Future Shock or Future Stability?: Generational Change and the Australian Party System

The stability of the Australian two‐party system has been a long‐running feature of Australian politics. But a question outstanding in the literature is how different generations of Australians contribute to the stability of the Australian two‐party system and how this has changed over time. In answering this question, this article sheds light on generational effects and party system change that better informs us about the sources of voting patterns over a long period of time. Further, this article draws on and builds on the international literature on generations and party systems.     

Leadership or Policy? Explaining the 2015 Queensland Election Result

Australian electoral politics historically have been described as stable, with hung parliaments rare and changes of government infrequent. However, the 2015 Queensland election, where a government with the largest parliamentary majority in Australian history was defeated after a single term in office, seriously challenges assumptions of Australian electoral stability, and determining the causes behind this result is therefore of significant scholarly interest. While many journalistic analyses of the 2015 Queensland election argue that the distinctive leadership style of Liberal‐National Party leader Campbell Newman was wholly or principally responsible for the government's defeat, this article argues the result emerged from a confluence of factors, with two — a contentious LNP policy to lease major government‐owned assets, and Campbell Newman's “combative” leadership style — of relatively equal significance as principal determinants.     

The Spring 2011 Landtag Elections: Regional Specificities or National Electoral Dynamics?

The year 2011 is a Superwahljahr in Germany, with five states (Hamburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Bremen) holding Land-level elections in the spring and two more (Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) following in the autumn. The debate on the ‘second-order’ nature of Land elections – whether they are to be understood by their own regionally specific dynamics or whether they primarily serve as a proxy for national electoral trends – provides the frame for this election report and its discussion of campaigns, election results and coalition outcomes. These elections could perhaps best be described as ‘one-and-a-half-order’ elections: in some of these elections there was evidence of national electoral trends and national political issues, and voters undoubtedly rendered something of a judgement on the federal coalition government. Nevertheless, election and coalition outcomes probably had more to do with the specific political conditions prevailing in each of these states than with any overarching national dynamic.     

China,the United States,and the Future of Regional Security Order—An Unhappy Coexistence

The concept of order in regional security is often characterized as hierarchical, consensus-based, or some hybrid middle-road. The debate largely focuses on how major powers, specifically China or America, can individually build an accommodating order. This article explores the causation of order-building in reverse by asking if the Sino-US relationship can create order as a by-product of individual attempts to build and manage security. It examines Chinese and American responses to North Korea and the South China Sea to demonstrate that order can be constructed through a complex set of negotiated interactions, which encompass cooperative, hierarchical, and consensus-building approaches to order-building. This “unhappy coexistence” implies that order as a by-product of state interaction is a useful but incomplete framework to understand security order-building.     

The Ottoman Identity: Turkish,Muslim or Rum?

It is awkward for historians to depict a clear-cut portrayal of Ottoman identity. Scholarly analyses by and large lay emphasis on the Islamic and Turkish character of the Ottoman Empire. However, it would be reductionist to evaluate an empire that lasted for six centuries, on three different continents, with solely monolithic ethno-religious tools. A new approach around the term Rum may help to get rid of this reductionism and to understand the sui generis structure of the Ottoman identity. Instead of focusing on ethnic and religious aspects, this novel approach would add both a territorial dimension of Ottoman hegemony and also a social component regarding the relations between the rulers and the ruled. The Rum, with a meaning above Orthodoxy, Greek or Roman Empire, can highlight the ingredients of Ottoman identity and help to overcome the influence of modern nationalist discourses in historical readings.     

Brazilian Regional Leadership Revisited: Testing the Long-Term Determinants of South American Followership (1995–2015)

Over the last twenty years, Brazil has staked successive claims to regional leadership, with varying explicitness and unclear success. What factors explain the acceptance or rejection of such claims by South American countries? This article summarises the literature on regional powers and frames regional powerhood as arising from geographical belonging, resources, and will to lead; and leadership/followership as stemming from exclusivity, hierarchy/influence, consensus, and provision. By analysing panel data on Brazil and South America from 1995 to 2015, the study concludes that Brasilia enjoyed higher followership in situations characterised by high exclusivity and consensus, and low hierarchy and provision. These conditions were present in South America in the 1990s, thus rendering that decade more receptive to Brazilian leadership.     

