the two-camp analysis there was very little apprecia-tion of the independence of nationalist move-ments which did not toe the Stalinist line.You are either with us or against us, was theSoviet line; there could be no middle way.

Stalin’s death in 1953 marked the beginning of achange in Soviet foreign policy. After a three-year transition period Khrushchev emerged asthe leader and the new-look foreign policy wasoutlined at the famous Twentieth Congress ofthe Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956.Two principles were expressed: • Emphasis was to be placed on peaceful co-

existence with the West. The two-camp thesis,with its inevitable conclusion of war, was tobe abandoned. The grisly reality of nuclearweaponry meant that the Soviet Union wasunlikely to survive a full-scale atomic war. Therhetoric of war hardly fitted the Soviet Uniongiven its tactical inferiority to the USA.

• Emphasis was to be placed on the periphery.The crude dichotomy of for and against, capi-talist and communist, was abandoned. So-cialism could be advanced by aiding nation-alist movements even if they were not avow-edly communist. The whole process ofdecolonization was opening up new oppor-tunities for a change in the balance of worldforces and the Soviet Union hoped to gain


46

from these changes. It was at this time thataid was given to, amongst others, Cuba, Egyptand India.

The thaw in Eastern Europe was initially signalledby the setting up of more equitable economic ar-rangements within Comecon and the stirring ofde-Stalinization. The relaxation of first Soviet con-trol gave nationalist communists in Poland thechance to gain control in 1956. Things began to

get out of hand for the Soviets, however, in Hun-gary, where a popular uprising was brutally putdown in 1956. After Hungary, communist partycontrol tightened in Eastern Europe,

The new-look foreign policy suffered from anumber of problems. There was a basic contradic-tion between the pursuit of co-existence with theWest and the aiding of socialism in the periphery.The Soviets had to uphold the socialist cause mminentin peripheral nationalist movements, but not to

B O X F : S U M M A RY O F U S A - U S S R R E L AT I O N S : 1

In the post-Second World War era four separate periods of USA-USSR relations can be identified,periods which differ in terms of the nature of their relationship, the areas of tension and the methodsused to pursue their geopolitical goals.

The first cold war, 1947–63/4

Very soon after the ending of the world war the two superpowers were locked into aggressivepostures. Washington saw the USSR as a menace, a country which held control of Eastern Europe,did not allow either free elections or US trade and was bent on world domination. The Soviets poseda threat to US interests (often translated as world peace or democracy) and revolutionary movementsin the periphery were seen through the prism of the cold war.

The immediate response was the Truman Doctrine, announced in 1947, which articulated the roleof the USA as the world’s ‘policeman’. This rise of globalism involved a system of alliances and directmilitary involvement. The view from Moscow during the cold war was of the Soviet Union as abeleaguered country, hemmed in by a US-dominated system of alliances forming a noose around theSoviet state. Each saw the other’s hand behind political conflicts throughout the world. Thus theState Department in Washington could ‘explain’ Vietnam and Cuba as ‘communist revolution’inspired by Moscow, while Moscow portrayed the events of Hungary in 1956 as the result of ‘CIAmachinations’.

In the Third World, especially in South-East Asia and South America, any dictator or governmentlosing support and facing popular revolt could blame it all on ‘communism’ to secure US interventionand aid. Through this process the US was sucked into maintaining unpopular regimes. US involve-ment in South Vietnam is a sad example. In Eastern Europe and Afghanistan the Soviet Union alsomaintained unpopular regimes. In this first period, then, the superpowers seemed locked into therhetoric of irreconcilable conflict. The USA had a greater world role, enabling it not only to maintaincollaborative elites in the area of the Monroe Doctrine but also establishing bases and troops in Asiaand Europe. The USSR, in contrast, was limited in its direct interventions to Eastern Europe, an areawhere, despite the rhetoric, the USA made no threat to intervene. The Soviets had little direct impactoutside this sphere of influence.

Round one of the superpower confrontation thus went to the USA with its superior militarycapability and greater global reach.


47

the extent of provoking massive retaliation fromthe USA. But to accommodate the West was tofail to uphold the socialist cause. The dilemmawas further aggravated by the disparity betweenSoviet rhetoric and Soviet military capability.Under Khrushchev the Soviet Union was devel-oping a global perspective but, despite Sovietclaims to the contrary, the USSR had neithernuclear parity with the USA nor second-strikecapability. In other words, the USSR could notstrike back if first attacked by the USA. TheUSSR could attack the USA but she could notwithstand the USA’s retaliatory measures. So-viet claims to the contrary only made mattersworse because they provided one of the morepowerful reasons for the build-up of interconti-nental ballistic missiles (ICBM) begun in the USAunder the Kennedy administration.

The problems and contradictions became ap-parent in the Cuban missile crisis. Castro cameto power in Cuba in 1959 on the wave of popu-lar rebellion against the corrupt regime of Batista.Castro’s agrarian reform provided cold comfort

for US capital and when the Cubans signed atrade agreement with the Soviet Union in Febru-ary 1960 the USA severed trading links. Cubawas now in the socialist camp. In 1961 the CIA-inspired Bay of Pigs invasion attempted to top-ple Castro and remove the socialist government.The attempt failed but it showed the lengths towhich the USA was willing to go to overthrowthe socialists. The Cuban government wantedprotection from the US threat. For the Soviets,Cuba provided an invaluable base against theUSA. On 14 October 1962, the US presidentwas informed of the presence of nuclear missilesin Cuba. Kennedy imposed a naval quarantineto stop further shipments of arms and technol-ogy. In the phrase of the time, the world held itsbreath. After numerous diplomatic exchangesKhrushchev announced on 28 October that theweapon systems would be stripped and shippedback to the Soviet Union. The expansionist policyof the USSR had floundered and its global rolewas found wanting. Soviet vulnerability and in-feriority to US missile power had been demon-

Figure 2.3 The bipolar world


48

strated and further proof had been given to theChinese argument that the Soviet Union wasmerely a ‘paper tiger’; on the same day thatKhrushchev was replaced as Soviet premier (11October 1964) the Chinese exploded their firstA-bomb.

The cold war, phase two (1964–85)

From 1964 until recently, Soviet foreign policywas based on achieving four goals: 1 the continuation of a global role for the USSR2 the need to achieve peaceful co-existence with

the USA and the West3 maintaining hegemony in Eastern Europe4 aiding socialism and socialist states in the

periphery. Let us look at these goals in more detail: 1 The global role of the USSR has been achieved

by a massive build-up of arms, military powerand strategic capability. Up until 1961 theUSSR had only first-strike capability. In the1960s a decision was made, perhaps in re-sponse to the Cuban crisis, to match the stra-tegic power of the USA. By 1966 a second-strike capability had been obtained and by1972 a rough parity in nuclear arms wasachieved with the USA. In the 1970s the USSRhad world-wide military mobility and a glo-bal strategic response (see Figure 2.3). Thenew military status brought some advantages.As the USA had used its power to keep friendlyregimes in power throughout the world, sothe USSR could now use its forces to aid so-cialist revolutions in the periphery. In Africa,for example, Soviet airlifts helped sustain theAngolan and Ethiopian revolutions againstanti-socialist forces. And in Afghanistan So-viet troops were used to bolster a crumblingsocialist regime. The military build-up alsobrought its problems. Anti-Soviet forces inthe West used it to make the argument thatthe Soviets were bent on pursuing an aggres-

sive stance against the West. The arms racebegan to spiral as NATO demands for armsstrengthened the hand of the hawks in theKremlin, which in turn aided the argumentsof the hawks in the Pentagon. Each side re-acted to the other; each side responded to theother’s reaction. The global military role hasalso been expensive for the USSR. Greatermilitary expenditure meant less investmentin heavy industry and consumer durables. Thusit placed limits on economic growth and risesin consumer welfare.

2 There have been sound economic reasonsfor pursuing peaceful co-existence with theWest. To obtain greater economic growth itwas necessary to reduce military expendi-ture and get access to Western technology.Neither aim could be achieved while the So-viet Union was locked into an aggressivestance and a spiralling arms race with theWest. The USA also had its own reasons forpursuing detente, especially the need to re-duce military expenditure and the trade deficit.

An increasingly important factor in theUSSR’s pursuit of co-existence with the Westwas the entry of China into world power cal-culations. From the time of the Cuban mis-sile crisis the Chinese were convinced thatthe Soviet Union was revisionist and expan-sionist. The revisionist critique is seldom heardin post-Mao China but at the time it was auseful stick with which to beat the SovietUnion. Beneath the rhetoric the Chinese werefearful of a powerful state on their border;they felt that they had to distance themselvesfrom the USSR if they were to be independ-ent. Sino-Soviet relations deteriorated through-out the 1960s as the ideological disputes eruptedin a series of border clashes. The Soviet fearof encirclement was reinforced when the USA,previously an implacable enemy of China,began a dialogue with the Chinese leaders.Nixon’s visit to China in 1972 marked theend of the Chinese policy of isolationism to-wards the West and raised the Soviet fear ofcomplete encirclement by hostile neighbours.


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Unable to overcome its disputes with China,and anxious to get Western technology, theSoviet Union became more eager to reachpeaceful negotiations with the West.

3 Until recently a major goal of Soviet foreignpolicy was to maintain communist party he-gemony in Eastern Europe. The aim was tofoster the development of communist par-ties loyal to the Soviet Union. After the endof the war the nature of Soviet involvementin Eastern Europe was one of successiveliberalizations followed by repressions, thecycle of events being synchronized with thechanges in overall East-West relations. Whenthe cold war intensified Soviet power hard-ened; during thaws the grip loosened. Thiswas the overall trend, although it is impor-tant to bear in mind that the experiences ofvarious countries have differed and that thefreeze-thaw cycle has to be set against a trendof greater independence for Eastern Euro-pean communist parties. There was an in-exorable increase in the amount of leewayafforded to Eastern Europe. After 1964, asSoviet policy became characterized as a kindof flexible conservatism, greater freedom wasgiven to Soviet satellites. Romania began topursue a more adventurous foreign policyand Hungary began to inaugurate internalpolitical reforms. These moves were haltedby the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslo-vakia. This took place because the Sovietswere fearful that the Prague Spring of lib-eral reforms would sweep away communistparty power in a country whose geo-politi-cal role was vital to the Soviet concept of adefensive buffer.

Czechoslovakia prompted the Soviet ver-sion of the Truman Doctrine. Three monthsafter Soviet troops had replaced the Dubchekgovernment with a more conservative com-munist regime, Brezhnev outlined the Sovietattitude in what later came to be termed theBrezhnev Doctrine. This asserted the rightof the socialist community (i.e. the USSR) tointervene in the territory of any member of

the community threatened by internal or ex-ternal forces hostile to socialism. In effect,the Brezhnev Doctrine asserted the right ofthe USSR to maintain the communist partysystem of power in communist countries. Ina bipolar world no country was to be al-lowed to break away from the socialist camp.The Chinese perceived the doctrine as a po-tentially dangerous policy for their independ-ence and it strengthened the resolve of theChinese leaders to distance themselves fromthe Soviet Union.

4 The final goal of the USSR was to aid lib-eration movements and fledgling socialiststates in the periphery. The crude dichotomyof only non-communist and communist stateswas abandoned and the Soviets recognizeda three-fold division of the periphery intoprogressive socialist countries, nationalistindependent states which included bourgeoiselements, and capitalist regimes. Soviet policyin the periphery was aimed at helping thefirst two. Military assistance was temperedby the need to pursue peaceful co-existencewith the West and by the lack of a globalmilitary capacity. In South-East Asia, althoughthe Soviets did give assistance to the NorthVietnamese, there was little likelihood of theUSSR going to war with the USA over Viet-nam. Even when the USA was involved inthe invasion of Laos the Soviet response wasmuted. Soviet confidence, however, beganto grow. The heavy investment in the mili-tary sector gave the USSR nuclear parity withthe USA and global reach by 1972. Moreo-ver, the debacle in Vietnam had caused theUSA to temper its own interventionist ten-dencies. Soviet intervention grew in scopeand depth against the background of a rela-tive waning of US power and revolutionaryupheaval in parts of the periphery. The growthwas not uniform throughout the world. Lit-tle help was afforded to Allende’s Chile andless for other South American states. TheSoviet Union did not transgress into the clearlydemarcated areas of the USA’s sphere of in-


50

fluence but Soviet intervention grew in thegrey, interstitial areas.

Intervention varied according to the cir-cumstances. In Cuba the Soviet purchaseof sugar kept the economy afloat. In Ethio-pia the Soviet Union helped ‘save’ the revo-lution and aided the Ethiopian fight-backagainst the Somali invasion of the Ogaden.And in Angola Soviet airlifts helped defeat,for a time at least, the counter-revolution-aries and mercenary forces from South Af-rica. The commitment to intervention ledto Soviet involvement in Afghanistan, whichhad implicitly been in the Soviet sphere ofinfluence since 1956, when the country re-ceived $25 million worth of Soviet aid. Evenbefore 1978 Afghanistan was the biggest

single recipient of Soviet aid. In 1978 a smallurban-based, predominantly middle-class,communist party overthrew the Daoud re-gime (see Halliday, 1980). The coup owedmore to internal tensions in Afghan societythan to Soviet expansionism. However, asocialist neighbour was warmly appreciatedin Moscow and the Soviets stepped up theireconomic and military assistance to the newgovernment. The new regime quickly gotinto difficulties. The counter-revolutionaryforces were organized and received someaid from China, Iran and Pakistan. The in-ternal situation worsened as factional fightingbroke out. With its growing repression thenew regime was whittling away its slendersupport. The Soviets believed that the gov-

B O X G : S U M M A RY O F U S A – U S S R R E L AT I O N S : 2

A period of detente, 1964–late 1970s.

The cold war was fuelled by national ideologies and in America by what President Eisenhower calledthe US military-industrial complex, a mixture of technological industries and military advisers whoposed military hardware solutions to diplomatic issues. The USSR also had a military complexcontinually putting forward military interests.

Despite this pressure, the years of irreconcilable conflict began to soften in the early 1960s. Thecold war was expensive, using up, as it did, valuable resources, and it was also dangerous. The Cubanmissile crisis of 1962 showed how close the world was to a nuclear holocaust. Attitudes began tochange and an Anglo–US–USSR treaty limiting testing of nuclear weapons was signed in 1963. Therethen followed a period of detente lasting up until the late 1970s. The period was still marked bydirect intervention by the two superpowers: US military involvement in Vietnam and the Sovietinvasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 to put down the ‘Prague Spring’ which threatened to topplecommunist party dominance.

In terms of USA–USSR relations this second period marked the growth of both the rhetoric andthe practice of peaceful co-existence. The tension between the two superpowers was reduced and thethreat of direct confrontation seemed to be diminishing. In terms of respective geopolitical strategiesthe periods of detente saw a lessening in direct US foreign intervention as a foreign policy response tothe post-Vietnam domestic political scene. Indirectly, however, trade patterns and aid disbursementshelped to maintain the position of pro-US elites in the countries of Central and South America andAsia. In sub-Saharan Africa US involvement was minimal. There was no African equivalent of theMonroe Doctrine. In contrast, the period of detente saw an increase in the global capacity of theUSSR, nuclear parity was achieved in the early 1970s, and the Soviets used this capacity to aidsocialist movements in Africa.

Round 2 can be marked as a draw between fighters of near equal weight.


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ernment could not survive with Amin asthe head of state. In fact, Soviet forces inAfghanistan were instrumental in replac-ing Amin with Babrak Karmal in Decem-ber 1979. The immediate results are wellknown. Afghanistan was used by anti-So-viet forces in the West to promote increasedmilitary expenditures and the pursuit of anew cold war.

A NEW ORDER

A second cold war

By the end of the 1980s the old bipolar struc-ture of the world order was coming to an end.It was not a smooth flow, an uninterrupted movefrom conflict to detente. There was a hiccup inthe late 1970s and early 1980s as the relation-ship between the two superpowers began to de-teriorate. After the debacle of Vietnam and thetrauma of Watergate, US foreign policy wasmore muted. The latter half of the 1970s sawself-imposed limits on US intervention and agrowing awareness that political change in theperiphery was not necessarily the outcome ofcommunist machinations. In the Ford adminis-tration Kissinger failed to get support for USintervention in Angola as the liberation move-ments came to power after the departure of the

Portuguese. There were, however, very strongforces working against the curtailment of theUSA’s global role. Powerful economic interestshad to be protected, the arms lobby hated thebusiness vacuum of detente and the conserva-tive-nationalist backlash in the wake of eventsin Iran and Afghanistan all propelled the USAtowards a greater role.

The failure to get the US hostages out ofTeheran marked the end of the Carter adminis-tration. The Reagan presidency, in its begin-ning, marked a change in US policy. Defenceexpenditure was increased. The rhetoric was areturn to the 1950s, the USSR was the ‘evilempire,’ direct involvement was exercised inGrenada and Libya and desperately wanted bysome in Nicaragua. Reagan wanted the USA to‘walk tall’ and to ‘carry the big military stick.’Behind the rhetoric was a nostalgia for the re-cent past when the USA was unrivalled in botheconomic and military power. What was espe-cially frightening is what E.P. Thompson (1980)termed the ‘logic of exterminism’: the seem-ingly in-built tendency for the continual build-up of nuclear capability. There were powerfulforces on either side of the iron curtain. Withinthe USA the economic impulses emanating fromthe military-industrial complex were transmit-ted through government to policies which haveled to the continual build-up of arms stockpiles

B O X H : S U M M A RY O F U S A - U S S R R E L AT I O N S : 3

The second cold war, late 1970s-mid 1980s

In the mid to late 1970s there was a deterioration in USA-USSR relations, a second ‘cold war’. Thelimitations to US power, as dramatically shown by the US hostages in Iran and the failure to haltSoviet involvement in Afghanistan, strengthened the hawkish element in US governments. The build-up of Soviet arms was seen as a direct threat. The increased military expenditure of the USA in turngave added weight to those in the Kremlin arguing for more resources to be devoted to defence. Witheach superpower responding to the build-up of the other’s arsenal there was a steady escalation innuclear weaponry. The dialogue of detente was replaced by the rhetoric of cold war.

At the end of the third round the superpowers squared up to each other and things looked set fora new cold war.


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and recurring developments in nuclear missilesystems. The military and economic forces wereaided by nationalistic sentiments which justi-fied the USA’s possession and right to use nu-clear weapons. There were equally powerful pres-sures within the Soviet Union, a society whichhad since 1917 been fearful of attack and beenplaced on an almost permanent war footing.The military and defence forces created to dealwith the threat have their own momentum. Thehuge Soviet militaryindustrial complex was im-portant enough to influence policy decisions,its inert presence shaping issues and guidingpolicies.

When the first edition of this book was writ-ten I entitled this section Apocalypse now? Itincluded the following passage.

The ultimate struggle between the twosuperpowers is embedded in the devel-opment of nuclear arsenals. Both coun-tries now have the ability to destroymost of human life on the planet. The

prospect of that apocalypse has evadedwidespread discussion. Like our in-ability to face our own mortality, wefind it difficult to contemplate thedemise of the human race. It is a pros-pect so terrifying that we tend to ig-nore it…. The final point will be anuclear exchange between the super-powers in which at least most of Eu-rope will be fried to a radioactivemush, and at the most, ‘A balance-sheet of the last two millennia wouldbe drawn, in every field of endeav-our and of culture, and a minus signb e p l a c e d b e f o r e e a c h t o t a l . ’(Thompson, 1980, p. 29).

It was a period of pessimism, yet also one of actionand hope. The peace movement grew, throughoutthe world. People took to the streets in New Yorkand Moscow, and less than twenty miles fromwhere I lived women attempted to barricade the

Figure 2.4 Superpower alliances, 1990


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US military base of Greenham Common in Berk-shire. When the history of the momentous changescome to be written, the importance of such bot-tom-up pressures should not be forgotten.

It seemed darkest before the dawn. By thelate 1980s the world was divided up by thesuperpowers (see Figure 2.4) and there weretwo opposing world views, one from Moscowand another from Washington (see Figures 2.5and 2.6).

All change

When Gorbachev became General Secretary ofthe Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985most people thought he was just another greyfigure in a long line of grey figures. How wrongcan you be! Gorbachev sought reform. At homehe wanted openness (glasnost) and a restructur-ing (perestroika) of Soviet society. On the worlddiplomatic scene he became the leading figureseeking a new dialogue between the superpow-ers. In November 1987 the Intermediate Nu-clear Forces Treaty was signed. This treaty in-volved the disarming of missiles in Europe, Eastand West. The treaty also marked a significantchange in US attitudes; the Soviet Union was nolonger the evil empire. By 1992 it was no longereven an empire.

The decline of the bipolar structure raises newopportunities. It also raises problems as old su-perpowers seek new roles. The USA no longerhas the USSR to give coherence to a simplisticworld view and the Russians have lost their em-pire. Apart for so long, the USA and Russia maywell share the same withdrawal symptoms, liketwo old actors, former stars, unwillingly leavingthe stage they have dominated for so many years,not quite sure what to say or do. Their old lines,their former roles, are no longer appropriate.

The new world order

In 1990–1 a new term was heard in interna-tional diplomatic circles: the new world order.Like all ‘new’ terms it was not all that new, aspoliticians have been predicting a new world orderfor at least a couple of centuries. The US politi-cal geographer Isaiah Bowman wrote a bookentitled The New World: Problems in Political

Figure 2.5 The world centred on Moscow

Figure 2.6 The world centred on Washington


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Geography. The book was first published in 1922.And like most fashion able terms it was used tomean a rich variety of things. Its usage, however,did mark the recognition of a huge change in theworld order, and reflected three trends. 1 The decline of the USSR as a superpower.

Racked by economic difficulties, which madeit no longer able to sustain a global militarypresence, and riven by internal dissensions,which made political consensus impossible,the USSR was no longer a superpower ableto compete with the USA. As the looseningof political repression opened up a host ofcentrifugal forces and the ethnic mosaic fi-nally began to unravel, the USSR collapsed.The old bipolar structure which had domi-nated the post 1945 world was, by 1990, athing of the past. Now it is only a subject forhistorians.

2 .The decline of the USSR means that theUSA is the undisputed military power inthe world. Its global reach is unmatched byany other single country. After 40 years ofsparring with an opponent, the USA hasemerged the winner. The 1991 Allied vic-tory against Iraq in Kuwait showed theawesome might of US firepower and mis-sile technology. However, as the 1991 Ku-wait campaign also showed, for US powerto be successful some form of legitimacy isessential. The USA cannot wield its powerindependently of global opinions. Ensuringinternational support is vital if the USA isto be a credible world leader. This involvesa set of alliances, some of which may in-volve unusual combinations. The Kuwaitcampaign was unusual, bringing togetherthe USA, France and Britain as well as Egypt,Saudi Arabia and Syria, but in the new world

BOX I: THE EVIL OTHER

Empires tend to come in pairs; they struggle and vie with each other for domination. Athens andSparta, Rome and Carthage, the USA and the USSR; the bipolarities continue through the centuries.An essential element in their relationship is their denigration of each other. The competitor becomesthe ‘evil other’, the source of disorder and unrest, a country populated by demons and devils. In therhetoric of the cold war the USA saw the USSR as a menace to peace and world harmony, hell-benton world domination. The Soviets, in contrast, saw an enemy empire which had military bases allover the world, which had used the atomic bomb on innocent civilians, which wanted to destroy theirsociety. Opinions were polarized; it was a case of forces of good against the power of darkness. Theideologies fed off each other, they needed each other to provide an enemy, an easily identifiable sourceof trouble. The USA could blame the USSR for social unrest around the world, the USSR could seethe hand of the Americans whenever the population in their satellite states of Eastern Europe wantedmore independence. There was a symmetry. The CIA could see the KGB at work, the KGB was sureof CIA involvement. Military build-up in the USA led to a military build-up in the USSR, which ledthe Pentagon to ask for more money, which in turn led the generals of the Red Army to demand moremilitary hardware.

In 1987 the American writer Norman Mailer visited Moscow. He was reported as saying:

I’ve come here to tell you that you must continue with glasnost’ for at least two years. It will takethat long for the US media to figure out what’s happening here and to design a way to communi-cate it to the US public. Of course the Americans have a big problem here. The moment we cease tothink about the USSR as the evil empire, we have to think that the enemy is elsewhere, possiblyeven in ourselves.

(Sheff, 1987)


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order new systems of alliances, combina-tions of a more subtle, pragmatic and flex-ible kind may be more the norm than theexception.

3 While the USA retains its dominant mili-tary position it no longer has undisputedeconomic power. The rise of Japan, the de-velopment of Germany, as well as the com-petition from the EC, have all made inroadsinto the domestic and foreign markets ofthe USA. The undisputed military powerdoes not have undisputed economic power.The Germans and Europeans may have lessmilitary might but their fiscal power is verystrong. In the case of the Kuwait campaign,the USA did most, but not all, of the fight-ing but sought to spread the economic bur-den to rich, non-combative Japan and Ger-many. The new world may be more politi-cally stable, but it is ever more economi-cally competitive. By 1992 the world wasa very different place from what it was in1950. The USA could no longer see revolu-tionary upheavals around the world as aco-ordinated Kremlin plot. The world, atleast as perceived by the more intelligentpeople in Washington, could no longer beseen in the simple terms used during thecold war. Upheavals in Latin America, coupsin Africa and rioting in Asia could not beeasily explained or understood as a Soviet-inspired plot. A more sophisticated analy-sis is required from Washington, a greaterawareness of the internal dynamics of so-cial change and a greater sensitivity towardsdifferent types of societies around the world.The new world is more complex than theold world.


Introductions to the foreign policies and geopoliticsof the two superpowers include:

Agnew, J.A. (1983) ‘An excess of nationalexceptionalism: towards a new political geogra-

phy of American foreign policy’. Political Geogra-phy Quarterly 2, 151–66.

Ambrose, S. (1985) Rise to Globalism: American For-eign Policy Since 1938. Penguin, Harmondsworth.

Chomsky, N., Steele, J. and Gittings, J. (1982) Super-powers in Collision. Penguin, Harmondsworth.

Halliday, F. (1990) Cold War, Third World. An Essayon Soviet-American relations . Hutchinson, Lon-don.

Kolko, G. (1988) Confronting the Third World: USForeign Policy 1945–80. Pantheon, New York.

LaFeber, W. (1985) America, Russia and the ColdWar. Knopf, New York.

Pugh, M. and Williams, P. (eds) (1990) SuperpowerPolitics: Change in The United States and The So-viet Union. Manchester University Press, Manchester.

Sloan, G.R. (1988) Geopolitics in United States Stra-tegic Policy 1890–1987. Wheatsheaf, Brighton.

Steele, J. (1983) World Power: Soviet foreign policyunder Brezhnev and Andropov. Michael Joseph,London

Van Alstyne, R.W. (1960) The Rising American Em-pire. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

The geography of their foreign policy is best consid-ered in maps. Have a look at the following atlases:

Barraclough, G. (ed) (1978) The Times Atlas of WorldHistory. Times Books, London.

Barnaby, F. (ed) (1988) The Gaia Peace Atlas. Pan,London.

Bunge, B. (1988) Nuclear War Atlas. Basil Blackwell,Oxford.

Chaliand, G. and Rageau, J.P. (1985) Strategic Atlasof World Geopolitics. Penguin, Harmondsworth.

Freedman, L. (1985) Atlas of Global Strategy.Macmillan, London.

Kidron, M. and Smith, D. (1983) The New State ofThe World Atlas. Pan, London.

Kidron, M. and Smith, D. (1983) The War Atlas:Armed Conflict—Armed Peace. Pan, London.

On the more recent changes, for the USSR consider:

Crouch, M. (1989) Revolution and Evolution: Gorbachevand Soviet Politics. Philip Allan, Oxford.

Medvedev, Z.A. (1988) Gorbachev. Basil Blackwell,Oxford.

Nove, A. (1989) Stalinisation and After: The Road toGorbachev. Unwin Hyman, London.

Rowen, H.S. and Wolf Jur, C. (eds) (1988) The Fu-ture of The Soviet Empire. Macmillan. London.

White, S. (1990) ‘Democratization in the USSR’, So-viet Studies, 42, 3–25.


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And for the USA see:

Calleo, D.P. (1987) Beyond American Hegemony: TheFuture of The Western Alliance. Basic Books, NewYork.

Friedberg, A.L. (1989) ‘The strategic implications ofrelative economic decline’, Political Science Quar-terly, 104, 401–31.

Relevant journals

DissentForeign AffairsForeign PolicyInternational AffairsInternational Studies QuarterlyJournal of Strategic StudiesMonthly ReviewSoviet StudiesSurveyWorld Policy JournalWorld Politics

Data sources on military strength include:Adelphi Papers

Military BalanceStockholm Peace Research Institute (annual surveys)Survival


Bowman, I. (1922) The New World. Problems in Po-litical Geography. Harrap, London.

Halliday, F. (1980) ‘The war and revolution in Af-ghanistan’, New Left Review, 119, 20–41.

Magdoff, H. (1969) The Age of Imperialism. MonthlyReview Press, New York.

Sheff, D. (1987) ‘Back in the USSR’, Observer Maga-zine, 3 May.

Thompson, E.P. (1980) ‘Notes on exterminism, thelast stage of civilization’, New Left Review 121,3–31.

Thompson, E.P. (1990) ‘When the war is over’, NewStatesman and Society, 26 January, 19–31.

Turner, F.J. (1963) in H.P.Simonson (ed.) The Signifi-cance of the Frontier in American History. UngarPublishing: New York.

Williams, W.A. (1961) The Contours of AmericanHistory. The Viewpoints. New York.

57

The American Empire which, like most em-pires, was as much an empire in men’s mindsas an empire over palm and pine, reposed inthe Old World upon two pillars. The onepillar was the proposition that Soviet Rus-sia and its East European allies were bentupon the invasion and conquest of westernEurope. The twin pillar was the propositionthat the invasion had been averted and stillcontinued to be averted, by the determina-tion of the United States to react to it bycommitting nuclear suicide.Considering that both propositions are con-trary to reason and observation, it is re-markable that the two columns remainedin place for close upon 40 years before col-lapsing. But that is something apt to hap-pen where there is wide-spread politicalvested interest in suspending incredulity.

(Enoch Powell, 1988)

The political geography of the world order has,until very recently, been dominated by the ac-tions of the two superpowers. The USA and USSRhave dominated the world—indeed, to all in-tents and purposes they were the world order.They provided the context in which other na-tions adopted foreign policies and pursued eco-nomic objectives. In recent years, however, thisbipolar structure has begun to change. The glo-bal dichotomy with its attendant allies and sat-ellites has begun to break up. At times the changehas been almost imperceptible, at other timesevents have moved very quickly. The general pic-ture is of the absolute decline of the USSR, the

relative decline of the USA and the emergence ofnew centres of power. We will examine thesenew centres in this chapter. First, however, let usconsider the retreat from empire of the two oldsuperpowers.

RETREAT FROM EMPIRE

On Monday night, 16 October 1989, a group ofEast Germans demonstrated against their gov-ernment. They congregated in the main squareof Leipzig and, to show their disapproval of theirgovernment, they chanted ‘Gorby, Gorby’. Forty,thirty or even five years previously such an eventwould have been impossible. Dissident East Ger-mans chanting the name of the Soviet Premier asan act of revolt against their own government!Hadn’t the Russians sent the tanks into Hun-gary and Czechoslovakia for less?

To publish your writings is to commit yourthoughts to paper. The danger is that you can beovertaken by totally unexpected events. In thefirst edition of this book, I wrote:

What remains clear, however, is that theSoviet Union will not allow the develop-ment of forces leading to the ousting of thecommunist parties. The Brezhnev Doctrineand Soviet troops underwrite communistparty power in Eastern Europe.

(Short, 1982)

At the time of writing, and even up until 1989,every respected analyst would have agreed withthat statement. However, the year 1989 marked

3

THE MULTIPOLAR WORLD


58

a sudden change. Communist party power inEastern Europe was swept away in a wave ofpopular protest (see Table 3.1). Behind these eventslay two structural features:

1 The retreat from empire by the Soviet Un-ion. The Soviet leader refused to send in troopswhen requested by the East German leaderErich Honecker in 1989. If anything,Gorbachev encouraged the popular upris-ing. The lack of Soviet intervention gave thegreen light to the open display of public dis-sent. The decline of bipolarity in the worldscene meant collaborative elites in EasternEurope could no longer use the tried andtested formula of the ‘evil other’ to explainand dismiss internal dissension. The old leaderscould no longer appeal to Moscow or usethe excuse of CIA involvement.

2 The lack of genuine support for the commu-nist governments. Allowed the opportunityto express their feelings, the people showedan overwhelming desire to get rid of the oldleaders and scrap the communist system.

The structure of traditional communist partypower in Eastern Europe has been demolished.What will come in its place? We may see somecountries opting for a market system while somemay choose a more mixed public-private economy.What remains clear is that there is no support for a

return to centralized undemocratic socialism.The first half of the twentieth century has

seen the tremendous development of the USAfrom world power to superpower. The story ofthe second half has been one of relative decline.(Chapter 4 considers some of the major reasons.)The USA is still the undisputed military super-power and the single biggest economy in theworld. However, as the twentieth century wasdrawing to a close its economic power was threat-ened by a new European power centre and theemergence of Japan as an economic superpower.

In 1941 the publisher Henry Luce wrote, in amagazine article, of ‘the American century’. Thetwentieth century was to see the full flowering ofAmerican power and global influence. In the im-mediate post-war world this was undoubtedly true.One crucial element which gave coherence, stabil-ity and purpose to the USA was the existence ofthe Soviet empire. The decline of the Soviet empireand the end of the communist threat puts the USAin a difficult transitional role. No longer is therethe evil other, the countervailing world force. Itbecomes more difficult to prop up undemocraticregimes, when the communist threat has disap-peared. The decline of the Soviet empire also her-alds the decline of the old American empire.

In the new world order of the 1990s the bipo-lar structure of East versus West no longer has aplace. Indeed, there is a growth of new powercentres in the world. The bipolar world is beingreplaced by a multipolar world. In the rest ofthis chapter let us consider three important al-ternative centres of power (see Figure 3.1) andtheir emergence, especially since 1945.

CHINA

China is the most populous nation on earth. Itspopulation of 1000 million constitutes almostone-quarter of the world total. If its resourceswere utilized as fully as those of the USA, thenChina the world power would become Chinathe super-power.

China’s evolving relationship with the USA andUSSR has been complex. From the 1949 revolu-

Table 3.1 Events in Eastern Europe in 1989


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tion throughout most of the 1950s the USSRand China were allies against the cold war threatof the USA. The alliance was unequal. The So-viet Union was the more economically advancedcountry and laid claims to lead the world com-munist movement. China was to be placed inthe role of junior partner. With Soviet aid andtechnical assistance, Chinese development be-gan to follow the Stalinist path of centralizedplanning and a concentration of investment inheavy industry. Throughout the decade suchpolicies resulted in a dislocation of the economyas the heavy industrial sector expanded morethan the agricultural sector. The economic poli-cies, according to Mao, were leading to grow-ing disparities between rural and urban areas,manual and mental workers, and the party andthe masses. Mao took the leftist view that thenature of economic growth was as importantas the size of growth and succeeded in launch-ing China into the Great Leap Forward in 1958.

The leap attempted both to increase growthand foster Chinese independence. The dispari-ties were to be reduced and eventually eradi-cated. The independence line in domestic policywas matched in military affairs. In 1958 theChinese wanted a share in the command of So-viet bases inside China. The arguments contin-ued until the USSR reduced economic supportand withheld technical assistance. In 1960 theSino-Soviet split was officially recognized whenthe USSR withdrew all forms of aid. Beneaththe issue of the bases lay deeper differences inthe interpretation of their alliance, border ri-valry and old prejudices.

Throughout the 1960s the split widened. Forthe Chinese the Brezhnev Doctrine and the eventsin Czechoslovakia were sharp reminders of thepower and determination of the Soviet leadersto maintain their hegemony. After the end of theCultural Revolution in 1969, the Chinese lead-ership began to look towards the USA, Western

Figure 3.1 A multipolar world


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Europe and Japan because they had the technol-ogy and capital necessary for economic growth.Links with the USA were encouraged in order toprovide some measure of defence against theBrezhnev Doctrine being applied to China. Thefostering of Sino-American ties would also stopChina from being isolated in the climate of growingdetente between the two superpowers.

From 1960 onwards the Soviet Union becamewary of China. The old Soviet fear of encircle-ment was one reason for pursuing detente withthe USA in the 1970s with such vigour; the So-viet nightmare was of facing two enemies, onein the East and one in the West. By lessening

tension with the West the Soviet Union hoped toneutralize the threat of fighting on two fronts atthe same time.

For the USA, links with China proved a valu-able bargaining chip with the Soviet Union. Thepursuit of detente widened the Sino-Soviet splitand weakened the world communist movement.Detente with China raised the old hopes of ac-cess to Chinese markets and resources, whiledetente with the Soviet Union made the Chinesemore amenable to dialogue with the USA.Throughout the 1970s the situation evolved intoimproved relations between the USA and the USSRand between the USA and China, and deterio-rating relations between the USSR and China,though more recently China and the USSR soughta rapprochement.

China’s leaders have sought to expand theeconomy of the country by encouraging privatemarkets. Since 1979 economic reforms have beenintroduced which replaced Mao’s vision with awillingness to trade with the outside world. Spe-cial economic zones were founded in Shenzhou,Zhuhai, Shanton and Xiamen in 1984 and 14ports were declared open cities. In 1988, 140additional ports were included as open economiczones (see Figure 3.2).

The leadership of China sought to introducecapitalism but limit democracy. This has proveda difficult task. The economic reforms meantrising inequalities and open corruption amongstthe party bureaucracy. This led to popular dis-content especially amongst the university stu-dents whose standard of living did not improve.In April 1989 students staged a sit-in in Beijing.It was broken up by the police Many peopleresponded to this initial demonstration and aweek later more than 150000 people demon-strated in Tiananmen Square. The protests con-tinued until the night of 3 June when the Peo-ple’s Liberation Army fired on the people. If EastGermany in 1989 was a success for people’s powerthen Tiananmen Square was its failure.

