Coloured Judgements? The Work of the Thai Constitutional Court, 1998–2016

Created in 1997 as part of a major constitutional reform, Thailand’s Constitutional Court has since become embroiled in several high-profile political controversies. Since the 2006 coup, because a number of such decisions have favoured one political camp and considering obvious close and long-standing relations between judges and political elites, questions have arisen about the court’s ability to act as an independent arbiter. Is this view justifiable? To answer that question, this article first analyses how the court has behaved across political administrations in 32 high-profile cases since 2001. It then turns to the socio-biographic profile of the bench, the politics of nominations and changes to its composition, particularly since 2006. Finally, the article considers data on participants in classes offered by the Constitutional Court, which makes it possible to better understand the links between Thai political and judicial networks. The analysis finds evidence of politically biased voting patterns and increasingly partisan nominations to the court, though formally appointment procedures are apolitical, which suggests the politicisation of the court and growing ties between judicial and political elites. These findings raise new questions about the public’s perception of the Constitutional Court’s legitimacy and prospects for the rule of law.     

泰南四府民族分裂主义的由来、演变与出路

在当今世界上,民族与宗教问题往往是引发地区骚乱或局部战争的导火线,而且往往与政治、经济问题交织在一起.泰南四府马来族穆斯林民族分裂主义的性质也基本如此.近百年来它始终困扰着泰国政府,尤其是二战以后,泰南穆斯林地区由于宗教、民族矛盾的发展,政治上的不平等和经济上落后等因素,导致要求独立自决的运动一直延绵不断,并由政治斗争发展到武装斗争.特别是在2001年"9·11"事件发生后,泰南四府原来积存的矛盾被重新激活,民族分裂主义分子公开采取了暴力恐怖手段与政治对抗,企图谋求独立,且愈演愈烈,引起了世人的广泛关注. 综观泰国历届政府的政策,笔者认为,为了打击南部民族分裂主义势力,仅靠法律手段和政治措施是远远不够的,武装镇压或同化政策也是难以奏效的.为了实现民族团结,社会和谐,国家稳定,首先要承认民族文化、宗教信仰等社会发展的多元性,尊重和保护宗教信仰自由,用政治对话代替武力对抗,用改革政策取代同化政策,加快经济发展,缩小贫富差距,增加人民收入,提高生活水平,做到社会公平、分配公正.青年是国家的未来,要重视和加强对青少年的教育和培养.政府要通过诚意来逐步取得绝大多数穆斯林的理解与支持,不给少数顽固的穆斯林分裂主义者以可乘之机.只有这样,才能逐步铲除南部的民族分裂主义势力,真正实现民族和睦、社会和谐和国家的稳定.     

泰爱泰党与泰国的政治发展

泰爱泰党以自己清晰具体的政策和组建大联盟政府的具体做法给泰国的政治发展注入了某种活力,在某种程度上,使泰国政治超越了传统的金钱政治以及政治掮客的控制,实现了资源分配的相对公平,实现了政府权力的长期稳定运行.而泰爱泰党之所以能够做到这一点,关键在于该党政治家及时地顺应了社会的要求.     

Political Institutions and Conservation Outcomes: Wildlife Policy in Zambia

“Messy” democratic political institutions might generate ineffective conservation policy watered down by competing interest groups and rival political parties. A hardcore environmentalist may believe that a pro‐conservation dictatorship would be the type government best able to meet her goals. Such an environmental fantasy became reality in Zambia under President (1972‐1991) Kenneth Kaunda. But despite his dictatorial powers, he did not have much success in curbing the poaching epidemic that swept through Zambia in the 1970s and 80s. The structure of the one‐party state, together with a fall in the price of Zambia's principal export (copper) and a concomitant increase in the value of many wildlife products, created an environment that generated incentives for politicians, bureaucrats, and citizens to disregard Kaunda. This analysis challenges conventional wisdom about the politics of one‐party states. It shows that even in the case of one‐party government, the structure of political institutions remains critical to the extent of a dictator's control.     

