The role of parliament in South Africacs foreign policy development process: lessons from the United States' Congress

For most democracies across the world, legislative engagement in foreign policy development has traditionally been limited to ratification of international agreements and oversight of the executive. While the Parliament of South Africa tends to adhere to this traditional approach, deferring to the executive on matters of foreign policy, this paper argues that a collaborative approach between the legislative and executive branches as articulated in the South African constitution must rather form the basis of South Africa's foreign policy development process. Moreover, by comparing the parliament of South Africa, a legislature with limited policy influence, to the United States’ Congress, a policy making legislature, it becomes clear from Congress that political will in employing constitutional power is the most important factor in ensuring legislative engagement in foreign policy decision making.     

War-Power Reform in Australia: (Re)considering the Options

The decision to go to war in Australia remains the prerogative of the Executive. The lack of parliamentary authorisation of perhaps the most significant decision a democracy can make has seen sustained, but unsuccessful, efforts to reform legislation. In the wake of the costly invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, repeated calls for legislative reform of Australia's war powers have failed to find traction amongst Coalition and Australian Labor Party (ALP) leadership. Lamenting the lack of transparency and accountability in the current system, those favouring legislative reform would see authorisation of combat missions placed in the hands of Parliament. However, given the lack of support from either of the major parties, any legislative reform remains unlikely. Given this impasse, this article argues that a compromise option, in the form of a new war-powers convention, may be a small step towards democratising the decision of going to war. While not legally binding, this constitutional convention would represent an agreement by the major parties that overseas combat operations will be properly debated in Parliament.     

NEPAD and good governance

This paper is an analysis of South Africa's public service improvement strategies since 1994. It first describes the historical factors that underpinned South Africa's service delivery initiatives before 1994. It is argued that the pre-1994 public service sector was racialised and highly politicised, as opposed to being people-centred and service delivery oriented. The transition to democracy in 1994 necessitated a complete revision of South Africa's public administrative system in order to meet the developmental challenges of service delivery needs. However, this transition also coincided with global reform initiatives that were taking place in the public sector, as informed by the new public management (NPM) paradigm with its emphasis on cost effectiveness, accountability and transparency. The primary argument of the paper is that commendable legislative reforms have been enacted in South Africa's public administration system in the post-1994 period, based on the NPM, but the fragility of the state bureaucracy as manifested in the silo approach characterising the South African government operations, as well as capacity limitations, encumbers the success of these reforms. The Community Development Worker (CDW) programme, operating in South Africa's Eastern and Western Cape Provinces, is used as a case study to illustrate this argument. A brief look at India's experience of the NPM also informs the discussion. The significance of the case study lies in the fact that it was conceived in the interest of increased responsiveness and accessibility to government services, a vital pillar of the NPM framework.     

African women and the wars of resistance and dispossession in the Cape Colony and Xhosaland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

ABSTRACT

The eighteenth- and nineteenth-century colonial wars in the Cape Colony and trans-Keian territories in South Africa are usually represented as conflicts primarily involving male antagonists. The roles and experiences of indigenous women are usually overlooked or, at best, mentioned in passing. Closer examination of the wars that took place in what is now the Eastern Cape province of South Africa suggests that women were deeply affected by the various wars in a multitude of ways. They experienced first-hand death, disruption of their families and society, destruction of their homesteads and crops, and the looting of their livestock and other resources and were seized for forced labor. In the midst of the conflict, they developed different strategies to mitigate the effects of the wars and to survive, playing an active role in the wars as leaders, emissaries, and war doctors and in providing intelligence and commissariat support.     

Defining a Democracy: Reforming the Laws on Women's Rights in Chile, 1990–2002

This article evaluates 38 bills seeking to expand women's rights in Chile and finds that the successful ones often originated with the Executive National Women's Ministry (SERNAM), did not threaten existing definitions of gender roles, and did not require economic redistribution. These factors (plus the considerable influence of the Catholic Church) correlate in important ways, and tend to constrain political actors in ways not apparent from an examination of institutional roles or ideological identity alone. In particular, the Chilean left's strategic response to this complex web of interactions has enabled it to gain greater legislative influence on these issues over time.     