JAPAN

In the post-war period Japan has emerged as

Figure 3.2 Open trading areas in China


61

one of the strongest economies in the world. Thepace and scale of economic development has beenimpressive. Since 1960 Japan’s growth rate hasbeen almost double that of other major capital-ist economies (see Table 3.2).

Japan began the post-war period under thecontrol of the USA. Independence was onlyattained in 1952. From then until 1964 Japanwas integrated into the US scheme of things.The USA provided defence, trade and capital.It provided two-thirds of Japan’s imports andtook three-quarters of Japan’s exports. US mul-tinationals became the major foreign capitalinvestor. The Japanese economy received ini-tial stimulation from the USA through the useof special procurements at the time of the Ko-rean War. Thereafter, the USA actively encour-aged the expansion of the Japanese economyand up until 1964 Japan was the second high-est recipient of World Bank loans, which by

that time had totalled $1500 million. For theUSA a strong Japan provided an anti-commu-nist bulwark against Soviet and Chinese influ-ence in East Asia. Japan was on the perimeter ofthe ‘free’ world’s defences, it was a bastion thathad to be defended.

The post-war growth in the Japanese economywas not entirely due to US influence. Internalfactors played an enormous role. Successive Japa-nese governments have been committed to eco-nomic growth and the high rate of capital accu-mulation has been achieved through the inter-locking relations between Zaikai (big businessand finance) and a state committed to a regres-sive tax system and very low levels of publicexpenditure (in the early days at least) on socialservices and welfare programmes. Economicgrowth has also been based on a strong domes-tic market. The main stimulus to production hasbeen given by the home market, and even as lateas 1980 over 50 per cent of cars produced inJapan were sold in Japan. As the Japanese con-sumer has got richer, the increase in effectivedemand has stimulated the economy and as eco-nomic growth has led to increases in wages, thebenign spiral of economic growth has continuedupwards. Several commentators have also drawnattention to the cultural matrix of Japanese soci-ety which has facilitated economic development(Kahn, 1971; Vogel, 1979). The cultural base ofJapan has provided a rich humus for continuedeconomic growth.

Japan’s strong position in the world economyand her accelerated growth since 1964 has placedthe country in a web of political and economicFigure 3.3 Japan

Table 3.2 Economic growth rates

Source: World Deevelopment Repoort, 1989, Table 1.


62

relations with other countries. As Japan’s economyhas grown, so has the need to import raw mate-rials and export manufactured goods. Japan isvery dependent on other countries for basic rawmaterials; for example, over 90 per cent of heroil comes from abroad, almost 75 per cent fromthe Middle East. This huge dependence on over-seas supplies has necessitated a number of po-litical strategies. Japan has cut her diplomaticcloth to suit her economic needs. This has meantcultivating a careful policy towards oil-produc-ing countries in the Middle East and a continu-ing dialogue with the USSR concerning mutualexploitation of Siberia’s natural resources. Attimes (e.g. during the early days of the Iraniancrisis in 1979, when Japan continued to importoil from Iran after the US embassy hostages hadbeen taken and the USA had called for a totaltrade embargo) the policies have drawn Japan indifferent directions from the USA.

The growth of the Japanese economy has beenbased on the export of manufactured goods. Fromthe 1960s Japanese firms began to sell more oftheir goods both in the markets of the peripheryand in Western Europe and North America. Inthe latter two areas the more efficient Japanesecompanies have undercut the less efficient USand European companies. Japanese market pen-etration into the USA and Europe has involvedthe closure of factories and the folding of com-panies. Such economic processes and their socialimplications have brought the political allies intoeconomic conflict. The arguments have involveddemands for protection against Japanese goodsand demands for opening up the Japanese mar-ket to foreign firms. More recently, there havebeen strong demands in the USA for direct Japa-nese investment—to take the most obvious case,the construction of Japanese cars in plants lo-cated in the USA. During periods of world-wideeconomic growth the conflicts between Japanand the other major capitalist economies are notapparent. During depression and recession, how-ever, they become acute as Japanese growth ispurchased at the expense of other capitalist coun-tries (see Table 3.2).

Japan is now one of the most important sin-gle national economies in the world. Her com-panies buy enormous quantities of raw materi-als from around the world and sell their goodsacross the globe. The strength of her industryhas led to huge financial surpluses and the con-sequent growth of the Japanese financial sys-tem. In 1987 the Tokyo Stock Exchange over-took Wall Street as the single biggest financialcentre in the world. The ten biggest banks in theworld are now all Japanese. Japan is also one ofthe biggest overseas capital investors. All of thesetrends are likely to continue and Japan’s role inthe world economy will continue to grow. Thisgrowth will take a number of forms:

• the direct control of raw material supplies• the search for cheap labour sites for routine

manufacturing processes (e.g. Thailand, SouthKorea)

• the siting of highly polluting industries outsideJapan and ‘tariff-hopping’ investments in West-ern Europe and North America. Japan’s eco-nomic stability may therefore involve moreexplicit political involvement in internationalaffairs. In South-East Asia radical commenta-tors and many political parties see Japan asthe imperialist power; in buying cheap rawmaterials, selling manufactured goods and us-ing cheap local labour in routine manufactur-ing factories Japan is indeed taking over theclassic economic-imperialistic role previouslyfilled by European countries and the USA.

Japan’s growing economic position in the worldorder provides the basis and the necessity for agreater political, and perhaps military, role inworld affairs. Its economic success provides apotent source of tension with its allies in NorthAmerica and Europe.

WESTERN EUROPE

Europe ended the Second World War in bad shape.Germany had been devastated and even the Eu-ropean victors were close to bankruptcy. With


63

Europe fracturing along the fault of the iron cur-tain, the USA began to think of resuscitating theeconomies of Western Europe. A strong, inte-grated Western Europe was seen as a vital basisof defence against the Red Army. It would alsobuy US goods and open up the world tradingsystem and thus stave off the possibility of reces-sion. There were also strategic and political rea-sons. Stronger European powers would be ableto hold on to those colonies and territories whichcontained valuable raw materials and which werein danger of being lost to the communist camp.And economic growth in Europe would counterthe claims of the radical left, especially in Franceand Italy where the communist parties were par-ticularly strong. The US aims of a stronger, inte-grated Western Europe were manifested in theestablishment of the Marshall Plan and the Or-ganization for European Economic Co-opera-tion (OEEC) in 1947 and of NATO in 1949.NATO was the defence arrangement, the MarshallPlan was designed to prime the economic pumpand the OEEC was the framework for economicrevival established to distribute the Marshall Aid

monies. The OEEC reduced import controls andsubsidies for exports and allowed the free move-ment of goods. It was the US Open Door policyapplied to Europe. Later, the OEEC was replacedby the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) in 1961 and wasexpanded to include Canada, Japan and the USA.

The OEEC, OECD and NATO were organi-zations which provided a weak glue which looselybound Western European countries. The leadinglight and guiding hand in the arrangements wasthe USA. Another strand in the move to integra-tion was the creation of European organizationsby the Europeans themselves. The forces of inte-gration were many, ranging from the idealistseager to avoid the repetition of war to the busi-nessmen eager to establish larger markets. Theearliest creation was the Benelux Agreement, ini-tially signed in 1944 but coming into force in1948. This agreement reduced tariffs betweenBelgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Nextcame the Council of Europe, set up in 1949 as abroad-based organization which aimed to ‘achievegreater unity and facilitate economic and social

BOX J: NO LONGER A YEN FOR JAPAN

Former allies can very quickly become objects of fear and loathing. In the 1960s, when the USA wasall-powerful, Japan was seen by most commentators as a valued ally. There were still some who heldlingering resentment about Pearl Harbour and Japanese conduct during the Second World War, but theofficial line was that Japan was a good friend whose economic growth rates and industry were to beadmired.

By the 1980s, however, attitudes had changed. Japan was now the world’s economic superpowerwhose electronic goods and cars were sold throughout the world and whose money was invested acrossthe globe. The rise of Japan was paralleled by the relative economic decline of the USA. For manyAmericans the two were connected. Japan was both admired yet feared, as the political ally became theeconomic enemy. Even when Japanese money was invested there were fears that Japanese companieswere disrupting normal American work practices and that Japanese money was loosening Americancontrol of American resources. The debates were curiously similar to the European fear of Americaninvestment in Europe in the immediate post-war era. For a sample of some of the more xenophobicliterature have a look at:

Burstein, D. (1990) Yen. Japan’s New Financial Empire and Its Threat to America. Fawcett Columbine,New York.

Wolf, M. (1983) The Japanese Conspiracy. Empire, New York.


64

progress’. The woolly programme and vaguepolicies meant that it was little more than a talk-ing shop for bureaucrats and diplomats. The mostsignificant development in the early post-war yearscame with the setting up of the European Coaland Steel Community (ECSC) in 1952. The ECSCincluded Belgium, West Germany, Italy, Luxem-bourg, the Netherlands and France. It was to laythe foundation of the European Economic Com-munity (EEC). The ECSC was initially designedto control German steel and coal production.

During the Korean War there were heavy de-mands for steel, but the only spare capacity inWestern Europe was in West Germany. The French,and others, were naturally worried by the pros-pect of a revival of German steel production, asector traditionally associated with armaments.The Schuman Plan, drawn up in 1950, offered away of promoting German steel production butgiving control to France and other Europeannations. The ECSC grew from this suspiciouscontext to an organization for planning and

Figure 3.4 The European Economic Community, 1992


65

controlling coal and steel production in the membercountries.

The most important move towards Europeanintegration came with the establishment of theEEC in 1958, after the Treaty of Rome was signedin 1957. The EEC was composed of the six coun-tries of the ECSC. It was designed to allow freetrade in a common market and establish jointeconomic policies. The common market wouldallow the free movement of people, capital and

goods. A tariff-free market was set up within theEEC and common tariffs were extended to theoutside world. The two strongest economies inthe EEC were West Germany and France. Thesuccess of the EEC depended upon their com-promises. The Germans, with their strong in-dustry, wanted a tariff-free market to aid theexport of manufactured goods; the French, withtheir large, still essentially peasant agriculturalsector, wanted protection for agriculture. The

Figure 3.5 Europe in 2000 AD?


66

result was a fiscal trading system designed foreconomies with strong industry and weak agri-culture. In later years Britain was to suffer fromthis arrangement since she had a strong agricul-tural sector and a weak industrial base. The origi-nal signatories strengthened their links in 1967by setting up the European Community, whichbrought together the EEC, the ECSC and theEuropean Atomic Energy Commission.

The EEC was becoming one of the biggestmarkets in the world and non-EEC countries inEurope were eager to join. Britain tried to join in1963 and again in 1967, but both times Britishentry was vetoed by de Gaulle. The French Presi-dent’s arguments were simple: Britain was tiedtoo closely to the USA and Britain’s entry, ac-cording to de Gaulle, would increase US influ-ence within the EEC and vitiate the importanceof France. Britain’s application to join the Com-munity in 1972 was more successful. In 1973the original Six expanded to the Nine with theentry of Britain, Eire and Denmark. Greece joinedin 1981 and Spain and Portugal in 1986. In 1992a single market was created, and with it an eco-nomic power to rival the USA and Japan.

The dominant economic theme underlying policiesin the European Community has been the belief ina free internal market, with a minimum of restric-tions, to allow the unhampered movement of goods,people and capital. This belief is based on the as-sumption that, holding everything else constant, alowering of tariffs and a reduction of restrictionswould stimulate economic growth. And so it has.The problem for European integration has beenthat this growth has been uneven within and be-tween member countries. There is a definite core-periphery structure to the European Communitywhich creates disparities in economic growth, in-come and overall quality of life. There is now a600 per cent difference between average incomesin the western part of the newly united Germanyand those in southern Italy.

Such regional and national disparities hinderEuropean integration. Countries which lose outin the process of uneven growth can become centresof discontent, urging protectionism and threat-

ening the political stability of the Community.Depressed areas with the potential for politicalmobilization (e.g. Scotland, Wales, Corsica, Brit-tany) can also become the scene for secessionistmovements of varying degrees of intensity.

The two most important external issues af-fecting the European Community are:

• the economic position of European capitalin an increasingly competitive world market

• its diplomatic and strategic relations in amultipolar world.

1 The European Community has aided thegrowth of large European companies, whoseownership resides in Europe although theymay operate around the world. The Com-munity provides a large home market for com-panies (part of the reason for its creation wasto provide such conditions) and the Commu-nity has explicitly aided mergers between Eu-ropean firms. Community policy directiveshave been an important, although not thesole, reason for European mergers between,for example, Dunlop-Pirelli and Agfa-Gavaert.The large home market facilitates the trendtowards larger European companies and thesecompanies can now mobilize the vast amountsof capital necessary to invest overseas and inresearch and development. European com-panies can now compete successfully withNorth American and Japanese firms through-out the world. This means that political alli-ances between the USA, Europe and Japanare becoming strained by their economic com-petition for world markets.

2 One element in the break-up of the bipolar struc-ture has been the emergence of a European stanceon world affairs as distinct from that of theUSA. There has not been a coherent or even anagreed European foreign policy, and many wouldargue that the differences between the Euro-pean nations are as great, if not greater, thanthe differences between individual Europeancountries and the USA. However, what seemsclear and irrefutable is the gradual emergenceof a world view held by different European


67

countries to varying extents, but held neverthe-less, which differs from that of the USA. Theworld views overlap substantially in places butthe measure of disagreement is apparent and incertain areas quite large.

The New Europe

The 1990s saw two significant changes in Euro-pean affairs;

1 The single market of 1992, when the ECbecame a united single market free from in-ternal tariffs of member states. Internation-ally, this means the EC will be even more ofa single economic unit in competition withthe USA and Japan. Internally, the marketmay lead to the creation of a much sharpercore-periphery structure.

2 The decline of communist party power inEastern Europe. Germany has already beenunited and future developments may includean expanded EC in which Poland, Czecho-slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria are mem-bers; maybe even the countries which untilvery recently made up the Soviet Union. Figure3.5 suggests one possible scenario for Eu-rope by the end of this century.

This is an interesting time in world affairs. Oldstructures are falling around our ears, old ide-ologies are evaporating and new relationshipsare emerging. Who could have predicted the eventsof 1989 or the break-up of the USSR in 1991? Itis difficult to forecast the course of future devel-opment; what is evident, however, is that the oldbipolar world order is over, and one of the mostimportant elements of change is the emergenceof an integrated Europe.


On China have a look at:

Dreyer, J.T. (ed) (1989) Chinese Defense and ForeignPolicy. Paragon, New York.

Gittings, J. (1990) China Changes Face: The RoadFrom Revolution, 1949–1989. Oxford UniversityPress, Oxford.

Gray, J. (1990) Rebellions and Revolutions. OxfordUniversity Press, Oxford.

Harding, H. (1987) China’s Second Revolution.Brookings Institution, Washington.

Lu, L. (1990) Moving The Mountain. Macmillan,London.

Mancall, M. (1984) China At the Center: 300 Yearsof Foreign Policy. Free Press, New York.

Schell, O. (1988) Discos and Democracy: China inthe Throes of Reform. Pantheon, New York.

Spence, J. (1990) The Search For Modern China.Hutchinson, London.

On Japan the following is just a sample from a wideliterature:

Drifte, R. (1990) Japan’s Foreign Policy. Routledge,London.

Duus, P. (ed) (1990) The Cambridge History of Ja-pan: Volume 6. Cambridge University Press, Cam-bridge.

Ecclestan, B. (1989) State and Society in Post-WarJapan. Polity Press, Cambridge.

Hendry, T. (1989) Understanding Japanese Society.Routledge, London.

Lincol, E.J. (1988) Japan: Facing Economic Maturity.Brookings Institution, Washington.

Reischauer, E.O. (1988) The Japanese Today: Conti-nuity and Change. Harvard University Press, Cam-bridge, Mass.

Suzuki, Y. (1987) (ed) The Japanese Financial Sys-tem. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Tasker, P. (1987) Inside Japan. Sidgwick & Jackson,London.

Yamamura, K. and Yosuba, Y. (eds) (1987) The Po-litical Economy of Japan. Stanford University Press,Stanford.

For Europe, sample some of the following:

Blacksell, M. (1977) Post-War Europe: A PoliticalGeography. Dawson, Folkestone.

Brown, J.F. (1988) Eastern Europe and CommunistRule. Duke University Press, London.

Clout, H. (ed) (1987) Regional Development in WesternEurope. Fulton, London.

Clout, H. et al. (1989) Western Europe: Geographi-cal Perspectives. Longman, London.

Palmer, J. (1988) Europe Without America: The Cri-sis in Atlantic Relations. Oxford University Press,Oxford.

Palmer, J. (1989) 1992 and Beyond. Office for Offi-cial Publications of the European Communities,Luxembourg.

Pinder, D. (ed) (1990) Western Europe: Challenge andChange. Belhaven Press, London.

Urwin, D.W. and Paterson, W.E. (eds) (1990) Politicsin Western Europe Today. Longman, London.


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Relevant journals

East European QuarterlyEuropean AffairsEuropean Journal of Political ResearchJournal of Asian StudiesJournal of Contemporary AsiaJournal of Japanese StudiesPacific AffairsWest European Politics


Kahn, H. (1971) The Emerging Japanese Superstate.André Deutsch, London.

Powell, E. (1988) ‘The decline of America’, The Guard-ian, 7 December p. 23.

Short, J.R. (1982) An Introduction to Political Geog-raphy. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.

Vogel, E. (1979) Japan as Number One. HarvardUniversity Press, Cambridge, Mass.

PART II

THE POLITICAL GEOGRAPHYOF THE STATE

The building block of the world political order is the state. For a long time the state was a neglectedtopic in political geography. It was often incorrectly used as a substitute for ‘nation’. Too often itwas treated as the repository of a vaguely defined general interest, a neutral tool, an innocentvariable. Recent work has challenged this cosy view. The state itself is now seen as an arena forcompeting interests. The next part of this book concentrates on the state. Chapter 4 looks at therange of states, Chapter 5 considers the tensions implied in the notion of the nation-state, whileChapter 6 examines some of the implications of the state as a spatial entity.

71

The policy of a state lies in its geography.(Napoleon Bonaparte)

One of the most important developments of thetwentieth century is the growth of the state.Growth in the double sense of:

• There are now more states than ever before.In 1930 there were only about 70 sovereignstates. By 1990 this figure had grown to over160.

• In most countries the state has become big-ger and more powerful.

The state has a number of goals and functions.Table 4.1 notes some of the more important.The ability to pursue these goals depends uponthe position of the state in the political and eco-nomic world order. Let us consider the relation-ship between states and the world order.

THE STATE AND THE WORLDPOLITICAL ORDER

States are neither equal nor similar. States varyin power and influence. As a rough guide, wecan distinguish between superpowers, major pow-ers and minor powers.

Superpowers are those countries which havea global capacity to influence events. For them,the world’s surface is like a giant chess boardwhere the moves and counter-moves indicate thechanging balance of power. Major powers arethe knights, bishops and rooks of the chess analogy.They can be superpowers on the way down (e.g.

present-day Britain) or minor powers on the wayup (e.g. Japan). Although they have less globalinfluence than the superpowers they have eitherstrategic or commercial interests throughout largeparts of the world. Japan, for example, has trad-ing links throughout the world though its presentlack of military capacity currently denies it su-perpower status, while China has an importantdiplomatic and strategic role in its relations withthe USA and Russia but lacks the economic andmilitary capacity at the moment to be more thana major power. Minor powers have a very lim-ited direct role or influence in world affairs. Theyare the pawns of the chess board. But just aspawn swaps can determine a game’s outcome,

4

THE STATE ANDTHE WORLD ORDER

Table 4.1 Functions of the state

THE POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE STATE

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so the relations and conflicts between minor pow-ers in areas of strategic importance, the ‘fracturelines’ of geopolitical significance, can take onmuch wider importance. The position of minorpowers in sensitive areas of geopolitical space(e.g. Poland and Afghanistan, Lebanon and Nica-ragua) can raise their internal disputes to globalsignificance.

The ranking of countries in this three-fold di-vision is not a permanent categorization. A shiftin category reflects a country’s changing geopo-litical role. Table 4.2 provides a very brief selec-tion of some of the changes.

Let us look at these categories in more detail.

Superpowers

The goal of superpowers is to maintain theirposition on top of the world order. They achievetheir status through economic power, militarymight and political influence. Their aim is toincorporate as much of the world as possibleinto their sphere of influence. Spheres of influ-ence can be defined as the territory in which asuperpower can wield effective power. What makesa superpower is the size of the sphere and thedegree of influence. Influence is the ability toreach a desirable outcome. For example, the USAdoes not want to see a socialist state establishedin the Western Hemisphere. With the notableexception of Cuba it has been very successful inthis goal. This has been achieved by diplomacy,flexing of economic muscles (e.g. refusing aid ortrade, imposing embargoes) and military involve-ment, either direct or indirect. After the leftistrevolution in Nicaragua in 1979, for example,the US government stopped aid to that country

in 1981, imposed a trade embargo in 1985 andaided anti-government forces, the contras.

The ultimate power of a superpower is to in-fluence events without even trying. In Centraland Latin America, for example, all politiciansknow that the establishment of a socialist soci-ety would be frowned on by the USA, whichwould exercise its power to stifle the change.This is so much part of the political reality thatit often militates against such change.

The sphere of influence of a superpower doesnot stretch evenly throughout the world. Mostsuperpowers have a home base, which could covereither all or only a part of the state territory. Inthe USA it covers all the country, but in the USSRit was centred on the ethnic Russians. Then thereare core area(s) of control in which one super-power reigns supreme and, finally, peripheral zonesof competing power.

Superpowers attempt to maintain and improvetheir geopolitical position by extending their rela-tive spheres of influence. This is achieved throughmaintaining control in their respective cores—forthe USA this extends southward into Central andSouth America, northward into Canada and east-ward across the North Atlantic into Western Eu-rope. In contrast, the USSR’s core used to includemost of Eastern Europe. Within these relativelylong-established areas of control the role of theother superpower has been limited, with the Monroeand Brezhnev Doctrines being examples of ‘hands-off notices. In these areas the dominant superpowerhas maintained control through traditional diplo-macy, direct intervention (e.g Grenada in 1983 andCzechoslovakia in 1968) and indirect intervention(e.g. El Salvador and Poland in the early 1980s).

Outside of these core areas the rest of theworld constitutes a periphery of competition,including less well-established spheres of in-fluence, neutral areas and zones in flux wherethe mediating elites are either changing alli-ances or new elites are emerging. Zones ofinstability can be defined in relation to theposture, cohesion and stability of the mediat-ing elites. It is these areas of the world, par-ticularly in Eastern Europe, the Middle East

Table 4.2 Changing geopolitical status, 1890–1990

THE STATE AND THE WORLD ORDER

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and South-East Asia, which sometimes give thesuperpowers the opportunity to incorporate acountry into their sphere of influence and whichare the scenes of superpower rivalry—rarely interms of direct confrontation but more commonlyin terms of conflict through backing warring fac-tions. In these unstable zones, the fracture linesof the world, the position of individual countriesin relation to the superpowers can change, ei-ther as established elites change alliances or anewly established elite changes the country’sstance. By way of example, Table 4.3 indicatesvarious shifts in spheres of influence.

The categories have to be used with care sincethere are few countries which took either a to-tally pro-USA or pro-USSR stance in all matters,or a completely neutral position. The category‘USA USSR’ implied a shift along a continuumrather than a change from one state to another.With this in mind, Table 4.3 gives one exampleof each of the categories in the 1945–90 period.

If we look through the historical record we findthat all superpowers have two characteristics:

• they legitimate their power with an ideology;• they don’t last forever.

Ideologies of empire

The actions of superpowers are codified in geo-political strategies which try to legitimate theirinternational role. In the sixteenth and seven-teenth centuries Spain saw itself as the bearer ofChristian virtue, a beacon of Catholic light in apagan darkness. In the nineteenth century theBritish Empire clothed its world role in terms ofa civilizing mission. By the mid-twentieth cen-tury the USA saw itself as the world’s policemansaving countries from the evils of communism,

while the USSR had the ideology of Marxism-Leninism to give credence to its self-image oftorch-bearer for world socialism.

These ideologies did not go uncontested. Criti-cisms of the imperial posture can always be found(see references to Hobson and Williams in chap-ters 1 and 2) but they remain dominant as longas the country remains a superpower. The ide-ologies give an intellectual rationale and an ideo-logical justification to the more mundane com-mercial and strategic concerns of a superpower.

Imperial overstretch

Superpowers do not last forever. Their rise andfall has been described by two scholars Modelskiand Kennedy. Modelski (1983, 1987) suggests aseries of long cycles from 1494 to the presentday. Each long cycle consists of three phases:

1 From a generation of global war one stateemerges strongest. This state becomes a su-perpower able to arrange the global politi-cal and economic order to its advantage.

2 Challenges to this order are made by otherstates which have been growing in power.The world becomes more multipolar, eventhough one state may still be dominant.

3 The lull before the storm: the dominant su-perpower begins to weaken and challengersgain confidence before mounting their claimfor dominance. Then we are back to phaseone, as in the case of Britain in the earlynineteenth century after the Napoleonic Warsor the USA after the Second World War.

The three phase model is summarized by Modelskias: one generation builds, the next consolidates,and the third loses control.

In a book entitled The Rise and Fall of theGreat Powers (1987) the British historian PaulKennedy tackles the question of why superpow-ers decline. His answer is to point to the phe-nomenon of imperial overstretch. Superpowersarise on the basis of their economic and militarystrength. But it becomes more and more difficultto maintain this position especially in phases two

Table 4.3 Changing spheres of influence since 1960


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and three of the Modelski cycle. More and moreof their expenditure is devoted to maintainingtheir power against enemies, real and imagined;the ‘frontiers of insecurity’ have to be defended.Eventually these imperial commitments under-cut the economic strengths of the state. The ini-tial basis of power is weakened. In 1970, twoyears before Henry Kissinger dates the end ofthe bipolar world, the USA had one million sol-diers in 30 countries, 5 regional alliances, 42defence treaties, membership of 53 internationalbodies and provided economic aid to over 100countries. Now that’s what most people wouldcall overstretch!

Kennedy provides examples of powers at theirimperial peak—Spain in 1600; Bourbon andBonapartist France; the Dutch Republic in 1600;Britain in 1860—and shows how overstretch gotthem in the end. The book was an unexpectedsuccess, selling over a hundred thousand copies inits first year of publication in the USA. Its successis no doubt related to the fact that it could beaddressing the present condition of the USA.

Major powers

There is a continuum from a dominant super-power to a minor power. The major powers fallbetween these two extremes. They consist of formersuperpowers on the way down (e.g. Britain) andformer minor powers on the way up (e.g. Japan).Former superpowers have a legacy of empire. Letus elaborate this point with respect to Britain, thesuperpower of the nineteenth century, with enor-mous territories (see Figure 4.1).

The experience of empire aided the accumu-lation of wealth in Britain. This wealth was notevenly distributed, it was concentrated in a fewhands. Nevertheless, much of the populationgained as the wealth enabled relatively high wagesto be paid. The accumulated wealth also tookthe form of art treasures, cultural artefacts andthe like. Britain has some of the best museumsin the world as a result of imperial plunder.Kew Gardens and the British Museum housethe booty of the British Empire as much as theBank of England.

Figure 4.1 The British Empire


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A major imperial legacy was an open market,i.e. one dependent on high levels of import andexport. This type of economy is successful withcompetitive home producers and secure exportmarkets. However, with the loss of these mar-kets in the wake of decolonization and decline inthe productivity of home-based producers, theopen market has become a scene for high importpenetration and decline of domestic production.

The experience of empire also impinged onideas. We can identify three separate elements:

• The success of the nineteenth-century infor-mal empire gave extra purchase to free tradeideologies in Britain. In Manchester’s FreeTrade Hall, Britain has one of the very fewbuildings dedicated to an economic doctrine.The ideology of free trade is the voice of theeconomically successful who want open com-petition. However, the ideology has persistedeven though Britain’s relative economic per-formance has declined. All countries remem-ber the time when they were most success-ful; the ideologies of that period persist.

• The annexation of territories involved con-tact with other racial groups. But contact ofa particular type. The black and brown co-lonial peoples were often perceived as infe-rior. With the immigration of some Asiansand West Indians in the 1950s and 1960s inresponse to job opportunities and promo-tion by British firms (in the 1950s, for ex-ample, London Transport recruited labourdirectly in the West Indies), these racial stere-otypes were some-times employed to stig-matize the ethnic minorities. The race ‘prob-lem’ in Britain is primarily one of the atti-tudes initially formed and strengthened inthe colonial experience.

• In the nineteenth century Britain was thesuperpower, both in commercial and mili-tary terms. A world role for Britain was seenas ‘legitimate’, ‘natural’ and ‘necessary’. Theseattitudes persisted throughout the twentiethcentury. It is only comparatively recently thatthey have changed. The military presence

east of Suez, for example, was not an elec-tion issue in the 1950s. However, the offi-cially perceived need for a world role per-sisted and was evident in Britain’s substan-tial military spending, its vast and expensivediplomatic service and its independent nu-clear capability, which owes more to offi-cially perceived national self-esteem than torational strategic considerations.

There are also those physical fragments of em-pire scattered about the globe which for one rea-son or another, the precise combination varyingby individual case, remain under the British flag(see Figure 4.1). These range from the Falklandsto Gibraltar and Hong Kong. The Falklands Warof 1982 between Britain and Argentina is a re-minder of the extent to which old colonial an-nexations could still be a source of armed con-flict. Existing colonial holdings are also the causeof delicate negotiations: with China in the caseof Hong Kong and Spain over the Gibraltar is-sue. The last withdrawals from empire are likelyto be as hazardous as the earlier ones.

Britain’s former imperial power still has glo-bal consequences. One of the most important is

Figure 4.2 The world centred on London


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language. Whenever Britons took control theyestablished their language as well as their politi-cal and economic power. Throughout the worldEnglish was spoken and even today it is one ofthe world languages, almost the world language.

The way the world is described is also a func-tion of Britain’s position (see Figure 4.2). FromLondon, Egypt is in the Middle East and HongKong in the Far East, Vietnam is South-East Asia.These terms are still used today. We take suchterms so much for granted that we forget it is aconvention related to Britain’s imperial position.Think of an alternative. If the empire had beencentred on Jerusalem, Britain would be the Mid-dle West, the USA would be the Far West andChile would be in South-West America. In thecase of Japan we can see a superpower in themaking. Since the mid-1960s Japan has emergedas one of the strongest economies in the world.Hard work, efficient work practices and the freetrade arrangements of its political allies haveenabled Japanese industries to penetrate the largemarkets of Europe and America. Japan is in theposition of challenging the global supremacy ofthe USA unhindered by imperial overstretch. Ja-pan has sheltered under a defence umbrella pro-vided by the USA. How long this can continue isa moot point. The USA wants Japan to shouldermore of the defence burden. Moreover, to sus-tain its economic dominance Japan may have toenter into direct military arrangements.

We should be careful of reading domestic con-ditions from a state’s world position. A waxingsuperpower is not necessarily a better place tolive for the majority of the population than awaning superpower. The lot of the average citi-zen in Britain is much better in the 1990s thanever it was in the 1890s when the British Empirewas at its greatest extent. In a waning powerthere is less need to spend money on maintain-ing a world position, more can be spent on pro-vision of services which improve the quality ofthe citizens’ lives. We can change Modelski’s phase:one generation works hard, the next generationworks, and the next may begin to enjoy life.

In specific regional contexts major powers can

exert an influence. Their sphere of influence maybe smaller than a superpower’s but still be verystrong. Former superpowers may have a sphere ofinfluence in areas of the world where they had acolonial presence. France, for example, has an in-fluence with former colonies in Africa and a con-tinuing hold on territories in the Pacific. Britain isanother example of a major power in which thelegacy of empire extends to present day influenceon former colonies. This influence can be throughthe informal ties of shared language, similar insti-tutions, the education of elites, or more formally insuch organizations as the British Common-wealth.

Minor powers

Most countries in the world are minor powersof varying degrees of importance. In 1988, ofthe 159 members of the UN, less than 10 hadnuclear weapons and most of them have aneconomy smaller than the wage bill of IBM orGeneral Motors.

We can identify different types of minor pow-ers. There are those which are minor but notpoor. Switzerland, for example, has one of thehighest standards of living in the world but playsvery little part in the world political order. Itremained neutral during the two world wars ofthis century and has retained its independencefrom a number of international organizations;despite being in Europe it is not part of NATOor the EC. Then there are the poor and minorcountries such as Bangladesh. In the normalworking of the political order the minor powersare caught up in the ebb and flow of superpowermanipulation or major power influence.

Although there have been examples wherecountries have broken away from the spheres ofinfluence, e.g. Yugoslavia and Iran, minor pow-ers usually find it very difficult to maintain anindependent position. They need support fromother countries, in the form of aid, in regionalalliances, or in world organizations. One reasonbehind the growth of international forums (e.g.the United Nations) is that they give a voice tothe small countries. Large international forums


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are strongly supported by the minor powers be-cause they allow them a say, and act as a coun-terweight to the concentrated power of the su-perpowers and major powers.

THE STATE AND THE WORLDECONOMIC ORDER

The ability of a state to pursue the goals identi-fied in Table 4.1 also varies according to its po-sition in the world economic order. At the risk ofover-simplification we can identify three differ-ent types of state:

• the state in advanced capitalist countries;• the state in the semi-periphery and periph-

eral areas;• the state in socialist countries.

The state in advanced capitalist countries

In chapter 1 it was shown that the core countriesof Western Europe, Japan and North Americahad benefited from the structure of the worldeconomy. The flow of wealth from the semi-periphery and periphery to the core, has meantthat labour has managed to obtain relatively highwages while government revenues have been in-creased through a broad and deep base of taxa-tion. The result in the post-war era has beenrising living standards and a measure of socialharmony. The lack of revolutionary upheaval inthe core has been partly due to the ability of theeconomy to create and meet rising expectations.For countries firmly established in the core, eco-nomic growth continues to maintain the basisfor social peace. When the economy is boomingthere is no problem. Tensions arise when thenational economy is facing competition. The statebecomes the arena for the ensuing conflict. It iscalled upon by threatened domestic producersand labour to introduce some form of importcontrols but business interests which are rela-tively successful in the export market continueto preach the benefits of free trade.

We can identify a number of different perspec- Figure 4.3 Alternative models of state policy


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tives on the role and functioning of the state incore countries.

The democratic-pluralist view sees the stateas a neutral arbiter, a kind of giant referee be-tween a number of competing interests. In thisperspective society is seen to consist of a numberof diverse pressure groups. These organizationsare formed around specific issues and/or to pro-tect the interests of particular groups. They achieve,or try to achieve, their goals through formal andinformal politicking. The democratic-pluralistposition asserts that competition between thegroups, their diverse representation and the sheervariety tend to cancel out the dominance of anyone social group (see Figure 4.3a).

The initial democratic-pluralist position, asmapped out by writers such as Dahl (1982), hasbeen subject to an autocritique (Dahl, 1989) andto revision by those writers who criticize theemphasis on issues and competing groups(Bachrach and Baratz, 1963). The crux of thecriticisms is that power can reside in the stagesprior to overt decision-making. Power can beexercised so that only relatively safe issues ap-pear on the political agenda. Certain powerfulgroups can exercise power so that only thoseissues which involve no major redistribution ofwealth, privilege or power can come up for pub-lic discussion and debate. To concentrate on ob-servable issues and interested groups would beto ignore the exercise of power on the selectionof issues for debate. In this modified version ofthe democratic-pluralist model there would seemto be a two-stage process:

(a) The political agenda is shaped by the morepowerful groups in society, through direct lob-bying or through the assumptions embeddedin a common ideology shared with the politi-cal elite. Power at this stage is exercised at thelevel of policy choices and policy formulation.

(b) Those issues which surface onto the agendaare decided by the outcome of the more ob-servable bargaining and competition betweenthe various interest groups. Here, power isrestricted to influencing policy implementa-

tion. The state is the agent which mediatesbetween the two stages.

The modified model can be termed imperfect plu-ralism to refer to the fact that there are a variety ofinterest groups but some are more important andsuccessful than others. This line of thought seespublic policy not as the result of numerous interestgroups and atomistic voters, rather it is dominatedby the big battalions of organized labour and thedominant factions of capital (see Figure 4.3b). Theargument is that the democratic-pluralist state is,in reality, more of a corporate state.

The Marxist view constitutes the major alter-native perspective on the state. There is no fullydeveloped Marxist theory of the state; ratherthere is a continuing debate between variousschools of thought. However, they all share thesame general view which repudiates the notionof the state as a neutral arbiter. The state is notabove the class struggle and social conflict insociety, it is part of them. Marxists view all soci-eties as class societies in which one class domi-nates the others and the state is the means andsupport of this class domination. The state actson behalf of the ruling class but in capitalistsociety, particularly advanced capitalist societies,it has a degree of relative autonomy from allclasses. This relative autonomy is the ‘distance’between the character of the different classes andthe form of the state; it is the degree of freedomwhich the state has from immediate class inter-ests in determining policy. Within this broad con-sensus different approaches can be identified. Letme note just four examples (see Table 4.4).

Table 4.4 Approaches to the state

See text for discussion of terms.


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In concentrating on the political function ofthe state two contrasting models can be identi-fied. The instrumentalist approach, associatedwith the early work of Ralph Miliband (1969),seeks to show how the state is an instrument ofthe ruling class. A common method of researchis to show the common background and sharedlife experience of the capitalist class and impor-tant state functionaries and officials. Miliband’swork in Britain, for example, shows how seniorpoliticians and important civil servants have similarbackgrounds to industrialists and large capitalinvestors. The conclusion drawn is that this sharedbackground leads to common aims, assumptionsand ideologies; the net result is for the generaldirection of state policy to be in the interests ofthe capitalist class (see Figure 4.3c).

