从东南亚国家政府换届看其政治社会新发展

自2010年底以来,缅甸、越南、新加坡和泰国相继举行大选。大选过程及其结果透露了非常丰富和重要的政治信息,缅甸的军人政权向民主政府转型;新加坡执政党依然一党独大,但反对党实力有突破性增长;越南继续进行政治制度改革的探索;泰国迎来了社会和解的契机。     

非正式政治力量:吉尔吉斯斯坦“革命”反对派的动员基础

吉尔吉斯斯坦自独立以来已发生了三次“革命”,广义来讲,这三次“革命”均属于“颜色革命”的范畴。但吉尔吉斯斯坦反对派在进行政治动员时,往往尚不具备其他“颜色革命”反对派发起政治动员的一系列“常见”条件(如发达的社交网络、强有力的政党、较高水平的青年组织等)。而在相关条件并不充分的情况下,反对派依托何种力量实现高效的政治动员成为一个值得研究的重要问题。为解答这一问题,吉尔吉斯斯坦反对派所掌握的三种非正式政治力量--个人政治关系网络、部族认同与部族群体、传统政治习俗成为本篇文章重点考察的因素。在三次“革命”中,这三类非正式政治力量帮助反对派实现了募集资金、召集支持者、获取舆论支持、削弱政府合法性、策反政府高层官员等一系列政治目标,成为反对派进行政治动员的主要依托。运用非正式政治力量,吉尔吉斯斯坦反对派得以在其他相关条件尚不充分的情况下,于短时间内实现有效的政治动员,并最终达到了推翻现存政权的目的。     

缅甸：2009年回顾与2010年展望

2009年缅甸政局基本稳定,虽然爆发了世人瞩目的果敢事件,但对少数民族地方武装（民地武）的改编仍取得部分成功,此外,政府与反对党以及昂山素季的关系有所缓和。经济上,缅甸没有受到国际金融危机的严重影响,物价和币值都保持了稳定。外交上,以美国为首的西方国家虽然没有取消对缅甸的制裁,但是开始与缅甸进行接触。展望2010年,“民地武”的改编与大选是对缅甸政府的严峻挑战。     

Collective learning and regime dynamics under uncertainty: labour reform and the way to autocracy in Russia

The article questions the structural approach to autocratic transition that sees government as knowingly and purposely building autocracy, and contributes to the tradition emphasizing the plurality of possible regime developments and the role of contingency therein, by providing a more systematic treatment of such contingency. We offer a path-dependent theory of political change and use insights from cognitive institutionalism to show how ad hoc policy reform practices become accepted as a trusted way of interaction by political actors and how they “learn” their way into autocracy. This intuition is substantiated with a case-study of the labour reform in Putin’s Russia. The early 2000s marked a surge in uncertainty in Russian politics caused by the succession crisis and the profound political turnover it triggered. This uncertainty could have resolved in a number of ways, each leading to a different political development. We trace the actual way out of this uncertainty and show that the major factor to condition further regime trajectory was the way social reforms were conducted. The course of these reforms determined the ruling coalition and the institutions that ensure credible commitment within its ranks (the dominant party), and contributed to crowding out the political market and opposition decay.     

Constraining consolidation: military politics and democracy in Pakistan (2007–2013)

Why do some militaries retain high authoritarian prerogatives during transitions from militarized authoritarian rule? The Pakistan military's 2007 extrication shows that an important part of the answer lies in the level of structural differentiation between the “military government” and the “military institution”. Despite sustained contentious opposition to military rule, the high level of separation between these two military dimensions of the state allowed the institutional military to delink itself from the discredited dictatorship and exit on its own terms. In the post-authoritarian context, the military has preserved its expansive prerogatives by using a variety of adaptive contestation mechanisms – including the mobilization of the media and the judiciary – that act as a continuing source of political instability and uncertainty.     

Myanmar’s National Elections

Myanmar held its first national elections in two decades on November 7,2010.The incumbent government-supported Union Solidarity and Development Party (later re-named USDP) captured 77％ of parliamentary...     

