Conspicuous consumption

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspicuous_consumption

The sociologist and economist Thorstein Veblen coined the term "conspicuous consumption", and was a pioneer of the institutional economics movement.

In sociology and in economics, the term conspicuous consumption describes and explains the consumer practice of buying and using goods of a higher quality, price, or in greater quantity than practical. In 1899, the sociologist Thorstein Veblen coined the term conspicuous consumption to explain the spending of money on and the acquiring of luxury commodities (goods and services) specifically as a public display of economic power—the income and the accumulated wealth—of the buyer. To the conspicuous consumer, the public display of discretionary income is an economic means of either attaining or maintaining a given social status.

The development of Veblen's sociology of conspicuous consumption also identified and described other economic behaviours such as invidious consumption, which is the ostentatious consumption of goods, an action meant to provoke the envy of other people; and conspicuous compassion, the ostentatious use of charity meant to enhance the reputation and social prestige of the donor; thus the socio-economic practices of consumerism derive from conspicuous consumption.

History and development

In The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study in the Evolution of Institutions (1899), Thorstein Veblen identified, described, and explained the behavioural characteristics of the nouveau riche (new rich) social class that emerged from capital accumulation during the Second Industrial Revolution (1860–1914). In that 19th-century social and historical context, the term "conspicuous consumption" applied narrowly in association with the men, women, and families of the upper class who applied their great wealth as a means of publicly manifesting their social power and prestige, either real or perceived. The strength of one's reputation is in direct relationship to the amount of money possessed and displayed; that is to say, the basis "of gaining and retaining a good name, are leisure and conspicuous consumption."

In the 1920s, economists such as Paul Nystrom proposed that changes in lifestyle as result of the industrial age led to massive expansion of the "pecuniary emulation." That conspicuous consumption had induced in the mass of society a "philosophy of futility" that would increase the consumption of goods and services as a social fashion; consumption for the sake of consumption.

In 1949, James Duesenberry proposed the "demonstration effect" and the "bandwagon effect", whereby a person's conspicuous consumption psychologically depends upon the actual level of spending, but also depends upon the degree of his or her spending, when compared with and to the spending of other people. That the conspicuous consumer is motivated by the importance, to him or to her, of the opinion of the social and economic reference groups for whom he or she are performed the conspicuous consumption.

Social class and consumption

Veblen said that conspicuous consumption comprised socio-economic behaviours practised by rich people as activities usual and exclusive to people with much disposable income; yet a variation of Veblen's theory is presented in the conspicuous consumption behaviours that are very common to the middle class and to the working class, regardless of the person's race and ethnic group. Such upper-class economic behaviour is especially common in societies with emerging economies in which the conspicuous consumption of goods and services ostentatiously signals that the buyer rose from poverty and has something to prove to society.

In The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy (1996), Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko reported conspicuous frugality, another variation of Veblen's social-class relation to conspicuous consumption. That Americans with a net worth of more than a million dollars usually avoid conspicuous consumption, and tend to practise frugality, such as paying cash for a used car rather using credit, in order to avoid material depreciation and paying interest upon a car loan.

Consumerism theory

Since the 19th century, conspicuous consumption explains the psychology behind the economics of a consumer society, and the increase in the types of goods and services that people consider necessary to and for their lives in a developed economy. Supporting interpretations and explanations of contemporary conspicuous consumption are presented in Consumer Culture (1996) by Celia Lury, Consumer Culture and Modernity (1997) by Don Slater, Symbolic Exchange and Death (1998) by Jean Baudrillard, and Spent: Sex, Evolution, and the Secrets of Consumerism (2009) by Geoffrey Miller.

Moreover, D. Hebdige, in Hiding in the Light (1994), proposes that conspicuous consumption is a form of displaying a personal identity, and a consequent function of advertising, as proposed in Ads, Fads, and Consumer Culture (2000), by A. A. Berger. Each variant interpretation and complementary explanation is derived from Veblen's original sociologic proposition in The Theory of the Leisure Class: that conspicuous consumption is a psychological end in itself, from which the practitioner (man, woman, family) derived the honour of superior social status.

Materialism and gender

In An Examination of Materialism, Conspicuous Consumption and Gender Differences (2013), the researchers Brenda Segal and Jeffrey S. Podoshen reported great differences in the consumerism practised by men and women. The data about materialism and impulse purchases of 1,180 Americans indicate that men have greater scores for materialism and conspicuous consumption; and that women tended to buy goods and services on impulse; and both sexes were equally loyal to a given brand of goods and services.

Distinctions of type

The term conspicuous consumption denotes the act of buying something, especially something expensive, that is not necessary to one's life, in a noticeable way. Scholar Andrew Trigg (2001) defined conspicuous consumption as behaviour by which one can display great wealth, by means of idleness—expending much time in the practice of leisure activities, and spending much money to consume luxury goods and services.

Conspicuous compassion, the practice of publicly donating large sums of money to charity to enhance the social prestige of the donor, is sometimes described as a type of conspicuous consumption. This behaviour has long been recognised and sometimes attacked—for example, the New Testament story Lesson of the widow's mite criticises wealthy people who make large donations ostentatiously, while praising poorer people who make small but comparatively more difficult donations in private.

Possible motivations for conspicuous consumption include:

• Demonstration/bandwagon effect — In the book Income, Saving and the Theory of Consumer Behavior (1949), James Duesenberry proposed that a person's conspicuous consumption psychologically depends not only upon the actual level of spending, but also upon the degree of his or her spending, as compared with the spending of other people. Thus the conspicuous consumer is motivated by the importance, to him or to her, of the opinion of the social and economic reference groups for whom are performed the patterns of conspicuous consumption.
• Aggressive ostentation — In a 2006 CBSNews.com article, Dick Meyer said that conspicuous consumption is a form of anger towards society, an "aggressive ostentation" that is an antisocial behaviour, which arose from the social alienation suffered by men, women, and families who feel they have become anonymous in and to their societies. This feeling of alienation is aggravated by the decay of the communitarian ethic essential to a person feeling him or herself part of the whole society.
• Shelter and transport — In the United States, the trend towards building houses that were larger than needed by a nuclear family began in the 1950s. Decades later, in the year 2000, that practice of conspicuous consumption resulted in people buying houses that were double the average size needed to comfortably house a nuclear family. Negative consequences of either buying or building an oversized house might include:
  • the loss of or reduction in the family's domestic recreational space—the backyard and the front yard;
  • the spending of old-age retirement funds to pay for a too-big house;
  • over-long commuting time, from house to job, and vice versa, because the required plot of land was unavailable near a city.

Oversized houses facilitated other forms of conspicuous consumption, such as an oversized garage for the family's oversized motor vehicles or buying more clothing to fill larger clothes closets. Conspicuous consumption becomes a self-generating cycle of spending money for the sake of social prestige. Analogous to the consumer trend for oversized houses is the trend towards buying oversized light trucks, specifically the off-road sport utility vehicle type (cf. station wagon/estate car), as a form of psychologically comforting conspicuous consumption, because such large vehicles usually are bought by city-dwellers, an urban nuclear family.

