Abstract
67.4960 AARSTAD, Åsne Kalland —
This article analyzes the Norwegian governance of maritime security that surrounds the accommodation of armed private security provision onboard Norwegian-registered ships, and questions the role of Norwegian public authorities. In 2011, the Norwegian government introduced a new legal framework that explicitly permitted the use of armed private security for ships transiting piracy-prone waters. Through an in-depth examination of the agenda-setting, implementation and evaluation phases of the new policy, the article analyzes the roles and responsibilities performed by the involved actors. This article contends that although maritime governance inhabits peculiarities related to both the shipping industry's global competitive character and the maritime domain's geographical distance from public authorities, the Norwegian governance of maritime security is nevertheless deeply embedded in global governance structures. [R, abr.]
67.4961 ABAZI, Enika; DOJA, Albert —
We explore various forms of travel writing, media reporting, diplomatic record, policy-making, truth claims and expert accounts in which different narrative perspectives on the Balkan wars, both old (1912-1913) and new (1991-1999), have been most evident. We argue that the ways in which these perspectives are rooted in different temporalities and historicizations and have resulted in the construction of commonplace and time-worn representations. We take issue with several patterns of narratives that have led to the sensationalism of media industry and the essentialization of collective memory. The aim is to show how certain moments of rupture are historicized, and subsequently used and misused to construct an anachronistic representation of Southeast Europe. [R, abr.]
67.4962 ABBOTT, Jeff —
The colonization of Latin America never ended, it merely changed forms. Today this conquest continues, with transnational companies driving neo-colonization grounded in the continued exploitation of natural resources. This is nowhere more true than in Central America. The force of neo-colonization is strengthened by free-trade agreements and development plans that guarantee a company's right to investment above the rights of the citizenry. Meanwhile, the indigenous populations face renewed dispossession and eviction to make way for global capital's conquest. [R]
67.4963 ARES, Cristina; VOLKENS, Andrea —
This research examines the inclusion of Latin American democracies into the Manifesto project's database — Manifesto Research on Political Representation (MARPOR) — since 2009. It addresses some theoretical and conceptual implications related to the study of the functioning of delegation chains in presidential regimes from MARPOR's perspective. Particularly, it is here analyzed the meaning of electoral programs in parliamentary and presidential systems. Besides, it is explained the revision of the standard classification scheme and other adjustments introduced to the methodology prior to this extension. Lastly, the protocol applied for gathering Latin American parties and candidates’ manifestos is shared. [R]
67.4964 ARGYROU, Vassos —
This article argues that Greek Cypriot nationalism has been in large part motivated by the misconceived idea of Cyprus becoming a modern, European society. Although Cyprus joined the EU in 2004, the perception of it by the European north as a culturally marginal Mediterranean society had not changed. This was amply demonstrated in 2013 when Cyprus applied to the EU for urgent financial assistance. It was forced to capitalize its banks through their customers’ savings and, although this and other “corrective” measures were couched in seemingly rational economic terms, they were unmistakably a punishment and a civilizational lesson. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4152]
67.4965 ARMSTRONG, Charles K. —
Kim Jong-un further consolidated his leadership position at the Seventh Congress of the Workers’ Party in May, the first congress since 1980. Pyongyang conducted two nuclear tests and made advances in missile delivery, eliciting strong sanctions resolutions from the UN Security Council, first in March and again in November. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4877]
67.4966 ARRATIA, Esteban —
During the war on drugs (2006-2012), former President F. Calderon deployed the army in critical areas besieged by drug cartels. The military operations were accompanied by an unprecedented socio-economic aid program: Todos Somos Juárez aimed at building resilient communities to the penetration of organized crime. Based on the concept of “competition in state-making”, this paper first analyzes the design and implementation of the above-mentioned initiative; then, it performs an assessment of the results obtained after his execution; and finally, it identifies some key lessons that can be drawn from the Mexican experience. [R, abr.]
67.4967 AZROUT, Rachid; WOJCIESZAK, Magdalena E. —
Previous studies predicted EU attitudes using anti-immigrant attitudes, but without explicitly accounting for attitudes toward different out-groups. We propose that group-specific attitudes independently predict attitudes toward the EU, but only when the out-group is linked to the EU issue in question. We additionally argue that realistic or symbolic threat associated with specific out-groups determines whether utilitarian or identity considerations are more important in predicting EU attitudes. Using a nationally representative Dutch sample (N = 2347), we focus on attitudes toward Polish and Muslim immigrants to predict strengthening of EU integration and Turkey's potential accession and find support for our hypotheses. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4555]
67.4968 BALLINGER, Pamela —
This article examines the critical purchase of the notion of Eastern Europe. Although scholarship exploring various easternisms flourished in the two decades following the Cold War's end, for some observers this framework appears increasingly irrelevant for understanding contemporary Europe. The symbolic and political boundary processes marking out East and West within Europe, however, possess both deep histories and durable afterlives, as recent events (from the financial crisis to the Mediterranean refugee crisis) demonstrate. In refocusing our gaze on the (re)constructions of the East in European politics, this article does not advocate a mere reiteration of earlier perspectives on Orientalism (or Balkanism). Rather, the discussion points the way towards productive dialogue between bodies of literature on regionally specific variants of easternism while simultaneously introducing new concepts (such as the tidemark) into the debates. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 67.4039]
67.4969 BALTHASAR, Dominik —
Past and present efforts at reconstructing a Somali state have centered on the long-standing claim that Somalis have constituted a “nation in search of a state”. Yet, casting Somali state trajectories in a historical light, this article shows that the Somali sociopolitical construct has always been much less homogenous and united than frequently depicted. Analyzing Somali state-making endeavors from the final years of colonialism in the late 1950s to the politico-territorial fragmentation of the 1990s, I argue that Somalis have not only been in search of a state, but Somali society has been characterized by the emergence of plural political identities, inhibiting the consolidation of a national identity. I propose that the identity plurality has largely hinged on the volatility and multiplicity of institutions broadcasted in the context of changing politico-territorial orders. [R, abr.]
67.4970 BAXTER, Kylie —
Kuwait has joined US-led coalitions against the “Islamic State” and affirmed many international agreements designed to choke off international assistance to militias operating in Syria. In 2015, Kuwait became a victim of IS-affiliated terrorism. While this suggests that Kuwait's position on radical Islamist movements involved in the Syrian conflict is clear-cut, this article argues that Kuwait's government has had to balance this official position against domestic support for elements of the radical Islamist opposition in Syria. These cross-cutting tensions were underscored by the US designation of the state as the “epicenter” of private fund raising for militias in Syria. To explore these contradictions, this article analyzes Kuwait's engagement with the Syrian war, its new anti-terror legislation and the tensions between the official and unofficial views on support for foreign militias. [R, abr.]
67.4971 BEAUDET, Pierre —
Amidst ups and downs of the past decade of mass struggles and popular insurrections, the process still goes on, refueling a worldwide debate about reform/revolution, class/state, organization/spontaneity, as well as the key question of agency. Considering that in Marx's view, history is not predetermined but is informed by a host of objective and subjective factors, change had to be driven by a specific project, organized around a specific process involving specific organizational structures. Whose project is it? What indeed is the project? What is the process? And what are the structures (how are we going to organize the struggle)? These questions can be addressed specifically in relation to the “Carrés rouges” in Québec, the leading site of rebellion in North America in recent years.
67.4972 BEBER, Anton —
Turkey is the only Eurasian state nearly surrounded by a circle of acute hot and “frozen conflicts”, ranging from low-intensity violence through terrorism to full-fledged wars. The prevailing pattern of inter-communal and inter-ethnic conflicts in the rest of Europe and in the Near East. This difference is closely related to the fact that these lands experienced in the past a centuries-long rule by the Ottoman Empire, whose legal successor is the Republic of Turkey. The inter-communal conflict potential in the rest of Europe used to differ substantially from the one in the Balkans, but the difference has been greatly reduced as Western Europe has in one respect become “balkanized”. [R]
67.4973 BEHERA, Deepak Kumar —
Since obtaining independence from British rule in 1947, the central government of India has attempted to reduce the economic disparities that historically characterized the diverse States that now fell under its control. However, because all parts of the country are not equally well endowed with the physical and human resources needed to take advantage of growth opportunities, these disparities have actually increased, causing concern regarding the sustainability of continued growth. The author surveys the nature and intensity of these disparities and highlights the extent to which successive Five-Year Plans have been effective in reducing inter-state disparity and shows how development outcomes, in terms of the social and human development indicators, do not match the resources available within each State. [R, abr.]
67.4974 BELHADJ, Souhaïl —
The weakening of local power structures in Tunisia, whether linked to the authoritarian centralization of the country or to the erosion of the mechanisms for coopting local elites, strongly contributed to upset the political equilibrium of fallen President Ben Ali's regime. The weakened position created conditions favorable to an ongoing negotiation over power-sharing among social groups and their access to resources. The adoption of a new Constitution in 2014 established, for the first time in modern Tunisian history, the principle of an elected, decentralized “local power” with financial and administrative autonomy. This article [examines] whether the adoption of a new Constitution, brought in on the basis of a historical compromise between the representatives of the country's different political tendencies, would enable an orderly changeover from authoritarian government to long-term power-sharing arrangements. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 67.5063]
67.4975 BELTON, Kristy A. —
Statelessness has been deemed a “scourge” and “the most forgotten aspect of human rights in the international community” by the newly elected UN Secretary-General, António Guterres. In 2014, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which has the mandate for the protection of stateless people globally, launched the #IBelong Campaign to eradicate statelessness by 2024. A key component of the campaign is its Global Action Plan to End Statelessness (GAP), which consists of ten actions for governments and other interested parties to undertake to end statelessness worldwide. Since the campaign's ability to end statelessness is only as strong as the regional and local actors who implement the GAP on the ground, this essay examines how the campaign has been implemented regionally. [R, abr.]
