Explaining the Chinese framing of the “terrorist” violence in Xinjiang: insights from securitization theory

This paper critically examines the Chinese framing of the “terrorist” violence in Xinjiang. Drawing on the Copenhagen school of securitization theory, it examines how the historical perception of the region as a primary source of security threats to inner China has led today’s China to continue with representing the Han Chinese–Uyghur discord as an existential threat. In framing the ethnic conflict as a security issue, China has capitalized on the global “war on terror” of the early 2000s to transform the unrest into acts of Islamist terrorism to legitimize its counter-insurgency policies in Xinjiang. However, both the 2009 Urumqi riots and the 2014 Kunming attack lead us to conclude that the securitization strategy fails to quell the unrest. Not only have the Strike-Hard campaigns served to radicalize Uyghur nationalists, but also Han Chinese are not convinced that the Chinese government can contain the “terrorist” threat. Yet securitization blinds the leadership to the dysfunctional ethnic policy.     

Interwar fascism and the post-1989 radical right: Ideology,opportunism and historical legacy in Bulgaria and Romania

Do contemporary Bulgarian and Romanian radical right movements represent a legacy of interwar fascism? We argue that the key element is not that interwar movements provided legacies (of structures, ideologies, or organizations) but rather a symbolic “heritage” that contemporary movements can draw upon. The crucial legacy is, rather, the Socialist era, which in asserting its own definitions of interwar fascism created a “useable past” for populist movements. The Peoples’ Republics created a flawed historical consciousness whereby demonized interwar rightist movements could be mobilized after 1989 as historical expressions of “anti-Communist” — and, ergo, positive symbols among those of anti-Communist sentiment. Although radical right parties in both countries may cast themselves as “heirs” to interwar fascism, they share little in common in terms of ideology. Their claims to a fascist legacy is, rather, a factor of how their respective Socialist states characterized the past.     

Historical legacies and the size of the red-brown vote in post-communist politics

In this paper I examine the relatively under-investigated topic of how historical legacies shaped the emergence of the “Red-brown” political tendency in East-Central Europe and the former Soviet Union – which is sometimes referred to as “National Bolshevism” or “National Communism” or “Strasserism.” More specifically I ask the question, how do historical legacies help explain why extreme right wing voters support the successors to the formerly dominant communist parties (or what I refer to as the “red-brown” vote)? I find that the most important legacy variable that affects the red brown phenomenon is the legacy of the previous communist regime.     

The attractiveness of the seemingly unattractive: An Israeli case

The aim of this article is to analyse what makes local government in Israel, which enjoys only minimal formal power, so attractive to many political parties and other organisations. The article offers a typology of the contestants in the local government electoral arena: old parties, parties attempting to penetrate local government from parliament and parties using local government to enter parliament. The primary goal of every type is then identified: party formation, institutionalisation and survival. From this typology an explanatory model is developed which looks at the local government as a ‘linkage agent’ from which the national parties can mobilise various important resources thus achieving their primary goals.     

Europarties and party development in EU-candidate states: The case of Bulgaria

This article examines the direct impact of Europarties on domestic party development, taking the case of Bulgaria when it was a European Union (EU) candidate country. It combines arguments from party theory and the Europeanisation literature and focuses on the overlap of these two fields of study and it investigates the direct impact of Europarties on the choice of electoral strategies made by political parties in candidate states. The study begins by proposing an analytical model that explains the electoral behaviour of political parties based on traditional propositions in comparative party studies. Then it proposes to view international impact as an additional constraint on that behaviour. The main argument is that, in certain situations, Europarties have intervened in domestic party politics and have played a role in the decision of parties to choose certain electoral strategies. It is suggested therefore, that viewing party electoral behaviour purely from the perspective of domestic politics would not only be misleading, but would also lead us to expect behaviour that might not have been a possible alternative for the parties at a given point in time.     

