Argentina's Landmark 2003 Presidential Election: Renewal and Continuity

This article provides an analysis of the political and socioeconomic context of the April 2003 presidential elections, focusing particularly on the campaign platforms of candidates, the outcome of the first round and the election's consequences for the party system. The election's results were far reaching in many respects. Argentina's longstanding two-party system came to an end with the virtual vanishing of the Radical party (UCR) at the national level. An evolved political culture resulted in new, more rigorous criteria for the selection of candidates. Finally, new political parties (MNR and ARI) emerged that could conceivably improve the quality of democratic governance in the future. In short, the 2001–2002 crisis fostered a significant degree of political renewal. Contrary to some predictions, however, the societal rejection of political parties did not result in either the complete demolition of the party system or the wholesale renovation of the political class. In particular, the Peronist party showcased its staying power and uncanny ability to adapt to new political environments.     

Rights to land and resources in Argentina's Alerces National Park

Alerces National Park, created in 1937 to protect temperate forest ecosystems in Argentina's southern Andes, contains 42 families within its borders. Grazing is the principal livelihood strategy of most park inhabitants. Domesticated animals, however, are not compatible with the conservation objectives of park authorities, who are promoting tourism as a sustainable alternative to livestock. Park inhabitants are less enthusiastic about tourism. They lack a meaningful role in negotiating rights to land and resources, and they have been marginalised from conservation planning. This could be alleviated by titling parts of Alerces National Park to park inhabitants and providing them with shared management responsibilities.     

The Policies and Politics of Control: Countering Argentina's Uniformed and Unemployed Protesters

Like many new democracies, Argentina has struggled with contentious movements that have challenged its precarious stability. Two very different sectors have led particularly powerful opposition movements: the military—associated historically with the abuse of power—and the unemployed workers, with important support from prestigious human rights organizations. This article looks both at how the political standing of the sector (military versus civil society) influences policy choices and at how these policy choices influence whether opposition movements remain mobilized and contentious. It argues that situation‐alleviating policies—those that successfully address interests of the sector as a whole—tend to be more successful in defusing contentious movements than policies relying on coercion, concessions, or co‐optation of mobilized opposition groups. Situation alleviation depletes the contentious groups of possible recruits, while policies targeting the mobilized opposition may inadvertently motivate those actors to remain mobilized.     

The Power of Mass Mobilisation: Argentina's Struggle for the Legalisation of Abortion

The mass pro-abortion mobilisation which took place in 2018 has been arguably the most successful attempt in Argentina's history at altering the existing legal framework regulating access to voluntary termination of pregnancy. Never before has any legislative project legalising abortion reached the upper chamber of the Congress. Could this result be attributed to the support it received from a mass social movement? What are the limitations of mass mobilisations when a structural change to a long-lasting narrative is required? In order to address these questions, the issue of abortion will be examined through the perspective of power-making and counterpower-making strategies.     

Constructing Reform Coalitions: The Politics of Compensations in Argentina's Economic Liberalization

It is frequently argued that the key to "successful" economic liberalization is to marginalize interest groups that profit from existing regulatory regimes. This paper contends that some established interests can craft public policies to protect their rents in the new market setting. The state may shape the interests of social actors and create proreform constituencies out of old populist and interventionist groups. In Argentina, this coalition building was achieved by constructing reform policies that granted rents in new markets to business and organized labor and by deliberately avoiding unilateral deregulation in sectors where reform would hurt traditionally powerful actors. This argument is developed through a comparative analysis of policy reform in the labor market institutions and protected industrial sectors, areas where the costs of deregulation are said to be unavoidable for the established actors.     

Can Politicians Control Bureaucrats? Applying Theories of Political Control to Argentina's Democracy

In the United States, an important literature shows that legislators use interest groups, courts, and budgets to assert political control over bureaucrats. Similar theories can be applied to study the scores of new democracies that have emerged in recent decades. In Argentina, politicians in the first administration of Carlos Menem (1989-95) rewrote administrative procedures and relied on both "police patrol" and "fire alarm" oversight to realign the behavior of tax bureaucrats in conformance with their own policy preferences. Whereas U.S. legislators generally prefer complex administrative procedures, different electoral incentives led their Argentine counterparts to support reforms that significantly streamlined those procedures. This finding challenges theories that attribute legislators' bureaucratic preferences to the separation or fusion of powers between the executive and legislative branches.     

Central Weakness and Provincial Autonomy: Observations on the Devolution Process in Russia

A specialist on regional politics and center-periphery relations in the Russian Federation examines the process of devolution of authority from Moscow to the regions in the 1990s. A discussion of the process by which federal treaties were negotiated is followed by an examination of types of de facto policy autonomy that have emerged at the regional level by default. Research sources include Russianlanguage documents and interviews with a range of central and regional officials. There follows a discussion of the impact on the devolution process of the institutional structure of the Russian state.     

