Publication record · 2018. 7. 19. · 86-105, special issue 47 „Autokratien im Vergleich“ („Autocracies in Comparison“), Eds. Steffen Kailitz/Patrick Köllner, together with

Wolfgang Muno 1/2016

Publication record

Books:

„Politikwandel und Politikinnovation in Lateinamerika“, Editor with Thomas Kestler, 2016, in preparation.

„Europa spielerisch lernen. EU-Simulationen: Didaktische Überlegungen und Praxisbeispiele“, Editor with Petra Guasti and Arne Niemann, 2016, in preparation.

Rechtsstaatlichkeit und informelle Institutionen in Lateinamerika und Osteuropa (Rule of Law and informal Institutions in Latin America and Eastern Europe), with Hans-Joachim Lauth, Petra Guasti and Peter Thiery, 2016, in preparation

Symposium on EU Simulations: Scholarly Reflection and Research on an Innovative Teaching Methodology, in: European Political Science, European Political Science 14, 205-278 (September 2015), Symposium/Special Issue, Editor with Arne Niemann and Petra Guasti

Chinas Expansion in Entwicklungs- und Schwellenländern (China’s Expansion in Developing Countries and Emerging Markets), Mainz 2013, Editor with Günter Meyer and Alexander Brand

Staatlichkeit in der Dritten Welt (Stateness in the Third World– Fragile and Failed States as a Development Problem), Mainz 2012, Editor with Günter Meyer and Alexander Brand

Demokratie und soziale Entwicklung in Lateinamerika (Democracy and Social Development in Latin America), Baden-Baden, Nomos 2012, Editor with Hans-Joachim Lauth and Thomas Kestler

„Gracias, Dios, por el fútbol“. Diskurse rund um den Fußball in Lateinamerika, Veröffentlichungen des Interdisziplinären Arbeitskreises Lateinamerika, Band 3, Mainz 2007 (Discourses about Football an Latin America), Editor with Roland Spiller

Venezuela unter Chávez – Aufbruch oder Niedergang (Venezuela under Chávez – New Start or Decay), Frankfurt/M., Vervuert 2005, Editor with Oliver Diehl

Reformpolitik in jungen Demokratien. Vetospieler, Politikblockaden und Reformkoalitionen in Argentinien, Uruguay und Thailand, Wiesbaden 2005 (The Politics of Reform in Young Democracies: Argentina, Uruguay and Thailand in Comparison, PhD-Thesis)

Demokratie und Entwicklung. Mainz (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Institut für Politikwissenschaft, Abteilung Politische Auslandsstudien und Entwicklungspolitik, Dokumente und Materialien Nr. 29) April 2001 (Democracy and Development)

Die politische Dynamik ökonomischer Reformen. Mainz (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Institut für Politikwissenschaft, Abteilung Politische Auslandsstudien und Entwicklungspolitik, Dokumente und Materialien Nr.23) Juli 1997 (Political Dynamics of Economic Reform)

Articles in Journals

Teaching and with EU simulations – An Assessment of Model European Union Mainz, Journal of Contemporary European Research Volume 11, Issue 4 (2015): 370-387, with Lukas Prinz, peer reviewed.

An ‘Authoritarian Nexus’ ?, China’s Alleged Special Relationship with Autocratic States in Latin America, European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 99, October 2015: 7-28, with Alexander Brand and Susan McEwen-Fial, peer reviewed.

Introduction – EU Simulations as a Multi-Dimensional Resource: From Teaching and Learning Tool to Research Instrument, in: European Political Science, 14, 205-217 (September 2015), with Arne Niemann and Petra Guasti, peer reviewed.

Farewell to Leadership? Ideas of Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony in the Americas, International Area Studies Review 17, 4 (December 2014): 375-393, with Alexander Brand, peer reviewed.

Buen vivir dank Neo-Extraktivismus? Das Ausbleiben der Klima- und Energiewende im Ölstaat Venezuela (Buen vivir thanks to neo-extractivism? The lack of climate policy and energy change in Venezuela), PERIPHERIE 34, 136, November 2014: 445-469, with Alexander Brand, peer reviewed.

Clientelist Corruption-networks, Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft/Comparative Governance and Politics, Vol. 7 issue 1, December 2013: 33-56, supplement „Corruption“, Eds. Tobias Debiel/Andrea Gawrich, peer reviewed

Politikdidaktik und Simulationen: Die EU-Simulation Model European Union Mainz (Political didactics and simulations: the EU simulation Model European Union Mainz), Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft/Journal of Political Science 1/2013: 159-171, with Maresa Messner and Natalie Hahner.

Rechtsstaatlichkeit, Good Governance und Entwicklung (Rule of Law, Good Governance and Development), Verfassung und Recht in Übersee (Law and Politics in Africa, Asia, Latin America) 4/12, reviewed

Internationaler Strukturwandel und Autokratie (International Change and Autocracy), PVS, 47/2012: 86-105, special issue 47 „Autokratien im Vergleich“ („Autocracies in Comparison“), Eds. Steffen Kailitz/Patrick Köllner, together with Jørgen Møller und Sven-Erik Skaaning, peer reviewed

Rule of Law and Democracy in Mexico, KAS-International Reports 10/2012: 34-52 (English Edition).

Rechtsstaatlichkeit und Demokratie in Mexiko, KAS-Auslandsinformationen 10/2012: 34-54 (German Edition).

Die Vermessung der Welt – Eine kritische Analyse der World Governance Indicators der Weltbank (Measuring the world: an Analysis of the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators), Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft / Comparative Governance and Politics 6, 1 (2012): 87-113, special issue 2 „Indizes in der vergleichenden Politikwissenschaft“, Eds. Susanne Pickel/Gert Pickel, peer reviewed

Addressing Social Heterogeneity: Comparative Policy and Performance in Latin America, Comparative Sociology 11 (2012): 455-491, peer reviewed

Die lateinamerikanische Linke in Zeiten der Globalisierung: Uruguay in vergleichender Perspektive (Latin American Left in Times of Globalization: Uruguay in Comparative Perspective), Lateinamerika-Analysen 2, 17 (2007): 138-156.

Der Plan Colombia: Kolumbien im Visier des Krieges gegen den Terror der USA in Lateinamerika (Plan Colombia: Colombia in sight oft he US War on Terror in Latin America), Brennpunkt Lateinamerika, Institut für Iberoamerika-Kunde Hamburg, Nr. 3, 15. Februar 2005, with Maximilian Kurz.

Von der Blockade zur Reformpolitik: Vetospieler und Reformkoalitionen in Uruguay (From Blockade to Reform: Vetoplayer and Reform Coalitions in Uruguay), Lateinamerika Analysen 3 (Oktober 2002): 29-62. peer reviewed

Umweltpolitik und Neoliberalismus in Lateinamerika (Environment and Neoliberalism in Latin America), Brennpunkt Lateinamerika, Institut für Iberoamerika-Kunde Hamburg, Nr. 5, 15. März 2002.

Demokratie und Entwicklung: Eine Analyse neuerer Studien (Democracy and Development: An Analysis of Recent Studies), Nord-Süd-Aktuell XV (2001) 1: 105-118.

Ökonomische Reformen versus Demokratie. Die Beispiele Costa Rica, Mexiko und Venezuela (Economic Reform versus Democracy. Costa Rica, Mexico and Venezuela), WeltTrends 20 (Herbst 1998): 127-150, with Jörg Faust, peer reviewed

Contributions in Edited Volumes

Drogenpolitik und Diskurse im „War on Drugs“ in Lateinamerika, in: Wolfgang Muno/Thomas Kestler (Eds.): Politikwandel und Politikinnovation in Lateinamerika, 2016, in preparation.

Klientelismus und Patronage in der Vergleichenden Politikwissenschaft (Clientelism and Patronage in Comparative Politics), in: Hans-Joachim Lauth (Ed.): Handbuch Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft, Wiesbaden: Springer, i.E, reviewed.

Fallstudien und Process Tracing in der Vergleichenden Politikwissenschaft (Case Studies and Process Tracing in Comparative Politics), in: Hans-Joachim Lauth (Ed.): Handbuch Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft, Wiesbaden: Springer, i.E., reviewed.

Neue Formen regionaler Integration und Kooperation in Lateinamerika (New Forms of Regional Integration and Cooperation in Latin America), in: Andreas Grimmel/Cord Jakobeit (Eds.): Regionale Integration, Baden-Baden: Nomos 2015: 412-431, reviewed.

Die Andengemeinschaft (the Andean Community), in: Andreas Grimmel/Cord Jakobeit (Eds.): Regionale Integration, Baden-Baden: Nomos 2015: 401-411, reviewed.

Ein „autoritärer Nexus“? Chinas vermeintliche Sonderbeziehungen zu autokratischen Staaten in Lateinamerika, in: Harnisch, Sebastian/Brummer, Klaus/Oppermann, Kai (Hrsg.): Sonderbeziehungen als Nexus zwischen Außenpolitik und internationalen Beziehungen, Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2015: 133-158, with Alexander Brand and Susan McEwen-Fial, reviewed.

Rechtsstaat in Mexiko (Rule of Law in Mexico), in: Barbara Schröter (Ed.): The Political System of Mexiko, Wiesbaden: Springer VS 2015: 175-190, reviewed.

Hegemoniale Rivalität? Brasilien, China und die US-Hegemonie in Lateinamerika (Hegemonial Rivalry? Brazil, China and US hegemony in Latin America), in: Nölke, Andreas/May, Christian/Claar, Simone (Eds.): Der Aufstieg der großen Schwellenländer in der Weltwirtschaft, Wiesbaden: Springer VS 2014, 395-412, with Alexander Brand, Susan McEwen-Fial and Andrea Ribeiro-Hoffmann, reviewed.

Der Drache im Revier des Adlers: China in Lateinamerika (The Dragon in the Eagle’s territory: China in Latin America, in: Günter Meyer/Muno, Wolfgang/Brand, Alexander (Eds.): Chinas Expansion in Entwicklungs- und Schwellenländern (China’s Expansion in Developing Countries and Emerging Markets),, Mainz 2013, 9-34, with Alexander Brand and Susan McEwen-Fial.

Staatlichkeit in der Dritten Welt – fragile und gescheiterte Staaten als Entwicklungsproblem (Stateness in the Third World – Fragile and Failed States as a Development Problem), in: Günter Meyer/Muno, Wolfgang/Brand, Alexander (Eds.): Staatlichkeit in der Dritten Welt – fragile und gescheiterte Staaten als Entwicklungsproblem, Mainz 2012: 7-32, with Alexander Brand.

Politische Regime und soziale Entwicklung in Lateinamerika (Political Regimes and Social Development in Latin America), in: Muno, Wolfgang/Lauth, Hans-Joachim/Kestler, Thomas (Eds.): Demokratie und soziale Entwicklung in Lateinamerika, Baden-Baden: Nomos 2012: 45-64.

Einleitung (Introduction), in: Muno, Wolfgang/Lauth, Hans-Joachim/Kestler, Thomas (Eds.): Demokratie und soziale Entwicklung in Lateinamerika, Baden-Baden: Nomos 2012: 7-12, with Hans-Joachim Lauth and Thomas Kestler.

Demokratie und soziale Entwicklung in Lateinamerika – ein Fazit (Democracy and Social Development in Latin America - Conclusion), in: Muno, Wolfgang/Lauth, Hans-Joachim/Kestler, Thomas (Eds.): Demokratie und soziale Entwicklung in Lateinamerika, Baden-Baden: Nomos 2012: 229-236, with Hans-Joachim Lauth and Thomas Kestler.

Korruption und Korruptionsmessung (Corruption and Corruption Measurements), in: Fifka, Matthias (Ed.): Korruption, Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag 2012: 15-30.

Lateinamerikapolitik (Latin American Policy), in: Bergmann, Jan (Ed.): Handlexikon der Europäischen Union, Baden-Baden: Nomos 2012: 593-597.

Der Linksruck in Lateinamerika – Ursachen und Konsequenzen (The Left Swing in Latin America – Causes and Consequences), in: Anne von Au et al. (Ed.): Soziale Sicherheit in Lateinamerika. Neue Wege durch linke Regierungen?, Berlin: wvb 2011: 27-72.

Umweltpolitik (Environmental Policy), in: Lauth, Hans-Joachim (Ed.): Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft, Wiesbaden 2010, 3. Auflage: 349-372.

Die Messung von Rechtsstaatlichkeit (Measuring Rule of Law), in: Estermann, Josef (Ed.): Interdisziplinäre Rechtsforschung zwischen Rechtswirklichkeit, Rechtsanalyse und Rechtsgestaltung, Beckenried 2009: 211-230, with Jenniver Sehring und Peter Thiery, reviewed

Fallstudien und die vergleichende Methode (Case Studies and the Comparative Method), in: Pickel, Susanne/Pickel, Gert/Lauth, Hans-Joachim/Jahn, Detlef (Eds.): Vergleichende politikwissenschaftliche Methoden – Neue Entwicklungen und Diskussionen, Wiesbaden 2009: 113-132.

Fußball und Politik in Lateinamerika (Football and Politics in Latin America), in: „Gracias, Dios, por el fútbol“. Diskurse rund um den Fußball in Lateinamerika, in: Muno, Wolfgang/Spiller, Roland (Eds.),Veröffentlichungen des Interdisziplinären Arbeitskreises Lateinamerika, Band 3, Mainz 2007: 6-26.

Lasswell, Harold D., Politics: Who Gets What, When, How?, in: Kailitz, Steffen (Ed.): Schlüsselwerke der Politikwissenschaft, Wiesbaden 2007: 222-225.

Przeworski, Adam u.a., Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Material Well-Being in the World, 1950-1990, in: Kailitz, Steffen (Ed.): Schlüsselwerke der Politikwissenschaft, Wiesbaden 2007: 371-375.

Internet und Politik (Internet and Politics), in: Mols, Manfred/Lauth, Hans-Joachim/Wagner, Christian (Eds.): Politikwissenschaft. Eine Einführung, Paderborn, 5. Auflage, 2006: 467-486, with Martin Hauck.

Argentinien – der unaufhaltsame Abstieg eines reichen Landes? (Argentina – the Inexorable Decay of a Rich Country?), in: Veröffentlichungen des interdisziplinären Arbeitskreises Lateinamerika Band 2: Argentinien in der Krise, Mainz 2006: 6-25.

Umweltpolitik (Environmental Policy), in: Lauth, Hans-Joachim (Ed.): Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft, Wiesbaden 2006, 2. Auflage: 366-392.

Ökonomische Reformen versus Demokratie. Die Beispiele Costa Rica, Mexiko und Venezuela (Economic Reform versus Democracy. Costa Rica, Mexico and Venezuela), in: Krämer, Raimund (Ed.): Politische Herrschaft in Süd- und Mittelamerika, WeltTrends-Lehrtexte 5, Potsdam 2006: 78-101, with Jörg Faust.

Lateinamerikapolitik (Latin American Policy), in: Mickel, Wolfgang/Bergmann, Jan (Ed.): Handlexikon der Europäischen Union, Baden-Baden 2005, 3. Auflage: 491-495.

Öl und Demokratie – Venezuela im 20. Jahrhundert (Oil and Democracy – Venezuela in the 20th Century), in: Diehl, Oliver/Muno, Wolfgang (Eds.): Venezuela in der Ära Chávez – Aufbruch oder Niedergang?, Frankfurt/M. 2005: 11-34.

Nach dem Referendum: Sieg für die „Revolution“ – Aufbruch für Venezuela? (After the Referendum: Victory for the „Revolution“ – a New Start for Venezuela?), in: Diehl, Oliver/Muno, Wolfgang (Eds.): Venezuela in der Ära Chávez – Aufbruch oder Niedergang?, Frankfurt/M. 2005: 167-174, with Oliver Diehl.

Einleitung: Venezuela unter Chávez – Aufbruch oder Niedergang? (Introduction: Venezuela under Chávez – New Start or Decay?), in: Diehl, Oliver/Muno, Wolfgang (Eds.): Venezuela in der Ära Chávez – Aufbruch oder Niedergang?, Frankfurt/M. 2005: 7-11, with Oliver Diehl.

Demokratisierung und Wohlfahrtsstaatlichkeit in Lateinamerika (Democratization and Welfare State in Latin America), in: Croissant, Aurel/Erdmann, Gero/Rüb, Friedbert (Eds.): Wohlfahrtsstaatliche Politiken in jungen Demokratien, Wiesbaden 2004: 189-222, with Jörg Faust and Hans-Joachim Lauth.