• Prestige – In a 1999 article, Jacqueline Eastman, Ronald Goldsmith, and Leisa Reinecke Flynn said that status consumption is based upon conspicuous consumption; however, the literature of contemporary marketing does not establish definitive meanings for the terms status consumption and conspicuous consumption. Moreover, A. O'Cass and H. Frost (2002) claim that sociologists often incorrectly used the two terms as interchangeable and equivalent terms. In a later study, O'Cass and Frost determined that, as sociological constructs, the terms status consumption and conspicuous consumption denote different sociological behaviours. About the ambiguities of denotation and connotation of the term conspicuous consumption, R. Mason (1984) reported that the classical, general theories of consumer decision-processes do not readily accommodate the construct of "conspicuous consumption", because the nature of said socio-economic behaviours varies according to the social class and the economic group studied.
• Motivations – Paurav Shukla (2010) says that, whilst marketing and sales researchers recognise the importance of the buyer's social and psychological environment, the definition of the term status-directed consumption remains ambiguous, because the development of a comprehensive general theory requires that social scientists accept two fundamental assumptions, which usually do not concord. First, though the "rational" (economic) and the "irrational" (psychologic) elements of consumer decision-making often influence a person's decision to buy particular goods and services, marketing and sales researchers usually consider the rational element dominant in a person's decision to buy the particular goods and services. Second, the consumer perceives the utility of the product (the goods, the services) as a prime consideration in evaluating its usefulness, i.e. the reason to buy the product. These assumptions, required for the development of a general theory of brand selection and brand purchase, are problematic, because the resultant theories tend either to misunderstand or to ignore the "irrational" element in the behaviour of the buyer-as-consumer; and because conspicuous consumption is a behaviour predominantly "psychological" in motivation and expression, Therefore, a comprehensive, general theory of conspicuous consumption would require a separate construct for the psychological (irrational) elements of the socio-economic phenomenon that is conspicuous consumption.

Examples

Conspicuous consumption is exemplified by purchasing goods that are exclusively designed to serve as symbols of wealth, such as luxury-brand clothing, high-tech tools, and vehicles.

Luxury fashion

Materialistic consumers are likely to engage in conspicuous luxury consumption. The global yearly revenue of the luxury fashion industry was €1.64 trillion in 2019. Buying of conspicuous goods is likely to be influenced by the spending habits of others. This view of luxury conspicuous consumption is being incorporated into social media platforms which is impacting consumer behaviour. During periods of economic downturn, consumers tend to turn away from "logomania" products and instead purchase luxury goods that signal affluence more subtly.

Criticism

In 1919, the journalist H. L. Mencken addressed the sociological and psychological particulars of the socio-economic behaviours that are conspicuous consumption, by asking:

Do I enjoy a decent bath because I know that John Smith cannot afford one—or because I delight in being clean? Do I admire Beethoven's Fifth Symphony because it is incomprehensible to Congressmen and Methodists—or because I genuinely love music? Do I prefer terrapin à la Maryland to fried liver because plowhands must put up with the liver—or because the terrapin is intrinsically a more charming dose? Do I prefer kissing a pretty girl to kissing a charwoman, because even a janitor may kiss a charwoman—or because the pretty girl looks better, smells better, and kisses better?

Inequality and debt

In The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) Veblen said that "among the motives which lead men to accumulate wealth, the primacy, both in scope and intensity, therefore, continues to belong to this motive of pecuniary emulation of the rich". In the study "Borrowing to Keep Up (with the Joneses): Inequality, Debt, and Conspicuous Consumption" (2020), Sheheryar Banuri and Ha Nguyen reported three findings:

• Consumption tends to increase when the buying and the using of goods and services is conspicuous: Consumption signals status to other people.
• Conspicuous consumption increases the frequency of borrowing money: Poor people take out loans in order to compete at consumption.
• Economic inequality is worsened with access to credit: Poor people borrow money in order to signal status, which becomes a vicious circle.

The findings that Banuri and Nguyen reported indicate that the cyclical effect of borrowing money for conspicuous consumption leads to and perpetuates economic inequality. That poor people imitate, try to match, and emulate the consumption patterns of rich people in order to increase their social status, and perhaps rise in society. That such socio-economic behaviours, facilitated by easy access to credit, generate macroeconomic volatility and support Veblen's concept of pecuniary emulation used to finance a person's social standing.

Other research supports these and similar results. For example income inequality has been found to be associated with reduced savings rates. One hypothesized mechanism for this relationship is 'expenditure cascades' whereby consumption norms are set by the relatively wealthy, who then have more income and consumption relative to others as inequality rises. This emulation of the consumption norms of relatively wealthy peers is supported by a large literature.

One complication found in the macro literature is that the link between inequality and savings may depend on context, in particular on the degree of financialisation. When the degree of financialisation is high, inequality tends to reduce the national savings rate as the emulation effect is more powerful when finance is readily available, but the opposite effect may occur when financialisation is low as the emulation effect is weak, and the rich tend to save at a higher rate than the poor. The effect of inequality on savings is also found to be positive in Asia, where financialization is lower. The relationship is also found to depend on economic policy and institutions. For example inequality appears to lower savings in market economies but to rather reduce aggregate demand in planned economies.

In the case where inequality lowers savings, and increases leverage and a tendency to run large current account imbalances via the expenditure cascade mechanism, this has been associated with more frequent and/or severe economic crisis.

Solutions

In the case of conspicuous consumption, taxes upon luxury goods diminish societal expenditures on high-status goods, by rendering them more expensive than non-positional goods. In this sense, luxury taxes can be seen as a Pigouvian tax correcting market failure—with an apparent negative deadweight loss, these taxes are a more efficient mechanism for increasing revenue than 'distorting' labour or capital taxes. A luxury tax applied to goods and services for conspicuous consumption is a type of progressive sales tax that at least partially corrects the negative externality associated with the conspicuous consumption of positional goods. In Utility from Accumulation (2009), Louis Kaplow said that assets exercise an objective social-utility function, i.e. the rich man and the rich woman hoard material assets, because the hoard, itself, functions as status goods that establish his and her socio-economic position within society. When utility is derived directly from accumulation of assets, this lowers the dead weight loss associated with inheritance taxes and raises the optimal rate of inheritance taxation.

In the 19th century, the philosopher John Stuart Mill recommended taxing the practice of conspicuous consumption.

In place of luxury taxes, economist Robert H. Frank proposed the application of a progressive consumption tax; in a 1998 New York Times article, John Tierney said that as a remedy for the social and psychological malaise that is conspicuous consumption, the personal income tax should be replaced with a progressive tax upon the yearly sum of discretionary income spent on the conspicuous consumption of goods and services. Another option is the redistribution of wealth, either by means of an incomes policy – for example the conscious efforts to promote wage compression under variants of social corporatism such as the Rehn–Meidner model and/or by some mix of progressive taxation and transfer policies, and provision of public goods. When individuals are concerned with their relative income or consumption in comparison to their peers, the optimal degree of public good provision and of progression of the tax system is raised. Because the activity of conspicuous consumption, itself, is a form of superior good, diminishing the income inequality of the income distribution by way of an egalitarian policy reduces the conspicuous consumption of positional goods and services. In Wealth and Welfare (1912), the economist A. C. Pigou said that the redistribution of wealth might lead to great gains in social welfare:

Now the part played by comparative, as distinguished from absolute, income is likely to be small for incomes that only suffice to provide the necessaries and primary comforts of life, but to be large with large incomes. In other words, a larger proportion of the satisfaction yielded by the incomes of rich people comes from their relative, rather than from their absolute, amount. This part of it will not be destroyed if the incomes of all rich people are diminished together. The loss of economic welfare suffered by the rich when command over resources is transferred from them to the poor will, therefore, be substantially smaller relatively to the gain of economic welfare to the poor than a consideration of the law of diminishing utility taken by itself suggests.

