Democratization in the Balkans: Challenges and prospects

The post‐communist states of the Balkans face daunting challenges as they experiment with pluralism. The absence of a strong democratic tradition, national rivalries within and between states, weak civil society, and the impact of communism on political culture, complicate the emergence of open politics. There is a lack of agreement about the management of political competition and an absence of political institutions able to integrate conflicting forces. Compared with democratizing southern Europe, the Balkans faces numerous handicaps, and support from heartland democracies has been meagre. The fate of democracy may well be determined by events outside local control, namely the economic situation and the outcome of the war in former Yugoslavia.     

对非洲民主化的再思考

20世纪90年代初,随着冷战结束,在西方的强力推动下,政治民主化浪潮席卷非洲大陆。短短几年内,绝大多数非洲国家都改行西方多党议会民主制。非洲民主化虽然使非洲国家的人民获得了一定的公民权利和民主意识,也有助于一些国家的政治稳定,但由于先天不足和脱离实际,西式民主化对不少非洲国家造成了严重后果:加剧了社会矛盾、政治动荡和经济困境,人民生活不升反降。这些引起了非洲国家对民主化进行反思,转而探索走符合自身国情的民主道路。西方国家为了自身利益,不希望非洲动乱,对其民主化进程不再随意搞“揠苗助长”。未来非洲民主化的走势将更多地体现非洲特色,趋于渐进和平稳。     

The Albanian Diaspora and security in the Balkans

The main theses of this article, completed on the eve of the NATO bombing campaign, remain relevant. With half of Europe's Muslim Albanians living outside Albania proper in Slavic and Greek Orthodox countries, the resultant risk of a broader Balkan conflict remains. Indeed, the sense of grievance of both Serbs and Albanians has been intensified by ethnic cleansing, bombing, dispossession, and polarization. Those like Kosovar shadow President Rugova, who were committed to multi‐ethnic compromise, have been pushed aside by the KLA. Increasingly, the long‐term solution in Kosovo appears to be one of independence from both Serbia and Albania with the rights of Serbs preserved by partition policed by NATO/UN forces.     

论非洲民主化

非洲民主化浪潮已经历十年的风雨历程。由于非洲市民社会的弱小和资本主义商品经济不发达，以及选举制度上的一些缺陷，非洲民主的发展有其特殊的复杂性、艰难性和脆弱性，不可能墒单复制西方式民主。十年来，非洲的民主化建设已搭起一个包括宪法、政党和选举制度在内的民主制度框架，初步完成了民主化第一阶段的制度建设。而民主化的第二阶段，即民主文化和价值观的巩固，以及一系列法律制度的建立与完善则刚刚开始，任重而道远。     

Democratic control and border security in the Western Balkans

This note focuses on the best means for achieving civilian control of border security in the Balkans. Civilian control may be achieved through societal control (as in civilian complaint reviews) but such procedures require an established political culture that does not yet exist in the region. Civilian control also requires a degree of technical expertise, which is not always available among international officials, let alone local communities.     

Shaping perceptions during the latest Balkans Imbroglio

While it might seem as though the confrontation with Slobodan Milosevic is old news, recent events in Serbia, Kosovo and Montenegro point to the probability that events this summer will likely bring US policy vis‐à‐vis the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia back to the front pages. All sides in the 1999 conflict over Kosovo attempted to manipulate the regional and international perception of the struggle. This perception conflict was in many ways more important than the casualties sustained or the land controlled. This article examines the attempt to gain the informational ‘high ground’ and addresses how perception management should affect current US policy towards Serbia and the Milosevic government.     

全球化背景下的中东政治民主化

中东伊斯兰国家政治民主化进程在全球化的冲击下取得了一定的成就 ,在一定程度上改变了中东地区的政治面貌。由于国际局势的变化和中东国家独特的宗教、社会历史条件 ,其政治民主化进程在 2 0世纪 90年代遇到了严峻的挑战。但只要中东国家坚持和发扬伊斯兰传统文化中有利于政治民主化的合理因素 ,同时积极融入全球政治民主化大潮 ,协调好全球化与传统文化的关系 ,中东的政治民主化进程一定能继续发展。     

巴尔干国际治理:科索沃案例

冲突后地区的国际治理是冷战后国际社会面临的新挑战.本文对国际治理的起源进行了简要分析,考察了巴尔干国际治理的条件与功能,较为全面地探讨了科索沃国际治理的背景、法律依据、实际运作及其经验,并对科索沃独立后国际治理的演化进行了简要评述.     

