The Impact of Postal Voting on Participation: Evidence for Switzerland

Many countries are forging ahead with convenient balloting methods, in particular electronic and postal voting, in order to re‐engage voters. In this paper, we test whether the cost reductions through postal voting increase turnout. The empirical analysis is based on a newly collected data set on the introduction of postal voting in Swiss cantons. We take advantage of the unique fact that voting by mail was introduced at different times across cantons. This allows identifying the impact of postal voting on turnout, independent of time, issue and canton‐specific effects. The estimated average effect on turnout is roughly 4.1 percentage points for an average turnout of 43 percent between 1970 and 2005.     

Social Correlates of Party System Demise and Populist Resurgence in Venezuela

Considering its strong, highly institutionalized two-party system, Venezuela was surely one of the least likely countries in Latin America to experience a party system breakdown and populist resurgence. That traditional party system nevertheless was founded on a mixture of corporatist and clientelist linkages to social actors that were unable to withstand the secular decline of the oil economy and several aborted attempts at market liberalization. Successive administrations led by the dominant parties failed to reverse the economic slide, with devastating consequences for the party system as a whole. The party system ultimately rested on insecure structural foundations; and when its social moorings crumbled in the 1990s, the populist movement of Hugo Chávez emerged to fill the political void. This populist resurgence both capitalized on and accelerated the institutional decomposition of the old order.     

Reducing Poverty Intensity: What Alternative Poverty Measures Reveal About the Impact of Brazil's Bolsa Família

Brazil's conditional cash transfer program Bolsa Família (Family Allowance) has gained a worldwide reputation as an effective antipoverty program. However, studies applying the dominant headcount poverty measure, which counts the percentage of households falling below a given poverty line, only credit the program with a first‐order reduction in poverty (and extreme poverty) of 0.15 to 1.88 percentage points. This raises the puzzle of how such a modest impact could lead to Bolsa Família's political popularity. This article argues that Bolsa Família does dramatically reduce poverty, but measuring this impact requires thinking of poverty as how far a household is from meeting its basic human needs; choosing a continuous variable; and using income gap, intensity, and ordinal measures that reflect this conceptualization. The more substantial reduction of poverty intensity helps explain the program's reputation.     

Social Class in Contemporary Japan: Structures,Sorting and Strategy

This article accounts for why and how democratisation in Korea, although facilitated by social forces from below, has contributed to deepening social polarisation by accelerating economic liberalisation. In assessing this seemingly paradoxical dynamic of democratisation in Korea, this article offers an analysis of contemporary Korean politics and political economy alternative to currently prevailing approaches. Prevailing approaches tend to frame recent socio-economic and political changes in Korea brought about by democratisation and the financial crisis of 1997-98 as the encroachment of the market over the state, and of the external (the global) over the internal (the national), as if these bipolarised categories assume zero-sum relations. This article posits democratisation processes as class and social struggles and such factors as the global economy, the positioning of Korea in the world-system and the history of US intervention, that are typically perceived as external constituents, as active social and class forces. Informed by this framework, this article explores contemporary Korean politics and political economy as a set of contradictory processes of political and economic liberalisation, democratisation and “de-democratisation.”     

Cross-Border Families in Hong Kong: The Role of Social Class and Politics

The massive relocation of industrial activities from Hong Kong to mainland China that followed in the wake of China's acceptance of foreign investment has given rise to two different sets of cross-border familial relations. In the first case, middle-class managers and technicians from Hong Kong have taken “second wives” during their stay in southern China. Hong Kong's mass media have been generally tolerant of this second-wife phenomenon, seeing it merely as a case of funglau (sexually potency), justifying it in terms of middle-class men's “soft spot,” and blaming the first wives for neglecting their duties. In the second case, workers from Hong Kong have crossed into the mainland in search of spouses because they believe that women in China are more affordable than those in Hong Kong. Hong Kong's restrictive immigration policies result in these mainland wives and children having to wait for ten years or more before receiving a one-way permit to migrate to Hong Kong. When they do arrive in Hong Kong, they have been discriminated against and condemned as causing Hong Kong's social and economic problems. This article examines how social class and politics have affected the way in which the mass media and the Hong Kong government have dealt with these two sets of cross-border families.     

Introduction: Assessing the Social and Political Impact of the Internet and New Social Media in Asia

This paper introduces a special issue on the social and political impact of new information communications technologies (ICTs) in Asia, with specific attention paid to new social media. This paper provides some contextualisation of the broader questions that the principal literature on the subject raises, namely questions about the effectiveness of ICTs as tools for mobilisation and information exchange; mechanisms of censorship and control; and the nature of public discourse on the Internet. In doing so, the paper introduces and locates the articles that comprise this special issue within these debates.     

Frente Amplio and the Crafting of a Social Democratic Alternative in Uruguay

This study of Uruguay's Frente Amplio explores four central questions for the analysis of the “new Latin American left.” How did a leftist alternative emerge and grow inside an institutionalized party system? How do the socioeconomic and political factors that enabled the rise of the left in Uruguay differ from those observed in other Latin American cases? How did Frente Amplio adapt itself to profit from the opportunities that arose during the 1990s? What are the implications of the previous factors for governmental action by the FA? In answering these questions, this study integrates an analysis of the sociological and political-institutional opportunity structures consolidated during the 1990s with one of strategic partisan adaptation processes. This perspective is useful for explaining how, by 2004, Frente Amplio had built a dual support base from its historical constituency and a socially heterogeneous group alienated from traditional parties due to economic and political discontent.     