Endspiel. Über Fußball, Gewalt und Krieg (Endgame. On Football, Violence and War), in: Hütig, Andreas/Marx, Johannes (Eds.): Abseits Denken. Faszination Fußball, Kassel 2004

Fallstudien und die vergleichende Methode (Case Studies and the Comparative Method), in: Pickel, Susanne/Pickel, Gert/Lauth, Hans-Joachim/Jahn, Detlef (Eds.): Vergleichende politikwissenschaftliche Methoden – Neue Entwicklungen und Diskussionen, Wiesbaden 2003: 19-36.

Internet und Politik (Internet and Politics), in: Mols, Manfred/Lauth, Hans-Joachim/Wagner, Christian (Eds.): Politikwissenschaft. Eine Einführung, Paderborn, 4. Auflage, 2003: 467-486, with Martin Hauck.

Umweltpolitik (Environmental Policy). In: Lauth, Hans-Joachim (Ed.): Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft, Wiesbaden 2002: 366-392.

Defekte Demokratien in Südamerika (Defective Democracies in South America). In: Bendel, Petra/Croissant, Aurel/Rüb, Friedbert (Eds.): Zwischen Demokratie und Diktatur. Zur Konzeption und Empirie demokratischer Grauzonen, Opladen 2002: 283-308, with Peter Thiery.

Marktwirtschaft versus Demokratie? Wirtschaftliche Reformen und politische Entwicklung in Argentinien und Uruguay (Market versus Democracy? Economic Reforms and Political Development in Argentina and Uruguay). In: Dosch, Jörn/Faust, Jörg (Eds.): Politische Herrschaft und ökonomische Krise im pazifischen Asien und Lateinamerika, Opladen 2000: 73-108, with Christoph Wagner.

Miscellaneous

Korruption – Ein Rezensionsessay (Corruption – A Review Essay), Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft/Comparative Governance and Politics, 6/2012: 358-372 (Review Essay).

Hegemonic Rivalry? BRICs and the United States in Latin America, Mainz Papers on International and European Politics (MPIEP) No. 4, October 2012, with Alexander Brand, Susan McEwen-Fial, Andrea Ribeiro-Hoffmann (Online-Working Paper).

“Democratization.” Online Dictionary Social and Political Key Terms of the Americas: Politics, Inequalities, and North-South Relations, Version 1.0 (2012). http://elearning.uni-bielefeld.de/wikifarm/fields/ges_cias/field.php/Main/Unterkapitel41. (Onlinepublication)

Carsten Q. Schneider: The Consolidation of Democracy. Comparing Europe and Latin America, in: Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft 1/2010: 188-192 (Review Essay)

Totgesagte leben länger. Die Linke in Lateinamerika (The condemned live longer. The Left in Latin America), in: WeltTrends 65 (2009): 111-115. (Review Essay)

Klaus Stüwe/Stefan Rinke (Hg.): Die politischen Systeme in Nordamerika und Lateinamerika, in: Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft 1/2009: 191-193. (Review Essay)

Sozialismus im 21. Jahrhundert? Venezuela unter Hugo Chávez – ein Literaturbericht (Socialism in the 21st Century? Venezuela under Chávez – a Review Essay), in: Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft/Comparative Government and Politics 1/ 2008: 160-165. (Review Essay)

Stefan Schirm (Hg.): Globalisierung. Forschungsstand und Perspektiven, in: PVS 2, 48/2007: 398-400 (Review Essay)

Frances Hagopian/ Scott Mainwaring (Hrsg.) (2005): The Third Wave of Democratization in Latin America. Advances and Setbacks, Peter H. Smith (2005): Democracy in Latin America. Political Change in Comparative Perspective, Laura Tedesco/ Jonathan R. Barton (2004): The State of Democracy in Latin America. Post-Transitional Conflicts in Argentina and Chile, in: Lateinamerika-Analysen 17, 2/2007: 235-238. (Review Essay)

Heribert Dieter: Die Zukunft der Globalisierung, in: PVS 3/2006: 530-531. (Review Essay)

Lateinamerika. Linksruck im Schatten der Weltöffentlichkeit – ein Literaturbericht (Latin America. The Left Swing – A Review Essay , in: Krämer, Raimund (Hg.): Politische Herrschaft in Süd- und Mittelamerika, WeltTrends-Lehrtexte 5, Potsdam 2006: 184-190. (Review Essay)

http://elearning.uni-bielefeld.de/wikifarm/fields/ges_cias/field.php/Main/Unterkapitel41

http://elearning.uni-bielefeld.de/wikifarm/fields/ges_cias/field.php/Main/Unterkapitel41

Nikolaus Werz: Lateinamerika. Eine Einführung, in: Lateinamerika-Analysen 12, 1/2006: 181-183. (Review Essay)

Petra Bendel: Parteiensysteme in Zentralamerika. Typologien und Erklärungsfaktoren, in: Krämer, Raimund (Hg.): Politische Herrschaft in Süd- und Mittelamerika, WeltTrends-Lehrtexte 5, Potsdam 2006: 195-197. (Review Essay)

Lateinamerika. Linksruck im Schatten der Weltöffentlichkeit – ein Literaturbericht, in: WeltTrends 49 (Winter) 2005: 156-162. (Review Essay)

Wohlfahrtsstaatlichkeit in Lateinamerika, in: PIN-Politik im Netz, 21/2003. (Onlinepublikation)

Kurt Weyland: The Politics of Market Reform in Fragile Democracies, in: Lateinamerika-Analysen 6, Oktober 2003: 168-170. (Review Essay)

Sandra Carreras: Die Rolle der Opposition im Demokratisierungsprozeß Argentiniens: Der Peronismus 1983-1989: In WeltTrends 27 (Sommer 2000): 174-176. (Review Essay)

Petra Bendel: Parteiensysteme in Zentralamerika. Typologien und Erklärungsfaktoren. In: WeltTrends 20 (Herbst 1998): 179-180. (Review Essay)

Recent Conference Papers

“Weak States, Fragile States, Mafia States? The State and Organized Crime and in Latin America”, 26. wissenschaftlicher Kongress der Deutschen Vereinigung für Politische Wissenschaft an der Universität Duisburg-Essen, 21. – 25. September 2015.

„Sicherheitsdiskurse im „War on Drugs“ in Lateinamerika“, 26. wissenschaftlicher Kongress der Deutschen Vereinigung für Politische Wissenschaft an der Universität Duisburg-Essen, 21. – 25. September 2015.

“Weak States and Organized Crime: Theoretical Reflections and Empirical Findings in Latin America and Europe”, Midwest Political Science Association, 73rd Annual Conference, Chicago, USA, April 16-19 2015.

“Neue Wege in der Drogenpolitik? Lateinamerikanische Diskussionen des War on Drugs“, Tagung der Sektion "Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft" der DVPW Hamburg „Weltregionen im Vergleich: Polity, Politics und Policy“, Hamburg, 25.-27.2.2015.

“Organized Crime and the State – Theoretical Reflections and empirical Findings in Latin America and Europe”, American Political Science Association, 110th Annual Meeting, Washington DC, USA, August 28-31 2014.

„Teaching Decision-making in the EU: An Assessment of Model EU Mainz“,APSA Annual Meeting 2014, Washington DC, 28-31 August 2014.

“China in Latin America”, Workshop „„Sonderbeziehungen als Nexus zwischen Außenpolitik und internationalen Beziehungen“ (Special Relations as Nexus between Foreign Policy and International Relations), Heidelberg, 17-18th February 2014.

„Von starken und schwachen, scheiternden und ‚Mafia-Staaten‘: Staatlichkeit und organisierte Kriminalität in Lateinamerika und Europa“ (Strong and weak, failed and Mafia-States: Stateness and Organized Crime in Latin America), Conference “Staat in globaler Perspektive“ (State in global perspective), Kassel, 30-31 January 2014.

Crisis of Regional Hegemony? USA and Latin America, Vortrag auf der Jahrestagung der Sektion Politikwissenschaft in der DGfA (Annual Conference, Section Political Science of the German Association for American Studies) "USA in Crisis", Lambrecht (Pfalz), 2013 (together with Alexander Brand).

“Teaching and Learning Decision-making in the EU – Model European Union Mainz”, Workshop “EU Simulations: Scholarly Reflection and Research on an Innovative Teaching Methodology”, Mainz, 27-28th September 2013 (together with Lukas Prinz).

“Practicing Hegemony? Ideas of Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony in the Americas”, 41st ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops 2013, Mainz, 11 - 16 March 2013 (together with Alexander Brand)

“China in Latin America”, 41st ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops 2013, Mainz, 11 - 16 March 2013 (together with Alexander Brand and Susan McEwen-Fial).

"Restoring Leadership in the Hemisphere or Neglecting the Backyard? US Latin American Policy in the Context of Geopolitical Shifts of Power", Annual Meeting Political Science, DGfA: “Barack Obama . Assessment of the First Term", Lambrecht, 11.11.2012 (together with Alexander Brand).

“Corruption, Clientelism, and Organized Crime in Latin America and Eastern Europe: Conceptualizing and measuring „Bad informal institutions“”, APSA Annual Meeting 2012, New Orleans, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2110188

“BRICs and the Eventual Decline of US-Hegemony: Theoretical Reflections and Empirical Evidence from Latin America” (together with Alexander Brand, Susan McEwen-Fial, Andrea Ribeiro-Hoffmann), Conference of DVPW-Sections „Entwicklungstheorie und Entwicklungspolitik” und “Internationale Beziehungen”, and working groups “Politische Ökonomie” und “Demokratieforschung, Frankfurt/M., 5.-7. März 2012.

"Der Drache im Revier des Adlers: Hegemoniale Konkurrenz zwischen China und den USA in Lateinamerika?" (The Dragon and the Eagle: Hegemonial Rivalry between China and the USA in Latin America?), Symposium des IAK3W (Interdisziplinarer Arbeitskreis Dritte Welt, JGU Mainz) "Chinas Expansion in Schwellen� und Entwicklungsländern", Johannes Gutenberg�Universitat Mainz, 20.1.2012 (together with Alexander Brand and Susan McEwen Fial)

“Strukturelle Determinanten von Autokratien“ (gemeinsam mit Sven-Erik Skaaning und Jørgen Møller), PVS-Workshop “Autokratien im Vergleich”, GIGA-Institut Hamburg, 20.-22.7.2011

“Studying bad informal institutions in comparative perspective”, Annual Meeting, Slovenian Political Science Association, Portoroz, Slovenia, Panel “Rule of Law and informal institutions in Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America in comparative perspective”, 3.-4.6.2011

„Conceptualizing and Measuring Informal Institutions“, Conference „Rule of Law and Informal Institutions: Comparison of Central Europe and Latin America“, University of Maribor, Faculty of Criminal Justice and Security, Ljubljana, Slowenien, 2.6.2011

„Organisierte Kriminalität, Staat und Demokratie in Mexiko“, Tagung „Demokratisierung unter Stress“, AK Demokratieforschung, Universität Konstanz, 26.-28.5.2011

“Measuring the Rule of law and Informal Institutions”, Joint Workshop „Informal Institutions and Rule of Law”, Universität Würzburg, CIDE Mexico, CIDE, Mexiko City, 11.3.2011

“Warten auf Wandel, warten auf Godot? Die Lateinamerikapolitik Obamas“, Workshop “Yes we can! Can we really? Zwischenwahlen in den USA und Halbzeitbilanz der Obama-Präsidentschaft”, Universität Mainz, 28.10.2010

„Conceptualizing and Measuring Clientelism“, Workshop „Neopatrimonialism in Various World Regions“, GIGA-Institut Hamburg, 23.8.2010

„Rechtsreformen und die Qualität des Rechtsstaates, “Tagung “Rule of law Compliance – Regelbefolgung im Kontext von Kultur, Akteur und Institution”, AK Demokratieforschung, Universität Würzburg, 10.-12.6.2010

“Measuring the Quality of Democracy in Latin America”, ECPR General Conference Potsdam, 10.9.-13.9.2009, Panel „Rule of Law in Transformation“ (discussant), Panel „Problems and Methods in the Study of Comparative Politics in Latin America“

“Latin America’s Left, Social Inequality, and the Quality of Democracy”, IPSA World Congress, Santiago de Chile, 12.-16.7.2009, Panel “La Izquierda y la democracia en América Latina”

“The Governance of Heterogeneity in Latin America. Causes and Consequences” (gemeinsam mit Peter Thiery), Conference “Heterogeneity and Democracy”, AK Demokratieforschung (DVPW), Committee on Concepts and Methods (IPSA), Research Unit “Democracy” WZB, WZB Berlin, 25.-27.6.2009

CitationMuno,W.andPrinz,L.(2015).‘TeachingandlearningwithEUsimulations:EvaluatingModelEuropeanUnionMainz’,JournalofContemporaryEuropeanResearch.11(4),pp.370-387.Firstpublishedat:www.jcer.net

JournalofContemporaryEuropeanResearchVolume11,Issue4(2015)

ResearchArticle

Teaching and learning with EU simulations: Evaluating Model European Union Mainz

WolfgangMunoJohannesGutenberg-UniversityMainzandZeppelinUniversityFriedrichshafen

LukasPrinzJohannesGutenberg-UniversityMainzandCologneUniversity

Volume11,Issue4(2015)jcer.net WolfgangMunoandLukasPrinz

371

Abstract‘The shift from teaching to learning’ describes a new paradigm in pedagogy and didactics.Simulations are said to be an adequate method for this shift, said to achieve several learningoutcomes ascribed to the newparadigm. In this paper,wewill, first, describe the newparadigm.Second, we will discuss advantages ascribed to simulations. Third, we will describe a simulationpracticedinMainzinthelastyears,ModelEuropeanUnionMainz(MEUM).Fourth,wewillpresentsome findings of an extensive qualitative and quantitative evaluationwhich accompaniedMEUM.Andfinally,wewilldiscusssomeconclusionsforsimulatingtheEU.

KeywordsSimulations;ModelEuropeanUnion;Mainz;pedagogy;activelearning

INTRODUCTION

‘What Ihear, I forget,butwhat Ido, I learn’.Thesewords,ascribedtoConfucius2.500yearsago,describe a (not so) new paradigm in pedagogy, the so-called ‘shift from teaching to learning’.Although thequotebyConfucius shows that thebasic idea isnotquitenew (if thequote really isfrom Confucius), the phrase, coined by UNESCO according to JohannesWildt, had a tremendoussuccess and conquered universities around the world (Wildt 2003). Wildt reports that this shiftstartedinpublicmanagementdepartmentsofuniversitiesinthe1990ties, lookingforpotentialforsaving money (Wildt 2005). Afterwards, it was turned into a ‘new’ pedagogical and didacticalconcept. The core of this new paradigm is active learning. Students shall acquire disciplinaryknowledge as well as soft skills through active learning, which corresponds to demands of theBolognaProcess.Ateachingmethodwhichshallfitperfectlytothesedemandsisusingsimulations,understoodasmoreorlesscomplexroleplays,inclassroom.

In this paper, we will, first, describe the new teaching and learning paradigm, discussing bases,relevance and its relation to the demands of the Bologna Process. Second, we will discussadvantagesascribedtosimulations.Third,wewilldescribeasimulationpracticedinMainzinthelastyears,ModelEuropeanUnionMainz(MEUM).Fourth,wewillpresentsomefindingsofanextensivequalitativeandquantitativeevaluationwhichaccompaniedMEUM.Andfinally,wewilldiscusssomeconclusionsforsimulatingtheEU.

THESHIFTFROMTEACHINGTOLEARNING

The ‘shift fromteaching to learning’ is characterizedby the followingcomponents:a)centeredonstudent learning, b) a changing role of the teacher, c) definition of learning objectives, d) fromlearninginputtooutput,e)emphasisonorganizationoflearning.Thetraditional,teacher-centeredteaching, practiced ideally in a classical lecture with frontal teaching, is limited. New ways ofteaching and engaging students are now en vogue (see on active learning Silberman 1996, onteaching politics and international relations Gormley-Heenan & Lightfoot 2012). A study by Stice


372

showedthatstudentsretained10percentofwhattheyread,20percentofwhattheyhear,50percentofwhattheyhearandsee,70percentofwhattheysay,and90percentofwhattheydoandsay(Stice1987,quotedinOros2007).ThestudywasbasedonideasfromDavidKolbaboutlearningtypes and learning styles, claiming that learning is facilitated in situations where reflection andabstraction follow personal experiences, hence active participation of students increases learningoutcomes while traditional forms of learning in which more passive forms like listening arepronouncedarelesssuccessful(Kolb1984).Sticegothisdatafromhisengineeringclass,hisresultsare now widely cited and repeated. Critics claim that neither Kolb’s theory nor Stice’s data areaccurately validated (see,e.g.,Raymond&Usherwood2013,Oros2007).However, the shift fromteachingtolearningiswidelyacclaimed.