Nasser's Dilemma: Egypt's Relations with the United States and Israel, 1967–69

The article examines the American political efforts to bring about an agreement between Israel and Egypt between 1967 and 1969 and analyses the reasons for their failure. But it does not focus exclusively on the Americans; it also outlines the alternatives for Egyptian action during the period in question and looks at the political and military steps taken by Egypt's president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, vis-à-vis Israel and the United States. The main conclusion is that despite Egypt's dependence on the Soviet Union for economic aid and the rebuilding of the decimated Egyptian army, Nasser knew that the only route to a political process to regain Sinai ran through the United States. His diplomatic efforts were all derived from this insight. At the same time, the Egyptian president's attempts to exploit American pressure to his benefit, as he had done in 1957, was undercut by his overestimation of his bargaining chips, a mistake that was one factor in the collapse of the efforts to reach a diplomatic agreement in the region.     

The Africanisation of Children's Rights in South Africa: Quo Vadis?

The article seeks to demonstrate how traditional African approaches to justice pervade the Child Justice Act 75 of 2008 (CJA) in ways that provide young offenders the possibility to have their dignity restored, by affording them an opportunity to take responsibility for their wrongful conduct. The article argues that this approach to justice underscores African values of Ubuntu and restorative justice in addressing offending in terms of the CJA. In the final analysis, the author argues that the successful implementation of these approaches will depend partly on how innovative officers in judicial proceedings are in using African models of justice, the values of the Constitution, and the lived experiences of children in conflict with the law.     

Israel: ethnocracy or multicracy?

Much of the recent academic literature that assesses democracy in Israel labels it either as incomplete or flawed, yet such literature employs minimal systematic analysis of how the state is actually governed. Since the 1990s, there has been a tendency to describe the Israeli political regime as an ethnocracy. This article argues that the term ‘ethnocracy’, when applied to Israel, has certain weaknesses and instead proposes the concept of ‘multicracy’ (multiformocracy) as a more appropriate term by which to describe Israel's political organization. It will demonstrate that existing Israeli democratic institutions do not control the state's policymaking in full and that several politically important processes are controlled or at least influenced by various other politically active forces. Whilst these forces can influence, stimulate, inhibit, and otherwise change governmental decisions and actions, they can be labeled as kratiae. While the capacity of Israel's democracy to govern is weak, these other kratiae can intervene in policymaking and the state's regime acts as democracy-dominated multicracy.     

Mauritania, August 2005: Justice and democracy, or just another coup?