The balance of class forces model takes a morecomplex view of things. In this model the state isan arena for competing interests and not simplythe vehicle for class domination. The state repre-sents the power of the capitalist class, but there arevarious fractions of this class with different inter-ests. To achieve social stability the state will oftensacrifice the interests of the weaker fraction to meetthe expressed needs of the population. The domi-nant fraction is big business. Small businesses havelittle say in the development of state policy. Ac-cording to this view the state is not a monolithicapparatus always reflecting the interests of (big)capital but the scene of social conflict and compro-mise; state policy reflects and represents the broadbalance of political power between different socialgroups and classes (see Figure 4.3d).

In terms of the economic function of the statetwo contrasting models can be identified. Theunderconsumptionist school of thought has beenthe predominant Marxist interpretation of the statein the USA and is associated with the influentialwork of Baran and Sweezy (1960). Baran andSweezy view the state primarily as a mechanismfor maintaining effective demand and ensuring‘surplus absorption’. In their analysis of the socialand economic order in the USA, they argue thatunder oligopolistic conditions the economic sur-plus tends to rise. The surplus is defined as the

difference between what a society produces andthe socially necessary costs of production. It tendsto rise because the large firms collude to maintainthe stability of prices even after the introductionof cost-saving improvements. The oligopolisticquality of the market ensures that competitiondoes not lead to price reductions and there is atendency for stagnation as the productive capac-ity for consumption goods expands faster thaneffective demand. Two mechanisms have arisento solve this realization problem:

• the sales effort, which promotes continualconsumption

• the state, through high levels of state expendi-ture, which includes non-defence purchases(e.g. education), transfer payments (e.g. wel-fare payments) and defence spending.

The Baran and Sweezy model is very specific. Amore general model is response to crises. This isa model which suggests that one of the majortasks of the state in capitalist society is to man-age the crises which are inherent in the capitalistmode of production. Crises can take a numberof forms: falling rates of profit, rising unemploy-ment, rapid inflation. The crises become a po-litical phenomenon because the state is an arenafor the competing interests, and crises can onlybe solved with major redistributional conse-quences. The major cleavage is between capitaland labour. The nature of the economy ensuresthe need for continued state intervention whilethe exact nature of the intervention depends uponthe balance of class forces.

In recent years there has been a move in Marxisttheories from specific models which read off theinterest of capital from state policy to looserdescriptions which give more leeway to the pre-cise configuration of social forces. There has beena move, when looking at the political role of thestate, from instrumentalism to balance of classforces and, when looking at the economic role,from underconsumptionism to response to cri-ses. This move is paralleled in non-Marxist theo-ries, from democratic-pluralism to imperfect plural-


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ism. There is a growing convergence betweenMarxist and non-Marxist views. To summarizethe area of agreement between them:

• there is a belief that the state is an arena forcompetition between different social groups

• some of these groups are more powerful thanothers

• the most powerful are big business• in the long term the state seems to reflect the

interests of big business more than that ofsmall business or labour

• this does not mean that the state does notrespond to democratic pressure in order toachieve social stability

• the state is subject to popular pressure andstate policy at any one time reflects the bal-ance of power between the competing groups.

It seems as if the democratic models are becom-ing less pluralist while the Marxist models arebecoming less Marxist.

The state in the capitalist periphery

There are very large differences between the formof the state in different peripheral and semi-pe-ripheral countries. In this section the commentswill therefore be of a general nature.

The overall form of the state in peripheralcapitalist countries has been shaped by:

• the incorporation of that society (and its pred-ecessors) into the capitalist world economy

• the changing nature of the economic rela-tions with the core.

Each of these elements can be examinedseparately, although in reality they are reso-lutely interwoven.

Incorporation

The nature of incorporation has done much toshape the subsequent development of peripheralsocieties. For those countries in Africa and Asia,for example, which were incorporated during the

age of imperialism, the post-colonial society hasinherited a powerful state with a large bureau-cratic (and often military) apparatus which hasbeen used to regulate and control large areas ofsocial life. The state was, and continues to be, thelinchpin of economic, political and social devel-opment, and control of the state apparatus be-comes the prime consideration for political move-ments and social groups. The state has taken oneven greater significance in those countries whichlack a national history. In many African countriesstate boundaries often reflect cartographic con-venience or the legacy of imperialspheres of influ-ence rather than any logic of national identity. Inthese circumstances the state is used to create theexperience of nationhood.

In contrast to the core countries, where theseparation of economic and political spheres isheld to exist (especially by right-wing politicians)either in the past or the present, societies in theperiphery inherited a state apparatus designedto order economic development and to controlthe direction and flow of trade. In post-colonialsocieties the state is inextricably linked with theeconomic realm. The state in the periphery thusbecomes a source of economic power, and pri-vate wealth can accrue from political power toan even greater extent than in the core.

The nature of political developments in post-colonial societies has also been guided by theprocess of de-colonization. The overthrow offoreign political control favoured the emergenceof a dominant single party or mass movement.In the conditions of a political and sometimesmilitary struggle, the emphasis was placed onone mass movement or a single political partyand strong internal discipline. These features of-ten continue in the post-colonial era in the formof one-party states.

Changing economic relations with the core

The character of the peripheral state can also beseen against the background of changing eco-nomic relations with the core. Let us considerjust one area of the world. In Latin America, for


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example, a number of social groups can be iden-tified:

• a powerful class of landowners whose inter-ests are tied closely to those of foreign capital

• an indigenous bourgeoisie whose interestslie in stimulating autocentric economic growth

• the vast mass of the population who are ei-ther urban dwellers and workers or peasants.

The history of the state and state policies in LatinAmerica can be seen as the evolution of conflictand alliances between these different groups againstthe backcloth of external links with the core.Munck (1979) suggests a three-phase sequence:

1 the export phase up to 1930, when the free-trade parties representing the landowners werein power and the state was involved in pro-viding the necessary infrastructure facilitiesfor an export-based economy. The job of thestate was to facilitate this relationship by pro-viding the necessary infrastructure of roads,ports and railways and by providing, main-taining and controlling a suitable labour force.

2 The transition to an industrial state from 1929to the 1950s, when economic links with thecore were weakened by world war and eco-nomic depression. The economic conditionsallowed the possibilities for autocentric eco-nomic growth and the emergence of a muchstronger indigenous bourgeoisie. The state’srole was expanded from that of simply pro-viding an infrastructure to providing the fis-cal and legal framework for industrialization.The transition period in many countries sawthe growth of an urban working class and amore organized peasantry. These developmentssaw the introduction of a new political forceof explicitly socialist persuasion.

3 From the 1950s to the present day is thephase of industrial growth. The growingpower of the indigenous bourgeoisie has forcedthe state to expand its role from providingthe conditions for capitalist production tobeing directly involved in the production andexchange of commodities. The state has be-

come involved in those large, lumpy invest-ments which private local capital cannot findand which provide too low returns for for-eign capital. The state is also involved indirect investment. The exemplar case is Bra-zil, where the state has undertaken massivedirect investment.

In the periphery and semi-periphery the state’sfunction is to attract, guide and control foreigninvestment, to stimulate internal economic growthand to maintain the impetus for change in theeconomy through various international organi-zations and commodity cartels. In each of theseareas the balance of power has shifted from for-eign capital to the state, with the degree of shiftin each country reflecting the size and strengthof the economy, the amount of natural resourceswithin the territory and the political and socialcharacter of the ruling elite.

The state in socialist countries

There were substantial differences between theform of the state in socialist countries in suchdiverse places as Vietnam, Cuba, Poland and theSoviet Union. No brief review can hope to de-scribe, let alone explain, this variety; the aimwill therefore be to describe those very generalfeatures of the state which were markedly differ-ent from those in capitalist countries. Successfulrevolutionary socialist movements obtained power:

• in peripheral economies• within the context of a hostile world• led by political parties armed with a com-

prehensive and encompassing ideology.

Each of these three characteristics influenced theform and role of the state.

Peripheral economies

It is one of the political facts of this century thatsocialist movements with an explicit Marxist ide-ology have succeeded in obtaining power only


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in more peripheral countries of the world. Thusthe early emphasis of their political leaders wason stimulating economic growth and develop-ment. There was a real and perceived need to‘catch up’ with the core countries. Socialist stateshave attempted to telescope the long historicalexperience of the core into a series of rapid pro-grammes of socialist economic growth. The statehas been afforded a huge role in this process.Under centrally planned economies the state isthe key unit of economic decision-making; it makespriorities and sets targets:

According to the logic of the centralizedplanning model, the central organs knowwhat society needs, and can enforce plan-orders to ensure that these needs are effec-tively and efficiently met. This requires multi-million instructions as to what to produce,to whom deliveries should be made, andfrom whom inputs should be received andwhen. All this must be made to cohere withplans for labor, wages, profits, investmentfinancing, material-utilization norms, qual-ity, productivity, for each of many thou-sands of productive units.

(Nove, 1980, p. 4.)

This planning system has certain advantages anddisadvantages compared with the capitalist sys-tem. In drawing up a balance sheet of Sovieteconomic performance, Nove (1980) points outthe high degree to which definite priorities canbe set in a planned environment, the low levelsof unemployment and the stability of wages andprices. But the system had its deficiencies. Cen-tralized planning in the USSR was unwieldy andcould not cope with sudden changes in demand,and innovation was stifled. Bottle-necks frequentlyoccurred as outputs from one sector failed tomesh with the needs of other sectors and manypoor-quality goods were produced.

Hostile world

Revolutionary socialist movements have over-thrown existing social and economic orders in

the context of a hostile world. The socialist statebore the imprint of the revolutionary experiencein the role of the party. Revolutions are made bythe masses but are led by political parties. In WhatIs to Be Done (1902), Lenin argued that revolu-tionary potential could only be realized and revo-lutionary advance could only be possible througha highly organized, close-knit, strongly disciplinedparty. The party gave the revolutionary processdirection, organization, strength and success be-cause ‘Without a guiding organization the energyof the masses would dissipate like steam not en-closed in a piston-box’ (Trotsky, 1977 edn, p.19). The highly centralized nature of the party,understandable in a revolutionary period, tendedto continue in those countries where the Leninistline was followed. Bureaucratic inertia, unwill-ingness to give up power and the fear of externalattack and internal sabotage all combined to con-centrate power in the post-revolution period. Thedangers in such a situation are obvious. Trotsky’sremarkably prescient comments of 1903 becamechillingly true in Russia under Stalin:

Lenin’s methods lead to this: the party or-ganization at first substitutes itself for theparty as a whole; then the Central Com-mittee substitutes itself for the organiza-tion; and finally a single ‘dictator’ substi-tutes himself for the Central Committee.

(quoted in Deutscher, 1954, p. 90)

After Stalin’s death power became less concen-trated in the USSR. However, before glasnostthere was an enormous concentration and fu-sion of economic and political power at the topof the state apparatus. There was a ruling groupwho sat on the Politburo and the various centralcommittees and headed the various ministriesand bureaus. This group, which comprised ‘partyofficials, industrial administrators, diplomats, jour-nalists, generals, secret policemen, trade unionofficials, artists and the occasional worker orpeasant’ (McAuley, 1977, p. 308), made decisionsbehind doors which were firmly closed to full-scalepublic scrutiny or widespread public discussion.Its members formed a privileged sector of Soviet


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society with more power and influence, morepossessions and a more comfortable life-style thanthe mass of the population. The main problemin such a system was the inability of the eco-nomic system to meet the expressed needs of allthe various social groups in different parts of thecountry. This is not a problem unique to theformer USSR or socialist countries, but the heavystrain of arms expenditure and inefficient agri-culture on the one hand and the variety of eth-nic, religious and cultural groups on the othermade the Soviet problems particularly acute.

Ideology

Revolutionary socialist parties have a vision ofthe future. The introduction of socialism, ac-cording to the theory, will usher in a new phasein the history of mankind. The advance of so-cialism will ultimately lead to communism, inwhich commodity production will cease, aliena-tion will be overcome and new modes of humansocial behaviour will emerge. The advent of so-cialism, it is believed, will inaugurate a new so-cial order and the transformation of the humancondition. The state in socialist countries aimsto aid this transformation by providing the con-ditions for the creation of a socialist ideologyand a socialist people. The state becomes in-volved in art, religion, literature and all thoseareas of endeavour and practice which give sub-stance to the present condition and intimationsof future prospects. Culture cannot be separatedfrom politics in socialist societies because cul-

ture is politics and politics is used to introduce anew culture.

At its best, culture in socialist societies canand did take on a new vitality, a new purpose.Bolshevik Russia before Stalin’s rule providedexamples of exciting developments in art, litera-ture and music. At its worst, however, culture insocialist societies becomes a deformed agent ofthe state. The state becomes involved in culturalspheres for which it has little training and evenless sensitivity. The deformation of art and thecinema in Russia under Stalin shows what hap-pens when political conformity becomes the criticalreference point. In closed socialist societies artis-tic and religious movements which fail to con-form are perceived as a threat. The state is thusforced by its own momentum to react to everycultural and religious movement which does nottoe the party line.

THE STATE AND CRISES

States throughout the world are involved in main-taining and reproducing the existing political andeconomic order. Apart from those brief revolu-tionary ruptures, when a new state seeks to de-stroy the basis of the old order, the primary goalof the state is to maintain the status quo. This isa difficult task. The world is constantly chang-ing. The economic and political world order isconstantly in flux. There is a need then to exam-ine the major changes and subsequent responsesthrough a discussion of crises. Figure 4.4 presentsa simple model of crises between the economic

Figure 4.4 The crises of the stateSource: Short, 1984


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system and civil society with the state as themediating point.

In Chinese the word for crisis contains twowords—danger and opportunity. This ambigu-ity is worth remembering.

Economic crises

An economic crisis occurs when the economicsystem fails to meet popular expectation. Thisoccurs when:

• the world economy is in recession and un-employment rises

• the economic position of the individual coun-try deteriorates

In capitalist countries an economic crisis is oneof declining profits for capital and rising unem-ployment for labour. It is found in all countriesto a certain extent when the world economy is inrecession but is more pronounced in weaker econo-mies in the core and it is endemic in the capital-ist periphery.

The tension is more acute in the liberal de-mocracies because the state is the arena of con-flict between the competing forces of capital andlabour. The state is charged to ensure the contin-ued accumulation of profit but must also main-tain popular support. In the short to mediumterm the state can pursue unpopular policies.Take the case of Britain. From 1945 to the 1970sit was losing its competitive position in the worldeconomy. British companies were squeezed onthe one hand by foreign competitors and on theother by the wage demands of organized labour.Glyn and Sutcliffe (1972) referred to it as theprofit squeeze. The position worsened with theworld recession in the 1980s . The ‘solution’ tothe crisis emerged with the Thatcher governmentwhich came to power in 1979 with a policy ofhelping business and curtailing the power of theunions. In the early 1980s unemployment reachedalmost 3 million. The state had broken the backof organized labour and profitability was restored.In the long term, however, such a policy has itslimits. Civil society becomes difficult to controlwith high levels of unemployment.

In capitalist states which are not liberal democ-racies unpopular strategies can be maintained overthe long term. However, even in dictatorships thereare limits to the extent to which a state can sup-press its citizenry. Crises emerge elsewhere.

In the socialist state economic crises have beenhidden by massive amounts of government in-tervention. Full employment is maintained at thecost of efficiency. The economic crisis becomes alegitimation crisis.

Legitimation crisis

A legitimation crisis occurs when the state can-not maintain the necessary degree of popularloyalty. The state loses credibility and ultimatelyloses the ability to govern.

States experience legitimation crises when theypursue unpopular policies for too long. There arelimits to which a state can reflect only the needsof a small minority, whether this minority be thecronies of corrupt dictators like August Somozaand Ferdinand Marcos or members of the rulingcommunist party in a one-party state. States whichexperience legitimation crises need a large mili-tary and police presence. This can come fromoutside; in the past the USA was always willing tohelp right-wing dictators facing a popular upris-ing if the conflict could be dressed up as a fightagainst communism, while the Soviets could berelied upon to send in the tanks if any communistparty looked as if it was about to be toppled.However, the brutal facts of imperial overstretchled to a Soviet retreat from empire.

A legitimation crisis can be solved in the shortto medium term by naked repression. The statehas immense powers. As Tolstoy once said, ‘Noone who has not sat in prison knows what thestate is like’. Malevolent states exist in the worldand the annual reports from Amnesty Internationalreveal innumerable cases of oppression, imprison-ment and execution. State terror is used to prop upunpopular regimes and silence the voice of critics.

In the long term, however, states which lackpopular support find it difficult to remain in power.An alienated population can become the sourceof popular protest (see chapters 7 and 8).


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Fiscal crisis

A fiscal crisis of the state occurs when expendi-tures exceed revenue. The fiscal of the capitaliststate was the subject of analysis by JamesO’Connor (1973). He asserts that the state mustfulfil two basic, but contradictory, functions. Itmust ensure the conditions of capital accumula-tion and maintain the basis for its own legitima-tion. Each of these two functions is associatedwith differing types of public expenditure (seeFigure 4.5).

Social capital is that expenditure required forcapital accumulation; it takes the form of socialinvestment and social consumption:

• Social investment expenditures involve thoseprojects and services which increase the pro-ductivity of a given amount of labour power;they include capital investment in physicalinfrastructure (roads, railways, airports, etc.)and investment in research and developmentand education. Social investment is increas-ing because the growing size and complex-ity of production involves large and costlyinfrastructure investment.

• Social consumption expenditures include in-vestment in projects and services which lower

the costs of reproducing labour power. Twotypes are identified by O’Connor: those publicsector goods which are collectively consumedby working people (e.g. national health serv-ices) and social insurance expenditures forthe short-term unemployed. Social consump-tion expenditures have been growing in re-sponse to organized demands for better wel-fare and as a function of the state’s need toensure mass loyalty.

Social expenses expenditures consist of spend-ing on projects and services which are requiredto maintain social harmony. Two types are iden-tified in the USA:

• military expenses, which grew in the post-war period because of the growth of the mili-tary-industrial complex

• welfare expenditures, which are designed forthe long-term unemployed and other elementsof the population ‘surplus’ to economic re-quirements. This latter form of expenditurehas been growing because of the introductionof labour-saving devices. Superimposed uponthis general trend there are secondary peaksand troughs as welfare expenditure expands

Figure 4.5 Categorization of state expenditures

Figu

re K

.1 S

elec

ted

coun

trie

s of

the

wor

ld, 1

990


87


88

during periods of social unrest and civil dis-turbance and contracts when political andsocial stability is restored (Piven and Cloward,1977).

According to O’Connor the structural gap be-tween state expenditure and revenue is caused bythe socialization of increasing costs and the pri-vate appropriation of profits. It takes the form ofa crisis because the gap between expenditure andrevenue can only be closed at the expense of ma-jor redistributional consequences. On one side ofthe fiscal equation, reduction in expenditure be-comes difficult because business wants social in-vestment to be maintained if profits are to beassured, but a major reduction in welfare expendi-ture will raise the problem of legitimation for thestate. On the other side, increases in state revenueare difficult to maintain because business inter-ests lobby against company taxation eating intoprofits and high levels of personal taxation aredifficult to maintain in a democracy.

The crisis has become apparent in a numberof ways in Western Europe and North America:

• state expenditure cutbacks have been directedtowards welfare expenditures, affecting thosegroups with least political power and littleeconomic muscle, and social consumptionexpenditures, where the relationship with capi-tal accumulation is more long-term and lessimmediately apparent

• there have been attempts to reduce the numberof public-service workers and to streamlineworking arrangements in the public sector

• the crisis has been manifested in popular de-mands for reduction of personal taxation

• the crisis has appeared differently at variouslevels of the state. In the USA the centralgovernment appropriates the majority of taxrevenues but the state and local governmentshave to provide welfare expenses and ele-ments of social capital. The mismatch be-tween revenue and expenditure is thus se-vere at the local government level and mostacute at the city level, where welfare expen-

ditures are greatest. The fiscal crisis of ma-jor US cities is the spatial manifestation ofthe fiscal crisis of the state.

Rationality crises

Two forms of rationality crisis can be identified.Type 1 occurs when the government gets its eco-nomic policies wrong. In order to avoid eco-nomic crises, states become involved in the eco-nomic order. Even in the capitalist world thestate is involved in a vast number of interven-tions, from providing legal frameworks, to set-ting the exchange rate. This type of rationalitycrisis is the failure to produce the requisite numberof correct decisions. It is particularly acute incentrally planned economies because here thestate makes most of the decisions. The state iscalled upon to make investment decisions, pro-duce and sell goods. Errors became exaggeratedthrough the system and can lead to bottlenecks,and, particularly important for maintaining popu-lar support, a failure to produce the expectedquality and quantity of consumer goods. If peo-ple have to stand in line for too long to buyessential goods and services then a rationalitycrisis can produce a legitimation crisis.

Type 2 occurs in the variety of social welfarepolicies and is apparent in such things as the fail-ure of the public education system to producepeople with the requisite skills for the job market.

The two types are closely related as economicpolicies have implications for social welfare whichin turn influence the economic system. If the publiceducation system is underfunded because of fail-ure of the state to invest enough money (Type 1)then the educational sector may fail to produceenough people with the right skills for the jobmarket (Type 2) which leads to problems of askilled labour shortage and hence the possibilityof an economic crisis.

Motivation crises

A motivation crisis has been defined by JurgenHabermas as the ‘discrepancy between the need


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for motives declared by the state, the educationalsystem and the occupational system on the onehand, and the motivation supplied by the socio-cultural system on the other’ (Habermas, 1976,p. 75). Habermas asserts that advanced capital-ist societies now produce social groups and ideaswhich are set at variance with the ideologicalbasis of capitalism. The radicalism of the profes-sions, the growth of a large sector of the popula-tion which is economically inactive (e.g. students,unemployed and retired) and associated changesin attitudes towards individual achievement, workand leisure are producing a whole belief systemwhich challenges the old justifications for capi-talism. Ideas are developing in advanced capi-talist societies, Habermas seems to be arguing,which have the potential ability to disrupt andeven threaten the continued existence of capital-ism. The economic system of the advanced capi-talist countries is based on the work ethic andthe continued consumption of goods and serv-ices. If either of these two ideologies are dis-placed from their central positions then the sys-tem could be in danger of collapse. In terms ofthe work ethic, people may not want to workbut they have very little alternative if they are tosurvive. The ideology of conspicuous consump-tion however, seems to be less secure. In the lastdecade of the twentieth century more and morepeople are questioning the need for wasteful con-sumption. A green revolution, involving less ratherthan more consumption, may be just around thecorner.

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s themain motivation crisis was faced by the states ofthe socialist bloc. Lacking incentives or penal-ties the economic system failed to generate theenthusiasm or the full activity of the population.Perestroika, or restructuring, was a Soviet at-tempt at improving motivation. In China mar-ket forces have been allowed to develop and growsince the late 1970s. Throughout Eastern Eu-rope experiments in freeing the economy fromthe monopoly grip of a central state are nowwell underway. There experiments are not with-out problems. Populations used to full employ-

ment and low prices may want the benefits ofmarket forces (more consumer durables, greaterpurchasing choice) but they do not want the dis-advantages (unemployment, glaring inequalities).The trick is to discover how you get the onewithout the other.

The world around us, the world of physicalaspects like houses, tables and chairs looks solidand immutable. At another level, the sub-atomiclevel, particles are constantly moving and vibrating.So it is with the world order. Behind the worldorder (even the name implies some form of co-herence and stability) states are constantly ad-justing. The changes include the long cycles ofsuperpower growth and decline and the shortercycles of responses to crises. The world order ofstates should more accurately be described asthe world flux of states.

GUIDE TO FURTHER READING.

Descriptions of superpower growth and decline include:

Kennedy, P. (1987) The Rise and Fall of The GreatPowers: Economic Change and Military Conflictfrom 1500 to 2000. Random House, New York.

Modelski, G. (1983) ‘Long Cycles of World Leader-ship’, in W.R.Thompson (ed) Contending Ap-proaches to World System Analysis . Sage, BeverlyHills.

Modelski, G. (1987) Long Cycles in World Politics.Macmillan, London.

On different approaches to the state in advanced capi-talist countries see:

Dahl, R.A. (1982) Dilemmas of Pluralist Democracy.Yale University Press, New Haven.

Dahl, R.A. (1989) Democracy and its Critics. YaleUniversity Press, New Haven.

de Jassay, A. (1985) The State. Basil Blackwell, Ox-ford.

Galbraith, K. (1967) The New Industrial State. HamishHamilton, London.

Jessop, B. (1982) The Capitalist State. MartinRobertson, Oxford.

Kiny, R. (ed) (1983) Capital and Politics. Routledge& Kegan Paul, London.

Miliband, R. (1969) The State in Capitalist Society.Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London.

Miliband, R. (1983) Class Power and State Power.Verso, London.


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Piven, F. and Cloward, R. (1982) The Class War. Pan-theon, New York.

Self, P. (1985) Political Theories of Modern Govern-ments. Allen & Unwin, London.

On the state in the periphery have a look at:

Alavi, H. (1972) ‘The state in post colonial society’,New Left Review, 74, 59–81.

Alavi, H. and Harriss, J. (eds) (1989) Sociology of‘Developing Societies’: South Asia. Macmillan,London.

Cammack, P., Pool, D. and Tordoff, W. (1988) ThirdWorld Politics. Macmillan, London.

Goulbourn, H. (eds) (1980) Politics and The State inThe Third World. Macmillan, London.

Munck, R. (1979) ‘State and capital in dependentsocial formations’, Capital and Class, 8, 34–53.

Munck, R. (1984) Politics and Dependency in TheThird World. Zed Press, London.

Randall, V. and Theobald, R. (1985) Political Changeand Underdevelopment. Macmillan, London.

Tordoff, W. (1984) Government and Politics in Af-rica. Macmillan, London.

Wynia,G. W. (1984) The Politics of Latin AmericanDevelopment. Cambridge University Press, Cam-bridge.

On the state in the socialist world see:

McAuley, M. (1977) Politics and The Soviet Union.Penguin, Harmondsworth.

Bahro, R. (1978) The Alternative in Eastern Europe.New Left Books, London.

Harding, N. (ed) (1984) The State in Socialist Society.Macmillan, London.

Sakwa, R. (1989) Soviet Politics: An Introduction.Routledge, London.

Furtak, R.K. (1986) The Political Systems of The So-cialist States. Wheatsheaf, Brighton.

A useful introductory reader is:

Held, D. et al. (eds) (1983) States and Societies. Mar-tin Robertson, Oxford.

For a critical account of Marxist theories see:Dunleavy, P. (1985) ‘Political Theory’, in Z.Baranski

and J.R.Short, (eds) Developing ContemporaryMarxism. Macmillan, London.

On crisis see:

Habermas, J. (1976) Legitimation Crisis. Heinemann,London.

O’Connor, J. (1973) The Fiscal Crisis of The State. StMartin’s Press, New York.

O’Connor, J. (1981) ‘The fiscal crisis of the state re-visited’, Kapital state, 9, 41–62.

Offe, C. (1984) Contradiction of The Welfare State.Hutchinson, London.

Short, J.R. (1984) The Urban Arena. Macmillan,London.

Relevant journals

American Journal of Political ScienceAmerican Political Science ReviewBritish Journal of Political ScienceJournal of PoliticsJournal of Public PolicyPolitical Studies


Bachrach, P. and Baratz, M.S. (1963) ‘Decisions andnon-decisions: an analytical framework’, Ameri-can Political Science Review 57, 641–51.

Baran, P. and Sweezy, P.M. (1960) Monopoly Capi-tal. Monthly Review Press, New York.

Dahl, R.A. (1956) A Preface to Democratic Theory.University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Deutscher, I. (1954) The Prophet Armed. OxfordUniversity Press, Oxford.

Glyn, A. and Sutcliffe, B. (1972) British Capitalism,Workers and The Project Squeeze. Penguin,Harmondsworth.

Nove, A. (1980) ‘Problems and prospects of the So-viet economy’, New Left Review, 119, 3–19.

Lenin, V.I. (1902; 1965) What Is To Be Done. ProgressPublishers, Moscow.

Piven, F.F. and Cloward, R. (1977) Poor People’sMovements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail.Pantheon, New York.

Trotsky, L. (1931; 1977) The History of The RussianRevolution . Pluto Press, London.

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Essentially, nationalism is a phenomenonconnected not so much with industrializa-tion or modernization as such, but with itsuneven development.

(Gellner, 1964)

NATIONS AND STATES

A distinction can be made between nations andstates: a nation is a community of people with acommon identity, shared cultural values and anattachment to a particular territory. Their iden-tity is intimately associated with the territory. Astate, on the other hand, is a political organiza-tion covering a particular territory.

The state ‘is likely to show the greatest stabil-ity and permanence when it corresponds closelywith a nation’ (Pounds, 1972, p. 12). The corre-spondence, let us call it congruence, depends upona number of factors. If the state boundaries en-close a single language group, sharing the samereligion and cultural heritage, then, holding eve-rything else constant, the stability of the nation-state is assured. If, on the other hand, the stateencloses a variety of different language groups,diverse religious sects and sections of the popu-lation with dissimilar cultural traditions, all inseparate and distinct areas, then political stabil-ity is not so easily maintained. Congruence oc-curs when there is a perfect fit between nationand state. It is a rare occurrence. Incongruencebetween nation and state is more common. Twodifferent types of incongruence can be noted:

Nations without states

Throughout the world there are instances of na-tions without states; they are the dispossessed,people whose shared values and aspirations arenot expressed in state formation. Examples in-clude the Palestinians and the Kurds. Figure 5.1shows the distribution of the Kurds, a people whose‘national’ territory has been divided up by differ-ent state boundaries. The result is a nation with-out a state. The Kurds, like other such groups, arethe losers in the game of international politics.They live in the states that are controlled by otherpeople. Their tragedy is that they have few oppor

5

THE NATION-STATE

Figure 5.1 The Kurdish ‘nation’


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tunities to present their case. The forum of worldopinion is more responsive to states than to dis-possessed nations. Nations without states lack theformal channels of representation. This is one reasonbehind the tactics of terror sometimes adopted bysuch dispossessed groups. Indeed, the definitionof terrorism is often used to describe the actionsof these groups. When a state bombs another stateit is war, when unrepresented national groups dothe same thing it is called terrorism.

Some nations do achieve their dream. The mostrecent example has one of the longest histories.Since the destruction of Jerusalem byNebuchadnezzar in 586 BC, the Jews have beendispersed throughout the ancient world and subse-quently throughout all the world. Yet they retainedtheir religion, their history and a vision of a Jewishhomeland. This belief was strengthened through-out the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as moreJews moved to Palestine. The belief was given ex-tra impetus by the unimaginable horror of theHolocaust, in which the Nazis sought to eradicatea whole race of people. They almost succeeded:estimates vary, but almost 6 million Jews weremurdered. The desire to establish a presence in theancient homeland grew in the post-war era. Israelwas established in 1947 against the background ofBritish control and Arab resistance. A new statewas established (see chapter 6). One nation hadbeen successful. The creation of Israel gave theJews a state but meant the Palestinians were now anation within someone else’s state.

States with more than one nation

Israel was an example of a common occurrence,one state but a number of nations. This form ofincongruence is the rule rather than the excep-tion. It is less marked in some countries of thenew world, e.g. Brazil, USA and Australia, nodoubt reflecting the initial destruction ormarginalization of the indigenous people and theirculture. But even here there has been a ‘rebirth’of the territorial claims of indigenous people.

Incongruence is most pronounced in the veryold states. In Europe state boundaries evolved as

certain regional centres of power grew and ex-panded while others declined. State boundariesoverlay the tight mosaic of differing ethnic for-mation. The result was a multi-ethnic state. Inthe case of the United Kingdom, the state incor-porated the Welsh, Irish and Scots as well as theEnglish. Across the Channel, Normandy, Brit-tany, Provence, Burgundy and the Midi were in-corporated into the French state. In the case ofRussia, tsarist expansionism eastward and south-ward meant that the Russian state, and eventu-ally the Soviet state, contained a varied ethnicmix including Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis,Turkomen and Mongols.

Incongruence also occurs in the very neweststates. In the periphery of the world economystates grew from a colonial basis of territorialdemarcation rather than one of ethnic cohesion.The subsequent history of sub-Saharan Africa,for example, is one of tribal tension sometimeserupting into open conflict. One example is theattempt by the Ibos to create the separate stateof Biafra from Nigeria in 1967. Thirty monthsof bloody civil war ended in 1970.

State boundaries often incorporate a variety

Figure 5.2 Black homelands in South Africa, 1990

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of nations. The state can adopt various strate-gies to deal with this situation:

Repression

After the battle of Culloden in 1746 the High-lands of Scotland came under the control of theHanoverian state, centred in London. The basisof High-land identity was repressed; it becameillegal to wear the plaid, play the bagpipes orspeak in Gaelic. The state sought to repress thebasis of Gaelic national identity.

Ever since 1778 the original inhabitants ofAustralia, the Aborigines, have been badly treatedby the white (predominantly British) settlers. Notreaty was ever signed, the land was stolen andthe Aborigines were denied effective rights. Theywere not counted in the census until 1967 orallowed to vote. Their national identity was al-most destroyed, denied and marginalized. In thepast 10–15 years, however, aboriginal resistancehas been reactivated. Ayer’s Rock has been handedback and substantial land claims have been suc-cessful. More generally, there has been an ac-ceptance of the rights of the indigenous people.

Indirect repression

This can occur through the steady erosion ofcultural identity by the use of a common lan-guage and creation of a national education sys-tem. Repression can also occur through the tightconfinement of ethnic groups to specific parts ofthe country. The apartheid system of South Af-rica was based on racist legislation and a brutaluse of state power. Blacks were confined to spe-cific territories and confined to particular partsof cities (see Figure 5.2).

Accommodation

In the nineteenth and throughout most of thetwentieth century most states sought to central-ize and modernize. In Europe ethnic differenceswere discouraged. In Britain, for example, Gaelicand Welsh were discouraged. At the end of the

twentieth century, however there has been anacceptance, willing or unwilling, of the need toaccommodate these differences while still retainingterritorial integrity. In many countries of the worldthere is now a greater accommodation of ethnicand linguistic differences. In Barcelona, Spain,the local trains have ‘no smoking’ signs in bothSpanish (the language of Madrid and Castille)and Catalan (the language of Barcelona and thesurrounding district). When the British govern-ment established a new television channel (Channel4) Welsh representation was successful in get-ting a Welsh-speaking component. In south-eastFrance one can see town signs in Provençal aswell as French.

Accommodation can be a dangerous strategy. Itmay buy off ethnic discontent but it may also pro-vide the basis for social movements which ques-tion the territorial integrity of the existing state.

Federalism

The most complete form of accommodation isto have separate government institutions for dif-ferent parts of the territory of the state. The fed-eral solution divides up the power and authorityof the state to separate regional authorities. It isa very rare strategy as most central authoritiesare loath to devolve power, while most nationalmovements want independence not federation.

Towards congruence?

The state is a powerful agent. It taxes the popu-lation, runs the army, controls law and orderand the education system and has some measureof control over the mass media. It seeks to con-trol the information and social messages passingthrough a society. This immense power is usedto inculcate in its citizens a belief in the state.When school children throughout the world standto attention for their national anthem or salutetheir national flag they are reproducing the be-lief in the state.

States use their power to weld citizens into acoherent society with similar values and belief


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systems. Some are more successful than othersand some more sophisticated than others but thegeneral goal is the same. In the long term, there-fore, we would expect to find increasing congru-ence between the nations within a single state.However, there are forces which militate againstthis. These include:

(a) Language: if different languages are spokenwithin one state congruence can only beachieved if a common language emerges. InBritain, English has emerged and the use ofWelsh and Gaelic has declined. Elsewhere,however, language differences persist. In Spain,for example, Catalan and Basque are theeveryday languages of people in specific re-gions, kept alive by tradition and custom,fanned by writers and intellectuals.

(b) Religion: Separate religion may not causeseparate movements. The rich variety of re-ligious observance in the USA is not the ba-sis of social conflict. However, it may exac-erbate differences, as in Northern Irelandbetween the pro-British Protestants and theRepublican Catholics and in Lebanon wherethe Muslim/ Christian distinction is just onemore line of fracture between warring com-munities.

(c) Economic differences: If long term economicdifferences overlie ethnic differences then con-gruence may be very difficult to achieve, es-pecially if the minority group perceives eco-nomic inequality. In Britain, for example, Scot-tish and Welsh nationalism has been kept alivemore by economic inequalities than by cul-tural resistance. Constantly higher unemploy-ment levels and lower average incomes in thetwo regions compared to the south-east ofEngland have given a backbone of discontentto nationalist sentiments. Some indication ofthe nationalist feeling in Europe is given inFigure 5.3. Let us look at this relationshipbetween uneven economic development andnationalism in more detail.

Uneven development and nationalism

Uneven development predates capitalism but thelinks between uneven development, which we candefine as the geographical unevenness of economicgrowth and development, and nationalism werecreated by capitalism. The industrial revolutionbegan in England around 1780. Thereafter, as theeffects of the transformation spiralled outwardfrom the storm centre the growth of nationalismarose in the wake of the storm; more than this, itwas part of the storm. We can identify two phases.The first is associated with the rise of nationalismin nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Europe:first Germany, then Italy and then the Balkansand Eastern Europe. Here the growth of capital-ism was associated with the slow transformationof agriculture and the steady growth in industri-alization. The geographical unevenness of the proc-ess was shaped by the nature of the resource en-dowment, the character of the pre-capitalist so-cial formations and the differential speed of thediffusion of capitalist relations of production. Sub-sequently, the spatial differentiation produced bythese processes provided the context for later roundsof capital investment.

Uneven development in Europe took placeagainst a mosaic of different linguistic, ethnicand cultural regions best exemplified in the di-versity of the constituent elements of such ram-shackle outfits as the Austro-Hungarian and Ot-toman empires. It is against such a backgroundthat perceived regional inequalities began to de-velop into nationalism. Gellner (1964) presents asimple model of the process. If two large regionsare differentially affected by capitalist develop-ment, one becoming richer than the other, butthe two regions do not differ in culture or lan-guage, then it is unlikely that regional discontentwill be manifest in separatist movements. If theregions do differ, then the super-imposition ofcultural and economic differences provides thenecessary preconditions for the growth of na-tionalist sentiment. For the sentiment to fosterpolitical movements with pertinent effects it isimportant to have a discontented intelligentsiato give cultural focus, differences in language, a

THE NATION-STATE

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broad base of workers and peasants to give theweight of numbers to protests, and a stupid cen-tral authority which leaves little room for na-tionalist sentiment to develop within existingpolitical structures.