67.4976 BENZ, Arthur —
Multilevel relations between parliaments have drawn attention in European studies, but scholars rarely have studied them in a comparative perspective. Based on a framework distinguishing various patterns of multilevel parliamentary relations, comparative research on Canada, Germany and the EU reveals particular dynamics. Multilevel structures provide opportunities for executives, but also for parliaments to extend or maintain their power. Accordingly, rather than a stable constellation, an ever changing interplay of parliaments and executives at the different levels affects the quality of democracy in federations. From this perspective, neither the concept of executive federalism nor an optimistic expectation of a multilevel parliamentary democracy appears appropriate to describe real constellations of power. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 67.5004]
67.4977 BERNHARD, Michael; JUNG Dong-Joon —
This article argues that the strength of civil society at the point of extrication from communism is a powerful predictor of how “liberal democratic” post-communist regimes become. This is based on the impact that an engaged civil society has on the reconfiguration of post-communist elites and the degree to which the model of accumulation permits concentration of resources in the hands of previous elites. In cases where civil society was engaged at the moment of extrication, the elite were disposed to a more liberal model of capitalism which afforded greater social welfare protection. Where civil society was weaker, the elite were able to convert political power into concentrated control of economic assets and a more predatory and inegalitarian model of political capitalism emerged. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4102]
67.4978 BLAIR, Robert A.; BLATTMAN, Christopher; HARTMAN, Alexandra —
Riots, murders, lynchings, and other forms of local violence are costly to security forces and society at large. Identifying risk factors and forecasting where local violence is most likely to occur should help allocate scarce peacekeeping and policing resources. Most forecasting exercises of this kind rely on structural or event data, but these have many limitations in the poorest and most war-torn states, where the need for prediction is arguably most urgent. We adopt an alternative approach, applying machine learning techniques to original panel survey data from Liberia to predict collective, interpersonal, and extrajudicial violence two years into the future. We first train our models to predict 2010 local violence using 2008 risk factors, then generate forecasts for 2012 before collecting new data. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 67.4092]
67.4979 BOLLEYER, Nicole —
This paper examines the claim that the fusion between executive and parliamentary majority makes the development of a proactive collective role of national parliaments as a political force in the European multilevel system unlikely. Conditions for inter-parliamentary activism are critically examined by a comparative study of the nature of inter-parliamentary activities in three federal systems whose constituent units are characterized by most different executive-legislative relations. In line with theoretical expectations, inter-parliamentary activism is strongest in the US (separation of powers) and non-existent in Canada (parliamentarism), with Switzerland located in between (separation of powers bridged by party ties). With the EU being most similar to Canada when it comes to executive-legislative relations on the “lower” member-state level, the findings support those skeptical towards national parliaments’ potential to jointly become a politically active player in the EU. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 67.5004]
67.4980 BOND, Patrick —
The political ecology of South Africa reflects extreme uneven and combined development. As one crucial aspect of this condition, environmental degradation extends deep into the households and workplaces populated mainly by the country's black majority. This chapter considers, first, the characteristics of capitalist crises felt so acutely in economic, socio-ecological and gendered respects following two decades of neoliberal-nationalist politics; second, the now-shifting political alliances from above, and from below the fragmented red and green political forces that have, albeit haltingly, finally begun a regroupment process; third, inspirational moments when indicative victories were won in spheres of social reproduction; which in turn, fourth, may inform a series of struggles that lie ahead. [A, abr.]
67.4981 BRUSZT, Laszlo; VUKOV, Visnja —
Whereas in the South, the EU has relied primarily on incentives for remaking the economic state, in the East, it has engaged in direct institution-building. The different EU strategies pushed the evolution of the economic state in the two peripheries in different directions and the two parts of Europe now face different developmental dilemmas. Despite their differences, neither the Eastern nor the Southern states have the capacity to get in synch the triple challenge of integration: playing by the uniform regional rules, improving their positions in the European markets and extending the range of domestic beneficiaries of integration. While the ensuing economic and political tensions might endanger regional integration, EU-level capacities for addressing the developmental problems of the peripheries are in short supply. [R, abr.]
67.4982 BULUTGIL, H. Zeynep —
According to the extant literature, state leaders pursue mass ethnic violence against minority groups in wartime if they believe that those groups are collaborating with an enemy. [However,] even in war, leaders differ in the degree to which they prioritize goals such as maintaining or expanding the territory of the state, and on whether they believe that minority collaboration with the enemy influences their ability to achieve those goals. Also, how leaders react to wartime threats from minority groups depends largely on the role that political organizations based on non-ethnic cleavages play in society. A comparison of the policies of three multinational empires toward ethnic minority collaborators during World War I — the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Italians, the Ottoman Empire and Armenians, and the Russian Empire and Muslims in the South Caucasus — illustrates this finding. [R, abr.]
67.4983 BURLYUK, Olga —
Poland is commonly regarded as the “diamond in the ring of friends” of Ukraine among EU Member States. This article examines the evolution of Poland's sponsorship of Ukraine at the European level up until fall 2015, with some reflections on later developments. Drawing on a variety of primary and secondary sources, including semi-structured expert interviews, the article examines Poland's policy along the lines of preferences and interests, institutions and procedures, and strategies and actions. The findings reveal persistent continuity despite considerable change in relevant context conditions. The end — Poland's aim to support Ukraine's European future — has remained intact over the decades, with only slight modification. Yet the understanding of the most efficient means — strategies and institutional structures — to achieve this end has altered, indicating a change in outlook. [R, abr.]
67.4984 CAROMBA, Laurence —
This article first situates the relationship between Lesotho and South Africa within the broader theoretical debate over postcolonial African borders. It then considers the arguments for unification on several levels: in relation to politics, the role of the military, fiscal considerations, and economic policy. The section on politics considers the quality of governance in Lesotho, the political role of its military, and the potential effects of a merger on South African national politics. The section on fiscal considerations compares the level of fiscal support that Lesotho would receive. Finally, the section on economic policy weighs up the value of Lesotho's ability to make independent economic policy decisions. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 67.5050]
67.4985 CHIA, Siow Yue —
Singapore entered 2016 with post-Lee Kuan Yew era political stability but buffeted by external headwinds that severely dampened its economic growth performance. Ever forward-looking, the island nation planned for its future political succession and its economic future to take advantage of opportunities that will emerge with the new world and regional economic order. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4877]
67.4986 CLAASSEN, Rutger —
There has been a remarkable shift in the relationship between market and state responsibilities for public services like health care and education. While these services continue to be financed publicly, they are now often provided through the market. The main argument for this new institutional division of labor is economic: while (public) ends stay the same, (private) means are more efficient. Markets function as “mere means” under the continued responsibility of the state. This article investigates and rejects currently existing egalitarian liberal theories about this division of labor and it presents and defends a new theory of marketization, in which social rights and democratic decision-making occupy center-stage. [R]
67.4987 COLARESI, Michael; MAHMOOD, Zuhaib —
Increasingly, scholars interested in understanding conflict processes have turned to evaluating out-of-sample forecasts to judge and compare the usefulness of their models. Research in this vein has made significant progress in identifying and avoiding the problem of overfitting sample data. Yet there has been less research providing strategies and tools to practically improve the out-of-sample performance of existing models and connect forecasting improvement to the goal of theory development in conflict studies. We fill this void by building on lessons from machine-learning research. We highlight a set of iterative tasks, which David Blei terms “Box's loop”, that can be summarized as build, compute, critique, and think. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 67.4092]
67.4988 COXHEAD, Ian —
The 12th Party Congress showed a preference for stability. Vietnam and the US grew closer over trade and China, but the US election results introduced uncertainty. The Vietnamese economy grew steadily despite drought and global economic weakness. Reform of state firms fell behind schedule, productivity growth lagged, and an environmental disaster sparked vigorous dissent. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4877]
67.4989 CROICU, Mihai; KREUTZ, Joakim —
The spread of internet and mobile phone access around the world has implications for both the processes of contentious politics and subsequent reporting of protest, terrorism, and war. We explore whether political violent events that occur close to modern communication networks are systematically better reported than others. Our analysis approximates information availability by the level of detail provided about the date of each political violent event in Africa from 2008 to 2010 and finds that although access to communication technology improves reporting, the size of the effect is very small. Additional investigation finds that the effect can be attributed to the ability of journalists to access more diverse primary sources in remote areas due to increased local access to modern communication technology. [R]
67.4990 DAKOWSKA, Dorota —
Les pays d'Europe centrale — Pologne, République tchèque, Slovaquie et Hongrie — connaissent une évolution politique marquée par la résurgence de discours conservateurs et nationalistes. Comment l'expliquer? Quelles en sont les causes? Quel rôle jouent le facteur religieux, la reconfiguration des champs politiques et le rapport au passé? Quelles sont les divergences entre les exécutifs de ces pays, en particulier dans leur relation à la Russie? [R]
67.4991 DAXECKER, Ursula; PRINS, Brandon C. —
Focusing on maritime piracy, this article argues that piracy is a funding strategy neglected in current research. Anecdotal evidence connects piracy in the Greater Gulf of Aden to arms trafficking, the drug trade, and human slavery. The revenue from attacks may find its way to Al-Shabaab. In Nigeria, increasing attacks against oil transports may signal an effort by insurgents to use the profits from piracy as an additional revenue stream to fund their campaign against the Nigerian government. The article hypothesizes that piracy incidents — actual acts of looting — increase the intensity of civil conflict. Using inferential statistics and predictive assessments, our evidence from conflicts in coastal African and Southeast Asian states from 1993 to 2010 shows that maritime piracy increases conflict intensity. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 67.4092]
67.4992 DECEVIC, Mehmed; VUKOVIC-CALASAN, Danijela; KNEŽEVIC, Saša —
The article analyzes the dynamics of the process of re-designation of ethnic Muslims as Bosniaks in Montenegro through a comparison with the analogous process in Serbia. In line with the premises of the elite theory, we point to the divergent influence of the socially engaged members of the Slavic Muslim cultural corpus in Montenegro on the process of ethnic self-identification of Slavic Muslims in the country. The willingness of a part of this corpus to adhere to the views of the elite part of the population that opposed the ethnonym “Bosniak,” and insisted on retaining the ethnic designation “Muslim,” is interpreted through the lens of social constructivism. The article indicates the formation of the sociopolitical constructs of “Montenegrin” and “Muslim” that occurred in the last decade of the 20th c. [R, abr.]