A military coup abruptly ended Ould Taya’s authoritarianregime in Mauritania, one of the longest-running regimes inWest Africa. The bloodless coup broke a dangerous politicalimpasse and stopped what seemed to be a slide towards breakdownand violence. Using the democratization literature, this articleexplains its root causes and evaluates the prospects for theestablishment of a genuine democracy after two decades of arepressive military and then quasi-military regime. It arguesthat several variables combined to seal the regime’s fate.These are essentially the deeply flawed, tribally based, make-believedemocracy, Ould Taya’s own troubled personality, and finally,the security apparatus’s withdrawal of its backing. Thearticle also argues that the new military junta’s firstdecisions appear encouraging enough but that its determinationto keep a tight control over the transition process and avoidthe fundamental aspects of Mauritania’s malaise may jeopardizegenuine long-term democratization. ^1. Julius O. Ihonvbere, ‘A balance sheet of Africa’stransition to democratic governance’, in John Mbaku andJulius O. Ihonvbere (eds), The Transition to Democratic Governancein Africa (Praeger, Westport, CT, 2003), p. 51. ^2. On Mali, see Zeric K. Smith, ‘Mali’s decade of democracy’,Journal of Democracy 12, 3 (2001), pp. 73–9; for the Ivorianexperiment under General Guéï, see Boubacar N’Diaye,‘Not a miracle after all ... Côte d’Ivoire’sdownfall: flawed civil-military relations and missed opportunities’,Scientia Militaria 33, 1 (2005), pp. 89–118. ^3. Alfred Stepan, ‘Paths toward redemocratisation: theoreticaland comparative considerations’, in Guillermo O’Donnell,Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead (eds), Transitionsfrom Authoritarian Rule (The Johns Hopkins University Press,Baltimore, MD, 1988), pp. 64–84. ^4. One of the very few Anglophone specialists on Mauritania, AnthonyPazzanita, thought that the prospects for democracy for Mauritaniaafter 1992 were ‘bright’, but apparently never revisitedthe issue. See Anthony Pazzanita, ‘The origin and evolutionof Mauritania’s second republic’, Journal of ModernAfrican Studies 34, 4 (1996), pp. 575–96. ^5. For an authoritative discussion of the subject, see PhilippeMarchesin, Tribus, ethnies et pouvoir en Mauritanie (Khartala,Paris, 1992). ^6. See Abdel Wedoud Ould Cheikh, ‘Des voix dans le désert:sur les élections de l’ère pluraliste’,Politique Africaine 55 (1994), pp. 31–9. ^7. There are no official statistics on the ethno-cultural make-upof the country. At independence, it was assumed that the Beydane(including the Haratines) made up 75 percent of the population.However, in the late 1970s, the government kept under seal theresults of the national census, prompting allegations that thiswas done to conceal the demographic shift in favour of blacks,who have a higher birth rate. Unspoken quotas seem to stilluse 75:25 percent of Beydane and Negro-Mauritanians, respectively.However, there is a growing consensus that the general breakdowngiven here, although a rough estimate, is closest to the demographicreality of Mauritania today. ^8. ‘El Hor’ means freeman. It is a semi-recognizedpolitical movement set up by the Haratine elites to fight themanifestations and legacy of slavery. SOS-Esclaves is (untilrecently non-recognized) a human rights organization set upto monitor the issue of slavery and assist slaves to attainfreedom. ^9. See Human Rights Watch/Africa, Mauritania’s Campaign ofTerror: State sponsored repression of black Africans (HumanRights Watch, New York, 1994); Janet Fleishman, ‘Ethniccleansing’, Africa Report 39 (1994), p. 45. ^10. The chairman of the junta has publicly stated that the fearof a complete breakdown of the state is what prompted the militaryto act. As I argue, other less lofty considerations, such aspersonal survival, cannot be discounted. ^11. The International Crisis Group, in particular, issued a reportthat exposed Ould Taya’s attempts to delegitimize thelegal opposition, including moderate Islamists, by assimilatingthem to fundamentalist terrorists, warning that the whole schemecould very well backfire. See International Crisis Group, L’Islamismeen Afrique du nord IV: Contestation islamiste en Mauritanie:Menace ou bouc émissaire? (Rapport Moyen-Orient/Afriquedu Nord No. 41, Brussels, 2005). ^12. After his November 2003 electoral victory, which the US governmentmust have known to be fraudulent, he received a glowing messageof congratulations from President Bush. This support to oneof the most repressive regimes in West Africa was bitterly resentedby many democratic activists. Initially, the Bush administrationwas the only government to demand the return of Ould Taya topower, who was called, in the early hours of the coup, by theUS ambassador in Nouakchott, as the US State Department dailybriefings of 4 August 2005 indicate. ^13. The chairman of the military council made this statement threedays after the coup when he addressed the assembled leadersof political parties. For the text of the statement, see http://ufpweb.org/transition/ce385/interv/alloc_eli.htm,4 December 2006. ^14. Author’s interviews with Mohamed Vall Ould Oumere, editorialdirector of La Tribune, Nouackchott, May 2004. ^15. Mahamadou Sy, L’enfer d’inal (L’Harmattan,Paris, 2000). ^16. The best-known members of this financial and political network:Ahmed Ould Taya (Ould Taya’s brother), Abdallahi OuldNoueguet, Sejad Ould Abeidna (both Smasside), Mohamed Ould Bouamattou(an Oulad Bousbaa), and Abdou Ould Maham (an Idewaali). ^17. See