苏东社会结构转型的社会学分析:阶级与阶层的视野

本文通过对苏联东欧社会变迁的实证分析,从社会结构分层的视角探索苏东社会转型的原因及过程.首先,高度工业化与城市化所导致的城乡社会结构的改变,是苏联东欧社会转型的根本原因,这是它与东亚、拉美等国或地区的社会转型具有深层关联性的一面.而农民迁移到城市的结构性流动所产生的复杂流动机制和分层机制,对苏东社会转型带来了直接的影响和冲击.苏东社会的中间阶层,其价值观、社会功能和政治态度对激进的制度转型具有不可低估的作用.其次,先是深层次的社会结构发生转变,即由农民向城市工人的阶级分层发生变化,然后才是表层的社会结构发生转变,即在市场化背景下,苏东社会的阶层分层因利益多元化而发生分化.苏东社会结构转型的具体过程明显地分为这两个阶段.     

Intra-Elite Factionalism and the 2004 Majles Elections in Iran

Over the last two decades, the political ideology of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has evolved to proactively advocate a democratic form of government. This evolution has taken place both through protracted internal discussion and through experiments in participatory politics, leading the Brotherhood to further develop Islamic justification for a democratic regime. Despite generational differences within the Brotherhood over the extent of democratic activism, the Brotherhood's emerging political platform asserts the need both for a democratic regime and a ‘civil state’ which guarantees political and civil liberties within the boundaries specified by Islam. Three guiding principles are central to the Brotherhood's current political vision, including legislative compliance with Islamic law, a wide range of civil and political liberties with an emphasis on equal treatment, and a robust electoral process that institutionalizes guarantees of democratic accountability for elected officials. These principles allow the Muslim Brotherhood to effectively challenge the current Egyptian regime on democratic grounds, but are also in tension with one another, highlighting the boundaries of legislative independence under a political system constrained by Islamic law.     

Can Politicians Control Bureaucrats? Applying Theories of Political Control to Argentina's Democracy

In the United States, an important literature shows that legislators use interest groups, courts, and budgets to assert political control over bureaucrats. Similar theories can be applied to study the scores of new democracies that have emerged in recent decades. In Argentina, politicians in the first administration of Carlos Menem (1989-95) rewrote administrative procedures and relied on both "police patrol" and "fire alarm" oversight to realign the behavior of tax bureaucrats in conformance with their own policy preferences. Whereas U.S. legislators generally prefer complex administrative procedures, different electoral incentives led their Argentine counterparts to support reforms that significantly streamlined those procedures. This finding challenges theories that attribute legislators' bureaucratic preferences to the separation or fusion of powers between the executive and legislative branches.     

Standing orders in the New Zealand House of Representatives

SUMMARY

As a matter of functional necessity, any legislative body must have a system of internal governance. In parliamentary democracies, that system nearly always takes the form of ‘standing orders’: a body of rules that govern the conduct of proceedings in (and the exercise of powers possessed by) the central legislative body. This paper examines the desirability of placing constitutional importance on such an ephemeral device as standing orders. Using recent examples from the New Zealand House of Representatives, the paper shows how a legislative majority's use of standing orders has the potential to undermine democratic and deliberative legislative processes in all parliamentary democracies.     

Institutional Foundations of Legislative Turnover: A Comparative Analysis of the Swiss Cantons

Abstract: The rate of turnover within parliaments remains an understudied area of research. The present paper contributes to filling this gap by presenting the first comparable macro‐level data on legislative turnover in the 26 Swiss cantonal legislatures. In examining the strikingly different levels of turnover in sub‐national Swiss parliaments between 1993 and 2011, the focus is on politico‐institutional features. Multilevel models reveal that two hitherto neglected institutional variables are correlated with legislative turnover. In addition to the reduction of parliamentary size, we find the strength of a cantonal parliament to affect turnover rates on the Swiss sub‐national level. Moreover, we show that proportional representation significantly promotes parliamentary elite circulation. Among the non‐institutional covariates, we find that electoral volatility is also relevant in explaining legislative turnover rates.     

