Kuomintang Agonistes: Party Politics in the Wake of Taiwan's 2016 Elections

Taiwan's Kuomintang (KMT) lost badly in the 2016 elections. The KMT had not garnered favorable public opinion under the previous president, Ma Ying-jeou. Nor were Ma and his party seen as promoting a vision to put Taiwan first. Consequently, they were defeated soundly by the Democratic Progressive Party. This article addresses how the parties differ historically and why it matters what direction Taiwan's leadership takes in the future.     

滞缅“国军”与台湾和缅甸的关系

国共战争结束后,由李弥率领的国军从云南退出并滞留缅甸。蒋介石政府基于反攻大陆的目的,对这批国军进行各种支持,对刚独立不久的缅甸政府构成甚大威胁,于是缅甸向联合国提出控诉,抗议这批国军在缅甸边境的军事行动。最后在国际社会的压力下,这批部队终于撤退至台,而不愿接受安排者留滞当地成为流民。     

Social cleavages and electoral competition in India

Given the great diversity in language, ethnicity, and caste in India, and the resulting millions of possible winning electoral combinations, why is it that in contemporary India we see large state-wide and inter-state political coalitions built around categories such as “Bahujan” or “Backward Caste” instead of thousands of separate caste parties competing at the regional or zila (district) level? This question is the focus of Christophe Jaffrelot's India's Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Lower Castes in India, Pradeep Chhibber's Democracy without Associations: Transformation of the Party System and Social Cleavages in India, and Anirudh Krishna's Active Social Capital: Tracing the roots of development and democracy. This review assesses how these works address the question of political organization and social cleavages in India, examining the differences in approaches and discussing what still needs to be addressed.     

Taiwan's Presidential and Legislative Elections

Taiwan's newly-elected president, Ma Ying-jeou, is determined to relax the tension that has gripped the Taiwan Strait for more than a decade. His positions during the election campaign were calculated to reassure both the Beijing government and the Taiwanese people. On the one hand, he made it clear that he would remove barriers to improved relations and reach out to the Chinese leadership. At the same time, he was equally clear in his commitment to protecting Taiwan's interests. Ma's positions strike a balance between preserving Taiwan's de facto political independence and moving toward a more constructive relationship with the mainland. This approach enjoys widespread popular support in Taiwan. Still, the devil is in the details, and implementing Ma's ideas will require cooperation from Beijing, and from other political actors within Taiwan itself.     

Europe in Taiwan's Post-Cold War Foreign Relations

The article examines Taiwan's relationship with Europe (both Western and East Central), paying particular attention to the Taiwanese diplomatic strategies and their consequences in the 1990s and 2000s, as well as to the European responses. It argues that although Taipei's greatest triumphs in Europe—such as the arms deals, diplomatic or consular agreements or gaining support for membership in international organizations—proved either sporadic or short-lived, their very existence demonstrated that the China factor did not necessarily restrict the European nations' choices with regards to the Taiwan issue. This was particularly so when Taipei's economic rewards seemed sufficiently compensating for China's economic or political sanctions. More importantly, however, Taiwan—through economic diplomacy—successfully established strong foundations for long-term dialogue with all of Europe through representative offices, bilateral committees, parliamentary exchanges and periodical visits by government officials. Thus, Europe's functional relationship with Taiwan, which focused mainly on economic and cultural issues, not only facilitated low-key political dialogue with the island, but also stimulated Europe's interest in the geopolitical stability in the Taiwan Strait.     

20年后俄罗斯各派人士论苏联八一九事件

八一九事件20周年之际,俄罗斯官方没有采取特别举动,而主流媒体则以各种方式评述这一事件。20年过去了,各界人士对这一事件的性质大致有三种评价:政变、上层权力之争、挽救苏联之举。关于国家紧急状态委员会行动失败的原因,观点各异,但基本上认为,一方面,国家紧急状态委员会组织不力,意志软弱,行动不果断;另一方面,当时的客观形势不利,其行动被民主派所利用。国家紧急状态委员会行动的失败使苏联解体的进程变得不可逆转。各派人士对八一九事件的看法有助于研究苏联解体的原因,当事人尤其是共产党人的反思为今天仍执政的共产党提供了启示。     

Violence,politics and the state in Bangladesh

The politics and ideology of South Asia has been characterised by violence for a considerable time. Bangladesh is no exception, where violence is both widespread and multifaceted. It arises for political, economic, and socio-cultural reasons and is evidenced not only in the incidence of violence but also in the availability of small arms, in the evident political ties with violent organisations and criminal activities, in the prevalence of corruption and the effect which all this has on the forces of law and order. This poses enormous challenges for the state which urgently needs to introduce measures of reform in the judicial and police administration system. De-linking politics from the activities of criminals and terrorists is an important first step toward this goal.     

The 2016 Election and Prospects for Taiwan's Democracy

This article reviews the results of the 2016 presidential and legislative elections in Taiwan, in which the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won a sweeping victory. It identifies the likely reasons for the DPP's success and then explores the implications of the outcome for Taiwan's political future, relations with Mainland China, and relations with the United States.     