开启“奥弗顿之窗”:美国桑德斯竞选运动的四个政治遗产

桑德斯竞选运动反映了2008年金融危机爆发后西方世界争取激进变革的新生群众运动对经济不平等现象蔓延的不满情绪,是“占领华尔街”运动爆发之后扭转经济不平等核心诉求重新进入美国政治议程的选举体现。通过重塑政治话语,桑德斯竞选运动成功推动“社会主义”从美国社会中的负面政治标签变成时代思潮,促使左翼政策纲领从边缘主张变成主流议题,激发了年轻人和激进左翼的选举热情,并唤醒了工人的阶级意识,催生美国激进左翼选举联合的可能性,其政治遗产对美国“民主社会主义”的进一步发展发挥了关键的助推作用,并深刻影响了民主党和激进左翼的政策取向和选举策略,将为若干年后“另一个桑德斯”的选举成功开启了“奥弗顿之窗”。桑德斯竞选运动是“占领华尔街”运动爆发之后美国激进左翼政治的重大进展,虽然较难引发美国政治机制的革命性变化,但却可以从推动形成和实施左翼政策纲领的层面促进美国国内政治领域的改良。     

Federalism and low-maintenance constituencies: Territorial dimensions of economic reform in Argentina

How does the territorial distribution of political and economic resources within national polities influence politics and policy making? This article examines the electoral dynamics of market reform in Argentina between 1989 and 1995. It provides insights into the way that the distribution of economic and institutional resources in federal systems shapes policy making and coalition building options for reformist governments. The electoral viability of the governing Peronist Party during the economic reform period was facilitated by the regional phasing of the costs of market reform. Structural reforms were concentrated primarily on economically developed regions of the country, while public spending and patronage in economically marginal but politically overrepresented regions sustained support for the governing party. Statistical analyses contrast patterns of spending and public sector employment in “metropolitan” and “peripheral” regions of the country during the reform period, as well as the social bases of electoral support in those regions. A conceptual distinction between “high-maintenance” and “low-maintenance” constituencies is also introduced to shed light on the dynamics of patronage spending in contexts of market reform.     

台湾地区2020年“二合一”选举结果及其对政党政治的影响

论文分析2020年台湾地区“二合一”选举结果及其对政党政治的影响。根据2016年以来三次选举中不同政党得票情况的起伏变化,观察“蓝、绿”和南北政治光谱的周期性变化规律,评估政党内部因素和外部环境对岛内选举结果的短期效应和长期影响,进而展望台湾政党政治的未来发展趋势。     

Trends in Local Elections in Britain, 1975–2003

Five aspects of local elections in Britain over a thirty year period are examined. First, the process of party politicisation has seen the growth of more three-party systems whilst in parts of the Celtic fringe electors may have a choice of at least four parties. The increase in party candidates has had an important impact on the second aspect considered, that of uncontested seats. In some areas, particularly in the larger towns and cities, lack of contestation has not been significant. In remaining areas the trend has been towards increased competition and challenge for council seats. The third aspect is electoral turnout, where a recent decline has prompted considerable debate. However, the benefit of a longitudinal study is to provide historical perspective. The data show fluctuations in turnout but no ‘golden age’ where participation rates were significantly higher than in the modern era. The fourth and fifth aspects are the distribution of votes and seats respectively. The two-party vote share has declined and voters appear more prepared to support minor party candidates. In turn this has contributed to a growth in the variety of party systems in local government.     

Whatever happened to the new public administration?

The “New Public Administration” advocated the infusion of value preferences into areas of administrative practice. In assessing the historical legacy and contemporary applicability of the movement, the authors examine its objectives in view of changing political and administrative commitments. The article criticizes the extent to which institutionalizing administrative values gives way to “value-shifting” when electoral moods change.     

Not much happened: The impact of gender quotas in Poland

Poland maintained its open-list PR system but introduced gender quotas in the 2011 parliamentary elections in order to increase the number of women deputies. Yet this change had only a limited impact on women's representation. The 2011 election confirms that ‘favorable’ electoral laws provide opportunities for women, but they cannot guarantee that women will be elected. In particular, the use of quotas alone is not sufficient to ensure high levels of women's representation. The most important factors in explaining the Polish result were 1) the absence of a ‘zipper’, a list ordering that alternates men and women candidates, thus ensuring high list-places for women 2) the parties' favoring of men in their list placement 3) the relative size of the political parties and 4) voters' support for list leaders and incumbent deputies. Despite a disappointing outcome, quotas may be seen as beneficial in increasing women's presence and the potential for further evolution of the electoral system.     