In one sense nationalism can be seen as thecultural fall-out from the economic explosion ofcapitalist uneven development. In another, na-tionalism was not only a reaction to perceivedregional inequality but an attempt to guide eco-nomic development; it was the ideological ra-

tionale for the drive from semi-periphery to core.In southern, central and eastern Europe nation-alism was the language used to justify the at-tempts to shift from semi-periphery to core sta-tus in the world economy. Nationalism and eco-nomic motives were fused into a form of eco-nomic nationalism which gave cultural substanceto economic drives and economic goals for cul-tural forms. Nationalism was not only a reac-tion to uneven development, it was the culturalmanifestation of the attempts to guide this de-

Figure 5.3 Minority areas in Europe


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velopment. The ideas are well articulated in theGerman Historical School, whose members out-lined the neo-mercantilist creed of economic na-tionalism for a rising Germany (see Lichteim,1974, especially Chapters 5 and 6).

The second phase is associated with the riseof nationalism in the periphery in the twentiethcentury. Here again nationalism was both a re-sponse to the nature of capitalist uneven devel-opment and an attempt to guide the processes ofeconomic development. Liberation movementswere national liberation movements because thefight for national self-determination was the sameas the struggle for economic independence. Inan arresting metaphor Tom Nairn has termednationalism the modern Janus (Nairn, 1977).Nairn’s argument is this: nationalism is a re-sponse to uneven development. The process istwofold: on the one hand, the elites mobilizeagainst the ‘progress’ which destroys the old or-der and they do so by calling up their own cul-tural resources. On the other hand, they try toimprove their position within the world economy,and the drive to the semi-periphery or core sta-tus uses nationalism as a platform for the bigpush. All nationalist movements thus contain adual character of backward-looking, almost ata-vistic elements which hark back to the past anddynamic forces of change which point towardthe future.

We can think of a series of centripetal andcentrifugal forces which respectively unify anddisrupt the control of central state. Centripetalforces include such things as external aggressionwhich unifies the population, sensitive federalstructures which allow the culture and traditionof different parts of the country to be ‘safely’expressed, an education system which socializesall children into a ‘national’, as opposed to alocal or separatist, ideology, and mass media whichsuccessfully inculcates the population into a be-lief in the essential rightness of the present gov-ernmental arrangements.

The most powerful centrifugal force is perceivedpolitical and economic inequality. Secessionistmovements tend to gain large-scale support when

the inequalities are widely and deeply perceived,when the existing authorities have failed or aredeemed to have failed to improve matters, whenthe central government is associated in the peo-ple’s minds with a different cultural or ethnic groupand when there are perceived economic opportu-nities (or few hardships) to be gained by separa-tion. Centrifugal forces are given life and sub-stance by the uneven nature of economic devel-opment. In these circumstances some of the thingswhich were originally classified as centripetal canbecome centrifugal in effect. The mass media tendto homogenize tastes and expectations, but if thereare marked regional differences in levels of achieve-ment then the unifying influence of the mass me-dia becomes a divisive force. Similarly, a federalsystem devised to promote unity can become theplatform for secession.

In the richer core countries of the world thecentripetal forces tend to be stronger than thecentrifugal pressures. This is partly a function oftime. The boundaries of the core states, withsome notable exceptions, have very largely re-mained intact for over a hundred years. The passingof time has the same effects on internationalboundaries as it does on accumulated wealth;although the origins may be shabby and bloodythe process of ageing gives an air of respectabil-ity. The strength of centripetal forces is also partlya function of the powerful mass media and edu-cation systems, which tend to round out the con-tours of cultural differences within the state andpromote national unity.

Centrifugal forces tend to be strong in theperiphery and semi-periphery. In the peripheraland semi-peripheral countries of Africa and Asiathe present international boundaries tend to beyounger than those in the core. In contrast tothe first phase of nationalism, the second has amuch weaker cultural base. Very often there wasno national history of cultural cohesiveness inthe areas which become dependent states; inde-pendence movements, especially those in Africa,tended to work within the colonial administra-tive boundaries. After independence had beenachieved, the cohesion of the anti-colonial struggle

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tended to fracture along older cultural fault-linesand politics in post-independence sub-SaharanAfrica have been dominated by tribalism.

The centrifugal forces are given added impe-tus by the nature of incorporation into the capi-talist economy. The importance of primary prod-ucts to the economies means that basic economicdevelopment is associated with the uneven pat-tern of resource endowment. Moreover, the growthof the manufacturing and service sectors (espe-cially marked in the semi-periphery) tends to behighly concentrated in the large cities of certainregions. There is little opportunity for regionalpolicy because the state has limited power withregard to the multinational companies.

Although uneven development reaches its mostpronounced expression in the periphery, regionaldifferences are not always expressed in separa-tist movements. In those countries such as Tan-zania with a large number of very small tribalgroupings there is no cultural base large enoughto mobilize an alternative to the present state.There is no necessary one-to-one correspond-

ence between uneven development and nation-alism.

In the socialist states economic centrifugalforces are supposed to be minimized by theuse of central planning, which aims to eradi-cate regional inequality. However, central plan-ning failed to overcome the legacy of regionaldifferences in resource endowment, levels ofurbanization and industrialization. Besides, theearly emphasis of socialist planning on heavyindustry tended to increase inequalities betweenregions and between towns and cities, and thereare still marked regional differences within andbetween socialist states. Many former social-ist states contain a variety of different nations.In Yugoslavia the incendiary mixture of Croats,Slovenes, Serbs and Magyars finally explodedinto civil war in 1991. In the Soviet Union thediverse nationalities of Estonians, Lithuanians,Latvians, Georgians, Armenians and others,was a powerful centrifugal force in the finalcollapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 (see Fig-ure 5.4).

Figure 5.4 Republics of the Soviet Union, 1990

Figure 5.5 The United Kingdom

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THE SPATIAL ORGANIZATIONOF THE STATE

Each state has formal control over part of thesurface of the earth. The form of this occupancyvaries. We can identify two model types:

• the unitary state• the federal state

Let us look at each in turn, bearing in mind thatthese are ideal types and that in reality statesmay have elements of both.

The unitary state

The unitary state is built up around a single po-litical centre and the territory of the state is un-der the control of this centre. Examples includeBritain and France where political power is con-centrated respectively in London (see Figure 5.5)and Paris. In chapter 1 the core-periphery modelwas used to explain the working of the worldeconomy. The core-periphery model has also beenused to explain the territorial division of politi-cal power and economic wealth at the level of

the state (Rokkan and Urwin, 1982). The centreis the fulcrum of power in the state. It is theplace where:

• powerful figures reside and meet• it contains arenas for deliberations, negotia-

tion and ritual ceremonies which affirm na-tional identity

• it contains the symbols of power and na-tional identity, e.g. ‘national’ buildings andmonuments

• it contains the largest proportion of govern-ment information

The periphery, or to be more accurate, the pe-ripheries, exercise limited power and look to thecentre for key political decisions and resourceallocation.

Both London and Paris are the largest cities intheir respective countries, the most powerful eco-nomic and political leaders meet there and thetwo capitals contain the parliamentary assembliesand the bulk of the most powerful sections of thepublic sector. The two cities therefore contain themost potent symbols of national identity.

Figure 5.6 Federal system of the USA


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The federal state

In the federal state there are a variety of powercentres. This may be the result of the volun-tary association of distinct territories. Thisbottom-up system of federalism can be foundin the political history of the United States,Canada and Australia. In each of these coun-tries individual states joined to form a federa-tion of states making up one federal state (seeFigure 5.6). It may also occur as a result ofchanges imposed from the centre or from out-

side. In this top-down system a large measureof control is often kept in specific parts of theterritory.

We can identify strong and weak federations.A strong federal structure is one in which theconstituent states are strong because they retaina large degree of power and the federal state isweak. In a weak federal system the constituentstates have only a limited degree of power andthe federal state is strong.

In both types there is a degree of tension

BOX L: TOO BIG? AND TOO SMALL?

Nationalism and the nation-state bind people together but also demarcate parts of the world fromothers and separate out people from one another. After three hundred years the nation-state may becoming to the end of its shelf-life, its rationale undermined, paradoxically, because it is both too smalland too big: too small because sharp spatial demarcations are becoming irrelevant to the dynamics ofa world economy of multinational corporations and global markets: too large because most govern-ments and politicians are too distant from the everyday experience of ordinary people.

The nation-state is too small to deal with world pollution and too big to cope with neighbourhoodwaste disposal.

The nation-state has become a spatial anachronism, too small to have the necessary globalconsciousness and too large to be sensitive to the needs of localities.

There are moves away from nationalism. In one direction is the globalism which sees the need forworld solutions to what are in reality world problems of war and peace, poverty and plenty,sustainability and ecological harmony. In the other direction is the localism which aims to solve localproblems and avoid the easy option of only worrying about ecological issues in the abstract or only ifthey occur on the other side of the world.

The slogan Think global, act local is an attempt to join the two. In Europe we are beginning to seethe geopolitical consequence of these trends. On the one hand there is the inexorable move towardsEuropean integration and the creation of a European super-state which will eventually override thesovereignty of existing nation-states. And on the other hand there is the disintegration of existingnation-states as smaller, more localized loyalties and allegiances begin to emerge. In Spain, forexample, Andalusia, Castille and Catalonia have always existed in uneasy harmony. When the powershifts from Madrid to Brussels they no longer need to speak to one another. In Britain, the Scots haveremained in the Union for the want of any other alternative. But when money is doled out fromBrussels rather than London then there seems little point in staying with the English. Nation-stateswere always a compromise, a point of tension between competing interests. In the different world ofthe next century they may become an irrelevancy.

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between the different centres of power. The con-stituent states are eager to retain their powerand maintain a degree of independence. The federalstate is ever eager to extend its power and influ-ence. The federal state seeks to produce nationalpolicies while constituent states seek a measureof autonomy. The conflict is exacerbated if thereare differences in political persuasion betweenthe two levels of power. Take the case of the civilrights legislation in the USA in the 1960s (anexample discussed in great detail in chapter 8).In many southern states racist groups held powerwhile blacks were effectively marginalized anddeprived the full exercise of their political rights.However, local action in association with fed-eral legislation successfully challenged this en-trenched power structure.

Conflict becomes even more apparent whenlanguage, religious or ethnic differences overliethe differences between state and state. In Canada,for example, the tension between the Quebecprovincial government and the Federal Govern-ment is more pronounced because of the lan-guage and religious identity of Quebec comparedto the rest of Canada.

In reality most states have a combination ofunitary and federal elements. The United King-dom, for example, is often presented as the text-book study of a unitary state. However, in North-ern Ireland public policy is influenced by theAngloIrish agreement involving representativesof London and Dublin; Scotland and Wales havetheir own government departments and cabinetminister; the Welsh Office and Scottish Officeplay an important part in evolving and imple-menting public policy in the respective countries.If not quite a federal state then neither is it asingle unitary system. Similarly, for all the talkof a federal arrangement in the USA, Washing-ton acts as the single most important politicalcentre and the federal state has enormous influ-ence and impact on all parts of the country.

THE LOCAL STATE

So far we have used the term ‘state’ to refer to a

single unit of analysis. In reality the state admin-isters territory through a hierarchy of levels. Thereare various forms of regional government in theconstitutional states of a federal structure (e.g.California and Texas in the USA). Below this isthe local state. In this final section let us look atthe local state in some detail. By way of exam-ples we will examine the organization and func-tioning of local states in Britain and the USA.

The local state in Britain

The local state in Britain is a creature of centralgovernment; it was created by the central stateand its powers are limited by central authority.The Local Government Acts of 1888 and 1894laid down a two-tiered structure. In England thefirst tier consisted of sixty-two counties respon-sible for the broad range of local governmentservices (roads, housing, education, police, etc.),eightyseven county boroughs, which were basi-cally large towns and cities, with the same re-sponsibilities, and the twenty-eight metropoli-tan boroughs within the overall jurisdiction ofthe London County Council, responsible for suchthings as public health, libraries, housing andrecreation. The second tier consisted of munici-pal boroughs (smaller towns), urban districts andrural districts, which all had minor responsibili-ties. This system lasted with minor changes andrevisions for approximately eighty years untilthe 1972 reorganization which came into effectin 1974 (see Figure 5.7).

In England six metropolitan counties were maderesponsible for overall planning, transport, po-lice and fire services. These counties were subdi-vided into districts, which were responsible foreducation, personal social services, housing, lo-cal planning and environmental health. Thenonmetropolitan areas, which consisted of thirty-nine counties, were made responsible for the samethings as metropolitan counties, plus educationand social services, and 296 districts were formedwith the same powers as metropolitan districtsminus control over social services and education.At the base level of the non-metropolitan areas in


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England are the 7800 local councils, responsiblefor the provision and maintenance of local amenities.The Greater London Council was made responsi-ble for transport, overall planning and some housing,and the thirty-two London boroughs were in chargeof housing, social services, leisure, public healthand education (if outside the inner-city area).

The standard arguments put forward to ex-plain reorganization centred around the conceptsof size and efficiency. The existing authorities,so the standard and official argument goes, weretoo small, too inefficient and too fragmented forthe expanded role of local government. Larger,fewer authorities, it was claimed, would coverthe urban and suburban areas of city regionsand would be more efficient in providing serv-ices. Some of the arguments were not borne out;before reorganization there were 141 planningauthorities and after the much-vaunted reformsthe number increased to 401. In reality, reor-ganization bore ‘the imprint of political design’(Johnston, 1979, p. 150).

An alternative view of this local governmentreform has been advanced by Dearlove, who ar-gues that such terms as ‘efficiency’ and ‘ration-alization’ which are attached to the explanatorydebates are meaningless; they are ahistorical,asocial categories which merely obfuscate thematter. He suggests that the real interests in-volved in reorganization need to be unpackedfrom the idealized terms of contemporary de-bates. He identifies two aspects:

1 The desire to increase efficiency, a centraltenet of pro-reform arguments, stems fromdemands to reduce taxation in general andprivate-sector contributions in particular. Thedesire for efficiency, he argues, is really anexpression of the demands to cut public ex-penditure in order to reduce company andindividual taxes.

2 The enlargement of local authorities hasbeen based on the attempt to make localgovernment service more attractive to busi-nessmen and executives, while the enlarge-ment of city boundaries has been used to

Figure 5.7 The local state in England

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enfranchise the suburban middle classesso as to allow them to play a role in urbanpolitics, a role that until recently was domi-nated by the power of the Labour Party.Dearlove summarizes reorganization thus:‘At best there is a romantic desire to cap-ture some idealized form of conflict-freedeferential democracy…at worst an overtintent to rest local government power onceagain directly on top of economic power’(Dearlove, 1979, p. 105).

Local government was reorganized again in 1986(see Figure 5.7c). This was part of an attack onlocal government by the Conservative govern-ment. The Conservatives came to power in 1979,committed to a reduction in welfare services andcutbacks in public expenditure. Prime targets werethe big metropolitan counties and the GreaterLondon Council These were all Labour control-led in the early 1980s and constituted a point ofresistance against the central power of a Con-servative government. The role of place was alsoimportant. The headquarters of the GLC wasright across the Thames from the Houses of Par-liament and the GLC leader, Ken Livingston, wasan impressive media performer. A GovernmentWhite Paper published in 1983 entitled Stream-lining the Cities argued that the abolition of the

GLC and the metropolitan counties would re-duce public expenditure and improve public serv-ices. The Government passed a Local Govern-ment rule in 1985 and the next year the GLCwas abolished and the metropolitan counties weredisbanded. It was a political act to achieve apolitical objective.

The local state in operation

The formal institution of authority in the localstate is the council. It is elected on a broadfranchise and everyone whose name appearson the electoral register is entitled to vote. Elec-tions are held every four years on a ward basis.Each city is divided into wards whose populationsrange from 8000 in the smaller inner-city wardsto over 30000 in the more suburban areas. Fullmeetings of the council ratify major decisionsbut policy is formulated and policy implemen-tation monitored at committee level; Figure 5.8outlines a typical county committee structure.These committees rely on the local state bu-reaucrats for advice, information and guid-ance. The process of decision-making is rep-resented in Figure 5.9. The chief officer’s re-port on a particular matter goes to the vari-ous committees, whose recommendations arethen used by the chief executive (the principal civil

Figure 5.8 County committee structure


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servant) to compile an agenda. The points onthe agenda are discussed and responses are for-mulated at the party group meetings held beforecommittee meetings and full council meetings.The council rubber-stamps the decisions madeby the majority party and these decisions areacted upon by the chief officers of the relevantdepartments.

The civil servants of the local state have sig-nificant influence. Their position as permanentexperts, as initiators of local policy and as inter-preters of central state directives gives them con-siderable power. They provide the informationand the recommendations on which local politi-cians make decisions. The work of Saunders (1979)in Croydon and Newton (1977) in Birminghampoints to the close relationship between chiefofficers and senior councillors, especially com-mittee chairpersons. Newton found that the in-fluence and experience of long-serving commit-tee chairpersons served as a powerful counter-weight to the professional expertise of the offi-cials, and Saunders discovered that the relation-ship between chief officers and leading membersof the majority political group was one of closeallies. The political elite needed the advice and

information from the officials, while the offi-cials were obliged to take notice of the politicaland ideological dispositions of the elite mem-bers if their policy proposals were to stand anychance of being implemented. This second lineof research suggests that rather than a crude coun-cillors/officials dichotomy we need to think of asymbiotic relationship between the political eliteof important councillors and committee chair-persons on the one hand and chief officers andchief executives on the other. Less powerful coun-cillors and lower-level officials play a minor rolein policy-making.

Local politics in Britain are dominated by thenational political parties. National politics feedinto local state policy-making. The party in powerat the central state level attempts to implementits policies. Legislation passed by the central stateoften involves implementation by the local state.The policy guidelines from the central state areinitially handled by the appropriate departmentsof the local authority, whose chief officer makesrecommendations to the appropriate committee.The form of a local party’s acceptance of poli-cies emanating from the national party is medi-ated by the wishes of its constituents, especiallythose in marginal wards, and the politicking ofvarious pressure groups. In general, the LabourParty is most receptive to the labour movement,while the Conservative Party is most receptiveto pressure groups from the business commu-nity. On specific issues particular elements ofthese broad groups will be active. Building workers’unions and local builders, for example, will tryto influence the level and form of local house-building plans. On other issues smaller, moreperipheral organizations may play a role.

Figure 5.9 Formal decision-making in local government

Figure 5.10 Local states in the USA

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From the ingredients of national guidelinesand directives, constituency demands andpressuregroup activity, the local party in powerwill fashion its policies against the backgroundof local political reality.

The local state in the USA

There are basically four types of local state inthe USA: township, county, special district andmunicipality (see Figure 5.10).

Townships exist in only twenty-one states. InNew England states they are the principal unitof local government. In the original townshipsdecisions were made by a gathering of all adultmales, who determined property rights and passedordinances regarding public behaviour. In mostplaces a more representative form of governmenthas evolved; the electorate now votes for candi-dates for various public offices and for a three-person (or more) governing body.

Counties form the basic unit of local govern-ment below the state level and most of the USAis now covered by approximately 3000 coun-ties. The functions performed by the county varyaccording to population density. Rural countiesprovide the basic services of maintaining lawand order, providing road maintenance and su-pervising public health. Semi-rural counties ful-fil these functions in addition to such services as

library provision. Urban counties provide a widerange of services including street lighting, sew-age disposal and garbage collection. Figure 5.11outlines a typical situation, where the countyelectorate votes directly for various officers andthe board of supervisors, who in turn direct thevarious boards and commissioners.

Special districts are the most numerous formof local authority in the USA. There are almost16000 school districts, and other types of spe-cial district total nearly 26000. School districtshave elected boards which have powers over thesyllabus and teachers’ salaries. Among the manytypes of ad hoc districts are fire service districts,park supervision districts, soil conservation dis-tricts, library districts, irrigation and drainagedistricts and even mosquito abatement districts.

Municipalities are the main form of govern-ment in urban areas. They are incorporated bythe state in one of the following ways:

• under special charter a municipality is es-tablished by an act of the state legislature

• under a general law municipalities are cre-ated when a certain predetermined criterionis reached, e.g. if an area attains a certainpopulation density or size

• under optional charter eligible residents mayvote for a municipal government to be es-tablished

Figure 5.11 County government in Iowa


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• under home rule measures eligible voters maysubmit proposals for municipal governmentto the state

The particular functions performed by munici-palities are laid out in the respective charters. Ingeneral, municipalities provide police and fireprotection, public works, libraries, parks, cityplanning measures and some low-cost housing.

To note the evolution of local government letus concentrate on the municipalities.

Municipal government

The form and functioning of municipal govern-ment in the USA have been shaped by the urbanexperience of the last 150 years and it is impor-tant to see the contemporary scene in the light ofhistorical experience. In the pre-Civil War pe-riod cities were small and there was no large-scale established working class. Urban politicswere dominated by an aristocratic oligarchy whoseposition was based on wealth and social stand-ing. Conflict was muted. From the middle of thenineteenth century came the growth of a new

merchant class in the expanding cities. The com-mercial elite displaced the old patrician class andthe emphasis of urban politics under the newmanagement was on civic promotion of economicgrowth through public investment and publicworks. In certain regions the merchant city gaveway to the industrial city. Poor immigrants fromEurope poured into cities where there was growingethnic and class differentiation as the industrialrevolution transformed the character of majorUS cities. With the demand for municipal serv-ices and the weight of the workingclass vote camethe boss system which was based on the controlof votes. Through his organization the politicalboss controlled votes and votes gave power. Thecity boss used this power to maintain his posi-tion; he dispensed jobs, controlled elections topublic office and held the city’s purse-strings.From their position of strength the bosses chan-nelled welfare services and jobs to certain groupsand specific companies, who in turn voted andworked for the party machine. It was a mutuallybeneficial arrangement which enriched the bossand his supporters. It also fulfilled a number ofother functions:

Figure 5.12 Mayor-council form of governance

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• It had an important socializing effect in sofar as it provided immigrants (and the bosssystem was essentially the politics of the im-migrant) with a political system which cush-ioned their arrival into a new environment.

• It was an inherently conservative system whichlegitimated the existing social and economicorder because it did not mobilize the work-ing class into a coherent group but exacer-bated ethnic rivalries and promoted controland manipulation rather than democratic dis-cussion. The boss system did not directlychallenge the capitalist order.

Conflict was reduced within the city by the abil-ity of the upper- and middle-income groups toescape from the ‘rabble-ruled’ cities. The richcould move to the suburbs and then place barri-ers around their escape route. They escaped theinfluence of city politics by achieving politicalautonomy in suburban municipalities which con-servative state legislatures safeguarded from centralcity annexation.

The boss system produced its critics. The re-form movement started around 1900 and was ledby business groups in each city. The problem, asthey saw it, was that the boss system, while notdirectly challenging their economic interests, wasnot entirely satisfactory for business. It could be-come too expensive, it was unpredictable and intheir nightmares they could see it as the ‘motherand nurse of socialism’. The reform movementsought to keep business elites in political powerby promoting non-partisan politics, the commis-sion form of government and at-large elections.The various forms of contemporary city govern-ment reflect the differential diffusion and adop-tion of these reform measures.

There are basically three types of municipalgovernment in the USA. The initial one, the oneused by the bosses, was the mayor-council system(Figure 5.12). In this system the municipality isdivided into wards represented by councillors whoare elected for two to four years in office. Thecouncil is the main decision-making body and themayor is the chief executive. Under the weakmayorsystem (see Figure 5.13) the mayor is limited inthe number of appointments he/she can make bythe long-ballot system whereby city officials aredirectly elected, and by the direct supervision ofmunicipal departments by council committees.Under the strong-mayor system the mayor exer-cises more power by his/her ability to appoint thechief administrators of the various departments,who are then responsible to the mayor rather thanthe council. Not too much should be made of thisdistinction in terms of differences in mayoral power.Chicago under Mayor Daly was theoretically aweak-mayor system: someone obviously forgotto tell Mayor Daly.

Figure 5.13 Alternative form of mayor-councilrelations

Figure 5.14 The commission form of governance


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The majority of large urban municipalitiesoperate the mayor-council system of governmentand over 80 per cent of all cities with a popula-tion greater than half a million operate in thisway. It is the predominant system of municipalgovernment in the large cities of the north-eastand the mid-west of the country where the bosssystem was entrenched through the political powerof the ethnic groups and the working class.

The commission form of government was firstproposed by the reformers in 1900. Under thissystem the electorate votes through city-wide,non-partisan elections for a commission of threeto seven members who direct municipal affairsfor four years (Figure 5.14). The commissionfixes tax rates, determines annual budgets andadopts general policies. This form of govern-ment has been especially important in the newer,smaller cities where the reformers had more powerand there was no entrenched boss system. Only10 per cent of municipalities operate this sys-tem.

The council-manager form of government wasfirst proposed by the reformers in 1911. In thissystem the electorate votes, in non-partisan, city-wide elections, for a three- to nine-member council.The council sets taxes, determines budgets andhires a manager who is the chief executive di-rectly supervising the municipal administration(Figure 5.15). The council-manager system be-came the preferred system of government for thereformers because it was not so time-consumingfor the council as the commission form. The del-

egation of the day-to-day running of the admin-istration to the manager made council office con-venient for businessmen while the non-partisanballot and city-wide elections diluted the powerof ethnic minorities and low-income groups clus-tered in distinct residential areas. Under the council-manager system the discourse of political debatebecame dominated by the claims of efficiencyand rationality rather than redistribution or so-cial justice. This system is found in approximately40 per cent of all municipalities and it is thepredominant form of government in medium-sized cities with little or no experience of bosspolitics and where there is a high proportion ofmiddle- and upper- income groups.

Having noted the example of local states inBritain and the USA, let us return to a discussionof the local state in general by looking at threeimportant aspects:

• central-local relations• influence of pressure groups• areas of jurisdiction

Central-local relations

We can identify two extreme types. In the CEN-TRAL-local arrangement the central state retainsmost of the power and the local state has a sub-sidiary role. In the case of central-LOCAL thelocal state has most power. The former is morecommon than the latter. However, there is varia-tion across this continuum over time and by dif-ferent sets of public policy. The general trend hasbeen for an increase in the power of the centralstate. As Table 5.1 shows with respect to the USA

Figure 5.15 The council-manager form of governance

Table 5.1 Government spending in the USA

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the power to spend money has moved towardsthe higher levels of government.

In the case of foreign policy and national de-fence most central states retain absolute powerin deciding objectives. In the case of various welfareprogrammes, in contrast, such as housing, in-come support and education, the local state mayplay an important role. Ideally central govern-ments want to keep control but pass responsibil-ity onto the local state, which in turn wants bothpower and responsibility. If the central state keepstoo much power it lacks the sensitivity of thelocal state to local conditions, but if it gives toomuch power to the local state this weakens itsown position. The local state wants more inde-pendence from the central authorities but stillwants central government to top up its local taxbase. Too much independence and it is limited tothe locally-generated tax base but too great areliance on the central state reduces its power.The central-local state relationship is a tensionbetween competing interests. In times of fiscalcrisis the central state often attempts to pass thecosts of the provision of public goods and serv-ices onto the local state level. Local states seekto resist this offloading.

The power of the local state varies in differ-ent countries. In Switzerland, for example, thelocal state has more power than occurs in eitherthe USA or the UK. But even in these two coun-tries the local state is more than just a neutraltransmitter of central government policy.

Local states, even within individual countries,vary in how much they spend and how they spendit. The variation occurs because of differences indemand, resources and dispositions (see Figure 5.16).

Demand: There is a spatial variation in thedemand (need) for the goods and services sup-plied by the local state, e.g. in poorer areas morepeople may require social welfare services whilein richer areas there is a demand for more publicopen space. Local states vary in their type ofconstituencies.

Resources: Local states also vary in the resourcesat their disposal. Richer areas have a wider anddeeper tax base than poor areas and can thusraise and hence spend more. Here we have aninteresting paradox. The poorer areas may needpublic spending but have less ability to raise themoney than the richer areas which can more eas-ily raise the finance but have less need for it. Thisfiscal disparity problem may be overcome by rev-enue sharing schemes whereby central or federalgovernments top-up local resources. Where thisdoes not occur there are real problems. Local states,like central governments, can experience a fiscalcrisis as expenditure outruns revenues. The fiscalcrisis of the local state is particularly acute inlarge cities with a high proportion of poor peopleand a declining tax base.

Disposition: Local states vary in policy for-mulation and implementation because of varia-tions in political allegiance. In the UK, for ex-ample, the big urban authorities tend to be moreradical than the rural counties. The result is thatthe urban authorities tend to spend more on publicservices than the rural areas. The administrationof local states reflects the local political culture.

In this regard local states may also differ fromthe central authorities. Following on from thetypology of functions and expenditure proposedby O’Connor (see Figure 4.5), Peter Saunders

Figure 5.16 Central and local state


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argues that there is a division of labour betweenthe local and central state. The central state isconcerned with ensuring capital accumulationand is most directly involved with social invest-ment such as roads and various public workscontracts. The local state is most directly con-cerned with the functions associated with legiti-mation and the social consumption and socialexpense expenditures (see Figure 4.3).

Saunders goes on to suggest that the differ-ence between the central and local state in termsof function and type of expenditure is overlaidby the differences in decision-making. Social in-vestment policies are made by the central statein association with corporate interests, with theemphasis on economic priorities and rationalplanning. The local state, in contrast, is rela-tively more open to democratic pressures. Theargument is summarized thus:

We must distinguish between social invest-ment policies determined within the cor-porate sector at national and regional lev-els of government, and social consumptionpolicies, determined through competitivepolitical struggles often at local level. Thismeans that the tension between economicand social priorities, between rational plan-ning and democratic accountability andbetween centralized direction and local re-sponsiveness, tend to underlie one another.

(Saunders, 1980, p. 551)

In this light the local state is seen as the Achillesheel of the state apparatus. It is open to demo-cratic pressure and it is concerned with the pro-vision of services based on criteria of need ratherthan profit or ability to pay. The local state is apart of the state apparatus but it is a vulnerablepart, suggests Saunders, a part which can be usedto achieve real gains and defend real advances.

A distinction has to be drawn between the op-portunities afforded by the local state in differenttypes of society. In Western European countries tovarying extents there is a socialist tradition oftenstrongly represented in political parties operating

at the local level. The local state in certain regionsof the country can thus, holding everything elseconstant, act with some degree of freedom fromthe interests of capital. In North America, by con-trast, there is a much weaker socialist tradition.The local state is much more open to business pressureand constrained in its social consumption expenses.

Influence of pressure groups

The decentralization of power to local areas makesthe exercise of power very susceptible to localinfluences. We can make a distinction betweenlocal states which generate most of their revenuelocally and those which receive a substantial pro-portion from central government. When a localstate has to rely on local sources it is particularlysensitive to the needs and wishes of localtaxgenerating individuals and institutions. Lo-cal states are less sensitive when more funds comefrom central government. The difference can beseen in a rough comparison between local statesin the UK, where traditionally over two-thirdsof funds come from the central government, andthe USA, where the majority of funds are raisedlocally. The differences are apparent in a com-parison of the urban renewal schemes of the 1950s,1960s and early 1970s which were undertakenby municipal authorities in both the UK and theUSA. In both countries building contractors usedtheir power to influence and encourage renewal.In the UK, however, new shopping centres andoffice buildings were constructed but so was publichousing. The predominantly Labour-controlledcouncils sought to maintain their political sup-port by meeting the housing needs of their con-stituents. In the USA, in contrast, there weremarkedly different redistributional consequences.The winners were big business and constructioncompanies. The losers were low-income, predomi-nantly black households who faced further re-strictions on their already slight housing oppor-tunities as cheap inner-city housing was demol-ished to make way for commercial developmentsand more expensive housing. The benefits of ur-ban-renewal policies accrued to finance and

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construction capital and the costs were borne bylow-income households in the inner city.

Because of the pressing need to generate in-come, the most influential pressure groups in USmunicipal politics are those representing busi-ness interests. They are not a homogeneous groupand a distinction can be drawn between locallyorientated smaller-scale businesses, downtownbusiness interests, such as major banks and de-partment stores which have major investment inthe central areas of particular cities, and the largecorporations operating through their branchplants. These business interests, acting sometimestogether, sometimes alone, have been the singlemost important group influencing urban poli-cies. The downtown interests have been espe-cially successful in managing to get urban-re-newal policies implemented. There has been aconvergence of interests between business con-cerns and politicians. The politicians must meet,at least in part, the demands of the voters if theyare to stay in power but they must also providethe best conditions for private investors and busi-ness if loans are to be raised and the tax base isto be maintained. Under present arrangementsthe politicians can only provide the municipalservices which assure them of a power base byaligning their policies to the interests of capital.

Even in the UK, however, businesses are impor-tant actors in local politics. During economic down-turns local states are competing for fewer tax- andemployment-generating corporations. Local statesare thus put in the position of vying with eachother for a diminishing pool of business. The endresult is that business interests can make high de-mands on local states, e.g. tax-free holiday peri-ods, grants and loans. A spiral of demands can beestablished as local states compete to offer the bestpackage to attract footloose industries and retainexisting institutions within their jurisdiction.

There are pressure groups and pressure groups.The most successful are not pressure groups at allsince their interests and outlook are shared by thepolitical elite. Apart from those ‘red islands’ whereleft-wing Labour parties are in control, the localstate in Britain, as in the USA, is suffused with the

ideology of business interests. The interests ofthe ‘general public’, as perceived by most politi-cal elites, correspond with the interests of bigbusiness. The least successful pressure groups—the poor, the badly housed, the ill-educated andthe unemployed—are also not real pressure groups,since their interests rarely appear on the politi-cal agendas. Between these two extremes thereare a variety of groups whose success lies in theirresources, their tactics, the stakes involved andthe congruence of their interests with those ofthe political elite.

Area of jurisdiction

Local states are responsible for particular piecesof territory. The boundaries of the local state arevery porous compared to those of the state; eco-nomic activity and patterns of commuting crossand recross the boundaries of the local govern-ment more so than the state. This can pose anumber of problems. Let us look at two in par-ticular:

• the free rider• metropolitan fragmentation

A free rider is someone who gets something fornothing. If two local states are close together, oneprovides free public open space facilities and the

Figure 5.17 Jurisdictional fragmentation in the StLouis metropolitan area


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other does not, then residents of the other,lowertax state can use the facility without pay-ing. They get a free ride at the expense of some-one else. Free rides occur because there may bean unequal distribution of costs and benefits.Benefits can be open to all within a large areabut costs are borne by those within a particularlocal state. The solution lies in local state bounda-ries which match political and economic reali-ties. There is resistance. Free riders want to main-tain their free ride.

Let us examine the most exaggerated case ofmetropolitan fragmentation, the USA. Metro-politan areas in most of the USA comprise acentral city hemmed in by suburban municipali-ties (see Figure 5.17). Prior to 1900 annexationof rural land by central cities was relatively easyand it was promoted by real-estate firms andconstruction companies. Since 1900 annexationhas become more difficult as the rich have soughtto defend their suburban peace and lower taxes.State legislatures have been used to stop centralcities incorporating the suburban areas. Annexa-tion still continues, especially in the expandingcities of the sunbelt, but there is marked conflictbetween the real-estate and construction firmseager for municipal governments to provide theessential services for their development projectsand the residents keen to restrict urban encroach-ment which would affect their life-style and prop-erty values. In certain metropolitan regions thepower lies with the developers, in others it restswith resident groups. The shifting balance of poweris reflected in the pace and character of incorpo-ration and annexation.

In the older cities political fragmentationhas led to the central city-suburban fiscal dis-parity problem. This is quite a mouthful. What

it means is this, the central cities have a rela-tively higher proportion of their populationon welfare and greater demands placed on theirpublic services, but only limited ability to fi-nance these expenditures. In the USA the bulkof public service is provided by local taxes.The tax is based on the assessed value of alltaxable property within the municipality. Theproblem for the central cities is a double bind:the dwindling tax base caused by the flight tothe suburbs of higher-income households andindustrial and commercial enterprises, and in-creasing expenditure.

The policy of declaring a fiscal crisis can beseen as an attempt to subdue popular demandsand legitimate reductions in public services andmunicipal employment (Friedland et al., 1977).In the suburbs, by contrast, there is a favourablefiscal position because of the relatively affluentpopulation, the strong tax base and the few de-mands placed on municipal revenues.

The central city-suburban fiscal disparities aregreatest in the older industrial regions of the north-east and mid-west, where there is a higher pro-portion of poorer households in cities, a weakereconomic base and strong barriers to annexa-tion and incorporation. The disparities are smallestin the expanding cities of the sunbelt, where theurban population is relatively richer, the indus-trial and commercial base is stronger and thereare fewer barriers to annexation.

Metropolitan fragmentation overlies segrega-tion of different income and ethnic groups. Poorblacks are concentrated in the central cities. Thissegregation is maintained because poorer innercityresidents are denied access to the suburbs byexclusive practices. Suburban municipalities zone

BOX M: THE SECRET STATE

States have hidden agendas. Figure M.1 shows the command points and regional demarcationin the event of a ‘national emergency’. Sub-regional HQs are to be given total power in theevent of civil disturbance (within or without the context of nuclear war); their prime purposeis control. The people may be dead but the state will live on.

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minimum lot sizes or certain design standardsfor houses which effectively keep out lower-in-come house purchasers.

Metropolitan fragmentation increases socialconflict. Within the central city the dwindling taxbase and growing demands for public servicesraise conflict between the discontented taxpay-ers, who want their taxes reduced, the municipal

workers (an increasingly important sector of to-tal employment in many large cities) who wanttheir incomes maintained and jobs secured, andthe community groups, who want more and bet-ter services. The claims are incompatible and theunfolding tensions and conflicts between thesegroups and the city government raise the politicaltemperature of the metropolitan core.

Figure M.1 Command points and regional governments in UK in the event of a ‘national emergency’


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On the nation-state see:

Anderson, B. (1983) Imagined Communities: Reflec-tions on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism.Verso, London.

