Malaysia's Foreign Policy: The First Fifty Years: Alignment,Neutralism, Islamism

Abstract

What is the role of new media in driving political change in China? How do we understand the interaction of rapid increases in connectivity, regime censorship and democratic outcomes? This article seeks to assess the democratic implications of new media in China through the lens of three key and nested criteria derived from general theories of deliberative democracy: information access, rational-critical deliberation and mechanisms of vertical accountability. The key finding is that connectivity expands political opportunity. How this opportunity is exploited is up to users, who often vary widely in their political preferences, values, and norms of behaviour. The results are multiple mechanisms of change taking place simultaneously and the development of a more interactive and pluralistic public sphere. While China obviously still has to develop far more formalised and institutionalised mechanisms for managing state-society relations, political pluralism in the form of online deliberation might be considered a foundational condition for a more interactive and liberalised political order rooted in greater public deliberation and societal feedback. Moderate forms of discourse and societal feedback are tenuous and increasingly exist in a chaotic and diversified online discourse defined equally as much by new methods of authoritarian propaganda and virulent nationalist ideas.     

Unsecular Politics in a Secular Environment: The Case of Germany's Christian Democratic Union Family Policy

Secularisation theory carried two implicit implications for Christian Democratic parties: either they become secular or they cease to exist. Both implications were wrong. Christian Democracy has neither vanished from the political landscape nor has it become fully secular. To secure its survival Christian Democracy has embarked on a delicate balancing act between the modern and the secular. Following up empirically on the thesis of Christian Democratic politics as being modern unsecular, the paper explores how much of the Christian element is still needed to explain Christian Democratic ideology and policy in the twenty-first century. By scrutinising the struggle surrounding Christian Democratic family policy in Germany, the paper finds that the conflict on the repositioning of Christian Democracy in a new cultural environment not only unfolds between secular modernisers and religious traditionalists. It has also led to the re-eruption of the interdenominational cleavage between Protestants and Catholics within the party.     

结构现实主义外交政策理论的构建与拓展——兼论对理解中国外交政策的启示

基于当下外交政策研究领域所呈现出的理论有效供给不足的局面,国际关系理论界围绕外交政策能否建立简约系统的理论以及结构现实主义外交政策理论是否可行展开了争论。本文对既有争论进行了回顾和梳理,剖析了结构现实主义外交政策理论的必要性与可行性。在此基础上,深入评估了进攻性现实主义、防御性现实主义与新古典现实主义等现实主义理论分支在外交政策理论探索中的进展与不足。同时,本文对结构现实主义外交政策理论的拓展进行了尝试,试图开拓出更加纯粹、有力的理论发展路径,完善结构现实主义外交政策理论的解释力。最后,运用结构现实主义外交政策理论剖析了中国外交存在的规律性现象,并剖析了其在未来外交政策构建中可能得到的体现与拓展。     

缅甸外交政策的新调整:从对华友好到大国平衡外交

1988年政变上台的缅甸新军人政权,遭到西方国家的制裁,不得不努力发展与中国的关系,以稳定国内局势。在统治得到巩固后,缅甸新军人政权开始奉行大国平衡的外交政策,即在继续发展对华关系的同时,努力改善与东盟、印度和日本的关系。本文还分析了缅甸奉行大国平衡外交政策的原因:内因是缅甸国内的民族主义情绪不断上升,外因是区域内外各有关国家对中国在缅甸及周边地区影响不断扩大存在恐惧心理。     

The Conceptual Framework of Nigerian Foreign Policy

Afrocentrism is one of the major principles that guide Nigeria's foreign policy behaviour. As the pivot of foreign policy-making Africa has developed into a major concept in guiding Nigerian foreign policy. The goal here is to evaluate the profile of this concept, and relate it to Nigerian foreign policy. Thus this study will analyse the nature and impact of Afrocentrism in the Nigerian foreign policy-making milieu.     

The Price of Nostalgia: Menzies, the "Liberal" Tradition and Australian Foreign Policy

This article surveys some of the key contributions to the secondary literature on Australia's foreign and defence policy during Robert Gordon Menzies' two prime ministerships (1939–41, 1949–66), and seeks to identify Menzies' place in a "Liberal" and Liberal Party tradition through a reading of this work. Via a study of Menzies' imperialism, British race patriotism, nationalism, and attitudes towards Asia and the United States of America, it argues that the prime minister stands in an ambiguous relationship to the transformation that occurred in Australia's international orientation between the 1930s and 1960s. In the 1950s the Australian government's cold war foreign policy, and the political language that Menzies used in private and public to articulate it, were largely successful in balancing the competing claims of Britishness, Australianness and the newly-formed "American Alliance". By the early 1960s, however, his nostalgia for a dissolving imperial order was sufficiently pronounced that it contributed powerfully to a symbolic and rhetorical defeat for his side of politics, allowing Labor to claim the mantle of Australian foreign policy modernity.     

美国外交政策周期理论:视角、述评与现实检验

考察美国立国以来的外交政策演变轨迹的视角大体上有两种:一是阶段性演化视角,认为美国外交政策运行呈现出一种阶段性变化的演化轨迹;二是周期视角(或曰钟摆视角),认为美国外交政策演变遵循一定的钟摆定律,在两种情绪或范式之间不断转换。在研究美国外交政策历史时,学界大都运用前一种视角而忽视后一种视角。自20世纪50年代起,美国学界开始对美国外交政策演变的周期性规律进行研究,形成了以法兰克·克林伯格为代表的"内向—外向"情绪交替理论、迈克尔·罗斯金的"干涉主义—非干涉主义"范式转换理论以及杰克·霍尔姆斯的"情绪/利益"理论。美国外交政策周期理论既有学理价值,又存在难以克服的不足。研究该理论对于了解美国外交政策的演变规律、认清当前美国外交政策所处的周期阶段及其对华政策的影响均具有重要的现实意义。     

俄罗斯的对外政策与中国

俄罗斯对外政策的制定与中俄关系的发展是中俄两国政界、学界都非常关注的问题。目前,普京政府奉行一种积极、独立、全方位、实用的对外政策。作为一种新型的,摆脱了意识形态束缚的战略协作关系,《中俄睦邻友好合作条约》将两国世代友好,永不为敌的思想,以法律形式固定下来。目前的中俄关系处于300年来最好的历史时期。     

政策网络与欧盟对外决策分析

欧盟多层治理体系下的对外决策具有独特性和局限性,需要发挥网络组织的灵活机制和资源配置能力,帮助克服欧盟正规决策程序中的复杂性和等级制,提高欧盟对外决策的利益协调能力和问题解决能力。政策网络理论在分析利益协调、理解网络结构、推动合作过程以及发展决策体系内公、私行为体协调等方面具有明显的理论优势。本文将欧盟对外政策研究与政策网络方法相结合,目的在于检验政策网络方法在分析政策网络结构影响欧洲对外决策方面的作用。