非洲民主化进程中的公民社会

学术界普遍认为,公民社会在20世纪后期全球范围的民主转型和民主巩固进程中发挥了重要推动作用.许多学者用公民社会范式来分析非洲国家民主化的动因、进程及其特点.但是,实证研究表明,尽管非洲公民社会的发展非常迅速,但非洲公民社会在民主化进程中的作用有限,在民主巩固和发展时期的作用更是令人失望.究其原因,在于非洲公民社会发育的不成熟及其产生的脆弱性,表现为公民社会缺乏整体性、发育迟缓、力量弱小、适应能力差等.这种脆弱性决定了非洲公民社会的发展和完善将是一个长期过程.     

军事政变和独裁交替下的泰国民主化道路——泰国民主化的特征与未来

比其他亚洲国家起步早的泰国民主化道路走得并不平坦,军事政变和政治独裁的交替似乎成为了近70多年来泰国政治的主线。这种奇特的政治现象和泰国的政治文化、宗教意识、教育水平、社会结构等因素密切联系在一起。最初由精英发起的泰国民主化运动,如果得不到整个国民的回应,没有获得成熟市民社会的支持,真正的民主主义也就不可能在泰国扎根。     

Cultural Challenges to Democratization in Russia

Three historical forces having shaped Russia—the Land, the Church, and the West. Fifteen years after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia remains the largest country on earth, with geopolitical interests in virtually every nation on the Eurasian continent and a fast-growing economy. The Russian Orthodox Church has resumed its place at the center of Russian culture, a culture that must be considered when assessing Russia's prospects for democratization. Likewise, Russians’ understanding of the West and democracy often suffers from misapprehensions that must be overcome in order for it to be attractive to Russia to move toward its own form of democracy. For U.S.-Russian differences today are primarily cultural, not ideological.     

Democratization and Transitional Justice

Any country which attempts to establish accountability for past abuses of human rights during the process of democratization faces political, judicial, and ethical problems. With regard to politics, the question of which transitional justice measures are appropriate, functional, and feasible has to be decided for every individual case. A judicial approach has to decide which judicial standards to apply and how to justify prosecution. Finally, the ethical dilemmas of dealing with historical injustices have to be understood. There are no ready-made concepts to define guilt and justice. In many cases it is even difficult to tell the victims from the perpetrators. This study examines the different strategies subsumed under the term ‘transitional justice’ used by emerging democracies to deal with a legacy of human rights abuses. It explores the problems and challenges posed by different mechanisms of reconciliation and societal reintegration. While existing analyses of the contribution that transitional justice measures make to the process of social re-integration stress the importance of consensus among citizens and social groups for the emergence of trust and solidarity, this study suggests also thinking about how conflicts over competing ‘truths’ can help to build social capital and reconciliation. Noting a global diffusion of international legal norms, which means at least formal universal acceptance of basic rights and judicial procedures, it is argued that international justice cannot be a substitute for transitional justice measures taken by the domestic regime itself.     

Democratization and War in Political Science

This article explores what political science literature has to say about the promises and perils of expanding democratic governance. International relations literature and comparative politics literature both deal with the claim that stable democracies do not fight each other. However, these two strands of literature only to a minor extent exchange research findings on the causes of war. International relations scholars are well aware of the fact that the early stages of democratization in particular may trigger conflict, and they explain that they are referring to the size of a country's power and the distribution of capabilities among the major powers, among other factors. In contrast, comparativists focus on the opening of domestic political space. In a transitional state, open political space fosters elite competition, which cannot be regulated by weak political institutions and therefore may cause civil war. They are less aware of the fact that these internal dynamics may even enhance the risk of political violence beyond territorial borders. Both of these approaches must be used to focus on the consequences of democratization on a regional scale. In ‘bad neighbourhoods’, including the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Middle East and the Great Lakes in Africa, democratization can trigger conflict beyond state frontiers by altering the incentives and opportunities of political actors.     