Chisholm, M.D. and Smith, D.M. (eds) (1990) SharedSpace, Divided Space. Essays on Conflict and Ter-ritorial Organization. Unwin Hyman, London.

Gellner, E. (1983) Nations and Nationalism. BasilBlackwell, Oxford.

Hechter, M. (1975) Internal Colonialism. Routledge& Kegan Paul, London

Hobsbawm, E.J. (1990) Nations and Nationalism since1780: Programme, Myth and Reality. CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge.

Johnston, R.J., Knight, D.B. and Kofman, E. (eds)(1988) Nationalism, self-determination and politicalgeography. Croom Helm, London.

Kedourie, E. (1985) Nationalism. Hutchinson, Lon-don.

Mellor, R.E.H. (1989) Nations, State and Territory.Routledge, London.

Smith, A.D. (1979) Nationalism in the Twentieth Cen-tury. Martin Robertson, Oxford.

Smith, A.D. (1988) The Ethnic Origin of Nations.Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

Tilly, C. (1975) The Formation of National States inWestern Europe. Princeton University Press,Princeton.

Tivey, L. (1981) The Nation-State. Martin Robertson,Oxford.

On the spatial organization of the state consider:

Johnston, R.J. (1979) Political, Electoral and SpatialSystems. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Johnston, R.J. (1982) Geography and the StateMacmillan, London.

Paddison, R. (1983) The Fragmented State: The Po-litical Geography of Power. Basil Blackwell, Ox-ford.

Rokkan, S. and Urwin, D.W. (eds) (1982) Politics ofTerritorial Identity. Sage, Beverly Hills and London.

On the local state see:

Boddy, M. and Fudge, C. (eds) (1984) Local Social-ism. Macmillan, London.

Cockburn, C. (1977) The Local State. Pluto Press,London.

Cox, K.R. and Johnston, R.J. (eds) (1982) Conflict,Politics and the Urban Scene. Longman, London.

Duncan, S.S. and Goodwin, M. (1988) The Local Stateand Uneven Development. Polity Press, Cambridge.

Loughton, M. (1986) Local Government in the Mod-ern State. Sweet & Maxwell, London.

Saunders, P. (1979) Urban Politics. Hutchinson, Lon-don.

Examples of the local state in operation include:

Bassett, K.A. (1990) ‘Labour in the sunbelt: the poli-tics of local economic development strategy in an‘M4—corridor’, town’, Political Geography Quar-terly, 9, 67–83.

Johnston, R.J. (1984) Residential Segregation. TheState and Constitutional Conflict in American Ur-ban Areas. Academic Press, London.

Newton, K. and Karran, T. (1985) The Politics ofLocal Expenditure. Macmillan, London.

Short, J.R., Fleming, S. and Witt, S. (1986)Housebuilding, Planning and Community Action:the Production and Negotiation of the Built Envi-ronment. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.

Relevant journals

Economic GeographyEnvironment and Planning (A, C and D)International Journal of Urban and Regional ResearchLocal Government StudiesPolicy and PoliticsPolitical Geography QuarterlyRegional Studies


Dearlove, J. (1979) The Reorganization of British LocalGovernment. Cambridge University Press, Cam-bridge.

Friedland, R., Piven, F.F. and Alford, R.R. (1977)‘Political conflict, urban structure and the fiscalcrisis’, International Journal of Urban and RegionalResearch, 1, 447–71.

Gellner, E. (1964) Thought and Change. Universityof Chicago Press, Chicago.

Hechter, M. (1975) Internal Colonisation. Routledge& Kegan Paul, London.

Lichteim, G. (1974) Imperialism. Penguin,Harmondsworth.

Nairn, T. (1977) The Break-up of Britain. NearleftBooks, London.

Newton, K. (1977) Second City Politics. ClarendonPress, Oxford.

Pounds, N.J.G. (1972) Political GeographyMcGrawHill, New York.

Saunders, P. (1980) ‘Local government and the state’,New Society, 550–1.

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States are a spatial unit of the earth’s surface.Their spatial quality is not a secondary feature,it is of major importance. A number of spatialrelationships can be identified between:

• the people and the environment• the state and the environment• the people and the state

PEOPLE AND ENVIRONMENT

States occupy territory. In the process ofnationbuilding this occupancy becomes the ba-sis for a whole set of beliefs about the relation-ships between people and their environment. Iwill use the term national environmental ideol-ogy to refer to this set of beliefs. Let us examineeach of these terms:

National in the sense that a whole set of mythsand beliefs are established in the process ofnationbuilding. For example, the creation of theUSA involved subduing ‘wilderness’ and the no-tion of extending the frontier is an importantelement of US national identity.

Ideology in the sense of a partial set of beliefswhich highlight the experience of some groupsand ignore or marginalize the experience of oth-ers. For example, up until very recently the his-tory of the American west ignored the role ofblacks, women and the plight of the ‘Indians’. Itwas a history of those moving west, not of thosefacing east.

The environmental element can be broken intothe elements of particular places and generalspaces. Every country has a set of symbolic placeswhich condense popular feelings of nationhood.

There are the historic sites, e.g. Gettysburg (USA),which are important in the historical evolutionof the country. There are also the special sitessuch as the White House (USA), Parliament Build-ing (Australia), or the Houses of Parliament (UK)which function as symbols of statehood. Par-ticular places in the space of the state are givenimportance and priority as recorders, containersor reflections of national identity.

There are also more general attitudes to thespace of the country. Three types of general spacecan be identified:

• wilderness• countryside• city

Wilderness: Up until the twentieth century thedominant view in most states was that the ‘de-feat’ of the ‘wilderness’ was a sign of progress tobe encouraged and celebrated. Governments inthe New World actually sought to ‘open up’ the‘wilderness’ by defeating the indigenous popula-tion, cultivating the land and building towns andcities. In nineteenth-century USA, for example,the drive westward was seen as a symbol ofstrength and unity, the extension of the frontierfurther westward was a sign of national progress.

In the late nineteenth and, particularly, in thetwentieth century an alternative view has emerged.This view sees the wilderness as the authenticlandscape whose destruction is a source of re-gret and unease. The extension of the frontierand the defeat of the wilderness is a sign of re-gress not progress.

6

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These differing views can catch the public im-agination and, through the power of public opin-ion, influence government action. In the richer coun-tries a balance has to be struck between utilizingthe economic resource of the territory and preserv-ing remnants of wilderness. The production andconservation of particular pieces of territory be-comes an element of government policy, sometimesin competition with the full development of theeconomic potential of the resource base of the country.In the poorer countries of the world the balance ofpolitical power is often weighed more heavily infavour of development rather than conservation.However, world opinion can affect national poli-cies. The debate about preserving the tropical rainforest is a case in point. Foreign opinion can act asa counter to the demands of the big corporationswhich seek to exploit wilderness areas.

Countryside: In English the term country hasa double meaning: it is used to refer to ruralareas; it is also used as another word for thenation. This double usage reflects the huge im-portance that rural images play in the creationand recreation of national identity. Take the caseof England: one of its most important icons isthe image of a green and pleasant land, a land ofsmall villages and green fields. In England, as inmany other countries of the world, the rural land-scape provides a rich source of images of na-tional identity.

The cultural importance of the rural is also re-flected in political debates. In many rich countriesthere is a high level of subsidy to farmers, often incontrast to low levels given to industry. Thissubsidization reflects the political power of the ag-ricultural lobby, but it also represents the feelingthat farming and farmers have a special place. Thereis also the argument of agricultural fundamental-ism which sees farming as the bedrock of all eco-nomic activity, a doctrine first formulated in theeighteenth century but trotted out ever since whenevermore than two farmers meet. Crises in farming areseen as events of major importance, affecting thevery heartland of a nation.

There are also debates about the look of thecountryside. In the 1970s and 1980s a number

of writers in Britain complained that the grow-ing mechanization of agriculture and the elementof subsidies was leading to a destruction of thetraditional countryside (e.g. Shoard, 1987). Theargument obtained popular approval because therewas a very strong feeling that the countrysidewas a national asset. Farming land was privateproperty but also part of the national heritage.These debates reflected the importance of envi-ronmental imagery in political debates.

City: There are two contrasting beliefs aboutthe city. On the one hand, the city is contrastedunfavourably with the countryside as a place ofvice and debauchery, almost a foreign land wherecommunity ties are eroded. This is the city as Babylon.On the other hand there is the view of the city as aplace of freedom, a site for innovation, a centre forradicalism, compared to the stuffy conservatism ofthe countryside. This is the city as Jerusalem.

These contrasting images influence publicpolicies. The city as Babylon is used to legiti-mate policies of public spending and politicalrepresentation which favour rural areas at theexpense of cities. Big city building programmes,as in the British new town scheme, or the grandurban renewal schemes of President Mitterandin Paris are justified with reference to the notionof the city as Jerusalem, a place for building anew and better society.

There is a complex relationship between na-tional environmental ideologies and governmentpolicies. The ideologies are used to justify poli-cies while specific policies may maintain the ba-sis of the ideology. Consider farm support schemes.These are used to subsidize the farming sector.They are legitimized with reference to the ideol-ogy of agricultural fundamentalism and the cul-tural primacy of the rural. The policy of incomesupport in turn helps to maintain the importanceof the rural sector.

National identity is bound up with particularpieces of territory. National environmental ide-ologies are the territorial belief system whichgive coherence and meaning to a nation-state’sview of itself. These ideologies are not static,they are points of debate and argument. For exam-


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ple, one part of the women’s movement in theUSA was to reclaim their historic role in thetransformation of the wilderness. A number offeminist histories such as Kolodny (1975) pointedto the importance of women in the frontier. Thishistorical re-examination was part of the strug-gle for contemporary freedom. National envi-ronmental ideologies are sites of struggle.

THE STATE AND THE ENVIRONMENT

States have responsibility for particular pieces ofterritory. The nature of this environmental legacycan influence the power of the state. Let us consider:

• resource endowment• size and location

Resource endowment

Some states are luckier than others. Their terri-tory contains resources—e.g. oil reserves, min-eral deposits, rich soil—which can be turned intocommodities and hence provide a strong fiscalbase for the state. A continuum can be drawnfrom resource-rich countries at one end toresourcepoor countries at the other.

Resource endowments are not static. They varyaccording to a whole set of variables. Let uslook at just three:

• levels of technology• market conditions• consumer preferences

Levels of technology: Uranium has always beenlocated in the Northern Territory of Australia.For at least 50 million years it was simply some-thing in the ground, in places Aborigines avoidedbecause they knew it made people ill. Since the1950s, however, because of the development ofthe nuclear industry, it has become a valuableresource, highly-prized in world markets. The‘move’ from simply a piece of ground to valu-able resource is because of technological changesand the perception that bauxite is a resource.

Market conditions: Commodities can be mademore valuable through control of the market. Inthe 1960s oil was a commodity and countrieswhich had such deposits were fortunate. Fortu-nate but not wealthy. In the Third World, ex-ploitation of the oil fields was in the hands ofthe multinational companies. When states be-gan to take a more direct role, oil became morevaluable and, after 1973 and the OPEC decisionto raise the price, it became even more valuable.Oil producing countries had increased the valueof their resource.

Consumer preferences: In the last century andfor almost two-thirds of this century, many ofthe coastal areas of the Mediterranean were thinlypopulated. With the rise of disposable income,more holidays and consumer preferences whichvalued beach holidays, the Mediterranean coastsaw a huge building boom. For countries such asSpain foreign tourism became a majormoneyearner. Beaches which for years had seenlittle more than a few fishing boats now becamepacked with northern Europeans seeking the sun.The coastal zone and the hot sunshine had be-come valuable resources.

The world trading system is one of powerand negotiation in which states seek to maintainthe advantage of their resource endowment. Thepower of a state is partly dependent on its posi-tion in the resource endowment cycle. In the eight-eenth and nineteenth centuries, for example, Brit-ain’s power was based partly on its resource en-dowment of coal and iron-ore, the raw materi-als of an industrial economy and military power.We can think of cycles of resource endowmentinfluencing state power and national standing.We should be wary of a deterministic argumentwhich reads off a country’s wealth from its re-source endowment. Switzerland and Japan, totake the most obvious examples, have few min-eral resources yet manage to be two of the rich-est countries in the world. The ultimate resourceof any country is the population of that country,its vitality, inventiveness and imagination.


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Size and location

The size of a country is important. Size can bemeasured in a number of ways:

• physical size• population size• economic size

Physical size: The larger a state the more chanceof having a range of commodities. States such asthe USA which straddle many degrees of latitudeand longitude have the advantage of a variety ofenvironmental conditions which can be utilizedat different times in the resource cycle, e.g. thecoal and iron-ore of the industrial north-east inthe nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, thesunshine and climate of the sunbelt in thepostindustrial phase. Large countries have a numberof possible advantages from range of climates tovariety of resources. There are also disadvantages.Big states may have difficulty in maintaining in-ternal cohesion. Separatist movements flourish whenthere is distance between the centre and the pe-riphery—physical distance as well as socio-eco-nomic distance. The two distances are often inter-related. Big states may therefore need some kindof federal solution but this may make difficult theeven spread of national policies and objectives.Like all physical attributes, size can create prob-lems as well as opportunities.

Population size: The size of a country canalsc be measured with respect to population.Canada has a large surface area but a relativelysmall population. India, in contrast, has a smallerterritory but a very much larger population (seeFigure 6.1). Population size, like physical size,can be a source of strife as well as opportunity.Too many people, with respect to the ability ofthe economy to sustain them, can lead to suchsevere problems as endemic mass unemployment,with the associated tendency toward politicalinstability. Too few people, and the pool of crea-tive talent as well as the tax base is considerablyreduced. Is there an optimum population? Nosimple answer can be given because it dependson the resources of the country and the wealthof the economy.

Economic size: Of major significance is theeconomic size of a country. Consider Brunei, asmall country with a small population. However,its rich resource endowment of oil makes it one ofthe wealthiest single states in the world. Size offiscal resources is an important indication in theranking of states. Economic size can also be meas-ured with respect to the market power of a na-tion. In this regard the United States is the mostimportant nation in the world because its large,relatively affluent population constitutes a majoreconomic force, the single biggest market and apool of purchasing power second to none. China

Figure 6.1 Physical and population size of selectedcountries

Figure 6.2 Population and economic size


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has more people and a larger territory but hasonly a twentieth of the average US income (seeFigure 6.2).

The absolute location of a state is important.We can, for example, distinguish between land-locked states and those states which have accessto the sea. Landlocked states include: Bolivia,Paraguay, Central African Republic, Nepal,Czechoslovakia, Switzerland. These states, as thename implies, are surrounded on all sides byland (see Figure 6.3). They do not have inde-pendent access to relatively cheaper sea trans-portation and they are denied access to the richresources of the ocean. But being landlocked does

not necessarily mean being poorer. Switzerlandis landlocked but is still one of the richest coun-tries in the world.

The relative location of a state is another impor-tant dimension, i.e. relative in relation to other states.The point of contact is international boundaries.We can distinguish between so-called natural bounda-ries, such as mountain ranges, rivers and seas, andthe more artificial boundaries of straight lines drawnon a map. I use the term ‘socalled’ natural becausethere is nothing natural about international boundaries,they are all human creations, although some aremore obvious than others.

A further distinction can be made by the

Figure 6.3 Landlocked states of Africa


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porosity of frontiers. In very porous boundaries,e.g. Canada-USA, there are few limitations placedon the traffic of people, goods and ideas. Imper-vious boundaries, in contrast, pose a barrier be-tween states, they reduce human movement andcommercial trade. Boundaries are the point ofcontact between states. The nature of the rela-tionships between states is often expressed throughtheir frontier contact. When things are going wellfrontiers become more porous. When things aregoing badly, barriers go up and interaction islessened. In such cases frontier landscapes mayemerge on either side of the boundary, even land-scapes of military presence.

Boundaries themselves can become a sourceof tension between states. Grundy-Warr andSchofield (1990) suggest that of the 300 landboundaries of the world at least 10 per cent areeither undelimited or actively disputed. Iran-Iraq,

Russia—China and India—Pakistan are just someof the pairs of countries whose boundaries aredisputed.

We can also distinguish between stable andunstable boundaries. Stable boundaries, suchas between Spain and France, have a long his-tory of permanence. Unstable boundaries existin places of rapid geopolitical change. We canexemplify this statement with references to Is-rael. After the First World War the Middle Eastwas divided up by the imperial powers of Franceand Britain. Figure 6.4(a) shows the position in1946. At this time the League of Nations Man-date (see chapter 2) gave control of Palestineand Transjordan to Britain. In 1947 Britain an-nounced it would withdraw. There were thenabout 600000 Jews and over a million Arabs inPalestine. The United Nations approved the crea-tion of separate Jewish and Arab states. Therewas world support for the creation of a Jewishhomeland both from Jews throughout the worldand non-Jews eager to make amends for the

Figure 6.4 The creation of new states

Figure 6.5 Changes after the 1967 War


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dreadful wrong of the Holocaust. It promptedarmed struggle between the two main groups inPalestine, the Arabs feeling they were losing land,the Jews eager to obtain control of the PromisedLand. In 1948 the State of Israel was declared. Itwas immediately attacked by Arab armies. Atruce was secured and the boundaries were sta-bilized (Figure 6.4 (b)). In 1967, the Six DayWar broke out. Israel captured the Gaza Stripand the Sinai (from Egypt) the West Bank (fromJordon) and the Golan Heights (from Syria)—see Figure 6.5. Relations between Israel and Egyptsubsequently improved and a settlement—theCamp David Treaty of 1979—meant an Israeliwithdrawal from the Sinai (see Figure 6.6). How-ever, Israel still kept control of Gaza and theGolan Heights while continued control of EastJerusalem and the West Bank, with consequentJewish settlements, caused deep resentmentamongst the Arab population of these areas.

The constant boundary changes between Is-

rael and surrounding areas is unusually unsta-ble. However, they highlight, in a very dramaticway, how boundary changes reflect and embodythe changing relations between states.

PEOPLE AND THE STATE

We can consider two aspects of the spatial rela-tionship between people and the state:

• geography of elections• geography of spending

The geography of elections

In democratic systems governments are voted inby the people. Elections are about turning votesinto representation. The geography of electionsis an important variable in determining politicaloutcomes. We can identify three important ele-ments:

1 the geography of voting2 the geography of representation3 the geography of electoral systems

The geography of voting

Not everyone votes the same way. There is aspatial variation to voting patterns. A hierarchyof differences can be identified.

National cleavages lead to major differencesin political expression and hence in voting. Ex-amples of such cleavages include urban-rural,dominantdominated cultures and core-peripheryregional economies. Throughout the twentiethcentury in the core countries of the world themajor process has been the incorporation of pe-ripheral representation into national representa-tion. In the USA, for example, political expres-sion at the federal level is essentially a two-partyrace between Democrats and Republicans. Theprocess has not been so complete everywhereelse. In Britain, for example the 1970s saw therise of such peripheral groups as Plaid Cymru inWales and the Scottish Nationalists. National

Figure 6.6 The position in 1990


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cleavages affect the regional distribution of po-litical representation and hence the regional ge-ography of voting.

Neighbourhood effects: There are also morelocalized spatial effects. In the case of the neigh-bourhood effect voters are influenced by the localmajority party. Let us illustrate with an example.Table 6.1 shows data for voting patternsdisaggregated by type of constituency and per-ceived class of respondent. In the mining con-stituency, which was a Labour stronghold, 91 percent of those seeing themselves as working classvoted Labour and only 9 per cent voted Con-servative. However, even 36 per cent of those clas-sifying themselves as middle class voted Labour.Compare these figures with the voting pattern inthe more Conservativeorientated resort constitu-ency. Here the proportions voting Conservative,even amongst working-class people, increased. Inother words, in Labour strongholds more peoplevote Labour irre-spective of class, and vice versafor Conservative constituencies. The neighbour-hood effect modifies the class variable.

Friends and neighbours: A related effect is thepower of local candidates to affect voters in theirhome area. If we examine Figure 6.7 we can seethat rival candidates for Republican nominationfor the governorship of Vermont polled most votesin areas closest to their homes. In their immediatehome environment candidates may be better knownto local voters. Voters may also believe that thecandidate understands the problems of the localarea and, if electorally successful, will have an addedincentive for doing something about solving them.

In reality national cleavages, neighbourhoodeffects and the friends and neighbours effect allcome into play with local issues. For example,Figure 6.8 shows the electoral support for Gov-ernor George Wallace; notice how it is concen-trated in the southern states. This is partly afunction of his support base: he was Governorof Alabama and he was a distinctly southerncandidate, electioneering on resistance to CivilRights legislation. The concentration of his sup-port reflected national cleavages, regional issuesand the local concerns of white voters.

The geography of representation

National territories are partitioned up into po-litical constituencies. This is the geography ofrepresentation. Different partitions may producedifferent results even when the votes remain thesame. Let us illustrate this remark: Figure 6.9shows a simple model of two competing politi-cal parties, the Reds (R) and the Blues (B). Thenumbers refer to the votes cast for each party.In the case of Fig 6.9 (a) there are two constitu-encies and the result, under a first-past-the-postsystem, is that each party wins one constitu-ency. In the case of Figure 6.9(b), in con-trast, even though each party received the same

Figure 6.7 Voting for Republican nomination forgovernor, Vermont, 1952


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number of total votes the nature of electoral con-stituencies leads to the Blues having a 3 to 1majority. This phenomenon is known asmalapportionment. It refers to the imbalancebetween the number of voters in each constitu-ency. Under the four constituency system of Fig-ure 6.9(b), the western constituency had 100 voteswhile the three eastern areas had no more than34 votes. As this example shows,malapportionment can ensure electoral victoryfor one political party even though it may nothave the majority of total votes.

There are many examples of malapportionment.Taylor and Johnston (1979) discuss, in somedetail, the blatant malapportionment in nine-teenth-century Britain and the USA before the

reapportionment revolution of the 1960s. In 1962the Supreme Court of the USA ruled thatmalapportionment issues were a concern of thecourts. Subsequent verdicts stated that popula-tion equality was to be the primary criterion forelectoral boundary making in state legislativebodies and for the House of Representatives.The result was a reapportionment revolution.Some of the effects are shown in Table 6.2.

Malapportionment is maintained by politicalpower. In most cases rural areas tend to be over-represented compared to urban areas. Since therural areas have the majority they are unlikelyto radically alter the system. This is especiallytrue when urban and rural areas have differentpolitical persuasions. A good example is Queens-land in Australia where rural over-representa-tion was built into the electoral system.

This pattern become entrenched in Queenslandbecause the ruling County Party, later the National

Table 6.1 The neighbourhood effect

Source: Butler and Stokes, 1969, p. 183

Figure 6.8 Majority electoral support for GeorgeWallace in 1968 Presidential election

Figure 6.9 A simple model of voting


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Party, gained from the existing malapportionmentand saw no reason to change the system. It onlyneeded 36 per cent of the votes to stay in power.Even though the metropolitan areas increased inpopulation their electoral representation did notincrease. The National Party, serving rural inter-ests, held onto power in a state that was over-whelmingly urban. It only lost power in Decem-ber 1989 when a bribery and corruption scandalmeant that even the unfair voting system couldnot save it.

In some instances malapportionment can ben-efit urban areas. In post-war UK, for example,electoral reform was institutionalized in the 1949Redistribution of Seats Act, which established theBoundary Commissioners in order to review con-stituencies. They met infrequently, with the resultthat the 1970 elections was fought within bounda-ries established in 1954. During that time popu-lation redistribution was one of suburbanization.Inner city constituencies lost population whilesuburban areas gained. As Table 6.3 shows,

the result was over-representation of such inner-city areas as Birmingham Ladywood and Glas-gow Kelvingrove, while suburban areas likeCheadle and Billericay were under-represented.

Even when constituencies are the same size,electoral boundaries can still influence the out-come of elections. The manipulation of bounda-ries to achieve a particular result is known asgerrymandering. The name owes its origins toElbridge Gerry who was elected Governor ofMassachusetts in 1810. In order to keep his party(the Republican-Democrats) in power he signeda bill drawing boundaries for political districtswhich favoured his party. It was a success. In thenext election the Federalists won more votes,51766 to 50164 but the Republican-Democratswon 29 Senate seats to their opponents’ 11. Theoutline of the boundaries was described by agraphic artist as similar to the skeletal outline ofa salamander. Adding the Governor’s name givesus gerrymander.

Gerrymandering is the manipulation of po-litical boundaries to achieve particular electoraloutcomes. It happens all the time. Between 1958and 1962 the Iowan Congressional representa-tion was reduced by one. The Republicans werein charge of the legislature and redrew the bounda-ries so that the big-town Democrat support ofFort Dodge and Des Moines was packed intoone new district and the remaining Democratsupport was cracked amongst predominantlyRepublican districts (Figure 6.10). The result wasa Republican election victory.

If the responsibility for electoral boundariesremains in the hands of elected representativesthen it becomes one more weapon in the fight tokeep control and stay in power. The geographyof politics becomes the politics of geography.

The geography of electoral systems

Even without malapportionment or gerrymanderingthe electoral system can produce some odd re-sults. Take the case of the UK general election of1987. This was based, as in all previous electionsof the twentieth century, on a first-past-the-post

Table 6.2 Judicially inspired Congressional reappor-tionment

Source: Baker, 1966

Table 6.3 Disparities in coonstituency populattionsize,1955–70


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system; that is, the candidate who gets the mostvotes in any constituency wins the election, be-comes a member of parliament (MP) and thepolitical party with the most MPs governs thecountry.

Table 6.4 shows the relationship between votesand seats in the 1987 general election. Note howthe two main political parties, Labour and Con-servative, gained proportionately more seats thanvotes. The biggest disparity occurred for the centristAlliance which gained over a fifth of total votesbut achieved less than twentieth of the seats.This disparity occurred because Alliance supportwas widely spread but rarely deep enough inany particular place to return an MP. The major-ity parties, in contrast, had support which wasboth wide and deep. As Table 6.5 shows it tookless than 30000 votes for a Conservative to wina seat, but an Alliance candidate had to pull in

over a quarter of a million votes. The Britishexample shows how electoral systems mediatebetween the intentions of voters and the politi-cal outcomes of elections. Such anomalies areunlikely to be changed by political parties whobenefit from present arrangements. Governmentscan find all sorts of excuses why electoral re-form is unnecessary and minority parties canfind all kinds of reasons why they should beimplemented.

The geography of electoral systems is verydependent on the type of electoral system.Three kinds of system can be identified: plu-ral, proportional and preferential (see Table6.6). The plural system is found in the UKand the USA. Let us look at some other sys-tems. The single transferable vote system isone of multi-member constituencies and al-lows minority representation. It has been used in

Figure 6.10 Gerrymandering in Iowa


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Eire since 1921 and takes the following form—one seat per 20000–30000 population with eachconstituency having a minimum of three seats.The maximum is now five. Electoral abuse canoccur even in this system. The party in govern-ment can use their power to influence the size ofconstituencies. Smaller constituencies mean lessseats, hence minority parties need more votes.The party in power will seek to draw up smallconstituencies where they have concentrated sup-port and larger constituencies in areas where theirsupport is weak.

In West Germany there is a form of propor-tional representation. There are single memberconstituencies and then a pool of seats distrib-uted on the basis of overall votes cast by prov-ince. It is sometimes referred to as the mixedsystem or additional member system (AMS). Itwas one reason behind the electoral success ofthe Green Party throughout the 1970s and 1980s.The Greens were a minority in most constituen-cies and under a firstpast-the-post system wouldhave been victims of electoral democracy. How-ever, because of the AMS system the Greens pickedup seats, achieved electoral success, political in-stability and credibility.

Geography of spending

The government of a country has many func-tions to perform. One of the most important isthe raising of taxes and the spending of publicmoney. The state is a huge revenue-generatingand spending machine. In this section I want toconcentrate our attention on the spending side.The sums are impressive. Governments have hugeamounts of public money at their disposal. Inthe fiscal year 1990–1, for example, the UK gov-ernment spent £179 billion, approximately £3200per year for every man, woman and child in theland. Spending by the USA government is in thetrillions, sums which are almost beyond belief.

The spending of public money has definitespatial implications. We can identify a numberof different types. A distinction can be drawnbetween variate and invariate spending. Variatespending means that by its very nature someforms of public spending are distributed un-evenly over the national territory. Take the caseof a government forestry programme or a soilconservation programme. Both these pro-grammes are targeted at specific parts of thecountry because the projects are locationallyspecific. Invariate spending is where there issupposed to be no location specific project. Iwrite ‘supposed’ because in reality other influ-ences come into play.

Table 6.4 Distribiution of votes and seats in the 1987General Election

Table 6.5 Votes per seat in the 1987 General Election

Figure N.1 Cumulative frequency graph


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Even programmes which are pursued for na-tional ends have uneven effects. Take the case ofdefence, which is a national policy designed tosafeguard all the territory of the nation-state.We may quibble about the term defence sincedefence policies invariably involve the arming ofsoldiers and the production of weapons of deathand destruction. For the moment let us simplynote this linguistic paradox and concentrate onthe spatial consequences of defence. There is theobvious location of defence establishments—navalbases, army camps, etc. What is less obvious is theextent to which defence procurement tends to favour

Table N.1 Changes in representation of statelegislation, 1962–8

BOX N: MEASURING MALAPPORTIONMENT

Johnston and Taylor (1979) identify four methods of measuring malapportionment:

1 Compare the average size of constituencies won by different parties. In the case of Figure 6.9b, forexample, the large, western Red area has 100 voters while the three eastern Blue constituencieshave 33 or 34 voters. The difference, 77 voters, is a measure of malapportionment.

2 Measure the ratio of largest to smallest constituency. In Figure 6.9b this is 100/33=3.3. In otherwords the votes in the three eastern areas are worth 3.3 times more than votes in the large westernarea. In a system with no malapportionment the ratio would be close to zero. The larger the ratiothe greater the malapportionment (see Table 6.2).

3 Compare every constituency with the average size to find the mean deviation. With nomalapportionment all constituencies are the same size and the mean deviation is zero. In the caseof Figure 6.9b the average size is 50, the total deviations are 50+17+17+16=100; the mean is thus(100/4 =) 25.

4 Construct a cumulative frequency graph. Figure N1 shows the results from the data in Figure6.9b. If representation was equal to population the result would be a straight line diagonal. Thegraph to the right of this diagonal is known as a Lorenz curve. It gives us various measures ofmalapportionment. The area between the curve and the diagonal, for example, is a gross measureof malapportionment. When expressed as a proportion of the total area under the diagonal it isknown as the Gini index. The minimal majority measures the smallest proportion of the popula-tion that can elect a majority of representation. It is found by drawing a line along the 50 per centrepresentatives column as shown in the figure, noting where it intersects the Lorenz curve andreading off the subsequent cumulative population. The minimal majority is then found by takingthis figure from 100. In our example the figure read off from the graph is 66.5 hence the minimalmajority is (100-66.5=) 33.50. In other words, just over a third of the population could elect arepresentative majority. Table N1 shows the changes in the value of minimal majority in the USreapportionment revolution.


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some regions rather than others. In Britain, forexample, empirical work has shown that defencespending is heavily biased in favour of the south-east part of the country. The richest part of thecountry receives the lion’s share of the £3000million spent on defence (Breheny, 1988). Thisgovernment spending has kept the regionaleconomy buoyant even during business down-turns.

We are used to the terms sunbelt and rustbelt,but there are also gunbelt areas where local econo-mies are biased toward hardware production forthe military. Gunbelt areas are likely to experi-ence a downturn as the cold war comes to an end.

Once a government spending programme isestablished it tends to generate a life of its own,continuing to generate the need for more funds.

Since the bulk of government spending decisionsare incremental, small additions to existing schemesrather than new projects, there is a builtin iner-tia factor. Most government spending goes toexisting projects, which means there is a built-inbias to regions or locations already benefitingfrom government spending.

Governments target their spending for politi-cal purposes. We can make a distinction betweenthe state, which is the continuing apparatus ofpower, and government, which is the politicalrepresentation of those who yield power. Gov-ernments have many goals and objectives butone of their most important is to remain in power.Public spending is a powerful lever in this objec-tive. Two different types of government influ-ence can be noted:

Table 6.6 Three kinds of system


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• aiding supporters• vote-buying

Let us look at these two in some detail.Aiding supporters Given the opportunity all

governments will target spending so as to aidtheir supporters. Consider central governmentsupport for local authority spending in Britain.Central government grants are allocated accordingto a complex formula of relevant statistics butthe final equation is susceptible to political in-fluence. When the Conservatives rule in West-minster the formula is fixed so that the gains aremade by the rural and suburban districts whichtend to be pro-Conservative. When Labour is inpower in central government the grants formulais altered so that the urban authorities, whichtend to be more pro-Labour, gain most.

Individual representatives also seek to use theirpower over spending decisions in order to rewardtheir support. Elected representatives use their in-fluence to direct public expenditure to their ownconstituencies. This is known as pork-barrel poli-tics and it occurs throughout the world at all lev-els of government to differing extents. In Britainthe exercise of pork-barrel politics is limited bythe strong party structure and organization whichrestrict the actions of individual representatives.It is the politics of class which dominate the po-litical scene. In the USA, by contrast, the politicsof place take on a much more important role.

Pork-barrel politics are particularly importantin the USA because the federal expenditure of anagency or a programme which produces a budgetmust be scrutinized by the relevant single andjoint committees of the House of Representativesand the Senate. Committee members representdistricts in particular states. The committees havea powerful role in determining the character andlocation of public expenditure. Members of thecommittee attempt to guide the flow of benefitstoward their home states. Committee chairper-sons are particularly influential. For example, theHouse of Representatives Armed Services Com-mittee determines the location and size of mili-tary establishments in the different states of the

Union. Up to 1970 the chairman of the ArmedServices Committee represented a South Carolinadistrict. By 1970, 0.67 per cent of the DefenseDepartment’s outlays went to this district, whichhad only 0.22 per cent of the country’s popula-tion. To some extent the relationship between com-mittee membership and the flow of expenditure isto be expected because representatives and sena-tors will seek to get on those committees whichdeal with issues pertinent to the districts and thestates they represent. However, Johnston (1978)studied the activities of the committees associatedwith NASA and the Atomic Energy Commission,which are not place-specific and for which therewas no spatial pattern of need or resources. Astudy of these committees thus allowed the indi-vidual effects of committee membership to bemeasured. Johnston’s results show that almosthalf of the state variation in expenditure was ex-plained by the pattern of committee membership.

Vote buying Government spending is very sen-sitive to the geography of support. Governmentsdo not want to spend too much money in areaswhere they have little support. For example,Conservative governments in Britain have littlesupport in the inner cities and this fact explainsthe relatively low amounts of money directed tothese areas of the country. However, governmentsare sensitive to marginal areas where spendingmay influence voting. Vote-buying is an old practiceof governments and representatives. Let me il-lustrate with reference to Britain. In the early1970s the Scottish Nationalist Party was gain-ing support in central Scotland. Popular feelingheld that the Labour Government, which had atiny parliamentary majority, was doing too littleto aid the Scottish economy. In 1975 the govern-ment spent £150 million to bail out the Chryslercar company’s plant in Scotland. It was a politi-cal not an economic decision.

Another example: in 1977 a by-election wasto be held in the marginal constituency of Grimsbyon 28 April. On 14 April three areas were raisedto Development Area status, involving increasedgovernment aid to industry. Grimsby was one ofthe areas: Labour won the by-election.


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And another: at both the local and nationallevel Conservative policy during the late 1970sand 1980s was to sell off council houses to sit-ting tenants way below market levels. In effect itwas a direct subsidy to council tenants who tra-ditionally tended to support Labour. This wind-fall gain persuaded many tenants to support theConservatives. In one London borough, West-minster, the policy was targeted at specific wardswhich were considered marginal. The policy wassuccessful in turning many previous Laboursupporters into Tory (Conservative) voters.

In conclusion, then, spending power is usedto maintain and attract electoral support. Gov-ernments have huge amounts of public money attheir disposal. The largest proportion is com-mitted to existing projects and most of it is spentby civil servants and permanent committees. Thereis, however, a relatively small, though absolutelylarge, amount which can be directed by the partyin power. Such money is sometimes directed bypolitical parties to maintain allegiance in tradi-tional areas of support and to swing the balanceof elections in marginal constituencies.


The section on people and environment draws heav-ily upon:

Short, J.R. (1991) Imagined Country: Society, Cul-ture and Environment. Routledge, London.

Boundaries and frontiers are examined in various books:

Blake, G. and Schofield, R. (eds) (1988) Boundariesand State Territory in the Middle East and NorthAfrica. Menus Press, Wisbech.

Eyre, R. (1990) Frontiers. BBC Books, London.Prescott, J.R.V. (1985) The Maritime Political Bounda-

ries of the World. Methuen, London.Prescott, J.R.V. (1987) Political Frontiers and Bounda-

ries. Allen & Unwin, London.Rumley, D. and Minghi, J.V. (eds) (1991) The Geog-

raphy of Border Landscapes. Routledge, London.

The geography of elections is a fascinatingtopic. Amongst the many books have a par-ticular look at:

Johnston, R.J. (1987) Money and Votes. Routledge,London.

Johnston, R.J. (1979) Political, Electoral and SpatialSystems. Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Johnston, R.J., Shelley, M. and Taylor, P.J. (eds) (1990)Developments in Electoral Geography. Routledge& Kegan Paul, London.

Leonard, D. and Natkiel, R. (1987) The EconomistWorld Atlas of Elections. Hodder & Stoughton,London.

Taylor, P.J. and Johnston, R.J. (1979) Geography ofElections. Penguin, Harmondsworth.

An analysis of public spending is available in:

Bennett, R.J. (1983) The Geography of Public Fi-nance Methuen, London.

Breheny, M.J. (ed) (1988) Defence Expenditure andRegional Development. Mansell, London.

Heclo, H. and Wildavsky, A. (1981) The Private Gov-ernment of Public Money. Macmillan, London.

Johnston, R.J. (1980) The Geography of Federal Spend-ing in the United States of America. Wiley, Chich-ester.

