The rise and fall of Germany's party of democratic socialism

This article offers a short diachronic analysis of the development and success of Germany's Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), followed by an examination of the explanations cited by academics, political commentators and the party itself for its poor performance in the 2002 general election. A distinction is drawn between factors that are short-term in nature and those that are more fundamental to the party's current predicament, with the analytical emphasis being placed firmly on internal variables – that is, on the party's own capacity (or lack thereof) to act. The conclusion is reached that sympathisers and supporters of the PDS currently have very little reason to be optimistic about the party's future prospects.     

Reassessing Turkish National Memory: An Analysis of the Representation of Turkish National Memory by the AKP

In this article continuity and discontinuity of interpretations and manipulations of national memory during the successive governments of the Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi (Justice and Development Party – AKP) in Turkey are investigated. The strong continuities between the Islamist parties of the 1990s and the AKP, with regard to the way they consider and manipulate Ottoman history as a means of political legitimation, are demonstrated. In addition, the continuity between the AKP's style of governance and that of preceding governments is shown. The conclusion of the article is that, in addition to continuities with its Islamist predecessors, the AKP is to a large extent still embedded within the boundaries of the nationalist framework set out by Kemalism with regard to the party's stance on Turkish citizenship, national identity, traumas in national history and leader-centred politics.     

The Iraqi Ba‘th Party Preparatory School and the ‘Cultural’ Courses of the Branches

Political indoctrination of the Ba’th party cadre in Iraq was critical for the durability of the regime for 35 years. The party preparatory school was the vehicle for the ideological training of the party elite, while special courses, provided by the party branches, focused on the ‘cultural’ education of the party's lower echelons to prepare them for becoming active members. Using the Ba’th's own archives, the article examines how the party's school, the branches’ cultural courses, and the Ba’th cultural activities, combined to create an ideologically educated cadre which paved the way for the party's domination of Iraq's culture and ideology.     

The impact of ideological positions and personal attributes of candidates in intraparty competition: A study under the Swiss open-list PR System

Intraparty preference voting systems offer different incentives for candidates to cultivate a personal vote, but little is known about how the candidates' policy positions affect their electoral success in intraparty competition. This article analyses the effect of candidates' ideological positions and personal attributes on their preference vote share in the 2015 and 2019 Swiss Lower House elections. We used candidate survey data combined with official election statistics. Our findings demonstrate that the ideological distance between candidates' positions and their party's median position is of minor importance for their electoral success when compared to their personal attributes. However, ideological distance between candidates and their party's median position reduce their preference vote share.     

Two Steps Forward,One Step Back: Merkel's CDU/CSU and the Politics of Welfare State Reform

Given its traditional support for conservative welfare state policies, the Christian Democratic Union's embrace of major reform measures in late 2003 seemingly marked a significant shift in the party's direction. The extent of its commitment to this new course became a key question in German politics during the election of 2005 and the early phase of Angela Merkel's Grand Coalition. This article examines the factors that contributed to her CDU's embrace of welfare state retrenchment in light of the literature on the politics of social policy reform. It argues that this shift in party policy was driven mainly by calculations of perceived partisan opportunity and organisational latitude. When the latter appeared to change, the consensus on major reform within the CDU crumbled, which in turn affected the party's 2005 campaign and its role in the Grand Coalition government.     

Anti‐Conservatism: Paul Hasluck and Liberal Development in Papua New Guinea

In the continuing debates about the relative importance of conservatism and liberalism in the history of the Australian Liberal Party, one important dimension remains absent. Liberal developmentalism as an important anti‐conservative strand of thought was critical to the party's formative years after the Second World War as a party of government. The importance of this facet of liberalism is illustrated here by reference to the role of long‐serving Minister for Territories Paul Hasluck in overseeing development in Papua and New Guinea (PNG). Hasluck and the Australian Administration formulated policy intended to secure the indigenous population on rural smallholdings at higher standards of living before industrialisation's anticipated effects of proletarianisation could take effect.     

Nothing personal: explaining the rise and decline of political machines in Ukraine

This article is the first to explore and compare the dynamics of party-building between the three main political forces that competed for power during the last decade in Ukraine – Viktor Yushchenko's Nasha Ukrayina (Our Ukraine), Yulia Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna (Fatherland), and Viktor Yanukovych's Partiya Rehioniv (Party of Regions). We show that their political trajectories can be explained by differences in their organizational structure and distribution of resources within the party's leadership. When a party depends on resources linked primarily to one individual, it will develop a personalized decision-making structure advantaging its leader, and the party's fortunes will be tied to the popularity (or lack of same) of the leader. By contrast, when a party relies equally on resources from several groups, a more consociational style of decision-making is likely to emerge. Using Ukraine as a case study, the article shows that personality-led parties will be more vulnerable to defections and less capable of absorbing potential competitors. On the other hand, coalition-led parties are better capable of surviving defeats, maintaining internal cohesion, and merging with like-minded parties.     

