印度教与印度种姓制度

印度种姓制度不仅是一种特有的社会分工形式 ,它同时也是一种印度教的教阶制度。它被古印度的婆罗门经书赋予宗教上的“神圣”起源 ,又从印度教的神、哲学中获得了一种玄秘的“合理性”证明 ,且切合于印度教宗教生活方式的实际需要 ,以此能够在印度社会中长久地存在下来。     

Caste and democratization in postcolonial India: an ethnographic examination of lower caste politics in Bihar

This article examines the case of lower-caste politics in the populous north Indian state of Bihar in order to show the ways in which the liberal democratic model fails to capture the realities of democracy in postcolonial India. In order to explain the rise of lower-caste politics, I examine the ways in which relationships between state institutions, caste networks and locally dominant groups shape contemporary political possibilities, necessitating a re-evaluation of the relationship between liberalism and democracy in India. With state institutions being unable to effectively enforce rights, a caste-based notion of popular sovereignty became dominant – as an idea (the lower-caste majority should rule) and as the everyday rough-and-tumble of an electoral politics that ultimately revolves around the force of numbers. It is inadequate, and actually unhelpful, to simply point out the obvious fact that the enforcement of rights is routinely and systematically undermined in practice and to call for more effective implementation. In fact, I argue that effective implementation in places such as Bihar could only be possible through a radical restructuring of local power that can only come from below, through democratic practice itself.     

印度种姓政治:历史、现状和未来——以北方邦为例

种姓政治深刻影响着印度国内政治。印度人口最多的北方邦是全印种姓政治最为典型的邦之一,是多支低种姓群众运动的发源地,产生了两个政治势力强大的种姓政党——大众社会党和社会主义党。种姓政治在北方邦一个多世纪的发展和演变大体可以分为发端期、成形期、强盛期和式微期四个阶段。种姓政治的发展有其内在局限性,加之印度人民党国族认同理念迅速扩张,种姓政治进入了衰退状态,但种姓领袖及其派系拥有的政治能量仍然不可小觑。     

尼泊尔种姓制度的历史沿革

尼泊尔的种姓制度源于印度。随着梨查维人进入加德满都谷地并建立王朝 ,种姓制度在尼泊尔开始萌芽。马拉王朝时期 ,贾亚斯提迪国王 (1380 - 14 2 2 )实施宗教和社会改革 ,正式建立了尼泊尔的种姓制度。 19世纪下半叶 ,忠格·巴哈杜尔将军攫取政权后颁布国家法今 ,对种姓予以重新划定 ,并推及全国。 196 2年马亨德拉国王以法律的形式废除了种姓制度 ,但种姓制度的残余犹存 ,影响犹在。     

The European Endowment for Democracy and Democracy Promotion in the EU Neighbourhood

The European Endowment for Democracy (EED) is a recently established instrument of democracy promotion intended to complement existing EU tools. Fashioned after the US National Endowment for Democracy, the EED’s privileged area of action is the European neighbourhood. Meant as a small rapid-response, actor-oriented ‘niche’ initiative, its main task is to select those actors, from both civil and political society able to produce a change in their country. The EED represents a step forward in the EU’s capacity to foster democracy, but does not necessarily go in the direction of more rationality and effectiveness. Not all EU member states support the EED with the same enthusiasm and it is still not clear how it fits into the EU’s overall democracy promotion architecture. Its actions may be successful in a very constrained timeframe. However, recent crises at the EU’s borders would seem to call for a strategy that takes into consideration systemic hindrances, post-regime change complexities, regional dynamics and finally rival plans of autocracy promotion.     

Democracy and the multinationals

The relationship between western multinational corporations' perceived commercial interests and democratic quality in developing markets is more varied than habitually argued. While autocratic policy making and low-intensity democracy have been judged to provide benefits to investors, they are also increasingly recognized to generate features prejudicial to commercial operations. Many investment trends reflect the adverse impact of democratic limitations in developing markets. Multinational companies can be faulted less for a uniform effort to frustrate democratic improvements than for a failure to develop a coherent or proactive engagement in relation to the international democracy promotion agenda.     

主权民主:普京对俄罗斯民主理论与实践的探索

普京执政以后,主张在加强国家权威主义的基础上发展符合俄罗斯国情的民主政治。普京的“主权民主”思想,既是维护俄国家政治、经济、军事权益的现实需要,也是为保证后普京时代俄国家政治体制得以继承与发展的一项战略举措。     

Democracy and the demographic transition

This article addresses the role of demographic factors in contributing to the emergence of democracy. It maintains that, other things being equal, progress in the demographic transition promotes democratization. The argument is developed with reference to the effects of interrelated changes in mortality, natural increase (i.e. population growth), fertility, and population age structure. Suggestions are also made with respect to how demographic and democratic trends should be gauged. An analysis of data for the period 1970–2005 for 77 countries that were initially non-democratic provides substantial support for the argument. Some implications are discussed, as are future trends in democratization from a demographer’s perspective.     

