New Conventions Required: Ideas to Re-invigorate Japanese Party Politics

Over the past 20 years, Japanese politics has changed significantly. There have been many improvements over the old LDP politics. At the same time, however, the rules of the game, which were predicated on the dominance of a single political party and on factional politics, have inevitably changed, and, in accordance with this situation, the conventions that prescribed the party-political order have fallen by the wayside. Given this situation, new conventions are now required that will make Japanese politics function. This article will discuss the most pressing topics: they are the appointment of the prime minister, the political cycle, bicameralism and party politics, intra-party governance, and the relationship between ministers and bureaucrats. These rules will not derive from new laws or institutions, but will be based on new conventions agreed to by the political parties. Political parties are to be the key actors in creating the new conventions, which should provide the rules of the game for Japanese politics.     

Wedge Politics and Welfare Reform in Australia

The election of the Howard Government has marked a paradigm shift in welfare policy with the implementation of far reaching reforms around the concept of mutual obligation. At the same time, there has been media speculation about the Government's use of 'wedge politics' to sustain its political agenda with respect to welfare and other policies. Wedge politics, however, is yet to receive detailed analysis in Australian political science. We define wedge politics to be a calculated political tactic aimed at using divisive social issues to gain political support, weaken opponents and strengthen control over the political agenda. The purpose of this paper is thus twofold: to develop a definition of wedge politics and to investigate how the Howard Government's welfare reform agenda might be understood as an example of such politics, drawing out its longer-term implications.     

Press and ethnic polarization in post-2001 Afghanistan: the 2014 presidential election experience

This article analyses the contents of three newspapers affiliated with the Tajik-dominated Jamiat and Shura-e-Nezar factions that were deployed during the 2014 presidential election to publicize ethno-political polarization for instrumental ends. The practice of nurturing ethnic identities serves as a microcosm of the broader context in which identity politics, besides coalition-building, rent-seeking, and patrimonial interdependencies, has become a key feature of post-2001 politics. This article focuses on how these factions used these newspapers to polarize ethnic cleavages to win legitimacy for themselves and defamation for their Pashtun-dominated rival factions – Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin and the Taliban. It will be years before the ethnic mujahedeen and muhajereen and the new generation reach a mutually binding and working condition that facilitates the country's long-term stability. Reaching this condition is critical because the future of Afghanistan lies in the commitment of its people to form a united community that resolves disputes in the manner of a democratic nation.     

缅甸蒲甘王朝政权与教权(上座部佛教)的关系

缅甸已被公认是上座部佛教在东南亚传播的最早和最重要的基地,上座部佛教在缅甸社会和国家政治生活中起着举足轻重的作用。在古代,上座部佛教一直同王权保持着紧密的联系。政、教关系作为一种重要的政治关系,很大程度上反映着缅甸封建国家的政治发展状况。本文试对缅甸蒲甘王朝时期政权与教权(上座部佛教)之间的关系进行一番分析和探讨,理清其沿革发展的脉络,揭示缅甸蒲甘王朝时期政教关系的特点,为进一步探究缅甸整个封建社会时期的政教关系作些铺垫。     

Partidos políticos e innovación democrática: más allá de purezas y perversiones

This article aims to review the conceptual import of the term “political mediation”, to shed light on the analytical reach of indirect politics, whose scope of possibilities has been usually thought of as confined within the opposites of political representation and clientelism. An analytical exercise is put forth as a possible and tentative means not only to establish a vocabulary which may be more sensitive towards present time demands, but also to –in Bunge's words– initially allow for the reinterpretation of older symbols of our political vocabulary. Towards this goal, besides a linguistic and conceptual itinerary of the term “mediation”, each of the three analytical dimensions of indirect politics is developed, favoring dialogue with theories of representation, which channels into an analytical model we call the “cube of indirect politics”. The article ends with a brief case-classification exercise aimed at showing the displacement produced by the model in the understanding of given experiences in indirect politics.     

Youth participation in local politics: city councils and youth assemblies in Turkey

The focus of this study is political participation of youth in local politics in Turkey. Since local politics includes elements from both macro politics and mundane affairs, it proves to be a fertile ground to analyse how youth experience politics. Youth participation in local politics became an important issue in Turkey with the Agenda 21. The Agenda 21 that was launched with the UN Rio Summit was transferred to Turkey in the form of Local Agenda 21 leading to the establishment of city councils and youth assemblies under the umbrella of the councils. We treat city councils and youth assemblies as ‘a lost opportunity’ for now, and we ask why the youth cannot be integrated into local politics, despite the fact that they are willing to participate. Based on the interviews conducted with the members of assemblies, we try to understand the factors that lead to young people’s engagement in political life.     