Elections in Poland 2001: electoral manipulation and party upheaval

The Polish parliamentary elections of 2001 took place in a context of fresh upheavals in the configuration of political parties. The architects of the new electoral law aimed to reduce the seats gained by the social democrats and increase their own. They succeeded in the first aim by a change of electoral formula, forcing the victorious social democratic electoral coalition to seek a third coalition partner. They did not achieve the second aim, as their own failures in government drastically reduced their electoral support and facilitated the breakthrough of populist formations. The result had implications for party development and the composition and workings of both parliament and government. While representation was enhanced by a parliament more accurately reflecting the voters’ choice, the impact appeared potentially harmful to Polish democracy as a whole.     

Populism in Taiwan: The Rise of a Populist-Democratic Culture in a Democratising Society

Taiwan's democratic transition has emerged alongside a rise of populism. Based on an analysis of post-electoral survey data, it is shown that populist resentments – embodied in such emotion-laden campaign issues as ethnic identity, national identity and a party's image of interest representation and clean politics – have been the most efficient vote-getting appeals in Taiwan's post-authoritarian electoral competition between two major political parties, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT). In Taiwan's democratic transition, mass demands for the ‘indigenisation’ of politics and the people's worry about an ever-increasing military threat from Mainland China have also popularised as well as polarised these populist appeals. As empirical data show, due to its position as the first Taiwanese party with a lion's share of populist advantages, the DPP was able to win the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. In sum, Taiwan's electoral politics in the past decade have given rise to a kind of ‘populist-democratic culture’, which inclines Taiwanese politicians to bring up populist issues rather than the rational policy debates of an electoral democracy.     

Disproportionality by Proportional Design: Seats and Votes in Russia'sRegional Legislative Elections,December 2003–March 2005

From a normative perspective, one of the major merits of electoral systems involving proportional representation (PR) is that they entail high levels of correspondence between voters' preferences, as expressed at the polls, and the levels of representation attained by political parties. From December 2003, federal law made it imperative to use mixed electoral systems in Russia's regional legislative elections. Thus PR, previously used in only a few regions, emerged as a principal mechanism of representation at the sub-national level of the Russian polity. The political incentives that drove this sweeping reform had little to do with normative considerations. When bringing mixed electoral systems to the regions, the federal centre apparently sought to open up the regional political arenas to national political influences, which could be achieved by introducing national political parties as important actors in regional elections. 1 ¹See Grigorii V. Golosov (2004) Political Parties in the Regions of Russia: Democracy Unclaimed (Boulder, Lynne Rienner), pp. 260–268. View all notes However, one might expect that even if without clear intent, high proportionality of electoral outcomes could have emerged as a side product of the electoral reform. It did not. Instead, the conversion of votes into seats in Russia's regional elections produced persistently disproportional outcomes that greatly favoured some political forces at the expense of others. The goal of this study is to examine this idiosyncratic tendency and to build an explanatory model incorporating both institutional and political determinants of disproportionality. By its methodological design, the study is based primarily on a statistical analysis of aggregate electoral results.     

What are the Local Political Costs of Centrally Determined Reforms of Local Government?

Taking advantage of a quasi-experimental setting and drawing upon analysis of electoral results and a survey of voters, this article explores the political costs of reform through the example of the 2009 local elections in Denmark. The article finds that the local parties of mayors were punished at the polls for implementing municipal amalgamations decided by the central government. However, the effect on the mayoral parties’ electoral result is more indirect than direct. Analyses of the electoral results demonstrates that the political parties holding the mayoralty in times of amalgamations tend to nominate very tenured mayors as candidates, thereby missing the positive first-term incumbency effect, which a new mayor could have acquired. And analyses of a survey of voters demonstrates higher levels of dissatisfaction with the municipal service in amalgamated municipalities, leading to a higher cost of ruling for mayoral parties which have led the implementation of an amalgamation.     

Anti-Immigrant Parties,Local Presence and Electoral Success

Abstract

Does the local organisational presence of anti-immigrant parties affect their chances for electoral success? In order to answer this question, the article explores the potential of a supply-oriented explanation to anti-immigrant party success by examining the electoral advancements the Sweden Democrats (SD) made in the 2006 and 2010 elections. Our results indicate that traditional demand-side explanations to anti-immigrant party success can be successfully complemented by an ‘internal supply-side argument’ to make the electoral fates of these parties more intelligible. Whether the SD had a local organisational presence had a substantial effect on its results in the national election and on the probability of gaining representation in local councils. Thus, the party’s fate in the national as well as local elections was largely determined by whether or not it had a local organisational presence in Swedish municipalities.     

