俄罗斯民主化时代的政治腐败--再论"民主不是万应灵丹"

苏联解体后以叶利钦为首的民主改革派所推行的“民主化加私有化”改革,非但没有得到如民主崇拜者所料想的那种“清除政治腐败”、“倡行社会公正”和“振兴国家经济”的效果,反而使俄罗斯陷入了比苏联时期有过之无不及的政治腐败;其结果,导致黑社会组织横行无忌,社会公正被藐视和践踏,经济发展捉襟见肘,国际地位一落千丈的窘境。这种情形不啻是对“民主万能”神话的辛辣嘲讽,其原因有必要引起学术界的反思。     

同性婚姻问题与美国政治

随着美国同性恋权利运动的发展,美国社会对同性恋的接受程度不断提高,但在同性婚姻问题上仍陷入分裂状态。美国有关同性婚姻的争议主要是围绕同性恋者是否拥有结婚权,以及同性婚姻是否享有与异性婚姻同等的法律权利和经济、社会福利而展开的,这一争议实质上反映了两种不同的文化和道德价值观及传统的婚姻观与平等权之间的冲突。与其他道德价值观问题一样,在同性婚姻问题上,不同党派、意识形态、种族族裔、宗教信仰、性别、年龄、地区的美国人的态度有明显的差别。对于美国政治而言,同性婚姻问题已经成为区分民主、共和两党的标志性问题,也是近几次总统选举中的重要议题之一和选举战略的一个"楔子议题"。     

Linkages between Parliamentary and Ministerial Careers in Germany, 1949–2008: The Bundestag as Recruitment Pool

Germany is noted within Europe for its weak tobacco control policies and its opposition to European Union tobacco control legislation. In this article, we aim to explain Germany's stance on tobacco control. We review two explanations commonly proposed, namely tobacco industry donations to political parties and the legacy of the Nazis' opposition to smoking, and examine the politics of tobacco control in detail. We suggest that the interplay of numerous factors explains Germany's stance. Aspects of political culture including the Nazi heritage which has resulted in a dearth of public health research and teaching, institutional factors such as the reliance on industry self-regulation facilitated by Germany's system of corporatist policy-making and interest group politics are key. The tobacco industry has also successfully used framing strategies to uphold the social acceptability of smoking and undermine the acceptability of tobacco control in Germany. In addition a phenomenon that we call ‘autarkic epistemic isolation’ explains why so little policy learning from abroad has occurred. We suggest that our multi-factor model has significant explanatory power for Germany's weak stance that has resulted in a long-standing policy equilibrium. Recent events, however, suggest that this equilibrium may now have been punctuated.     

Gendering moral capital: Morality as a political asset and strategy of top female politicians in Asia

Abstract

In contrast to social capital, moral capital remains an under-researched topic in political science. In Asia, however, moral capital is one of the core assets of women politicians on their way to power. Kane defines moral capital as a specific political value of virtue that inclines others, in particular the political public and followers, to bestow (ethical) prestige, respect, loyalty, and authority on a political actor or the representative of an institution that the actor herself/himself can use as a resource to mobilize for political goals, activities, or support. This article addresses two questions. First, in which circumstances does moral capital become a significant asset for women on the rise to the top echelons of political power in Asia? Second, how do women politicians use moral capital as a political strategy, campaign instrument, and/or asset of public imaging? The authors discuss four case studies of female opposition politicians — Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi, Malaysia's Wan Azizah, South Korea's Park Geun-hye, and Japan's Tanaka Makiko — in three types of political systems: democratic, semi-authoritarian, and authoritarian. All four women are descendants of political dynasties and each of them used moral capital to reach top political offices in their countries. But significant differences emerge regarding the importance of moral capital as a prime asset in the development of each of their political careers. These differences originate from (a) the power configurations in the political context in which each woman operates, and (b) the legacies of their fathers or husbands.     