Asacentralelement,asmentionedabove,the“shift”changesthefocusfrominputtooutput,fromthe content of teaching to “learning outcomes”. This corresponded to demands following theBologna Process of unifying the European higher education, as it was expressed explicitly at theBergen-Communiqué (Bergen-Communiqué 2005). At the follow-up process of the BolognaDeclaration1999, Europeanuniversitieshavedeclaredat theirConvention in Salamanca inMarch2001that:

European higher education institutions recognise that their students need and demandqualificationswhich they canuseeffectively for thepurposeof their studiesand careersallover Europe. The institutions and their networks and organisations acknowledge their roleand responsibility in this regard, and confirm their willingness to organise themselvesaccordinglywithintheframeworkofautonomy(UniversityofGraz2003).

More than 100 European universities have started a pilot project called ‘Tuning educationalstructures in Europe’. Common points of reference for desired learning outcomes were defined,‘generic competences and skills’ as well as ‘subject specific competences and skills’. All thecompetencesarelistedintable1.

Table1:TuningProject:Competencesandskills

Genericcompetencesandskills-highlyimportant

• Capacityforanalysisandsynthesis• Capacitytolearn• Problemsolving• Capacitytoapplyknowledgeinpractice• Capacitytoadapttonewsituations• Focusonconcernforquality• Informationmanagement• Abilitytoworkautonomous• Teamwork• Basicknowledge• Willtosucceed


373

Table1(continued):TuningProject:Competencesandskills

Genericcompetencesandskills-lessimportant

• Understanding of cultures and customs of othercountries

• Appreciationofdiversityandmulticulturalenvironment• Abilitytoworkinaninternational• Context• Leadership• Researchskills• Projectdesignandmanagement• Knowledgeofasecondlanguage• Communicatewithexpertsinotherfields• Abilitytoworkinterdisciplinary

Subject specific competencesandskills-Firstcycle

• Show familiarity with the foundation and history ofhis/hermajor(discipline)

• Communicate obtained basic knowledge in a coherentway

• Placenewinformationandinterpretationinitscontext• Show understanding of the overall structure of the

discipline and the connection between its sub-disciplines

• Show understanding and implement the methods ofcriticalanalysisanddevelopmentoftheories

Subject specific competencesandskills-Secondcycle

• Haveagoodcommandofa specialised fieldwithin thedisciplineatanadvancedlevel

• Be able to follow critically and interpret the newestdevelopmentintheoryandpractice

• Have sufficient competence in the techniques ofindependent research and be able to interpret theresultsatanadvancedlevel

• Beabletomakeanoriginal,albeit limited,contributionwithinthecanonsofthediscipline,e.g.finalthesis

• Show originality and creativity with regard to thehandlingofthediscipline

• Havedevelopedcompetenceataprofessionallevel

Source:UniversityofGraz2003,Wildt2003


374

All this new learning objectives transcended traditional learning objectives, which were mainlyconcentrated on teaching knowledge. In the course of the Bologna reforms, inventing newmodularizedstudystructures(andinGermanyespeciallyBachelorandMasterdegrees),thesenewobjectiveswere integrated in curricularnorms. Interestingly, the resultsof theTuningprojectandtheBologna reforms coincidewith the recentdebate inGermandidacticsof politics (DidaktikderPolitischen Bildung). According to didactics, the aim of modern university teaching should be toimpartknowledge;methodological,socialandciviccompetences infourdimensions(seeDetjenetal.2012;Manzel2012;Massing2012):a)Disciplinaryexpertise,b)Abilitytojudge,c)Capacitytoact,d)Politicalattitude,generalinterestandmotivation.

The capacity to act includes expressis verbis communicative capacities like articulation,argumentation,negotiationanddecisioncompetence.Such‘politicaleloquence’(Detjen2012)isnotonly relevant in educational contexts of political science, but for citizens in general. Disciplinaryexpertise corresponds to the subject specific competences, the list of methodological, social andciviccompetencescorrespondtothegenericcompetencesandskills.

Obviously,thenewdidacticalparadigmisquitedemanding,notonlyforstudents,whoshallbemoreactivethaneverandshallacquirealotofcompetences,butespeciallyforteachers,whooftenhaveto change their role and their self-understanding. Traditionally, teachers were experts tellingstudents about their knowledge. ‘Professor’ comes from the Latin word profateri, which meanspubliclyproclaiminginformationandknowledge.Theshiftfromteachingto learningimpliesashiftof the roleofa teacher towardsanactivator,moderatorandpromoterof learningprocesses.Thequote‘Fromthesageonthestagetotheguideontheside’ illustratesthischangenicely(seeKing1993).

SIMULATIONS,TEACHINGANDLEARNING

Simulationsandroleplays(hereusedsynonymously)havebecomemoreandmorepopularinSocialand Political Sciences, especially International Relations. International Studies Perspectives, aquarterly journal devoted to pedagogical and didactical aspects of IR, hardly publishes any issuewithout an article about simulations (see e.g. Taylor 2012, Crossley-Frolick 2010, Van Dyke et al.2000,Zeff2003orSwitky2004,Guasti,Muno&Niemannforthcoming,asanearlycontributiontothe debate on simulations see Stoil & Lester 1979). The Journal of Political Science Educationdevotedaspecialissuein2013onsimulations(JPSE2013).PracticedintheU.S.fordecadesalready,they are quite new in German contexts. Germany seems to be a developing country concerningsimulations. Several universities, like Frankfurt/Main, Tübingen or Erfurt, participate at ModelUnited Nations (MUN). But MUNs are rarely embedded in curricula, usually they are offered asspecial and additional events for voluntarily participating students. Apart from MUN, someuniversities practice small-scale simulations in IR-seminars. At Bochum, WTO-negotiations wereoffered several times as a seminar (see Schirm et al. 2010: 2011). However, as said, whilesimulationsarewidelypracticedintheU.S.,theyareratherexemptionthanruleinGermanPoliticalScience faculties. This is surprising, because didactics claim that simulations correspond fully todemandsinnewdidacticsandpedagogy,especiallytheshiftfromteachingtolearning.

Simulationsaremoreor less complex roleplays functioningasmodels for anevenmore complexreality (see for theGermandebateDetjen 2007: 373f.,Giesecke 2000: 184f., Herz&Blätte 2000,Massing 2003, Scholz 2003). Reducing the complexity of reality to an understandable andcontrollable model, students have to act as realistic as possible, they have to negotiate, argue,debateordecide,dependingonthesimulation.Throughaformalizedprocesswithcertaindefinedroles which have to be performed by students, patterns of the real processes of politics or thefunctioning of real political organizations are reproduced. Through this, learning takes place at


375

severallevels.First,thereisacontentlevelwhichcorrespondstothesubjectspecificcompetencesor the disciplinary expertise. Students learn about structures, actors, policies and processes ofpolitics. At a second level, learning outcomes are creativity, methodological skills, social andcommunicative competences, which corresponds to the generic competences and social andcommunicativeskillsmentionedabove.Crossley-Frolickmentionedsevenlearningobjectiveswhichsimulationscanachieve(Crossley-Frolick2010):

• Highlevelofstudentengagement

• Throughapracticalgrasptheoriesare“demystified”

• Prackktical,familiartopicscanbeexplored

• Assumptionsof“easynegotiations”arequestionedwhenstudentshavetomake

decisionsontheirown

• Workingwithprimarydocumentsmakesstudentslearnabout“officiallanguage”

• Communicationskillsarepracticedanddeveloped

• Simulations provide an enjoyable teachingmethod to students for pedagogical

ends.

Schirm, Smejkalova and Rötzmeier (2011: 651) from the University of Bochum emphasize thepracticeaspectandthegenericcompetences:“Simulationsdiffertomostotherseminarsinsofarasknowledge and analytical competences are not only acquired but subsequent are practiced andthrough this intensified. Additionally, in simulated negotiations a range of further skills andcompetenceshave tobepracticed…”.Whichknowledge specifically is acquiredandwhichgenericcompetences are practiced specifically depends on the institutional design of specific simulations,but in general, the claim is held that simulations fit verywell into thedemandsof newdidacticalapproaches.However,asmanyobserversnote,manyofthearguments in favorofsimulationsarebasedratheronanecdotalevidencethansystematicevaluations (see,e.g.Raymond&Usherwood2013).Inthefollowing,wewillpresentasimulationwedevelopedattheUniversityofMainz,ModelEuropeanUnionMainz(MEUM).

MODELEUROPEANUNIONMAINZ

Simulating the EU is not yet as commonas simulating for example theUnitedNationswithin theMUNconcept,despitetheevergrowingimportanceoftheEUintoday'spolitics(seee.g.Bergmann2015; Weidenfeld 2011; Schmidt & Schünemann 2009, Guasti, Muno & Niemann forthcoming).Around 80 percent of German legislation is made in Brussels and Strasbourg nowadays, theparliamentinBerlinjustacceptsandacknowledges(Sturm&Pehle2012:26).Therefore,thiskindofsimulation triggers student's attention in a specialway. This iswhywedecided to run a teachingprojecttodiscoverthepossibilitiesandboundariesofsimulationsasateachingmethod.MEUMwasborn as a student initiative in 2010, but its integration in the political science department'scurriculumasaseminarbeganin2011withintheframeworkofateachingprojectsupportedbytheUniversity of Mainz. Since then, its status as a regular seminar has opened up the possibility ofevaluatingthisnewteachingmethodagainstitsmoretraditionalcounterparts.


376

Figure1:MEUM2014(Source:MEUM)

MEUM simulates the Ordinary Legislative Procedure (OLP) of the European Union. ParticipantsthereforetakeontheroleofMembersoftheEuropeanParliament(MEP)orMinistersintheCouncilof the EuropeanUnion. They are assigned specific real political positions (country and faction forMEPs)whichtheyhavetorepresentduringthewholesimulation.Observingandcommentingontheongoing procedure are participantsworking as journalists, representing also the “public opinion”.Thesimulationrequiresparticipantstofindcompromisethroughnegotiationandintheendpossiblypassnewlegislation.Thewholeprocedureisthereforebasedonreallegislativeproposalsissuedbythecommission.

MEUMishostednotonlybythepoliticalsciencedepartment,butincooperationwithtwostudentorganizations,AEGEEMainz/WiesbadenandBETA.1This cooperationallows foranextensive socialprogramaccompanyingthethreedaysofsimulationandalsotheinclusionofexternalparticipants.Therefore, MEUM consists of about 70 to 90 participants each year, divided fifty-fifty betweenregular students in the seminar and international studentswhich are eligible to apply through anopenselectionprocess.

Outofthisbasicconceptderivethreegeneraladvantages.Firsttheimprovementoflanguageskills:The international setting requires regular students to speak English, to represent their assignedpositionaswellasnegotiateinaforeignlanguageandactonit.Thisservesasavitalpreparationfor

1AEGEE (Association des Etats Généraux des Etudiants de l'Europe or European Students Forum) is thebiggestnon-subjectboundStudentsorganisationinEurope,BETA(BringingEuropeansTogetherAssociation)isaeuropewidenon-profitassociation,establishedin2008inMainzandwithabout250memberstoday.BETArunsEU-simulationsintheEPinStrasbourg(about200participants)andsupportssmallersimulations(MEUs)all over Europe. The first one wasMEUM in 2010, since similarMEUs developed for example in Granada,BelgradeandCrete.


377

an internationalized jobmarket. Second, the atmospheremakes the experiencemore realistic, asthe EU is per definition an intercultural, multinational working environment. These two aspectstogetherwiththesocialprogramachieveathirdadvantage:theenhancementofinterculturalskills.Buthoware the twoeducationalobjectives (enhancing subject specificandgeneric competences)mentionedbeforeachievedunderthisframework?

The first one, expertise in the content of the simulation, mainly develops through intensivepreparation.TogetherwiththeirassignedroleparticipantsreceiveaPreparationGuide,containingashort introductionintotheEuropeandecision-makingprocess,especiallytheOLPandthetopicsofthe two legislative proposals debated. These topical introductions outline the problem, therebyserving as a starting point for the participant's own research on their role's perspective.Furthermore,thepackageincludesdescriptionsofallrolesinsidethesimulationaswellastheRulesofProcedureandtheroughcourseofthesimulation.

Tomake sure participants prepare adequately forMEUM, preparation is divided for external andinternal students. Themain preparation for external students takes place in an Online-Forum onMEUM'swebpage,whereparticipantscanexchangefirstpersonaldetailsandlateronwritepositionpapersfortheEPfactions. It isvital toensurethepreparationonthisplatformworksbyassigningtutorstoaccompanyparticipantsviatheforumandpointingouttheimportanceofadherencetosetdeadlines to hand in the personal position papers or the faction position papers. In those, eachparticipant sums up his role's position to facilitate information exchange, coalition building anddeliberationinadvanceoftheactualstartofthesimulation.

Internal participants, additionally, have a special preparation in an accompanying seminar whichprovidestimeandspacefordiscussionofthetopicsandmoretheoreticalbackgroundinrelationtocurrent EU research. Furthermore, a ‘real world’ insight into the EU is given, for example actualMEPsorstaffmembersofthedelegationofRhineland-PalatinatetotheEU,oreventheministerofRhineland-Palatinate for EuropeanAffairspresented their viewsof EU. Thisopened thepossibilityfor students to exchange directly with practitioners and, through this, grasp the EU in the mostdirectsensepossible.

Both, internalaswell asexternalparticipants,have toprepareextensively theirpositionson theirown, writing preparatory position papers. The second objectives, generic competences, are mettogetherinthecourseofthesimulation.MEUMsimulatestheOLPafterthechangeswiththetreatyof Lisbon. In this procedure, the European Commission proposes new legislation to the twolegislative chambers, theCouncil of the EuropeanUnion (short: Council) and the EP. Both discussandamendtheproposalwhichissignedintolawaftersuccessfuladoptioninbothbodies.

ThetwoproposalsarerealproposalsissuedbytheCommissionandselectedbytheorganizingteamtofurtherparticipant'sunderstandingofreallegaltextsissuedbytheEU.Butforthesakeofdebatethere are two criteria which need to be met. The proposal should have a readable length andshouldn'tbetootechnicalordifficult.Participantsneedtofindadirectrelationshipwiththetopicsdiscussed.ForthisreasonstheselectionofthechemicaldirectiveREACHwasdismissedonce,asitisbasedextensivelyonchemicalspecificationsandbasically impossibletounderstandforanaverageeducatedperson.Themost importantpoint though is the topic toprovideenoughcontroversy toallowfordebateandnottobeentirelyoutdated.OneexamplediscussedatseveralMEUMswasthereturn of illegal staying immigrants under the ReturnsDirective,which opens up several differingpositions both between EP factions and Member States through the degree to which they areconcernedbythecauseofimmigrantsinflux.

Apart of these selection criteria, the learning effects for participants mainly derive from theexperienceitself.Thesimulationtakesplaceduringthreedaysinwhichtwoproposalsaredebated


378

separatelyinthebodiesandareexchangedafteramendment.ThefollowingtableshowsthestepsofMEUM.

Table2:MEUMschedule

Step ProposalI ProposalII

1 CommissionintroducesproposaltoEP CommissionintroducesproposaltoCouncil

2 EPdebatesproposal,preparesandadoptsamendments

Councildebatesproposal,preparesandadoptsamendments

3 EPRepresentativespresentamendedversiontotheCouncil

CouncilRepresentativespresentamendedversiontotheEP

4 Councildebatesamendedproposal,preparesandadoptsamendments

EPdebatesamendedproposal,preparesandadoptsamendments

5 CouncilRepresentativespresentamendedversiontotheEP

EPRepresentativespresentamendedversiontotheCouncil

6 DebateandfinalvotingintheEP:EPeitheracceptsorrejectsversionofproposalasamendedbytheCouncil

DebateandfinalvotingintheCouncil:CouncileitheracceptsorrejectsversionofproposalasamendedbytheEP

At thecoreof thesimulation is the idea thatboth legislativeproposalsarebeingdiscussedat thesametime.Theprocedurebeginsby thesimultaneous introductionofproposalone to theEPandproposaltwototheCouncilbytheCommission.TheCommissionersarewellpreparedandchosenstudentswhohavetoexplaintheproposal.InthecourseofthesimulationtheproposalsarebeingexchangedseveraltimesbetweentheEPandtheCouncilwithbothinstitutionshavingthechancetopassamendmentstothetextsoftheCommission

Thesetting isasprofessionalaspossible,with representativepremisesandanobligatoryBusinessDresscodeaswellasthestrictadherencetotheRulesofProcedure.Forallparticipants,preparingworkshopsonthefirstdayofMEUMintroducetheRulesofProcedureinashort‘MockSimulation’to provide an opportunity for participants to try out these quite complex rules in a relaxedatmosphere. These rules of procedure foster a professional and fruitful atmosphere throughstructuringdebatesand the rights to speak, specifying languageandemphasizing ruleoforderbyimitatingparliamentaryrulesofprocedure.