Contentious politics and student dissent in the twilight of the Portuguese dictatorship: analysis of a protest cycle

This article focuses on student opposition to the Portuguese Estado Novo regime, examining the links between the dynamics of mobilization and radicalization and the emergence of new political actors before the fall of the Salazar dictatorship on the one hand, and the revolutionary process which characterized the Portuguese transition on the other. The 25 April 1974 military coup d'état that overthrew the Estado Novo triggered what later came to be known as the ‘third wave’ of democratization; but the Portuguese transition was characterized by elements of rupture that were much more significant than those observed in the subsequent democratization processes of Spain and Greece. This rupture was a result of the form of regime change – a military coup d'état – and was sustained with the mass social mobilization that followed. While key studies have stressed that the political crisis after the fall of regime was the fundamental cause of this exceptional mobilization, the argument advanced in this article is that the pre-revolutionary cycle of protest also explains the particular characteristics of the Portuguese transition.     

Guns,roses and democratization: Huntington's secret admirer in the Caucasus

Georgia is the most democratic country in the Caucasus, but arguably its democratization has also been riddled by Huntingtonian developmental crises, resulting in ethnic conflicts and civil wars. We argue that variation in the type of political instability is best understood by focusing on the interaction between nationalism and political institutionalization rather than on their independent effects. We show that Gamsakhurdia's “state-breaking nationalism”, coupled with political deinstitutionalization, produced separatist and centrist civil wars. When Saakashvili's “state-making nationalism” enhanced state capacity, it marginalized the opposition and rekindled frozen separatist conflicts, but stronger administrative institutions enabled the government to avert another revolutionary regime change.     

Violence Against Civilians: A Disaggregated Analysis

Disaggregated approaches to conflict research have led to new insights into the patterns and processes of political violence in developing countries. This article uses the most comprehensive subnational political violence data (ACLED) to observe where and when violence against civilians occurs within civil wars. Several new conclusions are evident from an event-based analysis of civilian violence: retribution or collateral damage are poor explanations for attacks on the unarmed. Instead, civilians are targeted because they are accessible; rebel groups kill more civilians, often in an attempt to create new frontlines for conflict. However, governments are also responsible for high rates of civilian death, yet they often “contract” this violence out to militias. This analysis confirms that there are multiple violent groups within civil war spaces, and small opposition groups commit higher levels of violence against civilians in local spaces. The strength of a violent group compared to its competition shapes how much civilian violence it commits. The results suggest that theories that emphasize civilian support and retribution as a basis for violence against civilians have overlooked the importance of how multiple violent opposition groups compete within civil wars, and how civilians suffer as a result.     

The transformation of political party opposition in Malaysia and its implications for the electoral authoritarian regime

Malaysia's electoral authoritarian system is increasingly coming under pressure. Indicators of this are the metamorphosis of opposition forces since 1998 and, in particular, the results of the 2008 parliamentary elections. From 1957 until 1998 political party opposition was fragmented. An initial transformation of political party opposition began at the height of the Asian financial crisis, after a major conflict within the ruling United Malays National Organization in 1998. However, the regime was able to weaken the opposition, resulting in its poor performance in the 2004 elections. Afterwards, in a second transformation that has continued until the present time, an oppositional People's Alliance (Pakatan Rakyat) has emerged that now has a serious chance of taking over the federal government. This article argues that the increase in the strength and cohesion of political party opposition since 1998 has been caused mainly by five combined factors: the emergence of pro-democratic segments within a multi-ethnic and multi-religious middle class; the intensified interaction of political parties and civil society forces; the impact of new media; the eroded legitimacy of the United Malays National Organization and other parties of the ruling coalition; and the internal reforms within the Islamist Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (Parti Islam SeMalaysia). Consequently it has become conceivable that the country will incrementally democratize in a protracted transition. Although the 1999 and 2008 elections were not foundational, they have been transitional. They may not have inaugurated a new democratic regime, but they have marked important phases in the struggle for democracy in Malaysia.     

In-between liberal authoritarianism and electoral authoritarianism: Hong Kong’s democratization under Chinese sovereignty, 1997–2016

On the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the handover, Hong Kong’s transition towards a full democracy remains unsettled. Drawing upon the contemporary theories of hybrid regimes, this article argues that manipulations adopted by electoral authoritarian governments have become increasingly common in Hong Kong today. As Hong Kong’s elections, opposition activities, and media have been increasingly put under electoral authoritarian-style manipulations, the city-state is now situated in the “political grey zone” in-between liberal authoritarianism and electoral authoritarianism and its transition into a full democracy remains nowhere in sight. The case study of Hong Kong will help enrich the existing comparative literature on hybrid regimes by developing a new “in-between category” and offering an interesting case of democratization of sub-national polity.     

