Democratic control and border security in the Western Balkans

This note focuses on the best means for achieving civilian control of border security in the Balkans. Civilian control may be achieved through societal control (as in civilian complaint reviews) but such procedures require an established political culture that does not yet exist in the region. Civilian control also requires a degree of technical expertise, which is not always available among international officials, let alone local communities.     

The Inter-American Democratic Charter and Governmental Legitimacy in the International Relations of the Western Hemisphere

The adoption of the Inter-American Democratic Charter by the Organization of American States in 2001 proclaiming the right to democracy in the western hemisphere was hailed by many as a landmark development. Since then, however, constitutionally dubious transitions of democratically elected governments were attempted or took place in Venezuela, Haiti, and Ecuador. This paper examines whether the Charter can and should serve as the institutional guarantor of democratic legitimacy in the Americas. Its conclusions are skeptical. As an external instrument, the Charter is bound to have limited impact when government control or authority is subjected to significant domestic disruptions. The Charter's limitations do not lie with the document itself; rather they are inherent in the structure of the international states system. But the Charter's normative basis would be problematic even if these structural limitations did not exist. Taking its cue from the classical liberal approach to international relations, the paper argues that democracy must ultimately be the choice and responsibility of those who live within its bounds, and not of outside governments or institutions.     

The Partnership–Conditionality Binary in the Western Balkans: Promoting Local Ownership for Sustainable Democratic Transition

This article addresses themes relating to the principles of conditionality and partnership, together with the principle of local ownership in the Western Balkans, notably in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia-Montenegro and Kosovo. Specifically assessing the emotive territorial questions facing these Western Balkan countries, the article posits that the international community should aim to promote local ownership in the will to sustainable political transition. Given the EU's focus on the Western Balkans as set out in the European Security Strategy and Thessaloniki summit (2003) and developed through the process of Stabilisation and Association, the author advocates a partnership approach that instils local ownership. It is argued that such an approach has a better chance of responding imaginatively and functionally to unresolved territorial questions. In the second section of this article the author applies the concept of partnership to the territorial challenges facing Bosnia, Serbia-Montenegro and Kosovo. Partnership, as based on the concepts of local ownership and needs-based responsiveness, as opposed to strictly codified conditionality set by Dayton, UN Resolution 1244 and the EU Stabilisation and Association process, is more likely to resolve the ongoing principal territorial political tensions in the Western Balkans.     

法属印度支那税收体制特征剖析

税收是法国在印度支那推行的殖民经济政策的重要组成部分。本文梳理了法国海军殖民地部的部分税务档案,认为法属印度支那的税收体制具有如下基本特征:税收名目多,税额重;在直接税征收上一直推行“集体纳税人”制和包税方式;在间接税征收上长期奉行以鸦片和盐酒专卖税为主的政策。这一具有浓厚殖民主义色彩的税收体制是法属印度支那畸形单一经济结构形成的主要原因之一。     

The Implications of Myanmar's Democratic Transition

正Since assuming power in March 2011,Myanmar’s civilian government has been committed to democratic transition in the country that is in accordance with the Constitution.Its efforts have not     

炎黄子孙在非洲

本文通过考察非洲华人在1949～1999年的经济发展及其对当地社会的贡献和他们的适应能力,分析了海外华人的持续生命力。50年里,非洲华人从1949年约2.7万增至13万以上。华人因具有对当地文化和国际经济的适应性而保持着顽强的生命力。从根本上来说,非洲华人经济的发展是对居留国的贡献1．在华人定居较早之地,华人以经商为主要职业,为激活国内外贸易、联接国内各地经济、沟通城乡间关系作出了贡献。2．从60年代起,即有少数华商从香港、东南亚和台湾等地移民非洲,从事新的创业;从80年代后期起,一批华商来到非洲。他们携带资本技术,在非洲或创设制造业,或推广贸易,或投资工业自由区。这些新的华人产业既为所在国解决了一部分就业问题,也为这些国家赚取了大量外汇,同时还产生了良好的示范作用。这无疑给当地的华人经济以新的推动力。     

