Bureaucracy and implementation of complex tasks in rapidly developing states: Evidence from Indonesia

Political institutions play key roles in rapidly developing states. This article describes the complex and overlapping responsibilities of Indonesian government institutions and explains how they affect policy design and implementation in two policy arenas: primary education and soil/water conservation. It suggests that the struggles for control over local level implementation between general (territorial) regional government and branch offices of specialized, central ministries seriously constrain performance in these two sectors. Dwight Y. King is associate professor of political science and associate of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115 (internet: dking@niu.edu). He continues use research on how the structures of national bureaucracies and the policies governing them affect civil servants’ behavior and economic development, as well as the political economy of bureaucratic reform.     

The Legacy of Violence on Post-Civil War Elections: The Case of El Salvador

Over the last several decades, numerous civil wars have ended as a consequence of negotiated settlements. Following many of these settlements, rebel groups have made the transition to political party and competed in democratic elections. In this paper, I assess the legacy of civil war on the performance of rebel groups as political parties. I argue that the ability of rebels to capture and control territory and their use of violence against the civilian population are two key factors explaining the performance of rebels as political parties. I test these hypotheses against the case of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) in El Salvador using one-way ANOVA and multivariate regression analyses. In analyzing the FMLN’s performance in the 1994 “elections of the century,” I find that, as a political party, the FMLN benefited both from the state’s violently disproportionate response and its ability to hold territory during the war.     

Rebellion in Gojam Province,Ethiopia

This article explores how and why the church in South Africa became an important civil society space and actor at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle and yet its civil society role declined following the unbanning of the African National Congress (ANC) and the release of political prisoners such as Nelson Mandela. It does this by engaging in a discussion of the nature of the South African church as civil society, followed by a consideration of the church's role at various points during the democratic transition. Specifically, it explores the church as a “site of struggle” during the late stages of the anti-apartheid struggle, as engaging in mediation and negotiation during the democratic transition, and as returning to a predominantly religious organisation in the post-apartheid era. It concludes with a discussion of the reasons for and implications of the church's decreased role in public and political life following the transition from apartheid to non-racial democracy.     

Environmental politics in Chile: Legacies of dictatorship and democracy

Standing at the forefront of Latin America's political and economic liberalisation, Chile is held up as a model for the developing world. First in the region to embrace a boldly neoliberal development strategy, Chile's military dictatorship also peacefully gave way to stable, civilian rule and comparative economic success. However, the lens of environmental politics reveals a disturbing underside to the Chilean miracle. Environmental policy, institutions and participation are shaped and constrained by ominous legacies of history, dictatorship, and an economic orthodoxy inimical to sustainability. Democratic rule has opened political space, yet new environmental institutions and procedures exhibit inherited elitist and exclusionary features. Chile's environmental movement likewise demonstrates promise and innovation, but remains grounded in a civil society weakened and atomised by dictatorship and incomplete transition. Still, as the environmental costs of Chile's resource-extractive, export-led development mount, environmental politics may yet present a vital opportunity for social change.     

Civil society knowledge networks: how international development institutions reshape the geography of knowledge

What role have the processes and institutions of international development played in creating and propagating ideas around the world? This paper demonstrates that networks of development-focused civil society institutions can form global epistemic bridges even where communication technology, global markets, infrastructure, or state services do not reach. Given the penetration of these ‘civil society knowledge networks’ throughout the world, it is crucial to understand how these networks form, and how they create and spread ideas, mediating between global discourses and local needs. This paper builds on a multi-sited case study of one such civil society knowledge network, which includes an international foundation, its partner non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Kenya, and one village where these NGOs run a forest conservation project. The case study provides a closely textured analysis of the mechanisms of knowledge production and consumption in the network, including personality politics, language, technology, political connections and the power dynamics of knowledge flows. It demonstrates the ways remoteness and disconnection are overcome through the epistemic reach of institutional networks involved in development interventions.     