2010年大选之后的中缅关系：挑战与前景

缅甸2010年大选之前,中缅关系中中国较长时期是缅甸最重要的伙伴,但中缅关系中矛盾也始终存在,缅甸也一直在谋求与西方国家改善关系。2010年缅甸大选之后,中缅关系总体上保持了友好合作的态势,但缅甸国内政治的变化以及西方国家与缅甸关系的改善对中缅关系的挑战也是客观存在的。未来中缅两国之间的地缘政治和经济因素依然存在,中缅还将继续加强在政治、经济、社会领域的合作,但中国在众多大国对缅关系中独占鳌头的局面将不复存在,缅甸在中缅双边关系中的主动性会上升。     

Domestic politics,regional integration,and human rights: interactions among Myanmar,ASEAN, and EU

This paper tries to explain the evolving relations between the recent domestic political changes in Myanmar and the role of regional integration as they affect human rights in Myanmar. I posit that the two most important causes of the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar are the survival of the authoritarian regime and ethnic-religious conflicts. Those causes differ in nature and their political interactions with the ASEAN regional integration. This paper first examines the relationship between authoritarian regime survival and the humanitarian crisis/efforts during the 2008 natural disaster of cyclone Nargis and the resultant flooding. Second, I investigate the political dynamics of the human rights violations of ethnic and religious minorities, especially the Rohingya Muslim minority in the Rakhine State, during Myanmar’s recent democratic transition. This study approaches the aforementioned questions from both the EU and ASEAN perspectives and also deals with these two regional organizations’ interactions regarding Myanmar’s human rights.     

Disrupting the South African parliament: performing opposition 1994–2010

The article focuses on the most common form of institutionally punished disruption seen in South Africa's National Assembly since 1994: orders for individual MPs to withdraw from the chamber. The shifting dynamics of such “set-piece” dramatizations of opposition and their relationship with the established analyses of political opposition in post-apartheid South Africa, especially “dominant party democracy” theory are explored. There have been two main styles of disruptive performance in the National Assembly since 1994. Firstly, performances of perceived political marginalization, and secondly, performances that paradoxically lay claim to uphold parliamentary democracy through rule-breaking, which are termed performances of procedure-as-democracy. The article examines how opposition politicians have justified disruption and unpicks the symbolism of prominent incidents. The focus is upon the performance of disruption and its performative aspects, particular the articulation of race and gender. It is argued that performances of procedure-as-democracy are actually one of the principal means by which opposition political parties perform narratives of ANC dominance and as such require much more attention and critical engagement from political scholars interested in dominant party democracy.     

McDonaldisation of Sovereignty: A Foucauldian Analysis of Responsibility to Protect

The importance of the principle of Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) has typically been attributed either to its character as a presumed new norm (normative ontology) or to its capacity to influence international politics by mobilising political actors to protect civilians through military interventions and other forms of intervention (causal ontology), as witnessed in the recent cases of Libya and Côte d'Ivoire. This article will argue for an additional model of explanation, according to which the main significance of RtoP might best be understood by reference to its character as a political statement of global policy networks (discursive ontology) calling for the reinterpretation of the sovereignty regime. The article will apply Michel Foucault's theory of discursive fields to demonstrate that RtoP beneficially introduces human security as an additional criterion of state sovereignty, thus contributing to the “humanitarisation of sovereignty”. However, RtoP also engenders “McDonaldisation of sovereignty” and “sovereignty-consumption” mentality in that it attempts to transform and homogenise pluralistic state sovereigns into a universal, seemingly humanitarian mould. As a drawback, this McDonaldisation process excludes some victimised groups from the remit of international concern.     