Obama's Legacy The Foreign Policy of the Late-Term Obama Administration

The year 2014 was a tipping point for the Barack Obama Administration-that was the year when it strove to forge a legacy of the Obama era but came up against challenges arising from major changes that were taking place internationally and domestically.The Administration was then focused on maintaining a fragile balance between creating this legacy and responding to these challenges.Obama stuck to his fundamental principles when dealing with overseas affairs,but he also came up with new responses.The dynamic balance struck between these two formed the basis of the global strategy of the late-term Obama Administration.The Administration's focus at this time highlights the dilemma it faced in forging a legacy.Further,the foreign policy of Obama and Trump are actually not so different;they both supported some degree of isolationism with a focus on domestic issues.     

The Dearth of Jointly Dyadic Democratic Interventions

The Democratic Peace Proposition, which states that no two democracies have ever gone to war with each other, has been questioned by scholars who claim that such pacific behavior among free states does not apply to lower forms of conflict. In particular, Kegley and Hermann contend that democracies intervene in the affairs of other liberal states via overt military acts or covert machinations. In many cases, they argue that dyadic democratic interventions (DDIs) occur more frequently than would be expected given the number of jointly democratic dyads in the international system. I examine their research design and suggest changes to their concepts of states, interventions, and regime type, as well as their sample size and definition of dyads in the international system. I implement these changes and retest such arguments on a sample of interventions from 1945 to 1991. I find 11 cases where a democracy intervenes against another democracy, but these cases are rare in comparison to interventions conducted by democratic and/or autocratic states in undemocratic states, or by autocratic states against democratic states. Furthermore, these DDIs are less likely to occur than the presence of democracy in the international system would suggest.     

The Tasks of Democratic Transition and Transferability

There is no single road to democracy. However, there are some factors that seem to have consistently positive effects on democratic development. These include the existence of a large and diverse civil society; a sharp political break with the authoritarian past, followed by regular turnovers in political leadership and governing parties; stable state borders; and political institutions which empower parliaments and, in culturally diverse societies, give minorities political voice without locking them into permanent coalitions that block collaboration across group divides in pursuit of common goals. Less important are economic considerations—though economic reforms are far more likely in democratic settings than in authoritarian regimes and far more supportive over the medium- and long-term of robust economic performance.     

民主改革以来印度尼西亚的反腐败工作

民主改革以来,印度尼西亚各届政府都把反腐败工作当作所必须进行的一项重要任务。印度尼西亚在反腐败工作中采取制度反腐,社会反腐以及廉政教育等手段来治理腐败。虽然印度尼西亚的腐败得到了一定遏制,但是效果并不显著。本文重点分析印度尼西亚反腐败工作中出现的问题及其产生的原因,发现印度尼西亚的历史传统、政治制度设计加之金融危机以及印度尼西亚内部社会不稳定,都对该国的反腐败工作产生了消极的影响。认为由于腐败根基较深,印度尼西亚的反腐败之路任重而道远。     

The Theory of Democratic Peace and Threat Perception

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's assessment of Hitler as a potential threat to American security in the aftermath of the Munich crisis highlights the role of liberal-democratic norms in shaping the threat perceptions of democratic leaders. A critical factor in Roosevelt's post-Munich expectation of future trouble for the United States was his judgment that Hitler's contempt for democratic processes of accommodation forecasted unlimited aims. Since Roosevelt did not link his perception of threat to regime type, however, this episode also calls into question a central tenet of the theory of democratic peace: the notion that democracies invariably harbor a "presumption of enmity" toward nondemocracies. Nevertheless, the Munich case allows us to see which democratic norms do matter in threat perception and establishes that they are not simply the epiphenomena of state interests. Moreover, Roosevelt's response to the Munich crisis shows that threat can be assessed primarily on the basis of intentions and suggests how democratic predispositions can provide indicators of intent. Finally, in analyzing why some democratic leaders derive diagnostic information about aggressive intentions from such indicators, while others do not, this article explores the connection between different leaders' perceptions and the foreign policy processes of democratic states.     