“欧洲化”进程与中东欧国家的政党政治变迁

随着欧盟因素的介入,中东欧各国在政治经济和社会生活方面发生了许多重要变化,即出现了学界所称的欧洲化现象,中东欧国家政党也不可避免地受到了欧洲化进程的影响。作为一种超越国家层面的政治社会化过程,欧洲化促使中东欧国家的政党做出调整和改变,以适应新的定位和功能。同时,在欧洲化深入的过程中,中东欧国家的政党政治也面临着巨大的困难和挑战。     

Game fences in the Karoo: reconfiguring spatial and social relations

In this article, we discuss how farm conversions to wildlife habitats result in the reconfiguration of spatial and social relations on white-owned commercial farms in the Karoo region of the Eastern Cape in South Africa. Farmers and landowners justify such conversions stressing economic and ecological rationales. We illustrate how conversions are (also) a reaction to post-apartheid land reform and labour legislation policies, which white farmers and landowners perceive as a serious threat. They seek to legitimate their position in society and reassert their place on the land by claiming a new role as nature conservationists. We argue that game farms should be interpreted as economically and politically contested spaces for three reasons: (1) whereas landowners present the farm workers' displacement from game farms as the unintended by-product of a changing rural economy, the creation of ‘pristine’ wilderness seems designed to empty the land of farm dwellers who may lay claim to the land; (2) game farms further disconnect the historically developed links between farm dwellers and farms, denying them a place of residence and a base for multiple livelihood strategies; (3) this way the conversion process deepens farm dwellers' experiences of dispossession and challenges their sense of belonging. Game fences effectively define farm workers and dwellers as people out of place. These dynamics contrast government reform policies aimed at addressing historical injustices and protecting farm dwellers' tenure security.     

Game farm conversions and the land question: unpacking present contradictions and historical continuities in farm dwellers' tenure insecurity in Cradock

This article addresses farm workers and farm dwellers' tenure insecurity and its relationship with farm conversions in the agricultural district of Cradock, located in the Eastern Cape Karoo. It argues that consequences of farm conversions for farm workers/dwellers' tenure security must be understood within the context of regional land and labour histories. Its main contention with existing positions that ‘blame’ farm conversions for increased evictions and an efflux of workers/dwellers from farms is that there is a correlative rather than causative relationship between farm conversions and farm worker/dweller displacements in the semi-arid areas. It argues that the extreme nature of the historical land question and the continued dominance of a historically white land-owning class in the semi-arid areas render farm workers/dwellers structurally vulnerable to having their residential arrangements on farms terminated at any given moment. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Cradock between 2009 and 2011, the article shows that game farm conversions tend to perpetuate existing land and power relations on farms as they have prevailed over time. However, it also argues that the distinctiveness of game farm conversions lies in their near ‘irreversibility’ as a land use form which creates more permanently securitised and sealed-off pockets of consolidated land in the countryside. These transformations increase the erosion of farm workers/dwellers' embedded social histories and cultural imprint as a labouring class on the landscape.     

The frontier revisited: displacement,land and identity among farm labourers in the Sundays River Valley

This paper aims to unpack the dynamics of displacement and the relationship of physical movement to elements of space (i.e. land) and place (or identity), in the Sundays River Valley, near the town of Kirkwood, in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. It primarily uses the motif of frontiers to cast light on displacement as an ongoing phenomenon and explore the different eras of occupation of land in the Sundays River Valley, from the early nineteenth century until 1970. It relates different layers of belonging and identity to the unfolding of capitalism and apartheid in South Africa. The article argues that ties to land are multiple, contested and based upon dispossession and physical movement rather than upon stability. While such a high degree of contestation of oral evidence in the Sundays River Valley might not give current claimants a detailed legal basis for restitution, it is an academically valuable idea to explore the origins of the inhabitants in the Sundays River Valley – because it can indicate the degree to which local identities are influenced by experiences of disruption and displacement. The paper argues that frontier relationships in the SRV are central in the formation of larger systems of relationships of race and class, and that this casts new light on displacement (both as a historical event and a contemporary experience), in the formation of identity and place in southern Africa.     

Pearson’s Mission: Revisiting Noel Pearson’s Revisionist History of Hope Vale

In 2000, Noel Pearson drew on his experiences of growing up on the Hope Vale, the Guugu Yimidhirr–speaking community that emerged from the Cape Bedford mission in the south east of Cape York, to write a revisionist history of the region. Indigenous communities were “strong, if bruised” in the wake of colonisation, he argued, but had descended into chaos since the 1970s because alcohol and welfare benefits had undermined the formerly resilient Aboriginal norms of “responsibility”. This paper offers a critical review of this politically potent account of the past, drawing on alternative oral histories, ethnographies and ethnohistories of Hope Vale, including Pearson’s own honours thesis (1986). Without challenging this sketch of his own experience, nor the sincerity of his nostalgia for the mission of his youth, I argue that Pearson’s more recent retellings are selective. In particular, his revisionist history overlooks evidence of drug abuse in the early colonial period and overstates both Guugu Yimidhirr agency in the process of missionisation and the uniformity and representativeness of the community that developed at Cape Bedford. Finally, I offer some possible personal, philosophical and political explanations for Pearson’s shifting approach to the past.     