Civil society and democracy in the third world: Ambiguities and historical possibilities

The terminology of “civil society” has gained currency in recent discussions of democratic movements around the globe. Although less grandiose in its implications than claims about the “end of history,” this terminology does suggest a certain universality in human experience. We argue that this claim of universality is warranted, but also problematic. We establish the relevance of our argument in reference to the literatures in African and Indian studies. We note first that the common employments of the concept ignore the theoretical and historical specificity of civil society: civil society is used to label any group or movement opposed to the state, regardless of its intent or character, or used so generically that it is indistinguishable from the term “society.” Instead, we argue that civil society is a sphere of social life, involving a stabilization of a system of rights, constituting human beings as individuals, both as citizens in relation to the state and as legal persons in the economy and the sphere of private association. Thus, we link the wide resonance of the concept to its embeddedness in the logic of liberal capitalist society and the capitalist global division of labor. This conception allows us to see that, although the emergence of a sphere of civil society involves at least minimal democranization and is supportive of struggles for further democratization, the status of democracy is also made quite problematic by the tensions endemic to liberal capitalism and the processes of uneven development within international capitalism. Our usage also allows us to distinguish more clearly movements dedicated to the construction of civil society from those that may count actually as counter-civil society movements. David L. Blaney received his M.A. and Ph.D. at the Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver. He is on leave from Hanover College, Hanover, Indiana as a visiting scholar for the 1993–94 academic year at The Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, Washington, D.C. 20052. His main research interests include international political economy, culture and international relations theory, and democratic theory. Mustapha Kamal Pasha received his M.A. and Ph.D. at the Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver. Currently, he is an assistant professor in the School of International Service, American University, Washington, D.C. 20016. His main research interests include international political economy, with particular regard to the Third World, and South Asian politics.     

Citizenship,equality, and urban property rights in Latin America: The Peruvian case

Research on liberal democracy in newly developing countries has been hampered by the view of civil society as a bounded realm; by insufficient attention to power, class, and legal-juridical institutions; and by too limited a conception of social movements with democratic potential. In this study of urban migrants’ struggle for property rights, the migrants’ political action is found to be associated with a capitalist social movement. The legal changes that the movement helped institute and the means that it employed have enhanced democracy by extending property rights to the poor and by opening up policy processes to public debate and input. Insofar as liberal reform involves the law and its administration, it requires a positive, facilitative state, in spite of liberalism’s broadly antistatist commitments. The study also reveals that liberal reform can have a popular content even if supported by elites. The findings suggest that the realization of full citizenship rights is, for now, at least as crucial to the future of Latin American democracy as the narrowing of economic inequalities. David G. Becker is associate professor of government at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755. He is the author ofThe New Bourgeoisie and the Limits of Dependency (Princeton University Press, 1982); a counthor ofPostimperialism (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1987); and the author of “Beyond Dependency: Development and Democracy in the Era of International Capitalism,” in Dankwart A. Rustow and Kenneth P. Erickson (ededs.),Comparative Political Dynamic (HarperCollis, 1991), in addition to many other articles on aspects of political development. Becker’s current research centers of the nature of constitutionalism and democracy in Latin America. He is preparing a book-length treatment of the rule of law in Latin America, along with an edited book on postimperialism that will present new case studies of a variety of countries and world regions.     

Political parties,party systems,and economic reforms: The Turkish case

Turkey’s experience with economic reforms and democratization since the early 1980s underscores the importance of the political parties and the party systems in the interactions between these two processes. The country’s experience with democratic politics and a multiparty system made a significant contribution to the resumption of electoral politics and redemocratization following three years of military rule in the early 1980s. However, the opening up of the political space and the reemergence of competitive party politics ultimately created problems for the successful completion of the economic reforms, as one-party dominance and majority-party governments gave way to fragmentation in the party system with weak coalition governments. The Turkish case is instructive of the difficulties facing countries that seek to simultaneously consolidate their democracies and liberalize their economies. Sabri Sayari is executive director of the Institute of Turkish Studies and research professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He has written extensively on Turkey’s domestic politics and foreign policy, and on issues related to political development, parties and party systems, and democratization.     