东亚家族企业的社会功能与发展趋向

战后东亚普遍存在的家族企业与西方国家的家族企业在文化背景、成员关系和历史作用等方面存在本质差异.家族企业是战后东亚本土资本形成和积累的主要组织形式,也是推动经济增长的重要动力源泉.东亚家族企业的产生经历了从旧的、以土地为经济基础的血缘共同体向新的、以资本和劳动收入为经济基础的血缘共同体转变,而其发展则在于突破自身的局限性,实现向现代科层制企业转换.     

"马来化、伊斯兰化和君主制度"下文莱华人的社会地位

从战后迄今,文莱政府通过法律限制文莱华人获得公民权,导致大部分华人尚未获得文莱国籍.虽然政府在经济上刻意扶持马来人并致力于国家伊斯兰化,鼓励异教徒皈依伊斯兰教,但仍在经济领域留给华人相当大的发展空间,容忍华人保持原有宗教和发展华文教育,维持和发展华人意识和华族认同.文莱华人基本上能与当地政府和土著民和睦相处,并能在经济领域维持相对优势地位.     

The Decline and Fall of Democracy in Venezuela: Ten Theses

This paper presents an argument about the causes of the decline and fall of the 1958–1999 system of democratic politics, commonly known in Spanish as puntofijista , in Venezuela. Competing explanations of this process are evaluated, and an interim assessment of President Hugo Chávez and his political project is offered.     

Values and Votes: The Indirect Effect of Personal Values on Voting Behavior

Recent research from social psychology suggests that personal values predict political behavior, such as vote choice. In contrast to previous studies, it is hypothesized in this article that personal values influence voting behavior only indirectly through political value orientation. Drawing on the personal value concept of Shalom Schwartz, structural equation models based on Swiss electoral data (SELECTS 2007) are applied to test the hypothesis of indirect effects. The empirical analysis shows that the effects of personal values are indeed mediated by political values, but that their indirect impact on vote choice remains substantial. It is argued on a theoretical level that personal values need first to be translated (or transformed) into political values to become effective on voting behavior.     

After and Beyond Amoral Familism: The Impact of the Economic Crisis on Social Capital Italian-style

Abstract

The economic crisis that began with the great crash of 2008 has brought about a significant increase in inequality in Italy between individuals and families as well as between different geographic areas. A higher degree of inequality has had negative effects on social capital, reducing so-called bridging and linking elements of social capital while strengthening bonding elements, with a concomitant decline in civic culture. These effects can be dangerous for democracy, in so far as they lower the citizens’ trust in institutions. Since social capital is created as well as destroyed by political and social actors, a relevant question is whether these actors have had a role in transforming social capital into trust in institutions. From an analysis of the changes that have taken place in the Italian political system, it would appear that a significant segment of the political system has destroyed more institutional social capital than it has helped to create.     

The Meanings of Democracy in Venezuela: Citizen Perceptions and Structural Change

Throughout Latin America, democratic political structures reflect liberal conceptualizations of democracy. Since the election of Hugo Chávez, Venezuela has emerged as an exception, with President Chávez sponsoring initiatives designed to foster participatory democracy. This article draws on the Venezuelan case in an effort to gain insight on the malleability of citizens' definitions of and attitudes toward democracy. Two key findings emerge. First, in data gathered ten years into the Chávez presidency, the vast majority of Venezuelans still define democracy in liberal terms, whereas relatively few have embraced participatory conceptualizations. Second, although Venezuelans as a whole are highly supportive of democracy as a form of government, no evidence is found that either support for Chávez or defining democracy in terms of participation corresponds with higher favorability toward democracy. Together, these findings suggest that Venezuela's political transformation has produced little or no discernible effect on mass sentiment regarding democracy.     

马来西亚印度人的由来及其困境研究

印度人是马来西亚的第三大民族,但与马来西亚其他民族相比,印度人是一个长期被忽视的群体.本文拟对马来西亚的印度人作一概述,分析其移民马来半岛的历史,并对独立后马来西亚印度人在政治、经济、民族教育等方面所面临的困境作一探讨.     

Voting for Movement Parties in Southern Europe: The Role of Protest and Digital Information

In recent years ‘movement parties’ such as Syriza in Greece, the Movimento 5 Stelle in Italy, Podemos in Spain and—to a lesser extent—Bloco de Esquerda in Portugal shook national party systems, breaking the consolidated dynamics of political competition. Despite growing interest in movement parties, there has been scant attention to the role of citizens adopting unconventional forms of action and using digital media in accounting for their electoral performance. To fill this gap, four original internet-based post-electoral surveys are employed showing that protesters and digital media users are more likely to vote for these parties, despite important country differences.     

社会科学研究与美国心理冷战战略——以"学说宣传项目"为核心的探讨

1947年美苏冷战开始后,美国的冷战政策制定者,特别是心理冷战政策的制定者逐渐认识到社会科学研究在冷战行动中不可或缺的作用。本文通过对冷战初期美国心理战略委员会主持的一个重要项目——“学说宣传项目”的考察,揭示美国社会科学界日益介入美国政府的冷战决策中,并对美国心理冷战政策的制定产生深刻影响的历史事实。亦试图说明,由于社会科学的介入,美国的心理冷战战略在某种程度上具有了更大的欺骗性、迷惑性和有效性,从而对冷战历史进程产生了持久的影响。