马来西亚政局新特点

1998年 9月发生的“安瓦尔事件”及其引发的马来西亚政治危机 ,曾成为国际社会关注的热点。目前马来西亚的政治局势虽然基本稳定 ,但“安瓦尔事件”的影响却不容低估。本文通过分析马来西亚大选结果及当前政局 ,认为“安瓦尔事件”使马来西亚政治发生了深刻的变化 ,目前政局出现了三大特点 :最大执政党巫统受到重创 ;回教党取代行动党成为最大反对党 ;民主政治意识明显提升。这三大特点的发展演变 ,很可能最终导致马来西亚政局的全面改观。     

2009年马来西亚政局述评

本文从经济与民生基本状况、政治力量结构、政治事件、公共政策等视角,尝试对2009年马来西亚政局的基本脉络做出分析,并提出关于今后马来西亚政局走向的若干判断.     

马来西亚房地产市场纵览

马来西亚房地产市场纵览牧野马来西亚是东南亚目前经济发展最好的国家之一，近年国民生产总值增长率一直在７％以上，通货膨胀率则控制在４％以内，１９９３年人均国民生产总值突破３０００美元大关。马来西亚政局比较稳定，政府提出了２０２０年进入发达国家行列的宏伟目...     

政局稳定 经济增长 外交活跃——1996年马来西亚形势述评

政局稳定经济增长外交活跃———１９９６年马来西亚形势述评１９９６年是马来西亚实施“第七个五年计划”的第一年。一年来，马来西亚政局稳定，经济稳定增长，国防建设步伐加快，外交活跃。一、政局保持稳定，国阵政府力量进一步巩固，马哈蒂尔仍牢牢掌握政权。１．４６...     

安瓦尔事件之后的马来西亚外交

本文通过对亚太经合峰会前后大马外交风波的分析，探讨金融危机后亚太外交的一些动向：美国企图利用东亚国家经济困难和政局动荡加强对亚太地区政治的主导；其企图反而缓和了马来西亚与其他国家的紧张关系，并为日、中等国扩大影响提供了机会；面对经济衰退，马来西亚等东盟国家的对外关系日显灵活和务实，这也将成为它们重建经济的重要策略之一。     

马来西亚华裔的社会运动(1957-2007)

自独立以来,马来西亚华人社群除了透过政党政治、利益游说等体制内方式从事政治参与和影响政策以外,也通过动员体制外的力量,以社会运动的形式,试图介入政策制定过程.马来西亚华人社群透过社会运动,令社会和国家建立了沟通的管道,对政治民主与社会正义做出重要贡献.然而,社会运动的出现,也意味着正常的体制管道存有不足,因此必须将之放在国家与社会的视角中加以解释.因此本文认为,马来西亚华人社群的社会运动需要承担起双重任务,既要抗衡国家,也得服务社会,并把两者有机地联系起来.     

反恐对马来西亚政局与对外关系的影响

马来西亚在反恐问题上采取了有异于其他东南亚国家的立场 :马哈蒂尔政府在坚决支持打击恐怖主义的同时 ,也严厉反对任何把反恐行动演变为反伊斯兰教行动的倾向 ,并强调追溯与确认恐怖主义根源的重要性。恐怖主义活动与政府的反恐政策给马来西亚的政局与外交带来了深远的影响。对内 ,它加剧了执政的国民阵线主干政党巫统与在野的伊斯兰教党之间的政治斗争 ,以及在一定程度上加强了国阵在来届大选争取华人选票的胜算 ;对外 ,它为马来西亚制造了和美国改善与加强双边关系的契机 ,并提高了马来西亚在国际政治舞台上的地位     

进入后马时代的马来西亚政局--论巫统面临的内外挑战

本文主要分析了后马时代巫统可能遇到的各种内外挑战及其对马来西亚政局的影响.本文认为,尽管巫统将遇到各种挑战,但在后马时代初期,这些挑战还不至于危及其执政地位和党内的正常运作.     