Grassroots Bureaucracy: Intergovernmental Relations and Popular Mobilization in Brazil's AIDS Policy Sector

How does the state ensure the implementation of national policies in a context of decentralized political authority? This article identifies a new strategy utilized by national bureaucrats to regulate the behavior of subnational politicians: mobilizing civil society as government watchdog and political advocate. In the context of decentralized governance, in which local politicians administer most social sector programs, reform‐minded bureaucrats often find that they have little control over the implementation of their progressive policies. In Brazil's AIDS policy sector, however, bureaucrats have ensured the successful implementation of their policies by developing allies outside government. These state actors—here called activist bureaucrats—have been largely overlooked in the English‐language literature, yet they form a new layer of politics in Latin America.     

The politics of bank ownership and currency policies in Central and Eastern Europe

This paper argues that state-owned, private domestic, and foreign banks have different preferences for exchange rate policies. More specifically, I posit that governments will be less willing and able to maintain fixed exchange rate arrangements in closed banking systems dominated by government-owned banks than in globalized banking systems with a large presence of foreign banks. The article’s principal claim rests on the notion that ownership structure of the banking system empowers different types of banks, affects their interests, and shapes the responsiveness of government politicians to bank demands. The bank ownership types further influence the stability of the domestic monetary system and financial regulation that are of paramount importance in the determination of exchange rate regimes. An empirical investigation of data on exchange rate regimes for 25 Central and Eastern European countries provides strong support for the theory. The results are robust to alternative estimation techniques, instrumental variable analysis, and the inclusion of several economic and political variables.     

Politicians without Parties and Parties without Politicians: The Foibles of the Peruvian Political Class, 2000–2006*

Since the collapse of the Fujimori regime in November 2000, the Peruvian political system has experienced considerable turbulence, which has focused attention on the capabilities and comportment of the country’s elected politicians. While some analysts hold that ‘there is no political class in Peru’, others maintain that since Fujimori’s demise a ‘resurrection’ has occurred in the fortunes of both parties and politicians who occupied centre stage during the 1980s. This article examines these claims, arguing that despite appearances to the contrary, the core of Peru’s political class operates in a rational and responsible fashion.     

‘Municipal entrepreneurs’: local politicians and the delivery of urban sanitation in Kumasi,Ghana

ABSTRACT

The municipal government in Kumasi has been the focus of numerous reforms to improve local policymaking and delivery of public goods to the city’s dwellers. Yet, the reforms have spurred strategic reactions from local actors who exploit institutional ambiguities to pursue their interests. This paper draws on empirical data on the city’s sanitation franchising to show how ordinary local politicians exploit reform ambiguities; they establish themselves as local entrepreneurs to deliver urban sanitation services and also contest the municipal executive. The manipulations do not only undermine reforms proffered by the regime and external actors but the municipal government’s promise to deliver efficient public services also becomes problematic. Management of urban sanitation is a contested arena between bureaucrats and political actors all vying for their interests. The sanitation reforms are eventually subsumed under the ‘local politics as usual’ logic.     

Pursuing Post-democratisation: The Resilience of Politics by Public Security in Contemporary South Korea

This article analyses the disputed election of President Park Geun-hye and her administration’s confrontation of left-nationalist politicians and other social movements during her first year in office. We argue that the Park administration’s policies resonate with contemporary discussions of “post-democratisation,” a process whereby social rights are increasingly subordinated to market logics and state power insulated from popular challenges. Under the conservative governments of Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye, this process has been animated by a mode of confrontation known in South Korea as “politics by public security.” This politics targets social conflict and political dissent as threats to national security and has involved both illegal interventions by state institutions – such as the 2012 electoral interference by state agencies including the National Intelligence Service – and a cultural politics that affirms but revises the narrative of Korean democratisation by obfuscating the nature of the democracy movement and by attempting to restore the honour of conservative forces associated with former dictatorships. In order to better understand this conjuncture, we explore its origin within a tacit alliance between both former public security prosecutors-cum-conservative politicians and a movement of conservative intellectuals known as the New Right.     