Theatmosphereisfurtherinfluencedbythefacilitationofdebatebythepresidency,orchairs,whichstays neutral during debate and maintains order in the bodies. The legislative proposals areintroduced by a commissioner who serves also as point of contact for arising legal questions.Thereforetheresponsiblepersonsforbothrolesneedtobeselectedcarefullyandwellprepared.

Insidetheframework,participantsarefreetovoteuponatemporaryadjournmentofformaldebateforinformaldiscussionsandthetimetablesetsadditionalbreaksforcoffeeorlunch.Thesebreaks,aswellastheeveningsocialprogram,areofgreatimportancetoasuccessfulsimulation.Theyserveasspaceforparticipantstominglewithcolleaguesfromthetwobodiestodeliberateandnegotiateonamendments to the current textsor votingpositions. Thisopportunityof informal exchange isvitalforthecourseofdecision-makingandteachesthemostaboutdailylifeofpoliticians.


379

Participants learn about the procedures on the European level and experience the difficulties ofnegotiations first hand. In the process, they re-evaluate their political attitude towards the EU.Politicalmotivationhowevermainlydevelopsthroughthesocialenactmentwithandinthediversityof participants and their cultures. This European experience stimulates their motivation to getactivelyinvolvedinEuropeaninitiativesandbooststheirsupportforEuropeanintegration.

EVALUATIONOFMEUM

Thesimulationwasaccompaniedbyanextensiveevaluationandfeedbackprocess.First,wecarriedout online inquiries, before and after the simulations in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. Second, wegatheredwritten reports inwhich the studentshad to reflecton their rolesand their activitiesaswellasonthesimulationingeneral.Third,weconductedinterviewswithsomeoftheparticipants.And fourth, we held a focus-group discussion after the simulation as a feedback with somestudents.2Using thesemethods,we set out to asses the results ofMEUM. Additionally, the dataenabled empirical probing of the requirements of didactical reflection according to newdevelopmentsindidactics(seeManzel2012).

We start by presenting the findings from the online inquiries and the respective supplementaryresults from qualitative methods. Subsequently, we highlight some aspects not covered in thesurveys,astheyonlycameupduringtheopenqualitativefeedbacks.

Table 3 gives an overview on the general disciplinary learning outcome. Almost 90 percent ofrespondents claim to know more about the EU through the simulation. As table 4 shows, thestudentsdidnotonlylearnabouttheordinarylegislativeprocedure,butalsoabouttheinstitutionsand policies of the EU. Less consideration was given to the history and theories of Europeanintegration, aspects which hence need to be covered during preparation in the run-up to thesimulationitself.

Table3:Generaldisciplinaryknowledge

MEUMhasimprovedmyknowledgeoftheEUingeneral

Count Percentage

Completelydisagree 3 2.11%

Disagree 4 2.82%

Neitheragreenordisagree 12 8.45%

Agree 64 45.07%

Completelyagree 59 41.55%

AggregatedresponsesfromMEUM2011,2013,2014,142respondents

2Datacollectionwithmethodsthreeandfourwasconductedin2013.


380

Table4:Specificdisciplinaryknowledge

MEUMhasimprovedmyknowledgeoftheEUespeciallyinthefollowingarea…

Count Percentage

structuresandinstitutions(1) 88 26.11%

decision-making(2) 129 38.28%

policies(3) 87 25.82%

historyanddevelopment(4) 10 2.97%

theoriesofintegration(5) 23 6.82%

AggregatedresponsesfromMEUM2011,2013,2014,multiplementionspossible

Regarding subject-specific knowledge, thequalitative feedbackshighlightedone additional aspect.Participants were surprised about the role informal debates and deals take on during theproceedings.Manywouldhaveneverjudgedittobethatimportantbutthestudentssticktotheirrolesevenatthesocialparts,prolongingthesimulationlongaftertheendofthe“official”schedule,asoneofthewrittenfeedbackspointsout:

“Themostinterestingexperienceformewaslobbyingandback-doordiplomacy.Itwasreallyachallengingexperience,which I enjoyeda lot. Sitting togetherwithpeople till latenightsandkeeponnegotiatingwiththemwassimplyaclassicalexperienceforme.”

Togetherwiththeinternalizationofrolesdescribedlateroninthispart,this“handson”impressioncould explain the frequency difference in survey findings between learning effects in decisionmakingandpolicies/structuresand institutions.Actingasdecision-makers themselves,participantsgained a deeper understanding of actualprocesses in EU institutions than of content andde jurestructures.

Nexttosubjectspecificcompetences,weaskedaboutthegenericcompetencesorsoftskills.Morethan 80 percent of the participants thought they had improved their soft skills through thesimulation,asdepictedintable5.

Table5:Genericcompetencesingeneral

MEUMhelpedtoimprovemysoftskillsingeneral

Count Percentage

Completelydisagree 3 2.11%

Disagree 5 3.52%


Agree 69 48.59%

Completelyagree 49 34.51%

AggregatedresponsesfromMEUM2011,2013,2014,142respondents


381

Table 6 shows relatively equal shares of (perceived) improvement in different relevant soft skillsthroughouttheyears.Itisnotableherethatthecompositionandsizeoftheparticipants’poolisofhighrelevancefortheoverall,averagesharesbetweencategories.DuringMEUM2011,participantscamefromrelativelyhomogenousbackgrounds,namelymainlyfromEUcountries. In2014,a largegroup of non-european students took part, which resulted in comparably high values on the‘intercultural skills’ category. Similarly, in 2014 the number of participantswasmore than doublethanin2011.Hence,forexamplefactionsintheEuropeanParliamentgrewinsizeandconsiderablymore ‘teamwork’ was needed for effective negotiations. These differences between the yearsaccount for overall equal shares in the aggregated data. However, one should not miss theseimportantaspects,whichbearparticularrelevancewhendesigningsimulationsforcertaindidacticalpurposes.

Table6:Specificgenericcompetences

MEUMhasimprovedmysoftskillsespeciallyinthefollowingarea…

Count Percentage

Englishlanguageskills(1) 84 25.00%

Interculturalskills(2) 74 22.02%

Rhetoricalskills/debating(3) 94 27.98%

Teamwork(4) 84 25.00%

Total 336 100.00%

AggregatedresponsesfromMEUM2011,2013,2014,multiplementionspossible

An interesting aspect we discovered during the qualitative evaluation ofMEUM 2013 was a gapbetweenexperiencedparticipantsandlessexperiencedones.Thiswasmentionedseveraltimesandalsoconfirmed inthemostrecentsurveyfollowingMEUM2014,whichquantitativelycoveredthisaspect for the first time. Out of 31 experienced participants, all but one found their previousexperience tobeanadvantage (table7).Besides thedata, thegap isalso recognizableduring thecourse of the simulation.More experienced participants directly use the opportunity to work onnegotiationsandproposalsfromthestart,whereaslessexperiencedparticipantsneedtofamiliarizewiththeformalsituationfirst.Asoneoftheintervieweesstated:

“Previousexperiencewasthemaindifferencebetweenthosewhoparticipatedsuccessfully [insidethesimulation,e.g.presentingtheirpointsandarguments],withmoreengagementandthosewhoratherstayedinthebackground.IfI'dhavehadsomeexperiencethiswouldhavebeencompletelydifferent forme. But I gained experience throughout the simulation so towards the end thiswasdifferent."

Thefactorofpreviousexperienceplaysaparticularroleregardingtheprocedureofthesimulation,but previous knowledge about the EU takes some weight too, as it facilitates the personalpreparationofparticipantsfortheirrole,forexamplehowtofindinformationaboutspecificcountryorpartypositions.


382

These aspects emphasize the importanceof preparation, not only on the subject, i.e. the EU, butalsoontopicslikedeliveringspeechesorhowtoworkwithintheRulesofProcedureaswellastheneed for assistance during the preparation phase for ‘newcomers’. Despite differing levels ofexperience, all respondents in the qualitative evaluation concluded they had learned a lot andimprovedtheircommunicativeskillsandpoliticaljudgmentaboutpoliticalprocesses.Thedegreeofsoft-skill-improvementdependsonthepersonalinvolvementthough,whichishighlydependentonthepersonalexperiencewithsimulations.Ingeneral,theparticipantssupportedthepositiveimagewegainedfromthesurvey,asthefollowingquoteshows,whichisrepresentativeformanysimilarstatements:

“The simulation made me know how to communicate in a highly professional setting, especiallywhenpeoplearerepresentingdifferentculturesandregions.”

Table7:Impactofpreviousexperiencewithsimulations

IncaseyouparticipatedinprevioussimulationsbeforeMEUM2014,doyoufeelyourpreviousexperiencewasanadvantageforyourparticipationinMEUM?

Count Percentage

Yes,verymuch(1) 18 26.47%

Yes,tosomeextent.(2) 12 17.65%

Don'tknow.(3) 0 0.00%

No,notmuch.(4) 1 0.01%

No,notatall.(5) 0 0.00%

MEUMwasmyfirstsimulation.(6)

37 54.41%

MEUM2014,68respondents

Additionally, thegeneral interest inEuropeanpoliticswasstimulated,one importantaspectof theGermanpoliticaldidacticsdemand.Again, almost90percentof the respondentsagreed (table8).Furthermore,manyparticipantsvoicedastrongmotivationtogetactivelyinvolvedthemselves,forexample inEuropeanstudentactivitiesoralike.Their ‘tieswithEurope’ strengthened through theexperience,mainlyduetotheparticipantsfromdiversecountries.Oneinterviewsummarizestheseinshort:

“I just enjoyed the diversity of different countries and cultures and positions that we had here.Despite all those differences sitting together and actually achieving such a sophisticated politicalreformissomethingIfinditabsolutelyfascinating.ItconfirmedmyconvictionthatingeneralmoreEuropeisthewayforward.”

Thisalso ties inwith theresultsonsoft-skill improvement.Studentsovercameculturaldifferencesandlanguagebarriersinordertoworktogether.


383

Table8:InterestinEU

MEUMhasincreasedmyinterestinEuropeanpolitics

Count Percentage

completelydisagree 2 1.43%

disagree 4 2.86%


Agree 64 45.71%

completelyagree 59 42.14%

AgreggatedresponsesfromMEUM2011,2013,2014,140respondents

Ingeneraltermsthefeedbackwasverypositive.Morethan90percentofparticipantsansweredthatMEUMwasasuccess,anumberwhichisconstantlyfoundinallwavesofthesurvey.3In2011and2012,asseenintable9,almostalloftherespondentsansweredpositivelywhenaskedabouttheirperception. In 2012, all respondents enjoyed simulatingpolitics.Only the tight time schedulewascriticizedbysomestudents.

Table9:GeneralFeedback

Stronglyagree

Agree Neitheragreenordisagree

Disagree Stronglydisagree

MEUM2011/2012wasasuccess

69 27

1

0 3

Ienjoyedsimulatingpolitics

70 30 0 0 0

Goodbalancebetweensocialprogrammeandsimulation

45 48 8 0 0

WishIhadmorefreetimeonmyown

3 10 35 50 3

Simulationwaswellorganized

65 35 0 0 0

Allvaluesinpercentages.Firstrow:AggregatedresponseMEUM2011,2012,89respondents.Allothers:MEUM2012,42respondents.

3 InordertoensuremethodicalcoherenceweonlydepictaggregateddatafromMEUM2011and2012,astheyusedthesamestatementtoassessthesuccessofthesimulation.MEUM2013and2014surveysratherasked for “satisfaction” on a one to ten scale, showing also high values. Therefore, the results are equallyinterpretablebutitisnotpossibletoaggregatetheminasimpleway.Theothercategorieswereonlyassessedin2012.


384

Asshownabove,therewasaclearbenefitfromtheuseofqualitativemethods.Itresultedinamorecomprehensiveevaluationof the learningoutcomes.All inall, thequalitativeresponsessupportedthe survey findings, but added some additional points and perspectives to the picture. In thefollowingwedescribe some factors not connected to the theorydeduced aspects coveredby theonlineinquiries.Oneofthemainfactorsforthesuccessofthesimulationistherealisticatmospherewhichcontributesinlargeparttotheinternalizationofparticipant'sroles.Participantsstartto‘thinkasministers,MEPsorjournalists’:

“Thewholesimulationprocesswasveryprofessional.IfeltthatIwasreallyinanofficialmeetingofEuropeanparliament.ItwillbeamemorablesimulationinmylifebecauseIsawthetotalactivitiesofEuropeanparliamentverypracticallywhichIcouldn’tachievedfrombookishknowledge.”

Some participants were also strongly engaged emotionally, as one participant mentioned in thefocus-group:‘Iwasreally,honestlysadwhenfirstmyamendmentandintheendthewholedirectivefailed, as I thoughtwe found a satisfying compromise,which turned out not to be entirely true’.Othersaddedpointsas feeling ‘nostalgic’when returning to theirdaily study routineafterMEUMandwouldhavepreferredtositintheEPorCouncilagain.Thisgreatemotionalinvolvementwasnotclearlydiscoveredinthesurveysandseemstodistinguishthesimulationmethodfromotherformsof teaching.While instruction in the sense of teaching and learning subject specific competencesmight also be achieved through a traditional lecture or seminar, this emotional aspect deservesmoreattentioninfutureevaluations.

Someparticipantsevenreassessedtheirpersonalcareerpath,eitherconsideringacareerinpoliticsagainordismissingtheprofessionofajournalistasaviablecareeroption.Reflectioningeneralwasamainaspectduringallthreequalitativemethods.Participantsrethoughttheirownenactmentandthe political processes they experienced firsthand. Themajority evaluated the process in positiveterms, from simple comprehension for the difficulties in a complicated environment of decision-makingtothegeneralstatement:

“Thesimulationshowedthatdemocracymightbeexpensive,butgenuinelyvaluable,becauseeveryopinioncanmakeitselfheard.”

All in all, all participants judged the simulation tobemore instructive than their everyday studiesandstressedthelearningoutcomesondifferentlevels,asthisfinalquoteshows:

“It was a great opportunity to learn a lot in only a few days about the European Union, itsinstitutions and their decision-makingprocess. Basedon the fact that itwasnot a normal lectureaboutthesetopics,butratherasimulationwhereweparticipatedactively, the learningaffectwasbiggerandIwillrememberitlonger.Itwasagreatexperience.”

CONCLUSION

Asseenintheevaluations,theonline-surveyaswellas inqualitativeinterviews,writtenfeedbacksand the focus-group-discussion,Model EuropeanUnionMainz is quite successful. Subject specificknowledge about the EU is acquired, especially about the decision-making process of Europeanlegislation, but also knowledge about institutions and policies. However, due to the institutionaldesign and the focus of the simulation, learning about the history of European integration andintegrationtheoriesislimited.Thisdrawbackshouldbecompensatedinthepreparationsurroundingthesimulation.


385

But disciplinary knowledge in general can also be learned in traditional forms of teaching likelectures.Thereisnorealevidencethatsimulationsarebetterinthatsense.Inordertoanalyzethat,control-groups have to be included in assessments.We tried this in the 2013 survey, but in thelectureandseminarsoninternationalrelations,theEUwasnot inthefocus,sotheresultsarenotcomparable. Although perhaps not yet proven with convincing evidence, as Raymond andUsherwood show, the students esteem simulations clearly and claim themselves that they havelearned more than in usual lectures and seminars, which in itself is an argument in favor ofsimulations.Here,therelationshipbetweenemotionsandlearninginsimulationsshouldbesubjectto further scrutiny, as also our evidence shows (see Jones & Bursens forthcoming on affectivelearning).