The economic case for the taxation of positional, luxury goods has a long history; in the mid-19th century, in Principles of Political Economy with some of their Applications to Social Philosophy (1848), John Stuart Mill said:

I disclaim all asceticism, and by no means wish to see discouraged, either by law or opinion, any indulgence which is sought from a genuine inclination for, any enjoyment of, the thing itself; but a great portion of the expenses of the higher and middle classes in most countries ... is not incurred for the sake of the pleasure afforded by the things on which the money is spent, but from regard to opinion, and an idea that certain expenses are expected from them, as an appendage of station; and I cannot but think that expenditure of this sort is a most desirable subject of taxation. If taxation discourages it, some good is done, and if not, no harm; for in so far as taxes are levied on things which are desired and possessed from motives of this description, nobody is the worse for them. When a thing is bought not for its use but for its costliness, cheapness is no recommendation.

In the case where conspicuous consumption mediates a link between inequality and unsustainable borrowing, one suggested policy response is tighter financial regulation.

"Conspicuous non-consumption" is a phrase used to describe a conscious choice to opt out of consumption with the intention of sending deliberate social signals.

Asiacentrism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiacentrism

Asiacentrism (also Asiacentricity or Eastern-centrism) is a political ideology, an economic perspective, or an academic orientation with "a focus on Asia or on cultures of Asian origin." In some cases, this stance regards Asia to be either unique or superior to other regions and takes the form of ascribing to Asia ethnocentric significance or supremacy at the cost of the rest of the world. The concept is often associated with a projected Asian Century, the expected economic dominance of Asia (primarily China) in the 21st century.

History

In 1902, Chinese scholar Liang Qichao remarked that Asia is "immeasurably vast and mighty", compared to a "shallow and small" Europe, as he predicted Asia to regain a powerful position in the world.

In 1988, Deng Xiaoping coined the term 'Asian Century' during a meeting with Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership and subsequent withdrawal of the United States from it were viewed by some analysists as a symbol of declining Western hegemony.

Some commentators have cited the effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Asia as a sign of superiority of Asia. Indian commentator Parag Khanna and UK politician David Howell noted that Asian societies evolved to technocratic governments which would be better at problem solving and provide more stability.

In 2021, 'Asiacentrism' was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Economics

The World's Economic Centre of Gravity 1980–2050.

It is projected that the world's economic center of gravity will move back to Asia, between India and China by 2050, spurred by the economic growth of East Asian economies. Historically, the economic center of gravity is estimated to have been in what is nowadays northern Pakistan in the 11th century then having shifted to Bengal by 16th century and finally having moved west until the 1980s.

The combined GDP of Asia is also projected to surpass that of the rest of the world around 2020, a position which the continent had lost in the 19th century.

According to a McKinsey Global Institute report, Asia is entering the post-2019 era as 'the word's new majority,' with Asia "accounting for more than half of the world's key economic metrics."

Asian American studies

Paul Wong, Meera Manvi, and Takeo Hirota Wong proposed "Asiacentrism" in the 1995 special issue of Amerasia Journal on "Thinking Theory in Asian American Studies." They envisioned Asiacentrism both as a critique of hegemonic Eurocentrism in theory building in the humanities and social sciences and as a post-Orientalist epistemological paradigm in Asian American Studies. There is a need to tap into Asian traditions of thought for analyzing Asian American behaviors and for advancing global knowledge in the human interest. The objective is to explore a common core of Asian worldviews and values that overlap in their influence on particular regions, nations, and communities. In their view, Asiacentrism may be able to offer an alternative Asian perspective grounded in an awareness of the dynamics of a postcolonial world.

It is possible to argue that Asian American Studies has, since its inception, permitted itself to be conceptually incarcerated in a hegemonic Eurocentric culture and world view. Not only is the English language serving as the lingua franca of Asian American Studies, but it is easily evident that many scholars in Asian American Studies do not regard the acquisition of at least one Asian language, as a second language, an important part of their training, thereby curtailing their communicative and research competence with the majority of Asian Americans, whose primary language is not English. While much scholarship has been devoted to "... present voices from our (Asian American) past which were never silent, but often ignored, minimalized, and marginalized by traditional historical accounts of the United States," there has been no serious attempt to contextualize this scholarship in what may be termed the "deep structure" of a shared Asiacentric perspective.

Wong, Manvi, and Wong also submitted that Asiacentrism can be a paradigmatic way of integrating Asian American Studies and Asian Studies by acknowledging the colonial histories, recognizing the common interests, and recovering the cultural roots. They stressed that Asian American Studies should play an important role in decolonizing Asian Studies by interrogating its Eurocentric legacies.

Scholars committed to the development of an Asiacentric paradigm face a challenge no less daunting than the Afrocentrists. The Euro-American colonial history in Asia has obviously left a deep imprint on Asian Studies Scholarship…. In theorizing about Asian cultures and societies, the Eurocentric view has only been subjected to serious critiques in recent decades. By proposing the development of an Asiacentric perspective, we are consciously suggesting that Asian American Studies also has a role to play in a field of Asian Studies stripped of its colonial legacy. Interestingly, the Pan-Africanists have always recognized the common interests and the unity of African American Studies and African Studies in decolonization and the recovery of roots.

Communication studies

Yoshitaka Miike, Professor of Intercultural Communication at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, is considered as the founding theorist of Asiacentricity in the discipline of communication. He was inspired by Molefi Kete Asante, who is one of the early pioneers in the fields of intercultural and interracial communication. Asante's Afrocentric idea as well as Wong, Manvi, and Wong's Asiacentric reflection led Miike to coin the term Asiacentricity and outline an Asiacentric project in culture and communication studies in 2003. He was later influenced by Maulana Karenga’s Kawaida philosophy, which emphasizes the role of culture for self-understanding and self-assertion and the importance of ethics for human freedom and flourishing.

Miike defined Asiacentricity as "the thought and practice of centering Asians as subjects and agents and Asian cultures as reflective resources in seeing and shaping the Asian world." According to him, Asiacentricity "insists on revivifying and revitalizing diverse Asian cultural traditions as theoretical resources in order to capture Asians as subjects and actors of their own cultural realities rather than objects and spectators in the lived experiences of others."

Simply put, Asiacentricity is the idea of centering, not marginalizing, Asian languages, religions/philosophies, and histories in theory-making and storytelling about Asian communicative life. Asiacentricity aims to encourage careful and critical engagements of Asian communicators with their own cultural traditions for self-understanding, self-expression, communal development, and cross-cultural dialogue. Intraculturally, it helps Asians embrace the positive elements of their cultural heritage and transform negative practices according to their ethical ideals. Interculturally, it helps Asians find "a place to stand," so to speak, and provides the basis of equality and mutuality in the global community.