Sub-regional intervention and the privatisation of politics in Africa

Sub-regional peacekeeping interventions in Africa have met with limited success in terms of conflict resolution. Nevertheless, the international community increasingly supports sub-regional conflict management arrangements so that African states can address the troubles on their own continent. The failings of subregional efforts have been ascribed to various factors, including inadequate training, co-operation and resources, and insufficient diplomatic experience on the part of peacemakers. This article suggests another contributing factor, namely the ‘privatisation of politics’. This paradigm groups various processes that have been identified in recent literature in order to explain the divergence of state functioning in Sub-Saharan Africa¹ from the Western state model. These include the ‘political instrumentalisation of disorder’,² the ‘shadow state’³ and the ‘criminalisation of the state’.⁴ The contention made here is that these processes could also influence inter-state sub-regional security co-operation. Two case studies are used to illustrate this point: the interventions of the Southern African Development Community in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and of the Economic Community of West African States in Sierra Leone, including reference to the operation in Liberia.     

Psychopathology and world politics

The relationship between psychopathology and world politics can be considered firstly from the world politics perspective. This means examining the dysfunctional forms of human behaviour manifest there—both individual and collective/communal. It means examining how such behaviour can be described and explained in psychiatric or psychological/psychoanalytical terms. The relationship between psychopathology and world politics can also be considered from the psychopathology perspective. This means examining some of the key psychopathological concepts that are of relevance to world affairs. It means examining paranoia or narcissism, for example, and the way understanding syndromes like these helps further our understanding of world affairs.     

Democratization and communal politics

Understanding the complex interplay between democratization and communal politics is a crucial issue for students of democracy and political practitioners. Political liberalization can exacerbate communal politics, which can then bring setbacks to democratization, even violent conflict. As prospects of political liberalization grow in a society marked by a lack of agreement on the form of the state, communal politics will shape inter‐group relations. There is an in‐group‐out‐group dilemma. The dilemma is rooted in two, potentially mutually conflicting imperatives. Democratization requires group leaders to engage in compromise and negotiation. But they may also face an imperative to promote self‐styled conceptions of the state‐idea to suit the needs of group cohesion, especially where relations between groups become highly politicised. Two factors condition whether or not the dilemma can be resolved: the strategies of the legitimate leadership of the groups, and the ‘ideological’ landscape within the groups. The argument is applied to case studies that compare Algeria and South Africa.     

The politics of Hegemony and the politics of development: The 1994 elections in South Africa's Eastern Cape

Following the first multi‐racial, democratic elections in South Africa, in April 1994, the new leadership and the country are confronting the dual task of political transformation and economic redistribution having won a clear popular mandate on the basis of a populist, Reconstruction and Development Programme. In government, however, the former liberation movement is now under pressure to adjust its policies and its developmental strategy in the light of new economic constraints, both domestic and international. The choice is between the politics of compromise, suggesting adoption of a corporatist (and elitist) model of policy‐making, with the co‐optation of various constituencies, or adherence to a more radical style of direct popular political participation, akin to the ‘mass action’ of recent decades. Nowhere is this contradiction clearer than in the Eastern Cape Province, with a long tradition of militant mass action, strong trade unions and industrial action and a history of popular involvement in the liberation struggle.     

Conflict-generated diasporas and transnational politics in Ethiopia

Diaspora groups link processes of globalisation and transnational migration to homeland politics and conflicts. In some cases, diaspora groups produced by a specific set of traumatic memories create ‘conflict-generated diasporas’ that sustain and often amplify their strong sense of symbolic attachment to the homeland. Conflict-generated diasporas tend to be less willing to compromise and therefore reinforce and exacerbate the protractedness of homeland conflicts. Economists have focused on the links between remittances and civil war. Beyond resources, however, conflict-generated diasporas frequently have a prominent role in framing conflict issues and defining what is politically acceptable. Diaspora groups created by conflict and sustained by traumatic memories tend to compromise less and therefore reinforce and exacerbate the protracted nature of conflicts. The 2005 political opening and subsequent crackdown in Ethiopia illustrates how this diaspora shaped recent political developments and points to broader patterns of transnational linkages among diasporas and homeland political processes.     

Political Aspects of Taiwan's Security in a New Asian Environment

With the announcement in 2010 that sovereignty over the South China Sea was a national interest comparable to Taiwan or Tibet, China has created a new geopolitical situation in East Asia. Although Peking would seem to expect that her neighbors, all relatively smaller than China, will accept these new claims, both initial reactions and political science theory suggest instead that a countervailing coalition will be formed to offset them. Just what Taiwan will do, however, is an important question given the island's key strategic position, its democratic government, and its increasing connectedness with China. This essay reviews the history of American approaches to East Asian alliances, arguing that at one time Washington considered dropping ties with Tokyo in favor of Peking. Then it examines the new situation, finding the United States uneasily seeking to balance China and Taiwan likely to join in.