67.4993 DEMIR, Fatih —
Political parties worldwide seek to work with bureaucrats who are close to their programs, willing to cooperate, and concerted. On the other hand, there is a huge body of literature which argues that bureaucracy should be separate from politics and that it has to consist of public servants who are technically knowledgeable, expert, and also politically neutral. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe suffered from highly politicized public administrations under one-party regimes, and have struggled to separate their bureaucracies from politics since early 1990s. In view of the relation between politics and bureaucracy from the perspective of (de)politization, this paper looks into the changes that Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) have gone through after the institutionalization of multi-party regimes. [R]
67.4994 DIERKES, Julian —
Mongolians in 2016 resisted populism, streamed to the polls, and ensured a change in government. Populist candidates were soundly defeated, surprising in the context of a dire economic situation and a crushing public debt that left the new government almost no room for legislative initiatives. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4877]
67.4995 DIESEN, Glenn; KEANE, Conor —
A divided Europe produces conflicting narratives that are constructed to lay claim over privileged, if not exclusive, dominion of the shared neighborhood. The profoundly polarized historical narratives about the Ukraine are heavily influenced by divergent accounts of its relationship with Russia, ranging from Kievan Rus to the Soviet Union. Both the West and Russia seek to encourage a particular historical narrative in Ukraine that is compatible with their interests in the region. The West emphasizes a binary division of values on the continent, endowing it with a civilizing mission to cement collective hegemony in an exclusive “Europe”. Russia, meanwhile, embraces a historical narrative centered on a shared “Russian world” based implicitly on sovereign inequality, in which Moscow holds a privileged position. [R]
67.4996 EBIEDE, Tarila Marclint —
Disagreements between indigenous communities and the Nigerian state on natural-resource-management constitute a major source of conflicts in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Though armed militancy targeting oil infrastructure constituted a major form of the conflicts, there existed other types, levels, and dimensions of conflicts within the region. However, the Nigerian state response has focused mainly on addressing the armed militant conflict that targets oil industry infrastructure, leaving other — though connected — conflicts in the Niger Delta unattended. The neglect of other forms of conflicts, it is argued, impacts the ability of state-led peace-building programs to stabilize the Niger Delta region. [R]
67.4997 EKIERT, Grzegorz; KUBIK, Jan; WENZEL, Michal —
This article presents three novel arguments regarding the role of civil society in the democratic transformation of Poland. First, under communism, associational life was neither extinct nor always totally controlled by the state. Over time, some organizations achieved a modicum of autonomy. The massive Solidarity movement left a legacy of civic engagement that influenced post-1989 developments. Second, inequality under state socialism needs to be treated comprehensively. While the level of income inequality was modest, economic inequality was more pronounced (privileges of the communist elites). Civic and political inequalities were acute. All three forms of inequality generated discontent and mobilization. Third, after 1989, civil society has become an institutional vehicle for virtually eliminating political inequality, advancing civic equality, and controlling the growth of economic inequality. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4102]
67.4998 FABBRINI, Sergio —
The article discusses the two forms of intergovernmentalism institutionalized in the EU, one adopted in internal market policies and the other in the new policies close to traditional state powers. It investigates the different forms of influence that constituent state governments exercise on the decision-making process of two types of federation. Contrary to federal unions, such as the US and Switzerland, in the EU the constituent states are represented by their governments. Constituent states are instead represented by their governments in federal states such as Germany, but in none of them they play the decision-making role as they do in the EU's new policies regime. The article thus highlights the legitimacy vacuum in which the intergovernmental institutions operate in the latter policy regime. [R] [See Abstr. 67.5004]
67.4999 FENWICK, Tracy Beck; BURGES, Sean W.; POWER, Timothy J. —
By drawing on the five Brazilian case studies presented in this special issue, we propose five “faces” of presidentialism as a guide for examining the role of president in the public policy process: face to the general public; face to the bureaucracy; face to the subnational executives; face to congressional coalitions; and face to the outside world. How effectively the president succeeds in formulating and implementing their public policy priorities depends on their ability to execute the roles of each of these faces. Presidents’ ability to successfully pursue their policy agenda is both constrained and facilitated by exogenous factors that impact the amount of attention, authority, and engagement that they are able to exert across the five faces they wear in the public policy process. [R] [First article of a thematic issue on “The five faces of the President: leadership, presidentialism, and public policy in Brazil”, edited by Tracy Beck FENWICK and Sean W. BURGES. See also Abstr. 67.4242, 4281, 4293, 4314, 4853]
67.5000 FERGUSON, Yale H. —
Turkey's relationships with the Middle East, the EU, and the wider world evolve at such an astonishing rate that almost the only constant has been change itself. Early in the millennium Turkey appeared to have managed the difficult transition from a long era of military control to a relatively stable elected government and liberal democratic values. That expectation eroded in subsequent years under the rule of Prime Minister (now President) R.T. Erdogan and his Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), with an unmistakable drift towards a decidedly illiberal democracy — if not outright authoritarianism — and increased violence at home and abroad. Turkey has recently experienced a major military coup, a formal state of emergency has been declared, and a sweeping crackdown is occurring that affects virtually every sector of society. [R, abr.]
67.5001 FERNANDES, Tiago; BRANCO, Rui —
Do democratic social revolutions strengthen civil society in the long-run? We answer this question by comparing the trajectories of three civil society sectors (social welfare organizations, neighborhood associations, and unions) in democratic Portugal. We argue that the degree of inclusiveness of the institutions of the previous authoritarian regime shaped the type of revolutionary elites available for alliances with civil society during the revolutionary crisis. More inclusionary authoritarian institutions promoted the emergence of a more pluralistic opposition to the dictatorship, thus generating future revolutionary leaderships prone to empowering emerging popular civil society organizations. Inversely, exclusionary and repressive institutions spawned a narrow and secretive opposition and subsequent revolutionary elite bent on hierarchical top-down control thereby disempowering civil society in the long-run. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4102]
67.5002 FILLER, André —
The article examines the position of the three Baltic States in the context of growing tension between Russia and NATO. Former Soviet republics, members since 2004 of the EU and NATO, the Baltic republics, carrying many traumas in their relations towards Russia, represent by their geographical determinism and their geo-political constraints a particular case study in the Russian confrontation with the West. The author evaluates the risk of military conflict involving the Eastern Baltics as a potential theater of hostilities, studies the role of these states in the “New Cold War”, and develops a concept of a “dual state”, defined by geopolitical incompatibility with an adjacent power, while being linked to it commercially, culturally, linguistically, and by the presence of diasporas and migratory, tourist or economic flows. [R] [See Abstr. 67.5046]
67.5003 FOSSUM, John Erik —
A curious interconnectedness/consent conundrum marks today's world. Whereas states and societies are becoming more closely interconnected, increased proximity need not increase popular acceptance of federal democracy. Nowhere is this conundrum more apparent than in the European Union. The EU is engaged in a process of democratic federalization, but this process is clearly shaped by the interconnectedness/consent conundrum. In the EU democratic federalization unfolds under conditions of polity contestation. This article discusses what we may learn about democratic federalization from reflecting on the EU experience. For that we need adequate analytical tools because no ready-made analytical framework that fully captures democratic federalization is available, certainly not one that is amenable toward resolving the interconnectedness/consent conundrum. This article provides the bare bones of such a framework. [R] [See Abstr. 67.5004]
67.5004 FOSSUM, John Erik; JACHTENFUCHS, Markus —
The purpose of this collection is to discuss what we may learn from thinking about the EU in federal terms. Our point of departure is that this represents a two-fold challenge. It is on the one hand a matter of establishing “how federal” the EU is. On the other, the question of whether federal theory and practice may have to be adapted to take proper account of the EU. The contributions to this collection supplement and extend existing scholarship through focusing on two lines of inquiry. The first focuses on the relationship between federalism and democracy, with particular emphasis on how federal systems respond to and deal with citizens’ interests and concerns, within and outside the political system. The second line of inquiry emphasizes the relationship among the governments of federal systems. [R] [First article of a thematic issue of the same title, edited by the authors. See also Abstr. 67.4273, 4349, 4976, 4979, 4998, 5003, 5023, 5029]
67.5005 FOUSKAS, Vassilis K.; ROY-MUKHERJEE, Shampa —
This article provides a critique of neo-liberal, supply-side austerity policies as they unfold asymmetrical in the EU/Eurozone and beyond. It argues that, contrary to claims by the European Commission and Germany's elite, growth and austerity are incompatible policy magnitudes. The Eurozone constitutes the worst form of Gold Standard from which countries cannot escape and advance the imperative of domestic growth as external devaluation and import-substitution are no-options. The article shows neo-liberal austerity is currently being implemented via authoritarian forms of governance from above while cultivating racist and xenophobic movements from below. [R]
67.5006 GADŽIEV, Kamaludin S. —
This article identifies and analyzes the profound changes in the geopolitical picture of the vast Eurasian space over the past three decades, premised on Z. Brzezinski's [The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives, New York, 1997]. In the last fifteen years, due to a combination of factors, the geopolitical situation in Eurasia changed dramatically. The revival of Russia as a strong power capable to defend its national interests, the emergence of powerful new actors such as China, the weakening of geopolitical positions of the West in general and the US in particular, their defeat in aggressive wars and other failures have led to deep cracks in the conventional Grand Chessboard, which have brought about changes in both the lineup of the leading players and the rules of the game. [R, abr.]
67.5007 GANS-MORSE, Jordan —
Studies of property rights overwhelmingly focus on whether states expropriate or protect property, overlooking the crucial issue of whether private sector actors will use state institutions. By contrast, I argue that the “supply” of formal legal institutions often fails to ensure firms will rely on the state for property rights protection. Instead, firms frequently avoid formal legal institutions and turn to illegal strategies based on violence or corruption. Whether firms adopt legal strategies depends on: (1) firm-level practices and beliefs that impede the use of law, (2) the effectiveness of illegal strategies, and (3) coordination problems resulting from firms’ expectations about each other's strategies. I illustrate how “demand-side” factors led to a surprising increase in Russian firms’ reliance on formal legal institutions over the past two decades. [R, abr.]
67.5008 GOEDE, Marieke de; WESSELING, Mara —
Access to and diffusion of information relating to the Terrorism Finance Tracking Programme (TFTP) has become a focal point for discussions about secrecy and democracy in the EU. This paper analyzes the dynamics of secrecy and publicity in the context of post-9/11 in the TFTP. The TFTP involves complex dynamics of knowledge, and strictly regulated information distribution. The purpose of the article is threefold. (1) We contribute to debates on EU secrecy and democratic oversight, by advancing an understanding of secrecy as practice. (2) We document and discuss the longer trajectory of the contested secrecy and publicity of the TFTP, through examining three “secrecy controversies”. (3) We ask whether the logics of secrecy in the EU are being revised and challenged in the context of transatlantic security cooperation. [R, abr.]
67.5009 GOURRADA, Raphaël —
The Syrian crisis repercussions in Lebanon since 2011 highlight the political framework in the country, polarized around foreign policy issues into two antagonist blocks, thus exporting the political debate outside national boarders. The Syrian case also reveals a specifically Lebanese political praxis, where local establishments capturing regional stakes allows them to capitalize on symbolic resources, and provides strategic avoidance of national debates, thus preserving a fragile political balance inside the country. [R]
67.5010 GRAJALES, Jacobo —
Scholarship equating pervasive violence and state weakness has been recently and convincingly criticized by a growing body of literature. A finer sociological look at the links between states and non-statutory armed groups rather reveals relations of bargaining and delegation. While taking these conclusions as a point of departure, this contribution studies a “borderline” case, which presents divergent characteristics with most of the existing works. Though the study of paramilitary militias in Colombia, this contribution provides an analysis in which high-intensity violence does not marginalize the state, but on the contrary entails the reinforcement of its central role. [R]
67.5011 GRIŠINAS, Arvydas —
The article discusses from an anthropological point of view the reasons why minorities tend to find themselves at the center of tensions in Central-Eastern Europe. It presents an idea that the answer to the question lays in the “human side” of the regional politics. In human experiential terms, the political “character” of the region and the image of ethnic minorities as political phenomena are both grounded in memory of suffering and victimization. Because of the historical and experiential circumstances, it became a basis for identity-formation, perpetuating the regional tensions. However, such victimized identity can be hijacked and abused both by the actors themselves and the external forces. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4152]
67.5012 GUNN, Geoffrey C. —
Briefly entering the international media spotlight coinciding with the first-ever visit by a sitting US president along with a galaxy of regional leaders, Laos in 2016 saw a new leadership lineup following a quinquennial party congress. Questions of Chinese versus Vietnamese influence over Laos and even the legacy of US bombing all gained an airing. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4877]
67.5013 GUTTERMAN, Ellen —
What explains longstanding UK non-compliance with international anti-bribery norms? Drawing on evidence from a comparative study of state compliance with the OECD anti-bribery Convention and building on the literature on “framing” in Sociology and IR, this article identifies and illustrates the impact of strategic policy framing on UK anti-bribery policy in the years following the UK's commitment to criminalize transnational business bribes, in 1997. The research examines the way in which anti-bribery proponents and opponents framed the practice of transnational bribery differently across four distinct policy contexts in the UK: international development and poverty reduction, domestic anti-corruption, strategic trade, and — following 11 September 2001 — international anti-terrorism. [R, abr.]