孟加拉国的政治民主化历程

孟加拉国的政治民主化历程可谓具有很强的自身特色。从建国初期的议会民主制到军人统治的总统制再到议会民主制 ,其经历犹如是一个圆圈 ,经过一段时间之后又回到了起始点。其一波三折的历程也显得异常地艰苦和漫长。同时孟加拉国又是南亚地区的大国 ,在南亚非常具有代表性 ,研究其政治民主化有助于我们理解其他南亚国家和发展中国家的民主化进程。所以本文拟就孟加拉国自建国之日起至 1991年的政治民主化发展历程和出现挫折的原因进行论述 ,并对孟加拉国当前的民主化现状和未来的前景进行分析和探讨。     

Anti-Corruption Strategies and Democratization in Bosnia-Herzegovina

There is an international consensus that corruption undermines the democratic process and the legitimacy of government. Anti-corruption strategies are increasingly becoming an integral part of democratization programmes in non-western states. Where there are doubts over the effectiveness of these programmes they have tended to be expressed in relation to the level of social and economic development necessary to ensure a separation between private and public spheres. The experience of extensive international anti-corruption policies in Bosnia provides an opportunity to assess the relationship between anti-corruption initiatives and democratization in the European context. Taking a broad systemic approach to tackling political corruption, it was assumed that international policy in this area could strengthen the authority of democratic political institutions, encourage public participation and rebuild relations of trust within and between communities. This study of the impact of systemic anti-corruption strategies focuses on the effectiveness of these initiatives in meeting democratization goals. The results have been disappointing. The reasons for this may lie in the initial assumptions, not because they assume a higher level of social and economic development than Bosnian society has attained but because they have a narrow reductive view of the political process.     

Assessing international aid for local governance in the Western Balkans

This article investigates the impact of international efforts to cultivate effective and authoritative local governing institutions in the Western Balkans, a prime testing ground for democratization aid to post-war states. It explores three hypotheses, each of which argues that a particular approach of international actors toward domestic officials best improves the quality of local governance. The study's gathering of interview and survey data from field-based actors enables it to evaluate local government reforms' impact on domestic communities. This investigation arrives at three findings. First, in the view of Western Balkan peoples, local governance reforms do not produce benefits when they are either imposed or ignored by international authorities. Secondly, reforms produce benefits for local communities when they are designed to meet domestic concerns. More specifically, reforms valued by local communities are designed in ways that respond to domestic, rather than international, concepts of good local governance that emphasize socioeconomic aspects and produce tangible benefits. Well designed reforms also include significant aid targeting local governance that is coupled with the promise of a larger political settlement that is attractive to powerful domestic elites and contingent on clearly articulated local governance reforms. Thirdly, such aid best characterises European Union efforts only in Macedonia.     

The Presidency,the Parties and Democratization in Mexico

This article seeks to explain how democratization in Mexico reinvigorated a party system that a generation earlier existed mainly on paper. The process of democratization involved a reduction, though by no means the elimination, of the meta-presidentialism in favour of a more law-based system. Forces exogenous to the party system shaped the initial democratization process. However, once the regime agreed to accept certain electoral rule changes, especially after 1986, the system of party competition developed dramatically to a much greater extent than expected. The initial threat to the system posed by the Cardenas candidacy in 1988 was suppressed. However, after 1988 electoral competition became increasingly important. In terms of shaping factors, therefore, one could see the birth of party competition contingent on other democratizing influences. However, once born, it proved to have a considerable shaping influence of its own. The current democratic system in Mexico selects the president by simple majority. There is no runoff system. However, Congress is elected according to systems of proportional representation. This makes minority presidentialism likely, as has indeed been the pattern since 2000. Since the Mexican constitution confers rather few powers on the presidency, the result is likely to be a continued redistribution of power from the president to the Congress.