How does an authoritarian regime incorporate economic elites during market transitions while retaining political control? This article analyzes the strategies of China's United Front Work Department (UFWD) in politically integrating private business elites amid the shift to a socialist market economy. Based on 56 in-depth interviews and a biographical data set of the top 500 Chinese billionaires, the study shows how the UFWD acts as an adaptive institutional mechanism—deploying recognition, intermediaries, appointments, and training—to embed entrepreneurs into Party-sanctioned roles. The findings reveal a structured co-optation process rooted in utility, loyalty, and representativeness, enabling the CCP to leverage elite resources while minimizing political risk. By illuminating how the Party incorporates powerful actors without relinquishing control, the paper contributes to broader debates on authoritarian resilience, elite co-optation, and institutional adaptation under nondemocratic regimes.
The constitutional provision of “Subnational Emergency” under Article 356 of the Constitution of India, 1950, extraordinarily empowers the central (union) government to acquire executive and legislative powers of the states (subnational units) on the occurrence of an undefined and largely unrestrained state of “constitutional machinery failure” emergency. Since 1950, central governments have imposed 121 subnational emergency invocations covering almost all Indian states at least once. The oft-abused subnational emergency power has generated a black hole of centralization overpowering the gravity of federalism, constitutionalism, and democracy in India. The frequency of subnational emergency invocations reaches its zenith during the regimes of single-party personality-dominated central governments. The article comparatively explores two of the most prominent tenures of single-party personality-dominated central governments under Indira Gandhi (1967–1977, 1980–1984) and Narendra Modi (2014–2024) regarding the grounds, manner, justifications, and state of restraints on subnational emergency power.
Situated in the literature on “Global IR” and how smaller states navigate the great power rivalries, this article examines Southeast Asia's engagement with emerging international orders, particularly within the “Indo-Pacific” framework, and explores how structural constraints interact with agency. Based on qualitative documentary research analyzing selected scholarship from academics based in the region, this paper identifies two key contributions to the Southeast Asian scholarship in Global IR. First, the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP) exemplifies the region's ability to incorporate a normative identity with pragmatic engagement; hereby, highlighting the region's methods for constructing agency through both material and ideational factors. Second, the AOIP acknowledges the region's position within a fluid international system, where weaker states may leverage structural advantages and utilize individual and institutional mechanisms to maneuver regional and global orders.
This paper explores the intricate dynamics of cross-Strait relations between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan, focusing on the interplay of political cooperation, national identity, and economic interdependence in the unification process. Through content analysis and Key Word in Context (KWIC) methodologies, it examines political discourse from Taiwan's presidential speeches (1996–2023), China's White Papers (1993, 2000, and 2022), and Chinese Communist Party National Congress Reports (1997–2022). The findings reveal that although economic interdependence stabilizes cross-Strait relations, it cannot resolve the challenges of conflicting identities and limited political cooperation. Taiwan's growing emphasis on autonomy contrasts with China's sovereignty claims and unification strategies, complicated further by US geopolitical influence. The study concludes that without a shared political and identity framework, economic ties alone cannot achieve unification, challenging integration theories such as neofunctionalism. This highlights identity and cooperation as critical obstacles in cross-Strait relations.
The paper seeks to bridge the gap between environmental policy formulation and actual practices of the Sundarbans region in Bangladesh through a metatheoretical intervention within a decolonial framework. Ontologically, it foregrounds relationality and examines the implication of such ontological position. Epistemologically, the paper advocates standpoint epistemologies. With an effort to decolonize environmental governance, the paper specifically focusses on the epistemic erasures of traditional resource users in the Sundarbans. It engages with the ways in which specific communities engage with the mangrove forest ecosystem. Methodologically, the paper borrows the framework of Hybrid/Plural Climate Studies and Cosmopraxis. Cosmopraxis has the potential of countering epistemic erasures done by modernity and colonization of the lifeworld. Empirically, the paper examines the case of select communities in the Sundarbans, Bangladesh where their reciprocal and relational engagement with the nature goes beyond spirituality and shows an implicit presence of cosmopraxis.
The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly through deep learning, is reshaping national security and governance worldwide. Even resource-constrained states like North Korea are leveraging these technologies to enhance control and project influence. This paper examines North Korea's adoption of AI, highlighting how deep learning has enabled more direct and impactful applications than earlier approaches. While North Korea's AI research dates back to the 1990s, recent developments have empowered the regime to use AI for strategic purposes such as counterfeit identity generation and facial recognition-based surveillance. The paper explores the security risks posed by these applications, the regime's motivations, and the limitations it faces due to restricted access to hardware and data. It also considers potential international responses to mitigate these threats. By focusing on North Korea, this analysis contributes to broader discussions on the role of AI in authoritarian resilience and the shifting landscape of global security.
Since the implementation of the “Made in China 2025” and “Internet Plus” initiative, China's central government has focused on transforming the economy into one driven by innovation. However, amid ongoing geopolitical tensions—particularly the US trade war—countries now must accelerate their efforts to diversify its international partnerships, reduce dependency on the American market, and build resilient cooperation frameworks. This paper discusses the importance of China's foreign affairs approach to diminish the reliance on trade and infrastructure building and increase cooperation on science and technology particularly in the MERCOSUR context. Finally, this paper aims to propose enhanced cooperation between China and MERCOSUR members through a bilateral agreement that focuses on the Digital Economy through the exploration of joint efforts for trade investments and strategy exchange framework in technology and sciences-related topics in selected industries.
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