Politicians and decolonization of Hong Kong

This article discusses the nature of political leadership in Hong Kong in general and the dilemmas facing politicians in the process of decolonization in particular. The politicians are certainly not performing “public service” as in a colonial administration. They are competing for political power and control in the government during the transition of Hong Kong from a British colony to a Chinese Special Administrative Region. Some politicians adopt a mobilization style of leadership to draw public support; some maintain an elitist style to preserve the status quo; some use a confrontational style to push for a democratic government and to resist Chinese intervention in the internal affairs of Hong Kong; some take a cooperative and compromising approach in resolving conflicts and dealing with China; and some attempt to adopt a moderate style by emphasizing rational and workable solutions to political dilemmas. The dilemmas of transition include: (1) the choice between democracy and conservatism; (2) the proper relationship between Hong Kong and China after 1997; (3) the conflict as to whom the politicians represent: the Hong Kong people or the Chinese leaders. The choice of any two polarized positions in the dilemmas will result in devastating consequences for Hong Kong. The task of the politicians is therefore to balance, rather than to accentuate, the divergent tensions between the antagonistic political forces. In the final analysis, the politicians will have to play the role of balancer between the future sovereign master and various political actors.     

Reign-seeking and the Rise of the Unelected in Thailand

ABSTRACT

This article develops the concept of “reign-seeking” to capture the unprecedented collective action of the Thai professional and official elite prior to the 2014 military coup and the establishment of a military regime. It argues that this phenomenon reflects broad and deep political dynamics, for which the dominant scholarship on authoritarianism and Thai politics cannot adequately explain. The changing incentives of these supposedly non-partisan actors are interwoven with neo-liberal governance reform driven by a desire for depoliticisation and the minimisation of rent-seeking. This idea has been rationalised in Thailand since the promulgation of the 1997 Constitution resulting in the rise of technocratic and judicial bodies designed to discipline elected politicians and political parties. However, such institutional reconfigurations have consolidated the incentive for people considering themselves to be prospective candidates to “reign” in these organisations. As evident in the 2014 coup, these unconventional political actors – academics, doctors and civil society leaders – made collective efforts to topple the elected government in exchange for gaining selection into the wide range of unelected bodies. Governance reform in Thailand has hitherto reinforced the status quo, although the article further argues that reign-seekers should be seen as contingent, rather than consistent, authoritarians.     

The 2015 Singapore Swing: Depoliticised Polity and the Kiasi/Kiasu Voter

Abstract

The results of the 2015 Singapore general election (GE) saw the People’s Action Party (PAP) reverse the decline in support of the past few GEs. Many writers cited as some of the key reasons for PAP’s strong showing: a flight to safety, the superior PAP campaign, the personal popularity of Lee Hsien Loong, the 50 years of Singapore's Independence (SG50) feel-good factor, changes in government policies since 2011, direct government subsidies to the pioneer generation, the passing of Lee Kuan Yew, and the mainstream media’s attack on the credibility of the opposition. In this paper, the author offers an additional explanation, that is, the underlying causes of the PAP’s electoral success were the policies laid down after Singapore’s independence and some key cultural traits of this island nation. The policy of depoliticisation led to the creation of a social contract under which political liberties were voluntarily sacrificed in return for economic growth and prosperity. The author further argues that the cultural traits of kiasi and kiasu tipped the balance in favour of the PAP when voters decided that the outlook for the Southeast Asian region was negative and Singapore needed the PAP to steer the country during this period of uncertainty.     

