UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
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Item DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL LOGIC OF CHINESE AND RUSSIAN HISTORICAL MYTHMAKING OF WWII(2024) Gao, Kainan; Pearson, Margaret; Kastner, Scott; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Both President Xi Jinping and President Vladimir Putin are waging wars on “historical nihilism” to eradicate rival interpretations of important historical events to enhance regime survival and to advance geopolitical ambitions. In contrast to the political significance and the far-reaching policy implications of historical issues in China and Russia, the politics of historical mythmaking is a disproportionately undertheorized and understudied area in political science. My dissertation addresses this gap by unpacking the political logic of Chinese and Russian official historical mythmaking. What the Chinese and Russian states gain from manipulating historical discourse? Under what conditions do the Chinese and Russian states intensify their historical mythmaking? What are the implications of their historical mythmaking, both in domestic politics and in international relations? These are the questions I seek to answer in this dissertation. I argue that perceived Chinese and Russian past righteousness offers powerful normative justifications for the paternalistic states and for the geopolitical ambitions of both nations. Through in-depth case studies using congruence analysis approach, this dissertation shows that Chinese and Russian states are more confident in exploiting the nation-building utilities of historical narratives when their rivals with strong claims over the past righteousness become weakened; meanwhile, Chinese and Russian perception of western deviation from orthodox interpretation of Yalta-Potsdam framework constitutes the essence of Chinese and Russian dissatisfactions towards the West in post-Cold War period; lastly, Chinese and Russian states’ mythmaking of WWII experiences, as a pushback against perceived “historical nihilism”, become intensified when they expect weakening future bargaining leverage. For practical implications, based on the insights from this dissertation I contend that lasting peace is not attainable without achieving historical synthesis among the world’s major great powers. Both Chinese and Russian obsession with historical truth and western ahistoricism are detrimental to a truly just international order.Item BARGAINING WITH THE RISING POWER: An Analytical Model of China's Trade Policy-making(2014) Xu, Susan Shan; Destler, I. M.; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In bilateral trade disputes with China, the US has greater aggregate power and bargaining resources, yet it had uneven success in extracting concessions. The dissertation aims to address this question: Why does American pressure encounter Chinese resistance, different in issue-topics and time period? In order to interpret China's trade policy-making, I build an analytical framework, which integrates three streams of scholarship: (1) Bounded rationality models how China, as a bounded rational player, adjusted behaviors based on its perception in the learning process; (2) The garbage can model studies the Chinese government as organized anarchies and its non-standard operation; and (3) The two-level game theory reveals how China strikes the balance between domestic bargaining and international negotiations. With the assistance of this model, I conduct a detailed case study of the Sino-American negotiations for the 1999 Bilateral Agreement on China's Accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). My research reveals that China tended to yield to American threats when the Chinese reform-minded top leaders finished power transition, when trade was perceived as a solution to China's economic problems, and when the US Congress and executive branch united for credible threats. American pressure confronted strong Chinese resistance when the Chinese protectionists and nationalists had leverage so that the political cost of compliance was high for pro-trade officials, and when the Chinese perceived the divide in American commercial interests and the realignment in American political arena on China issue. Moreover, American pressure encountered less Chinese resistance in issue-topics, behind which were a politically weak industry and a ministry. By contrast, American pressure encountered strong resistance in issue-topics, behind which were a politically strong industry and agency created by long-term policy preference. Upon the case study, I argue that the effectiveness of American threats backed by trade sanctions declined. In bargaining with this rising power, the US should first discern how China perceives its self-interests and build strategic linkage of it to trade liberalization, and then employ the combination of persuasion with appeal to self-interests and tying hands by congressional pressure in bilateral trade negotiations.