Borrowing from Daisetz Suzuki's words, Miike stated that Asiacentricity is essentially "the idea of being deep and open," that is, the idea of being rooted in our own culture and, at the same time, open to other cultures. He differentiated Asiacentricity as a particularist position from Asiacentrism as a universalist ideology and maintained that Asiacentricity is a legitimate culture-centric approach to cultural Asia and people of Asian descent, while Asiacentrism is an ethnocentric approach to non-Asian worlds and people of non-Asian heritage. In Miike's conceptualization, therefore, Asiacentrists are not cultural chauvinists and separatists.

Asiacentricity is neither a hegemonic Asiacentrism nor an Asian version of ethnocentric Eurocentrism. Asiacentricity does not present the Asian worldview as the only universal frame of reference and impose it on non-Asians. Hence, Asiacentrists should be alert to Park's (2001) warning: "An idea is not good merely because it is old or because it is new. It is not necessarily good because it is an Eastern idea or a Western idea, or just because it is ours" (p. 8). Asiacentrists thus should not deny the value of other non-Asiacentric perspectives on Asians. Nevertheless, they must reject the hegemonic ideology that non-Asiacentric theoretical standpoints are superior to Asiacentric ones and therefore can grossly neglect the latter in the discussion and discourse surrounding Asian people and phenomena. They must reject the hegemonic ideology that the Asian version of humanity can be judged solely from the Eurocentric vision of humanity.

Miike identified six dimensions of Asiacentricity: (1) an assertion of Asians as subjects and agents; (2) the centrality of the collective and humanistic interests of Asia and Asians in the process of knowledge reconstruction about the Asian world; (3) the placement of Asian cultural values and ideals at the center of inquiry into Asian thought and action; (4) the groundedness in Asian historical experiences; (5) an Asian theoretical orientation to data; and (6) an Asian ethical critique and corrective of the dislocation and displacement of Asian people and phenomena.

In Miike's comprehensive outline, Asiacentricity (1) generates theoretical knowledge that corresponds to Asian communication discourse, (2) focuses on the multiplicity and complexity of Asian communicative experience, (3) reflexively constitutes and critically transforms Asian communication discourse, (4) theorizes how common aspects of humanity are expressed and understood in Asian cultural particularities, and (5) critiques Eurocentric biases in theory and research and helps Asian researchers overcome academic dependency.

Miike's contention is that there has been the established hierarchical relationship between "Western theories" and "non-Western texts" in Eurocentric scholarship, where non-Western cultures remain as peripheral targets of data analysis and rhetorical criticism and fail to emerge as central resources of theoretical insight and humanistic inspiration. Miike thus insisted that Asiacentric scholarship reconsider Asian cultures as "theories for knowledge reconstruction," not as "texts for knowledge deconstruction." Such an Asiacentric approach, according to him, would make it possible for both Asian and non-Asian researchers to theorize as Asians speak in Asian languages, as Asians are influenced by Asian religious-philosophical worldviews, as Asians struggle to live in Asian historical experiences, and as Asians feel ethically good and aesthetically beautiful.

For the purpose of elucidating the psychology of Asian communicators and enunciating the dynamics of Asian communication, therefore, Asiacentrists ought to revalorize (a) Asian words as key concepts and their etymologies as cultural outlooks and instructive insights, (b) Asian religious-philosophical teachings as behavioral principles and codes of ethics, (c) Asian histories as multiple layers of contextualization and recurrent patterns of continuity and change, and (d) Asian aesthetics as analytical frameworks for space-time arrangement, nonverbal performance, and emotional pleasure.

Miike also synthesized a large body of literature in the field of Asian communication theory while paying homage to such pioneers as Anantha Babbili, Guo-Ming Chen, Godwin C. Chu, Wimal Dissanayake, D. Shelton A. Gunaratne, Satoshi Ishii, Young Yun Kim, D. Lawrence Kincaid, Hamid Mowlana, Louis Nordstrom, Robert T. Oliver, Tulsi B. Saral, Robert Shuter, K. S. Sitaram, William J. Starosta, Majid Tehranian, Muneo Yoshikawa, and June Ock Yum. He urged Asiacentric research to overcome "comparative Eurocentrism" and direct more attention to common insights gained from non-Eurocentric comparisons. In his opinion, five types of alternative non-Eurocentric comparisons can enlarge the theoretical horizons of Asian communication research: (1) continent-diaspora comparisons; (2) within-region comparisons; (3) between-region comparisons; (4) diachronic comparisons; and (5) co-cultural domestic comparisons.

Asiacentric studies of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and West Asia are underrepresented in the current literature. These regions are at the crossroads of Asian civilizations, offering rich historical insights into Asian intercultural exchanges and multicultural co-existence. Future theorizing and research on South Asia, Southeast Asia, and West Asia from Asiacentric vantage points will not only enhance an understanding of cultural dynamics in these areas but also enunciate Asian models of intercultural dialogue and multicultural society.

Miike asserted that humanity is most deeply felt not through universal abstractions but through linguistic and cultural particularities, and that human commonalities in their full distinctiveness must be theorized within, not outside, cultural particularities for mutual understanding across cultures. He thus concluded: Asiacentricity "substantiates the content of humanity and possibly enhances the vision of humanity." Ultimately, Asiacentricity "promotes an appreciation of humanity despite differences and because of differences."

Great Awakening

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Awakening

Great Awakenings in America

Watercolor representing the Second Great Awakening in 1839

The Great Awakening was a series of religious revivals in American Christian history. Historians and theologians identify three, or sometimes four, waves of increased religious enthusiasm between the early 18th century and the late 20th century. Each of these "Great Awakenings" was characterized by widespread revivals led by evangelical Protestant ministers, a sharp increase of interest in religion, a profound sense of conviction and redemption on the part of those affected, an increase in evangelical church membership, and the formation of new religious movements and denominations.

George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Gilbert Tennent, and the New Lights and the Old Lights highly influenced the First Great Awakening. The First Great Awakening in the American colonies is closely related to the Evangelical Revival in the British Isles.

Pulling away from ritual and ceremony, the Great Awakening made religion more personal by fostering a sense of spiritual conviction of personal sin and need for redemption, and by encouraging introspection and a commitment to personal morality. It incited rancor and division between traditionalists, who insisted on the continuing importance of ritual and doctrine, and revivalists who encouraged emotional involvement and personal commitment. It had a major impact in reshaping the Congregational church, the Presbyterian church, the Dutch Reformed Church, and the German Reformed denomination, and strengthened the small Baptist and Methodist denominations. It had less impact on Anglicans and Quakers. Unlike the Second Great Awakening, which began about 1800 and reached out to the unchurched, the First Great Awakening focused on those who were already church members. It changed their rituals, their piety, and their self-awareness.

First Great Awakening

Main article: First Great Awakening

The First Great Awakening began in the 1730s and lasted to about 1740, though pockets of revivalism had occurred in years prior, especially amongst the ministry of Solomon Stoddard, Jonathan Edwards's grandfather. Edwards's congregation was involved in a revival later called the "Frontier Revivals" in the mid-1730s, though this was on the wane by 1737. But as American religious historian Sydney E. Ahlstrom noted, the Great Awakening "was still to come, ushered in by the Grand Itinerant", the British evangelist George Whitefield. Whitefield arrived in Georgia in 1738 and returned in 1739 for a second visit of the Colonies, making a "triumphant campaign north from Philadelphia to New York, and back to the South". In 1740, he visited New England, and "at every place he visited, the consequences were large and tumultuous". Ministers from various evangelical Protestant denominations supported the Great Awakening. In the middle colonies, he influenced not only the British churches, but the Dutch and German.

