Book
Nation and State Building in South Africa and Russia in the Late 20th – early 21st Century
This collective monograph is a study of one of the most important problems in today’s world: state and nation building in multi-ethnic and multi-national societies. It presents a comparative analysis of the experience of state and nation building in Russia and South Africa, two countries, which recently and practically simultaneously went through a period of abrupt social, political and economic transition. In both this transition resulted in an upsurge of ethno-national and racial tensions. Such an analysis is of great interest to all those who study similar problems both at an academic and practical levels.
The chapter looks into the policy of the African National Congress, South Africa's ruling party, aimed at economic empowerment of South Africa's black population and ethno-racial transformation of the South African society. It analyses the ideological background of this policy, its implementation and its political and economic results.
The article analyses the policy of South Africa's government in the sphere of nationality realtions.
The article is devoted to the policy of the South african governemnt in the sphere of enthno-racial relations and state and nation building. It analyses the ideological basis of racially tainted legislation and the text of the corresponding laws and of official documents of the ANC and the governemn.t
The collapse of the socialist system prompted the former USSR countries to “re-invent” their stateness. The paper focuses on factors that impede or smooth stateness transformations in post-Soviet countries. First, the paper examines internal and external factors of state formation in selected countries. Next, it introduces empirical research tools and empirical findings that present alternative patterns of stateness and outcomes of state formation. The paper concludes with a detailed review of certain cases that may be considered prototypes of state formation for post-Soviet countries.
Zambian students are more tolerant first of all because of the existence since precolonial time of the Swahili culture in Tanzania and lack of such a background for national unity in Zambia. Besides, the memory of this is consciously used and abused by governments for the sake of nation-building.
The book covers the history of relations between Soviet Russia and South Africa, which, for many decades, remained hidden even from those who were a part of it. It is devoted mostly to the Soviet period, although the first, introductory, chapter presents the history of relations between the two countries in the previous three hundred years, and the last one the relations after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the establishment of the diplomatic relations. In the first part of the book the reader will find a detailed analysis of close ties between the Communist Party of South Africa and the Communist International, the activities of the South African NGO Friends of the Soviet Union, trade relations in in the 1930s and the cooperation and diplomatic relations during the Second World War. The second part of the book is devoted to the relations between the USSR, South African communists and the African National Congress during the cold war era: Soviet assistance to the ANC's armed struggle, its ideological influence on the anti-apartheid movement, as well as the analysis of both Soviet and South African ideological constructs concerning one another and their mutual policies towards one another. The last part of the book covers Gorbachev's perestroika period and the infuence of the changes in the USSR and of its collapse on the situation in South Africa and on the relations between the two countries.
The chapter is devoted to the life and activites of Jacob Zuma, South Africa's president from 2009.
This special publication for the 2012 New Delhi Summit is a collection of articles by government officials from BRICS countries, representatives of international organizations, businessmen and leading researchers.
The list of Russian contributors includes Sergei Lavrov, Foreign Minister of Russia, Maxim Medvedkov, Director of the Trade Negotiations Department of the Russian Ministry of Economic Development, Vladimir Dmitriev, Vnesheconombank Chairman, Alexander Bedritsky, advisor to the Russian President, VadimLukov, Ambassador-at-large of the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry, and representatives of the academic community.
The publication also features articles by the President of Kazakhstan NursultanNazarbayev and internationally respected economist Jim O’Neil, who coined the term “BRIC”. In his article Jim O’Neil speculates about the future of the BRICS countries and the institution as a whole.
The publication addresses important issues of the global agenda, the priorities of BRICS and the Indian Presidency, the policies and competitive advantages of the participants, as well as BRICS institutionalization, enhancing efficiency and accountability of the forum.