Kodras, J.E. and Jones III, J.P. (eds) (1990) GeographicDimensions of US Social Policy. Edward Arnold,London.

Wildavsky, A. (1986) Budgeting: A Comparative Theoryof Budgetary Processes. Transaction Books, NewBrunswick.

Relevant journals

Electoral StudiesPolitical Geography Quarterly


Baker, G.E. (1966) The Reapportionment Revolution.Random House, New York.

Butler, D.E. and Stokes, D.E. (1969) Political Changein Britain: Forces Shaping Electoral Choice.Macmillan, London.

Grundy-Warr, C. and Schofield, R.N. (1990) ‘Man-made lines that divide the world’, GeographicalMagazine, LXII, 10–15.

Johnston, R.J. (1978) ‘Congressional committees andthe geography of federal spending in the USA: theexamples of NASA and AEC’, Area, 10, 272–8.

Kolodny, A. (1975) The Lay of The Land. Universityof North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.

Shoard, M. (1987) This Land is Our Land. PaladinGrafton, London.

PART III

THE POLITICAL GEOGRAPHYOF PARTICIPATION

So far we have discussed political geography almost entirely in relation to the evolution of the worldorder and the functioning of the nation-state. This is very much of a top-down view of the world; itis the view from the executive offices, the world as seen from the top floor of powerful corporationsand the upper levels of government hierarchies. It says very little about the role of ordinary people.Political geographers rarely pay attention to the political geography of everyday life. And yet, thereis a whole range of interesting questions concerning the relationship between the public and theprivate spheres, about the connections between social action and public policy, which are ignored ifwe confined our attention to the top-down functioning of the world order or of the state.

In this section I consider a more bottom-up view of the world order, the nation-state and the localstate; a political geography which considers the active participation of people.

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People crushed by laws have no hope butfrom power. If laws are their enemies, theywill be enemies to laws; and those whohave no hope and nothing to lose will al-ways be dangerous.

(Letter to C.J.Fox, 8 October 1777)

TYPES OF STATE

In chapter 6 we considered the relationship be-tween people and the state. It was a relation-ship of confirmation, a stable, essentially har-monious interaction between the governed andthe government, in which citizens fulfilled theirelectoral responsibilities as laid down by thestate. The relationship between the state andthe population, let us call it civil society, is morecomplex and more interesting than this. Therelationship can be identified as a continuumfrom outright acceptance on one extreme tooutright rejection on the other; from passiveacceptance of the status quo to outright con-flict. Similarly a continuum of governmentalresponses can be identified from participatorydemocracy to authoritarian repression.

A whole variety of state-civil society relation-ships thus exists; we can identify three broadtypes of state (see Table 7.1). In very stable (e.g.Netherlands, Switzerland) states there are fewcrises and there is an essential harmony betweenthe state and the population. Stable states (e.g.Canada, the USA and the UK) are not racked bycontinual tensions between the government andthe governed but conflicts can occur. Every tenyears in Canada there seems to be a major con-stitutional crisis as the separatist movement inQuebec waxes and wanes. In both the USA andthe UK urban riots have punctuated the politicalscene and in Northern Ireland the British statehas a constant crisis of political legitimization.In unstable states crisis is the norm rather thanthe exception. In the case of El Salvador, forexample, there has been civil war since 1979.The regime backed by the US government is veryunpopular and repressive. From 1979 to 1990nearly three-quarters of a million died and onemillion were displaced or exiled. Out of a totalpopulation of five million that represents an en-demic crisis in political relationships. In unsta-ble states the normal rules of political negotia-tion are suspended or denied, there may be com-peting centres of political power and ultimatelysocial breakdown may erode the very fabric ofcivilized life.

These categories are not permanent. Thingschange. In the eighteenth century North Americawas in a state of political crisis as some colonistsfought against British political control. In the nine-teenth century the British state was in continuousstruggle against the emerging working class. In both

Table 7.1 Levels of stability

7


THE POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY OF PARTICIPATION

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the USA and the UK, then, instability has beenpresent. Unstable states may become more stableand stable states may become unstable if the crisesoutlined in chapter 4 become too severe.

PEOPLE AND STATE POWER

The relationship between the people and the statevaries through time and across space and mayinvolve different sections of the population indifferent ways.

At any one time across the surface of the na-tion-state there is likely to be a range of attitudesthat the citizenry have toward the state. In verystable states, for example, most citizens will ac-cept the legitimacy of the state most of the time.This will also be the case in stable states but con-flicts may occur. They may be short term, local-ized affairs involving particular sections of thepopulation in specific places. Such conflicts mayarise, for example, over resistance to a new air-port or complaints over the pollution levels froma nearby chemical factory. This conflict is focusedon a particular issue (see chapter 9). There is alsoa resistance to central authority which may bedeeper and longer. As we have already noted inchapter 5 most states are multi-ethnic, multiregionalaffairs; when there is increasing incongruence be-tween the separate nations of a state the rule ofthe state may not be accepted in all the differentnations. This lack of legitimization may be seenin such symbolic acts of resistance as in Scotlandwhere the ‘British’ national authority does nothave the same capacity to evoke loyalty as it doesin England and at international football matchesmany Scottish fans jeer the ‘national’ anthem.

More extreme responses can also be found.One example is the intifada in Israel. In the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 Israeli troops seized the WestBank from Jordan, the Gaza Strip from Egyptand the Golan Heights from Syria (see chapter6). In the first two areas there were over onemillion Palestinians, many of whom had fled fromIsrael between 1948 and 1950. Dispossessed oftheir land, deprived of citizenship and ruled bywhat they saw as an alien, oppressive state the

Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and the West Banknever accepted the legitimacy of Israeli rule. Ten-sion was heightened in the West Bank with theestablishment of over 140 Jewish settlements,which gave homes to almost 100000 Jewish set-tlers on Arab land.

The situation was a tinder box waiting for aspark. On 9 December 1987 some Arabs werekilled in a traffic accident at the Erez road blockto the Gaza Strip. This became the rallying pointfor a spontaneous process of Arab resistance toIsraeli rule throughout the occupied territories.The intifada, or uprising, involved a boycott oftrade, strikes and civil disobedience, includingthe stoning of troops and police and attacks onthe cars of Jewish settlers as they passed throughArab areas. The intifada has proved costly. Onthe one side, almost 400 Palestinians have beenkilled. On the other, Israel has lost public face asworld-wide TV news pictures showed Israeli troopsfiring at school children or breaking the arms ofstone throwers. The intifada has shown that popu-lar resistance can influence both national andeven international politics.

Let us look at popular resistance to state au-thority in some more detail. We can identify threeimportant and related aspects:

• the context of protest• the making of protest• the consequences of protest

The context of protest

The state has much power and great influence. It isnot an enemy to be taken on lightly. People need avery good reason to resist its authority. Let us lookat the major reasons, with specific examples:

They may not accept the legitimacy of the state.For this basic conflict to be maintained there needsto be a major cleavage between an alienated popu-lation and the state. In the case of the intifada,religious and ethnic differences were overlain withthe facts of recent history and the conflict overland and political rights. Other examples includethe Catholic community in Northern Ireland, the


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majority of whom do not accept the legitimacy ofBritish rule, and a tiny minority of whom resortto acts of violence and murder.

They may accept the basic legitimacy of thestate but want someone else in charge. As a mem-ber of parliament in England said in 1693, ‘It wasnot against centralized power that we fought butin whose hands it was.’ A more recent example:in 1965 Ferdinand Marcos became president ofthe Philippines, and was re-elected in 1969. Anastute politician, he was a fervent anti-commu-nist and an important ally of the USA. The coun-try contained US military bases and PresidentJohnson even described him as ‘our strong rightarm man in Asia’. He was also one of the tackiestdictators around. After his re-election he used hispower to rip the country off on a grand scale.Between 1972 and 1986 he siphoned off $20 bil-lion, almost half of the country’s entire gross na-tional product. His wife, Imelda had almost threethousand pairs of shoes, and each pair cost theequal of the average Filipino’s annual income.

Popular resistance grew. In response Marcossuspended the normal political process by declar-ing martial law. Radicals flocked to the New Peo-ple’s Army. This gave Marcos even more power.He persuaded successive US Presidents, includingNixon, Carter and Reagan, that this was commu-nist insurgency. Through the prism of the cold warthe USA aided Marcos, providing arms and aid.But Marcos was not overthrown by a communist-inspired plot. Nor was he deposed by a US govern-ment embarrassed by supporting such a figure. Hewas overthrown by ordinary Filipinos. When hetried to rig the result of the 1986 election they tookto the streets in their hundreds of thousands andmade his position untenable. The success of thepeople’s politics was a result of many factors. Marcoswas loathed. Even a staunch Republican likeP.J.O’Rourke could describe the situation like this:

Reporters who do duty in the third worldspend a lot of time saying, ‘It’s not thatsimple’. We say: ‘It’s not that simple aboutthe contras and the Sandinistas’. But in thePhilippines it was that simple. It was sim-

pler than that. Ferdinand Marcos is humansewage, an evil old power-addled flamingGlad Bag, a vicious lying dirtball who oughtto have been dragged through the streets ofManila with his ears nailed to a dump truck.

(O’Rourke, 1987, 74)

The opposition candidate in the election, CoryAquino, had a large measure of support. The atti-tude of the USA was also important. The CIA thoughta more effective counter-insurgency campaign againstthe People’s Army could now be waged withoutMarcos. Just before the 1986 election the CIA re-leased information which sought to show thatMarcos was not the war hero he claimed to be.The President, in contrast, remained loyal to Marcos.Reagan continued to praise him, even as he had toflee the palace, leaving behind the gold-plated Jacuzzi,the gold-leaf furniture and all those pairs of shoes.The US plane which took him and his family toHawaii took assets of over $10 million and 48 feetof pearls. In the Philippines the people had beensuccessful in achieving the overthrow of a dictatorand replacing him with what looked like a moredemocratic government.

They may accept the legitimacy of the statebut want a major change in direction. This de-sire for change can occur because of:

• relative immiseration: people feel themselvesto be getting materially worse off

• denial of rights: which can involve both eco-nomic and political rights. Let us consider thecase of the civil rights movement in the USA.

Racial segregation was a common practicethroughout the South in buses, restaurants,public education, housing and even access topolitical rights. America was segregated bycustom and by law. It was also reinforced byviolence. On 28 August 1955 a young boy,Emmet Till was killed by two men in Missis-sippi. He was black and they were white. His‘crime’? He ‘talked fresh’ to a white woman.He said ‘Bye baby’ to her as he left a store.They came to his uncle’s home where he wasstaying, beat him, mutilated him, then dumped his


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body in a river. An all-white jury took only onehour to find the men not guilty.

Inequality was always resisted, but after theSecond World War the resistance was more ef-fectively organized. Black organizations such asthe National Association for the Advancementof Coloured People (NAACP), first establishedin 1910, sought redress through the courts. In1954 the Supreme Court ruled that school segre-gation was illegal.

On 1 December 1955 Mrs Rosa Parks left herwork in Montgomery, Alabama. She boardedthe bus to go home and sat down. The bus wascrowded and, when more passengers got on, thedriver asked Mrs Parks and three other peopleto move to the back of the bus. Mrs Parks andthe three others were black and in Montgomery,Alabama in 1955 buses were segregated.

When the bus driver asked Mrs Parks to move,she refused and was arrested: so began the busboycott in Montgomery. Blacks, the main cus-tomers of the service, refused to use the buses.They walked or organized car pools. People werearrested and intimidated but the boycott heldthrough most of 1956 until November when thebus company conceded the issue. Local bus seg-regation ordinances were repealed and a test be-fore the Supreme Court prohibited segregationon all public buses.

The Montgomery bus boycott had a numberof characteristics which were repeated through-out the USA during the 1950s and 1960s:

• acts of peaceful civil disobedience were un-dertaken by ordinary people. These manybrave acts, often in the face of threats andviolence, provided the backbone of the civilrights movement. Boycotts, marches and sit-ins throughout the country showed the depthof and commitment to social and politicalchange.

• the movement was fortunate in having a char-ismatic leadership which gave direction topopular discontent and effectively lobbiedthe federal government. One of the leadersof the Montgomery bus boycott was theReverend Martin Luther King who enunci-ated the philosophy of passive resistance withso much eloquence and passion.

• the civil rights movement at the local andstate level was aided by the federal authori-ties. The 1954 Supreme Court ruling, forexample, on school segregation was a po-tent sign to the black community. Advanceswere recorded by subsequent court rulingsand legislation. The 1964 Civil Rights Actprohibited discrimination, while the 1965Voting Rights Act gave blacks more politi-

Figure 7.1 The process of political exclusion


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cal power, but the civil rights legislation wasultimately the work of a concerned citizenry.It was the result of bottom-up pressure ex-erted by ordinary people doing brave things.

The making of protest

Ultimately, protest arises from the fact that a groupof people have a grievance. However, a grievancemay not necessarily result in protest, let alonemobilization. The expression of the grievance de-pends upon a number of factors (see Figure 7.1).

A group may have the basis for formulating agrievance because of, say, inadequate politicalrepresentation or denial of rights, but the griev-ance may not be formulated if there is not asuitable organization to crystallize individualcomplaints into group action. For any socialmovement to be successful there needs to be acommitted group of activists. The prevailing ide-ology may not even allow complaints to be per-ceived as group grievances. They may be seen asa function of individual failure. The affected groupsthemselves are often debilitated by the partialacceptance of these views. If the grievance is for-mulated, there is a possibility for the associateddemands to be articulated. The demands maynot be articulated because, for many alienatedgroups, there is the anticipated reaction, groundedin past experience, of ‘what is the use, they neverdo anything for us’. It is an understandable posi-tion to take if you are at the bottom of the socialhierarchy with no hope of improvement; the wholeof your life experience reinforces a fatalistic atti-tude. Even if the demands are articulated, theissue may not be resolved by the political elite.Non-decision-making affects disadvantagedgroups in two ways.

First, the groups have limited money and re-sources to press their claims. If the elite can avoidmaking quick decisions, either deliberately or be-cause of unavoidable delays, then the pressure islikely to diminish and the articulated demands oflower-income groups will tend to fade from theimmediate political scene. Second, no decisionmay be made because the elite may not perceive the

articulated demands as legitimate claims. Stig-matization of housing action groups, for exam-ple, by putting the blame on ‘outsiders’, ‘queue-jumpers’ and ‘political trouble-makers’ is a com-mon feature of politics. Finally, if the pressuregroup is able to get its demands resolved thedecision may be to refuse its claim. It is at thisstage that the expression of grievance may breakout into action.

A repertoire of collective action can be identi-fied. Table 7.2 shows the range. The actions rangefrom:

• persuasive: where people seek to persuadestate authorities of the need to do some-thing

• collaborative: strategies adopted because thegroup has a shared set of basic assumptionswith the authorities

• confrontational: where the group seeks to,or has to, confront the authorities.

The further away the social group involved isfrom influencing power-holders and the greaterthe grievance, the more likely it is that confron-tational strategies will be used. People take tothe streets when they have nothing to lose andlots to gain. Riots have been described as a festi-

Table 7.2 A repertoire of collective action


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val of the oppressed. As the Reverend MartinLuther King once said, ‘a riot is at bottom thelanguage of the unheard’.

The consequences of protest

Social protest does not necessarily lead to socialchange. We can identify three types of consequence:

• protest unsuccessful• protest partially successful• protest successful

Protest unsuccessful. Throughout 1989 there wasmounting student resentment in Beijing againstthe communist government. Economic reformshad generated tremendous inequalities and al-lowed corrupt bureaucrats to get rich. Studentswanted social change and more democracy. Inprotest against the government they occupiedTiananmen Square in the centre of the capital.Throughout May and June a festival atmospherebegan to develop in the giant square. On thenight of Saturday, 3 June soldiers of the People’sLiberation Army fired indiscriminately into thepacked square. Estimates vary. The most con-servative accounts say over 300 people were killedand almost 3000 were wounded. The power ofthe state had been used to quell the protest. TheAvenue of Eternal Peace, which runs into thesquare, is now called by locals Blood Avenue.

There is a Sherlock Holmes story in whichthe great detective solves the case by noting theabsence of something: the dog that did not bark.Political geography would be enriched by thestudy of the social equivalents of dogs that didnot bark, for example:

• social contexts which should have, but didnot, produce successful protest movements.The failure of genuinely democratic revolu-tion in most of Central and Latin Americawould provide one such study.

• protests which were not successful. Why wasthere a revolution in Russia in 1917 but notone in 1905? Why did the left-wing revolution

fail in Germany in 1917? The study of suchfailures allows us to understand the successes.

Protest partially successful. Few social movementsachieve all their ends. Let us return to an earlierexample. One of the most successful in recentyears was the civil rights movement in the USA.The movement enabled blacks to obtain greatersocial and political rights. However, blacks inthe USA still have lower incomes, poorer hous-ing and higher infant mortality rates than whites.Economic rights have been harder to achieve.

Conversely, even unsuccessful protests oftenhave their successes. The brutal repression ofthe students in Tiananmen Square swung worldpublic opinion away from support for the age-ing communist leadership. Events showed boththe power of the state and the nervousness of theleaders, their resistance to change and their fearof free discussion. They were so afraid they feltthey had to send in the troops. The party hierar-chy gained control…but for how long?

Protest successful. The study of public pro-test and collective action is an important correc-tive to those top-down studies which restrict theirunderstanding of political change to the nationalworkings of the state. Bottom-up changes havehad a huge influence in changing particular poli-cies, governments and even whole political sys-tems. Let us end this chapter with a brief look atthe really big changes.

France 1789, Russia 1917 and Eastern Eu-rope 1989 are all examples of successful revolu-tions. They were revolutionary in the sense thatthere was a major rupture in state arrangementsand civil society; in fact, a whole new social andpolitical order was established.

Before 1789 France was a monarchy, peo-ple were subjects of the king; after the revo-lution they were citizens of a state. A socialhierarchy with royalty at its apex was re-placed by a society whose motto was ‘lib-erty, equality and fraternity’. The changeswere enormous, even in attitudes to time.From October 1793 a new calendar was in-troduced with twelve thirty-day months and five

Figure 7.2 Principal sub-divisions of pre-revolutionaryFrance

Figure 7.3 The departments of revolutionary France


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complementary days. Table 7.3 shows the newnames, their equivalent in the Gregorian calendarand the names given by contemporary British com-mentators. The commentators thought they werebeing scornful, but I prefer the revolutionary names.Space was also transformed. Figure 7.2 shows thedemarcation of France before the revolution. Itwas a country with internal customs boundariesand separate legislative systems. It was a space ofseparate places poorly integrated. Figure 7.3 showsthe more integrated system introduced after therevolution. In effect a new state system of govern-ment was introduced, a whole new political ge-ography was inaugurated.

In 1917 Russia was an empire ruled by a tsar,the economy was one of capitalism emerging from

Table 7.3 The French revolutionary calendar

BOX O: SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

A social movement is a group of people who come together for specific purposes because of a shared set ofbeliefs. Paul Wilkinson defines a social movement as:

1 a deliberate collective endeavour to promote change in any direction by any means2 having a minimum degree of organization3 with a commitment to change based on active participation of members

A whole variety of social movements can be identified, expressing religious sentiment, rural and urbandiscontent, nationalist and race movements, class movements, age and gender movements.

The most important aspects of any social movement are:

• context: how, why, when and where do movements occur?• organization: how is the movement organized? Who runs it?• mobilization: how does it gain resources and how does it exercise its power? What is the repertoire

of available collective action?• opportunity: where, when and how does it exercise its power?• consequences: what are the results and effects of its action?

References

Tilly, C. (1978) From Mobilization To Revolution. Addison Wesley, Reading, Mass.Touraine, A. (1981) The Voice and The Eye. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Wilkinson, P. (1971) Social Movement. Macmillan, London.

Figure 7.4 Resistance to the revolution, 1793–9


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feudalism and politics was dominated by the royalhousehold and the large landowners. After theBolshevik revolution the existing social hierar-chy was abolished, socialist central planning wasintroduced and the dictatorship of the proletariatwas introduced. Subjects had become comrades.

Before 1989 Eastern Europe was ruled by com-munist party governments whose power wasunderwritten by Soviet military power. After 1989comrades became citizens in multi-party elec-toral systems and market signals began to re-place planning directions. Capitalism replacedcommunism and democracy began to replacedictatorship.

All were major changes. And all were changesbrought about by people power involving thesuccessful entry of mass movements into politi-cal discourse.

What makes people take to the streets? Thefirst thing that must be remembered is that noteveryone takes to the streets. After successful revo-lutions more people will say they took to the streetsthan actually did. Before success is assured pro-test is a potentially dangerous thing, limited tothe very motivated, the very poor and the verydesperate. What provides the motor of popularprotest is popular discontent. As George Rudenoted with reference to the French Revolution:

revolutionary crowds cannot be dismissedas mere passive instruments of middle-classleaders and interests, still less can they bepresented as inchoate ‘mobs’ without anysocial identity or, at best, drawn from crimi-nal elements or the dregs of the citypopulation…far from being social abstrac-tion (they) were composed of ordinary menand women with varying social needs whoresponded to a variety of impulses in whicheconomic crisis, political upheaval, and theurge to satisfy immediate and particulargrievances all played their part.

(Rude, 1959, 232–3)

In late eighteenth-century France and in TsaristRussia there was hostility towards moderniza-

tion, an emerging capitalism was causingimmiseration for the many. In Eastern Europethe queues were getting longer and the goodsshoddier and ever more scarce. A sense of bitterfrustration pervaded all three situations, a senseof alienation from the established order. And inall these cases protest became ‘successful’ be-cause there was also a crisis amongst the gov-erning elite, the rupture was partly a result of asplit amongst those in power. Popular discon-tent on the one hand and political incompetenceon the other do not always bring success butthey are the essential ingredients.

There is a political geography to revolutions.Revolutionary sentiment tends to be stronger insome places than in others, and not everywhereshows the same degree of commitment to socialchange. Figure 7.4, for example, shows the cen-tres of resistance against the French Revolutionfrom 1793 to 1799.

Protest activity is concentrated in specific places.In many cases the big towns and cities have aculture of resistance which can be mobilized intopopular protest. Even the expression ‘taking tothe streets’ captures the urban bias of social pro-test. In revolutionary France there was the GreatFear of the summer of 1789 in which much ofthe countryside was in revolt but revolutionaryevents took their sharpest turn and had theirmost dramatic effects in Paris. Similarly, in East-ern Europe it was the cities and particularly thecapital cities, where protests against the com-munist governments were strongest, most dra-matic and most successful.

Particular places become of tremendous im-portance in social upheavals. The storming ofthe Winter Palace, the taking of the Bastille, andthe toppling of the Berlin Wall are all examplesof symbolic events which both signified and codi-fied revolutionary change. Significant events oc-cur in significant places. Successful revolutionscapture significant places and give them newmeaning, a whole new symbolism. Space andplace are not simply the passive background topolitics, they are central to the exercise of politi-cal power, and the struggle for political power.


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On the relationship between people and the state havea look at some of the following:

Bright, C. and Harding, S. (eds) (1984) Statemakingand Social Movement. University of Michigan Press,Ann Arbor.

Foss, D.A. and Larkin, R. (1986) Beyond Revolu-tion: A New Theory of Social Movements. Berginand Garvey, South Hadley, Mass.

Krantz, F. (ed) (1988) History From Below. BasilBlackwell, Oxford.

Lofland, J. (1985) Protest: Studies of Collective Behaviorand Social Movements. Transaction Books. NewBrunswick, New Jersey.

Rude, G. (1964) The Crowd in History. Wiley, Lon-don.

Background reading for specific examples cited in thetext include:

Israel

Said, E. and Hitchens, C. (eds) (1988) Blaming TheVictims. Verso, London.

Schiff, Z. and Ya’ari, E. (1990) Intifada. Simon &Schuster, New York.

Shipler, D.K. (1986) Arab and Jew: Wounded Spiritsin a Promised Land. Random House, New York.

Civil Rights Movement

Garrow, D.J. (1988) Bearing The Cross. JonathanCape, London.

Sitkoff, H. (1981) The Struggle For Black Equality1954– 1980. Hill & Wang, New York.

Williams, J. (1987) Eyes On The Prize. Viking, NewYork.

China

Fathers, M. and Higgins, M. (1989) Tiananmen. In-dependent, London.

On revolutions in general, sample from the follow-ing:

Goldstone, J.A. (ed) (1986) Revolution: Theoretical,Comparative and Historical Studies. Harcourt, BraceJovanovich, Orlando, Florida.

Skocpal, T. (1979) States and Social Revolution. Cam-bridge University Press, Cambridge.

Wheatcroft, A. (1983) The World Atlas of Revolu-tion. Hamish Hamilton, London.

For specific examples of the revolution in France, Russiaand the USA consider:

Doyle, W. (1989) The Oxford History of The FrenchRevolution. Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Middlekauf, R. (1982) The Glorious Cause: TheAmerican Revolution, 1763–1789. Oxford Uni-versity Press, New York.

Rude, G. (1988) The French Revolution. Weidenfeld& Nicolson, London.

Schama, S. (1989) Citizens. A.A.Knopf, New York.Trotsky, L. (1977, first published 1932–3) The His-

tory of The Russian Revolution. Pluto Press, Lon-don.

Wilson, E. (1940) To the Finland Station. Collins,London.


O’Rourke, P.J. (1987) Republican Party Reptile. Pan,London.

Rude, G. (1959) The Crowd in The French Revolu-tion. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

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The world order we discussed in Part I wasof nation-states and international economicsystems. The main actors were multina-tional corporations and national govern-ments. In this long-term perspective theactions of people, whether as social groupsor individuals, were not really considered.

In the past a case could be made for aseparation between a global focus on insti-tutions and a more local emphasis on peo-ple and their actions. However, recent yearshave seen the development of a popularglobal awareness which collapses the dis-tinction between the global and the local.How did it come about?

THE GLOBAL VILLAGE

Our view of the world is related to the means ofcommunication. Our knowledge of the world ismediated by the technical means of informationexchange. When we are limited by word of mouthour horizons are limited to the very local anddistant events remain distant. With the develop-ment of print, messages can travel further andquicker and more reliably. Benedict Anderson (1983)considers the connections between the rise of printcapitalism and the way nationalist sentiments arefostered. He uses the term ‘imagined communi-ties’ to refer to the way that a newspaper dis-course can establish a community of interest.

With the development of electronic media theworld is brought into our living rooms. At theflick of a button we can see events on the otherside of the world as they happen. Indeed some

events happen because they are seen on televi-sion screens around the world. We now live inwhat Marshall McLuhan referred to as the glo-bal village. We turn on the television and seeriots in South Korea, revolutions in the Philip-pines, a general election in Germany, a disasterin Mexico, a war in Kuwait, an uprising in Iraq.With electronic media the world is brought intothe perception of our everyday lives. In an age ofelectronic mass media knowledge of world eventsis no larger restricted to a select few.

There is now more of an immediacy to ourexperience of distant events. And there is a shar-ing of this experience. Radio and television hashelped to create a shared world view and broughtinto play a major new force in world affairs—world public opinion. World public opinion canbe mobilized to release political prisoners, un-dermine governments, legitimize opposition groupsand give hope and help to beleaguered groups.For the first time in the world history the collec-tive opinion of ordinary people has a role toplay in global events.

This world opinion is as yet still very muchrestricted to the rich core. In North America thereare two television sets to every household, incentral Africa there is one set for every fifty house-holds. The information presented on televisionis filtered and selective. Coverage of internationalstories is biased and patchy, subject to nationalstereotyping. Some groups are delegitimized bybeing called terrorists, others are lauded as lib-eration movements. Much of the Third World isonly seen as newsworthy in the West if revolu-tion, famine or natural disasters occur. Little at-tention is given to the everyday life of the major-

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ity of ordinary people. The foreign news of mostnational television news broadcasts concentrateson the highly unusual, the bizarre and the dra-matic rather than the routine of mundane life.There are important differences in the way tel-evision news covers the local, the national andthe international.

Despite this bias the last half of the twentiethcentury has seen a world brought much closertogether, a world where more people now knowmuch more about the rest of the planet, whereworld public opinion has emerged as a powerfulforce.

THE GLOBAL VILLAGE

The twentieth century also saw the realizationthat the world was a very small place and whathappened in one part had an effect elsewhere.When Chernobyl exploded in April 1986, radio-active dust fell on the hillsides of North Wales;when people used aerosols in the privacy of theirhomes they are affecting the atmosphere aboveall our heads; and when people cut down treesin the Amazon, flood more rice fields or raisemore cattle they affect the climate of the wholeworld. We now know that although we may beseparated into different states these boundariesare becoming more and more irrelevant. We havebecome global villagers, a term which capturesthe interdependency of the global and the local.Our everyday lives are lived at a local level, ouractions are, on most days, bounded by a fairlytight spatial spread. And yet we are connectedto the rest of the world, connected by news andinformation and the consequences and implica-tions of our actions. There is a connection be-tween the global and the local.

Let us consider three particular areas of inter-est to the concerned global villagers:

• war and peace• poverty and plenty• ecological issues

War and peace

On 6 August 1945 an American aircraft droppedan atomic bomb on Hiroshima, in Japan, killing78000 people. Arthur Koestler (1980) suggestedthat dates should now be affixed with the ini-tials AH (After Hiroshima) to distinguish theold world from the nuclear world. Only one morebomb has been dropped in anger, on 9 August1945 on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, but thethreat of nuclear war has hung over the planetjust as the mushroom cloud hung over the twodevastated cities.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s the threatof the ‘other’ was used to legitimize the nucleararsenals of both the USA and USSR. The nuclearcapability of Britain and France was a remnantof imperial delusions. But the public was neverhappy about nuclear weapons and there was awidespread public revolution against their use.Nuclear weapons were feared because most ofthe public, unlike the military, could see thatthey threatened the existence of human civiliza-tion and the long term occupancy of the planet.There was no such thing as a limited war withnuclear weapons. Radiation fall-out would spreadthroughout the world.

The military and political response on eitherside of the Iron Curtain was to rely on the deter-rence theory—we need to have them in order tostop their use. This argument can be used to main-tain existing systems but fails to convince the edu-cated global villagers of the need for new systems.We can see the development of an anti-nuclearweapon stance most clearly in western Europe inthe early 1980s. There was tremendous public re-sistance in most European countries against thedevelopment of Cruise missiles. Western Europedid not have the anti-communist rhetoric of theReagan administration, and there was a legitimatefear that Western Europe would be reduced to apile of ashes in a superpower nuclear exchange.When a group of women set up a camp outsideGreenham Common in Berkshire, one of the UK’sdesignated centres for Cruise missile deployment,they also established a powerful symbol of resist-ance. Peace marches and anti-Cruise demonstra-

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tions throughout the early and mid 1980s createda powerful climate of opinion against the build-upof nuclear missiles. Nuclear weapons are still beingmade and they form an important part of the weap-onry of an increasing number of countries, but upto now states have not been willing to use them.Popular global opinion has made the deploymentof nuclear weapons a contentious issue.

Poverty and plenty

As we noted in chapter 1 the world divided intorich and poor, countries which suffer the affluenzaof too much wealth and those that suffer greatpoverty. This state of affairs rarely infringes onour daily lives. There are poor areas and verypoor people in rich countries but unless one goesto the Third World one rarely see the appallingdegradation of mass, endemic poverty. Even avisit to a Third World country does not neces-sarily bring such an experience. Life in the Hilton,whether it be in Rio or Rome, New York orManila is much the same. And even if you stepoutside the air-conditioned lobby the experienceis a personal one, it does not provide the basisfor collective action.

Public attention in rich countries can be fo-cused by the mass media. This tends to happenwhen there are major famines and mass starva-tion. Harrowing pictures of tiny children, theirbellies swollen by malnutrition, always seem tostrike a sympathetic chord within the rich coun-tries. Pictures of Ethiopian children stimulated suchcharitable endeavours as Band Aid, songs such asFeed The World were sung across the whole planetand a great deal of money was raised.

Sometimes the aid produced by emotional re-sponses are a short-term palliative, sometimes theyare not effective at all. What they do represent,however, is the deep-seated feeling that we have aresponsibility for one another, that people in troubleshould be helped, the hungry should be fed andthe homeless should be sheltered. Global publicopinion can be and is mobilized by the social trag-edies of mass famine or natural disasters.

Ecological issues

On Sunday, 22 April 1990 Earth Day was ob-served throughout the world. Around the planetmore than 200 million people took part in glo-bal celebrations which ranged from marches,speeches and demonstrations to parties and dancesas global villagers showed their concern withecological issues.

The growing awareness that we live on a sharedplanet and the steady realization of the scale ofenvironmental pollution and damage has sensi-tized concerned global villagers to the need for aglobal ecological awareness. This awareness op-erates at three levels:

1 local concerns with particular issues affect-ing the immediate area

2 attempts at influencing national policies3 concern with major environmental issues in

selected parts of the world, e.g. the clearingof the tropical rainforest, the depletion of natu-ral resources and the danger to dozens ofspecies of birds, animals and sea creatures

For many people it is easier to be concernedwith point 3 rather than 1 or 2. Events furtheraway seem easier to understand, less marked byambiguity and thus make it easier to take a stance.Who in suburban New England, for example, isgoing to fight for the logging of the Brazilianrain-forest? Closer up and nearer to home theissues become more blurred, more susceptible tocompeting interpretation. Thus in the late 1980sthe Conservative government in Britain couldpontificate about the need for preserving the tropi-cal rainforest but still justify a road building pro-gramme in London which cut through ancientwoodlands.

The different levels of awareness also drawupon different repertoires of collective action.Local and national concerns generate lobbyingtactics from people lobbying national politicians.Global concerns tend to be more difficult tomobilize.

There are few forums for the exercise of glo-bal opinion. We do not have votes in world elec-


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tions in the same way we do at the nationallevel. However, we still have some degree ofpower—as consumers we have market powerand as participants in demonstrations we canseek to influence the climate of opinion. It ishighly unlikely, for example, that Nelson Mandelawould have been released without the unblink-ing gaze of world public opinion.

It is difficult to mobilize public opinion re-garding the long-term future of the planet orfor world peace. It has proved much easier whena specific focus could be found. If we look atthe major campaigns of the 1980s, whose aimswere to:

• ban CFCs• release Nelson Mandela• stop the deployment of Cruise missiles• give food to Ethiopia• raise money for Amnesty International

we see that they all combined global issues ofwar and peace, poverty and plenty, human rightsand ecological issues with specific goals. Theyalso all shared a particular characteristic—theytended to be as much celebratory as provocativein nature. Whether it was pop concerts or ‘funruns’ they mobilized through celebrations. Un-like demonstrations aimed at specific targets therewas an element of coming together not to in-

timidate someone else, but to feel the collectivewill, to experience the global connections.

We are only just beginning to know that weare global villagers. We are only just beginningto sense our global rights and global responsi-bilities, our global role and our global opportu-nities for social change.


On the creation of the global village see:

McLuhan, M. (1962) The Gutenberg Galaxy: TheMaking of Topographic Maw. University of To-ronto Press, Toronto.

McLuhan, M. (1964) Understanding Media: The Ex-tensions of Man. McGraw-Hill, New York.

On selected global issues examine:

Arnold, D. (1988) Famine. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.McCormack, J. (1989) The Global Environmental

Movement. Belhaven Press, London.Pepper, D. and Jenkins, A. (eds) (1985) The Geogra-

phy of Peace and War. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

Other works cited in the text

Anderson, B. (1983) Imagined Communities: Reflec-tions on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism.Verso, London.

Koestler, A. (1980) Bricks To Babel. Hutchinson,London.

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There is no more serious menace to ourcivilization than our rabble-ruled cities.

(Josiah Strong, 1885)

The city is a social invention whose size, loca-tion and internal organization is a function ofthe distribution of power. The city reflects thestruggle for power and many of the major changesin the city’s role and structure come about be-cause of the mobilization of the citizenry. Theshape and form of the city, like the state, is partlya function of bottom-up pressure. In this chap-ter we will focus our attention on the role ofsocial movements in the city.

GENERAL COMMENTS

Citizens

The building blocks of urban social movementsare the citizens. In the political arena of the citycitizens play a number of roles:

• as workers: people are employed in the city.As public service workers, they may be di-rectly employed by the city authorities andare thus implicitly involved in city finances.

• as tax payers: households pay for local pub-lic services. They want to maximize thebenefits and minimize the costs. This canbring them into conflict with those stateauthorities who want to increase local taxes,or even public sector workers who wanthigher wages.

• as users of services: households also use a range

of public goods and services such as educa-tion, roads, parks, etc. As users they want tomaximize benefits. This may bring them intocontact with the producers of these goods andservices, the public service workers, the cityauthorities and central government,

• as residents: households are residents in adouble sense. They are residents of particu-lar places—neighbourhoods with a culturalidentity. They are also residents of generalurban space. We can imagine this space as achanging externality surface. Positive exter-nalities are the benign effects of changes,such as an attractive park or an improvedtransportation link. Negative externalitiescould include a 12-lane highway constructedjust outside your home. We can identify publicgoods which cause positive effects on houseprices and local property values and publicbads which reduce property values. House-holds, as residents, are concerned with thequality of their lives and their property val-ues. The city is a constantly changing exter-nality surface because the location of publicgoods and bads is constantly changing. Resi-dents will seek to attract public goods totheir local areas and repel public bads. Interms of the latter, residents have the exit/voice choice. They can move in order to es-cape the negative effects. Much of the whiteflight to the suburbs from US cities, for exam-ple, was an attempt to escape from what wasperceived as deteriorating living conditions inthe inner city. Alternatively, residents can stayput and either accept the changes or voice

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their disapproval, mobilize political supportand influence political decisions. Their suc-cess depends upon their connections with thepolitical elite, their organizational skills, thestakes involved and the strategies they adopt.