Additionally, pastoral styles began to change. In the late colonial period, most pastors read their sermons, which were theologically dense and advanced a particular theological argument or interpretation. Nathan O. Hatch argues that the evangelical movement of the 1740s played a key role in the development of democratic thought, as well as the belief of the free press and the belief that information should be shared and completely unbiased and uncontrolled. Michał Choiński argues that the First Great Awakening marks the birth of the American "rhetoric of the revival" understood as "a particular mode of preaching in which the speaker employs and it has a really wide array of patterns and communicative strategies to initiate religious conversions and spiritual regeneration among the hearers". All these theological, social, and rhetorical notions ushered in the period of the American Revolution. This contributed to create a demand for religious freedom. The Great Awakening represented the first time African Americans embraced Christianity in large numbers.

In the later part of the 1700s, the Revival came to the English colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island primarily through the efforts of Henry Alline and his New Light movement.

Second Great Awakening

Main article: Second Great Awakening

The Second Great Awakening (sometimes known simply as "the Great Awakening") was a religious revival that occurred in the United States beginning in the late eighteenth century and lasting until the middle of the nineteenth century. While it occurred in all parts of the United States, it was especially strong in the Northeast and the Midwest. This awakening was unique in that it moved beyond the educated elite of New England to those who were less wealthy and less educated. The center of revivalism was the so-called burned-over district in western New York. Named for its overabundance of hellfire-and-damnation preaching, the region produced dozens of new denominations, communal societies, and reform.

Among these dozens of new denominations were free black churches, run independently of existing congregations that were predominantly of white attendance. During the period between the American revolution and the 1850s, black involvement in largely white churches declined in great numbers, with participation becoming almost non-existent by the 1840s–1850s; some scholars argue that this was largely due to racial discrimination within the church. This discrimination came in the form of segregated seating and the forbiddance of African Americans from voting in church matters or holding leadership positions in many white churches. Reverend Richard Allen, a central founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was quoted describing one such incident of racial discrimination in a predominantly white church in Philadelphia, in which fellow preacher and a former slave from Delaware, Absalom Jones, was grabbed by a white church trustee in the midst of prayer and forcefully told to leave.

Closely related to the Second Great Awakening were other reform movements such as temperance, abolition, and women's rights. The temperance movement encouraged people to abstain from consuming alcoholic drinks in order to preserve family order. The abolition movement fought to abolish slavery in the United States. The women's rights movement grew from female abolitionists who realized that they could fight for their own political rights, too. In addition to these causes, reforms touched nearly every aspect of daily life, such as restricting the use of tobacco and dietary and dress reforms. The abolition movement emerged in the North from the wider Second Great Awakening 1800–1840.

Third Great Awakening

Main article: Third Great Awakening

The Third Great Awakening in the 1850s–1900s was characterized by new denominations, active missionary work, Chautauquas, and the Social Gospel approach to social issues. The YMCA (founded in 1844) played a major role in fostering revivals in the cities in the 1858 Awakening and after. The revival of 1858 produced leaders such as Dwight L. Moody who carried out religious work in the Civil War armies. The Christian and Sanitary Commissions and numerous Freedmen's Societies were also formed during the war.

Fourth Great Awakening

Main article: Fourth Great Awakening

The Fourth Great Awakening is a debated concept that has not received the acceptance of the first three. Advocates such as economist Robert Fogel say it happened in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Jesus Movement is cited as evidence of this awakening, and it created a shift in church music styles.

Mainline Protestant denominations weakened sharply in both membership and influence while the most conservative religious denominations (such as the Southern Baptists) grew rapidly in numbers, spread across the United States, had grave internal theological battles and schisms, and became politically powerful.

Terminology

The idea of an "awakening" implies a slumber or passivity during secular or less religious times. Awakening is a term which originates from, and is embraced often and primarily by, evangelical Christians. In recent times, the idea of "awakenings" in United States history has been put forth by conservative American evangelicals.

In the late 2010s and 2020s the term Great Awakening has been used by promoters of the QAnon conspiracy theory to denote awareness of their theory.

Government of the Soviet Union

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_the_Soviet_Union

The Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was the executive and administrative organ of the highest body of state authority, the All-Union Supreme Soviet. It was formed on 30 December 1922 and abolished on 26 December 1991. The government was headed by a chairman, most commonly referred to as the premier of the Soviet Union, and several deputy chairmen throughout its existence. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), as "The leading and guiding force of Soviet society and the nucleus of its political system" per Article 6 of the state constitution, controlled the government by holding a two-thirds majority in the All-Union Supreme Soviet. The government underwent several name changes throughout its history, and was known as the Council of People's Commissars from 1922 to 1946, the Council of Ministers from 1946 to 1991, the Cabinet of Ministers from January to August 1991 and the Committee on the Operational Management of the National Economy from August to December 1991.

The government chairman was nominated by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and elected by delegates at the first plenary session of a newly elected Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Certain governments, such as Ryzhkov's second government, had more than 100 government ministers, serving as first deputy premiers, deputy premiers, government ministers or heads of state committees/commissions; they were chosen by the premier and confirmed by the Supreme Soviet. The Government of the Soviet Union exercised its executive powers in conformity with the constitution of the Soviet Union and legislation enacted by the Supreme Soviet. The first government was led by Vladimir Lenin, and the last government was led by Valentin Pavlov.

Following the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR of 1922, the Russian SFSR, Ukrainian SSR, the Byelorussian SSR and the Transcaucasian SSR established the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The treaty established the government, which was later legitimised by the adoption of the first Soviet constitution in 1924. The 1924 constitution made the government responsible to the Congress of Soviets of the Soviet Union. In 1936, the state system was reformed with the enactment of a new constitution. It abolished the Congress of Soviets and established the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union in its place. At the 1st Plenary Session of the II Supreme Soviet in 1946, the government was renamed Council of Ministers. Minor changes were introduced with the enactment of the 1977 constitution. The CPSU's 19th All-Union Conference voted in favor of amending the constitution. It allowed for multi-candidate elections, established the Congress of People's Deputies and weakened the party's control over the Supreme Soviet. Later, on 20 March 1991, the Supreme Soviet on Mikhail Gorbachev's suggestion amended the constitution to establish a semi-presidential system, essentially a fusion of the American and French styles of government. The Council of Ministers was abolished and replaced by a Cabinet of Ministers that was responsible to the president of the Soviet Union. The head of the Cabinet of Ministers was the prime minister of the Soviet Union. The government was forced to resign in the aftermath of the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, which Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov participated in. In its place, the Soviet state established what was supposed to be a transitory committee headed by Silayev to run the basic governmental functions until a new cabinet was appointed. On 26 December 1991, the Supreme Soviet dissolved the union and therefore, the government of the USSR shut down permanently.