Revisiting the national question and rethinking the political trajectory of Africa in the 21st century

Abstract

The national question in postcolonial Africa encapsulates the totality of national and social challenges that needs resolution. These include the burden of building postcolonial nations, reconstructing postcolonial states, promoting economic development, entrenching popular democracy, defending national sovereignty, consolidating political power, and eventually achieving regional integration and pan-African unity, as long term goals. To resolve these issues, founding fathers crafted different national projects as working ideological and political frameworks, aimed at resolving the national question. This article builds on the continuing concern about the national question, to carry out a critical historiographical study of the nature and conflicted agendas of national project(s), while at the same time providing substatiation for their resuscitation during the current age of failing capitalist neo-liberal project. The premise of the article is that the national question remains relevant beyond the 20^th century as it entails dealing with unresolved national and social questions including challenges of converting territorial nationalism into pan-Africanism as well as democratising global asymmetrical power politics in the 21^st century.     

比较政治学在东南亚权威主义研究中的新进展:议题、方法与趋势

自21世纪以来,比较政治学研究发生了从"民主转型"到权威主义政治的转向,东南亚的权威主义国家也得到了比此前更多的关注。现有研究已经建立起系统的理论分析框架,形成了从权威主义起源到运作过程,再到持续结果的主要研究议题,出现了以斯雷特、比宾斯基和布朗利为代表的学者群体,他们分别提出了抗争政治与权威主义利维坦形成、执政党组织与权威主义持续性以及精英联盟关系与经济危机结果等理论。这些研究采用了诸如控制式比较、过程追踪和正负面案例的比较分析方法,并引入了时间和空间等维度去发展和检验理论。在未来的研究中,澄清起源和运作过程对权威主义持续结果的作用以形成统一的理论框架,在权威主义韧性外引入经济发展、社会稳定和公共福利等国家治理维度的议题,拓宽研究视野,将区域政治与国别政治相结合,是东南亚权威主义三个值得进一步探讨的研究方向。     

Reinventing Green Politics: On the Strategic Repositioning of the German Green Party

Whilst environmental issues, most notably climate change, have recently been more prominent in public debate than at any earlier time, Green parties are confronted with a fundamental challenge: The agenda of ‘new politics’ that had once been their original project has meanwhile become largely exhausted, and the profound transformation of societal structures, value preferences and party political competition necessitates a comprehensive reinvention of Green politics. Focusing on the German Greens, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, this article spells out the thesis of the exhaustion of the Green project and investigates how since the end of the Red–Green coalition under Chancellor Schröder the party has tried to forge a new, electorally attractive, programmatic profile. Detailed analysis of its evolving environmental and social policy position and of its relationship to the specific concerns and priorities energising late-modern consumer societies suggests that whilst in principle Germany's new five-party system offers favourable opportunity structures for Bündnis 90/Die Grünen to regain executive power, there is as yet little evidence of a successful reinvention of Green politics.     

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.     

Telling the Truth About Empire? A Word on Methodology

Empire/imperialism are terms that re-emerge with patterned frequency. Claims that the Australia United Kingdom and United States agreement is imperial, that an Australian empire exists, or that coloniality continues after the end of formal colonialism are all made without connecting colonialism, settler-colonialism, coloniality, or sub-imperialism to the larger whole of which it is a part — empire. At the same time, political science has begun to make claims about empire as a particular type of politics and comparative historical literature has also emerged. This paper argues that empire should a site of inquiry for any decolonial project and elaborates what would be involved methodologically. It engages the question of methodology by comparing different approaches to the study of empire. My argument is that the interpretivist approach is the more methodologically robust principally because it raises a series of unresolvable methodological problems. I argue that study of empire, as a particular form of politics, is not just a social scientific question, it is an ethical normative question. I argue that it is politically necessary for the decolonisation of knowledge to broach the question of empire and its methodological problems. Only when we know the truth about empire, can we confidently contribute to a politics that would be post-imperial.     

军队从政坛的退出与韩国社会转型:基于自然政府的视角

文章利用诺斯等人发展起来的基于自然政府的精英主义理论框架,重点讨论了对军队的政治控制与韩国从有限准入向开放准入社会转型之间的关系。分析表明,从20世纪60年代初开始,一批围绕朴正熙和全斗焕的军事精英通过建立一个包括军队官员、政党政治家、高级政府官员和资本家阶层在内的统治联盟,从整体上控制国家和社会,从而重建了韩国的有限准入社会秩序。然而这个相对稳定的社会秩序不是一成不变的,随着经济的快速发展和相应的社会结构的变化,社会反对势力尤其是中产阶级和工人阶层不断成长,军人执政联盟最终自掘坟墓,被迫于20世纪80年代末从政坛退出并将其归还给市民社会。沿着这一主题,文章分析了韩国对军队的政治控制过程及竞争性政治和经济市场的出现,指出两种市场的建立标志着韩国社会转型的完成。     

Millions of Small Battles: The Peronist Resistance in Argentina

This article studies the working‐class clandestine political organisation known as the Peronist resistance. Created after Argentine President Juan Perón was overthrown in 1955, the resistance movement was much more than a reaction to the limitations imposed on the organisation of unions. It signalled the birth of a new paradigm of political and cultural resistance firmly anchored in the household and the neighbourhood. Looking into the cultural dimensions of violence, the study shows how violence functioned as a creative force, producing transformations in political agency and cultural practices that reached into the Peronist household and shaped mourning rituals and the politics of martyrdom.     