Conflict between social structure and legal framework: political corruption in Pakistan

There is a growing body of literature on the conflict between social environment and legal system. This article seeks to unravel the contradiction between Pakistan's anti-corruption laws and its social world. The study of this uncharted territory becomes even more urgent when the consequences of corruption are taken into account in the broader context of Pakistan's internal cohesion, democratic development and sustainable growth. Despite the fact that Pakistan inherited a British legal framework based on the division between public and private spheres, the article argues that a greater part of Pakistani society does not recognise such division. The split between public and private realms which provides a conceptual framework for any definition of political corruption seems culturally deficient. In particular, the paper attempts to demonstrate that ethnic loyalties by taking precedence over the public interest give rise to the ‘moral view of corruption', which explains why many people do not view the use of public office for ethnic gain to be an act of corruption. In these particular circumstances, the paper finds an underlying conflict in the treatment of corruption between the social and legal systems. The disparity between the legal system and social world has given rise to grave concern on the part of civil society.     

Tobacco contract farming in Zimbabwe: power dynamics,accumulation trajectories,land use patterns and livelihoods

ABSTRACT

Zimbabwe's Fast Track Land Reform Programme resulted in a massive growth of the country's tobacco sector. Some authors have labelled this, the ‘tobacco boom’. The effects of this growth are variegated across space and time. This study explores the growth of tobacco contract farming in Goromonzi and Zvimba districts and the resultant effects on land use patterns, accumulation, power dynamics and livelihood outcomes. In illuminating on contract farming, the study also pays attention to non-contract farmers. The rise in the number of contract farmers is attributed to; better extension services, improved and guaranteed access to input and output markets. At the same time, tobacco contract farming is marked by several vicissitudes. Some farmers withdrew from the contracts due to low output prices and high input costs resulting in indebtedness. Similarly, some contracting firms dropped out from the contracting arrangements. Overall, many contracted growers accumulated more than non-contract farmers.     

Intra-Party Dissent as a Constraint in Policy Competition: Mapping and Analysing the Positioning of Political Parties in the German Refugee Debate from August to November 2015

The large influx of refugees into Germany in late 2015 gave rise to a period of intensified party competition over a single issue: refugees. This paper examines German parties’ reactions to this issue suddenly becoming highly important and voter preferences shifting to a more restrictive stance. It does so by analysing the parties’ positions on the issue from August to November 2015 based on statements from more than 1000 quality newspaper articles. The analysis shows that there was no uniform shift in line with the change in public opinion but a pattern of polarisation. Moreover, converging party position changes sparked intra-party criticism that was in turn followed by divergence – a pattern observable for the Green Party as well as for the Christian Democrats. Altogether, these findings suggest that policy motives, which induce intra-party dissent, impede parties opportunistically trying to follow shifts in public opinion in the short term.     

The Background to the Japan-Republic of Korea Agreement: Compromises Concerning the Understanding of the Comfort Women Issue

This article argues that behind the background of the December 2015 agreement between Japan and South Korea over the issue of comfort women lies the emerging common understanding about the nature of the issue of comfort women, particularly the issue of coerciveness, and the subsequent moderation in rhetoric in mutual security cooperation in view of the destabilization in the region, particularly due to the rise of China and the nuclear and missile threats from North Korea.     

Asia Women's Fund Revisited

The Asian Women's Fund's atonement project for former comfort women set a new vision of Japan in which the people along with the Japanese government proactively participate in performing the moral responsibility for the suffering of former comfort women in cross-boundary and cross-generational ways. This article argues that the Fund's imperfect reconciliation with former comfort women particularly in Taiwan and South Korea was due to the misunderstanding about moral responsibility as an evasion of the Japanese government's legal responsibility and due to the inadequate exercise of political and administrative leadership. Underneath these factors lie the intertwined root causes of the limited availability of facts on the issue of comfort women and the ideologically driven discourse. The article suggests the following measures as a further atonement project: strong political leadership to present the clear meaning of moral responsibility, cooperation with the governments and support groups in the victims' countries, and an international truth investigation.     

The Dog That Didn’t Bark: Explaining Change in Germany's Tobacco Control Policy at Home and in the EU

This article revisits the earlier debates on Germany's abysmal record on tobacco control policies, which attributes that record to cultural, institutional, and political barriers. This article shows that Germany has made progress in tobacco control, though its commitment to smoke-free public spaces is lagging. We argue that the explanation for Germany's progress on tobacco control is that EU legislation directly and indirectly influenced public attitudes, raised awareness about the health consequences of smoking among the public and medical establishment, elevated the visibility of medical and health NGOs, and altered the institutional venue of policy making. However, in areas where the EU does not impose legislation, such as second-hand smoke, Germany continues to show more modest progress, owing to its federalised structure of health policy. State governments are in change of smoke-free eateries/drinking establishments and they are more susceptible to pressures from the gastronomy sector and allied tobacco interests.     