多元竞争环境下的马来西亚政治生态

本文旨在分析马来西亚近期政治生态中的若干重要变化,并对竞争环境下马来西亚政治行为体的行为规律进行探讨。本文认为,马来西亚的政治生态正处在从威权政治向多元竞争型政治的快速转变过程中,政治上的生存—发展策略主要是绩效竞争、政治结盟、话语动员。     

独立后马来西亚华人的政治选择与政治参与

1957年马来西亚独立后,马来西亚华人的政治生活发生了根本性的变化.随着华人政治角色的转换,华人对当地政治的参与度越来越高,华人的政治地位和政治作用日益加强.马来西亚华人参政的经验为东南亚其他国家华人的政治发展带来了许多积极有益的启示.     

The Rise and Fall of the Liberal Hezbe Watan or Homeland Party in Afghanistan, 1949–52

Afghanistan is largely known as a tribal peasant society, where the dominant organised socio-political forces are the tribes and the religious establishment, and where democratic and secular movements have been generally absent from the political scene. It is the tribal chiefs and the religious establishment that represent and mobilise people. However, liberal and constitutionalist movements in the country have had a relatively rich background since the early twentieth century. While the first constitutionalist political party emerged in the early 1900s, the first liberal party, Watan (or Homeland), emerged in the late 1940s in the aftermath of World War II, when the government allowed some changes in the method of ruling. The party became the most vocal and influential in political circles at the time. This article examines how a liberal-nationalist political party emerged and operated even though the ruling class had little desire for fundamental changes such as the separation of powers, freedom of expression or rule of law. It explores the features of the party, including its platform, goals, social and ethno-religious make-up and the method of struggle chosen to achieve its objectives, which also enabled it to take a leading role in the political process in the early 1950s.     

Party opportunism among local politicians after Taiwan’s power transition

This paper probes into a hypothesised opportunism towards political party affiliation among local politicians in Taiwan since the power transition from Kuomintang (KMT) to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) rule began in 2000. Longitudinal changes in election candidates' party affiliation are analysed to see what happened to the KMT's supposedly strong base of local politicians after the change of governing party. The research finds a generally high propensity of election candidates' changing or dropping their party affiliation between elections, and an increased propensity among KMT candidates after 2000. However, defections to other parties are more common in higher elections. In grassroots elections, many candidates flow in and out of their party affiliation depending on the political circumstances, but they rarely change party. Several years after the DPP gained power in presidential elections, the new ruling party is still struggling to build a strong local party organisation.     

Not Dead Yet? Explaining Party Member Activity in Germany

While political parties in Germany have been steadily losing members for more than two decades, there has been no sign of a breakdown in their day-to-day grass-roots activities. Despite many prophecies of doom, the ‘party on the ground’ does not seem to be dead yet. There is some evidence that the declining number of party members is compensated for by an increasing share of party activists. The question is how the erosion of the political parties’ member-ship base affects their levels and types of activity. This paper aims to describe and explain these two dimensions of activity in German political parties, using data from German party membership studies from 1998 and 2009. The analyses show that parties are partly able to compensate for membership losses via an increased activity of the remaining members, but at the same time, it is possible that changes in the social profile and motivations of the most active group of members may lead to future difficulties in coping with party work and canvassing new members.     

Stability and Change in Party Preference

This article analyses stability and volatility of party preferences using data from the Swiss Household‐Panel (SHP), which, for the first time, allow studying transitions and stability of voters over several years in Switzerland. Analyses cover the years 1999–2007 and systematically distinguish changes between party blocks and changes within party blocks. The first part looks at different patterns of change, which show relatively high volatility. The second part tests several theories on causes of such changes applying a multinomial random‐effects model. Results show that party preferences stabilise with their duration and with age and that the electoral cycle, political sophistication, socio‐structural predispositions, the household‐context as well as party size and the number of parties each explain part of electoral volatility. Different results for within‐ and between party‐block changes underlie the importance of that differentiation.     

Why No Mayan Party? Indigenous Movements and National Politics in Guatemala

Unlike indigenous social movements in several other Latin American countries, Mayan movements in Guatemala have not formed a viable indigenous‐based political party. Despite the prominence of the Mayan social movement and a relatively open institutional environment conducive to party formation, indigenous groups have foregone a national political party in favor of a more dispersed pattern of political mobilization at the local level. This article argues that the availability of avenues for political representation at the municipal level, through both traditional political parties and civic committees, and the effects of political repression and violence have reinforced the fragmentation and localism of indigenous social movements in Guatemala and prevented the emergence of a viable Mayan political party. The result has been a pattern of uneven political representation, with indigenous Guatemalans gaining representation in local government while national political institutions remain exclusionary.     