Indonesia: The politics of inclusion

Much commentary on Indonesian politics since the fall of President Suharto in May 1998 has suggested that Indonesia's political system has remained just as exclusionary as it was prior to his fall, despite becoming much more democratic and decentralised. In contrast to this view, we argue that Indonesia's political system has become more inclusive, if only somewhat more so. The fall of Suharto and the subsequent process of democratisation have removed key obstacles to organisation by poor and disadvantaged groups and their NGO allies, making it easier for them to engage in collective action aimed at achieving pro-poor policy change. By making attainment of political office dependent on the support of the voting public, many of whom are poor and disadvantaged, these developments have also created an incentive for politicians to pursue policy changes that favour these groups or at least that appeal to them. At the same time, however, we argue that poor and disadvantaged groups have not become major players in the policy-making process. Despite the fall of Suharto and democratisation, these groups continue to lack the resources possessed by other participants in the policy-making process. Whereas the politico-bureaucrats and well-connected business groups have been able to exercise influence over policy by buying support within representative bodies such as parliament and mobile capital controllers, the IFIs and Western governments have been able to exercise influence by virtue of their structural power, poor and disadvantaged groups have had to rely on less potent ways of exercising influence such as holding demonstrations, engaging in lobbying activity and participating in public debates. We illustrate these points with reference to two policy issues: land reform and mining in protected forests. The article concludes by considering the future prospects for inclusive policy-making in Indonesia.     

Anti-Japanese Popular Nationalism and China’s Approach Towards Japan amid Sino-Japanese Political Tension, 2001–2006

This paper explores the relationship between anti-Japanese popular nationalism and China’s approach towards Japan amid Sino-Japanese political tension from 2001 to mid-2006. Among various factors that may affect the relationship, this research focuses on the interaction between the government and the public expressions of anti-Japanese nationalism in China. Throughout most of this period, Sino-Japanese political relations were seriously strained by historical, territorial and other controversial issues, which stirred up anti-Japanese sentiment in China. However, it was only between 2003 and the spring of 2005 that mass anti-Japanese protests were allowed, or at least tolerated, by the Chinese authorities and played a role in Beijing’s handling of Japan-related controversies. The paper examines China’s domestic political situation during the leadership transition from the third to fourth generation of leaders, which it claims drove the Chinese government’s lenient response to popular anti-Japanese protests and enhanced the prospects for popular nationalism to affect the government’s approach towards Japan.     

Doing Politics in a Depoliticised Society: Social Change and Political Deactivation in Chile

This article explores the process of political deactivation in Chile which has taken place since the military coup of 1973. Its stresses a series of political, social and cultural factors which have produced an increasing depoliticisation of the Chilean population under both the Pinochet regime and the current Concertaciòn governments. The forced depoliticisation generated by repression and fears under the military government marked the genesis of political deactivation. Since the late 1970s the marketisation of Chilean society and its increased consumerist orientation have weakened even further the readiness and interest among Chilean citizens to participate actively in party politics. In addition, in recent years politicians and politics in general have experienced in Chile a growing decrease of prestige and credibility. The media, and particularly the television, have become the main arenas in which new style politicians sell their electoral products to a depoliticised mass who expect quick and concrete solutions to their particular problems and demands.     

The Politics of Child Prostitution in South Africa

This paper argues that policies, interventions and discourses pertaining to child prostitution have been guided by overarching political agendas that have masked the underlying structural basis of this phenomenon. These political agendas have shifted in accordance with the locus of power, control and resistance in South Africa since the nineteenth century. On the basis of a historical analysis this paper identifies distinct periods in which child prostitution was used to legitimate policies in favour of social control rather than social development. In the colonial period, child prostitution was used to justify stricter controls on adolescent and adult women's sexuality and movement by colonial and traditional patriarchal authorities. In the colonial and Apartheid periods, policies on child prostitution were informed by fears of miscegenation and sexually transmitted diseases, which were used to support the racist and oppressive legislation of sexual behaviour. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the issue of child prostitution was ‘discovered’ in the press both to deflect attention from the incarceration of juveniles during the 1987 State of Emergency and as the basis upon which liberals attacked the Apartheid state. In the latter half of the 1990s and 2000s, it was used by the African National Congress (ANC) government to attack the moral legacy left by the Apartheid state and in turn deflect responsibility for the root causes of this phenomenon. Furthermore, child prostitution was used to support stricter controls on adult sex workers and on the movement of undocumented migrants. This politicised and sensationalist approach has undermined detailed analysis of the root causes of this phenomenon and children's motivation for engaging in prostitution. For many children in South Africa it has been one means by which they can exercise their agency and power in order to ensure their survival in the face of high levels of socio-economic deprivation and rapid socio-cultural change. This paper therefore proposes a shift from policies and interventions centred on social control to social development, based on an in-depth understanding of children's agency, risk and resilience.     