67.5014 HALILOGLU, Nagihan —
The 15 July coup attempt in Turkey has added another layer of complexity to the conundrum that is Turkish politics. Since the coup attempt there have been several DAESH and PKK attacks in Turkey, including the assassination of the Russian Ambassador. The country continues to wage war with both terror organizations, while trying to pass a new constitution. In this whirlwind of history, many of the questions that lie at the heart of the coup attempt seem sidelined. There have been waves of purges since July, and it is believed that the high number of terror attacks are linked to a weakened intelligence establishment. The essay briefly describes the Gülen movement, which, according to several testimonies, was behind the coup attempt. [R, abr.]
67.5015 HASTINGS, Justin V.; NAZ, Farah —
While Pakistan is in many ways an ideal location for transnational terrorist groups due to state weakness, Islamic State has had difficulty making headway in the country. We argue that [these] failures are due to competition from other groups. Drawing on the terrorist competition literature and interviews with Pakistani counterterrorism officials, the authors find that the presence of other groups in Pakistan meant there was little demand for what Islamic State offered. Islamic State relied on splinter groups and defectors for recruitment, which alienated mainstream groups and harmed the group's capacity. Islamic State's competition problems were exacerbated by its internationalist ideology, which was at odds with that of many groups in Pakistan, and allowed opposing groups to present themselves as reasonable alternatives to other actors. [R, abr.]
67.5016 HE Ning —
This paper extends the empirical research on determinants of corruption conducted during the last 20 years. It argues that the apparent correlations between cultural traditions and a country's corruption level are not valid causal inferences. Instead, these correlations are primarily the artifacts of measurement bias on the dependent variable. Corruption measured by perception-based indicators can be conflated with the cultural bias conceived by the respondents whose subjective assessments are the main sources of these indicators. These assessments tend to attribute clean government to specific cultural traditions, for example, Protestantism and a long history of being a democracy. These claims are defended with a series of tests. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 67.5110]
67.5017 HERNANDEZ, Carolina G. —
This article explains why the Philippines, a small country and a long-time US ally, shook the world in 2016 by democratically electing a president who has defied conventional expectations, touched the lives of ordinary Filipinos, been accused of human rights violations in his war on drugs, and could affect the geostrategic rivalry between the US and China. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4877]
67.5018 HICKEY, Dennis V.; NIOU, Emerson M. S. —
The opposition Democratic Progressive Party won decisive victories in the Legislative Yuan and presidential elections. Despite these victories, 2016 proved to be a difficult year for Taiwan's new ruling party. As 2016 drew to a close, polls showed that most of Taiwan's population disapproved of Tsai Ing-wen's performance as president. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4877]
67.5019 HICKEY, Sam; IZAMA, Angelo —
This article argues that the developmental potential of oil in Uganda can be better understood through a political settlements framework that goes beyond a focus on institutional form to examine how deeper forms of power and politics shape oil governance. Drawing on in-depth primary research, we focus in particular on the extent to which the interplay of interests and ideas within Uganda's ruling coalition has enabled the government to protect its national interest during negotiations with international oil companies. However, the dynamics of Uganda's political settlement raise serious doubts as to whether the impressive levels of elite commitment and bureaucratic capacity displayed to date will withstand the intensifying pressures that will accompany the eventual commencement of oil flows. [R, abr.]
67.5020 HOOGESTEGER, Jaime —
In the past two decades spaces for user participation have been opened within water governance structures at many scales. In this contribution, I explore how and why formal participation of water users in itself is problematic in terms of democracy. The case shows that for organized peasant water users to work on more democratic water governance, the creation of upscaled federations, alliances, networks and sometimes street protests is crucial to open up spaces in which their interests are represented. This suggests that democracy is not merely about participation, but more importantly, it is about the politics of how democracy is made through conflicts, protests, negotiations and the creation of strategic alliances that challenge the structures and processes through which decisions are taken. [R, abr.] [First of a series of articles on “Water democracies”. See also Abstr. 67.5026, 5087]
67.5021 HOUSSIN, Étienne —
The gains made by Iraqi Kurdish movements and their recent fighting against the jihadists have given Kurds in Syria great encouragement and confidence in their road towards autonomy. However, history has witnessed a long list of difficulties they had to face in order to be recognized as Syrian citizens and acquire cultural and political rights within the Arab Republic. [R]
67.5022 IVLEVS, Artjoms; KING, Roswitha M. —
We study the effects of emigration on bribery experience and attitudes towards corruption in the migrants’ countries of origin. Using data from the Gallup Balkan Monitor survey and instrumental variable analysis, we find that having relatives abroad reduces the likelihood of bribing public officials, renders bribe-taking behavior by public officials less acceptable, and reduces the likelihood of being asked for bribes by public officials. Receiving monetary remittances does not change the beneficial effects regarding bribe paying and attitudes toward corruption; however, remittances counteract the beneficial effect on bribe solicitations by public officials. Overall, our findings support the conjecture that migration contributes to the transfer of norms and practices from destination to source countries. [R]
67.5023 JACHTENFUCHS, Markus; KASACK, Christiane —
We argue that there is a commonality between federal states and the EU: both face a dilemma between sub-unit autonomy and collective problem-solving. We develop the structure of this dilemma, which is pervasive in multilevel systems with a strong element of shared policy-making and most pronounced in the EU. While a substantial part of the federalism literature considers this relationship as precarious and discusses ways to stabilize it, we propose an analytical perspective which focuses on actor dynamics. Exit measures the degree to which sub-units want to be subject to collective policies, voice measures the influence sub-units seek in collective decisions. We illustrate this framework with examples, mainly from the EU, and conclude that this perspective can shed new light on differentiated integration in the EU and open comparative inquiries. [R] [See Abstr. 67.5004]
67.5024 JAFFRELOT, Christophe —
By the midpoint of his term, Prime Minister N. Modi could point to some achievements on the economic front, but jobless growth remained the order of the day in India in 2016. While the BJP was more successful in the state elections than it had been in 2015, it still registered some setbacks because of the judiciary, especially because of the government's use of President's Rule. The year also saw increasingly conflictual relations in Kashmir. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4877]
67.5025 JAROS, Kyle —
Some subnational governments are better than others at orchestrating major policy programs, yet important questions remain about how and why subnational government capacity varies from case to case. Scholarship that emphasizes political agency in explaining subnational policy outcomes is not always clear as to where such agency comes from. This article works toward a conception of subnational government capacity better able to integrate these approaches and bridge the agency-structure divide. I call for greater attention to the connective structures that enable subnational governments to take the initiative in policymaking and mobilize resources, stressing provinces’ internal cohesion and upward political ties. To illustrate the need for a broader conception of subnational capacity, and to show the importance of connective power in action, I analyze the contrasting outcomes of regional development strategies in two Chinese provinces. [R, abr.]
67.5026 JONES, Catherine; MURRAY, Warwick E.; OVERTON, John —
The demand for bottled water has grown exponentially at the global scale. In marketing, discourses of purity and paradise have often been invoked. Marketed as a “Taste of Paradise”, FIJI Water has gained enormous international success as an ostensibly clean and green product. This paper analyzes the rise of FIJI Water and critically assesses its economic success. It goes on to explore its local social and environmental impacts in the context of a country that has been subject to waves of democratic crises where the fate of the polity has been influenced by FIJI Water's actions. FIJI Water has come to assume the role of development trustee in the villages most affected by the growth in exports. The democratic crises in Fiji has given FIJI Water profound developmental influence. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 67.5020]
67.5027 JUTILA, Matti —
Post-Cold War Europe witnessed the resurgence of different forms of nationalism and also the re-establishment of a minority rights regime. At the surface level, rights of national minorities seem to undermine nationalism as a political organization principle, but on a closer investigation the relationship between the two is more complex. This article uses insights from the English school's theorizing on primary and secondary institutions to investigate the relationship between the primary institution of nationalism and secondary institution of minority rights regime. After a brief discussion of nationalism as a primary institution and its influence on the implementation of universal human rights, this article presents a detailed study of the minority rights regime.[R, abr.]
67.5028 KAMKHAJI, Jonathan C.; RADAELLI, Claudio M. —
What is the causal relationship between crisis, learning and change? How did causality unfold in the key years of 2009-2010 when the EU had to face the most formidable attacks to the single currency and responded with substantial reforms of the euro area? We question the conventional identification of the cause-and-effect relationship provided by theories of crisis management, integration and policy learning. Drawing on models of contingent learning developed within psychology and behavioral economics, we theorize that surprise produces behavioral change via a fast-paced associative mechanism and that policy learning follows change. We then run our exercise in causal identification through a plausibility probe. We show that our argument passes the plausibility probe. [R, abr.]
67.5029 KEATING, Michael —
European federalism must be conceived at multiple levels, not just that of the state and the EU. A regional level has emerged below and across the states, as a result of spatial rescaling: the migration of functional systems, political change and the institutionalization of the regional level. The sub-state region remains a contested space, both as to its territorial boundary and its control. The EU itself has used the regional level for the framing and implementation of its own policies. Regional politics are characterized by inter-regional competition. Demands for recognition and autonomy from below have added another dimension. There is not a uniform regional level of politics or policy but a variety of constructions of the region. [R] [See Abstr. 67.5004]
67.5030 KELLY, Dominic —
I contribute to the post-Fukushima literature on Japan, much of which accepts uncritically the orthodox narrative locating Japan's nuclear origins in the politics of the Cold War and in the passivity of Japanese civil society vis-à-vis a “strong” state. In contrast, I draw upon Gramsci's work in order to locate these origins within wider processes of global structural transformation associated with the shift from feudalism to capitalism, and the attendant imperialism of the 19th c. I treat Japan's Meiji Restoration as an instance of passive revolution within this context, one outcome of which was the adoption of a specific form of state (the “developmental state”) and a specific form of nationalism (techno-nationalism). I further argue that the US Occupation of Japan (1945-1952) can be viewed as another instance of passive revolution. [R, abr.]