Rituals of Commemoration – Identity and Conflict: The Case of Die Linke in Germany

For social groups, as for individuals, memory is an important part of their identity. Therefore political parties usually have an instrumental relation to their own party's history whose function is to enhance party identity. The ‘official’ party history normally is inclusive, designed as a composition of party heroes and villains as well as of party achievements which all members and ideological wings can agree upon or, at least, where they can find themselves represented. But sometimes it is hard to agree on history. All wings and currents of Die Linke can agree on Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht as symbols; their assassination in January 1919 is commemorated by a demonstration every year. Unexpected intra-party conflicts arose when in December 2006 a stone was placed at the cemetery Friedrichsfelde in Berlin near the graves of Luxemburg and Liebknecht commemorating the ‘victims of Stalinism’.     

Islam,radicalism, and violence in Southern Thailand: Berjihad di Patani and the 28 April 2004 attacks

Abstract

Violence in Thailand's deep South centers on Muslim unrest, which has been simmering since World War II. What was once a low-level secessionist insurgency has now developed into a full-scale conflict and violent campaign that has claimed hundreds of lives in the three southern border provinces. This amounts to the most serious political violence in recent Thai history. The main argument of this article is that the separatist struggle, which was initially based on a Malay national liberation struggle, has taken on undertones of a radical Islamist ideology, and the discourse of the separatist struggle has significantly shifted to that of radical Islamist politics by calling for a jihad against the Thai state, its local agents, and their Muslim allies. This shift is exemplified by a document entitled Berjihad di Patani, which appears to have helped inspire the violent incidents of 28 April 2004. To a large extent, what is happening in southern Thailand follows similar developments elsewhere, both at the regional level and in other parts of the Muslim world. Factors affecting the changing discourse and practice of the separatist politics are both external and internal: the failures of secularist development projects in the past decades, the influence of Islamic radicalism abroad, and the Islamic resurgence and fragmentation of religious establishment at home.     

The Free Democrats’ Second Chance

The Free Democratic Party's 2017 federal election campaign ended in triumph, just four years after the party's comprehensive defeat in the last election. This article examines the FDP's goals, strategic choices and performance in the Bundestag election and considers where the party goes from here.     

ASGP POSTGRADUATE PRIZE 2001 - Nation,Heimat, Vaterland: The Reinvention of Concepts by the Bavarian CSU

The article employs a post-modern theoretical framework to examine the CSU's ideological construction of the concepts of Nation, Heimat and Vaterland. Discourse theory is used to characterise the dynamics underpinning the party's bid for ideological hegemony in Bavaria. Examples of party rhetoric are placed in their historical context, in order to trace the process of political mobilisation through the definition of concepts. The CSU's articulation of the concept of Heimat is equated with a nationalist construct, one which allows the party to pursue a nation-building strategy within Bavaria whilst avoiding the negative connotations of nationalist ideology in Germany.     

The politics of national‐populism: Ideology and policies of the German Republikaner party

In this article, the Republikaner party's ideology and policies are explored on the basis of programmes and other public statements. There will be an emphasis on economic policies and issues of national and ethnic identity. It will be argued that the Republikaner party is targeting a broader electoral coalition than its main competitors and predecessors on the extreme right. In its attempt to mobilise a broad and heterogeneous protest coalition and to attract voters beyond the narrow confines of traditional right‐wing extremism the party makes contradictory promises to various sectional groups without being able to integrate them into a consistent framework of economic policy. These contradictions are covered up by the party's radical nationalism, extreme xenophobia and populist propaganda.     

The Unruly Past: History and Historiography of the 1932 Thai Revolution

ABSTRACT

The monarchy and the country’s military dominate discussions of Thai political history. The country’s democratic history meanwhile is much less well known. To many people, historiography – the history of the writing of history – is a dull affair that only concerns academics. But the changing representations of the origins of democracy in the 1932 revolution that ended the absolute monarchy show the politics of history as a continuous problem that still shapes Thai society. The interpretations have been bound to the bitter partisanship that has accompanied a history of political instability. This article examines the changing interpretations of 1932 in their historical contexts and demonstrates the central antagonism towards the ideal of popular sovereignty, despite its long history in the country, that is still held by the military and monarchic elite.     

Religion,the churches,and the German ‘revolution’ of November 1989

The state election of 2006 in Rheinland-Pfalz resulted in a (bare) majority of seats for the SPD, which allows the party to govern alone for the first time in the history of the state. The CDU, on the other hand, received slightly less than one-third of the vote, an all-time low in its former stronghold. This result was by and large determined by factors at the state level. Yet it had a considerable impact at the federal level: it signalled the end of a string of devastating losses for the SPD, enhanced the standing of minister president Kurt Beck (now the SPD's chairman), and brought to an end the last coalition between the SPD and the FDP. These repercussions notwithstanding, there is no evidence of a durable voter realignment benefiting the SPD, since the party's victory was apparently due to short- and mid-term factors. Therefore, the outcome of the next election (scheduled for 2011) is by no means a foregone conclusion.     