Pressure groups

The strategies adopted by urban social move-ments depend upon their relationship with thepolitical elite. Peter Saunders (1979) has pro-posed a typology of movements based on theirstrategy and their connections (see Figure 9.1).His typology arises from two axes. The first re-fers to the congruence of interests, and measuresthe extent to which the demands of the groupcorrespond to those of the political elite. Thesecond axis refers to the strategies, and dividesthe pressure groups according to the methodsthey adopt to achieve their demands. The result-ing typology provides a sixfold division. Politi-cal partnership occurs when the pressure groupshares the same interests as the political eliteand adopts a conciliatory attitude in achievingits demands. Competing agreement occurs whenthe pressure group adopts a conciliatory atti-tude but has only limited correspondence withthe political elite. ‘Respectable’ community or-ganizations wanting more resources for their areaand going through the ‘proper’ channels wouldfall into this group. Tactical protest is the strat-egy of direct action employed by those groups

who share similar interests with the political elite.In Britain, middle-class parents in Tory-control-led Croydon campaigning against comprehen-sive education and teachers’ unions in Labour-controlled Sheffield campaigning for comprehen-sive education are examples from either side ofthe political fence. Often tactical protest is en-couraged by the local political elite since it dem-onstrates to the media and the central authori-ties the strength of feeling behind their case. Theugly phrase, non-competing contradiction, de-scribes the situation when the pressure groupuses direct action but its goals are not shared bythe political elite. Squatters, for example, andvarious action groups fighting against welfarecuts frequently encounter hostility from the po-litical elite, who often classify them as ‘irrespon-sible’. The designation is used to dismiss theirclaims and justify the stance of the elite.

Pressure groups are the explicit expression ofdemands from certain groups in society but thereare some groups which do not need to or cannotexpress their demands because the political systemis orientated towards respectively meeting and ig-noring such demands. Political communion describesthe state of affairs when a group shares the sameinterests as the political elite but does not need tobecome involved directly. Big business in particu-lar does not need to exert pressure or rely on con-tacts because their interests are seen as the generalinterest. Political exclusion, in contrast, occurs whencertain groups are not represented. This often hap-pens to the very poor and the very weak.

The typology of pressure group types sketchedout by Saunders with reference to Britain is broadlyapplicable to the situation in North America. Inmost urban municipalities there is a relationshipof political communion between business inter-ests and city councillors, and the political exclu-sion of lower-income groups is equally applica-ble. The debates within the USA, however, havelargely focused upon showing which groups wieldeffective power in city politics. Three positionscan be identified. The elitist position states that aselfconscious elite effectively runs the city; theexemplar work of Hunter (1953) pointed to the

Figure 9.1 Typology of pressure groups


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dominant position of businessmen in municipalgovernment. The pluralist position states that poweris diffused among a number of competing cen-tres. No one interest or pressure group dominatesall aspects of policy. This view is similar to thedemocratic-pluralist view of the state outlined inchapter 3. Dahl’s work in New Haven purportsto show that pressure group influence varies ac-cording to the policy issue (Dahl, 1961). It is in-teresting to note that Dahl’s analysis of the threeissues of urban redevelopment, public educationand party nominations partly undermines his owncase. To be sure, different individuals and pres-sure groups were involved in each of the threeareas of public debate but the analysis did showthe overwhelming importance of middle-incomeand business interests, albeit expressed by differ-ent individuals in separate organizations.

The neo-elitist position was formulated inresponse to the arguments of the pluralists. Thisposition asserts that power does not lie at thelevel of pressure group activity but resides inthe ability of certain groups to exclude a widerange of issues from public debate. Hayes’s (1972)study of urban renewal in Oakland, California,for example, showed that urban renewal waspromoted by business interests and the issuesof the destruction of low-income housing andthe displacement of the inner-city black popu-lation were not raised on the political agenda.Lukes (1974) has identified the main differencesbetween the approaches (see Figure 9.2). Hesuggests that the pluralist approach takes a one-dimensional view of power with its emphasison the behaviour of pressure groups and theconflict generated by particular issues. The neo-elitist position adopts a two-dimensional viewof power since it focuses not only on decision-making and issues but also on non-decision-making and potential issues. What is needed,argues Lukes, is a three-dimensional view ofpower which can incorporate an understand-ing of observable and latent conflict, subjectiveand real interests, and issues and potential is-sues, since it is only such a wider view that canbare the relations of power within society.

Lukes makes an important point but this three-dimensional view of power is not without prob-lems. The main difficulty is encountered by theobserver who seeks to discover latent conflictand real interests if these differ sharply fromobserved conflict and subjective interests. Bydefinition they lie below the surface of the par-ticipants’ perception; they cannot be grasped byan analysis of actual events but only from a privi-leged theoretical position. In this case there isalways the danger of slipping into metaphysicalspeculation—actual events being measured andjudged from a theoretical position impregnableto the attacks of empirical reality. This potentialdanger does not negate the use of the three-di-mensional approach, as it is only the three-di-mensional view which can achieve anything morethan a superficial analysis of power relations,but it does suggest caution in its application.

As a useful failsafe Saunders (1979) suggeststhat the analysis should always consider the ac-tual distribution of costs and benefits. Losersand winners can be identified even if they do notsee themselves as losers or winners. Consider asan example the case of urban renewal in majorUS cities during the 1950s and 1960s. The win-ners were big business and construction compa-nies. The losers were low-income, predominantlyblack households who faced further restrictionson their already slight housing opportunities ascheap inner-city housing was demolished to makeway for commercial developments and more ex-pensive housing. The benefits of urban-renewalpolicies accrued to finance and construction capital

Figure 9.2 Perspectives on power


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and the costs were borne by low-income house-holds in the inner city. The Saunders suggestionis only a partial solution, since we have to definecosts and benefits. This is not an easy task andone that demands an a priori theory of whatconstitute costs and benefits.

The major cleavages

Table 9.1 shows the major cleavages in contem-porary urban movements. Let us look at thesecleavages in some more detail by examining thegoal of each movement.

The city as use value: many urban social move-ments are concerned with the city as a place tolive, in contrast to those powerful groups whosee the city as a place to make money. Conflictscan arise because some capitalists put profit be-fore people. But conflicts are rarely fought insuch large terms. More common is the struggleover specific issues, e.g. saving a park or an old

building from a developer who wants to build anew, profitable office block. Struggles may alsoarise over such issues as the provision of publictransport, the size and costs of public housing,the provision of recreational facilities.

Struggle for cultural identity: neighbourhoodsare not only places to live, they are of tremen-dous significance for the cultural identity of spe-cific groups. Indeed, the identity of certain groupsmay be intimately bound up with living in spe-cific places. Ethnic areas, working-class districts,middle-class enclosures are all hard fragmentsof meaning. The attachments may be so great asto initiate a formidable defence if the area isthreatened by redevelopment.

Citizen participation: citizens are involved in apower struggle. On the one hand local authoritiesand central government seek to control the meaningof cities, the rhythms of urban life and the size,location and density of urban infrastructure.On the other hand many citizens want greater

Table 9.1 The major cleavages


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BOX P: AN URBAN RIOT

Just occasionally protest leads to a riot. So it was on 31 March 1990 in central London.On most week-ends demonstrations take place in London. This one was a march from Kennington

to Trafalgar Square to show disapproval of the Government’s poll tax, a flat rate regressive tax whichdoes not take into account different abilities to pay. Over 100000 people took part in what appearedto be a very peaceful march. One man had a placard which read ‘Normally law-abiding personagainst the poll tax’ while another held up a banner with the words ‘Elvis Fans Against the Poll Tax’.Trafalgar Square was mobbed with people. As one participant noted, ‘The atmosphere in the squarewas almost carnival-like…it was an effortless show of power. We owned Trafalgar Square.’

The trouble began round about 3 p.m. A large group stood outside Downing Street, the heavily-guarded home of the Prime Minister. Stones and bottles were thrown at the police, who sought todisperse the crowd. The trouble flared along Whitehall and into Trafalgar Square.

Pandemonium broke out, police were attacked, then police on horses charged. Some of thedemonstrators fought back. Rocks were thrown, sticks were wielded. Injuries were caused.

Some of the demonstrators left the square and in acts of violence against property set alight cars,smashed windows and looted shops. It was a riot against the authorities and the symbols ofaffluence. (continued)

Figure 9.A An urban riot


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control over these things. Conflicts may occurwhen there are competing needs and interpreta-tions. Some citizens want more localized, moreaccountable sources of power.

CASE STUDIES

So far we have discussed citizen involvement ingeneral terms. In the remainder of this chapter Iwant to develop these general points with refer-ence to specific case studies. These studies willallow us to see how urban social movementsdevelop in specific contexts.

The south-east of England is the most affluentpart of Britain. Unemployment rates are rela-tively low and economic growth rates compara-tively high. Let us look at one particular re-gion—Central Berkshire at one particular time,the early 1980s.

Location has been the key to this area’s suc-cess (see Figure 9.3). Close to London, well servedby good road and high-speed rail links it has theadvantages of the metropolis but lower taxes forbusiness, cheaper houses and easier access to thecountryside. It is close to Heathrow airport whichgives it good international connections, a vitalrequirement for firms moving high-value, low-bulk goods around the world. Growth and de-velopment pressure has taken three main forms:industrial, commercial and residential.

Central Berkshire lies within the M4 Corridor,

an area which had the highest rate of high-techemployment growth in the country between 1975and 1985, especially in the computer electronicssector. A survey by Berkshire County Council in-dicated that high-tech companies provided 14 percent of the county’s private-sector employment.There has also been commercial development,especially in Reading and Bracknell. The servicesectors of insurance and producer services grewby 77 and 82 per cent respectively between 1971and 1981, and Reading is now the third largestinsurance centre after the City of London andCroydon. While office rents in Reading are simi-lar to those in London (outside the City), rates(local property taxes) are generally less than halfthe level of the capital. Property developers thusreceive similar returns on their investment, whileusers obtain cheaper premises.

Finally, there was a high rate of housing con-struction, particularly on large green-field sites.Effective demand was high because of the gen-eral affluence of the area, declining householdsize and the inflow of population from otherparts of the United Kingdom. Local employmentopportunities were plentiful in the healthy sec-tors, and good transport links facilitated com-muting into London.

In summary, this was an area of absolute growthin some sectors, and relative growth within thenational economy. Central Berkshire formed aprosperous suburban district of the metropoli-tan system. Jobs in traditional manufacturing indus-

There had been others. On 8 February 1886, there was a rally of the unemployed in TrafalgarSquare. Over 600 police officers were present. A group of between 3000 and 5000 people went intoPall Mall, smashing windows in London’s elite clubland. A year later another meeting of the unem-ployed in the square saw violent scenes as police and the army sought to regain social control. Twopeople were killed and over a hundred were injured.

Urban riots share a number of characteristics:

• they involve the occupation of, and struggle for control of, symbolic places. In London,Trafalgar Square is one such place.

• they include a confrontation between the forces of order and the power of demonstrators• peaceful methods of crowd-police negotiation break down• violence and law-breaking occur• order is reimposed.


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tries were lost here as elsewhere, but the growthin a number of service sectors and in high-techmanufacturing largely compensated for this de-cline, at least in aggregate terms.

Households as resident groups

Residents are affected by additions and changesto the built environment. The construction of aroad or a new housing estate has both a directimpact upon the local environment and variousexternality effects, such as reducing local prop-erty values. In order to influence events, usuallywith the aim of maximizing positive externali-ties and minimizing negative ones, residents bandtogether in resident groups.

How did residents react to this heavy devel-opment pressure? A study was conducted over

the period 1981 to 1983 (Short et al., 1986). Atotal of 149 resident groups in Central Berkshirewere identified and contacted. Ninety-two of thesewere interviewed. Virtually all these groups wereestablished after 1960, with increasing frequencyduring the 1960s, peak formation rates in themid-1970s and fewer additions in the period tothe early 1980s. This picture is consistent withincreasing owner-occupation, the encouragementof public participation in planning issues andthe rise of articulate middle-income groups; allfactors related to resident groups’ formation andaction. The cumulative effect has been to gener-ate a large number of groups seeking to influ-ence planning outcomes.

All resident groups are concerned with their lo-cal environment. The term ‘environment’, how-ever, needs careful inspection. Robson (1982) identi-

Figure 9.3 Central Berkshire in regional context


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fies three types of environment. The physical envi-ronment is, as the name implies, the form and dis-tribution of buildings, roads, open spaces, and otherfeatures which constitute the natural and built en-vironment. The social environment relates to thesocial and demographic characteristics of the localpopulation, while the resource environment refersto the location, distribution and accessibility ofpublic and private goods such as shops, schoolsand recreational facilities. Resident groups are con-cerned in varying ways with different environments.From the responses to questions probing the whyof group formation, it became clear that groupswanted to prevent developments in the physicaland social environments, and to obtain facilities orservices in the resource environment. These twocharacteristics can be crudely summarized as stop-ping (or protecting) and getting (or enhancing).Three broad categories were identified.

Forming 43 per cent of the sample, the stop-pers were primarily concerned with protectinglocal areas from further development. Just overhalf of these groups described their aims as stop-ping or modifying unwanted development whilethe remainder saw their main goals as protect-ing the quality of the existing environment. Two-thirds of stoppers were located in rural CentralBerkshire, with the others in middle- and upper-income parts of the major towns. In 83 per centof cases, group formation was initiated by a spe-cific threat to the locality.

The concerns of stoppers reflect both environ-mental and economic calculations, and also spe-cific social valuations. Residential growth is per-ceived to impose negative externalities in the formof increased noise, traffic congestion and con-struction activity, and leads to loss of land andlandscape quality. But there is a hard-core of ma-terial interest underneath the environmental con-cern, relating to the impact of new developmentupon house prices. Moreover, many householdshave been attracted to certain villages, or the moresalubrious urban neighbourhoods, because of theirexclusivity. Particularly in the rural areas there isa powerful ideology which sees in a village loca-tion the hope of restoring a moral arcadia away

from the anonymity of mass urban society. Theconcern with community here is an attempt toface up to modernity by asserting definable posi-tions within a small local social hierarchy. Newhousing developments threaten this imagery.

The defence of villages from development comesmainly from residents of less than twenty years’standing who wish to maintain the physical villageon the ground as much as the village in the mind.Defence is greatest when developments are proposedwhich either lead to the coalescence of villages orthe submerging of a village by a larger town. Suchchanges strike not only at the material base but alsoat the emotional heart of the stoppers.

Getters, forming 37 per cent of the sample,were mainly concerned with enhancement of thelocal area in terms of both the social and re-source environments. This involved pressing forimprovements in the quality of local services,opportunities and facilities, and sometimes alsotook the form of self-help. Community partici-pation, often allied to demands for communitycentres is seen as an essential part of communityprovision. The great majority (88 per cent) ofthese groups were found in recently constructedprivate sector estates, with only three (9 per cent)in areas of public housing.

It is the middle-income groups in ‘average’ ar-eas who are the most vociferous in pursuit ofimproved services and facilities. A few may haveclose links with local political organizations andoverlapping core membership; most, however, stressthe non-partisan nature of their activities and cam-paigns. Self-help represents a step outside the for-mal political system when the state cannot or willnot meet the demands of a locality.

There were some groups, 20 per cent of thesample, which were concerned in equal measurewith the protection and enhancement of theirlocality. These stopper-getters were found bothin old, established urban neighbourhoods andnew estates. In only one case did a group’s areaconstitute a predominantly public housing area,and in only three cases did it include both publicand private housing. Owner-occupation domi-nated the other fourteen stopper-getter groups.


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The questionnaire survey provides only a snap-shot of resident groups in Central Berkshire andtheir roles. Group aims may alter over time, andthus a particular group will move between cat-egories. For older neighbourhoods a typical pro-gression is from stopper to stopper-getter, whilefor new estates the sequence may be from getterto stopper-getter to stopper. Group representinghighly valued urban or rural areas are more likelyto retain a basically anti-growth role.

In summary, the voice of the stopper is thevoice of middle-class, middle-aged, owner-occu-piers seeking to protect their physical and socialenvironments. This voice is also strong in theother two types of resident groups, but it is notthe only one. If you listen you can hear the soundof younger owner-occupiers in new estates andinner-city areas, and the demands of tenants’ as-sociations on council estates. Here the concernsare not only with protecting but also enhancingthe local physical and social environments.

While it is relatively easy to note the aims,structure and external contacts of resident groups,it is very difficult to ascertain their impact. Be-tween the goals of a group and final outcomeslie a myriad of conflicts and other interests. Aprecise balance sheet cannot be drawn up, butthree general points can be made:

• the stoppers were influential in creating anarticulate and powerful no-growth lobby inCentral Berkshire, which has sensitized manylocal politicians to the issues of resisting anddeflecting growth. The actions of the stop-pers placed growth minimization higher thangrowth generation on the planning agendaof Central Berkshire.

• the importance of the getters increased.On the one hand they may become thestoppers of tomorrow. On the other, giventheir capacity for community self-help, theywere least affected by reductions in cer-tain public services. Given the drift of re-cent public policy toward control of ex-penditure and public service provision, theability of communities to generate self-help

creates further patterns of inequality. Thesedistinctions will not simply be based onincome and status, but also on length ofresidence—factors which create a strongsense of community within an area. Withtheir success in mobilizing internal resources,and experience of campaigning for addi-tional public provision, the getters may bebest placed to counter some of the effectsof public service decline.

• we can note that resident groups representspecific interests. Their primary concerns arethe restriction of further growth and the gen-eration of community facilities. They do notfully articulate the interests of the homelessor the unemployed and the voice of privatesector tenants is scarcely heard. Not all is-sues which affect local communities are thusplaced on the agenda for public discussion.

Conflict in the inner city

Located just east of London’s financial centre,the 16 square miles of Docklands used to be thecommercial water frontage of London (see Fig-ure 9.4). It was also the home of working-classcommunities, almost 40000 initially based ondock-working. By the 1960s the docks were be-ing closed because they were unable to cope withthe bigger container ships. The port functionsmoved east to Tilbury and, in Docklands, regis-tered dock employment fell from 25000 to 4100between 1960 and 1981. Church (1988) pro-vides a good review of the transformation ofDocklands. This case study focuses on changesand tensions in this area in the late 1980s.

Close to the City, the area gave opportunitiesto developers for the modification of derelict landinto offices and residences. There was an align-ment of investment-rich institutions, a demandfrom a buoyant City for office property and newhousing requirements of the growing new mid-dle class, which all led to the modification and‘yuppification’ of the area. The successful pros-ecution of these aims required three things:


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• incentives to private capital• political power• central organization

1 In the 1980 Budget the Chancellor of the Ex-chequer announced the creation of EnterpriseZones to promote private redevelopment ofinner-city areas. Under this scheme incentiveswere provided over the period 1981–91 whichincluded exemption from rates and land taxeson site disposal, tax allowances for buildingconstruction and relaxation of planning con-trols. Eleven zones were designated, one ofthem in Docklands, the Isle of Dogs (see Fig9.4). This has been one of the most success-ful. For example, many newspaper offices haverelocated from their traditional home in FleetStreet and now The Sun, The Daily Telegraphand The Sunday Times are located in the zone.Incidentally, their move was part of a restruc-turing of labour relations involving a reduc-tion of the labour force and the introductionof new technology.

2 The commercial transformation of large ar-eas will favour lucky landowners and astutedevelopers but it will not directly benefit thelocal people. Any truly democratic local rep-resentation will thus tend to resist suchchanges. For the developments to take place,power must be taken out of local hands.This is the rationale behind the creation ofthe London Docklands Development Cor-poration (LDDC). The LDDC was estab-lished by a Conservative government in 1981.It replaced a committee, established in 1974,made up of representatives of five docklandboroughs. That committee was concernedwith the needs of local residents. The non-elected, government-appointed LDDC hasno need to court local political support. Itsaim has been to ‘develop’ Docklands for theprivate sector.

3 Individual companies are unwilling and un-able to undertake such large and speculativeventures. The LDDC has acted as centralorganizer of the project, assembling land,

Figure 9.4 London Docklands


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making environmental improvements and pro-viding the vital, initial infrastructure invest-ment. The LDDC spent £130 million be-tween 1981 and 1985, almost £200 millionfrom 1985 to 1987 including £35 million ona light railway system which links the areato the City, London’s financial centre, andasked for £531 million for the period 1988to 1993. The area is now an attractive loca-tion for office users, it is now ‘closer’ to theCity and all of central London, yet rents areonly a quarter of what they are in the City.

The LDDC was successful in raising awarenessof the commercial opportunities of Docklands.A barrage of publicity changed the mental mapof London. Previously the Docklands was un-known to the majority of middle-class London-ers. It was a spatially and socially self-containedsegment of the capital. The LDDC campaigngave Docklands a higher profile and more ‘posi-tive’ image. Publicity photographs were carefullytaken to show only the glitzy areas, and colourenhancement changed the murky Thames into asun-kissed, bright blue, pollution-free river. Al-most £2200 million of private investment hasbeen attracted. The whole area was transformed.Almost 500000 square metres of office develop-ment are completed or under construction. AtCanary Wharf was planned the biggest singledevelopment, a £3000 million complex of officeand shopping space which was eventually ex-pected to employ 72000 people. The economicdownturn and fall in commercial rents has ham-strung the whole development.

Housing has also been built. Thirteen thou-sand dwellings were completed or under con-struction by 1987. The LDDC plan is to com-plete 25000 dwellings by the end of the century.Selling points have been the water frontages andthe easy access to the City.

In effect there has been a transformation ofthe landscape of Docklands. The industrial build-ings of the past are being recycled, both in termsof use and meaning. Docklands as Victorian eco-nomic resource is giving way to Docklands as

postmodern landscape of offices, transformedfrom old working-class to new middle-class area.Docklands has become a showcase for the dis-play of post-industrial employment and the pres-entation of housing forms for the newly afflu-ent. The transformation of Docklands is not onlya change in use but a change of meaning.

Two social forces are meeting in the same socialspace. On one hand there is yuppification, involv-ing the destruction of an existing community andits replacement by a new middle class, with conse-quent changes in the meaning and use of space. Onthe other hand, there is local resistance. The pressreleases of the Isle of Dogs Neighbourhood Com-mittee, for example, provide an antidote to thepublicity machine of the LDDC. They point outthat few of the jobs created have gone to localresidents. When the average local income was £8500per household the average price of a 2-bed-roomedproperty in the area was £185000. More radicalhas been the attitude of an organization called ClassWar. In its newspaper and billposters Class Warurges local people to mug a yuppie, scratch BMWcars and make life as unpleasant as possible for theaffluent incomers. Members of the TV soapEastenders have been attacked, as Class War ac-cused them of being show-business sellouts; estateagents regularly have their hoardings daubed withgraffiti and 10 September 1988 was declared na-tional Anti-Yuppie Day. Class War has 1000 mem-bers and a political philosophy. According to onespokesman:

At first people thought we were just intoviolence. But we have our own political theory.We do not call ourselves anarchists any longer.Yes, we want to overthrow capitalism andif that has to be violent then so be it. We areinterested in community politics, for theworking class to stick up for itself.

(Lashmar and Harris, 1988)

The threat is taken seriously by Scotland Yardwho assigned six officers full time to monitorClass War in 1988.

Class War is unusual; more common are the


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unorganized random acts of resistance/vandal-ism. As a correspondent in the East LondonAdvertiser wrote:

I was delighted the other day when I wassitting with my younger sister on the Isleof Dogs and saw some youngsters rippingup newly planted trees and using them toattack yuppie homes. Hopefully some youngpeople locally will still have some fight inthem and will repel these new Eastendersby making life unbearable for them.

(Kane 1987)

As the letter suggests, young people constitute apoint of resistance. They have energy, anger andhave not yet learnt to accept their fate. In Docklands,however, it looks as if this resistance will ulti-mately fail. It is the deaththroes of a communityundergoing marginalization and eventual disinte-gration. The organized Class War constitutes anuisance and threat but not a permanent block tothe changes. The power of finance capital in alli-ance with a central government committed to pri-vate enterprise and big business is too big an op-ponent for a small working-class community withfew political friends and limited resources.

But the local youth still have power. Theirvery existence in the collective urban imagina-tion has produced effects. There is the fear ofcrime. ‘Colonization’ of space involves the inva-sion of someone else’s place. In the imperial pastoverseas colonization was underwritten by theBritish army and navy. Now it is the police whodefend the urban colonizers. It is not that crimeis any more prevalent in gentrified areas, althoughthe contrast between rich and poor does providegreater opportunities. It is more a case of thenew middle classes having the right languageand the necessary confidence to demand betterpolicing. Demands for more effective policingare greatest in areas undergoing gentrification.

The fear is also apparent in the new builtforms. There is a contemporary urban enclosuremovement which is blocking off and minimizingpublic open space. Riverside frontages are being

alienated, walls are being constructed and barri-ers being created in order to keep out the urbanfolk devils. The security arrangements of resi-dential blocks are a major selling point, whilecommercial properties are so designed that theirfrontages ward off rather than invite. The at-traction of water frontages is only partly thescenic views, for on one side, at least, they canbe easily defended against the urban ‘other’. Thisbunker architecture is concerned more with se-curity than display, personal safety more thanshow and the exclusion of indigenous communi-ties rather than their incorporation.

The fear of the underclass has always been amajor element in the life of London as in all worldcities. In the past this has been managed by segre-gation, people knowing their place and staying init. When different groups are in the same placesthe emphasis switches to the architectural designof the buildings, the location of those buildingsand the construction of defensible spaces. In Lon-don’s Docklands and selected areas of other worldcities economic restructuring is causing a changeof use, a change of meaning and a contest for thesocial control of urban spaces. The new urbanorder will arise from this struggle, its eventualshape a function of conflict and compromise, itsfinal form a mark of victory. And of defeat.

Construction workers and the city

The configuration, use, size, internal layout andexternal design of the built environment embod-ies the nature and distribution of power in soci-ety; cities are systems of communications tellingus who has power and how it is wielded. In thissection I will look at the effect of one group onthe structure of a particular city: the Builders’Labourers Federation (BLF) of New South Walesand the imprint of their actions on developmentsin Sydney in the 1970s.

The 1968–1974 property cycle

Sydney, like big cities in Europe and North America,experienced a rapid growth of office development


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in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The generalreasons were a steady fall in the rates of returnafforded to capital investment in manufacturingindustry in the developed world at the same timeas there was an increase in the amount of liquidcapital. The declining returns afforded to manu-facturing were caused by labour shortages andconsequent militancy, raw material cost increases,and competition from the newly industrializingcountries, with the precise mix varying in differ-ent countries. The growing pool of liquid capitalwas evident in the growth of financial institutionssuch as banks, pension funds, and insurance com-panies. At the international level, the collapse ofthe system of fixed exchange rates and the crea-tion of an international finance market meant thatcapital could be shifted around the world. Dol-lars generated in Europe by US multinationalscould be invested through London in commodityproduction in Asia or property development inAustralia. Capital was invested in urban com-mercial property as there was a growing demandfor office accommodation from the expandingservice and financial sectors, especially in the largeinternational cities. Commercial property was afavoured investment site because it took up largeamounts of capital (an attraction for the big in-vestment funds needing to place lots of invest-ment), there was a demand, the investment wasrelatively trouble-free, and scarcity value wasmaintained by the absolute nature of space, rein-forced in many places by planning controls.

The property boom also involved public au-thorities. The late 1960s and early 1970s was atime of increasing state expenditure. Expandededucation and health programmes, for example,involved large building programmes. The state inits many forms (local states, statutory authorities,etc.) not only provided the context for propertydevelopment and was an element in the demandbut was also actively involved. Especially whereauthorities held land, the state could become aplayer as well as a referee in the property game. Insome cases, the entry of public authorities politi-cized urban development issues even more, as ques-tions of accountability and electoral liability were high-

lighted. State involvement brought into sharpfocus the discussion about what type of citieswere being produced, and for whom.

The property cycle in Sydney

Some indication of the cycle in Sydney is givenin Figure 9.5. Notice how the boom gathers pacein the late 1960s, peaks in 1971–2 and falls awayto a relative slump in 1977. Thereafter there isevidence of another rise on the way. The boomin offices was fuelled by a number of factors.There was a growing need for offices from theexpanding financial sector of banks, finance com-panies, and related businesses. The financial sec-tor wanted offices in central locations, particu-larly in Sydney. The boom reflected and enhancedSydney’s preeminence over Melbourne as Aus-tralia’s international city. There were also therequirements of a burgeoning public sector, whichneeded offices to house the expanding white-collar workforce and the specific buildings (forexample, schools, universities, and hospitals) as-sociated with its expanding functions. This pe-riod marked the coincidence of growth in boththe private and public sectors.

The expansion of the commercial office sec-tor was financed by both local and foreign capi-

Figure 9.5 Value of non-dwelling building workcompleted in Sydney


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tal. The boom was particularly large because ofthe relative openness of Australia to foreign in-vestment. Traditionally, Australia, a dominion-capitalist country, was tied to British marketsand linked with British capital, but during the1970s investment came not only from Britainbut from other countries in Europe, NorthAmerica, and increasingly from Japan, HongKong, and South-East Asia.

Successive post-war state governments in NewSouth Wales (NSW) had encouraged commer-cial development. The Liberal government whichruled over much of the cycle, from 1965–75,was simply the latest in a long line of pro-growthgovernments eager to attract capital investment.The Liberal government which came to powerat state level in 1965 dismissed the Labour-con-trolled Sydney City Council in 1967 and appointedthree commissioners. Between 1967 and 1969,the commissioners ran the city, allowing a floodof development approvals (see Figure 9.6). Thus,when the property boom reached its peak, therewas a pro-development state government and acentral business district (CBD) controlled by anon-elected, pro-growth triumvirate. After 1970the City Council was an elected one, but domi-nated by the pro-business Civic Reform Asso-ciation, which saw office development as a signof metropolitan progress and, in some instances,a way of personal enrichment.

The boom: Before the boom, conditions in theconstruction industry reflected the power of capital

and the weakness of labour. There was no holi-day pay, few changing or washing facilities inwhat was a dirty job, no job security, and dan-gerous working conditions. The boom had twoimportant features which affected capital-labourrelations in the construction industry.

• Construction activity in central Sydney oc-curred mostly on large sites. The averagesize of development applications in the CBDof Sydney increased from 10000 square me-tres in 1969 to 21000 square metres in 1974.For labour, the large sites meant more workers,longer work life on the sites, and thus easierconditions for organizing the workforce.

• Many of the building projects were specula-tive enterprises. In the public sector projectsthere was a specific client eventually respon-sible for picking up the bill, but the privatesector projects were built to meet a perceiveddemand, not the requirements of specific cli-ents. Development companies needed to bor-row money to finance their operations. Creditallowed the projects to be built but madethe companies vulnerable. Credit lines couldnot be extended indefinitely.

In general, the building boom gave extra lever-age to labour: their strength was enhanced bythe low levels of unemployment which between1965 and 1975 did not go above 3 per cent forAustralia. In effect, the property boom meant apotential shift in the power relations betweenbuilding capital and building labour.

The building boom meant more workers onmore easily organized big sites. The BLF increasedits membership from 4000 in 1968 to 10000 by1970. It thus became easier to organize strikes(see Figure 9.7). In 1970, after the failure of nego-tiations with the Master Builders’ Association(MBA), the BLF in New South Wales organized afive-week strike in support of increased wagesand better conditions. In the third week of thestrike, the BLF adopted a selective strategy. Com-panies which signed the agreement for improvedwages and conditions would have the bans lifted. On 29

Figure 9.6 New building development approvals inSydney CBD


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May 1970, five major firms signed the agree-ment, The BLF successfully exploited a majorcleavage in the construction industry. Althoughall companies may benefit from group solidar-ity, individually it is more rational for them tomeet workers’ requests in order to finish the job.As the Director of Industrial Relations of theMBA noted in an interview with me in 1986: ‘Ifyou’re not working, it costs you between $30000and $50000 in interest payments. So when un-ionists ask for more money amounting to, say,£3000, well there is no comparison. £3000 ver-sus $50000’. Two weeks later, the MBA agreedto go to arbitration. The BLF achieved its objec-tives. The strike had been successful, gains hadbeen made, and building workers’ confidencewas high. The strikes successfully gouged outbenefits from the profits of the building boom.

Green Bans: Organized building labour andthe BLF, in particular, also extended their con-cerns beyond the narrow range of wages andconditions of employment in what came to beknown as ‘Green Bans’. These involved unionactions to block development, not for increasedwages, but because of environmental and widersocial considerations.

In the early 1960s, the BLF had been a right-wing union whose leadership seemed to havelittle concern with improving the lot of the workers.

A radical rank and file group within the Unionsought to gain control and eventually were suc-cessful in the 1964 union election. For the nextten years, the unions followed a radical line domi-nated by notions of direct action, rank and fileparticipation, regular elections for union office,and the fostering of community-labour links. Theleaders, Joe Owens (Secretary, 1973–4), JackMundey (Secretary, 1968–73), and Bob Pringle(President, 1969–75), were committed to improv-ing conditions in the industry as well as to widerpolitical goals. Mundey was arrested inantiVietnam war demonstrations, and in 1971Bob Pringle and another BLF member cut downthe goalposts at a ground where the Springbokrugby team were to play. The leadership sharedthe ideology and had adopted the tactics of di-rect action of the New Left, then developing inAustralia as well as North America and Europe,particularly around the issue of the Vietnam war.Green Bans were part of a wider political strug-gle and a broader political philosophy.

The first Green Ban began in the upper/mid-dle-income Sydney suburb of Hunter’s Hill. In1970, a plan to build fifty-seven townhouses ona piece of open space known as Kelly’s Bush metwith local resistance. The Battlers of Kelly’s Bushwere a group of local residents, all women, whosought to resist the development and maintainthe open space. The Battlers wrote to local andstate governments but met with little success. In1971 they were approached by the BLF leader-ship. The BLF pledged their support and put aban on any construction work at Kelly’s Bush.For the next few years, during the peak of thebuilding boom, the BLF Green Ban policy was amajor factor in shaping Sydney.

There were two types of ban. Permanent bansinvolved a resolute commitment to a particularaction. Examples included the refusal to workon proposed plans to build an Olympic Stadiumin Centennial Park, the refusal to demolish theTheatre Royal, and the Green Ban put on theproposed underground car park opposite theSydney Opera House because it involved the de-struction of old fig trees. Temporary bans were

Figure 9.7 Working days lost per 1000 employees inthe New South Wales construction industry


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used to give greater strength to groups (usuallyresidents) in their negotiations with developersand state authorities. Temporary bans were alsoused to aid other groups. In 1973, for example,the BLF imposed a ban on work at MacquarieUniversity because a homosexual student hadbeen expelled from one of the residential col-leges. In the same year, a ban was imposed onthe University of Sydney because two womenwere not allowed to give a course on women’sstudies. In both cases, the BLF action led to fur-ther negotiations and eventually the student wasreinstated and the course was given.

The Green Bans involved local resident groups.There were good reasons for resident group ac-tivity. The building boom had affected the resi-dents of inner Sydney; they faced incursions intotheir open space, the negative externalities of newbuilding, increased traffic, and, for the lower-in-come groups, reduction of housing opportunitiesas developers sought to build offices and expen-sive apartment blocks. The local planning systemgave almost no voice to local residents. In 1971,the Coalition of Resident Action Groups (CRAG)was established in Sydney with the aim of ex-changing information, organizing joint action, andgeneral lobbying. By 1972, CRAG and the BLFwere in an alliance. There were advantages forboth sides. For CRAG, an alliance with the BLFgave them the power to stop developments, be-cause the BLF had the muscle to stop demolitionand halt building projects. For the BLF, CRAGand its members gave legitimacy. Throughout theGreen Ban period, the BLF faced heavy criticismfrom developers, the state authorities and the pressthat their actions were undemocratic. The Syd-ney press was savage in its attack. The SydneyMorning Herald (14 August 1972) wrote about‘delusions of grandeur’ and ‘the highly comicalspectacle of builders’ labourers…setting themselvesup as arbiters of taste and protectors of nationalheritage’, and The Australian in an editorial of 3September 1972 noted:

When the vocal leader (Mundey) of a tinyminority in one union begins to sway public

and municipal decisions on multi-milliondollar questions in which he has no exper-tise whatever, it is time to begin asking whathas gone wrong with the process of gov-ernment in this country?

The press campaign personalized the issue, fo-cusing on Mundey and his membership of theCommunist Party of Australia. The assumptionwas that mere labourers had no role to play incity planning; they were communists who wereendangering big projects and frightening awayforeign investors. The resident group connectionshowed that the BLF had wider support. Thepolicy of imposing bans only when there waslocal resistance ensured and reflected popularsupport.

The slump: By 1973 the building boom wasbeginning to slow. In November 1973 the Aus-tralian Financial Review had a headline of ‘Prop-erty Sales Bubble Bursts’. In the same year, therewere over half a million square metres of officespace in Sydney CBD lying vacant, a fifth of thetotal office space in the city. By 1976 the boomwas over and unemployment was beginning torise. Building workers were affected in terms ofgrowing unemployment and falling wages (seeFigure 9.8). The slump meant a decline in thedemand for labour and a weakening in the bar-gaining power of the building unions. In effect,the slump shifted the balance of power awayfrom organized labour towards capital.

The growth and decline of the Green Banmovement can be seen against the background

Figure 9.8 Variation in wages and earnings ofbuilding workers, net of the consumer price


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of the building boom. For the workers in theBLF, the boom meant secure continued employ-ment. As one right-wing BLF member remarkedto a journalist in 1972:

Our members tolerate Mundey’s views be-cause they really don’t matter. Times areeasy for us: there’s plenty of work around.We get pretty good money and if JackMundey wants to sprout [sic] off aboutthings, that’s OK. But things would be dif-ferent if things got hard in the industry.

(The Australian, 5 September 1972)

It is too easy, however, to see the Green Banssimply as a function of the building boom. Therehad been booms in the past without Green Bansand not all building unions at the time pursued aGreen Ban policy. The BLF leadership made asuccessful connection between working conditions,rates of pay, and broader social and environmen-tal issues. The radical leadership won the confi-dence of the rank and file through its pursuit ofhigher wages, its policy of limited tenure of of-fice, and its openness to bottom-up policy mak-ing. The radical BLF showed that alliances be-tween labour and residence-based urban socialmovements are possible and that connections be-tween production-based and consumption groupsare feasible. The circumstances have to be rightbut a crucial element is the existence of peoplewith the vision to make the connections.