Ethnic party competition beyond the segmented market

The outbidding model of ethnic politics focuses on party competition in an ethnically perfectly segmented electoral market where no party appeals to voters across the ethnic divide. The power sharing model retains this assumption, yet tries to prevent outbidding through moderation-inducing institutional design. Empirically, imperfectly segmented electoral markets and variance of ethnic party strategies beyond radical outbidding have been observed. To provide a stepping stone towards a more complete theory of ethnic party competition, this article introduces the notion of nested competition, defined as party competition in an imperfectly segmented market where some – but not all – parties make offers across ethnic divides and where competition in intra-ethnic arenas is nested within an inter-ethnic arena of party competition. The notion of nested competition helps explain why ethnic outbidding is not omnipresent in contemporary multi-ethnic democracies. A moderate position on the ethnic dimension that appears inauspicious from the perspective of intra-ethnic competition can turn into the strategically superior choice once ethnic parties take the whole system of competitive interactions within intra- and inter-ethnic arenas into account. A case study of nested competition for Hungarian votes in the Vojvodina region of Northern Serbia illustrates the conceptual innovations.     

Dynamics of democratization and nationalization: the significance of women’s suffrage and women’s political participation in parliament in the Second Polish Republic

This paper will examine processes of democratization and “nationalization” with specific reference to the Second Polish Republic (II Rzeczpospolita) and the interwar period. Starting from a consideration of broader theoretical concepts concerning transformation processes and their relation to the analytical categories of gender and ethnicity, it will discuss the introduction of political rights for women in 1918 as a case study for the role women’s suffrage played in the process of democratization. A closer examination of the activity of three selected female members of parliament – a Polish, Jewish, and Ukrainian MP – in the Polish parliament will help to clarify if and how gender and ethnicity mattered in political institutions. It is argued that especially their speeches, by addressing specifically political demands in a certain way, that is, how they spoke in the name of their sex, nation, and ethnicity, show a close interlinkage between democratization and nationalization during the Second Polish Republic. From this will emerge a more general outlook on the extent to which the recognition of women’s suffrage molded the basis for equality between women and men, and if the legally guaranteed equality really included all citizens of the Polish state.     

Confusion politique au Congo-Kinshasa

This article, written in February 1998, describes political confusion, contradictions, and ambiguities (institutional as well as ideological) typical of the Kabila’s regime at that time. Political mobilisation as well as political identification were polarised by opposition between “local Zairians,” born from locally-born parents, and “new Congolese” who were born elsewhere or whose parent were born outside of the country. Other factors of political identification were ethnicity, regionalism, and generation. Given the fact that the new political regime suspended all political parties and that Kabila himself did not openly declare himself leader of a political movement, there was no open political activity. The article suggests that the new political crises is coming; it was confirmed by August 1998 rebellion/invasion.     

Seasonal migration and symbolic power: the case of Muslim Meskhetians from Nasakirali

The repatriation and inclusion of Muslim Meskhetians, forcefully displaced by the Soviet government from Georgia to Central Asia during the 1940s, is still ongoing. In 1977, some Meskhetian families settled in the village of Nasakirali in western Georgia. The Soviet Georgian government built houses for the repatriates in a separate district, referred to as the “Island.” The location acquired a symbolic meaning for Meskhetians. After 40 years of repatriation, Meskhetians still remain “islanders:” isolated from the majority population, speaking a different language, practicing a different religion, and facing different employment opportunities. This study explores the coping mechanisms used by Muslim Meskhetians to sustain themselves and their families and improve their social conditions in a strictly Christian post-socialist country where “Islam is taken as a historical other.” The study primarily asks how employment/seasonal migration in Turkey changed the lives of Meskhetians by adapting their social, cultural, economic, and symbolic capital and became the only viable solution for overcoming social marginalization. The study explores how informality allows social mobility, changes gender attitudes, and helps “islanders” reach the “mainland” by becoming “Halal” – truthful and reliable. The study applies Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of “capital” and “symbolic power” for understanding Meskhetians’ informal economic practices.