Self-determination and the Use of Referendums: the Case of Scotland

The Scottish Nationalist Party’s majority in the 2011 Scottish parliamentary elections opened up a wide and interesting debate on the variety of options for Scotland’s constitutional future (ranging from the status quo through a variety of intermediate options to full independence), and with it, also the innovate possibility of a multi-option referendum, reflecting the preferences of the people of Scotland. However, while the UK Government agreed that the future of Scotland’s place within the Union was for the people of Scotland to vote on, it strongly contested the Scottish Parliament’s competence to legislate for the referendum, thus ensuring a role for itself and the UK Parliament in its design. After a period of negotiations, the UK and Scottish Governments signed the Edinburgh Agreement on the 15th October 2012, enabling the Scottish Parliament to legislate for a single question referendum, and expressing their commitment to work together in the interests of all involved. This article begins looking at the background, legal framework and negotiations leading up to the Edinburgh Agreement. It then argues that, while the Agreement is notably significant and has allowed for the smooth and fast development of the process so far, by excluding the possibility of including a third option of ‘more devolution’ on the ballot paper, it is having a series of negative consequences for the current debate, namely that it is more limited, confusing and uncertain, and largely unbalanced in favour of the ‘no’ side.     

Understanding Multilevel Governance Processes through Complexity Theory: An Empirical Case Study of the Quebec Health-Care System

This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of multilevel governance processes. We do so by focusing on the in-depth examination of the institutional changes recently implemented in the Quebec health care delivery system that require a close collaboration between interdependent actors acting at various levels of governance. Our three research questions are: (1) How does multi-level governance emerge in a pluralist institutuional context? (2) How do multi-level governance processes shape the adaptive capacity of the organization to its environment? (3) How does institutional context influence these multi-governance processes?Our empirical investigation is inspired by the theory of complexity which invites us to pay attention to three processes: self-organization, eco-self organization and co-evolution. This study shows that the effectiveness of multi-level governance processes do not only go through the implementation of instruments aiming at aligning the action of lower government levels with the objectives of the upper levels as suggested by numerous existing works. More precisely, it suggests that more distributed and coordinated processes favor a more homogenous form of adaptation (Miller and Page, 2007) taking into account the interdependence between stakeholders.     

列宁“民族自决权”思想缘起探析

19世纪末20世纪初,列宁在继承前人思想成果的基础上,结合时代特征,基于俄国的国情与民族特点,为坚持和发展马克思主义民族理论,实现各国各民族的无产阶级在反对帝国主义的国际社会主义革命和争取民族解放、独立斗争中的团结与统一,对民族自决权思想进行了新的阐发与实践。     

渐进性、自主性与强政府--分析中国改革模式的政治视角

中国的改革模式,分为渐进性的改革方式、自主性的改革,并有强政府的政治保障.所谓渐进性的改革方式,就是以现有的条件为基础,并以现实的问题为导向,在现实的可能中不断试错探索的循序渐进式改革.所谓自主性的改革,就是改革的主动权掌握在改革的领导者--中国政府手中,政府能够顶住内部和外部一些不合理或不合时宜的压力,根据中国社会改革和发展的具体情况与需要,自主地选择改革的方向、内容、步骤、方式、力度和时机等.所谓"强政府",就是在矛盾极为尖锐复杂的社会转型时期,能够有效维持社会秩序,应对国内外的各种挑战,动员和组织社会资源,促进社会转型和社会发展的有较高治理能力的政府.这些特征的形成在很大程度上是由中国的具体条件所决定的.     

Governance Structures and Political Processes in a Public System: Lessons from Quebec

Debates about the form and nature of changes in the management of public systems have for some time now been articulated under the theme of governance. All definitions of governance are related to the problems of securing convergence among a diversity of actors and organizations, of redistributing power in an organizational or social field characterized by a high level of heterogeneity and of gaining sufficient legitimacy to act in the name of the collectivity. This paper concentrates on the dynamics involved in the emergence of new governing capabilities in public systems. More precisely we study the implementation of regionalization policies in the health care field (in this case of Canada) conceived as one major attempt to renew the governance structures in a large public system. Our study draws on the comparative analysis of empirical regulation in three health regions as contrasted with three ideal type models of governance in regionalized systems. The first model is inspired by an economic approach to organizational behaviour and focuses on mandate‐giving, execution and control. The second model is based on a political interpretation of behaviours and focuses on negotiation processes between actors. Finally, the third model is based on the theory of deliberation as well as the institutional school of policy analysis and focuses on direct public participation in public affairs. Evidence for this article is primarily derived from interviews with key informants and documentary analysis. Our analysis shows that none of the three models is sufficient in itself to grant regional structures the authority and legitimacy they need to create added value in terms of regulation that could ensure their survival. Regional Boards are thus forced by environmental constraints to conceive and implement original mixes of these models. The two predominant logics in regional action are inspired by the first two models although the last one also has an influence. Overall, our study also suggests that the implementation of new sources of governing authorities in a public system is rather fragile because of dependence on existing institutions. Clearly, the attempt to modify the dynamics of governance in a given system must be conceived as a political exercise and not just as a technical problem consisting of the rational adjustment of policy instruments.     

A Case Study of Glasgow's Use of the Prudential Borrowing Framework (PBF) for Schools Rationalisation

This paper analyses Glasgow's use of the Prudential Borrowing Framework (PBF) for rationalisation and renewal of its primary schools and the additional borrowing costs to be met by the resulting efficiency savings and by sale of surplus school sites. Our findings reveal that the PBF has many perceived advantages compared with the Private Finance Initiative/Public Private Partnership (PFI/PPP) route to capital procurement and modernisation. In particular, the link between policy and the use of resources is more transparent under PBF than for PFI/PPPs. However, the approach to risk management seems to have become more relaxed using the PBF even though the Council now retains all associated risks.     