67.5031 KEMBARA, Gilang —
The Islamic State (IS) is not an another ordinary terrorist group that bears grudge against the US and most of the Western world. It has become a pseudo-state led by a conventional army with a functioning bureaucracy, and an established infrastructure. Responses from the international world against IS have been firm, with no government across the world voicing their support toward IS. Several Asian nations have rallied under different banners in the fight against IS, but have so far stopped short of any military actions. Indonesia, as the world's largest Muslim-majority state, has not committed to any of the existing coalitions. This article examines the various frameworks that have and could be implemented against IS. [R]
67.5032 KIM Hayam; HEO Uk —
Economic development in South Korea and Taiwan has received considerable scholarly attention, as they are two of the most successful cases since the 1960s. For all their similarities, differences also exist. Thus, we revisited economic development in South Korea and Taiwan to draw lessons for other developing countries. Our analysis indicates that no single development model will work in every country. Countries may learn from the successful cases but need to adjust the development model according to their political and economic conditions. [R] [First article of a thematic issue on “South Korea's rise in comparative perspective”, edited and introduced, pp. 3-15, by Michael A. MORRIS and HU. Xiaobo See also Abstr. 67.4886, 4887, 4933, 4956, 5037]
67.5033 KIM Jung —
This article contributes to an understanding of the current state of South Korea's democracy. With an innovative dataset from the Varieties of Democracy project, it first scrutinizes the state of South Korea's democracy today from a cross-national perspective, showing the status of South Korea's democracy is virtually at the bottom among advanced industrial democracies across all dimensions of democratic authenticity, quality, and depth. In addition, it confirms that South Korea's democracy has continued to be eroded over the past ten years across all dimensions of democracy: its finding that South Korea's democracy today is in an extremely perilous position. [R]
67.5034 KLABJAN, Borut —
This article discusses local cultures of remembrance of Yugoslav partisans fallen during World War II in Trieste, now part of Italy, and investigates the role of memory activists in managing vernacular memory over time. The author analyzes the interplay between memory and the production of space. On the basis of local newspaper articles, archival material, and oral interviews, the essay examines the ideological imprint on the local cultural landscape, contributing to a more complex understanding of memory engagement. The focus is on grassroots initiatives rather than state-sponsored heritage projects. This article argues that memory initiatives are not solely the outcome of national narratives and top-down ideological impositions. It shows that official narratives have to negotiate with vernacular forms of memory engagement in the production of a local mnemonic landscape. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 67.5103]
67.5035 KRAMPE, Florian —
Water resource-management (WRM) has increasingly come to be considered within the realm of peacebuilding. Through investigating the case of water resource-management in Kosovo after 1999, this study argues that the international community has treated post-conflict water resource-management as a primarily technical issue, to the neglect of its complex political nature. This has impeded the peacebuilding process in three ways. First, it consolidated the physical separation of actors through allowing separate water governance structures. Second, it avoided conflictive issues instead of actively engaging in conflict-resolution. Third, it incapacitated locals by placing ownership in the hands of external actors. To redress this tripartite dilemma, this study stresses the need for research that provides deeper theoretical and empirical understanding of the political mechanisms that connect WRM to post-conflict reconstruction efforts. [R]
67.5036 KRAUSE, Jana —
Communal violence is one of the deadliest forms of political violence in Nigeria. Research has yet to identify and explain the variation in spread and intensity of violence “within” communal conflicts. This article analyzes violence and non-violence in two almost contiguous neighborhoods located in the city of Jos in central Nigeria that share ethnic, religious, and socio-economic similarities. It shows that structural factors such as geography, demography, or intervention by security forces do not predict non-violence. Rather, preventing killings during communal conflicts was contingent on civilian agency such as leadership, social control over internal youth, and refusal to collaborate with external armed groups. [R, abr.]
67.5037 KRIECKHAUS, Jonathan —
This article deepens our understanding of the South Korean economic miracle in three ways. First, using the most recent economic data, I demonstrate that the South Korean economy continues to impress when evaluated in comparative perspective. Second, I argue that geopolitics, such as the country's unique relationships with the US and China, heavily shaped South Korean economic success during the Cold War years. Third, geopolitics and economic growth continue to intersect in South Korea's current strategy regarding free trade agreements. [R] [See Abstr. 67.5032]
67.5038 KUGELMAN, Michael —
Tensions with India and a fraught civil-military imbalance were the dominant storylines in Pakistan in 2016. These crises overshadowed promising developments in the areas of counterterrorism, the economy, and the law. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4877]
67.5039 KURU, Deniz —
This article presents a history of IR that looks at the role of three big American foundations (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Rockefeller, and Ford foundations) in the development of IR as an academic field in continental Europe. Its framework goes beyond the usual disciplinary history narratives that focus on IR's US or UK trajectories, pointing instead to American foundations’ interwar and early post-World War II influence on French and German IR. The cases emphasize US foundations’ interactions with European scholars and international scholarly organizations as major factors shaping IR's developmental pathways. This study offers a way to consider foundations’ role in IR's gradual academic institutionalization by connecting disciplinary historical approaches to disciplinary sociology. [R, abr.]
67.5040 LACHER, Wolfram —
The debate over whether the Libyan intervention was justified should take as its starting point the imponderables facing decision-makers in March 2011. [R]
67.5041 LAKE, Milli —
Why have peace-building and reconstruction efforts so frequently failed to create durable institutions that can deter or withstand resurgent violence in volatile sites of cyclical conflict? Extant theory predicts that new institutions can help overcome violence and mitigate commitment problems in postconflict contexts by reducing uncertainty in inherently uncertain environments. This article argues that postconflict institutions often prove limited in their abilities to contribute to durable peace because they offer wartime elites new venues in which to pursue conflict-era agendas. Through a micro-analysis of efforts to build the rule of law in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, I demonstrate that wartime elites capture and instrumentalize new legal institutions to maximize their intra- and inter-organizational survival. [R, abr.]
67.5042 LI Qiang; WANG Tuohan —
The Qinghe Experiment is an experiment of social science conducted by sociologists in the Qinghe area, Beijing, which combines academic research with social governance and social development. It has become an urban community and a rural-urban fringe zone. Now Qinghe consists of 28 neighborhood communities, including urban village communities. With extremely complicated types of communities, Qinghe can be regarded as an epitome of the evolution of Chinese urban and rural communities. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 67.4396]
67.5043 LIN Shangli —
The Chinese nation not only achieved its overall transformation from an ancient country, but also created a new model of development, which deserves to be called a great miracle in the history of human civilizations. The power creating this miracle came from both the development trend of human civilizations and Chinese people's creative transformation of their historical heritage. The trend of modernization and democratization requires that national rejuvenation and unity must be based on people's democratic liberation as the engine, goal and mission, which is the realistic requirement for China's modern transformation. [R, abr.] [First of a series of articles on “Reflective discourse on the logic of Chinese political system”. See also Abstr. 67.4217, 4531, 5107]
67.5044 LITTLE, Adrian; BROUGH ROGERS, Juliet —
Trauma demands a melancholic orientation to the past, a wish to recover what is lost. In conflicts located in long histories of political difference, a focus on the traumas acquired through the violences of the past is crucial, but this focus may do more than inform the politics of the present. The risk is that the symptoms of the trauma become the symptoms of policy. In short, in the interests of placating trauma survivors and sometimes in the interests of ensuring no issue gets left behind, politics can be trumped by trauma. Here, we discuss how this has occurred in Northern Ireland and how the “trauma” of non-indigenous Australians has trumped the possibility of addressing the “unfinished business of justice” for Indigenous Australians. [R, abr.]
67.5045 LORD, Alex, et al. —
The reform of urban and environmental planning in England since the election of the Coalition government in 2010 has resulted in the emergence of Neighborhood Planning: a situation in which citizens can autonomously assemble, define the spatial extent of their neighborhood and author a plan for it. We argue that this radical policy is part of a wider agenda to de-professionalize planning as a statutory function and has its roots in an odd assemblage of classical right-wing political thinking and the prescriptions of post-positivist planning theory. This uneasy conceptual relationship reveals a wider inconsistency between the policy in rhetorical form and its practical implementation. We show that the dream of citizen-centered planning masks deep tensions within the activity of urban and environmental management. [R, abr.]
67.5046 LOYER, Barbara —
The concept of foreignness is at the genesis of the construction of a European geopolitical territory. This article develops this hypothesis through three topics of reflection: (1) the Schengen area and the impact of the refugee crisis, especially in the case of Hungary; (2) the representation of citizenship in the UK, which for now is in the EU and outside the Schengen area; (3) the internal debates in Switzerland on the country's membership within the Schengen area. These examples put into perspective what could be described as a linear evolution towards the emergence of a “European people” because the notion of European citizenship is still very vague. This article also looks at the EU's external border, which is more complex than the fences and shipwreck sites. [R, abr.] [First article of a thematic issue on “Threats on EU”, introduced by Béatrice GIBLIN. See also Abstr. 67.4719, 4727, 4771, 4811, 4819, 4840, 5002, 5057, 5058, 5081]
67.5047 MACAMO, Elísio —
The paper analyzes Mozambique's political trajectory through the prism of the relationship between state and society. It argues that a political culture deeply rooted in millennial thinking — based on the eschatological belief that political intervention settles societal problems once and for all — has fostered a deep hostility towards citizenship rights and, for this reason, has regularly brought democracy to the brink of collapse. Thus, the paper is an attempt at identifying a conceptual framework on the basis of which empirically grounded descriptions of Mozambique's recent political history can be conducted. [R] [Part of a thematic issue on “As times goes by or how far till Banjul: African citizenship aspirations”, edited and introduced by Catarina ANTUNES GOMES and Cesaltina ABREU]
67.5048 MAKAROVIC, Matej; KILDI, Janja Mikulan —
The article examines the conditions of political stability and different regime trajectories in the post-Soviet region. The impact of political, socio-economic, and cultural factors is explored to identify the necessary and sufficient conditions for political stability and democracy, as well as their relationship with each other. Applying fuzzy-set comparative analysis, this article demonstrates the significance of social inclusion in political stability, although it cannot confirm any causality between political stability and democracy in the post-Soviet region. In terms of the necessary conditions for democracy, only a democratic political culture is significant; while both democratic political culture and the absence of a strong economic dependence on natural resources are sufficient conditions for democracy in the region. [R]
67.5049 MATHOU, Thierry —
Celebrated nationwide as a symbol of change in continuity, the birth of the future king gave confidence to Bhutan, which continued its path toward democracy and sustainable development without undermining its identity despite several challenges lying ahead. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4877]
67.5050 MATLOSA, Khabele —
Democratization in Southern Africa remains a mixed bag today. Some countries have not yet experienced the democratic transition. Others have managed to transition from one-party, one-person and military regimes to multi-party democracies. In various others, there are signs of reversal of democratic gains. This paper reviews the state of democratization in Southern Africa with a view to understand why the regional record is so uneven across countries that form the Southern African Development Community (SADC). While the article presents a regional snapshot, it also presents comparative insights from Botswana and Lesotho. [R, abr.] [First article of a thematic issue on “Progress or stagnation: quo vadis Southern African politics?”, edited by Cheryl HENDRICKS. See also Abstr. 67.4519, 4622, 4793, 4878, 4984, 5061, 5098]
67.5051 MAY, Ronald —
Prime Minister Peter O'Neill came under continuing pressure to step down pending resolution of corruption charges but resisted demands from university students and civil society groups and convincingly defeated a parliamentary vote of no confidence. Papua New Guinea experienced a further decline in GDP growth and faced landowner threats to shut down liquefied natural gas production. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4877]
67.5052 McCARGO, Duncan —
Events in Thailand during 2016 were overshadowed by the death of long-reigning King Bhumibol Adulyadej on October 13, and the entire nation's mourning. Despite the popular approval of a new constitution in August 2016, Thailand's military regime showed no sign of relinquishing power during this time of considerable national anxiety. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4877]
67.5053 McCARTHY, Stephen —
The new government in Myanmar in 2016 faced many of its predecessor's challenges; however, some progress was made in policy reversals and legislative reform. Although the government hosted a major ethnic peace conference, violence erupted again in Rakhine State as community tensions transformed into armed conflict. The country experienced more flooding, an earthquake, and a slowing economy locked into falling commodity prices. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4877]
67.5054 MERHEIM-EYRE, Igor —
The article argues that while the V4 [Visegrad four] states might pursue visa liberalization with the eastern neighbors for diverse reasons (ends), the four states employ a shared normative agenda (means), which includes (1) a shift from the “exclusive” impact of Fortress Europe towards “politics of inclusion” and (2) recognition of the transformational impact of cross-border mobility in areas as diverse as minority rights, promotion of democratic governance, and economic cooperation. [R, abr.]
