Capsule Reviews

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Capsule Review,
Nov/Dec
2009
Pierre Englebert
Reviewed by Nicolas van de Walle

Africa is home to several states that have either collapsed entirely or become so weak that they are unable to undertake most of the tasks associated with statehood. And yet, rather strikingly, these states endure. This resilience is the puzzle that Englebert tackles with great theoretical verve and erudition. His key insight is that controlling the central state is valuable -- and literally, too -- to political actors, because they can parlay it into the right to regulate and tax.

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Capsule Review,
Nov/Dec
2009
Edited by Robert I. Rotberg
Reviewed by Nicolas van de Walle

China's evolving relationship with Africa has generated a great deal of hyperbole. This collection of essays separates the facts from the myths. Several chapters remind the reader that China is nowhere close to supplanting Africa's traditional diplomatic, aid, and trading partners in the West, despite its rapidly growing interests in the region. A sober chapter by Deborah Brautigam, for instance, calculates that total Chinese aid to the region in 2006 was only around half a billion dollars, compared to $30 billion from members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

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Capsule Review,
Nov/Dec
2009
Edited by Jennifer G. Cooke and J. Stephen Morrison
Reviewed by Nicolas van de Walle

The ten contributions in this collection assess different dimensions of George W. Bush's Africa policy and offer advice to Barack Obama. The contributors give a useful glimpse into discussions about current U.S. foreign policy toward Africa; even though they are Washington insiders, their approach is not particularly partisan. They all agree that the increased attention that Washington has been paying to Africa in the last eight years has netted several significant breakthroughs. Foreign aid has shot up substantially, for instance, and AIDS programs are generally viewed as having worked.

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Capsule Review,
Nov/Dec
2009
Reviewed by Nicolas van de Walle

The end of Thabo Mbeki's presidency and the settling in of Jacob Zuma provide an opportunity to assess the 15 years since the fall of apartheid. Russell's and Feinstein's assessments are both excellent and disquieting. A former South Africa correspondent for the Financial Times, Russell offers balanced portraits of the three postapartheid presidents, the policy successes and failures of the successive governments, and the emergence of a black elite.

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Capsule Review,
Nov/Dec
2009
Edited by Donald K. Emmerson
Reviewed by Andrew J. Nathan

Founded in 1967 as a talking shop to reduce conflict, ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) is now the strongest regional institution in Asia. Its mandate has expanded slowly, due to the diversity of interests among its ten members -- countries as different as democratic Indonesia, authoritarian Vietnam, cosmopolitan Singapore, and isolated Myanmar. Under pressure from civil-society groups, some member governments, and its own secretariat, the organization recently adopted a new charter, which came into force in December 2008.

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Capsule Review,
Nov/Dec
2009
Guobin Yang
Reviewed by Andrew J. Nathan

Despite formidable state control, Chinese netizens have used humor, music, videos, games, and nimble wordplay to create new forms of expression and association that are intrinsically democratic. Human rights activists can connect across borders, and communities that are formed online can become actors in the real world, especially when they concern themselves with areas in which the government has been more tolerant of citizen activism, such as public health and the environment.

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Capsule Review,
Nov/Dec
2009
Toake Endoh
Reviewed by Andrew J. Nathan

The career of the Peruvian strongman Alberto Fujimori reminded the world that Latin America, especially Brazil and Peru, is home to a sizable Japanese diaspora. It is lesser known that the influx of Japanese to the region, which took place both before and after World War II, was in large part organized and financed by the Japanese state. Its triple purpose was to get rid of undesirables, build a base outside the Japanese islands to secure commodities and food for the homeland, and create a channel for political influence abroad.

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Capsule Review,
Nov/Dec
2009
Klaus Mühlhahn
Reviewed by Andrew J. Nathan

Since the late nineteenth century, the Chinese state has modernized and remodernized its laws, courts, prisons, and penal camps. But certain criminal justice practices survived each wave of reform, including retroactive laws, punishments that differ depending on the societal status of the offender, the criminalization of political opposition, and the sentencing of convicts to hard labor. The labor-camp (or laogai) system became a signature institution of Mao's China and remains important, even though its population has been reduced.

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Capsule Review,
Nov/Dec
2009
Kent E. Calder
Reviewed by Andrew J. Nathan

Calder makes a good case that the U.S.-Japanese alliance is in trouble. Due to changing conditions -- among them, the end of the Cold War, the rise of China, and intensified competition for Middle Eastern oil -- the alliance is out of balance. Although the defense-cooperation component remains robust, the trade relationship has become less important to both sides, and their political and cultural ties have fallen into disrepair.

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Capsule Review,
Nov/Dec
2009
Rebiya Kadeer with Alexandra Cavelius
Reviewed by Andrew J. Nathan

Beijing has developed the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region economically and provides some space for the practice of Islam. But the oppression, corruption, and discrimination associated with government officials and Han immigrants there -- along with the emergence of independent states in Central Asia -- have strengthened the Uighurs' sense of a separate identity. Kadeer was thrust into the spotlight when the Chinese government implausibly accused her of instigating the July 2009 riots in Xinjiang. Her moving autobiography helps explain why many Uighurs resent Chinese rule.

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