Socialism,political ideas and the labour party

Nicholas Ellison, Egalitarian Thought and Labour Politics. Retreating Visions, (Routledge, London 1994). 272pp. ISBN 0–415–06972–6 (hb).

Eric Shaw, The Labour Party Since 1979. Crisis and Transformation, (Routledge, London 1994). 276pp. ISBN 0–415–05614–4 (hb), 0–415–05615–2 (pb).

Robin Archer, Economic Democracy. The Politics of Feasible Socialism, (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1995). 280pp. ISBN 0–19–827891–8 (hb).     

The 2004 general election in India and its aftermath

In early 2004 India confirmed that coalition governments are the staple for sometime to come. This article examines the events leading to the general election and thereafter. It contends that there are several forces that will tax the new United Progressive Alliance led by the Congress Party which itself is ridden with many internal squabbles. Among the coalition partners, the Communist Party of India, which tends to be ideological in making its presence felt without accepting any responsibility by being a part of the government, can possibly be the worst threat to stability. The Bharatiya Janata Party, which does not seem to have come to terms with its defeat, seems to be obstructionist rather than being a “loyal opposition”. There are also several major issues of governance such as corruption and “tainted” Ministers which the new government has to deal with. Thus, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wears the mantle of government rather precariously, and with an uncertain future.     

美国:大选后的全球战略

目前美国大选已进入最后冲刺阶段,双方旗鼓相当,不分上下,鹿死谁手不久便可见分晓.新政府上台后,将依惯例重新审议和调整全球战略和对外政策.因此,有必要及早对两党的全球战略进行深入研究,以准确把握美今后的全球战略走向.笔者认为,无论布什抑或克里赢得今年大选,新政府都会从美国家利益和面临的主要威胁出发,继续奉行如下"反恐谋霸"的全球战略.     

瑞典社会民主党缘何败选下台

今年9月17日,瑞典大选结果揭晓,以温和党为首的中右联盟获得51%的选票胜出,执政的社会民主党与左翼联盟以49%的选票落败,这次大选也是近30年来瑞典历史上最势均力敌的一次.社会民主党在本届大选中仅获得35.2%的选民支持,比上届下降4.7%,获得130个议席(上届144席),是过去80年中大选表现最差的一次.     

美国的选举制度

四年一次的美国总统选举将在11月举行.民主党候选人"Two Johns"(约翰·克里和约翰·爱得华兹)所组成的竞选班子已登台亮相,向现任总统、共和党候选人乔治·W·布什提出挑战,美国的"选举秀"不断升温.事实上,作为现代西方国家民主制创始国之一,美国的总统选举制度有其独特之处.     

Centre-right politics in Turkey after the November 2002 general election: neo-liberalism with a Muslim face

This article analyses the implications for centre-right politics and democracy in Turkey of the rise to power of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi, AKP) in the November 2002 general election. It is argued that the AKP has both similarities with and differences from the centre-right political parties that have dominated Turkish politics in the aftermath of the 1980 coup d’état. It is possible to find continuity in the conciliatory and synthesizing stance of the AKP, as well as in its rather conservative stance. The AKP’s disposition vis-à-vis state-centred politics is considered, as is its standpoint with regard to pluralism and democracy.     

厉兵秣马:法国社会党备战2007

2002年大选失败后,法国社会党并未从此消沉.第一书记奥朗德及时提出要学习瑞典社民党的做法,即"执政时要像反对党那样采取行动,成为反对党时要以尽快地回到执政党为目标".正是这一目标促使社会党厉兵秣马,为迎战2007年大选积极筹备.概括起来,社会党的备战举措主要有:深刻的理论反思,改革组织制度,重振左翼联盟,调整竞选战略.     

Military–economic planning in socialist Hungary: The history of the general organisational department of the National Planning Office, 1948–1971

This article analyses the institutional framework of military–economic and defence industrial planning in Hungary in the Socialist period. At the beginning of the 1950s the Soviet military planning system was mechanically adopted in Hungary and during the Korean War a system of general mobilisation was developed, and the whole economy was militarised. Although some limitations were introduced into this structure in the following years, it was only in the 1960s that the planning methods and apparatus were reorganised and modernised. It was at this time that the implications of atomic war were brought into the considerations of the planning office, resulting in radical change.     

The US presidential election of 1992 and its impact on Asia

Andrew Mack, (ed.), Asian Flashpoint: Security and the Korean Peninsula (Canberra and St. Leonards: ANU and Allen and Unwin, 1993), 175 pp.

Toh Mun Heng and Linda Low, (eds.), Regional Cooperation and Growth Triangles in ASEAN (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1993), 256 pp.

Kent E. Calder, Strategic Capitalism: Private Business and Public Purpose in Japanese Industrial Finance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 373 pp.

Garry Rodan, (ed.), Singapore Changes Guard: Social, Political and Economic Directions in the 1990s (Melbourne, Australia: Longman Cheshire Pty Limited and New York: St. Martin's Press, Inc., 1993), xxii + 209 pp.

J. Mark Ramseyer and Frances McCall Rosenbluth, Japan's Political Marketplace, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993) 262 pp.

Roger Goodman and Kirsten Refsing, (ed.), Ideology and Practice in Modern Japan (Routledge: London, 1992) 243 pp.

John Bresnan, Managing Indonesia: The Modern Political Economy (New York, Columbia University Press, 1993), 375 pp.     

The spatial division of labour in Nepal

This article examines how economic activity and market participation are distributed across space. Applying a nonparametric von Thünen model to Nepalese data, we uncover a strong spatial division of labour. Non-farm employment is concentrated in and around cities while agricultural wage employment dominates villages located further away. Vegetables are produced near urban centres; paddy and commercial crops are more important at intermediate distances. Isolated villages revert to self-subsistence. Findings are consistent with the von Thünen model of concentric specialisation, corrected to account for city size. Spatial division of labour is closely related to factor endowments and household characteristics, especially at the local level.     

Two dimensions of the Europeanization of election programs: The case of the Czech Republic

This article represents a contribution to the debate over the Europeanization of political parties, one of the hot topics in contemporary political science. It explores the extent of Europeanization in political parties represented in the lower chamber of the Parliament of the Czech Republic by means of an analysis of party election manifestoes. The extent of Europeanization in these documents is analyzed using a bi-dimensional conceptualization. The first we call the quantitative dimension, assesses the space taken by the topic of European integration in each manifesto. The second one we call the qualitative dimension. This, using the analysis of content, measures the degree to which the European integration issue is elaborated in the programs. Using this conceptualization, we analyze the election manifestoes of five Czech political parties in the period 1996–2006.