Aiding democracy? Donors and civil society in South Africa

During the 1990s the North has increasingly used a new tool, political aid, to influence its relations with the South. More commonly known as 'democracy assistance', political aid is targeted at governmental structures such as parliament, the judiciary and local government, as well as civil society organisations, with the aim of strengthening the institutions and culture of liberal democracy. However, despite its increasing deployment, the shape and extent of foreign political aid in individual countries in the South remain largely undocumented. This article shows the importance of political aid in South Africa since the pivotal elections of 1994. It then critically examines the role assigned to civil society by donors within the 'democratisation' process. Unlike most writers on the new political aid regime, who are often both its chroniclers and mandarins, this author questions the emancipatory potential of the kind of democracy being 'helped along' by democracy assistance.     

Civil Society,Populism and Liberalism

This paper considers the threats that various kinds of populism might be said to pose to the ideal of a civil society that mediates between ‘private’ and family life and the state. Although it is difficult to generalise about populisms, just about all—whether on left or right—share a hostility to ‘intermediate’ powers. Of course civil society is exactly what could be called a forum for intermediate powers. In contrast, populists often tend to emphasise a vision of immediate power in the sense of the possibility of the direct expression of the people’s will in political institutions. Populists, of whatever pitch, often tend to invoke a partisan state that will be on the side of the people (however defined) rather than a putatively neutral ‘liberal’ state that stands over and against civil society. These factors make most populisms more or less generically hostile to liberalism, understood not in ideological terms but more as a doctrine which emphasises the necessity of mediating power through institutions. Very often, populism is a threat to the idea of civil society understood as a concept integral to liberal political theory, as a means of balancing the state and its wider interlocutors. In this paper, various means, largely inspired by the writings of Tocqueville on the one hand and Paul Hirst on the other, are suggested for addressing aspects of this predicament.

     

Reverse brain drain in South Korea: State-led model

Korea’s reverse brain drain (RBD) has been an organized government effort, rather than a spontaneous social phenomenon, in that various policies and the political support of President Park, Chung-Hee were instrumental in laying the ground work for its success. Particular features of Korea’s RBD policies are the creation of a conducive domestic environment (i.e., government-sponsored strategic R & D institution-building, legal and administrative reforms), and importantly, the empowerment of returnees (via, i.e., exceptionally good material benefits, guarantees of research autonomy). President Park played the cardinal role in empowering repatriates at the expense of his own civil bureaucracy, and his capacity for such patronage derived from Korea’s bureaucratic-authoritarian political system. Returning scientists and engineers directly benefited from this political system as well as Park’s personal guardianship. For Park, empowerment of returning “brains” was necessary to accomplish his national industrialization plan, thereby enhancing his political legitimacy in domestic politics. An alliance with the R & D cadre was functionally necessary to successfully consolidate strong presidential power, and politically non-threatening due to the particular form of “pact of domination” in Korea’s power structure. RBD in Korea will continue in the near future given Korea’s drive for high technology, and the remarkable expansion of local industrial and educational sectors. Korea’s future RBD, however, needs to pay closer attention to the following four problems: research autonomy; equality issues; skill-based repatriation of technicians and engineers rather than Ph.D.’s; and subsidies to small and medium industry for RBD. Bang-Soon L. Yoon is assistant professor of political science, Central Washington University. She is currently working onWorld Bibliographical Series: South Korea, to be published by Clio Press, Ltd., Oxford, England, co-edited with Michael A. Launius. An earlier version of this paper was read at the 49th Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, April 18–20, 1991.     