Anti-Partyism in German Independent Local Lists: Empirical Insights from a Membership Study

In the past few decades, independent local lists in German municipalities have become serious competitors to political parties. However, despite their widespread presence and success, party researchers have largely ignored this phenomenon. Empirical evidence concerning the attitudes of their members towards political parties is rare. Thus far, it remains unclear whether their self-described image as non-parties or anti-parties is restricted to the sphere of local politics or accompanies a general rejection of parties in federal politics. First, the article conceptualises anti-partyism and proposes an analytical distinction between their intensity and related political level. It then analyses the consequences of different patterns of local politics and group characteristics as well as individual determinants to explain the degree of anti-party sentiment. This study improves our understanding of independents and whether they promote party democracy or are a product of political dissatisfaction. Based on a cross-sectional postal survey, multi-level regression models are used to test the hypotheses. The results show that anti-partyism is particularly strong towards party politics at the local level, whereas the general legitimacy of party democracy is not questioned in federal politics.     

The power of proximity: A concept of political party strategies applied to Burkina Faso

Recent publications suggest that exclusively ethno-regional parties are as rare in sub-Saharan Africa as elsewhere. At the same time, the idea that ethnicity is a very special feature of African party politics persists. This article acknowledges the general relevance of ethnicity in party competition but emphasises the level at which it becomes important. It develops a micro-behavioural approach that pays particular attention to the strategic choices of party elites in order to supplement the dominant structuralist thinking in party research on Africa. An in-depth evaluation of detailed election data from Burkina Faso shows strategies that rely on personal proximity between the voter and the candidates influence the parties' success to a great extent. Parties maximise their chances of winning seats if they concentrate their limited resources on the home localities of leading party members. Hence, African party politics are less dependent on ethnic demography than is often implied but more open to change through elite behaviour.     

Interpreting Partisan Dealignment in Germany

Partisan ties in Germany have been weakening over the past three decades, which is changing the landscape of electoral politics. In contrast to a recent article by Dassonneville et al. in this journal, this article argues that a generational decline in partisanship is contributing to this dealignment trend, and virtually all of the new independents are more sophisticated apartisans who are politically engaged even though they lack party ties. These findings are based on the 1972–2009 time series of surveys by the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen. The results point to a more sophisticated German electorate that will inject more fluidity into electoral politics and empower more Germans to make reasonable electoral choices.     

Radical Change at the Ballot Box: Causes and Consequences of Electoral Behavior in Venezuela's 2000 Elections

This study aims to explain the victory of Hugo Chávez and his party in the 2000 Venezuelan elections, to analyze the factors that made this victory possible, and to examine the consequences for future developments in the Venezuelan political system. The decay of traditional party loyalties without the emergence of new parties deeply rooted in society (dealignment without realignment); underdevelopment; and an institutional setting dominated by a president elected by a plurality electoral system have opened the door to personality-centered politics and weak parties, which are the main features of the current political situation. Compared to the 1993 and 1998 elections, the 2000 elections once again confirm an increase in personality politics and the decay of parties as instruments for articulating interests, representation, and governance. As a consequence, this article argues, instability is likely to remain a feature of Venezuela's party system for some time.     

台湾政党政治的腐败与政治转型

近二十年来,金钱政治以一种看似矛盾和不自觉的方式,破坏着台湾执政党和政府及官员的政治形象、权力结构和统治基础,以一种潜在的力量推动着它们的政党政治和政治体制由一元的模式向多元的模式变化,从而加快了多元政治的发展;同时,在巩固民主的过程中,它以一种瓦解体制的形式阻碍着民主制度的形成和稳定.进一步来说,这种腐败在政党政治和政治发展的不同阶段可以产生不同的作用,它或是在巩固政治转型阶段推动政治转型和民主化,或是在巩固民主的阶段推动或阻碍民主的发展,但其总的表现形式都是瓦解体制.     

President Roh Moo-Hyun’s Last Interview and the Roh Moo-Hyun Phenomenon in South Korea

This commentary discusses what is popularly regarded as the “Roh Moo-hyun Phenomenon” in today’s South Korean society, as an attempt to shed some light on an interview which the late President Roh Moo-hyun had with the author in December 2008. This interview is unique not only because it became Roh’s last interview conducted before his suicide on May 23, 2009, but also because it provides Roh’s candid critical self-assessment on his own presidency, especially regarding his role in both domestic politics and the inter-Korean relationship, and the Korea-US relationship during his term in office, as well as commenting on Japan’s approach to Northeast Asian regional politics. Reflecting on Roh’s star-like rise to the presidency and fall from grace, this commentary alerts readers that Roh’s last interview needs to be considered within the context of the Roh Moo-Hyun Phenomenon, especially in regard to the 2017 presidential election, because it will directly affect the fate of not just the “pro-Roh group,” with the largest share of the opposition in today’s Korean society, but the Korean people as a whole at a time when the country’s many leading civic groups are desperately seeking a “Great Transformation.”