制度累积与中俄关系的中长期前景

与其他大国关系不同的是,中俄两国从一开始就重视建立起与新型伙伴关系相适应的制度。中俄关系得以顺利发展,这同两国始终保持各个层次、各种渠道的经常对话等制度安排具有正相关关系。与中苏关系和独联体国家关系相比,中俄关系呈现出制度累积的特征。制度化直接或间接地促进了中俄关系的进一步发展,其实践结果有力地推动了中俄在各个层面上的交流,使中俄关系的基础日趋巩固。中俄关系可望保持相当长时期内的稳定和发展,其决定因素正在于制度化的中俄关系所带来的累积效应。     

APEC模式的制度分析

作为一种合作机制的创新,APEC促进了亚太地区的经济合作和政策协调,发挥着信息沟通的巨大作用.本文认为APEC模式属于制度范畴,并结合新制度经济学,从共有理念、行动集团和制度变迁等几个方面对它的特点、内在问题进行了初步分析.     

普京执政以来俄共的新探索及其困境

普京执政以来,俄共在内外政策和工作重心方面作了新调整,即:对普京从期望到失望;斗争目标从幻想到现实;工作重心从上层转向下层,俄共不断探索在新形势下实现重掌政权、复兴社会主义的目标和手段。     

Strength through Weakness: State Executive Power and Federal Reform in Austria

Due to the absence of a strong constitutional veto player, comparative research uses to classify Austria as country with weak federal structures, occasionally even as a “federation without federalism”. From an institutional perspective, the assessment is definitely correct, in particular with regard to the nearly insignificant status of the second chamber Bundesrat. Apart from constitutional provisions, however, there are informal forces at work in decision‐making processes. Our thesis is that any approach ignoring the fact that the nominal constitution is paralleled by a real one falls short. Instead, we focus on the Conference of State Governors which, though not established by law, is a strong player in Austria's multi‐layered system qualifying the picture of “weak” federalism. The paper gives on overview of origin and function of the conference and its ambivalent role in making up for the shortcomings of the federal structures. Taking recent attempts of reorganizing fiscal equalization between states and federation as an example, the need of reforming the allocation of rights and duties between the different levels and, at the same time, the obstacles blocking the reform is outlined and analyzed.     

后苏联地区的制度竞争

在转型和发展经济体中,制度竞争经常被作为建立和保障市场的工具而加以讨论.后苏联地区(post-Soviet space)为这一问题的研究提供了一个有益的案例:国际投资流入不断增加,同时缺少政策协调,造成一种各管辖主体之间制度竞争日趋激烈的局面.不过,在后苏联地区,制度的质量看起来还不高.本论文主要分析后苏联地区内各管辖主体就制度质量所展开的竞争的潜在影响,并从两个层面进行分析:理性选择因素(经济不平等和学习效应)以及正式与非正式制度间的相互作用(对自由市场的理解,对公共权威的信任,深层次制度与浅层次制度间的相互影响).     

俄罗斯体制转型的路径依赖——从制度变迁与对外关系相关性视角的一项考察

<正>作为世界上最大的转型国家,近二十年来,俄罗斯的转型和发展过程展现出极其丰富的内涵。这一问题对于整个转型研究来说有着不可替代的重要意义,但迄今仍然处于有待发掘和研究的状态。     

欧盟对外行动署的制度建设及运行评估

欧盟对外行动署是《里斯本条约》生效后欧盟建立的一个全新专职外交机构。里约对高级代表的职责与地位所做出的相关规定,明示或默示地确立了对外行动署组建的一些基本原则。对外行动署由中央总部和驻外使团组成的架构,在一定程度上与主权国家的专职外交部门类似。本文分析了对外行动署与欧盟各有关机构和成员国的相互关系。结合对外行动署组建近两年来的外交实践,本文认为,对外行动署的建立一定程度上加强了欧盟外交的延续性、一致性和有效性,但由于这一制度变革并不是革命性的,其成效的发挥有待观察。对外行动署的组建对中欧关系的发展起到了一定的积极作用,但也需关注多方面的制约因素。     

Institutional Change in Swiss Cantons: A Contribution to Describing and Explaining Institutional Reforms

Most accounts of Swiss federal institutions are unable to explain institutional change. In this contribution the authors trace change in Cantonal reforms and then use multivariate explanation models to account for institutional reforms such as New Public Management reforms. The multivariate analyses used rely on an “event count model” to explain the frequency of institutional reforms and a “binary response model” to explain why Cantons adopt New Public Management reforms. This research demonstrates that policy research as well as innovation and diffusion theories can contribute to explaining institutional reform.