Institutions for high-quality growth: What they are and how to acquire them

This article opens with a discussion of the types of institutions that allow markets to perform adequately. While we can identify in broad terms what these are, there is no unique mapping between markets and the non-market institutions that underpin them. The paper emphasizes the importance of “local knowledge”, and argues that a strategy of institution building must not over-emphasize best-practice “blueprints” at the expense of experimentation. Participatory political systems are the most effective ones for processing and aggregating local knowledge. Democracy is a meta-institution for building good institutions. A range of evidence indicates that participatory democracies enable higher-quality growth. Sakenn pe prie dan sa fason (Everyone can pray as he likes.) —Mauritian folk wisdom This paper was originally prepared for the International Monetary Fund’s Conference on Second-Generation Reforms, Washington, DC, November 8–9, 1999. I thank Ruth Collier, Steve Fish, Mohsin Khan, Saleh Nsouli, conference participants, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments. Dani Rodrik is professor of international political economy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He is also the research coordinator for the Group of 24 (G-24), a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (London). He serves as an advisory committee member of the Institute for International Economics, senior advisor of the Overseas Development Council, and advisory committee member of the Economic Research Forum for the Arab Countries, Iran and Turkey. Professor Rodrik’s recent research is concerned with the consequences of international economic integration, the role of conflict-management institutions in determining economic performance, and the political economy of policy reform.     

Women’s empowerment and democratization: The effects of electoral systems,participation, and experience in Africa

This article investigates three hypotheses suggested in the literature on women’s political empowerment, operationalized here as increased legislative representation. These hypotheses are that (1) electoral systems manipulate women’s political empowernment; (2) increased popular participation empowers women in particular; and (3) accumulated experience gained over several electoral cycles facilitates increased political empowerment of women. In Africa, as well as in other parts of the world, majoritarian systems discriminate against women, while the effect of large parties in proportional representation systems is more ambiguous, and popular participation and repetitive electoral cycles are increasing women’s legislative representation. This article demonstrates the value of studying gender relations under democratization, even with a narrow institutionalist focus using an elitist perspective. Finally, it shows that institutions can travel over diverse contexts with constant effects. Staffan I. Lindberg is a Ph.D. candidate at Lund University. He has published on state building, democratization, and clientilism. From 1999 to 2001, he worked as an international consultant to Parliament in Ghana. His dissertation is on elections and the stabilization of polyarchy in sub-Saharan Africa. I would like to acknowledge the helpful comments from Goran Hyden, Andreas Schedler, Wynie Pankani, two anonymous reviewers, and the editors of the journal. The content, of course, is the author’s sole responsibility. This research has been made possible by Sida Grant No. SWE-1999-231.     

The Theory of International Media Diffusion: Political Socialization and International Media in Transitional Democracies

Despite the long-standing normative assumption that, for individuals in transitional states, exposure to Western media cultivates stronger attachments to Western political and economic values, the evidence presented here suggests otherwise. Using mass public survey data from the mid-1990s in five Central and Eastern European countries, this article demonstrates a general lack of support for international media’s positive contributions to individuals’ democratic attitudes and preferences for market economies. This finding is particularly unexpected because the countries under investigation represent ideal cases based on their proximity to Western democracies and international (Western) media sources’ capacities for extensive transnational media penetration into the region. Yet this failure to find persuasive evidence of the influence of international media diffusion on the development of Western political values sharpens our understanding of the process of political socialization in democratizing countries by eliminating an assumed source and is thus relevant to students of democratization, international development, and mass media.

"Global Civil Society" and the Political Depoliticization of Global Governance

Activists, officials, and academics alike have often linked observations about an emerging global civil society to an incipient democratization of world politics. Global civil society is assumed to bring public scrutiny and "bottom-up" politics to international decision making "from outside" formal political institutions. Based on an analysis of uses of the concept of global civil society in 1990s global governance discourse (especially related to the major UN world conferences), this paper argues that the presumed democratization of world politics is better understood in terms of a double movement: on the one hand, "global civil society" depoliticizes global governance through the promotion of "human security" and "social development"; on the other hand, the emerging international public sphere (in the UN context) operates as a subsystem of world politics rather than opposing the system from outside. Practices of depoliticization are thus part of the political logic of (neo-)liberal global governance. The argument draws on Luhmann's systems theory and Foucault's analysis of governmentality.     