The politics of Japan's free trade agreement

For a long time, the Japanese government showed awkward and indecisive attitudes towards trade policy. There was strong opposition from the two political actors — bureaucrats at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) and politicians in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) — to market opening in the agricultural sector. This article highlights private interests and the public interest of MAFF bureaucrats and LDP politicians and examines how the evolving perception of the interests has influenced debates and the progress of free trade agreement (FTA) policy over agriculture. The central argument is that economic linkages and institutional cooperation in East Asia have changed basic interests of MAFF bureaucrats and LDP politicians, and such changes, then, have induced new moves in Japan's FTA policy towards countries of the region.     

亚洲金融危机以来泰国的金融部门改革

亚洲金融危机后,泰国政府和中央银行在1997年至2001年间对金融部门进行了大规模重组,通过维持市场信心、关停大批金融机构、推动企业债务重组、提高监管标准等措施,使金融部门重新走上正轨.2002年以后,泰国政府和中央银行继续强化以风险管理为中心的监管,通过实施金融系统整体规划、新金融机构法、国际会计准则、新巴塞尔资本协议、存款保险制度和信用局制度等,强化金融部门抗风险能力.泰国金融部门改革取得一定成效,也存在一些不足,其政策措施对应对目前全球性金融危机,具有一定的借鉴意义.     

Of cabbages and King Cobra: Populist politics and Zambia's 2006 election

Zambia's 2006 election was won by incumbent President Levy Mwanawasaand his Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD). However, itis argued here that the most important outcome of the campaignwas the successful articulation of a new populist politics byMichael Sata's Patriotic Front (PF), which won a significantmajority in urban areas. Sata's attacks on foreign investors(particularly from China) for their abuse of the workforce andtheir supposedly corrupt relationship with the MMD resonatedwith urban Zambians, already angered by the negative impactof economic liberalization. PF's campaign injected popular socialdemands into what had become a moribund political debate. TheMMD government is now adopting PF policies in an attempt torestore its own urban support base. The article describes thecampaign and its outcomes, contrasting the political discourseof the MMD and PF and analysing the differences in voting behaviourbetween rural and urban Zambians. It argues that recent reliefof 92 percent of Zambia's international debt, along with therenewed profitability of the copper mining industry, have createdconditions for the re-emergence of a nationalist-developmentalpolitical framework.     

The Transformation of Australian Electoral Analysis: The Two‐Party Preferred Vote — Origins,Impacts, and Critics

Measuring party support in Australia by constructing a “two‐party preferred” vote has had a profound effect, not only on the way political scientists, journalists, and politicians understand electoral “swing” and predict electoral outcomes, but also on their understanding of the party system, their thinking about electoral fairness, and their views about which party or parties can legitimately claim government. This article traces the origins — the maternity as well as the paternity – of the “two‐party preferred”. It documents its spread from federal to state elections, even as voting systems in some states have switched from exhaustive preferential to optional preferential. It discusses its wide‐ranging impact, and its implications for notions of electoral fairness and the legitimacy of election outcomes. It evaluates various criticisms of the concept — technical, pragmatic, and conceptual. And it notes the implications for marginal seat campaigning of the commonly observed “uniform swing”— implications completely at odds with the idea that marginal seats matter.