Additionally, the activating advantage of a simulation has to be stressed. Students do not onlyacquiredisciplinaryknowledgebutalsopracticeseveralsoftskillsorgenericcompetences.Althoughthisisalsopossibleintraditionalformsofteaching,theuseofsoftskillsinalectureisquitelimited.Inasimulation,thestudentsarehighlyactive, theyreally immerse intheirroles,astheemotionalinvolvement indicates. As ministers and parliamentarians, the participants have to develop ownpositions towards relevantpoliticalproblems, theyhave toargueanddefend theirpositions, theyhavetonegotiateinordertofindalliesandmajorities,andfinally,theyhavetocompromiseinordertocometocometoadecision (or theyhave todecidenot tocompromise,which isopento theirchoice). Learning theory assumes that this active learning leads to better learning outcomes.Although this is not really clear, the students enjoy the simulations and esteem the possibility ofactiveparticipation,asallevaluationsclearlyshowed,whichalsoisanargumentinitself.

Additionally, simulations correspond better to the demands in new Bologna-curricular and newapproaches of didactics as they fit very well into the ‘shift from teaching to learning’. Theseadvantages of a simulation depend, of course, on the design of the simulation. As shown, anintensive preparation of the participants is essential, especially for studentswho are not familiarwithsimulations.

Butthisleadstoabigprobleminherentinsimulations,notyetaddressed:theproblemofresources.Simulations, especially when combined with intensive preparation and evaluation, are verydemanding for teachers. Although their role during the simulation is quite limited (at best, theteachercanrelaxandletthesimulationgo),beforehandandafterthesimulationalotofworkhastobedone.InthecaseofMEUM,thefinancialsupportofUniversityofMainzandthecooperationwithvoluntary studentgroups (AEGEEandBETA)havehelped toorganizea large-scale simulationwithinternational participants and an accompanying social program. In general, there are twopossibilities:eitheruniversitiessupportefforts likesimulationswithspecialsupport,e.g.additionalfinancial resources for tutors or a reduced teaching load, or we follow Rebecca Glazier’s recentadvice‘Runningsimulationswithoutruiningyourlife’andincorporateeasy,small-scalesimulationsintoseminars(Glazier2011). Inanycase,weshouldusesimulations.Theyofferavaluabletoolforgood learning outcomes, but especially, simulations undeniably provide an enjoyable teachingmethodtostudentsforpedagogicalendsinCrossley-Frolick’ssense.

***


386

CorrespondenceAddress

Wolfgang Muno, Department of Political Science, University of Mainz, D-55099 Mainz, Germany[[email protected]]

REFERENCES

Bergen-Communiqué (2005).DereuropäischeHochschulraum–dieZiele verwirklichen.KommuniquéderKonferenzderfür die Hochschulen zuständigen europäischen Ministerinnen und Minister, Bergen, 19.-20. Mai 2005.http://www.bmbf.de/pub/bergen_kommunique-dt.pdf

Bergmann,J.(ed)(2015).HandlexikonderEuropäischenUnion.Baden-Baden.

Crossley-Frolick, K. (2010). Beyond Model UN: Simulating Multi-Level, Multi-Actor Diplomacy using the MilleniumDevelopmentGoals,InternationalStudiesPerspectives11(2):184-201.

Detjen,J.(2007).PolitischeBildung.München.

Detjen,J.(2012).Mitredenkönnen:BeredsamkeitinderDemokratie.AusPolitikundZeitgeschichte46-47:29-35.

Detjen,J.,Massing,P.,Richter,D.andWeißeno,G.(2012).Politikkompetenz–einModell.Wiesbaden.

Giesecke,H.(2000).PolitischeBildung.DidaktikundMethodikfürSchuleundJugendarbeit.Weinheim.

Glazier, R. (2011). Running Simulationswithout ruining your Life: Simpleways to incorporate Active Learning into yourTeaching,JournalofPoliticalScienceEducation7(4):375-393.

Gormley-Heenan,C.andLightfoot,S.(eds.)(2012).TeachingPoliticsandInternationalRelations.Houndmills:Palgrave.

Guasti,P.,Muno,W.andNiemann,A.(forthcoming).Introduction–EUSimulationsasaMultidimenisonalResource:FromTeachingandLearningTooltoResearchInstrument,EuropeanPoliticalScienceEPS.

Herz, D. and Blätte, A. (eds) (2000). Simulation und Planspiel in den Politikwissenschaften. Eine Bestandsaufnahme derinternationalenDiskussion.Münster.

Jones, R. and Bursens, P. forthcoming. The Effects of Active Learning Environments: How Simulations Trigger AffectiveLearning.EuropeanPoliticalScienceEPS.

JPSE(2013).JournalofPoliticalScienceEducation.ThematicIssue:SimulationsinPoliticalScience9,(2):129-253.

King,A(1993).FromSageontheStagetoGuideontheSide.CollegeTeaching41(1):30-35.

Kolb,D(1984).ExperientialLearning:ExperienceastheSourceofLearningandDevelopment.EnglewoodCliffs.

Leiße,O.(eds.)(2010).DieEuropäischeUnionnachdemVertragvonLissabon.Wiesbaden.

Manzel, S. (2012). Anpassung an wissenschaftliche Standards oder Paradigmenwechsel in der Politikdidaktik? ZumempirischenAufbrucheinerneuenGenerationvonPolitikdidaktiker/-innen.ZeitschriftfürPolitikwissenschaft22(1):143-154.

Massing,P.(2004)Plan-undEntwicklungsspiel,in:Siegfried,F.,Kuhn,H.-W.Massing,P.(eds.):MethodentrainingfürdenPolitikunterricht,Schwalbach,163-194.

Massing,P.(2012)DievierDimensionenderPolitikkompetenz,in:AusPolitikundZeitgeschichte46-47:23-29.

ModelEuropeanUnionMainz(MEUM),2013:http://www.meumainz.eu/(accessed21February2013).

Oros, A. (2007). Let’sDebate: Active Learning Encourages Student Particpation andCritical Thinking. Journal of PoliticalScienceEducation3(3):293-311.

Raymond,C.andUsherwood,S.(2013).AssessmentinSimulations.JournalofPoliticalScienceEducation9(2):157-167.


387

Schirm, S., Smejkalova, K. and Rötzmeier, M. (2010). Planspiel und Verhandlungssimulation alsUniversitätsseminar,Bochum (http://www.sowi.rub.de/mam/content/lsip/leitfadenplanspiel.pdf accessed 21 January2015).

Schirm, S., Smejkalova, K. and Rötzmeier,M. (2011). Planspiel und Verhandlungssimulation als Universitätsseminar, in:ZeitschriftfürPolitikwissenschaft21(4):649-659.

Schmidt,S.andSchünemann,W.(2009).EuropäischeUnion:EineEinführung,Baden-Baden.

Scholz, L. (2003). Spielerisch Politik lernen. Methoden des Kompetenzerwerbs im Politik- und Sozialkundeunterricht,Schwalbach.

Silberman,M.(1996).ActiveLearning:101StrategiestoTeachAnySubject.Boston.

Stoil,MandLester,J(1979).TeachingGoalsandSimulationFormats.ATypology.TeachingPoliticalScience6(2):151-165.

Sturm, R. and Pehle, Heinrich (2012) Das neue deutsche Regierungssystem. Die Europäisierung von Institutionen,EntscheidungsprozessenundPolitikfelderninderBundesrepublikDeutschland,Wiesbaden(3.Aufl.).

Switky,B. (2004) The ImportanceofVoting in InternationalOrganizations: Simulating theCaseof theEuropeanUnion.InternationalStudiesPerspectives5(1):40-49.

Taylor, K. (2012) Simulations Inside and Outside the IR Classroom: A Comparative Analysis. International StudiesPerspectives13(1):1-16.

University of Graz (2003) Tuning Educational Structures in Europe, Tuning Summary, http://eua.uni-graz.at/Tuning_summary_EUA_conference.pdf(accessed25January2015).

VanDyke,G.,DeClair,E.andLoedel,P.(2000).StimulatingSimulations:MakingtheEuropeanUnionaClassroomReality.InternationalStudiesPerspectives1(2):145-159.

Weidenfeld,W.(2011).DieEuropäischeUnion.Stuttgart.

Wildt, J. (2003). “The Shift from Teaching to Learning” - Thesen zum Wandel der Lernkultur in modularisiertenStudienstrukturen, in: Fraktion Bündnis 90/ Die Grünen im Landtag NRW (Hrsg.): Unterwegs zu einem europäischenBildungssystem.Düsseldorf:14-18.

Wildt, J. (2005). Vom Lehren zum Lernen – hochschuldidaktische Konsequenzen aus dem Bologna-Prozess für Lehre,Studium und Prüfung, unpublished manuscript, presented at the conference „From Teaching to Learning“, Berlin,17.11.2005

Zeff,E.(2003).NegotiatingintheEuropeanCouncil:AModelEuropeanUnionFormatforIndividualClasses.InternationalStudiesPerspectives4(3):265-274.

European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe

http://doi.org/10.18352/erlacs.9588 © Aexander Brand, Susan McEwen-Fial, Wolfgang Muno. Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Un-ported (CC BY 3.0) License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/. ERLACS is published by CEDLA – Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation | Centro de Estudios y Documentación Latinoamericanos, Amsterdam; The Netherlands | Países Bajos; www.cedla.uva.nl; ISSN 0924-0608, eISSN 1879-4750.

No. 99 (2015) October, pp. 7-28 www.erlacs.org

An ‘Authoritarian Nexus’? China’s Alleged Special Relationship with Autocratic States in Latin America

Alexander Brand Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences

Susan McEwen-Fial University of Mainz

Wolfgang Muno Zeppelin University and University of Mainz

Abstract China’s rise is often interpreted as a harbinger of a new era in world politics and raises the question if such a power transition may impact upon patterns of democratic rule across the globe. There is growing interest in whether China acts as an outside stabilizer for other au-thoritarian regimes. This paper contributes to the emerging literature on the international dimension of autocratic rule by focusing on Chinese Latin American policy. Using the method of structured focused comparisons, we want to assess whether China’s relations towards the Latin American autocracies Cuba and Venezuela differ from those with struc-turally similar, but democratic cooperation partners in the region, namely Costa Rica and Chile. The guiding question is whether we can detect such a pattern of specific bilateral relationships between China and other autocracies, leading to an ‘authoritarian nexus’ in Chinese foreign policy. Keywords: China, Latin America, authoritarianism.

Resumen: ¿Un ‘nexo autoritario’? Supuesta relación especial de China con Estados autocráticos de América Latina

El ascenso de China se suele interpretar como un presagio de una nueva era en la política mundial y plantea la cuestión de si dicha transición de poder podría repercutir en los patro-nes de la democracia en el mundo entero. La cuestión de si China actúa como estabilizador externo para otros regímenes autoritarios suscita cada vez más interés. Este artículo es una contribución a la bibliografía emergente sobre la dimensión internacional de los sistemas autocráticos enfocándose en la política chino-latinoamericana. Mediante el método de las comparaciones estructuradas y focalizadas, queremos evaluar si las relaciones de China con las autocracias latinoamericanas de Cuba y Venezuela difieren de las relaciones con otros aliados estructuralmente similares, pero democráticos en la región, como Costa Rica y Chi-le. La pregunta clave es si podemos detectar este patrón de relaciones bilaterales específicas

8 | ERLACS No. 99 (2015) October

entre China y otras autocracias, un patrón que desemboque en un ‘nexo autoritario’ en la política exterior china. Palabras clave: China, Latinoamérica, autoritarismo. China’s rise in world politics is often seen as a challenge to the contemporary global superpower (allegedly in decline), the United States, and consequently, as a harbinger of a new era in world politics (Ikenberry, 2008; Breslin, 2013). Furthermore, there is another idea which links such power transition thinking with rather specific assumptions regarding foreign policy and international co-operation of authoritarian regimes (Erdmann, Bank, Hoffmann & Richter, 2013; Mattes and Rodriguez, 2014; Tansey, 2015; Tolstrup, 2015). Authoritar-ian regimes are assumed to have special foreign policy motivations, ambitions as well as activities. In this regard, China is viewed as an actor which inten-tionally has sought to nurture specifically strong bonds with autocratic states around the globe (Bader & Kaestner, 2010; Bader, 2015, Burnell, 2010a, b). Some authors have indeed suggested that ‘authoritarian solidarity’ is an im-portant ingredient in Chinese foreign policy (e.g. Kleine-Ahlbrandt & Small, 2008; Burnell, 2010b, 11; Kurlantzick, 2013, ch. 7-9). Other voices have at least implicitly hinted at a growing Chinese interest to boost its ties to authoritar-ian states in matters of energy security (Swaine, 2011, pp. 219-20). In contrast, Vanderhill excludes China expressis verbis in her recent study on such autoc-racy promotion, but without giving evidence why (Vanderhill, 2013, p. 6). Only recently have some studies produced a theoretical argument as to why and under what circumstances non-democratic regional (and aspiring global) powers could be expected to support authoritarian backlashes within democra-tizing countries or to nurture entrenched autocratic regimes in their neighbor-hood (Bader, Graevingholt and Kaestner 2010; Schweickert, Melnykovska and Plamper 2012, Bader 2015). According to this logic, autocracies have strong incentives to favor similarly structured states at least in nearby states, mainly because of feared diffusion or spillover effects of democratization. What inter-ests us is whether we can detect any such pattern of behaviour in general, re-spectively in non-neighbouring regions of the world, like Latin America. Since Latin America has been deemed of heightened strategic importance by China in recent years and is by now generally considered a field of considerable Chi-nese foreign policy activity (Gallagher & Porzecanski, 2010; Ellis, 2014), it provides a good testing ground for the aforementioned assumption. Hence, we want to elucidate whether Chinese activities throughout Latin America demon-strate China’s intention to nurture special relations with autocratic states around the globe. The central guiding question is: Can we identify patterns of a specific foreign policy vis-à-vis autocratic states on behalf of China, i.e. an ‘authoritarian nexus’? The idea of an ‘authoritarian nexus’ itself is linked to the concept of ‘special relationships’ in foreign policy in the following manner. Although the understanding of special relationships in Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) literature is heavily tilted towards the analysis of the alleged Anglo-

Alexander Brand, Susan McEwen-Fial, Wolfgang Muno: An ‘Authoritarian Nexus’? | 9

American special relationship (Colman, 2004; Tate, 2012; see also the more encompassing view of Dumbrell & Schaefer, 2009), some general features of any special relationship can be distilled from there. What emerges from a sur-vey of this literature is that a truly special relationship is characterized by: o unusually close institutional bonds, frequent consultation and concerted

policies which are neither automatic nor self-creating but products of inten-tional agency and strategy (Colman, 2004, pp. 1, 3);

o an unusual degree of intimacy and informality (Colman, 2004, p. 2; Dum-brell & Schaefer, 2009, p. 3), such as activities which exceed short-term, interest-driven and purely pragmatic exchange;

o a cultural and sentiment-related base of the relations (Dumbrell & Schaefer, 2009, p. 2-3) which in turn may be the result of a consciously constructed and nurtured projection of cultural similarity (Dumbrell & Schaefer, 2009, p. 4) or cultural-ideological affinity (Tate, 2012, pp. 38-54);

o a close alignment of interests already being or brought into accordance with each other, most often an alignment primarily conditioned by the interests of the more powerful side in the equation (Dumbrell & Schaefer 2009, p. 4); in this sense, a political and cultural-ideological superstructure may overarch and stabilize a relationship based on perceived and forged shared interests.

The primary focus of this paper is in elucidating whether we can meaningfully speak of a ‘special relationship’ when referring to the relations of China with selected autocratic states in Latin America. Consequently it is the question of specialness itself that is of paramount interest as well as the idea whether we, if at all, rather witness special relations in the making. Methodologically, we have chosen the technique of structured focused comparisons between different real types of relations in order to identify whether a relation is special vis-à-vis others or not (on the method itself see George, 1979; George & Bennett, 2004, pp. 67-72). Consequently, we are looking for a specific intensity or specific patterns of exchange between China and autocracies in the Western hemi-sphere as compared to China’s relations with comparable, non-autocratic states in the region. Following the logic of paired comparisons (Tarrow, 2010), we compare each of the two obvious cases of relations to autocracies in the target region, namely Chinese-Cuban and Chinese-Venezuelan relations, to structur-ally similar cases (Chinese relations with Costa Rica and Chile, respectively).