Power/Faith: Governmentality, Religion, and Post-Secular Societies

Foucault’s concept of governmentality, and its attending modalities of biopower and disciplinary technologies, provides a useful conceptual schema for the analysis of the role of religious and quasi-religious institutions in contemporary society. This is particularly important in the study of those neoliberal democratic states where religious organizations constitute an important presence in the civil society. As religion is thoroughly involved in the reproduction of social structure in most societies, an appraisal of the social and political importance of religious institutions is needed to understand the articulation and exercise of governmentality. This is not just limited to partnerships between state agencies and faith-based organizations in providing for social services, but also in rituals and other religious group activities of these organizations that play a vital role in shaping and molding the social and political subjectivities of the adherents. We argue that synergy between the scholarship on governmentality, and sociology of religion would allow for a more nuanced understanding of the politics and culture of post-secular societies.     

Resistance and Creativity in Social Interaction: For and Against Memory in Poland, Israel–Palestine, and the United States

In this paper, I present an analysis of Adam Michnik’s notion of “Amnesty without Amnesia”. His was a wise political judgment presented at a critical moment in the struggle to constitute a democratic polity in Poland. Mine is an appreciation of his political position, along with a sociological analysis that highlights the empirical difficulties of its realization in practical action. I will show how at critical moments of social change creative political action works to erase memories of the relevant past, which act as a repressive force, while “re-remembering” (to use Toni Morrison’s formulation). Three cases will be compared, Michnik’s, after the fall of the communist regime in east central Europe, and cases drawn from the Palestinian–Israeli conflict and the American presidential campaign. A paper prepared for presentation at Cerisy, France, Summer, 2008.     

Public Support for Democratic Governance in Southeast Asia

Abstract

The transition and consolidation of democracy in Southeast Asia has proven fragile and tenuous some 30 years after the current wave of democratization began. A critical ingredient in the process of democratization is the role of public opinion and the extent that the public supports the democratic ‘rules of the game’. This study uses 2006 and 2007 public opinion data from the AsiaBarometer Survey of six Southeast Asian countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia and Singapore) to examine popular perceptions of democracy and democratic principles and practices. Specifically, it seeks to shed light on the following interrelated questions: Do democratic institutions in Southeast Asia work well in the short and long term? To what extent are citizens in these countries satisfied with various political and civil freedoms? Do citizens trust specific institutions to operate in the best interests of their society? Does the current political system and government perform well?     

The Polish Solidarity Movement in Retrospect: In Search of a Mnemonic Mirror

The legacy of the Solidarity movement of the 1980s, which was a leading force in the region’s 1989 revolutions, culminating most symbolically with the fall of the Berlin Wall, has yet to be institutionalized in Polish social memory. A spate of official commemorations marking the movement’s 25th anniversary in 2005 provided a palette on which Poles projected—or refused to project—their memories. The movement’s legacy continues to play out in current and contentious electoral politics, since the leaders of the top contending parties are former Solidarity activists. Despite and partly because of this active presence of Solidarity movement players, Polish civil society appears to be in a liminal state of active hesitation over the task of concretizing this movement’s past in commemorative forms. This article proposes six cultural and political explanations for this hesitation. It also recommends that social scientists disaggregate the concept of memory work into various manifestations on a continuum from hesitation to deliberation and agitation to institutionalization. As the article illustrates, hesitation can constitute action. At stake in this exercise is a larger discourse—over the direction of the post-1989 socio-political changes vis-à-vis the aims of the 1989 revolutions and the meaning of democracy and transitional justice in a posttotalitarian context.