Africa Research Bulletin (15 November 1987), p. 8674. ^18. See Philippe Marchesin, ‘Origine et évolution despartis et groupes politiques’, Politique Africaine 55(1994), p. 27. ^19. Stepan, ‘Paths’, p. 76. ^20. See ‘Petit coup d’Etat entre amis’, La Lettredu Continent (Paris), 25 August 2005. ^21. Boubacar N’Diaye, ‘Mauritania’s stalled democratisation’,Journal of Democracy 12, 3 (2001), p. 93. ^22. Peter Da Costa, ‘Democracy in doubt’, Africa Report37, 3 (1992), p. 60. ^23. Boubacar N’Diaye, Abdoulaye Saine, and Matturin Houngnikpo,‘Not Yet Democracy’: West Africa’s slow farewellto authoritarianism (Carolina Academic Press, Durham, NC, 2005),pp. 107–37. ^24. Cedric Jourde, ‘"The President is coming to visit!" Dramasand the hijack of democratisation in the Islamic Republic ofMauritania’, Comparative Politics 38 (2005), pp. 421–40. ^25. Boubacar N’Diaye, ‘The effect of Mauritania’s"human rights deficit": the case against "to forgive and forget"’,African Journal of Policy Studies 8, 1 (2002), pp. 17–35. ^26. N’Diaye et al., ‘Not Yet’, p. 193. ^27. The coup leaders made a point to signal the transitory natureof military regime and their willingness to usher in a politicalsystem that was completely different from the one they overthrew.See ‘Nouakchott calm, but new "colonels’ regime"faces outside political pressure’ (http://journals.aol.com/mfg917/Lilithharp17/entries/2378,5 April 2006). ^28. Marina Ottaway, Democracy Challenged: The rise of semi-authoritarianism(Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC,2003), pp. 3–27. Up to August 2005, Mauritania seemedto fit approximately Ottaway’s ’semi-authoritarianismof decay’ category, pp. 21–3. ^29. William Case, ‘New uncertainties for an old pseudo-democracy’,Comparative Politics 37, 1 (2004), pp. 83–104. ^30. N’Diaye et al., ‘Not Yet’, pp. 122–6. ^31. Robert Jackson and Carl Rosberg, Personal Rule in Black Africa:Prince, autocrat, prophet, tyrant (University of CaliforniaPress, Berkeley, 1982). ^32. Jennifer Widner, ‘Two leadership styles and patterns ofpolitical liberalisation’, African Studies Review 37,1 (1994), pp. 151–74; Larry Diamond, ‘Beyond authoritarianism:strategies for democratisation’, in Brad Roberts (ed.),The New Democracies, Global Change and U.S. Policy (MIT Press,Cambridge, MA, 1995); also Juan J. Linz, ‘Crisis, breakdownand re-equilibration’, in Juan Linz and A. Stepan (eds),The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes (Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, Baltimore, MD, 1978), pp. 4–5. ^33. Mohamed Nassirou Athie, ‘Il y a onze ans, le 16 mars’,Al Beyane 14 (1996), p. 8. ^34. Since the 1978 coup, there has been a proliferation of Arabnationalist groups in the Mauritanian army. See Anthony Pazzanita,‘Mauritania’s foreign policy: in search of protection’,Journal of Modern African Studies 30, 3 (1992), pp. 288–300.For example, the military council’s No. 2, Mohamed OuldAbdel Aziz, is said to be one of the leaders of the Nasseristmovement, a pan-Arab nationalist group. ^35. See for example, Mohamed Fall Ould Oumère, ‘Ilévite le face à face’, Al Beyane 5 (1992),p. 1. ^36. Habib Ould Mahfoudh, ‘La tension’, Al Beyane 6 (1992)(Supplement), p. 2. ^37. Ibid, p. 1; see also François Soudan, ‘MaaouiyaOuld Taya: "Le Sénégal nous veut du mal"’,Jeune Afrique 1513 (1990), pp. 34–7. ^38. Pierre-Robert Baudel, ‘La Mauritanie dans l’ordreinternational’, Politique Africaine 55 (1994), pp. 11–19. ^39. Peace and Security Council of the African Union, 37th meeting,‘Report of the Chairperson of the commission on the situationin the Islamic Republic of Mauritania’ (African Union,Addis Ababa, 8 September 2005), p. 7. ^40. Ibid, p. 10. ^41. N‘Diaye, ‘Not a miracle’, p. 105. ^42. Stepan, ‘Paths’, pp. 77–8. ^43. See Amnesty International, ‘Mauritania: a future freeof slavery?’, 17 November 2002 (http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engAFR380032002!Open,17 August 2005). ^44. World Bank, World Development Indicators, 2005 (The World Bank,Washington, DC, 2005), p. 23. ^45. According to the same World Bank report (Ibid, p. 73), in 2000,the top 10 percent of Mauritanians enjoyed nearly 30 percentof national ‘income or consumption’, whereas thelowest 30 percent share less than 9 percent. ^46. Moussa Diop, ‘Quand Ely se fâche, les fauteuilstremblent!’, L’éveil-hebdo 613 (2005), pp.1, 3. ^47. The IMF statement is available at http://www.imf.org/external/country/mrt/index.htm,10 January 2005. ^48. See Nicole Ball and Kayode Fayemi (eds), Security Sector Governancein Africa: A handbook (Centre for Democracy and Development,Lagos, 2004). ^49. For a population of less than three million, Mauritania hasnearly twice the number of men in the security forces as eitherMali or Senegal. The population of each of these states is atleast three times that of Mauritania. See International Institutefor Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2002–2003(International Strategic Studies, London, 2002), pp. 207–11. ^50. Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter, Transitionsfrom Authoritarian Rule: Tentative conclusions about uncertaindemocracies (The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore,MD, 1989), p. 66. ^51. The UN Office for West Africa has finally identified this situationas a major cause of coups and instability in the sub-region.The author has collaborated in the drafting of a report to callattention to this issue and how to address it. ^52. Peace and Security Council of the African Union, 37th meeting,‘Report of the Chairperson’, pp. 10–11.     

