As Clear as MUD: Characteristics,Objectives, and Strategies of the Opposition in Bolivarian Venezuela

Since President Hugo Chávez was first elected in 1998, the Venezuelan opposition seems to have alternated between institutional and extra‐institutional power strategies at different junctures. To help explain this pattern, this article constructs a novel theoretical framework from critical readings of both general theory and accounts of the Venezuelan opposition. It proposes that the strategies should be viewed as dialectical rather than discrete. On this basis, it finds that while the Venezuelan opposition has undergone important changes toward institutionalization in its composition, discursive emphasis, and strategic direction, close readings of opposition texts, interviews with opposition actors, and observations of street demonstrations all reveal continuity with previous rupturist and extra‐institutional tendencies. Both strategies therefore must be considered to achieve a fuller, more comprehensive vision of the Venezuelan opposition; this conclusion has important theoretical implications for the study of opposition in the wider region.     

Las reformas políticas en el gobierno de Sebastián Piñera Chile, 2010-2013

This paper analyzes political reforms carried out by Sebastián Piñera’s government in Chile. Te reforms considered are those that his Coalition for Change campaigned on as part of the presidential and legislative elections in 2009. Tese reforms promised an improvement in the quality of democracy, and promised its consolidation, including increased political participation, in order to counter the most common criticisms of institutions of representation. Throughout this process, the government showed little receptivity to proposals coming from other sectors, both of the ruling coalition and the opposition; furthermore, it paid scant attention to growing citizen protests and their demands voiced since his second year of government. Te information analyzed conveys little progress in decentralization and in the importance that players with veto powers were gaining within the ruling coalition.     

The Russo-Japanese visa-less exchange program: Opportunities and limits

Conclusion This paper has shed light on a unique and often highly politicized form of cultural exchange between Russia and Japan. The visa-less exchange program evolved against the backdrop of democratization, decentralization, and widespread poverty in the Russian Federation. These developments fuelled hopes among optimists in Japan that enlightening the disputed islands' current inhabitants about the historical and legal arguments underpinning the Japanese claim to the Northern Territories, as well as allowing the embattled islanders to sample what life could be like post-reversion, might alleviate opposition to Russian territorial concessions or even create “voices from below” actively calling for a pro-Japanese outcome to the dispute. The program has certainly contributed to a breakdown of outdated stereotypes and increased mutual understanding among its participants. However, for Japanese irredentists, the visa-less exchanges have thus far had mixed results: it has contributed to rising proreturn sentiments on Shikotan while seemingly having the opposite effect on Kunashiri and Etorofu. Meanwhile, the program has been slowly stagnating amid criticisms from both sides in recent years regarding its modalities. Doubts therefore remain that the visa-less exchanges can become a catalyst for resolving the territorial dispute.     

Agenda control in the Bundestag, 1980–2002

We find strong evidence of monopoly legislative agenda control by government parties in the Bundestag. First, the government parties have near-zero roll rates, while the opposition parties are often rolled over half the time. Second, only opposition parties' (and not government parties') roll rates increase with the distances of each party from the floor median. Third, almost all policy moves are towards the government coalition (the only exceptions occur during periods of divided government). Fourth, roll rates for government parties skyrocket when they fall into the opposition and roll rates for opposition parties plummet when they enter government, while policy movements go from being nearly 100 per cent rightward when there is a rightist government to 100 per cent leftward under a leftist government.     

Opposition politics in a democratic South Africa

This article assesses the state of opposition politics in the period of early democracy in South Africa, 1994–95. It contrasts the reality of a broad range of vigorous political opposition with the actuality of relatively poor parliamentary party‐political opposition. In considering these two trends, this article argues for an inclusive conceptualisation of opposition politics ‐ a conceptualisation which includes the whole range of forces of political contestation, and not just party politics. The range of these forces is explored in the article, which while acknowledging that opposition politics can be vibrant, despite limited party‐political opposition in parliament, concludes by pointing out that it is only one step towards a more realistic understanding of their role in the consolidation of democracy. The other essential requirement is full government transparency regarding all matters involving political contestation.     

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.     