67.5055 MIETZNER, Marcus —
During his second year in power, Indonesian President Joko Widodo faced contradictory yet interrelated trends: while he consolidated his grip over parliament and improved his approval ratings, the president's remaining opponents shifted the focus of political contestation from the state's institutions onto the streets. Additionally burdened by economic uncertainty and rising regional tensions over the South China Sea, Indonesian democracy thus continues to be vulnerable, its outward stability notwithstanding. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4877]
67.5056 MILNER, Anthony —
In 2016, Prime Minister Najib overcame challenges that many predicted would destroy him. The crisis, however, has helped to deepen many of the fault lines in Malaysian politics and society, and to promote public apprehension. Much will now depend on the resilience of the country's institutions and economy. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4877]
67.5057 MISIUNA, Jan; PACHOCKA, Marta —
More than 25 years after the fall of communism, Poland, until recently considered a Eastern European systematic transformation success story, seems to stand at the crossroads. The 2015 general elections gave power to the populist Law and Justice party (PiS), which immediately embarked on an ambitious project to completely transform Poland's foreign policy. In less than a year the Visegrad Group was once again brought to a standstill, Poland backed out to EU's refugees’ settlement and relocation programs and decided to forego years of meticulous work aimed at building strong international position with other EU member states. This paper, in addition to updating on the changes in Poland's foreign relations, provides explanatory background to the present situation in the early 21st c. [R] [See Abstr. 67.5046]
67.5058 MONGRENIER, Jean-Sylvestre —
The Brexit caused a shock in Europe, opening up the possibility of a new step for the EU Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP). Paris and Berlin could form a core group and shape a political and military Europe. This theory should be questioned. The long-standing opposition of the UK to a European Defense that might challenge NATO must not hide contradictions and conflicts among the other EU member states. In many ways, Atlanticism still constitutes the essential reference point. Surely, the uncertainties linked to the election of D. Trump (an “American Brexit”?) incite to a bigger joint military effort but the project for European defense is undermined by what the theory of public goods puts into evidence: without a hegemonic actor, a collective purpose does not always means a collective action. [R] [See Abstr. 67.5046]
67.5059 MORROW, Duncan —
Since Westphalia, territoriality has been a critical element in the political management of violence. Where legitimacy was contested, as in the area that became Northern Ireland, territorial disputes often escalated into significant violence. The importance to human futures of controlling violence is the central theme of the work of Rene Girard. This article explores the implications of Girardian thinking for understanding both the escalation of violence in Northern Ireland after the 1960s and efforts to escape the dictates of territoriality in the peace that followed. In particular, it explores the concept of reconciliation and its application amidst endemic political rivalry. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4152]
67.5060 MÜLLER, Dominik M. —
Brunei continued in 2016 to suffer from declining oil and gas prices. The budget deficit grew. The Sultan made economic diversification and “prudent spending” the year's central political themes. He criticized several government institutions during “surprise visits” and sharply attacked the Ministry of Religious Affairs for “delaying” the full enforcement of an Islamic legal reform. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4877]
67.5061 MULUBALE, Sanny —
This paper is an investigation of identity politics and its relevance. It engages the “instrumentalist model” in understanding the causal chains that can either stabilize or destabilize multi-ethnic societies. It employs a comparative case analysis of Zambia and Kenya. A substantial similarity in our cases is that identity politics has a hold in both nations and the extreme difference is ethnic identity cleavages appear divisive among Kenya's elites, thus spilling into communities, whereas Zambia shows positive ethnic cohesion trends due to responsible elite conduct. The central proposition of this paper is that politics founded on identity fosters societal stability as opposed to instability. Politicized identities appear to promote division in a multi-ethnic society only because of instrumentalist causes. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 67.5050]
67.5062 NACHI, Mohamed —
The present study analyzes how, over the transition period of 2011-2014, Islam became a “public problem”, to understand how it came to pervade the public space. I will investigate the place of religion in the public space both before and after the 2011 elections, and to do so will start with a few “affairs” and controversies surrounding Islam and its place in the new Constitution as well as in the broader framework of Tunisian society. [R] [See Abstr. 67.5063]
67.5063 NACHI, Mohamed —
In this article devoted to the democratic transition in Tunisia, we provide an opportunity to reflect once again on the process and dynamics entailed in learning about citizenship in a context of transition. We stress the different experiences and various moments or events that contributed to bringing about this “citizenship” (mouwâtana). [R] [First article of a symposium “La transition démocratique en Tunisie (Transition to Democracy in Tunisia)”. See also Abstr. 67.4420, 4566, 4974, 5062]
67.5064 O'MAHONEY, Joseph —
Do normative arguments change what political actors do and if so, how? Rather than using the pure force of abstract moral reasoning, states often try to move the locus of contestation to an arena where they can make practical progress — the evidence or the empirical facts in support of their argument. This paper analyzes how states try to bolster their position first by constructing an argument in which an action represents part of their argument and then by performing that action to make the argument seem more convincing. I call this mechanism rhetorical adduction. The paper challenges theories of communication that deny a causal role to the content of normative arguments and diverges from a leading view on argumentation that arguments have their effects through persuasion. [R, abr.]
67.5065 O'NEILL, Daniel C. —
The conflict between Prime Minister Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party and opposition leader Sam Rainsy's Cambodian National Rescue Party continued throughout 2016, with Rainsy remaining in self-imposed exile in France and the government making numerous arrests of opponents who remained in Cambodia. With the 2018 National Assembly elections on the horizon, Hun Sen appeared to be cracking down on and dividing the opposition in an effort to prevent a repeat of the strong CNRP electoral performance in 2013. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4877]
67.5066 OSTERMANN, Susan —
Despite general government stagnation and exceedingly slow earthquake recovery efforts, Nepal in 2016 made some important and long-overdue advances in terms of securing a role for women in politics. The country also maintained its independence from its closest ally, India, and, in so doing, improved relations with China. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4877]
67.5067 OTERO-IGLESIAS, Miguel —
After decades proposing the creation of a political union to make the euro sustainable, Germany has not utilized the “window” offered by the Eurozone crisis to pursue this goal. Using the conceptual devices of the “Chartalist theory of money” (which states that a monetary union cannot work without a political union) and “hegemony”, three possible explanations are explored in this paper. (1) Germany is slowly becoming a “normal” power; (2) The German public has lost its enthusiasm for European integration; (3) Germany remains a reluctant hegemon and once it has seen that France is still not ready for political union it has refrained from actively promoting this ideal. The conclusion of the paper is that the first two explanations have merits, but the third remains more convincing. [R, abr.]
67.5068 PALIWAL, Avinash —
Russia's recent diplomatic intervention in Afghanistan elicits old categorizations of a “new Great Game” in the making among traditional rivals Moscow and Washington. However, attempts by regional and global powers to resolve the Afghan conflict, ironically, have contributed to exacerbating the situation. A new set of literature goes deep into history and International Relations to seek answers to the wicked problems in and around Afghanistan. It cautions against categorizing a country as little more than a battlefield, and explains why Afghanistan, and its border with Pakistan, remain strategically resilient. The core issue that emerges from this literature is the need for both insiders and outsiders to reimagine Afghanistan. [R]
67.5069 PAPP, Attila Z. —
This article argues that the option of dual citizenship, available since 2010 for Hungarians living abroad, carries the possibility to create new types of national and civic identification patterns. This process can be considered as liminal, since it attempts to modify the nature of minority identity that was created by historic traumas and became institutionalized as social order, and because it attempts to open a new chapter in the relationship between Hungary and the Hungarian minority communities abroad. Although the patterns of the new (citizenship-influenced) minority identity are already somewhat visible, the full elaboration of this identity is yet to come. Therefore, the “managers” of the identity change might become tricksters. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4152]
67.5070 PEMPEL, T. J. —
Japanese domestic politics, foreign policy, economics and society continued along well-established paths in the year 2016. And long-term demographic trends remained a major unresolved challenge. Yet three exceptions to continuity stood out: first, controversial legislation that expanded the legality of collective self-defense; second, the likely collapse of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP); and third, the election of D. Trump. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4877]
67.5071 PEPINSKY, Thomas —
R. Duterte's rise to the presidency of the Philippines reflects a broader trend in Southeast Asia of voters favoring politicians who elevate order above law. What does the history of “voting against disorder” in Indonesia and Thailand imply for the future of democracy in the Philippines? [R]
67.5072 PULJEK-SHANK, Randall; VERKOREN, Willemijn —
Based on in-depth empirical research in Bosnia-Herzegovina, this article focuses on the legitimacy of civil society organizations (CSOs). It explores why legitimacy for donors rarely accompanies legitimacy for local actors. We hypothesized that while donors avoid supporting mono-ethnic organizations, seen as problematic for peacebuilding, “ethnicness” may provide local legitimacy. However, our analysis of CSOs’ ethnicness nuances research characterizing organizations as either inclusive or divisive. Moreover, local legitimacy is not based on ethnicness per se, but CSOs’ ability to skillfully interact with ethnically divided constituencies and political structures. In addition, we offer novel explanations why few organizations enjoy both donor and local legitimacy, including local mistrust of donors’ normative frameworks and perceived lack of results. [R, abr.]
67.5073 REKAWEK, Kacper —
This article contextualizes the seemingly robust Central-Eastern European reactions to terrorist events in Western Europe, whilst examining the difference between how counterterrorism (CT) in Central-Eastern Europe looks in theory and how it works in practice. It constitutes the first comparative study, across eight case studies, focusing solely on CT-related issues of the post-2004 EU entrants. By thematically analyzing the haphazard manner in which the Central-Eastern Europeans develop their CT legacies, and depicting how eager they are in adopting the Western European rationale for countering a threat that is hardly present in their region, the article provides new empirical basis (derived from qualitative data, including sixty interviews with Central-Eastern European CT experts and officials) for a far-reaching argument about a West-East (old EU–new EU) divide on CT in Europe. [R, abr.]
67.5074 RIM Yejoon —
There is growing concern over the human rights situation of North Korean migrant workers. Related to the labor system under North Korea's socialist planned economy, whereby the authorities have direct control over allocation of the labor force, the issue is also relevant to each host country's protection of the rights of migrant workers. This article examines the human rights conditions of North Korean migrant workers, and assesses whether their situation amounts to slavery and forced labor from the perspective of international law. Through analysis of North Korea's Socialist Labor Law and the country's regime, which frames its labor structure, this article seeks to determine the root causes of the situation — and ultimately to invoke international cooperation for amelioration of the human rights of these workers. [R]
67.5075 ROBERTSON, James —
This article offers a genealogy of federalist ideas and places them in dialogue with rival projects of regional unification in the Balkans and Eastern Europe during the long 19th c. It develops a typology of federalist projects in Europe, categorizing these according to the underlying models of sovereignty upon which they were founded. I identify four categories: revolutionary-republican, imperial-reformist, imperial-irredentist, and revolutionary-social. The article then discusses the development of Serbian socialist ideas of Balkan Federation: the work of Svetozar Markovic (1846-1875) and the writings of the fin-de-siècle Social Democratic Party in the decade before World War I. I use the typology to identify the ways in which Serbian socialists converged and diverged from contemporary federalist projects. [R, abr.]