Germans and ‘others’: Racism,xenophobia, or ‘legitimate conservatism'?

Drawing on data from various sources, the article assesses the extent of xenophobia and the potential support base for right‐wing extremism in the united Germany. The data shows that West Germany displayed a considerable level of xenophobia before unification, and that at present, Germans in east and west display strikingly similar patterns of hostility towards foreigners. In comparison to their European neighbours, however, the Germans are not markedly different. In addition to levels of education, and placement on a Left‐Right scale, the driving force behind xenophobic attitudes ‐ both in Germany and in other European Community states ‐ are economic and social fears and a perception of relative deprivation.     

Somali pirates: villains or victims?

The proliferation of piracy activity off the coast of Somalia has received a fair share of international attention. Its consequences have included a destabilising effect on trade, security and humanitarian aid. This has served to give reason for the deployment of multi-national forces by some of the countries affected by the scourge. While naval patrols have reduced the success rate of piracy attacks in some areas, there has been little respite in piracy incidents with the overall number of attacks and their geographic scope increasing. Piracy off the coast of Somalia has, in fact, evolved into organised syndicates with transnational networks. The problem is that various international actors have largely viewed piracy off the coast of Somalia in terms of threats to their own national interests and security. They have, thus, dealt with the issue in isolation from its wider context, which has not succeeded in ending the attacks. This article argues that to deal with the piracy problem more meaningfully, there is need for a contextual framework beyond addressing the ‘illegal’ activities. Piracy is a complex problem, with political, legal, social, economic, security and even human rights dimensions, and calls for a truly holistic approach that, especially, seeks to address the root causes on land. The article calls for a change in strategies in order to facilitate a ‘local Somali solution’ rather than an international one that is acceptable to the sensibilities of international actors. The article emphasises the need to extend the strong international cooperation demonstrated on the high seas in the fight against piracy to the fight against root causes of piracy onshore.