Locus of control and academic efficacy in the thoughts of life and death of young Quebec university students

This study evaluated the role of control and efficacy expectations in the thoughts of life and death of 50 male and 50 female university students and investigated sex differences in this regard. It followed a correlational design and employed measures of tridimensional locus of control, expectations of academic efficacy, thoughts of life and death. A comparison of means revealed that male students did not differ from their female counterparts on any of the variables under study. Stepwise regression coefficients indicated that the two cognitive factors accounted more for thoughts of death than for thoughts of life; expectations of academic efficacy were the single variable that most explained variance. Regression equations by sex showed that thoughts of life were associated with internality and expectations of academic efficacy in females, and that thoughts of death were associated with expectations of academic inefficacy in males. The university counseling personnel should be especially sensitive to youths presenting with expectations of externality and of academic inefficacy. The latter variable seems to be particularly important, regardless of sex.     

Size and Local Democracy: the Case of Czech Municipal Representatives

The municipal structure of the Czech Republic experienced a wave of fragmentation after the fall of the communist regime. As a result, most Czech municipalities today have populations of only a few hundred inhabitants. This situation creates specific conditions for the democratic functioning of local representative bodies. In this paper we focus on two features of Czech local government. First, we deal with electoral competitiveness in Czech municipalities; second, we analyse councillors' accountability to voters, their readiness to stand for re-election and their electoral success in successive elections. Based on an analysis of data on individual candidates and elected councillors in four successive terms, we demonstrate that the willingness to stand for election and re-election does not decrease over time; however, the choice among different candidates is limited in the smallest municipalities. Thus, the data show a reduced willingness to stand for re-election and an extraordinarily high chance of re-election in smaller municipalities. This finding weakens the general assumption about higher accountability of elected officials in small municipalities. On a more general level, we conclude that Czech local government has some features of small political systems with infrequent occurrence of major election conflicts.     

The Case of Nord-Ost: Dubrovka and the Search for Answers

The paper reviews the experience of the group Nord-Ost (The Regional Social Organisation for Assistance and Defence of the Victims of Terrorist Acts) as an example of an NGO that has taken a rights advocacy position which has led it into confrontation with the state. Nord-Ost demands the state's accountability for the consequences of its response to the 2002 Dubrovka terrorist attack. Thus, it confronts challenges common to other rights advocacy groups in Russia today.     

Foreign Fighters and the Case of Chechnya: A Critical Assessment

The aim of this article is to explore and analyze the role of foreign fighters in the recent episodes of Russo–Chechen violence in the North Caucasus. The article begins by offering a preliminary theoretical consideration of foreign fighters, indicating how the events in Afghanistan combined with the development of a Salafi-Jihadist movement that would shape subsequent conflicts in the North Caucasus throughout the 1990s. The article will then move on to identify the role of Arab foreign fighters in Chechnya, demonstrating how a complex local and global social networks enable and motivate volunteers.     

Crisis and Upgrading: The Case of the Hungarian Automotive and Electronics Sectors

By triggering a wave of organisational restructuring, reconfiguration of supply chains and consolidation of business processes at multinational companies, the crisis offered significant upgrading opportunities for peripheral actors in globalised production networks (the so-called global value chains). Drawing on Hungarian case studies of local subsidiaries in the automotive and electronics industries, this essay investigates the crisis-induced product, process and functional upgrading opportunities in low-cost locations. We show Hungary's high level of integration into global value chains and document the rapidly ongoing process of functional upgrading.     

Cosmopolitanism and National Tradition: The Case of Slovenia

This paper discusses the contradictions of maintaining national identity in the age of globalization. It investigates the central relevance of the concept of citizenship in light of the encroaching forces of economic and cultural globalization, on the one hand; and ethnic, nationalistic, and religious fundamentalism, on the other. The paper argues for the need to recognize not only the meaning of national identity, derived mainly from works of art and literature in a given tradition, but also its potential to head off forms of reductionism, be they economic or ethnic. In this regard, the paper calls for a theoretically subtle approach to the contemporary dilemmas of small nations, caught between the fundamentalist temptation (nationalism) and global corporate homogeneity. The case of Slovenia is used here to spell out the necessity to develop a cosmopolitan attitude, characterized as it is by both local cultural tradition and international codes of expression. Such an attitude may best be developed in a civic sphere that provides the mediating ground between the solipsistic pursuit of individual happiness and governmental political regimentation.     

Democrats and Minority Marginalization: The Case of Pakistan

Pakistan is the first post-war experiment in political Islam to establish a democratic state. While Pakistan's consistently poor democratic record has disadvantaged every citizen, its religious minorities are especially marginalized. This article argues that this marginalization is a consequence of institutionalized political inequality, which indeed may be the root cause of Pakistan's overall democratic weakness. Again, contrary to the popular perception, this article demonstrates that Pakistan's democratic leaderships are as—if not more—complicit in this marginalization as the Islamist dictator Zia-ul-Haq and others. First, the worldview of Pakistan's ostensibly liberal-democratic founder Mahomed Ali Jinnah and its impact on the constitutional framework of Pakistan is analysed. Second, the political culture spawned by another ostensibly democratic leader Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in securing the mandate for the new post-1971 constitution is explicated. These two ‘democratic’ processes have profoundly influenced the marginalization of religious minorities in Pakistan. This has significant lessons for ‘democratic’ transition leaderships in the contemporaneously evolving cognate experiments in the Arab Spring regions and elsewhere where similarly small minorities exist.