Chinese foreign policy fragmentation and special relationships

In analysing whether Chinese activities throughout Latin America are inten-tionally seeking to nurture especially good relations with autocrat-ic/authoritarian states, we define as a threshold for such a special relationship – an authoritarian nexus – as the following. First, we focus on internal fea-tures/state structures which allow a country to be categorized as ‘autocratic’.1


China definitely has become one of the most important autocratic states today. In Latin America, Cuba is not only without a doubt autocratic, but even a so-cialist autocracy, which makes Cuba the most likely case for special relations. China even recognizes Cuba as a ‘socialist brother and comrade’ (‘Chinese President Meets Cuban Foreign Minister’, 2013). The counterpart for Cuba is Costa Rica, structurally similar in size, population, and importance, but notably different in the crucial variable ‘regime type’. Costa Rica has been a stable democracy since 1949. Thus, if the logic of an authoritarian nexus holds, Costa Rica should constitute an unlikely case for a special relationship with China. As a second obvious case in the region, Venezuela can be identified at least as an electoral or competitive autocracy (Levitsky & Way, 2010). This makes Venezuela a weaker case for special relations, but still a likely one against the background of the idea of an authoritarian nexus. A suitable case for compari-son with Venezuela is Chile, a structurally similar country with a resource-based economy, depending not on oil like Venezuela but on copper. Again, the notable difference is in the variable ‘regime type’: Chile has matured to a sta-ble and successful democracy since re-democratization in 1989, which, in the logic of the alleged relation makes Chile an unlikely case, too. A second, necessary qualification for an authoritarian nexus is the existence of specific bilateral foreign policy schemes which indicate a preference for specifically intense cooperation and collaboration with autocratic regimes. Here, we define four expectations tied to specific fields of action. If there is indeed an authoritarian nexus we would expect to find the following patterns in Chinese-Cuban and Chinese-Venezuelan relations (as compared to the cases of Chinese relations with democratic Costa Rica and Chile): o more and closer activities in the realm of (military) security, i.e. joint exer-

cises and exchanges of personnel; significant cooperation in military R&D as well as intense arms trade eventually leading to an exclusive form of al-liance;

o specific patterns of economic cooperation, here measured by the intensity and importance assigned to economic exchange and the existence of pref-erential agreements;

o an unusual degree of depth in the respective institutional relations, i.e. common institutional structures, possibly excluding others or being created for the purpose of bolstering specific bilateral relations;

o a heightened importance assigned to soft power and public diplomacy as means to foster and nurture the cultural-ideological superstructure of the relations (embodied in high-level state visits and the establishment of Con-fucius Institutes).

The very idea of ‘special relationships’ between China and other states seems to suggest that China pursues its foreign policy as a unitary actor. Recent re-search on Chinese foreign policy hints to a growing ‘pluralization’ of Chinese foreign decision-making (Jakobson & Knox, 2010; Shambaugh, 2013; Downs,


2014). Several actors are involved in decision-making, the party, state bureau-cracy, military and intelligence, regional and local governments, entrepreneurs and state-owned enterprises, which lead to what Jakobson and Knox call a ‘fractured authority’ (Jakobson & Knox, 2010). However, despite a growing number of actors involved, we assume the (still) formative overall foreign poli-cy leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the CCP-controlled government. Chinese foreign policy is still to a considerable degree channelled and constrained by the policy choices and frameworks established through the CCP, most notably its Politburo Standing Committee. (Power et al., 2012, p. 114; Shambaugh, 2013, pp. 61ff.). Not surprisingly, even proponents of the ‘pluralization thesis’ such as Jakobson speak of an ambiguous yet symbiotic relationship (Jakobson, 2009, p. 415; emphasis inserted) between the govern-ment, the army, enterprises and other foreign policy actors. This notion entails that the Chinese party-state has reserved more than a modicum of policy coor-dination capabilities and is at the very least competent to channel the activities of Chinese actors abroad or to veto any actions deemed unsupportive of the overall government policy line. This is even true of foreign economic relations of China, arguably the field of activity where the ‘pluralization thesis’ has re-ceived the most support. First, the entire ‘going out’-strategy of successive Chinese governments that has promoted investment and business activities abroad during the past two decades has been accompanied by a stream of offi-cial papers and guidelines for businesses outlining where to invest. Power et al. (2012, p. 101) remind us that these guidelines result from sustained and coor-dinated efforts of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) as well as Chinese embassies and consulates around the globe. Secondly, as Downs remarks, the Chinese government commands several levers of control over Chinese enterprises (Downs, 2010, pp. 74-78). It still retains authority over appointments for top positions in large, state-owned enterprises; these party-appointed executives in turn are often willing to follow the Party’s policy directives in their business decisions (Qiu, 2015, p. 8). Even formally ‘private’ global players, it needs to be stressed, usually exhibit ties to the CCP. A case in point is here Huawei, founded and still led by a former of-ficer of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officer and CCP member (Power et al., 2012, p. 108), which has a notoriously shrouded ownership structure on-ly thinly veiling its close bonds to the Chinese party-state. Moreover, the Chi-nese government exerts some control on larger foreign investment decisions which must be approved by the CCP-dominated National Development and Reform Commission. It is also able to channel the investment behaviour of all types of enterprises through the provision of concessional credit. Finally, as Ellis has recently pointed out (Ellis, 2014, p. 10), Chinese companies facing hurdles in their operations abroad frequently turn to the Chinese government to support their cause or to provide overall guidance on how to appropriately re-spond to local problems. This, in sum, allows the Chinese government (with the CCP-controlled Politburo acting as the top coordinating entity) to shape


‘business decisions’ and to mould them according to its interests. Hence, we assert that the initial idea of a ‘special relationship’ between China and other autocracies, in our case in Latin America, is not fundamentally eroded by the recent pluralization of decision-making in Chinese foreign policy. There might be other Chinese actors conducting business or otherwise being active throughout Latin America, but on most accounts, and in particular within the fields we analyse – (military) security, economic cooperation, institutional and soft power/public diplomacy – recent research has not produced convincing arguments that would dispute the (still) strong leadership role of the Chinese party-state and the CCP-controlled government. Hence, for substantial as well as analytical reasons we see China in Latin America as a unitary actor.

Military activities

Despite their close rhetorical relationship, it does not appear that China treats Cuba as a special military partner. It has no confirmed physical military pres-ence in Latin America, although some America security specialists suspect that the Chinese might have established at least one listening post in Cuba (Horta, 2008; Ellis, 2011). However, defence analysts such as Evan Ellis argue that China will refrain from taking overtly provocative military activities such as establishing bases in Latin America in order not to appear threatening to the United States (Ellis, 2011, p. 10). Military sales to Cuba are not in the official arms trade statistics for 2010 and 2011 (SIPRI, 2012), although occasionally it is reported that China traded an undisclosed amount of small and light weapons to Cuba, as well as to several other Latin American states, during the period of 2006-10 (Bromley, Duchâtel & Holtom, 2013). In addition, Cuba has been merely one of several countries which has participated in forums such the first China-Latin America High Level Defense Forum, held in China in November 2012, with six countries participating, including Colombia, Cuba, Bolivia and Uruguay (FMPRC, 2012). Thus, there is little evidence of a preference for military ties with Cuba. Nevertheless, in a broader sense, Cuba might be im-portant for Chinese security policy due to the fact that the appearance of close relations towards the tiny island in the Western Hemisphere strengthens its bargaining power vis-à-vis the United States, in effect mirroring to some de-gree American ties to Taiwan (Lehoczki, 2012, p. 296). However, this neither implies substantial military cooperation nor does it indicate that regime type as such drives the interest in upholding the impression of close Chinese-Cuban relations. China’s military relationship with Costa Rica represents China’s tendency to mix security cooperation with commercial interests. Costa Rica is the only country in the world with no army, leaving China without an institutional outlet to deepen military ties. However, China recently pledged to donate $25 million to the reconstruction of the National Police Academy as part of a scheme to foster commercial ties (Arias, 2013). This blending of security and commercial


interests is indicative of China’s actions throughout the region and shows no discrimination between autocratic and non-autocratic regimes. China’s military relationship with Venezuela looks at first to be the strong-est in the region because of the higher sales of military equipment. But this is due less to Chinese strategic cooperation than to an arms embargo imposed in 2006 by the U.S. on Venezuela, which forced the Venezuelan military to diver-sify its arms acquisition. Venezuela, for decades a very good customer of U.S. military products, especially aircraft (Venezuela was one of the first customers of F-16 in the world), was consequently forced to resort to arms sellers like Russia, Belarus and China. Venezuela has recently become the most important customer for Chinese arms sales in the region; the country purchased about two dozen K-aircraft so far, discussing to buy twice that much, as well as a Chinese air surveillance system (Ellis, 2010; Marcella, 2012). However, apart from the very active arms trade, there are no exclusive military exchanges or military alliances between China and Venezuela which would indicate a special rela-tionship. Chile has maintained military relations with China since it recognized the PRC in 1970. China and Chile’s navies have held exchanges with China’s ships visiting Chile and Chile’s training ship the Esmeralda has visited China several times (‘China, Chile Pledge to Enhance Military Cooperation’, 2011). During his visit to China in 2011, Chilean Defence Minister Allmand an-nounced Chile’s appreciation for China’s role in global security (‘China, Chile Pledge Closer Military Ties’, 2011). Chile has also benefited from China’s in-creased military exchanges throughout Latin America. In fact, it is remarkable that studies refer to the fact that it was students from non-autocratic countries (Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay) who went to the China’s De-fense Studies Institute, the Army Command College, the Navy Command School, and the Naval Research Institute (Marcella 2012). Thus, it appears that China favours good military relations with a democratic country like Chile over a special relationship with autocratic regimes. For Latin America as a whole, China has increased its military exchanges with 18 Latin American countries, including traditional U.S. allies such as Co-lombia and Mexico as well as its own traditional ally Cuba, and Venezuela as a new ally (Ellis, 2011, p. 14; MODPRC, 2013). Quite similar patterns of part-nering can be found with regard to joint exercises and military dialogues: there is hardly any favouritism towards either Venezuela or Cuba. The PLA also held joint exercises with Brazil and Peru (USDOD, 2011). Moreover, accord-ing to SIPRI arms sales statistics for 2010 and 2011, China also conducted arms sales to Argentina, Colombia and Peru (SIPRI, 2012). In total, military sales to Latin America comprised only approximately 9 per cent of China’s total military weapons sales in 2010 and approximately 4 per cent in 2011.2 To sum up, China’s military activity in Latin America has been relatively limited, although relations have expanded in recent years. Moreover, it appears that China does not discriminate according to regime type while deepening these


ties. In particular, military cooperation with Cuba seems to be minimal. Al-though there are rumours about secret cooperation schemes and arms sales, due to a lack of data it is not possible to verify them at this juncture. Experts attrib-ute this apparent restraint to the fact that China does not want to offend the U.S. openly in its own backyard (e.g. Ellis, 2011, p. 10). Increased arms sales to Venezuela resemble a strategy of the exploitation of commercial opportuni-ties rather than a closing of the ranks among autocracies. There are no exclu-sive alliances or forms of cooperation with Cuba or Venezuela. Instead, Chi-nese cooperation in the realm of security includes Chile and even with Costa Rica, a country without an army, as well as a host of other democratic states in the Western Hemisphere. This pattern disputes the idea of a special authoritari-an nexus in the realms of military and security cooperation.

Economic activities

Like its relationship with the rest of Latin America, China’s economic relation-ship with Cuba has strengthened over the years, although the size of trade in no way compares with China’s trade with partners like Brazil which reached $84 billion in 2012 (European Commission, 2013a). Cuban-China bilateral trade reached nearly $2 billion in 2012, making China the second largest single country trading partner for Cuba. In 2011, 13 per cent of Cuba’s exports went to China, dominated by nickel and sugar (European Commission, 2013c; GTI 2013). Cuba is looking to increase economic cooperation with China and has become China’s largest trading partner in the Caribbean. In 2011, the state-controlled China National Petroleum Corporation signed a $4.5 billion deal to upgrade Cuba’s Cienfuego’s refinery (‘Cuba Seeks Closer Ties with Beijing’, 2012). However, disappointing drilling results led to the departure of a Chi-nese-built rig from the region (Krauss & Crave, 2012). In sum, relations are quite asymmetrical and limited compared to other Latin American states, which is not surprising, keeping in mind the limited economic incentives Cuba offers. Cuba is, after all, a very poor country with limited resources. In contrast to its weak economic ties with Cuba, China has been steadily increasing its relations with Costa Rica since 2007 when Costa Rica controver-sially switched recognition to the PRC away from Taiwan (Haro Navejas, 2013). Trade has taken off since a Free Trade Agreement between the two countries came into force in 2011, particularly in the amount of Chinese im-ports. By 2012 China was the second main source of imports for Costa Rica at 8 per cent and ranked seventh in Costa Rica’s exports for the first half of 2013 (MOFCOM, 2013). Costa Rica maintains a large trade deficit with China due to the high tech nature of Chinese imports to Costa Rica, primarily cellular equipment, computers and microprocessors (COMEX, 2013a, b). Costa Rica’s exports to China include processors, electrical equipment, orange juice pulp and copper scrap (COMEX, 2013c). During Xi Jinping’s visit to Costa Rica in June 2013, agreements worth nearly $2 billion were reached (Arias, 2013). The


Export-Import Bank of China, mandated mainly to hand out government con-cessional loans abroad, lent Costa Rica nearly $400 million, $296 million for the upgrading of the highway between San Jose and Puerto Limón, and $101 million for public transportation vehicles (Cota, 2013). The biggest agreement was the $1.3 billion project to modernize the oil factory in Limón, largely through a $900 billion loan from the government-owned China Development Bank (Arias, 2013; Williams, 2013). Thus China continues to deepen its eco-nomic relationship with its only Central American partner. In Venezuela, China has mainly focused on oil (see Giacalone & Briceño Ruiz, 2013; Ríos, 2013). Venezuela has reserves larger than Saudi Arabia and Chinese oil companies are heavily involved in its oil industry, mainly through joint ventures with Venezuela’s state-owned oil company PdVSA. However, it must be remembered that China was already involved in the oil business in Venezuela as early as 1997, before the country turned autocratic under the rule of Hugo Chávez (Ellis, 2010; Ríos, 2013). Hence, its activities predate any seeming effort to close ranks with another autocracy, even though the rise to power of the Chavista movement might have further strengthened China’s pro-clivity to secure its energy needs by engaging autocratic regimes. A further indicator of this symbiotic relationship which is driven by economic calculus rather than ideological predispositions is the series of loans provided to Vene-zuela recently. Again, although the closeness of regime type and mutual recog-nition as ‘non-Western’ actors might have bolstered this exchange, the very conditions of the loan repayment (repayment in oil deliveries at a non-concessional rate, in total worth more than $40 billion, (‘China Agrees on US$ 40 Billion’, 2012) make clear that economic interests have trumped any ‘auto-cratic solidarity’. However, it is not only oil which is interesting for China. Chavista econom-ic policy has almost completely destroyed Venezuela’s manufacturing base, which has created opportunities for Chinese companies and products. Compa-nies which exhibit close relations to the Chinese party-state such as Haier, Huawei and ZTE have successfully entered the Venezuelan market. For exam-ple, Huawei and ZTE are in joint ventures with the Venezuelan government to produce cell phones. Haier has delivered more than 300,000 consumer appli-ances since 2010 which are sold in Venezuelan state-owned supermarkets. Fur-thermore, China Railway is building more than 1000 kilometres of railroad, and Huawei more than 2,000 kilometres of new fibre optic lines (on China in Venezuela, see Ellis, 2013). All these economic operations have finally made Venezuela one of the four Chinese ‘comprehensive strategic partners’ in Latin America in 2014, with more than 300 bilateral agreements and more than 80 major projects. Trade has risen significantly, from $200 million in 1999 to $10 billion in 2011 (‘China-Venezuela Relations Keep Growing’, 2011). Venezuela is the fourth most important investment country for Chinese FDI, after Brazil, Peru and Argentina, and the fourth most important trade partner in Latin Amer-ica (ECLAC, 2011). Investments in Venezuela and joint ventures with mostly