Metternich and Mustafa Reshid Pasha's Fall in 1841

The goal of the article is to explain the attitude of Austrian Chancellor Prince Metternich towards the Ottoman reformer, Mustafa Reshid Pasha, and refute the widespread and deep-rooted allegation against the chancellor of plotting against Reshid and causing his political fall in late March 1841. The article attempts to prove that it was Metternich who was on good terms with Reshid and did his best to prevent the latter's fall. The article also provides some new evidence for the claim that Metternich exerted certain influence over the reformatory ideas of the reformers at the early Tanzimat period like Mustafa Reshid Pasha and Sadik Rifat Pasha. To prove Reshid's high esteem to Metternich in this respect as well as his confidence in the chancellor's goodwill, an important document from the Austrian State Archives is quoted in full at the end of the article.     

Explaining the Rise of Class Politics in Venezuela

The sudden rise to power of leftist former coup leader Hugo Chávez and the subsequent politicisation of social class raises a number of interesting questions about the sources of class politics and political change in Venezuela. Using nationally representative survey data over time, this article considers different explanations for the rise of class politics. It argues that explanations for the politicisation of class can best be understood in terms of 'top-down' approaches that emphasise the role of political agency in reshaping and re-crafting political identities, rather than more 'bottom-up' factors that emphasise the demands that originate within the electorate. The economic crises during the 1990s undermined support for the existing parties, but it did not create a politically salient class-based response. Rather, it created the electoral space that facilitated new actors to enter the political stage and articulate new issue dimensions.     

Drawing the Line: Sex Education and Homosexuality in South Australia, 1985

This paper examines a specific controversy over the control and content of sex education in South Australia in 1985 that was triggered by concerns about homosexuality. Drawing on Foucault's idea of the "deployment of sexuality", the paper examines the way in which the issue of homosexuality became the focal point for a concerted struggle over sex education in state schools. It is argued that the idea of homosexuality, or more accurately male homosexual sexuality, served as a boundary marker that both defined and revealed the content and scope of school-based sex education. It is shown that this controversy was an instance of the "deployment of sexuality" through which public opinion was concentrated and mobilised to ensure that prevailing heterosexual norms remained the defining parameters for sex education. Thus it is also demonstrated that sex education is deeply implicated in both the construction and maintenance of prevailing (gendered) sexual norms.     

The "Crusade" Against Evil: Bush's Fundamentalism

This paper deals with some of the religious elements in the responses to the terrorist attacks. It criticises some initial Christian responses (in America) as well as George Bush (Jnr)'s self-asserted Christian credentials. The conjunction between business-friendly forms of religion and the religious cloak over a right-wing political stance is presented as an aspect of Bush's "crusade". The paper surveys the history of the constitutional separation of church and state and the emergence of a republican tradition which had pretensions to displace the "moral haughtiness" and insolence of American religiosity. But the "faith-based" legislation favoured by Bush has prevailed in the general judgementalism of the administration and in the "security measures" and pro-corporate legislation enacted in 2001 and 2002.     

"金三角"禁毒背后的中美泰缅四边关系

早春是罂粟花开的时节.当金三角的罂粟花盛开的时候,小小的金三角却在中南半岛激起了一个不大不小的政治漩涡.为了安抚当地少数民族、巩固边境,缅甸在禁毒中一直采取极为谨慎的姿态;泰国深受缅甸毒品之害,与缅甸还存在领土纠纷,在反毒过程中不得不权衡自己的得失;美国当然重视禁毒,不过对于美国而言,让缅甸现政府倒台或许更重要;中国积极帮助缅甸禁毒,但对于影响边境安宁的迹象却也不得不加以警觉.     

The Second-Term Obama Administration and Japan

The controversy in the Unites States on how to deal with the “fiscal cliff” revealed not just a deep ideological difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party but also a new sign of a possible crack of the conservative Republican ranks between those Republicans close to the Tea Party and those who favored the tax hike for the wealthy in order to save the tax cut for the rest of the people.