The silence of the bullet monument: Violence and “Truth” management,Dusun-nyor 1948, and Kru-Ze 2004

Abstract

The so-called Dusun-nyor rebellion of April 1948 is a central and highly controversial episode in the history of southern Thailand. During the “rebellion,” Malay-Muslim villagers fought pitched battles with Thai police and soldiers. Drawing upon sources from a variety of perspectives, this article reviews these events in light of the Thai state's persistent attempts at “truth” management. What soon emerges is that the same events are understood quite differently by those of different perspectives. Using insights developed in other studies of the political usages of monuments, the article focuses on a rather mysterious “bullet monument” that commemorates the 1948 event. The bullet-shaped monument, which is located in the grounds of a police station in Narathiwat Province, has no accompanying text. Like the rebellion whose suppression it appears to celebrate, the bullet monument represents an ambiguous and confusing manifestation of collective memory. In various respects, the “Dusun-nyor rebellion” prefigures the controversy and ambiguity surrounding the storming of the Kru-Ze mosque in Pattani in April 2004. In this recent episode, thirty-two men were killed by Thai security forces inside one of the country's most sacred Muslim sites. Both the Dusun-nyor and Kru-Ze events point to the importance of looking beyond violence, and of thinking critically about the nature of “truth.”     

The Electoral Supporter Base of the Alternative for Germany

Using data from a recent nationwide survey, we provide the first analysis of the supporter base of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) since the party's split and ideological re‐orientation in mid‐2015. Hypotheses are derived from the literature on Populist Radical Right Parties (PRRP s) in Western Europe. Our findings indicate that AfD support—despite the party's euro crisis origins and rapid organizational and ideational changes—is by now due to largely the same set of socio‐economic, attitudinal and contextual factors proven important for PRRP parties elsewhere. Right‐wing political attitudes concerning immigration, political distrust, fears of personal economic decline, as well as gender and socialisation effects are the most relevant explanatory variables. However, some of our findings – the importance of right‐wing economic policy preferences, the strong support by certain immigrant groups, and the role of the long‐term regional political context – stand out and distinguish the AfD from other Western European PRRP s.     

Between haiderisation and modernisation: The German free democrats since party unification

This article examines the development of the German Free Democrats (FDP) since party unification in 1990. Two‐fifths of the FDP's membership now come from the new Lander which adds considerably to the party's internal volatility while it is faced with a dual policy and functional crisis. The current internal debate indicates the extent of the resulting disorientation and illustrates the post‐unification search for a new identity. There now appear to be three principal options for the FDP's future development: firstly, the ‘West German option’, that is the retention of the internal status quo ante; secondly, a radical Haider‐style transformation or the ‘Austrian option'; and thirdly, the ‘modernisation option’, which sees party unification as an opportunity for positive change which could make the Liberals the first truly all‐German party.     

“Tongpan”: An important event in Thai cinema

Abstract

Films being made in Asian countries are now beginning to express an Asian reality. This is happening in a small way, but it is happening. The scale of the movement to break away from Hollywood and Bombay-type extravaganzas, and from films as a kind of “celluloid LSD,” is still small, constrained as it is by film-makers and sellers out to make quick profits. One little ripple that has recently emerged from the stagnant waters of Asia's film world is called “Tongpan.” The work of a group of creative amateurs, “Tongpan” is not the result of a commercial venture, and is not a professionally-made film in the conventional sense. It is also not a film in the style of what has come to be known as the “New Wave Cinema,” for “Tongpan” is not an art film to be “museumed” for wealthy connoisseurs. But precisely for all these reasons it is important that a film called “Tongpan” has been made. Indeed an important event has occurred in Thai Cinema. Important because it shows what is happening to the Thai people in the name of ‘development’ and captures for posterity the tensions and strains of an important period in Thailand's recent history.     

Hegemony and the politics of culture and identity in Thailand

Abstract

This article argues that the establishment of the Ministry of Culture in Thailand needs to be understood in a broadly historical perspective that relates to the role of culture in hegemonic strategies of the state. It presents an overview of broadly defined culture policy in Thailand from the 1930s before moving to a more detailed discussion of the period from the 1980s to the present. The principle contention, developed in the second half of the article, is that the current policies of Thailand's Ministry of Culture, and its role in hegemonic identity production, can only be understood by taking account of the variety of factors that shaped the Ministry's emergence. These factors include the influence of international development agencies, strategies of appropriation by the Thai state, and the role of progressive forces within Thailand that seek political and cultural reform. The circumstances under which the Ministry was formed have made it a site of contestation between conservative royalist-nationalist perspectives on Thai national identity and progressive localist and international understandings of Thai national identity.