state-controlled Venezuelan companies arguably resemble good economic op-portunities for China. In turn, through its economic cooperation with China, the Venezuelan government is able to deliver some consumer goods and infra-structure to its demanding population; in this sense, Chinese-Venezuelan eco-nomic cooperation might also stabilize autocratic structures in Venezuela, but rather by default. Similar patterns of economic transactions can also be identified with respect to Chinese activities in democratic Chile. Chile, the first Latin American coun-try to sign a free trade agreement with China, is of heightened economic inter-est for China because of its mineral resources (Gachúz, 2012). Although Chile is a rather small country, and with about 17 million consumers far from being an important market, Chilean-Chinese trade grew from $6.9 billion in 2005 to $32.5 billion in 2012 (DIRECOM, 2014). Chile’s main export product is cop-per, accounting for more than 50 per cent of its total exports. China consumes more than 40 per cent of the world copper production, while producing less than one-sixth of its own copper needs. China has hence become Chile’s main trading partner, and Chile as the main supplier of copper (around 25 per cent of all Chinese copper imports) is of special importance to China. Consequently, Chinese copper hunger has resulted in a constant trade surplus for Chile, reach-ing almost $5 billion in 2012. In order to secure copper, China invests strategi-cally in the Chilean mining sector (Gonzalez-Vicente, 2012). In 2005, a joint venture worth $2 billion guaranteed China access to Chilean copper for more than 15 years at far below market prices (Dosch & Goodman, 2012, p. 9). In 2010, China invested another $2.3 billion in a joint venture with the state-owned Chilean mining company CODELCO and additionally approx. $2 bil-lion in iron ore mines. Again, regarding the main Chinese players involved, we find a pattern of Chinese activities in Chile which is largely comparable to that of Venezuela: either state-owned enterprises such as Minmetals are actively pursuing interests in line with the Chinese government’s overall policy frame-work or formally private companies such as Hebei Wenfeng figure as investors (Ellis, 2014, pp. 18-19), with official backing of and tacit support through the Chinese government. The overall level of Chinese investment in Chile is con-siderable. Only recently, in 2013, China announced it would invest an addi-tional $1.1 billion in photovoltaics to reduce energy costs for copper produc-tion (‘China Investing Heavily in Chile’, 2013). These are huge sums for the comparably small country of Chile. More than that, the case of Chile – in par-ticular when contrasted with a comparable case like Venezuela – is evidence to the fact that the logic of special relationships or an authoritarian nexus does not hold for Chinese foreign economic activities in Latin America. Thus, in economic terms, China’s relationship follows rational interest: with its abundant natural resources, Latin America fits perfectly in with Chi-na’s goal of strengthening its comprehensive national strength ( ) in order to become a great power. China’s ‘go out’ policy ( ), promulgated by Jiang Zemin, supports this endeavour as it officially marshals


state support for Chinese firms to invest abroad to secure natural resources and know-how as well as to open new markets (Freeman, 2008; Power et al., 2012, pp. 100-10). A case in point is Chinese long-term mining projects in the region. A recent study by Gonzalez-Vicente which explicitly considered the suggestion that ‘market rules are not fundamental but secondary to political and geostrategic concerns’ (and hence analyses a question that is similar to ours) has demon-strated that there are no specifically intense economic activities in autocratic regions, even if opportunities exist in principle (Gonzalez-Vicente, 2012). Chi-nese companies have so far rather avoided Venezuela despite its mineral wealth; the top Chinese mining projects in Latin America are all located in democratic countries, such as Peru, Chile and Ecuador (see Table 1). Again, what can be inferred from this is that Chinese mining investment follows commercial incentives while regime type is no relevant explaining fac-tor. Even in cases where political and geostrategic considerations (forging an authoritarian nexus through economic linkages) might overlap with economic incentives such as in the case of Venezuela’s endowment with mineral re-sources, one cannot detect any specifically intense relations. To highlight the strategic importance of Latin America in economic terms, China has named Brazil, Mexico, Peru, and only recently Venezuela as ‘com-prehensive strategic partners’ as well as Chile and Argentina as ‘strategic part-ners’. Although these designations remain deliberately vague concerning tan-gible implications, it seems safe to assume that they are intended to signal to both to the partnering countries within the respective bilateral contexts as well as on the diplomatic level to the outside world different degrees of importance attached to these two sets of relations by the Chinese government (cf. Zhong-ping & Jing 2014, p. 15). China has also established Free Trade Agreements with Chile (2006), Peru (2010) and Costa Rica (signed 2010, in effect since

Table 1: China: Trade in Latin America, 2011

Country Trade (percentage share of total Chinese trade)

Latin America 6.7 Brazil 2.4 Mexico 1 Chile 0.9 Venezuela 0.5 Argentina 0.4 Panama 0.4 Peru 0.4 Colombia 0.2

Source: ECLAC, 2012.


2011) and has become one of the leading trade partners for Brazil and Chile (ECLAC, 2011, p. 19). These actions make clear that in terms of intensity and assigned importance, patterns of economic exchange between China and Latin America are by no means tilted towards autocratic states.

Institutional and soft power diplomacy

Institutional and soft power diplomacy represent further dimensions that China has highlighted in the region in order to protect its interests since Hu’s promo-tion of soft power in 2007 (Glaser & Murphy, 2009). The following section analyses whether unusually deep institutional relations between China and Cu-ba/Venezuela have been forged during the last decade and whether these two autocratic countries are specifically targeted in terms of cultural-ideological activities by China. Overall, China has increased its diplomatic presence in multilateral institu-tions of the region. In 2004, it received permanent observer status at the OAS, marking a clear indication of China’s growing interest in the region. It is also an observer of UNECLAC and maintains 130 police as part of the UN peace-keeping forces in Haiti (MINUSTAH). China became a member of the Inter-American Development Bank in 2008, having invested $350 million. It sits on the committee overseeing loans to highly impoverished countries, including countries like Haiti and Honduras which still recognize the Republic of China as the legitimate China (Ellis, 2011, p. 88). China has also been active in ‘track two diplomacy’, e.g. due to its participation in the Forum of East Asia-Latin America Cooperation and its initiatives aimed at establishing arenas like the China-Latin America Think Tank Forum. It was the first foreign country to congratulate the founding of CELAC (Presno, 2011). In all these instances, China has sought cooperation and improved its organ-izational presence without positively discriminating in favour of autocracies. If anything, it seems as if it discriminates against ALBA. Despite several official invitations by Venezuela, China has apparently abstained from showing any commitment towards ALBA, the alliance of Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecua-dor, and some small Caribbean island states created in 2004 (Ríos, 2013). This organization, aimed at improving trade relations among member states with a decidedly anti-imperialist stance against the U.S. and offering Venezuelan oil for members at special rates, even appealed to Iran, Syria, and Russia as ob-serving members. In this sense it arguably approximates being a club of (most-ly) autocracies. While China has avoided ALBA, it immediately acquired ob-server status at the newly founded Pacific Alliance, a regional organization of Mexico, Chile, Peru and Colombia (with Costa Rica’s recent signing to be-come a full member in 2014 as well), promoting free trade and investment (Alianza del Pacifico, 2014). Thus, China’s institutional presence may not be due to any considerations of regime type but rather motivated by long-term interest in the region.


In terms of public diplomacy, a higher profile in the region helps China to win the recognition race with Taiwan as well as to support its increased eco-nomic activity in the region. In line with this strategy, Chinese leaders have expanded their ties with Latin America. Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping have visited the region several times between 2001 and 2014 (see Table 2). Analysing this travel diplomacy, we can see a slight bias in favour of Cuba. Cuba has been visited five times, a surprisingly high number of state visits considering the low importance in economic affairs, in contrast to four visits to Chile, four to Brazil and Mexico, and three to Venezuela. Interestingly, in the short time since its recognition of the PRC instead of Taiwan, Costa Rica has been visited two times. Diplomatic recognition remains a goal for China in Latin America, as 12 out of the 23 remaining countries that recognize Taiwan are located in Latin America and the Caribbean (Dosch & Goodman, 2012). The last switch was by Costa Rica in 2007, which along with other financial incentives, received $83 million to build a football stadium (Will, 2012). In terms of diplomatic recognition, Cuba really is in China’s good books. Cuba was the first country in Latin America to recognize the People’s Republic of China in 1960, a diplomatic move China has not forgotten until today (Zuo, 2010; Hearn, 2012). Up until that point, Latin American countries had fol-lowed U.S. policy in recognizing the ROC/Taiwan, further isolating the PRC at a time of the Sino-Soviet split. Although one can argue that in terms of travel diplomacy there is a slight favouritism towards Cuba in particular, it is neces-sary to bear in mind that counter examples for any authoritarian nexus are also at hand. In 2014, Xi Jinping visited Cuba and Venezuela, as well as Brazil and Argentina, but in 2013, Xi Jinping bypassed both Venezuela and Cuba prior to his visit to the United States, preferring to visit Costa Rica and Mexico (and Trinidad and Tobago).

Table 2: China, presidential visits to Latin America – countries included in comparison highlighted

Date President Country

2001 Jiang Zemin Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Venezuela, Cuba

2002 Jiang Zemin Mexico (APEC Summit)

2004 Hu Jintao Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Cuba

2005 Hu Jintao Mexico

2008 Hu Jintao Peru, Costa Rica, Cuba

2010 Hu Jintao Brazil, Venezuela, Chile

2011 Xi Jinping (Vice-President) Cuba, Uruguay, Chile

2013 Xi Jinping Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica, Mexico

2014 Xi Jinping Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Cuba

Source: ECLAC, 2011, own compilation.


Table 3: Confucius Institutes in Latin America

Country Number of Institutes Country Number of Institutes

Mexico 5 Peru 4

Brazil 3 Colombia 2

Chile 2 Argentina 2

Cuba 1 Costa Rica 1

Ecuador 1 Venezuela 0

Source: Hanban 2012, own compilation. It is in this sense that the rhetoric of ‘socialist solidarity’ and the sometimes invoked slogan of Chinese-Cuban closeness as ‘socialist survivors’ (Lehoczki, 2012, p. 292) which, in turn, might be interpreted as conducive to an authori-tarian nexus as defined below only marginally translates into tangible results. This becomes even more evident when further public diplomacy instruments and their use by China throughout Latin America are assessed. China is trying to build up its image through the establishment of language institutes, Spanish-speaking television, the sponsoring of student exchange programmes and its general image of a successful, rising developing country throughout Latin America. By 2011, China had established over 20 Confucius institutes in the region to promote the study of Chinese language and culture (Hanban, 2012). As seen in Table 3 below, it has established one Confucius Institute in Cuba, but one in Costa Rica as well, while there are two in Chile and none in Vene-zuela. The outstanding case here is Mexico (five Institutes) with the first one of these study centres established in Latin America in 2006. Hence, if we are to compare our cases (Cuba – Costa Rica, Venezuela –Chile), we certainly see that regime type does not explain the variance, while a mixture of economic and cultural/diaspora linkages, such as in the case of Mexico, may be of more predictive value. Consequently, our assumption so far regarding the creation of an authoritarian nexus through soft power instruments (that is producing cultural affinity as a means for stabilizing any special relationship) is not supported.

Conclusion: Chinese-Latin American relations and the absence of an ‘authoritarian nexus’

The paper set out to trace the specifics of Chinese foreign policy activities in Latin America, guided by the question whether there is a discernible authoritar-ian bias to Chinese activities in the region. A structured, focused comparison of Chinese foreign policy towards Latin American authoritarian regimes (Cuba and Venezuela) and towards comparable democratic countries (Costa Rica and Chile) was conducted in order to detect if there was any ‘authoritarian nexus’. This term was to designate patterns of favouritism towards autocratic states or


specific foreign policy schemes following the logic of a special relationship with autocratic states. The results of our analysis, however, support the argument that China is not nurturing an ‘authoritarian nexus’ in Latin America. China’s engagement in Latin America is due first, to Latin America’s impressive abundance of re-sources and primary goods, and second, the Latin American market with a population of more than 600 million people, and third, the issue of diplomatic recognition (e.g. Leiteritz, 2012). Within this framework of interests, regime type does not play a pivotal role in finding cooperation partners. There is no evidence of China discriminating in favour of autocracies or deliberately work-ing towards an offshore stabilization of autocracies in Latin America. Based on our analysis of dyads of structurally similar, comparable cases of autocracies (Cuba and Venezuela) and democracies (Costa Rica and Chile respectively), we conclude that there is no pattern of outright favouritism for autocracies or a sustained will to nurture autocratic regimes in the Western Hemisphere. Mili-tary cooperation, arms sales, patterns of economic exchange and public diplo-macy efforts may be, to different degrees, important in Chinese relations with Cuba and Venezuela, but they are either comparable to or even dwarfed by the activities towards similarly structured democratic countries or the general level of activity within the whole region. Beyond that, in seeking allies for the pro-motion of China’s vision of global governance (Zhu, 2010; Hearn, 2012; Lei-teritz, 2012), Brazil, the regional democratic heavy-weight, is, as a partner within the BRICS-group, far more important than Cuba or Venezuela. Even with the most likely case for an ‘authoritarian nexus’, Cuba, we see no special relations. Despite the rhetoric of socialist brotherhood, the Chinese aim at eco-nomic benefits, as the Cubans clearly know: ‘The Chinese are very clear about one thing: they’re not going to be benefactors for Cuba like the Soviets were. I was once told in no uncertain terms by a Chinese diplomat: Our relations with Cuba have to be mutually beneficial or they will not work’ (the former Cuban ambassador to China, Mauro García Triana, quoted in Hearn, 2009, p. 5). This exact sentiment was more recently expressed in a meeting in 2013 by an econ-omist at the Ministry of Sugar.3 Judged by the results of our empirical analysis conducted through a structured focused comparison, we have to conclude that there is no special relationship of China with either Cuba or Venezuela. Nevertheless, what the paper has to offer for the analysis of special rela-tionships in general is an analytical device for uncovering special relationships in the making or evolving special relationships. The four expectations regard-ing patterns in foreign policy activities may provide a yardstick in order to as-sess whether it is plausible to speak of a special relationship instead of simply insinuating that such a relationship exists on the basis of alleged alikeness. Formulating and testing such expectations concerning non-discursive practices and material implications also serves as a reminder that the rhetorical level is important but that the quality of special relationships should not solely be read off statements and speeches. A state might at times emphasize its ‘special rela-


tionship’ towards another state without much discernible specific action taken afterwards. Therefore, to assess whether there are indeed closer institutional bonds, patterns of intense security cooperation, preferential economic ex-changes and a will to nurture a cultural-ideological superstructure might help to ground such often lofty rhetoric.

* * *

Wolfgang Muno <[email protected]> is senior lecturer at the Department of Political Science, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. He holds a PhD in Political Science. He has been working on problems of development and un-derdevelopment, focusing on Latin America. Currently, he works on Latin America in international relations, regional integration, and democratic devel-opment. His most recent publications include: (2013) Clientelist corruption networks: conceptual and empirical approaches, Politikwissenschaft/Comparative Governance and Politics (ZfVP) 7, Special Issue 3 (12/2013); and (2014) Neue Formen regionaler Integration und Kooperation in Lateinamerika: ALBA, UNASUR und CELAC (New Forms of Regional Integration in Latin America: ALBA, UNASUR and CELAC), in: Grimmel, Andreas/Jakobeit, Cord (Eds.) Regionale Integration (Regional Inte-gration), Baden-Baden, Nomos (in press). Alexander Brand <[email protected]> is professor of Political Sci-ence and International Relations at the Rhine-Waal University Kleve (Germa-ny). He holds a PhD in Political Science from the Technische Universität Dresden. His main fields of research are: theories of international rela-tions/foreign policy, U.S. foreign policy, and the global politics of develop-ment. Recent publications include: (2012) Medien – Diskurs – Weltpolitik. Wie Massenmedien internationale Politik beeinflussen, Bielefeld, transcript; (2012) BRICs and U.S. Hegemony: Theoretical Reflections on Shifting Power Patterns and Empirical Evidence from Latin America. Mainz Papers on International and European Politics (MPIEP), No. 4 (with Susan McEwen-Fial, Wolfgang Muno and Andrea Ribeiro-Hoffmann). Susan McEwen-Fial <[email protected]> is senior lecturer at the University of Mainz (Germany). She holds a PhD in International Rela-tions and Sociology from Boston University and a MSc in International Rela-tions from the London School of Economics. Her main fields of research are: U.S.-China relations, Chinese economy, and China-EU relations. Recent publi-cations include (2012) BRICS and U.S. Hegemony: Theoretical Reflections on Shifting Power Patterns and Empirical Evidence from Latin America. Mainz Papers on International and European Politics (MPIEP), No 4 (with Alexander Brand, Wolfgang Muno and Andrea Ribeiro-Hoffmann.