67.5076 ROSDIL, Donald L. —
Progressive politics made its initial appearance in the urban policy arena in smaller communities in the 1979-1981 period. But while some may have regarded it as a passing fad, it has displayed surprising resilience and durability over the past three decades, becoming entrenched in large cities as well. Yet despite its remarkable success, the Great recession of 2008 and a stubbornly slow and uneven recovery challenge the future viability of a progressive agenda in US cities. This article assesses the recent achievements and future prospects of a progressive regime in Seattle [US]. [R, abr.]
67.5077 ROTBERG, Robert I. —
Although Canada is widely regarded as among the least corrupt countries of the world, and so evaluated by the leading indexes, corruption still exists in today's Canada. This introduction to a special issue on the nature of corruption in Canada recalls corrupt eras in the nation's not-so-distant past and in the years of this decade. Although space prohibited articles on every aspect of Canada's lingering corruption, the special issue managed to contain new discussions of corruption among the First Nations, corruption in the armed forces, corruption in the delivery of foreign assistance, corruption overseas by Canadian corporations, and corruption in the defense industry. A final article indicates the kinds of remedies available to reduce future outbreaks of corruption in Canada. [R] [Introduction to a thematic issue of the same title, edited by the author. See also Abstr. 67.4295, 4487, 4497, 4879, 4941, 4942]
67.5078 SABBI, Matthew —
Newly recognized as a threat to global peace and security, sexual violence in conflict is now a fixed item on international security agendas. This marks significant progress for women, gender equality and the integrity of peace programs. We reflect upon the risks that inhere in this accomplishment. Through the concept of “sexurity”, a tripartite amalgam of the securitization of sexual violence, the sexualization of security, and the language of crisis, we outline the adverse effects of tethering sexual violence to security. This article concerns itself with the material and symbolic effects of “sexurity” for eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It first outlines “sexurity” and the context of its emergence before, drawing on fieldwork in eastern DRC, the second part underlines the effects of “sexurity” for the country. [R]
67.5079 SÁEZ, Lawrence —
The year 2016 was challenging for Bangladesh. Although there are promising signs of a transition toward upper lower-income status, there is sufficient political instability at the margins to warrant concern. The capstone political event was the July terrorist attack in Dhaka, which many feared might represent the first clear metastasized imprint of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Bangladesh. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4877]
67.5080 SCHNEIDER, Gerald; HADAR, Maya; BOSLER, Naomi —
Distinguishing between judgments made by one or few individuals (“oracles”) and assessments made by larger groups (“crowds”), we contrast journalistic predictions with forecasts stemming from the financial industry. These two competing views were evaluated in a quantitative analysis of the ex ante success of 24 ceasefire agreements in various conflicts which took place in the Levant from 1993 to 2014. Our analysis compares the forecasts appearing in press commentaries (Haaretz, Jerusalem Post and New York Times) with the expectations that the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange had about the stability of these cooperative efforts. To evaluate the predictions of these very dissimilar sources, the effectiveness of the ceasefires was analyzed through the number of violent events following the official start of the truce. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 67.4092]
67.5081 SENI, Nora —
This article deals with the role played by Turkey to politicize the process of EU as an issue in France and in Germany. It also deals with the way the integration of Turkey to the EU has been instrumental to overcoming the army's opposition to R.T. Erdogan's Islamic Party. It shows the differences between Turkey and EU political cultures during the post World War II era, the first one being very much concerned by maintaining the homogeneity (racially and ethnically) of the population and the second one being obsessed by maintaining peace. [R] [See Abstr. 67.5046]
67.5082 SHANAHAN, Rodger —
Although the term Hizbullah (Party of God) has become synonymous with the Lebanese group that bears its name, the reality is that many more groups have, and currently do use the term. Sharing the same generic name, however, is not necessarily indicative of ideological affinity let alone operational cooperation. This paper discusses the origins of the term and the groups that have adopted the name, as well as the links between them and with Iran. Besides some outlier Sunni groups who use the name, the best way to view the groups’ ideological leanings is to think of them as either intellectually supporting the Iranian concept of governance (khat al-Imam) or as more actively and practically advancing Iranian interests in the region (khat al-Hizbullah). [R]
67.5083 SHIN Gi-Wook; MOON, Rennie J. —
President Park faced a leadership crisis after revelations that she relied on a confidant with no official position for key decision-making in state affairs. Heavy industry met with serious financial difficulties, and a strong anti-corruption law was enacted. North Korea tested more nuclear weapons and missiles. Controversy over the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense strained South Korea's relations with China. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4877]
67.5084 SILVA, Chandra R. de —
In 2016, Sri Lanka saw political stability and some initiatives toward ethnic reconciliation. The economy continued to grow steadily. Some progress was made toward a better institutional infrastructure to protect human rights. However, hostility between President Sirisena and loyalists to former President Rajapaksa presages political turmoil in 2017 that could imperil constitutional reform and ethnic reconciliation. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4877]
67.5085 SIMÓN, Luis —
Most neorealists argue that relative decline constitutes a systemic incentive for European security cooperation. I argue that the relationship between relative decline and European security cooperation is complicated by a number of factors. (1) European calculations about relative decline bear both a global and a regional (that is, intra-European) component. (2) When Europeans are thinking about their relative power position, some countries matter more than others: a given European country may accept to incur a relative loss vis-à-vis another country (European or otherwise) but not others. This article examines how intra-European considerations of relative gains affect the way in which Europe's main powers seek to cope with relative decline and assesses how those considerations affect security cooperation in an EU framework. [R, abr.]
67.5086 ŠMIDRKAL, Václav —
This article analyzes the formation of the two mutually opposing memory poles of the communist past that crystalized in Czechia after 1989. It focuses on the issue of communist state borders, which slowly developed into one of the most controversial memory conflicts. Anti-communist Iron Curtain discourse established a new mainstream “national memory” using the previous border regime as a prime example of the non-democratic rule that violated liberal democratic values after 1989. The Communists’ border discourse was sustained by communist politicians, party members and former Border Guards. It still influences the public memory of state borders by stressing their legitimacy, legality, and ultimately the inevitability of protecting them. The search for unequivocal heroes and evil-doers of the communist state border regime strengthens this split memory and makes embracing its complexity hardly possible. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 67 5103]
67.5087 SMITH, James L. —
This article discusses the “discourse on the unthinkable” surrounding potential future democratic engagements with rivers as non-human persons or natural objects. In the context of the Asia-Pacific region, this article suggests that the developments in material philosophy entitled “new materialism” are essential tools in the reconceptualization of rivers as democratic entities but that local socio-historical conditions must also be taken into the account. In order to make its case, the article not only surveys the context for considering rivers as non-human persons in a juridical context but also discusses the new material context that assists modern democracies in the renegotiation of the demos that forms the body politics of democracy — often in the face of neoliberal exploitation project of enfranchisement. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 67.5020]
67.5088 SMITH, Roy C. —
Twenty-five years after a major financial crisis, Japan's powerful export-based economy has become a mere shadow of its earlier status as a financial superpower. Though different in many ways, China has followed Japan's economic development model and may now too be facing a financial crisis like Japan's that it may not be able to control and that could diminish its ability to become the next Asian superpower. A closer look at Japan Inc.'s success and the reasons for its subsequent failure allows for a better understanding of China's situation and the fact that, to become and remain an economic superpower, it must move much further to adopt reforms that allow the country to be shaped meaningfully by market forces in the future.
67.5089 SOKOLIC, Ivor —
This paper investigates perceptions of sources of information on the transitional justice process in Croatia, dealing with the 1991-1995 conflict. This provides an insight into the broader nation-building process in Croatia by analyzing where the predominant war narrative is reproduced and contested. It is based on focus group, dyad and interview research conducted in 2014 and 2015 with teachers, members of war veterans’ associations and pensioners. respondents trusted few sources in an atmosphere of general distrust and pessimism towards institutions. Participants in the conflict and images from television were, on the other hand, highly trusted. [R, abr.]
67.5090 STRIFFLER, Steve —
Opening up the concept of socialism to (re)interrogation has produced some healthy consequences in Latin America. Sectarianism is less prevalent, the privileged place of a particular revolutionary agent is no longer assumed, and long-held principles — around state ownership of the means of production or the dissolution of the market economy — are points of departure rather than absolute mandates. Yet at the same time, if the old guideposts no longer apply, and new ones remain overly vague, there is also the danger that the demands, goals, visions, and institutions we develop will simply not be up to the task of transcending neoliberalism, let alone capitalism. There is something left in Latin America. It is just not entirely clear what.
67.5091 SULLIVAN, Charles J. —
The Republic of Kazakhstan seeks to undergo modernization over the course of the next several decades and transform into one of the world's top 30 economies. To fulfill this aim, the Kazakhstani government has designed a program known as the “100 steps”. If faithfully implemented, this package of reforms will gradually revolutionize the nature of Kazakhstani state-society relations, by remaking Kazakhstan into a more economically dynamic and politically pluralistic country. However, a series of bureaucratic-legal, economic, and socio-political challenges will need to be overcome in order for this to happen, and success or failure will ultimately be determined by the actions of the ruling elites. [R]
67.5092 TAKAOKA, Yutaka —
This article examines the structure of resource mobilization for the Islamic State by focusing on its recruitment mechanism. This mechanism consists of several actors, and their relationships and interactions are quite important for successful recruitment. Since Islamic extremist organizations need to avoid unreliable members, their resource mobilization in general and recruitment in particular have to be conducted through personal networks, such as kinship networks of each activist. Following the Islamic extremists’ success in agitations and propaganda done in cyber space, changes have appeared in the recruitment mechanism as well. Thus, nowadays, the mechanism is formed by “Muhajirun”, “recruiters”, “coordinators”, “temporary and real accepters”, and “disseminators”. Detailed observations of each actor and their nature, function, and even location reveal several important findings. [R, abr.] [First article of a thematic issue on “Turkey-Japan: dialogue on global affairs”, edited and introduced, pp. 1-9, by Bahadir PEHLIVANTÜRK. See also Abstr. 67.4762, 4835, 4926, 4954]
67.5093 TANNER, Murray Scot —
As the next Party Congress loomed in 2017, China's top leaders in 2016 endorsed President Xi Jinping as the leadership “core”, a move that may allow his further consolidation of political power. The economy grew at a targeted 6.7%. Beijing challenged the new Taiwan administration, and sought to consolidate its muscle-flexing in the South China Sea. The likely direction of US relations under D. Trump remained uncertain. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4877]
67.5094 TEŠAN, Jesenko —
This article offers and applies a framework for understanding nation-(re)-building after a major transition and crisis, like a war. It suggests socio-anthropological concepts: liminality, mimesis, rites of passage, and tricksters. An understanding of the logic behind the emergence of nationalist tricksters can offer knowledge for an arguably better conflict-handling mechanism in deeply divided societies. It addresses, via the case study of Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H), the following question: What is an adequate understanding of the post-conflict self in B&H? The aim is to reconceptualize nationalism and the break-up of Yugoslavia (as well as the post-Dayton B&H) as a liminal process, in which trickster nationalists perpetuate schismatic conflict. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 67.4152]
67.5095 THOMSON, Henry —
Theories of authoritarianism assert that autocratic governments follow repressive and redistributive policies which impede mass mobilization, mitigate economic grievances and prevent regime instability. However, policy formulation and implementation remain opaque and under-theorized elements of authoritarian politics. I argue that the mix of repressive and redistributive policies chosen by a regime is a function of intra-elite conflict between hard-liners and soft-liners. The power of the two factions and their influence on policy evolve as members of the elite learn to judge the comparative advantages of the regime in repression and redistribution. Hard-liners will be ascendant in regimes with a comparative advantage in repression, while soft-liners will be ascendant in regimes with a comparative advantage in redistribution. I illustrate these arguments with an account of the East German regime's response to the 17 June uprising in 1953. [R, abr.]