Etymology

The name Council of People's Commissars was chosen to distinguish the Soviet government from its bourgeois counterparts, especially its tsarist predecessor the Council of Ministers. However, scholar Derek Watson states that "the term 'commissar' was regarded as interchangeable with 'minister', and there seems little doubt that the Bolshevik leaders meant 'minister'." Joseph Stalin, in a speech to the II Supreme Soviet in March 1946, argued to change the name of government from Council of People's Commissars to Council of Ministers because "The commissar reflects the period of revolutionary rupture and so on. But that time has now passed. Our social system has come into being and is now made flesh and blood. It is time to move on from the title 'people's commissar' to that of 'minister.'" Scholar Yoram Gorlizki writes that "Notwithstanding the reversion to bourgeois precedents, the adoption of the new nomenclature signaled that the Soviet order had entered a new phase of postrevolutionary consolidation."

History

Revolutionary beginnings and Molotov's chairmanship (1922–1941)

A governmental badge from 1930.

Lenin and Trotsky (both photographed in 1920) were viewed as the leading figures in the first Soviet government

The Treaty on the Creation of the Soviet Union saw the establishment of the All-Union Congress of Soviets and its Central Executive Committee (CEC). The Congress of Soviets held legislative responsibilities and was the highest organ of state power, while the CEC was to exercise the powers of the Congress of Soviets whenever it was not in session, which in practice comprised the majority of its existence. It stated that the government, named the Council of People's Commissars, was to be the executive arm of the CEC. This governmental structure was copied from the one established in the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (Russian SFSR), and the government was modeled on the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian SFSR. The government of the Russian SFSR led by Vladimir Lenin governed the Soviet Union until 6 July 1923, when the CEC established the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union. Lenin was appointed its chairman, alongside five deputy chairmen and ten people's commissars (ministers). On 17 July 1923 the All-Union Council of People's Commissars notified the central executive committees of the union republics and their respective republican governments that it had begun to fulfill the tasks entrusted to it.

The original idea was for the Council of People's Commissars to report directly (and be subordinate) to the CEC, but the working relations of the two bodies were never clearly defined in depth. Eventually, the powers of the Council of People's Commissars outstripped those of the CEC. However, the 1924 constitution defined the Council of People's Commissars as the "executive and administrative organ" of the CEC. The ability to legislate was restricted by the powers conferred to it by the CEC, and on the Statute of the Council of People's Commissars. The legislative dominance of the Council of People's Commissars continued despite the 1924 constitution's insistence on its relationship to the CEC. Mikhail Kalinin of the CEC and Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee noted in 1928 that one needed to differentiate between the Presidium of the CEC, which he considered the "organ of legislation", and the administrative role of the Council of People's Commissars.

The 1924 constitution differentiated between All-Union and unified (referred to as republican from 1936 onwards) people's commissariats. The people's commissariats for justice, internal affairs, social security, education, agriculture and public health remained republican-level ministries. In the meantime the commissariats for foreign affairs, commerce and industry, transport, military and navy affairs, finance, foreign trade, labour, post and telegraphs, supply and the interior were granted All-Union status. This system created troubles at first since neither the constitution or any legal document defined the relations between All-Union commissariats, their organs in republics and the separate unified republican commissariats. However, this system was kept with minor changes until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The 1936 constitution defined the Council of People's Commissars as the Soviet government, and conferring upon it the role of the "highest executive and administrative organ of state power". The constitution stripped the Council of People's Commissars of powers to initiate legislation, and instead confined it to issuing "decrees and regulations on the basis and in execution of the laws currently in force". Only the Supreme Soviet and its Presidium, having replaced the Congress of Soviets and the Central Executive Committee respectively, could alter laws.

High Stalinism (1941–1953)

The composition of Stalin's Second Government as shown in 1946.

Stalin's power grab in the 1930s weakened the formal institutions of governance, both in the party and government. Scholar T. H. Rigby writes that "all institutions had gradually dissolved in the acid of despotism", and from 1946 until Stalin died in 1953 "only the most minimal of gestures were made to reverse the atrophy of formal organs of authority, in both party and state." British academic Leonard Schapiro contended that "Stalin's style of rule was characterised by how rule through regular machinery (party, government apparatus) gave way increasingly to the rule of personal agents and agencies, each operating separately and often in conflict, with Stalin in supreme overall control." The government, which was at this point the most formalised Soviet state institution, developed neopatrimonial features due to Stalin's habit of ruling through "the strict personal loyalty of his lieutenants".

Stalin was elected to the government chairmanship on 6 May 1941. The government continued to function normally until World War II (known as the Great Patriotic War in Russia) when it was subordinated to the State Defense Committee (SDC), formed on 30 June 1941 to govern the Soviet Union during the war. Joseph Stalin concurrently served as SDC head and as chairman of the Soviet government until 1946. On 15 March 1946 the 1st Plenary Session of the 2nd Supreme Soviet transformed the Council of People's Commissars into the Council of Ministers. Accordingly, the people's commissariats were renamed ministries, and the people's commissars into ministers. On 25 February 1947, appropriate changes were made to the Constitution of the Soviet Union.

The government's Bureau was established in 1944. After the war, the bureau was split into two. These bureaus were merged on 20 March 1946, reestablishing the government's Bureau. The party Politburo adopted on 8 February 1947 the resolution "On the Organization of the Council of Ministers", which sought to explain the role of the Council of Ministers, its internal operations, and its relationship with the party. It stated that the party politburo had the right to decide on all political matters, which included such topics as governmental appointments and defense, foreign policy, and internal security. It went on to define the government solely as an institution of administering the economy. The non-economic ministries, such as the Ministry of State Security, reported to the politburo.

In addition, the 8 February resolution established eight sectoral bureaus; Bureau for Agriculture, Bureau for Metallurgy and Chemicals, Bureau for Machine Construction, Bureau for Fuel and Electric Power Stations, Bureau for Food Industry, Bureau for Transport and Communication, Bureau for Light Industry and Bureau for Culture and Health. This decision transformed the government's working methods. The new resolution delegated authorities to the bureaus and away from the deputy chairmen of government and high-standing ministers. Every sectoral bureau was headed by a deputy chairman of the government, but decision-making was devolved into these collegial decision-making organs. The net effect of these changes was to greatly increase the legislative activity of the government.

Stalin, who had not attended a meeting of the Bureau since 1944, resorted to appointing acting government chairmen. Molotov was first appointed, but could rarely fulfill his duties since he was simultaneously Minister of Foreign Affairs and often away on business. On 29 March 1948 the politburo resolved to create a rotational chairmanship headed by Lavrentiy Beria, Nikolai Voznesensky and Georgy Malenkov. Lacking a formal leader, most controversial issues were solved at meetings of the Bureau. On 1 September 1949 power was even more dispersed. The Bureau changed its name to the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, and Beria, Malenkov, Nikolai Bulganin, Lazar Kaganovich and Maksim Saburov were handed the chairmanship. This mode of operating lasted until Stalin's death in 1953.

Post-Stalin Era (1953–1985)

Alexei Kosygin was the longest-serving chairman of the Soviet government, holding office from 1964 until his death in 1980.