Capitalism,Democracy and the War in Iraq

Although Saddam Hussein was a bloody tyrant, and although deposing him served a noble purpose, one still may doubt the wisdom of the American war against Iraq. It is quite dubious whether the democratisation of Iraq can serve as a justification of the American war effort. Properly understood, the democratic peace proposition does not promise that poor, emerging, and illiberal democracies surrounded by autocracies are more peaceful than autocracies. By itself, the transition towards democracy is quite likely to imply some semi-democratic phase when the country is at risk of civil war. Moreover, the democratic peace proposition says nothing at all about the likelihood of success of democratisation in a poor, oil-rich, Arab and Muslim country where there is little common ground to unite the democracy-imposing occupier and the defeated country. Finally, defeating the insurgency in the Sunni triangle of Iraq might require means which a democracy cannot even wish to apply. Whereas the promotion of democracy by war looks like a dead end and is doomed to failure, the prospects of promoting peace by exporting capitalism, growth, and prosperity look much better. Such a strategy even serves the purpose of later democratisation of those countries that now accept only creeping capitalism.     

种姓制度对印度现代化进程的影响

种姓制度是印度社会特有的等级制度,主要存在于印度教中,对伊斯兰教和锡克教也有不同程度的影响。在这种制度中,每个种姓集团都占据一定的社会位置,最高种姓是婆罗门,其次是刹帝利,再下面是吠舍,处在底层的是首陀罗。此外,还有一大批不能进入种姓序列、专门从事卑贱和脏累工作的贱民(又称不可接触者)。每个种姓都包括许多亚     

Sanctions and Democracy

How do economic sanctions affect democratization, and should the former be used to promote the latter? Imposing economic pain on large swaths of an already vulnerable population in order to nudge democratic change poses thorny issues. Does it work, in terms of securing democratic outcomes? Even if it did, is this way of achieving change justifiable? We explore the connections between the normative and positive sides of the argument for sanctions in light of theoretical and normative progress in two decades of post-Cold War research on democracy. We argue that some sanctions policies used under specific conditions are more justifiable, but there are other sanctions policies that are less justifiable.     

民主与非洲的政治发展

“民主”与“政治发展”是两个在历史渊源和内容上都有重大差别的概念。与“民主”相比 ,“政治发展”的内涵和外延更大 ,更具张力和持久力。在强调大众参与和政治民主的同时 ,“政治发展”还关注政治文化的形成、政治结构的分化 ,以及社会稳定、法制秩序和经济发展 ,等等。民主是影响政治发展诸多变量中的一个关键变量。兼顾效率(经济发展 )和秩序 (社会稳定和法制 )的民主可以极大地促进政治发展。反之 ,则会造成政治衰败 (或称政治不发展 )。当前非洲的政治发展必须通过民主变革加以推进 ,要强调法治以及社会体制的一种稳定和有序的变化 ,建立“有法治的民主”。另外 ,政治发展还要兼顾效率和经济发展 ,并注重有非洲特色的新型政治文化的培育、形成和发展。     

Democracy in Georgia Since the Rose Revolution

Success for Georgia's nascent democracy would be a major success for the democracy-promotion efforts of the United States, which has hailed the democratization there since the Rose Revolution as a success even as concerns have been voiced by some observers regarding the pace and direction of this effort. The U.S. policy of unconditional support for Georgia's government and its disinterest in drawing attention to the new government's democratization shortcomings call into question how serious the United States is about democracy-promotion, particularly in countries that have a semi-democratic but pro-American government. A U.S. approach to Georgia that recognizes the challenges there and seeks to help it solve these problems will demonstrate that America is sincere in its desire to promote democracy, not just to support friendly governments.     

联合国的民主及其治理

冷战结束后,联合国在众多国际领域的治理及其影响日益广泛,对联合国的民主问责便成为理论和现实中的一种必然要求.本文从联合国成员内部的民主、成员间民主和全球民主三个层次考察了联合国的民主之内涵.在此基础上阐述了联合国的民主治理及其治理机制完善的主要变革途径.     

Transatlantic Democracy Promotion and the Arab Spring

The Arab Awakening can be seen as a symptom of failure of US and EU democracy promotion policies in the region. By identifying democracy with ‘liberal democracy’ – a discursively powerful political move – the contingent character of democracy has been lost. The US and the EU, the main promoters of a neoliberal understanding of democracy, have sided with the wrong side of history. And because they have failed to deeply revise the philosophical underpinnings of their policies, even after 2011, they risk another, even bigger, policy failure.