Las reformas políticas en el gobierno de Sebastián Piñera Chile, 2010-2013

This paper analyzes political reforms carried out by Sebastián Piñera’s government in Chile. Te reforms considered are those that his Coalition for Change campaigned on as part of the presidential and legislative elections in 2009. Tese reforms promised an improvement in the quality of democracy, and promised its consolidation, including increased political participation, in order to counter the most common criticisms of institutions of representation. Throughout this process, the government showed little receptivity to proposals coming from other sectors, both of the ruling coalition and the opposition; furthermore, it paid scant attention to growing citizen protests and their demands voiced since his second year of government. Te information analyzed conveys little progress in decentralization and in the importance that players with veto powers were gaining within the ruling coalition.     

Beyond Fateh Corruption and Mass Discontent: Hamas,the Palestinian Left and the 2006 Legislative Elections

The unanticipated victory of Hamas in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections was a defining moment in the study of Islamist politics; the results were a startling surprise to all parties, not least Hamas. Much of the literature that assesses the electoral success of Islamists focuses on the distinct characteristics of Islamist groups, paying less attention to the complex interplay of factors that may account for their success. Examining Hamas's performance in the 2006 legislative elections, this article endeavours to: (1) challenge pervasive analysis which asserts the distinctiveness of Islamist political organisations; (2) situate the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections within a broader discussion of opposition politics in the Arab world; and (3) highlight the significance of long-term organisational trajectories and election campaign strategies in accounting for Islamist electoral performance. Findings in this article have important implications for how we understand Islamist and leftist opposition politics in light of the Arab Spring.     

全面从严治党视域下党的制度建设研究

党的十八大以来,制度建设贯穿政治立党、思想建党、组织管党、作风兴党、纪律治党和反腐败斗争全过程,党的制度建设成效卓著。其中,坚决做到"两个维护"是制度建设的纲和魂;推进作风建设是制度建设的开篇之作和重要内容;严肃党内政治生活是制度建设的重要抓手;完善责任体系、强化党内监督是制度建设的重要保障;加强纪律建设是制度建设的根本途径。党的制度建设的生动实践形成了前瞻性和规划性、针对性和时代性、系统性和配套性、时效性和可操作性、实践性和理论性等十个鲜明特点;彰显了"七个统一"的重要原则,即:坚持政治统领和人民中心相统一、坚持高标准和守底线相统一、坚持明确责任和狠抓落实相统一、坚持问题导向和深化改革相统一、坚持日常监督和长期监督相统一、坚持党内监督和法律监督相统一、坚持惩治昏懒庸贪和鼓励担当作为相统一。这对新时代推进制度治党,推进全面从严治党向纵深发展,提升党的治国理政效能具有深刻启示。     

Parliamentary oversight and corruption in the Caribbean: comparing Trinidad & Tobago and Grenada

Parliamentary oversight is a key determinant of corruption levels. This article presents research findings on parliamentary oversight in two Caribbean countries: Trinidad & Tobago and Grenada. Our results cast doubt on the results of previous research and also indicate that certain facets of ‘the Westminster’ system need to be relaxed, to reflect contextual reality in smaller island economies. Political will to adopt our recommended reforms is critical, but, as in other countries, inertia often dominates the political environment. Until citizens demand that their elected representatives establish various oversight and anti-corruption mechanisms and ensure these mechanisms are free of political influence, the institutions will be ‘window dressing’ and corrupt actions will go undeterred and unpunished.     

Regulation and its discontents: the Indian judiciary and higher education

The role of the judiciary in strengthening regulatory regimes is well regarded. In developing countries where regulatory bodies are captive to powerful interest groups, the judiciary is regarded for its activist role in providing participatory access to groups excluded from the policy process. In contrast, this paper draws attention to the limits of the judiciary as a gatekeeper of regulatory governance. Using the case of regulation in India’s tertiary education sector, it shows how the judiciary’s track record of enabling elite actors to influence policy, often at the cost of legislative mandates, can undermine regulation.