The Post-Stalin Era saw several changes to the government apparatus, especially during Nikita Khrushchev's leadership. At first, the new leadership sought to solve problems within the existing bureaucratic framework, however, by 1954 the government initiated reforms which devolve more economic decision-making to the republican governments. Around this time Khrushchev suggested abolishing the industrial and construction ministries and distributing their duties and responsibilities to republican governments and regional bureaucrats. The end-goal was to reduce the size of the All-Union government and increase economic growth. A similar idea was proposed to the CPSU Presidium in January 1957. The proposal sought to switch the function of the All-Union government from active management of operational management of industry to active branch policy-making. Operational management was to be decentralised to republican governments and local authorities.

The CPSU Presidium adopted Khrushchev's proposal. By July 1957 the management functions of the construction and industrial ministries had been transferred to 105 newly established Soviets of the National Economy. Republican planning committees were given more responsibility, while the State Planning Committee was given responsibility over companies that could not be decentralised to republican governments. The Soviet media began propagating the idea of developing complex, regional economies and comparing them to the old ministerial system. The belief was that the Soviets of the National economy would increase inter-branch cooperation and specialization. However, the reforms did not manage to cure the failings of the Soviet economy, and actually showed shortcomings in other areas as well. Khrushchev's government responded by initiating reforms that reversed decentralisation measures, and sought to recentralise control over resource allocation.

Brezhnev government

Main article: Era of Stagnation

The removal of Khrushchev was followed by reversing his reforms of the government apparatus. The first move came in early 1965 when Alexei Kosygin's First Government when the All-Union Ministry of Agriculture was regifted responsibility for agriculture (which it lost in one Khrushchev's earlier reforms). By October the same year the Council of Ministers abolished the industrial state committees and regional economic councils and reestablished the system of industrial ministers as they existed before 1957. Of the 33 newly appointed construction- and industry ministers appointed in 1965, twelve had served as ministers in 1957 or before and ten had worked and risen to the rank of deputy minister by this time. This was followed by the establishment of the All-Union Ministry of Education and the All-Union Ministry of Preservation of Public Order in 1966. Four All-Union construction ministries were established in 1967 and a fifth in 1972. In addition, in 1970 the government reestablished the All-Union Ministry of Justice. In the decade 1965 to 1975, twenty-eight industrial ministries were established. Of these seven were All-Union ministries and the remainder seventeen were republican ministries. In addition, the Kosygin Government sought to reform the economy by strengthening enterprise autonomy while at the same time retaining strong centralised authority. The 1979 Soviet economic reform also sought to de-regulate the economy to give state enterprises more autonomy, while giving state enterprises more room to discuss their production goals with their respective ministries.

The Brezhnev Era also saw the adoption of the 1977 constitution. It defined for the first time the responsibilities and membership of the government's Presidium. The constitution defined the Presidium as a permanent governmental organ responsible for establishing and securing good economic leadership and to assume administrative responsibilities. It stated that the government chairman, alongside the first deputy chairmen, deputy chairmen and the republican governmental heads made up the Presidium's membership.

Presidentialism and the Cabinet of Ministers (1990–1991)

Gorbachev at the 1st Plenary Session of the I Congress of People's Deputies in 1989.

Main article: Perestroika

Gorbachev had been speaking critically of the idea of a Soviet presidency until October 1989. He had argued that a presidency could lead to the reestablishment of the cult of personality and one-man leadership. However, Gorbachev was meeting stiff resistance from bureaucrats and anti-reformist elements against his reformist policies. The establishment of the office of President of the Soviet Union was seen as an important tool to strengthen Gorbachev's control over the state apparatus. Gorbachev proposed to the 3rd Plenary Session of the XXI Supreme Soviet in February 1990 to establish the Office of the President of the Soviet Union. The Supreme Soviet passed the motion, and in March an Extraordinary Session of the Congress of People's Deputies was convened to amend the constitution. The Law on the Presidency which was adopted by the Congress of People's Deputies stated that the president had to be elected in a nationwide election, but Gorbachev argued that the country was not ready for divisive election. Therefore, the Congress of People's Deputies held a vote in which 1329 voted to elect Gorbachev as President of the Soviet Union, while 916 voted against him.

As President of the Soviet Union Gorbachev could appoint and dismiss government ministers. However, he grew concerned about his inability to control All-Union ministries. On 24 September 1990 Gorbachev managed to get the Supreme Soviet to grant him temporary powers of unrestricted decrees on the economy, law and order and appointment of government personnel until 31 March 1992. Still feeling stifled by anti-reformist elements, Gorbachev proposed in November 1990 to radically reorganise the Soviet political system, being greatly inspired by the presidential system of the United States and the semi-presidential system of France. Gorbachev sought to reorganise institutions at the All-Union level by subordinating executive power to the presidency.

By November 1990 Gorbachev was calling for the dissolution of the Council of Ministers and its replacement with a Cabinet of Ministers. Formerly executive power had been divided into two separate institutions; the presidency and the Council of Ministers. Both reported to the Supreme Soviet. The Cabinet of Ministers would report directly to the President of the Soviet Union, and be accountable to both the presidency and to the Supreme Soviet. While the term of the Council of Ministers had been tied to the election of the Supreme Soviet, the Cabinet of Ministers was obliged by law to tender its resignation if the sitting president stepped down. Similar to the Council of Ministers, the leading decision-making organ of the Cabinet of Ministers was the Presidium. It was to be chaired by the newly created office of Prime Minister of the Soviet Union. In accordance with law the Presidium had to consist of the prime minister, his first deputies, deputies and an Administrator of Affairs.

The duties and responsibilities of the Cabinet of Ministers overlapped with the former Council of Ministers. It was responsible for formulating and executing the All-Union state budget, administrating defense enterprises and overseeing space research, implementing Soviet foreign policy, crime-fighting, and maintaining defense and state security. It also worked alongside the republican governments to develop financial and credit policy, administer fuel and power supplies and transport systems, and developing welfare and social programs. In addition the Cabinet of Ministers was responsible for coordinating All-Union policy on science, technology, patents, use of airspace, prices, general economic policy, housing, environmental protection and military appointments. At last, the Law on the Cabinet of Ministers granted the Cabinet of Ministers the right to issue decrees and resolutions, but not of the same power and scope of those formerly issued by the Council of Ministers.

The Council of Ministers had been the sole permanent executive and administrative body in the Soviet Union during its existence. The Cabinet of Ministers existed alongside the Federation Council, the Presidential Council and other executive organs that reported directly to the president. However, as the sole executive organ responsible for the economy and the ministries it was the most important.

The Cabinet of Ministers was by law forced to work more closely with republican governments than the Council of Ministers. Republican governments could petition the Cabinet of Ministers at any time, and the Cabinet of Ministers was forced to take all questions from republican governments into consideration. To foster better relations ministers moved to create collegiums with their republican counterparts. For instance, the All-Union Ministry of Culture established the Council of Ministers of Culture to better coordinate policies, while the All-Union Ministry of Foreign Affairs established the Council of Foreign Ministers of the USSR and Union Republics.