The Social Representativeness of German Party Membership

The present article empirically examines the social composition of German political party membership. In the first stage of the analysis, party members are compared with the total population and with voters. This makes it possible to identify potential deficiencies in the political representation of certain social groups. In the second stage, party membership is regressed on individual characteristics. This makes it possible to study cleavage structures. Since the empirical analysis includes data from the 2009 German Party Membership Study as well as from the 1998 Potsdam Party Membership Study, we are able to investigate changes over a period of eleven years. In light of the empirical findings, we then consider whether German parties are socially representative of the German population and their respective voters.     

Regime Shifts in Japan and Switzerland?

This paper compares the development of the Japanese political economy regime and its repercussions for the party system with the, at least at first sight, contrasting case of Switzerland. Rather than pointing out the differences between the two countries, the comparison emphasizes the similarities: both countries are involved in a comparable regime shift, which has its origins in similar domestic structural and cultural shifts as well as in changes in the world economy. In both countries, the mismatch between the socioeconomic realities and the political configurations has been widening for many years. Since the early nineties, the much needed realignment in the party systems has gotten underway in Japan as well as in Switzerland, but it has not yet reached a new equilibrium. In Switzerland, however, the restructuring of the party system has proceeded more steadily and has gone farther than in Japan     

Protest Politics in a Changing Political Context: Switzerland, 1975–2005

This article analyses if and how recent changes within the Swiss political system have influenced different aspects of protest politics (e.g. level, issues, action repertoires, and transnationalization). We argue that opportunities for mobilization have emerged in recent years due to changes in the institutionalized political context and that these changes have at least partially led to a resurgence of protest activities in the early 2000s. In a longitudinal perspective, it is however rather moderate. Additionally, new social movements still dominate Swiss protest politics. Although social and migration‐related questions gained in salience, the changes are not as dramatic as in the case of party politics. The rise of a new integration‐demarcation cleavage has not (yet) shaken Swiss protest politics as heavily as Swiss party politics. Finally, even though they are not integrated into a pronounced new protest cycle, the early 2000s are marked by the global justice movement. In this context, we observe a slight radicalization of the action repertoire and police reactions, which is at least partially explained by the emergence of new “transnational” sites of contention.     

Understanding Political Knowledge and its Influence on Voting Preferences in the 2007 Federal Election

In this article we propose a model to explain how voters’ perceptions of their ideological proximity to a party affect their propensity to vote for that party. We argue that political knowledge plays a crucial moderating role in the relationship between party proximity and voting propensity. It is necessary, however, to distinguish between institutional knowledge (information about the political system) and party knowledge (information about the parties’ left–right positions). An analysis of survey data from the 2007 Swiss federal elections supports our main hypothesis that party knowledge enhances the link between party proximity and voting propensity. Institutional knowledge may have additional influence, but clear evidence for this effect was obtained only for propensities to vote for the Swiss People's Party (SVP). Overall, the impact of political knowledge was found to be substantial, even after controlling for the outstanding influence of party identification and other predictors of voting propensities.     

Argentina's Landmark 2003 Presidential Election: Renewal and Continuity

This article provides an analysis of the political and socioeconomic context of the April 2003 presidential elections, focusing particularly on the campaign platforms of candidates, the outcome of the first round and the election's consequences for the party system. The election's results were far reaching in many respects. Argentina's longstanding two-party system came to an end with the virtual vanishing of the Radical party (UCR) at the national level. An evolved political culture resulted in new, more rigorous criteria for the selection of candidates. Finally, new political parties (MNR and ARI) emerged that could conceivably improve the quality of democratic governance in the future. In short, the 2001–2002 crisis fostered a significant degree of political renewal. Contrary to some predictions, however, the societal rejection of political parties did not result in either the complete demolition of the party system or the wholesale renovation of the political class. In particular, the Peronist party showcased its staying power and uncanny ability to adapt to new political environments.