The demise of the radical BLF and the declineof the property boom meant a setback foroppositional movements in Sydney. But the storyis not one of increasing gloom. We can identifyat least three enduring positive consequences ofthe 1968–74 boom period.

• not all the gains of construction labour werelost in the subsequent slump. The Green Banswere dropped, but the improvements in work-ing conditions did not revert to the preboomposition. The almost total unionization ofbig sites continued and a closed shop of ‘nounion ticket-no start’ was effectively estab-

lished for all large non-residential sites. Theissue of safety, once raised, refused to disap-pear. Most sites now have safety codes, andsafety considerations have been incorporatedinto design criteria. All high-rise buildingsin Sydney now have safety nets. The boomallowed organized labour to civilize muchof the industry and put capital-labour rela-tions on a new terrain of conflict and com-promise. Agreements in 1988, for example,included a 38-hour week, a portable super-annuation and long-service leave schemes,and a national safety code. There is a ten-sion in this relationship. For the union rep-resentatives, especially of the larger unions,there is a danger of incorporation, of puttingclaims of particular sites into line with broadercoporatist deals. As for the builders, theywant to deal with only a few union officialsbecause this ensures easier negotiations, butit concentrates power in the hands of thosefew officials. Organized labour wants powerwithout too much responsibility whereascapital wants the unions to have responsi-bility without too much power,

• the struggles of the BLF and communitygroups such as CRAG sensitized a broaderpublic to environmental issues. The Labourgovernment of New South Wales which cameto power in 1976 established a Land andEnvironment Court, a Heritage Council, andin various environmental planning Acts soughtto incorporate public participation. The spiritof legislation, if not its practise, owes muchto the Green Bans.

• the social struggles of the period have anenduring legacy on the landscape of Sydney.The fig trees still grow opposite the OperaHouse, Centennial Park does not have anOlympic Stadium (yet) and many of the newdevelopments are retaining the facade ofbuildings previously scheduled for demoli-tion during the boom. These are not once-and-for-all victories. Consider The Rocks,one of the oldest parts of Sydney adjacent tothe CBD, saved in the 1970s from high-rise


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commercial development in a bitter strugglebetween the BLF and residents on the onehand and developers and the state govern-ment on the other. As demand for more of-fice space continues so the pressure buildsup on The Rocks. Old terraces are beingturned into offices, up-market and tastefullyrenovated, but offices all the same. The oldbuildings are being retained but there is achange in the social community if not in thephysical facades. Parts of The Rocks are be-coming tourist centres, the site of acommodified history of charming old Aus-tralia and a classless Sydney. But it is not yetan outright loss. In 1984, Mundey was electedalderman to Sydney City Council by peoplein The Rocks. From this base, he foughtagainst commercial expansion in the area.And at weekends, and Friday nights in par-ticular, The Rocks continues to be an enter-tainment centre for ordinary Sydney-siders.The streets, full of Japanese and Americantourists during the day, at night resound tothe extended vowel sound of young Sydney-siders still given a place to play in their city.


For general approaches to urban social movementshave a look at:

Castells, M. (1978) City, Class and Power. Macmillan,London.

Castells, M. (1983) The City and The Grassroots.Edward Arnold, London.

Lowe, S. (1986) Urban Social Movements. Macmillan,London.

Pinch, S. (1985) Cities and Services: The Geographyof Collective Consumption. Routledge & KeganPaul, London.

Saunders, P. (1979) Urban Politics: a Sociological In-terpretation. Hutchinson, London.

The three case studies in this chapter are drawn frommy more detailed work:

Short, J.R., Fleming, S. and Wipp, S. (1987) ‘Conflictand compromise in the built environment’, Trans-actions, Institute of British Geographers N.S., 12,29–42.

Short, J.R. (1988) ‘Construction workers and the city’,Environment and Planning A, 20, 719–40.

Short, J.R. (1989) ‘Yuppies, yuffies and the new ur-ban order’, Transactions, Institute of British Ge-ographers N.S. 14, 173–88.

Short, J.R., Witt, S. and Fleming, S. (1986) House-building, Planning and Community Action.Routledge & Kegan Paul, London

Relevant journals

Environment and Planning, A, C and DInternational Journal of Urban and Regional Research


Church, R.A. (1988) ‘Urban regeneration in LondonDocklands: a five year policy review’, Environ-ment and Planning C, 6, 187–208.

Dahl, R.A. (1961) Who Governs? Yale University Press,New Haven

Hayes, E. (1972) Power Structure and Urban Policy:Who Rules in Oakland? McGraw-Hill, New York.

Hunter, F. (1953) Community Power Structure. Uni-versity of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.

Kane, F. (1987) ‘The new eastenders’, The Independ-ent, 26 September.

Lashmar, P. and Harris, A. (1988) ‘Anarchists step upclass war in cities’, the Observer, 10 April.

Lukes, S. (1974) Power: A Radical View. Macmillan,London.

Robson, B.T. (1982) ‘The Bodley Barricade: socialspace and social conflict,’ in K.R.Cox, and R.J.Johnston, (eds) Conflict Politics and The UrbanScene. Longman, London.

Strong, J. (1885) Our Country: Its Possible Futureand Its Present Origins. Baker & Taylor, New York.

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This book has covered such a rich variety ofissues, concerns and questions that there seemslittle point in providing a summary conclusion.What is the point, after all, of writing nine chap-ters, to then compress the detail into a dense,final chapter? However, the very variety sug-gests the need for some kind of concluding state-ment. There are a number of consistent strandsand recurring patterns that run through this book.I will consider the most important ones.

This postscript also gives me an opportunityto look at possible future outcomes of presenttrends. I realize the risks. Between the first edi-tion of this book and the second, tremendouschanges have taken place. Changes which couldnot have been predicted. It is difficult, therefore,to make any concluding statements with any realmeasure of confidence. The 1980s has been asalutary experience for those who would predictthe future. The 1990s may prove equally de-structive of long-term projections based on ex-isting states or current affairs.

THE NEW WORLD ORDER

As the 1980s came to a close the term new worldorder was heard more often. In essence it re-ferred to the decline of the old dichotomy be-tween East and West, the decline of the SovietEmpire and the unravelling of state socialism inEastern Europe. For many, this was heralded asthe dawn of a new era. In many ways it is. Theold bipolar division which structured the worldorder is coming to an end. By the time you readthis book it probably already has. The USA-So-

viet enmity will, like that between Rome andCarthage, dissolve into history. That is some-thing to be applauded. The build-up of arms, therepression of dissent, especially behind the IronCurtain, and the support of authoritarian re-gimes by both superpowers around the worlddid much to slow down, if not halt, social progress.But the New World emerging from the Old Worldis not free from tension; we can identify twomajor sources.

First, there is still a huge disparity betweenthe rich countries of the world and the poor. Thegap between the haves and the have-nots is stillthere and in some cases is increasing. Even in themiddle-income countries which had such tremen-dous growth rates in the 1970s the debt crisis isgnawing away at the very fabric of society. Incountries such as Mexico and Peru rates of mal-nutrition actually increased in the 1980s. Theglobal economy is still unfair in its distributionof costs and benefits. The net effect is that asmall proportion of the world’s population suf-fers from ‘affluenza’—problems associated withtoo much wealth, too many choices and too lit-tle meaning in their lives—while a significantproportion has difficulties in sustaining the ba-sic essentials of a decent life for themselves andtheir families. As we reach the end of the secondmillennium there are still too many hungry peo-ple in the world.

Second, in the rich core, there is increasingeconomic competition between former politicalallies. The conflict between Japan, the USA andEurope was masked in the early to mid 1980sbecause of economic growth, but as the world

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economy hit recession in the early 1990s it be-came obvious that erstwhile allies were fightingan intense war of economic competition. The de-cline of the Soviet Union means that there is nolonger a political ‘other’ to provide the cement tobind these countries together. Conflict betweenthem will take the form of attempts at protectingtheir domestic markets, fighting for overseas mar-kets, and emerging conflict concerning the cost ofinternational policing. The USA has borne theburden of military expenditure amongst Westernpowers, but with its own economic difficultiesand the decline of the Soviet Empire, politiciansand the electorate in the USA may well ask whythe defence burden should be so unfairly distrib-uted, especially given the economic strength ofcountries such as Japan and Germany.

We can summarize the picture thus: from 1945until the mid 1970s the Western World was domi-nated by the USA, which was the strongest economyand the biggest military power. There was a largemeasure of congruence in the foreign policy ofthe allies. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s theUSA remained the leading military power but itseconomic strength was weakened by an emergingEurope and a dynamic Japan. The 1990s will seethe creation of competing trading blocs: an inte-grated Europe with Germany as the leading eco-nomic power, Japan with a worldwide presencebut with a very strong presence in Asia and thewhole Pacific Rim, and an American bloc consist-ing of both Latin and North America with theUSA as the dominant power. These three blocswill seek to protect their domestic industries andensure export markets. The stage is set for an eraof intense international economic competition.

Global concerns in the new world order

The term, ‘new world order’ has an air of opti-mism, a sense of new opportunity. Perhaps thatis why it has such vogue for a while; it gave thepossibility of hope. In chapter 8 we consideredthe concept of the global village. For the globalvillagers of the 1990s there are a number of causesof concern as well as sources of optimism. Letme mention two of the most important.

The fundamental importance ofenvironmental issues

Environmental issues have always been discussed.More recently, there was the strengthening ofthe environmental movement in the late 1960sand early 1970s. The world recession of 1974,however, shifted attention away from the envi-ronment and onto issues of economic growth.The 1980s witnessed a revival of significant in-terest in environmental issues, which, I think,will be of lasting importance. The concern withthe environment is no longer the preserve of mid-dle-class intellectuals in the affluent suburbs ofthe rich world, it goes wider and deeper. It linkspeople across the world. There is now an aware-ness that what happens in one part of the globe,be it burning of rainforests, an explosion at anuclear power plant or the emission of car ex-haust fumes, has a direct impact on all the otherparts. There is a web of ecological processes thatmakes us dependent on the natural resources ofthe world and on the actions of fellow globalvillagers. There is now a whole series of issues—protecting the rainforest, maintaining ecologicaldiversity and ensuring the continued ‘livability’of the planet—which transcends national bounda-ries and the concerns of just the rich world. Thereis an acceptance of the tremendous importanceof the ecological link between the human andthe natural world; this realization will informworld debates and national politics for manyyears to come.

War and peace

Questions of war and peace have not disappearedwith the decline of superpower rivalry. In someways, to be sure, the world is a safer place nowthan it was when the USA and USSR had hugenuclear arsenals and their policies seemed to bepredicated on the bizarre and crazy assumptionthat nuclear holocaust was an acceptable pieceof military strategy. Thankfully, that scenariohas disappeared. However, nuclear proliferationis increasing and now almost a dozen countrieshave the capacity to produce nuclear weapons,

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and not all of them are bastions of freedom anddemocracy. The bipolar world had a kind of madstability while the new world order has a dan-gerous degree of instability and anarchy. Thepeace movement of the 1980s was influential inshifting world opinion away from a posture ofattack toward a more conciliatory approach. Thepeace activists of the 1990s have a more difficultjob: to persuade public opinion that the world isstill a dangerous place, in some cases moredangeous, and that as long as states continue topursue policy objectives through military means,war, destruction and death will threaten the globe.

The state

The state is the point of connection between theworld order and the lives of ordinary people.The state links the global economy with the house-hold economy, space and place, the global andthe local, the generality of world order with theparticularity of individual households living inspecific places. In chapter 4 we considered theconcept of legitimation crisis. This was definedas the inability of the state to secure popularapproval. Legitimation crises arise for a numberof reasons. We can identify two major ones inthe contemporary world.

Boundaries of state and nation

In many parts of the world there is still a mis-match between the boundaries of the state andthose of the nation. The Soviet Empire has frac-tured along national lines and the post-war statesof Eastern Europe are subject to centrifugal forcesas old nationalities emerge. As a result, a fewcountries, the prime example being Germany,have seen increasing congruence between nationand state, while in most others the birth of newnations has proved a highly explosive issue asold nations emerge from newer and different stateboundaries. Nationalism continues to exercisethe popular imagination and provides an impor-tant vehicle for the mobilization of popular pro-test. The continual drive to national expression

provides a source of major political change inthe world. As long as state boundaries fail toexpress national identities there will be a sourceof dispute between parts of the population andthe operation of the state.

Throughout most of the twentieth century itwas assumed by many that nationalism was anold-fashioned concept with little place in themodern world. Indeed, there were whole ideolo-gies and political movements, socialism beingthe most important and persuasive, that wereostensibly based on the end of nationalism andthe demise of the parochial and limited interestsof the contemporary state. However, national-ism has proved to be more resilient. More thanthat, it seems to be growing. In Eastern Europe,for example, it is re-emerging from the confinesof state socialism which preached the messageof universal brotherhood, even if it did not prac-tice it.

The renewal of the nationalist enterprise ispart of the broader move, the shift from mod-ernism to postmodernism. Modernism was con-cerned with space, with universals, with the for-ward march of history. Postmodernism is con-cerned with place, with local knowledge andparticular identities. Modernism looked forwardto a more uniform world, postmodernism revelsin the variety of the world. A postmodern worldis one where identity is based on a hierarchy oflevels, not just the global as with the modernistconception, but global and national and localand community.

State irrelevance

The state in the modern world is caught in thepincers of irrelevancy. There seem to be two trends.The first is the move toward larger groupings ofstates. There is a variety of alliances, includingthe economic groupings which we have alreadyreferred to, such as the EC, and there is the UnitedNations which provides a forum for all the statesin the world. This trend is associated with theincreasing perception that the major problemsand issues which face us are global problems

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and world issues. Environmental degradation,the fear of war, the obscenity of starving chil-dren, these are all things that can only be re-solved through international action and co-op-eration. The state, on its own, cannot adequatelyaddress, never mind solve, these problems.

The second trend is a concern with the local,an awareness of the importance of place, an iden-tity with community. National space is often toolarge to reflect national identity or the signifi-cance and meaning of community.

The outcome is that the state, at its most awk-ward, is too small to address global issues yet toobig to respond to local concerns. The state is tooparochial to meet the needs of a global communityyet too big and distant to meet the requirements ofa local community. The state will continue to ex-ist—where else can politicians go and what elsecan they do—but as a source of emancipatory changethe state is becoming more and more irrelevant.

Social movements

In Part III we looked at the active role of thepopulation in social and political changes. Thisbottom-up view was a necessary corrective tothe predominant top-down perspective of politi-cal geography. A variety of movements were con-sidered. Here, we will mention briefly the majorsocial movements of the 1990s and beyond:

The politics of environmental concern

The politics of environmental concern will be-come a dominant movement at global, nationaland local levels. Green politics will be allied to arange of other concerns, including the women’smovement, the pacifist movement and the rightsof indigenous peoples. A whole set of concernswill cluster around and find coherence in thenotion of environmentalism. The questioning ofeconomic growth as a national priority, qualityof life issues and the concern with enabling eve-ryone to lead a dignified, sustainable life will allbe addressed in and through the environmentalquestion.

Global fairness

The concern with global fairness will be an impor-tant agenda for the 1990s. The disparities in thequality of life of different peoples will continue tohaunt the imagination of the wealthy and the con-cerned. We can picture a continued attempt, be itin fund raising, education or some form of publicservice, to redress the global imbalance in life chances.Not everyone will care and even those who do willnot all take action, but there will be a significantnumber who are both concerned and active. Glo-bal justice will provide one of the few beacons toguide the concerned, the guilt-ridden and the ac-tivist of the 1990s.

Citizens and the city

At the local level, citizens will concern them-selves with the universal issues of getting goodjobs, decent housing and the proper range ofpublic services to ensure a good life. The defini-tion of a ‘good life’ has changed and continuesto vary around the world. We can see the changemost obviously in the cities of the rich core wherecitizens no longer want just any job. People areas concerned with the quality of employment asthe quantity of employment. In the 1990s, asbefore, those who are struggling will perhapstake any available job, but more and more peo-ple are concerned with finding employment thatnot only pays well but is socially useful, ecologi-cally respectful and allows them to enjoy thenon-working hours. As economic growth andincome maximization have to compete as socialand personal goals with ecological responsibil-ity and maximization of the quality of life, thenature of citizen activity will change. People willbecome even more concerned with the quality ofpublic services and after the private greed of the1980s public responsibility will become an im-portant social objective. The fundamental ques-tion is, can the rhetoric be turned into reality?That will be the battle for the citizen activists ofthe future.

In the poorer cities of the world most citi-zens do not yet have the luxury of choice. For

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many, the basic necessities are still the maingoal in life. But we would do well to look atthe struggles and successes of Third World citi-zens with more than just patronizing interest.For too long the aim has been to export tech-niques and technology from the rich world tothe poor world. The results have been ludi-crous: motorways built for cities where mostpeople are too poor to afford private cars; ordownright dangerous, as in encouraging mothersto feed their children inferior powdered milkrather than the more nutritious breast milk. Amore radical solution, and one which ties inwith earlier comments about a simpler, moreecologically sound future, is to look at the self-help strategies and low-tech solutions used bythe citizens of many Third World cities and tosee them as prototypes for more universal ap-plication. This is not to preach a low-grade

urban environment but to suggest that we canlearn something from the success stories of peo-ple in poorer cities who have realized that ul-timately the most important resource of anycity is its citizens.

The world is in flux. Old empires are falling,new states are emerging. There is a sense of pro-found change. The past no longer provides uswith a secure guide to the future and even thepresent is difficult to comprehend. At times likethese we should consider our knowledge provi-sional, limited and based on events which mayno longer have relevance. The lessons of the 1980s,for me, were twofold. First, a sense of humilityas even the securest foundations of the worldorder were swept aside and, secondly, that thereis an important role for ordinary people in changingstructures and influencing events. These are pro-found lessons for the 1990s…and beyond.

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Abu Dhabi, in OPEC 27accommodation by states 93Afghanistan, USSR invasion of 43, 50–1Africa: and British empire 12, 15; decolonization of

21–2; and French empire 17; landlocked states119

AIOEC (iron ore cartel) 28Alaska, purchase of 36Algeria, in OPEC 27Allende, S. 49alliances: of superpowers 52; of USA in cold war

40, 46Alsace 95American Civil War (1861–65) 36Anderson, B. 145Angola: decolonization of 21ANRPC (Rubber cartel) 28Argentina, debt crisis 29Australia: malapportionment in representation 123–

4; repression in 93

Babylon, city as 116Bachrach, P. 78balance of forces model of state 77, 79Band Aid 147Bangladesh: comparative statistics 6–8, 30; income

distribution 7; as low income country 32Baran, P. 23–4, 79Baratz, M.S. 78Belgium, in EEC 64Benelux Agreement (1944, 1948) 63Bentham, J. 12Biafra 22, 92Bismark, Count O. von 13–14BLF (building union, New South Wales) 162–5Board of Commissioners in local government 107Bolshevik revolution (USSR) 43–5, 141–3Bonaparte, N. 71Botswana: decolonization of 22boundaries of states 119–21; trends in 169Bowman, I. 1, 19, 53Brandt Commission 33

Brazil: comparative statistics 30; and debt crisis 29;income distribution 7; as middle income country29

Brehny, M.J. 128Brest-Litovsk, Treaty of (1918) 44Bretton Woods Conference (1944) 38Brezhnev Doctrine 49, 59–60, 72Britain: and Africa 12, 15; colonial expansion 9–10;

imperialism of 10–13, 15; and India 17, 19; localstate in 101–5; as multi-ethnic state 92. see alsoUnited Kingdom

British Empire 75–6Brittany, as minority area 95Brunei: economic size of 118Bulgaria 58

capital: accumulation 15; flows of in imperialism15; investment 11–12

capitalism: and Lenin 15–16; periphery of 80–1;and the state 77–80

Carter, J. 43, 135Carter Doctrine 43Catalan language 93Catalonia, as minority area 95Ceausescu, N. 58Central America: economic imperialism 25Central Asia Treaty Organization (CENTO) 40Central Berkshire case study 155–7centrifugal forces and nationalism 96centripetal forces and nationalism 96Chernobyl incident 146Chile 49; and economic imperialism 25China: and cold war 48; geopolitical status 72; and

Tiananmen Square protest 138; and USA 60; asworld power 58–60

Church, R.A. 157Churchill, W.S. 35, 38CIPEC (Copper cartel) 28citizens 149–50; and city 149–66; participation of

152–4; trends 170–1. see also people

INDEX

INDEX

173

city: and citizens 149–66; and construction workers160–5; inner, conflict in (case study) 157–61;major cleavages in social movements 152–4;pressure groups in 150–4; and the state 116–17;trends in 170–1; as use value 152

civil rights movement (USA) 136–7, 138class: and development pressure in Central Berk-

shire 155–7; and geography of voting 123; andinner city conflict in London 159–60

Class War (protest movement) 159–60Cloward, R. 88coal 11Cobban, A. 2Coffee Mondial (Coffee cartel) 28Colbert, J.B. 9cold war 35; and detente 50; phase one (1947–64)

45–8; phase two (1964–85) 48–51; second 51–3collective action, as protest 137colonial expansion 9colonialism: and imperialism 14–15. see also

decolonizationComintern (Communist International) 44commodity cartels 26–8competition, trends in 167–8construction workers in Sydney (case study) 160–5consumers, and resources of state 117COPAL (Cocoa cartel) 28core-periphery model of economic growth 7–29;

contemporary 19–29; historical background 8–19; and industrial capitalism 10–13

core-periphery model of political power 72–3;economic relations, changing 88–1; incorpora-tion of the state 80; and peripheral economies81–2

Corsica, as minority area 95cotton trade 10–11Council for Mutual Economic Assistance

(Comecon) 45council-manager form of local government 108Council of Europe 63countryside and the state 116–17crises of the state 83–9; economic 84; fiscal 84;

legitimation 84; motivation 88–9; rationality 88Croydon 104cruise missiles 146Cuba 72; revolution in 46Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) 47, 50cultural identity in neighbourhoods 152Czechoslovakia: fall of Communist party 58–9;

uprising in (1968) 49–50, 72

Dahl, R.A. 78, 151de Gaulle, C. 66Dearlove, J. 103decolonization 19–23; and mandates of League of

Nations 20

democratic-pluralist model of state 77–8Denmark: in EEC 64Deutscher, I. 82developed countries 30developing countries 30Dickens, P. 29Disraeli, B. 12Docklands, Isle of Dogs 157–60Dominican Republic 42

Eastern Europe: in cold war period 39; and core-periphery model of political power 72–3; eventsin 1989 58; protest in 143; transitional societiesof 32

ecological issues, in global village 147–8economic crises of the state 84economic differences and congruence of state with

nation 94economic growth: benefits of 31; core-periphery

model 7–29; rates, selected countries 61; Rostowmodel 6–7

economic imperialism 23–9economic size of state 118–19Ecuador, in OPEC 27Egypt: creation of Israel 121Eire, in EEC 64Eisenhower, D.D. 50El Salvador 72elections, geography of 121–6; electoral systems

124–6; and voting 121–4electoral systems 124–6; plural system 125, 128;

proportional representation 126, 128; singletransferable vote 125–6, 128

elitist pressure groups 150–1empire: ideologies of superpowers 73;overstretch of

superpowers 73–4England: local state in 102Enterprise Zones 158environment: and global village 147–8; in new

world order 168; people and 115–17; andresident groups and development pressure inCentral Berkshire 155–7; and resources of state117; and social movements 170; state and 117–21

Ethiopia, as low income country 32Europe: minority areas in 95;overseas expansion of

8–9; in 2000 65European Atomic Energy Commission (Euratom)

66European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) 64–6European Community 66–7, 76European Economic Community 64–7Euskadi, as minority area 95expansionism of USA 35–8exports, and economic imperialism 24

INDEX

174

FalklandsWar (1982) 75federalism 93Fieldhouse, D.K. 14finance capital 16fiscal crises of the state 84Flanders, as minority area 95foreign aid 26foreign debt 28–9, 31France: and Africa 17;colonial expansion 10; and

decolonization period 21; economic growth rate61; in EEC 64–5;as multi-ethnic state 92;revolution in 138–43

Frank, A.G. 23free rider problem 111–12free trade 12, 75, 77Friedland, R. 112

Gabon, in OPEC 27Gaelic language 93Galicia, as minority area 95Gandhi, M.K. 20Gellner, E. 91, 94Geneva Convention (1954) 41geo-politics 18–19George, S. 29German Historical School 13, 96Germany: economic growth rate 61;in EEC 64–5;

imperialism of 13–14, 17–19gerrymandering 124–5getters, resident groups in Central Berkshire 155–7Ghana: decolonization of 21Gini index in measurement of malapportionment

126–7Girvan, N. 25Gladstone, W.E. 12glasnost 53, 82global economy, trends in 167–8global village 145–8;ecological issues 147–8;

poverty and plenty 147;war and peace 146–7globalism, rise to of USA 38–43, 46Glyn, A. 84Gollwitzer, H. 14, 17–18Gorbachev, M. 53government, and property cycles in Sydney (Aus-

tralia) 162government spending 126–30;aiding supporters

129; United States 108;vote buying 129–30Greece, as middle income country 29Green Bans and property development in Sydney

(Australia) 163–5Greenham Common 146Grenada, invasion of (1983) 42, 72Guam 37Guatemala: and economic imperialism 25; and

Monroe Doctrine 42Guinea-Bissau: decolonization of 21

Habermas, J. 89Haggett, P. 1Haiti, as low income country 32Halliday, F. 50Harris, A. 159Hausofer, K. 19Hawaiian Islands, acquisition of 36Hayes, E. 151Hehler, H.U. 17Hilferding, R. 5, 16Hiroshima atomic bomb 146Ho Chi Minh 41Hobsbawm, E.J. 10Hobson, J.A. 14–16Holland: colonial expansion 9; and decolonization

period 21Honduras: and economic imperialism 25; and

Monroe Doctrine 42households and development pressure in Central

Berkshire 155–7housing, in Docklands 159Hungary 58;uprising (1956) 46Hunter, F. 151

IBA (Bauxite cartel) 28imperfect-pluralist model of state 77–8imperialism: age of 13–19;and colonialism 14–15;

and industrial capitalism 10–13;and Lenin 15–16income distribution 6incorporation of the state 80India: and British Empire 17, 19;colonial expansion

to 10;and economic imperialism 23Indo-China: decolonization of 21Indonesia: decolonization of 21;as low income

country 32;in OPEC 27industrial capitalism, and imperialism 10–13instrumental model of state 77, 79Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (1987) 53International Monetary Fund (IMF) 26, 38investment, and imperialism 11–12, 16–17Iran: in OPEC 27;US hostages in 51Iraq, in OPEC 27iron and steel, and industrial capitalism 11Iron Curtain 38, 146Israel 92;creation of 120–1;and Palestinian protest

134Italy, in EEC 64ITC (Tin cartel) 28

Japan: competition with USA, trends in 167–8;economic growth rate 61;and economic imperial-ism 23;fear of 63;geopolitical status 72;as worldpower 60–2

Jerusalem, city as 116Johnson, L.B. 135

INDEX

175

Johnson Doctrine 43Johnston, R.J. 102, 123, 127, 129Jordan, and creation of Israel 121, 134Jura, as minority area 95

Kahn, H. 61Kane, F. 160Karmal, Babrak 51Kennedy, J.F. 42Kennedy, P. 73–4Kenya: decolonization of 21Khrushchev, N. 45Kiernan, V.G. 17King, M.L. 138Koestler, A. 146Kolodny, A. 117Korean War 40Kurds 91Kuwait, in OPEC 27

labour, division of and economic imperialism 24LaFeber, W. 26landlocked states 119language: and congruence of state with nation 94;

and growth of British Empire 76Lashmar, P. 159Latin America: and economic imperialism 23; and

foreign aid 26; and industrial capitalism 12–13League of Nations: mandates 20; and Middle East

120–1legitimation crises of the state 84Lenin, V.I. 15–16, 82Libya, in OPEC 27Lichteim, G. 96Livingston, K. 103local government: decision-making in 104; in

England 103; jurisdiction, areas of 111–13;municipal government 106–8; and pressuregroups 110–11; relations with central govern-ment 108–10

local state 101–13;in Britain 101–5;counties (USA)105;municipalities (USA) 105–6;in operation103–5;special districts (USA) 105;townships(USA) 105;in USA 105–13

location of state, absolute and relative 119–21London: inner city conflict in (case study) 157–60London Docklands Development Corporation

(LDDC) 158–9Lorenz curves in measurement of malapportionment

126–7Luce, H. 58Lukes, S. 151Luxembourg: in EEC 64

Mackinder, H. 1, 18–19Magdoff, H. 38

Mailer, N. 54major powers 74–6malapportionment 123–4, 127;measurement of

126–7Mandel, E. 24Mandela N. 148Mao Zedong 59Marcos, F. 84, 135markets, and resources of state 117Marshall Plan 39, 45Marxist model of state 77–9mayor-council forms of local government 106–7McAuley, M. 82McLuhan, M. 145mercantilists & mercantilism 9metropolitan fragmentation (USA) 112–13Mexico: and debt crisis 28–9;as middle income

country 29Middle East: and core-periphery model of political

power 72–3;division after World War I 120–1;1930 19–20;US intervention in 42

Miliband, R. 79Mill, J.S. 12minor powers 76–7minority areas in Europe 95Modelski, G. 73–4, 76Monroe Doctrine 36, 42, 46, 72Montgomery (Alabama) bus boycott 136Mossadegh, Mohammed 42motivation crises of the state 88–9Mozambique: decolonization of 21; as low income

country 32multinationals 31;and economic imperialism 24–5Munck, R. 81Mundey, J. 163–5municipalities: government of 106–8; mayor-council

forms 106–7;in USA 105–6Munn, T. 9

Nairn, T. 96Namibia, decolonization of 21–2nation-state 91–114;boundaries of 169; congruence

with state 93–4;more than one nation 92–3;nations without states 91–2;as spatial anachro-nism 100; and uneven development 94–8. seealso state

National Association for the Advancement ofColoured People (NAACP) 136

national environmental ideology 115–17national identity: and territory 116–17nationalism: and minority areas in Europe 95; and

uneven development 94–8neighbourhoods: citizens in 149–50; and cultural

identity 152;and geography of voting 122–3neo-elitist pressure groups 151Netherlands: in EEC 64. see also Holland

INDEX

176

New International Economic Order 32–3new world order: environmental concerns 168;glo-

bal concerns 168–9;trends in 167–71;war andpeace in 168–9.see also world order

Newton, K. 104Ngo Dinh Diem 41Nicaragua 72;and Monroe Doctrine 42Nigeria: decolonization of 22;as multi-ethnic state

92; in OPEC 27Nixon, R. 41, 48, 135Nixon Doctrine 43North America: colonial expansion to 10North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 40,

45, 63, 76Nove, A. 82

Occitania, as minority area 95O’Connor, J. 109Open Door policies (USA) 37–8Organization for Economic Co-operation and

Development (OECD) 63Organization for European Economic Co-operation

(OEEC) 63Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

(OPEC) 27, 29O’Rourke, P.J. 135overseas expansion 8; and imperialism 17Owens, J. 163

Palestine, and creation of Israel 120–1Palestinians 91–2; intifada of 134Panama, invasion of (1989) 42people: and environment 115–17;and power of state

134–43;and protest 134–43;and the state 121–30, 133–44. see also citizens

perestroika 53Philippines: acquisition of by USA 37; as middle

income country 29;and overthrow of Marcos135

physical size of state 118Piven, F.F. 88plantations 8Platt, D.C.M. 12plural electoral system 125, 128pluralist pressure groups 151Poland 58, 72political communion in pressure groups 150political exclusion of groups 150political partnerships in pressure groups 150population size of state 118pork-barrel politics 129Portugal: and decolonization period 21;in EEC 64;

overseas expansion 8–9Pounds, N.J.G. 91poverty and plenty, in global village 147

Powell, E. 57pressure groups 150–4;power of 151;typology of

150pressure groups and local government 110–11Pringle, B. 163property cycles in Sydney (Australia) 162–5;boom

in 162;and Green Bans 163–5;slump 164–5proportional representation electoral system 126,

128protest 134–43;consequences of 138–43;context of

134–7;making of 137–8Provençal language 93Puerto Rico 37

Qatar, in OPEC 27

racial segregation, and protest 135–6rationality crises of the state 88Reagan, R. 51, 135religion, and congruence of state with nation 94representation, geography of 122–4; and constitu-

ency size 124;and gerrymandering 124–5; andmalapportionment 123–4, 127

repression by states 93residents 149–50; groups, and development pressure

in Central Berkshire 155–7resource endowment of state 117response to crises model of state 79–80revolution: in Cuba 46;in France 138–43;in Russia

43–5, 141–3Rhodes, C. 17Robinson, R. 17Robson, B.T. 155Rokkan, S. 99Romania 58Rome, Treaty of 65Rostow, W.W. 7Rostow model of economic growth 6–7Rude, G. 9, 143Russia: geopolitical status 72. see also Soviet Union

Sardinia: as minority area 95Satyajit Ray 11Saudi Arabia: comparative statistics 30;in OPEC 27Saunders, P. 104, 109–10, 150–2Schuman Plan 64Scotland: as minority area 95; repression in 93Sheff, D. 54Shoard, M. 116Sicily, as minority area 95single transferable vote electoral system 125–6, 128Six Day War (1967) 120–1, 134slavery 8–10social capital of the state 85social expenditures of the state 85–8

INDEX

177

social movements 141; citizens in 149–50; majorcleavages in 152–4;trends in 170

socialism: in hostile world 82–3;ideology of 83; andthe state 81–3

Somoza, A. 84South Africa: black homelands in 92South East Asia, and core-periphery model of

political power 72–3South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) 40South Korea, as middle income country 31South Tyrol, as minority area 95Soviet Union: Afghanistan, invasion of 43, 50–1;

and Bolshevik revolution 43–5, 141–3; cold war(1947–64) 45–8;cold war (1964–85) 48–51;decline as superpower 54–5; and decolonizationperiod 20–1;fall of empire 57–8;and foreign aid26; foreign policy of 48–9;relations with USA46–7, 50–1;republics of (1990) 97;as super-power 43–51, 72–3. see also Russia

space: countryside as 116–17;and the state 115–30;wilderness as 115–16

Spain: in EEC 64;overseas expansion 8–9Spanish-American War (1898) 37stability of states 133–4Stalin, J. 44–5, 82–3state: accommodation by 93; in advanced capitalist

countries 77–80;boundaries of 119–21; atcapitalist periphery 80–1;congruence with nation93–4; and crises 83–9;and elections 121–6;andenvironment 117–21;expenditures 85–8;federal100–1; federalism in 93;functions of 71; indirectrepression by 93;irrelevance of 169–70;land-locked 119; location of 119–21;with more thanone nation 92–3;and nations 91–114;new,creation of 120–1; and people 121–30, 133–44;power of and people 134–43;repression by93;secret 112–13;size of 118–19;in socialistcounties 81–3;as spatial entity 115–30;spatialorganization of 99–101; and spending 126–30;trends in 169–70;types of 133–4; and unevendevelopment 94–8;unitary 99; and worldeconomic order 77–83; and world political order71–7. see also local state;nation-state

stoppers, resident groups in Central Berkshire155–7

Strong, J. 149Sudan: decolonization of 21superpowers 35–56;alliances 52;ideologies of 73;

imperial overstretch of 73–4;new order in 51–5;Soviet Union 43–51;spheres of influence 72–3;United States 35–43;and world political order71–4

surplus capital 16Sutcliffe, B. 84Sweezy, P.M. 79

Sydney (Australia):property boom 162; propertycycles in 161–5

Syria, and creation of Israel 121, 134 Taiwan, as middle income country 31Tanzania: decolonization of 21Taylor, P.J. 123, 127technology: and global village 145; and resources of

state 117Thompson, E.P. 51–2Tiananmen Square demonstration (1989) 60;as

protest 138Tolstoy, L. 84trade: arrangements in British empire 11; and

overseas expansion 9;and resources of state 117;terms of and economic imperialism 24

Tragalgar Square riot (1990) 153–4Transjordan 120Trotsky, L. 44, 82Truman Doctrine 38, 42–3, 45–6, 49Tugendhat, C. 25Turner, F.J. 36 Ulster: and legitimacy of state 134–5;as minority

area 95underconsumpionist model of state 79unequal exchange concept 24uneven development 7;and nationalism 94–8United Kingdom: boundaries and minority groups

98; command points 113;economic growth rate61; in EEC 64;malapportionment in 124; assuperpower 72. see also Britain

United Nations 76;and creation of Israel 120; anddecolonization period 21

United Nations Conference on Trade and Develop-ment (UNCTAD) 32

United States: alliances in cold war 40, 46;andChina 48;and cold war 45–51;comparativestatistics 6, 30; competition with Japan, trends in167–8; containment of USSR 40–1; anddecolonization period 21;economic growth rate61, 168; expansionism of 35–8;federal system of100; and foreign aid 26;globalism, rise to 38–43,46, 168; government spending 108;incomedistribution 7–8; local state in 104–13;malapportionment in 124–5; metropolitanfragmentation 112–13; relations with USSR 46–7, 50–1;as superpower 35–43, 72–3, 168

UPEC (banana cartel) 28urban riots 153–4Urwin, D.W. 99 Venezuela, in OPEC 27Vietnam: decolonization of 21Vietnam War 40–2, 46, 50

INDEX

178

Vogel, E. 61vote buying 129–30voting, geography of 121–4 Wales, as minority area 95Wallace, G. 122Wallonia, as minority area 95war and peace: in global village 146–7; in new

world order 168–9Warsaw Pact 45Welsh language 93West Indes: colonial expansion to 10Western Europe, as world power 62–7Whitman, W. 36wilderness and the state 115–16Williams, G. 10Williams, W.A. 36

Wilson, W. 19World Bank 26, 29, 38world economy: beginnings of 8–10world order: economic 77–83;and global village

145–8; political 71–7;and superpowers 71–4. seealso new world order

World War I 43–4World War II 44–5 Younghusband, Sir F. 18Yugoslavia: minority groups in 97yuppification of Docklands 159–60 Zambia: and debt crisis 29;decolonization of 22Zhdanov, A. 45Zimbabwe: decolonization of 22

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