Alexander Brand, Professsor of International Relations Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences Hochschule Rhein-Waal, Marie-Curie-Straße 1 D-47533 Kleve Germany Susan McEwen-Fial, Senior Lecturer International Relations University of Mainz Department of Political Science GFG Jakob-Welder-Weg 12 D-55099 Mainz Germany Wolfgang Muno, Acting Professor of International Relations Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen and Senior Lecturer, International Relations, University of Mainz Department of Political Science University of Mainz GFG Jakob-Welder-Weg 12 D-55099 Mainz Germany

Notes

1. According to all relevant democracy (or autocracy) indices, China is definitely non-democratic and hence to be rated ‘autocratic’. China scores 6.5 at Freedom House (‘not free’), Polity IV gives China -7 (‘highly autocratic’), and in Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI), China is placed in the category ‘hard-line autocracies’ (Freedom House, 2014a; Polity IV, 2014a; BTI, 2014a). Cuba is, according to all relevant democracy rat-ings, autocratic. Freedom House rates Cuba as ‘not free’ with a score of 6.5, Polity IV scores Cuba with -7 as ‘autocracy’, BTI rates Cuba as a ‘hard-line autocracy’ (Freedom House, 2014b, Polity IV, 2014b, BTI, 2014b). Venezuela is not an open autocracy, it is rated as ‘partly free’ with a score of 5.0 by Freedom House, rated as ‘anocracy’ by Poli-ty IV, scoring -3. BTI defines it as a ‘moderate autocracy’ (Freedom House, 2014c, Poli-ty IV, 2014c, BTI, 2014c). We include Venezuela in the group of autocracies following BTI and other scholars. All other Latin American countries are not autocratic according to the above mentioned ratings.

2. Authors’ own calculations based on SIPRI statistics; see SIPRI 2013. 3. Personal interview in Havana, Cuba in March 2013.

References

Arias, L. (2013, June 2). Costa Rica, China sign cooperation agreements worth nearly $2 billion. The Tico Times.

Bader, J. (2015). China’s Foreign Relations and the Survival of Autocracies. London/New York: Routledge.

Bader, J., Graevingholt, J. & Kaestner, A. (2010). Would autocracies promote autocracy? A political economy perspective on regime-type export in regional neighbourhoods. Con-


temporary Politics 16: 81-100. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13569771003593904 Bader, J., & Kästner, A. (2010). Mehr Autokratie wagen? Russland und China als Konkur-

renten westlicher Demokratieförderer. Internationale Politik 65: 32-36. Breslin, S. (2013). China and the global order: signaling threat or friendship? International

Affairs 89: 615-634. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-2346.12036 Briceño Ruiz, J. (2010). From the South America Free Trade Area to the Union of South

American Nations. Latin America Policy 1: 208-229. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-2346.12036

Bromley, M., Duchâtel, M., & Holtom, P. (2013). China’s exports of small arms and light weapons, SIPRI Policy Paper 38. Retrieved from http://books.sipri.org/files/PP/ SIPRIPP38.pdf.

BTI (Bertelsmann Transformation Index) (2014a). China Country Report. Retrieved from http://www.bti-project.org/reports/country-reports/aso/chn.

––– (2014b). Cuba Country Report. Retrieved from http://www.bti-project.de/reports/laender berichte/lac/cub.

––– (2014c). Venezuela Country Report. Retrieved from http://www.bti-project.org/reports/ country-reports/lac/ven.

Burnell, P. (2010a). Is there a new autocracy promotion? FRIDE Working Paper 96. ––– (2010b). Promoting democracy and promoting autocracy: Towards a comparative evalu-

ation. Journal of Politics and Law 3: 3-14. China Agrees on US$ 40 Billion in Project Financing in Exchange for Venezuelan Oil.

(2012, February 29). Online Comment. Retrieved from http://venezuelanalysis.com/ news/6838.

China, Chile Pledge Closer Military Ties (2011, June 9). The People’s Daily Online. Re-trieved from http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90883/7404772.html.

China, Chile Pledge to Enhance Military Cooperation (2011, June 10). The People’s Daily Online. Retrieved from http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90883/7405981.html

China Investing Heavily in Chile (2013, January 23). The BRICS Post. Retrieved from http://thebricspost.com/china-invests-heavily-in-chile/#.UxSEhaMwfqQ.

China-Venezuela Relations Keep Growing. (2011, June 17). Online Comment. Retrieved from http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6280.

Chinese President Meets Cuban Foreign Minister (2013, November 7). Xinhua News Report. Retrieved from http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-11/07/c_132868495.htm.

Colman, J. (2004). A ‘special relationship’? Manchester: Manchester University Press. Confucius Institutes (Classrooms) Worldwide (2012). Confucius Institutes Headquar-

ters.Retrieved from http://www.hanban.org. COMEX (Ministerio de Comercio Exterior de Costa Rica) (2013a). Costa Rica Balanza

Comercial con China 2002-2012. Retrieved from http://www.comex.go.cr/estadisticas/ balanza_comercial.aspx.

––– (2013b). Costa Rica Principales productos de exportación hacia China 2012. Retrieved from http://www.comex.go.cr/estadisticas/exportaciones.aspx.

––– (2013c). Costa Rica Principales productos de importación desde China. Retrieved from http://www.comex.go.cr/importaciónes.aspx.

Cota, I. (2013, June 3). China lends Costa Rica $400 million on Xi visit. Reuters. Cuba Seeks Closer Ties with Beijing (2012, July 5). The Wall Street Journal. Available at:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303684004577508432963724246. DIRECOM (Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Dirección General de Relaciones Econó-

micas Internacionales, Chile) (2014). Evaluación de las relaciones comerciales entre Chile y China. A siete años de la entrada en vigencia del tratado de libre comercio. Re-trieved from http://www.direcon.gob.cl/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Evaluación-TLC_China_7_años-1.pdf


Dosch, J. & Goodman, D. (2012). China and Latin America: Complementarity, competition, and globalisation. Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 41: 3-19.

Downs, E. (2010). Who’s afraid of China’s oil companies? In C. Pascual & J. Elkind (Eds.), Energy security. economics, politics, strategies, and implications. Washington DC: Brookings Press.

––– (2014). Whatever became of China, Inc.? Brookings Institution/Gavekal Dragonomics Online Comment. Retrieved from http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/ articles/2014/06/24-whatever-became-of-china-inc-downs/china-inc-erica-downs.pdf.

Dumbrell, J., & Schaefer, A. (2009). Introduction. In J. Dumbrell & A. Schaefer (Eds.), America’s ‘Special Relationships’. Foreign and Domestic Aspects of the Politics of Alli-ance. London etc.: Routledge.

ECLAC. (2011). People’s Republic of China and Latin America and the Caribbean. Usher-ing in a new era in the economic and trade relationship. Retrieved from http://www.eclac.cl/comercio/publicaciones/xml/4/43664/People_Republic_of_China_and _Latina_America_and_the_Caribbean_trade.pdf.

––– (2012) The PRC and Latin America and the Caribbean. Report to the United Nations. Ellis, Evan (2010). Venezuela’s relationship with China: Implications for the Chávez regime

and the region. Miami: University of Miami. ––– (2011). China-Latin America military engagement: Good will, good business, and stra-

tegic position. Retrieved from http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs download.cfm?q=1077.

––– (2013). The strategic dimension of Chinese engagement with Latin America. Perry Pa-per Series No. 1. Retrieved from http://chds.dodlive.mil/files/2013/12/pub-PP-ellis.pdf.

––– (2014). China on the ground in Latin America. Challenges for the Chinese and impacts on the region. Houndsmills etc.: Palgrave.

Erdmann, G., Bank, A., Hoffmann, B., & Richter, T. (2013). International cooperation of authoritarian regimes: Toward a conceptual framework. GIGA Working Paper No. 229, Hamburg: GIGA.

European Commission (2013a). European Union total trade with Brazil. Directorate General for Trade. Retrieved from http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2006/september/ tradoc_113359.pdf

––– (2013b). European Union trade with China. Directorate General for Trade. Retrieved from http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2006/september/tradoc_113366.pdf

––– (2013c). European Union trade with Cuba. Directorate General for Trade. Retrieved from http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2006/september/tradoc_122460.pdf

––– (2010). Trade statistics Latin America. Retrieved from http://ec.europa.eu/trade/ creating-opportunities/bilateral-relations/statistics/

FMPRC (Foreign Ministry, People’s Republic of China) (2012, November 13). Assistant Foreign Minister Zhang Kunsheng lectures at the 1st China-Latin America High Level Forum on Defence.

Freedom House (2015a). China. Freedom in the World 2015. Retrieved from https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2015/China

––– (2015b). Cuba. Freedom in the World 2015. Retrieved from https://freedomhouse.org/ report/freedom-world/2015/Cuba

––– (2015c). Venezuela. Freedom in the World 2015. Retrieved from https://freedomhouse. org/report/freedom-world/2015/venezuela

Gachúz, J. C. (2012). Chile’s economic and political relationship with China. Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 41: 133-154.

Gallagher, K. (2010). China and the future of Latin American industrialization. Retrieved from http://www.bu.edu/pardee/files/2010/10/18-IIB.pdf?PDF=issues-in-brief-no-18

Gallagher, K., & Porzecanski. R. (2010). The dragon in the room. China and the future of Latin American industrialization. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.


George, A. (1979). Case studies and theory development: The method of structured, focused comparison. In P. Gordon (Ed.), Diplomacy: New Approaches in History, Theory and Policy. New York: Free Press.

George, A., & Bennett, A. (2004). Case studies and theory development in social sciences. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Giacalone, R., & Briceño Ruiz, J. (2013). The Chinese-Venezuelan oil agreements: Material and nonmaterial goals. Latin American Policy 4: 76-92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ lamp.12006

Glaser, B., & Murphy, M. (2009). Soft power with Chinese characteristics: The ongoing debate. In C. McGiffert (Ed.), Chinese soft power and its implications for the US-competition and cooperation in the developing world. Washington, D.C: Center for Stra-tegic and International Studies.

Gonzalez-Vicente, R. (2012). Mapping Chinese mining investment in Latin America: Poli-tics or market? The China Quarterly 209: 35-58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S03057 41011001470

GTI (Germany Trade and Invest) (2013, February). Wirtschaftsdaten kompakt: Kuba. Ret-rieved from http://www.gtai.de

Haro Navejas, F. J.(2013). China in the Central American and Caribbean Zone. Latin Amer-ican Policy 4: 144-156. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/lamp.12009

Hearn, A.(2009). Cuba and China: Lessons and opportunities for the United States, Com-missioned Report for the Cuba Info Series, The Cuban Research Institute, Florida Inter-national University. Retrieved from http://cri.fiu.edu/research/commissioned-reports/cuba-china-hearn.pdf

––– (2012). China, global governance and the future of Cuba. Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 41: 155-179.

Horta, L. (2008). In Uncle Sam’s backyard: China’s military influence in Latin America. Military Review (September/October): 47-55.

Ikenberry, J. G. (2008). The rise of China and the future of the West. Foreign Affairs 87: 2-7. IMF. (2013). Costa Rica: Selected issues. IMF Country Report No. 80. Jakobson, L. (2009). China’s diplomacy toward Africa: Drivers and constraints. Interna-

tional Relations of the Asia-Pacific 9: 403-433. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/irap/lcp008 ––– (2013). China’s foreign policy dilemma. Lowy Institute Analysis (February). Retrieved

from http://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/chinas-foreign-policy-dilemma Jakobson, L., & Knox, D. (2010). New foreign policy actors in China. SIPRI Policy Paper

No. 26. Retrieved from http://books.sipri.org/files/PP/SIPRIPP26.pdf Kleine-Ahlbrandt, S., & Small, A. (2008). China’s new dictatorship diplomacy. Foreign

Affairs 87: 38-56. Krauss, C., & Cave, D. (2012, November 9). Cuba’s prospects for an oil-fueled economic

jolt falter with departure of rig. New York Times. Kurlantzick, J. (2013). Democracy in retreat. New Haven: Yale University Press. Lehoczki, B.(2012). Sino-Cuban relations in the 21st century. International Journal of Cu-

ban Studies 4: 291-306. Leiteritz, R. (2012). China y América Latina: ¿el matrimonio perfecto? Colombia Interna-

cional 75: 49-81. http://dx.doi.org/10.7440/colombint75.2012.03 Levitsky, S., & Way, L. (2010). Competitive authoritarianism. Hybrid regimes after the

Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO 9780511781353

Marcella, G. (2012). China’s military activity in Latin America. Americas Quarterly (Win-ter): 67-69.

Mattes, M., & Rodríguez, M. (2014). Autocracies and international cooperation. Interna-tional Studies Quarterly – First Online. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/isqu.12107


MODPRC (Ministry of Defense, People’s Republic of China) (2013, November 26). Zhao Keshi meets with Cuban guests.

MOFCOM (Ministry of Commerce, People’s Republic of China). (2013, April). Costa Rica Trade Newsletter.

Polity IV (2014a). Polity IV Country Report 2010: China. Retrieved from http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/China2010.pdf

––– (2014b). Polity IV Country Report 2010: Cuba. Retrieved from http://www.systemic peace.org/polity/Cuba2010.pdf

––– (2014c). Polity IV Country Report 2010: Venezuela. Retrieved from http://www.systemic peace.org/polity/Venezuela2010.pdf

Power, M., Mohan, G., & Tan-Mullins, M. (2012). China’s resource diplomacy in Africa: Powering development? Houndsmills etc.: Palgrave. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/ 9781137033666

Presno, X. (2011, December 5). Chinese President Congratulates Creation of CELAC. Radio Havana. Retrieved from http://www.radiohc/ing/news/world/4178-chinese-president-congratulates-creation-of-CELAC

Ríos, X. (2013). China and Venezuela: Ambitions and complexities of an improving rela-tionship. East Asia 30: 53-65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12140-012-9185-0

Schweickert, R., Melnykovska, I., & Plamper, H. (2012). External drivers of institutional change in Central Asia: Regional integration schemes and the role of Russia and China. Kiel Working Paper No. 1763. Retrieved from http://www.ifw-members.ifw-kiel.de/publications/external-drivers-of-institutional-change-in-central-asia-2013-regional-integration-schemes-and-the-role-of-russia-and-china/KWP_1763.pdf

Shambaugh, D.(2013). China goes global. the partial power. New York: Oxford University Press.

SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) (2012). Factsheet 2010. Retrieved from http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/factsheet2010

––– (2013). TIV of arms exports from China, 2008-2011, Trend indicator values. Retrieved from http://www.sipri.org/databases/armstransfers

Swaine, M. D. (2012). America’s challenge. engaging a rising China in the 21st century. Washington/DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Tansey, O. (2015). Questioning ‘autocracy promotion’. Comparative Democratization (APSA Section Newsletter) 13, 1: 1, 4-7.

Tarrow, S. (2010). The strategy of paired comparison: Toward a theory of practice. Com-parative Political Studies 43: 230-259. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0010414009350044

Tate, S. (2012). A special relationship? British foreign policy in the era of American he-gemony. Manchester: Manchester University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.7228/ manchester/9780719083716.001.0001

Tolstrup, J. (2015). Problems in studying the international dimension of authoritarianism. Comparative Democratization (APSA Section Newsletter) 13, 1: 1, 8-11.

USDOD (U.S. Department of Defense) (2011). Military and security developments involv-ing the PRC, Annual report to Congress. Retrieved from http://www.defense.gov/ pubs/pdfs/2011_cmpr_final.pdf

Vanderhill, R. (2013). Promoting authoritarianism abroad. Boulder: Lynne Rienner. Watson, C. (2011). U.S. Reponses to China’s Growing Interests in Latin America. In C.

Arnson (Ed.) Enter the Dragon? China’s Presence in Latin America. Washington/DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Will, R. (2012). China’s Stadium Diplomacy. World Policy Journal 29: 36-43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0740277512451487

Williams, A. (2013, June 21). Costa Rica halts $1.3 billion China-funded refinery plan. Bloomberg.


Yung, C. D., & Rustici, R. (2014). ‘Not an idea we have to shun’: Chinese Overseas basing requirements in the 21st century. Institute of National Strategic Studies/China Strategic Perspectives Paper No. 7. Retrieved from http://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/ Documents/stratperspective/china/ChinaPerspectives-7.pdf

Zhongping, F., & Jing, H. (2014). China’s strategic partnership diplomacy, FRIDE/ESP Working Paper No. 8. Retrieved from http://fride.org/download/WP8_China_ strategic_partnership_diplomacy.pdf

Zhu, L. (2010). China’s foreign policy debates, Chaillot Paper No. 121. Retrieved from http://www.iss.europa.eu/uploads/media/cp121-China_s_Foreign_Policy_Debates.pdf

Zuo, P. (2010). A survey of the relationship between Cuba and China: A Chinese perspec-tive, Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE), Twentieth Annual Meet-ing, Miami, July 29-31. Retrieved from http://www.ascecuba.org/publications/ proceedings/volume20/pdfs/pinzuo.pdf