Government breakdown (1991)

Main article: Dissolution of the Soviet Union

The 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, better known as the August coup attempt, was initiated by the State Committee on the State of Emergency in a bid to oppose the enactment of the New Union Treaty. Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov was one of the leaders of the coup. The Cabinet of Ministers and most All-Union power organs supported the coup attempt against Gorbachev. In the aftermath of the coup attempt, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR) led by Boris Yeltsin sought to weaken Gorbachev's presidential powers. The State Council was established. It superseded the government in terms of power by giving each republican president a seat on the council. In addition, every decision had to be decided by a vote–a move that greatly weakened Gorbachev's control. In tandem, the Russian SFSR seized the building and staff of the All-Union Ministry of Finance, the State Bank and the Bank for Foreign Economic Relations. With the central government's authority greatly weakened, Gorbachev established a four-man committee, led by Ivan Silayev, that included Grigory Yavlinsky, Arkady Volsky, and Yuri Luzhkov, to elect a new Cabinet of Ministers. This committee was later transformed into the Committee for the Operational Management of the National Economy (COMSE), also chaired by Silayev, to manage the Soviet economy. On 28 August 1991 a Supreme Soviet temporarily gave the COMSE the same authority as the Cabinet of Ministers, and Silayev became the Soviet Union's de facto Premier. The All-Union government tried to rebuff the seizure attempts by the Russian government. Still, by September 1991 the Soviet government had broken down.

On 25 December 1991 Gorbachev announced in a televised speech his resignation from the post of President of the Soviet Union. On the following day, the Soviet of the Republics voted to dissolve the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a state and subject of international law, legally terminating the Soviet government's existence.

Duties, functions and responsibilities

The government was the highest executive and administrative body of the Soviet state. It was formed at the 1st Plenary Session of the Supreme Soviet (the joint meeting of the Soviet of the Union and the Soviet of Nationalities), and had to consist of the government chairman, his first deputies, deputies, ministers, state committees chairmen and the republican governmental chairmen. The premier could recommend individuals who he found suitable for membership in the governmental council to the Supreme Soviet. The government tendered its resignation to the first plenary session of a newly elected Supreme Soviet.

The government was responsible to the Supreme Soviet and its Presidium. It regularly reported to the Supreme Soviet on its work, as well as being tasked with resolving all state administrative duties in the jurisdiction of the USSR which were not the responsibility of the Supreme Soviet or the Presidium. Within its limits, the government had responsibility for:

• Management of the union's economy and socio-cultural construction and development.
• Formulation and submission of the five-year plans for "economic and social development" to the Supreme Soviet along with the state budget.
• Defence of the interests of state, socialist property, public order and to protect the rights of Soviet citizens.
• Ensuring state security.
• General policies for the Soviet armed forces and determination of how many citizens were to be drafted into service.
• General policies concerning Soviet foreign relations and trade, economic, scientific-technical and cultural cooperation of the USSR with foreign countries as well as the power to confirm or denounce international treaties signed by the USSR.
• Creation of necessary organisations within the government concerning economics, socio-cultural development and defence.

The government could issue decrees and resolutions and later verify their execution. All organisations were obliged to obey the decrees and resolutions issued by the government. The All-Union Council also had the power to suspend all mandates and decrees issued by itself or organisations subordinate to it. The Council coordinated and directed the work of the union republics and union ministries, state committees and other organs subordinate to it. The competence of the government and its Presidium with respect to their procedures and activities and the council's relationships with subordinate organs were defined in the Soviet constitution by the Law on the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

Each union republic and autonomous republic had its own governments formed by the republican legislature of the respective union republic or autonomous republic. Republican governments were not legally subordinate to the All-Union government, but they were obliged in their activities to be guided by the decrees and decisions of the All-Union government. At the same time, the union-republican ministries had double subordination – they simultaneously submitted to the union republican government, within the framework of which they were created, and to the corresponding all-union government, orders and instructions which should have been guided in their activities. In contrast to the union republican ministries of the union republic, the republican ministries were subordinate only to the government of the corresponding union republic.

Party-government relations

Lenin sought to create a governmental structure that was independent of the party apparatus. Valerian Osinsky echoed Lenin's criticism, but Grigory Zinoviev responded to criticism in 1923 by stating that "Everyone understands that our Politburo is the principal body of the state." Boris Bazhanov, the private secretary of Joseph Stalin, echoed the same sentiments. According to Bazhanov appointment of people's commissars were made by the party Politburo and ratified later by the Council of People's Commissars. This informal system of government, in which the party decides and the government implements, lasted until Mikhail Gorbachev's tenure as leader.

Leadership

Chairman

Main article: Premier of the Soviet Union

The government chairman was until the establishment of the Cabinet of Ministers in 1991 the Soviet head of government. The officeholder was responsible for convening the government and its Presidium, reporting to the Supreme Soviet on behalf of the government and leading the work on formulating the five-year plans. The "Law on the Council of Ministers of the USSR" states that the chairman "heads the Government and directs its activity... coordinates the activity of the first deputy chairmen and deputy chairmen [and] in urgent cases, makes decisions on particular questions of state administration."

Deputy Chairmen

Main articles: First Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union and Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union

The government appointed first deputy chairmen and deputy chairmen to assist the work of the government chairman. These deputies worked with the responsibilities allocated to them by the government. They could coordinate the activities of ministries, state committees and other organs subordinated to the government, take control of these organs and issue day-to-day instructions. At last, they could give prior consideration to proposals and draft decisions submitted to the government. For example, Kirill Mazurov was responsible for industry, and Dmitry Polyansky was responsible for agriculture in Kosygin's Second Government. In the case of the government chairman not being able to perform his duties one of the first deputy chairmen would take on the role of acting head of government until the premier's return.

Administrator of Affairs

Main article: Administrator of Affairs of the Soviet Union

The Administrator of Affairs was tasked with co-signing decrees and resolutions made by government with the government chairman. The government apparatus prepared items of policy, which the officeholder would check systematically against decrees of the party-government. This function consisted of several departments and other structural units. In addition the Administrator of Affairs headed the government apparatus and was a member of the government's Presidium.

Presidium

The Presidium of the Council of Ministers consisted of the chairman, First Deputy Chairmen, and the deputy chairman. It is important to note that the Presidium of the Council of Ministers is different than the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

Organization

Committees

Main article: State Committee of the Soviet Union

USSR state committees were different from the ministries in that a state committee was primarily responsible for several parts of government as opposed to the one specific topic for which a ministry was solely responsible. Therefore, many state committees had jurisdiction over certain common activities performed by ministries such as research and development, standardisation, planning, building construction, state security, publishing, archiving and so on. The distinction between a ministry and a state committee could be obscure as for the case of the Committee for State Security (KGB).

Ministries

Main article: Ministries of the Soviet Union

According to the Soviet constitution, ministries were divided into all-union and union-republican. All-Union ministries managed the branch of state administration entrusted to them throughout the entire Soviet Union directly or through the organs appointed by them, while the union-republican ministries operated, as a rule, through the same-named ministry of the specific union republic in question. It managed only a certain limited number of activities directly according to the list approved by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

The government had the right to create, reorganize and abolish subordinate institutions, which were directly subordinate to the government itself.

Publications

• The newspaper Izvestia
• "Bulletin of the Central Executive Committee, the Council of People's Commissars and the Council of Labor and Defense of the Soviet Union" (1923–1924);
• "Collection of laws and regulations of the Workers' and Peasants' Government of the Soviet Union" (1924–1938);
• "Collection of decrees and orders of the Government of the Soviet Union" (1938–1946).