67.5096 TRANTIDIS, Aris; TSAGKRONI, Vasiliki —
How do strategies of state capture adapt to tight fiscal conditions? The article uses a historical institutionalist approach and content-analysis to study the case of Greece. Three theoretically relevant patterns of institutional adaptation are unearthed: (1) limited resources for state capture do indeed trigger self-limitation initiatives as expected, but these initiatives replace costly benefits with less costly ones. (2) Different forms of capture have different implications for the terms of political competition. (3) There is a mutually reinforcing relationship between clientelism and corruption, which becomes pronounced in the creative ways by which strategies of capture adjust to shifting opportunities and constraints. Clients are appointed in state offices and extract bribes directly from citizens. “Client corruption” replaces extraction from the state with extraction through the state. [R, abr.]
67.5097 VALLE, Alexandre del —
The “moderate” Islamic-democratic model of the Turkish president and his party the AKP seems relegated to the rank of old memory, in view of its authoritarian and national-Islamist drift. On the eve of a constitutional referendum which could grant him full powers, it is necessary to analyze the genesis of this “neo-Ottoman” re-Islamization process and its tools: fight against the Gülen movement, anti-Western nationalism, anti-Israel outbidding, censorship, and discrimination of minorities. [R]
67.5098 VAN WYK, Jo-Ansie —
No longer simply trophy wives, First Ladies in Southern Africa in particular are an increasingly influential political force in the inner circle of presidents and politics. Recent examples of the growing political influence of First Ladies of Southern Africa include Graça Machel and Grace Mugabe. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the political role, influence and activities of First Ladies in Southern Africa and in particular to contribute to this under-researched area related to political leadership in Africa. From peace missions to summits, First Ladies play a leadership role in the sustainable development and politics of the sub-region. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 67.5050]
67.5099 VIDMAR HORVAT, Ksenija —
The article investigates the Greek debt crisis in light of debates on the future of the EU. [It focuses on] two aspects of the struggle for the EU integration after the austerity measures were implemented: the first, described in the text as the “Mediterranean effect”, which appears as a legitimization tool for the measures, and the second, which belongs to broader intellectual debates on neoliberalism in the EU. Both aspects are inserted in the analysis of the transformative processes on the EU periphery, with an emphasis on a comparative look at the reception of the crisis in Spain, Greece and Slovenia. The key thesis is that fighting neoliberalism cannot rely on the modern political conceptual toolkit, including class struggle, without initially addressing the question of the subject in neoliberalism. [R]
67.5100 VISOKA, Gëzim; RICHMOND, Oliver —
Attempts to build a liberal peace and a concurrent neoliberal state in Kosovo have not managed to produce a sustainable and emancipatory peace. Instead, they have produced a local and negative hybrid peace that has been co-opted by the dynamics of local state formation and state contestation. These dynamics have overshadowed a meaningful transition from ethnic hostility to sustainable peace that should encompass pluralism, security, law, rights, and liberal institutions. This article examines this emergence of a negative hybrid peace and explores the prospects for a more emancipatory peace based on a local pro-peace infrastructure that avoids the pitfalls of liberal peace in practice. [R]
67.5101 VREESE, Claes H. de —
In a world where attitudes towards immigration and the EU are at the forefront of political and economic agendas across the continent, this Special Issue is highly relevant and well timed. This Forum article reviews the Special Issue and summarizes lessons learned and identifies open, remaining and new, questions. As a future research agenda, it is advised to pay attention to (1) differentiation in EU attitudes, (2) the role of national political elites, (3) the changing communications environment, and (4) the role of religion and religious attitudes. [R] [See Abstr. 67.4555]
67.5102 VRETENAR, Katja; KRAJINA, Zlatan —
This article investigates the ways in which gender relations are articulated through a particular communicative urban infrastructure, such as names of public spaces and public art. We argue that their selective design and distribution suggest meanings beyond functional purposes (to serve as orientation points or as national commemorative sites) and co-constitute gendered power relations. Reading the patterns of signification, formulation and positioning of names, plaques and statues in Zagreb, through our raft of statistical analysis, mapping, and ethnographic walks, we show that the urban signage of the capital of Croatia, in a time of increased debates about gender equality and identity, continues to uphold the patriarchy inherited from earlier periods of city growth, namely the late 19th/early 20th c. [R, abr.]
67.5103 VUKOV, Nikolai —
Soon after the establishment of communist rule in Bulgaria, the state's “Southern border” (with Turkey and Greece) became its most staunchly guarded borderline, stimulated by the ideological interpretation of the two countries as imperialist states that posed a direct threat to the entire socialist bloc. Since the early 1960s — copying the strategies applied to the Berlin Wall — various new measures were introduced by the communist state to make this borderline even more impermeable, involving the actions of military institutions, propaganda units, and the local population. The article analyzes the guarding of the “Southern border” in communist Bulgaria and interprets it as an element of the overall strategy of these years to put borderline areas under strict supervision and control. [R, abr.] [First of a series of articles on “From the Iron Curtain to the Schengen Area”, edited and introduced by Wolfgang MUELLER and Libora OATES-INDRUCHOVÁ. See also Abstr. 67.4936, 5034, 5086]
67.5104 WALDER, Andrew G.; LU Qinglian —
Theories of rebellion and revolution neglect short-run processes within state structures that can undermine their internal cohesion. These processes are evident in the rapid unraveling of the Chinese state early in the Cultural Revolution. Portrayed in past accounts as a culmination of student and worker insurgencies, an early 1967 wave of power seizures was in fact accelerated by an internal rebellion of bureaucrats against their own superiors. These led to the widespread collapse of local governments, diverting the course of the Cultural Revolution and forcing intervention by the armed forces. An event-history analysis of the diffusion of power seizures across a hierarchy of 2,215 government jurisdictions portrays a top-down cascade that spread deeply into rural regions with few students and workers and little popular protest. [R, abr.]
67.5105 WITMER, Frank D. W., et al. —
We use a climate-sensitive approach to model sub-Saharan African violence in the past (geolocated to the nearest settlements) and then forecast future violence using sociopolitical factors such as population size and political rights (governance), coupled with temperature anomalies. Our baseline model is calibrated using 1 degree gridded monthly data from 1980 to 2012 at a finer spatio-temporal resolution than existing conflict forecasts. We present multiple forecasts of violence under alternative climate change scenarios (optimistic and current global trajectories), of political rights scenarios (improvement and decline), and population projections (low and high fertility). We evaluate alternate shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs) by plotting violence forecasts over time and by detailed mapping of recent and future levels of violence by decade. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 67.4092]
67.5106 XU Jiang —
We have seen a flourishing of scholarship which explores the emerging political spaces and variegated scales of governance in China. This research argues that the way in which cities and regions are governed is indeed infused with socio-political struggles which are proliferating at a range of spatial scales. Such theoretical interpretation is illuminating, but it has been subject to increasing criticism from the post-culturalist approach that views scale as an epistemological construct. This paper studies the Pearl River Delta Intercity Railway System (PRD-ICRS), employing the “scale politics” thesis to argue that scale is more than a material existence (or institutionalized structure) that represents a particular arrangement of political power, being subject to perpetual transformation through regulatory projects and strategies. [R, abr.]
67.5107 YANG Guangbin —
Despite a decade-long history of studying the Chinese Model, most research failed to capture and generalize its essence in an accurate, concise and compelling way. I contend Democratic Centralism, the core mechanism in China's system of government, could very well summarize and represent the fundamental elements of Chinese Model, although the current status of Democratic Centralism in social science theories is far from being closer to its significance in practice. As the parallel theory of Liberal Democracy, I found that Democratic Centralism is not only a well-organized political order, but also a system with multiple aspects worth rediscovering in meta-theory. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 67.5043]
67.5108 YOM, Sean —
Two of the Arab world's more liberal regimes, the kingdoms of Jordan and Morocco, are sometimes said to be evolving toward democracy. Is this true, and what are the longer-term prospects for these two monarchies? [R]
67.5109 ZARYCKI, Tomasz; SMOCZYNSKI, Rafal; WARCZOK, Tomasz —
This article's main aim is to propose a novel model explaining the continuous domination of identity issues in modern Polish political discourse. The model proposed here may also appear useful as an explanation of similar tendencies in some other Central European countries. It is based on a specific reading of the modern history of the region — one relying on a structural perspective and specifically using P. Bourdieu's notion of a “field of power”. In conclusion, the article suggests that the perspective it proposes may challenge what it calls simplistic accounts of processes of long duration. [R]
67.5110 ZHANG Jing —
This article explores the reasons for the plight of Chinese grassroots community governance produced. It points out that the organizational structure of Chinese society has undergone major changes: the transition from the “danwei” society to the public society. On the one hand, the substantial reduction in the “danwei” population covered and on the other hand, responsibility of “danwei” for its members is also greatly reduced. This leads to [many] grassroots people not only lost could be relied upon organization which take responsibility to help them solve the problem, but also lost their rights to facilitate the achievement of the channel system, So “social justice” supply has shrunk dramatically. [R] [Part of a series of articles on “Governance in China”. See also Abstr. 67.5016]
67.5111 ZHU Xufeng —
I argue that China has moved from decentralization to recentralization in enacting its social welfare system, to address increasingly more serious social unrest stemming from loosened control over public welfare provision on the part of the central government during the decentralizing market reform era. The process of recentralization is embodied in three major policy instruments: (1) reintroducing the binding targets as a tool by which they could control local governments once again; (2) scaling up the proportion of special transfer payments and initiated central-guided regional pilot projects; and (3) strengthening line management and encouraging local administrative power to concentrate in provincial governments. I empirically illustrate the recent recentralization processes in several social policy fields such as public health, pension insurance, and basic education. [R, abr.]
67.5112
Introduction by Anne-Lorraine BUJON. Articles by Michael KAZIN; Nancy L. GREEN; Adam TOOZE; Alice BEJA; Vincent MICHELOT; Olivier ZUNZ.
67.5113
Articles by Regina KRIEGER; Petra RESKI; Michael HÜTHER; Peter VOLLMER; Ulrike SAUER; Franco LOCATELLI; Andrea AFFATICATI.
67.5114
Articles by Michael MARTENS; Gülistan GÜRBEY; Kristina KARASU; Markus DRESSLER; Kristina DOHRN; Funda TEKIN; Roy KARADAG.