The enfranchisement of resident aliens: variations and explanations

What explains the timing of the liberalization of citizenship laws? Although scholars have offered a number of competing explanations for differences among citizenship regimes, few have examined the timing of liberalization and retraction of rights for non-citizens. To investigate the timing of both liberalization and reversal, this study examines the historical expansion of voting rights for non-citizen residents (VRA). Given both the symbolic and substantive consequences of VRA, democracies may proceed slowly when liberalizing political rights and may retract them quickly. Two bodies of scholarship offer competing explanations. The “national resilience” thesis suggests that differences in cultural definitions of citizenry, political institutions, and social policies produce national citizenship regimes that evolve slowly. By contrast, the “policy constraints” thesis asserts that domestic institutions enact human rights norms that expedite convergence around a common set of political rights. This study tests these explanations by examining the timing of liberalization of VRA in 25 democracies between 1975 and 2010. It finds factors that drive the timing of liberalization differ from those that cause the reversal of rights. While policy constraints best explain the timing of liberalization, policy constraints interact with national resilience factors to explain the retraction of rights.     

Domestic political conflict,issue areas,and some dimensions of foreign policy behavior other than conflict∗

This paper examines the seemingly complex linkage between domestic political conflict and external behavior by broadening our consideration of foreign policy behavior. Underlying this analysis is a view that there are elements of both assertiveness and caution in the political use of foreign policy by domestically threatened leaders. They act assertively to divert attention away from domestic issues and enhance the image of their regime, but at the same time they are likely to show some restraint in order to avoid costly military and economic reactions by foreign actors. It is hypothesized that domestic conflict affects the degree of independence, commitment, and intensity in a nation's foreign policy behavior, but no so much its foreign conflict. Supplementing this, the mediating role of another foreign policy property, substantive issue area, is examined as a means of identifying conditions under which the impact of internal unrest would be greatest. The results of the analysis are mixed, but they do lend credibility to the idea that domestic conflict is related to multiple dimensions of foreign policy. More broadly, they suggest that governments employ different foreign policy strategies in coping with different types of domestic political conflict.     

A question of trust: military defection during regime crises in Benin and Togo

This article examines the role of trust between military officers and opposition forces in fostering mass defections of military personnel during pro-democracy uprisings. The current literature on military defection emphasizes the role of either opposition characteristics, or government control policies. Combining the two, however, takes better account of defection as an interaction between officers and the opposition. Through an analysis of civil–military relations during mass uprisings in Benin (1989–1990) and Togo (1990–1993), this article finds that loyalist stacking creates a core of military personnel with a strong stake in regime preservation, while counterbalancing leaves open the possibility for a military-opposition alliance. Alliance also depends on civic resistance campaign characteristics (the unity of the movement, its nonviolent character, the presence of opposition leaders with social ties to military personnel) and promises to military personnel that acknowledge the latter groups’ interests. These findings provide a new theoretical framework for understanding military actions during regime crises.     

Authoritarian backsliding and the concentration of political power

This article introduces the concept of authoritarian backsliding as a class of strategies for the concentration of incumbent political power in hybrid regimes. Such actions include manipulating elections, violating civil liberties, creating an extremely uneven playing field for the opposition, and reducing the institutional constraints on executive power. While often falling short of a full regime change, backsliding can significantly alter the level of political competition in a country and reduce the quality of its political life. This article develops a theoretically-grounded strategy to identify and measure backsliding events since 1989, showing that they have been much more common than is typically appreciated. The article also shows the utility of the concept of backsliding for better understanding regime stability. Using cross-national analysis of backsliding events from 1989–2004, we find that threats such as opposition electoral gains or economic crises in resource-dependent regimes create incentives for authoritarian backsliding.     

The transnational protection regime and democratic breakthrough in Taiwan and South Korea

External state pressure is understood to have played a causally significant role in democratic breakthrough in Taiwan and South Korea during the 1980s. This article problematizes the international dimensions of democratization in Taiwan and South Korea by first providing a revisionist account of external agency which involved complex networks of transnational nonstate and substate actors. These included human rights activists, Christian churches and related ecumenical organizations, members of the Taiwanese and Korean diaspora communities in the US, academics and students, foreign journalists, and members of the US Congress. In forming a transnational “protection regime” during the 1970s and 1980s to protect the political opposition from repressive governments, they contributed to the development of effective democratic movements. The case studies provide us with a more comprehensive view of the international dimensions of democratization, speaking to both the country specific and general theoretical literatures on democratization at the same time.