The planned deep cuts in the defense expenditure will have important implications for national security of Japan, which recently experiences increasing tension with China over the Senkaku Islands. The Obama Administration adopted a tough stance with China over the territorial issues in the South China Sea in July 2010. Rebalance to Asia could be understood, at least in part, to be a response to the rise of China, in a financial situation with fewer resources available for the national defense in the US.

The logical conclusion for Japan and the US would be for both of them to deepen security cooperation. Shinzo Abe, the new Prime Minister of Japan, should further clarify his foreign and national security policy priority and concentrate his efforts on strengthening the alliance with the US and building up the capabilities to defend Japan's territory, while exerting caution in jumping into “history” issues with China and South Korea so that Japan's message on the Senkaku Islands issue is crystal clear and focused: that it is against the established international norm to try to change the status quo by force or intimidation; this message should have universal appeal to a wider international community.     

Turkish secularism and Islam under the reign of Erdoğan

ABSTRACT

This article introduces a collection of articles that explore the role of religion (Sunni Islam) in the transformation of Turkey under the reign of President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an and his Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi, AKP). This special issue argues that the Turkish understanding of secularism was also one of the building blocks or/and constitutive elements of Turkey’s modernisation until the rise of the AKP. Currently, however, it seems that religion has become a new or re-born element of the new Turkey and has been transforming many areas such as: the media, the Kurdish issue, implementation of the rule of law, foreign policy and gender issues. This special issue aims to scrutinise the question: how does a religion-based transformation in Turkey influence the raison d’etat of the state?     

A Meiji Christian Socialist Becomes a Spokesperson for Japan: Kawakami Kiyoshi’s “Pilgrimage in the Sacred Land of Liberty”

This paper studies the life and thought of Kawakami Kiyoshi (1873–1949), a Meiji Christian socialist and prominent journalist in late 1890s Japan for the popular newspaper Yorozu chōhō (Complete morning report). Kawakami was one of the six founding members of Japan’s first but short-lived Social Democratic Party (Shakai minshutō, 1901). After the party was forced to dissolve under the Public Peace Police Law (Chian keisatsuhō, 1900) on 16 July 1901, Kawakami left for the USA to take up a postgraduate scholarship at the University of Iowa. While in the USA, he continued his career in the press, establishing himself as a well-respected international journalist. This paper focuses on his earlier thoughts, those developed during his “pilgrimage” to the USA from 1901 to 1907, during which his interests shifted from a gradual social reform to the issue of nascent anti-Japanese agitation in California and the question of Japanese immigration. During this time, he became convicted of the humanitarian ideals of Christianity and the values of sympathy and tolerance found in the chivalrous moral tradition. This journalistic period is under-explored in the literature and yet is essential in understanding Kawakami’s later role in US-Japan relations.     

The Making of chancellor Merkel

As a woman and an East German, Angela Merkel beat long political odds to become chancellor of Germany in November 2005. In addition, she overcame her party's poor electoral performance, out-manoeuvring political rivals in negotiations for a ‘grand coalition’. Merkel's rise to power can be divided into three phases. Like many other female political leaders of her generation in Germany, she was initially apolitical. She only became politically active during the dying days of the German Democratic Republic. The second phase was her apparently unremarkable political ascent as ‘Kohl's Mädchen’ (girl), when she had little independent standing of her own. The final phase began when a major finance scandal propelled her to the top of party ranks. She benefited from a gendered stereotype as a Trümmerfrau who could rebuild the conservative's moral standing out of the affair's ruins. But her continued success had much to do with successful political learning of how to turn critics' attacks against themselves.     

The Changing Shape of Intellectual Cooperation: From the League of Nations to UNESCO

This article elaborates on some of the key ideas that gave rise to and animated the International Commission on Intellectual Cooperation, a body which was among the last permanent organisations of the League of Nations. Although the Commission's efforts to cement intellectual relations among nations often went unappreciated, its proponents considered intellectual cooperation to be the very heart and soul of the League's Covenant. From the outset, the Commission sought to harmonise the world's various intellectual and cultural currents while maintaining respect for diversity. During its life, the Commission also became increasingly aware of the issue of its own cultural particularity and the vital need to incorporate perspectives and traditions other than those in which its origins lay. It was in grappling with these issues, and not just in pursuing its broader mandate, that the Commission can be said to be the forerunner of UNESCO.