民主社会主义在俄罗斯的历史命运

20世纪初,俄罗斯就产生了民主社会主义的思潮和组织,并对俄国革命和苏联建立产生了比较大的影响。60年代,苏联地下持不同政见者运动也提出了建立人道的社会主义的主张。80年代中期,苏联开启了新一轮的改革,建立“人道的、民主的社会主义”成为苏共改革的目标。同时,苏共逐步被社会民主党化。但是1991年八一九事件后,苏联向“中左”方向的改革和苏共、俄共社会民主党化的进程被历史性地中断了。虽然在苏联解体后,俄罗斯的前共产党人纷纷组建了十余个具有民主社会主义性质的政党,但是,这些政党都比较弱小,未能进入国家杜马就被边缘化了。本文重点说明的是:苏共、俄共为什么未能像东欧前共产党那样集体地转变为社会民主党,并且在转变后保持组织的规模和力量;为什么也未能像西欧和东欧社会党那样成为本国左翼阵营的主导力量,并且通过选举经常获得执政权。     

The Soldier, The State, and The Clash of Civilizations: The Legacy of Samuel Huntington

The major military challenge that the United States faces today is the war in Afghanistan. The U.S. military is engaged in a grueling counterinsurgency campaign against the Islamist movement known as the Taliban, which is based among Pashtun tribes in Southeastern Afghanistan and Northwestern Pakistan, who have never been permanently subdued by a foreign military force. This challenge comes in the wake of that other grueling counterinsurgency war that the U.S. military has had to conduct in Iraq, where its chief adversary was the Islamist movement known as al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Moreover, the challenge in Afghanistan comes on what could be the eve of an impending military challenge, perhaps even a war, with Iran, as that Islamist state relentlessly moves toward acquiring nuclear weapons. In its entire history of two- and-a-quarter centuries, the United States has never been engaged in an unbroken succession of three wars, in three different countries. Together, the U.S. wars with or within Islamist countries add up to what is a “long war,” indeed.     

The Political Survival of Foreign Ministers

The survival of governments ultimately depends on the survival of its components. These components are politicians whose goal is to stay in office. There has been extensive research on the survival of leaders, but not on the survival of other politicians in government; and even less on how the survival of one affects the survival of the others. The purpose of this article is to take the first step in this direction by analyzing and precisely measuring the impact of the tenure of leaders on the tenure of foreign ministers. This article provides a systematic and formal investigation of the variables that affect the duration in office of foreign ministers. The investigation is based on a new data base on the tenure of more than 7,500 foreign ministers spanning three centuries. Although evidence shows that political institutions have significant impact on the tenure of foreign ministers, internal coalition dynamics such as affinity and loyalty toward a leader, uncertainty, and time dependence are better predictors of their political survival.     

柬博寨的华人华侨

华人简史柬埔寨的华人和华侨的历史可以追溯到一千多年以前。１８９０年柬埔寨的华侨华人达到１３万 ,２０世纪６０年代末 ,估计有４２万。后来由于柬埔寨国内政治局势多次剧烈变动 ,华人华侨的数量明显减少。到了９０年代 ,随着全面和平的实现 ,政局稳定 ,经济发展 ,柬埔寨和中国的关系改善和加强 ,柬埔寨华人华侨的数量逐步回升 ,但绝大多数的华侨已经加入柬埔寨国籍 ,成为柬埔寨民族的一部分。柬埔寨政府不再颁发华侨身份证 ,华人已经完全融入柬埔寨社会。柬埔寨政府在经济上和文化上对华人和柬埔寨人实行一视同仁的政策 ,不歧视华人。柬…     

晚清驻外领事中的华商侨领

晚清驻外领事品流纷杂,来源不一,其中驻在国华商侨领膺任领职者,在晚清设领保商护侨方面发挥的作用独具特色,尤为引人注目。本文拟分析华商侨领充任领事的原因,概述其作为,并在此基础上对其做一更为客观、公允的评价。