Monitoring the rise of a radical force: the British Embassy in Athens and the Ascent of the Greek Panhellenic Socialist Movement, 1974–1981*

The article deals with perceptions, conceptions and policy implementation of British diplomacy towards the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) from its formation in 1974 until its first rise into power in 1981. PASOK, a political movement that was to dominate Greek politics for more than twenty years, entered the Greek political scene as a new, radical force that threatened Western values and interests and aspired to reshape the international orientation of the country, in a period of high Cold War tensions. It will be shown that British diplomacy, despite its opposition to PASOK, was forced by political realities to modify its policy significantly, in order to accommodate PASOK and preserve its interests in a country that was considered as a vital ally of the Western world.     

Revisiting the legal infrastructure for the confiscation of Armenian and Greek wealth: an analysis of the CUP years and the early modern Republic

Properties belonging to Ottoman Armenians and Greeks were seized through various laws, decrees and other legal regulations passed by the Committee of Union and Progress (hereafter CUP) government, and later the cadres of the Republican regime. Both governments concocted ways of making this illegal process look legitimate by using the legal veil of the law. Central to this process were the economic outcomes of violence committed against Armenians and Greeks. The aim of this article is to analyze these laws and statutes, which were known as the Abandoned Properties Laws, and discuss the impact of this legislation on the process of the changing of hands of Armenian and Greek properties. It attempts to elucidate the dominant logic of the laws, decrees, and regulations concerning the abandoned properties in the periods of 1915–1923 and post-1923.     

Contradictions and Constraints in Chile's Health Care and Education Decentralization

Proponents of social service decentralization often claim that transferring service administration to lower levels of government facilitates increases citizen participation and governmental accountability while improving allocative efficiency and equity in service distribution. Using the cases of health and education decentralization in Chile, this article evaluates whether and under what conditions social service decentralization programs are likely to deliver on these promises. It discusses the tensions between equity and efficiency goals and how these may play out given different accountability mechanisms in local public choice, principal-agent, and real-world "hybrid" decentralization models. The case studies illustrate the difficulty of balancing the need for central standards and funding with local autonomy, but suggest that accountability mechanisms that emerged following Chile's transition to democracy in 1990 led to improvements in both equity and efficiency in decentralized service administration.     

Challenges to Intergovernmental Relations in Switzerland and Japan

In comparing Switzerland and Japan with respect to intergovernmental relations, differences are more obvious than similarities. Switzerland is a strongly federalist country. In contrast, Japan was clearly centralist in the past, and despite continuing decentralization reforms, it is usually still considered to be so today. The influence of the lower levels of government on the national legislative process remains comparatively low in Japan. Its centralized political structure seems to fit Japan's homogeneous culture, while on the other hand Swiss federalism has proven to be apt for the integration of minorities and for respect of cultural diversity. In spite of obvious basic differences, intergovernmental relations in these two countries face similar challenges: the concentration of human and economic resources in urban areas, the weakening of sub‐national parliaments, and financial strain.     

The Impact of Fiscal Decentralisation on Education and Other Types of Spending

Scholars have argued about the impact of fiscal decentralisation on public spending for a long time without coming to any firm theoretical and empirical conclusions. In contrast to earlier studies, this paper looks at the impact of fiscal decentralisation across different types of spending. The conventional wisdom of a “race to the bottom” in taxes and spending as a consequence of fiscal decentralization is juxtaposed to the recent literature on expenditure competition, which posits that expansive local competition results in higher spending in fiscally decentralized countries. We argue that the effects of fiscal decentralization should be seen most clearly for those types of policies which are provisioned mainly on the local/regional level. Empirically, we find a robust and positive association between fiscal decentralization and aggregate levels of education spending. However, when looking at public policies provided at the national level (e.g. pension policies), fiscal decentralisation is associated with lower levels of aggregate spending. The argument is tested empirically by means of cross‐sectional regressions as well as a pooled time series analysis of education, pension, social and total public spending in OECD countries from 1980 to 2001.     

ZANU(PF) strategies in general elections, 1980-2000: Discourse and coercion

For many analysts, the general election campaign in 2000 showeda new face of the ruling party, ZANU(PF). Against the new oppositionparty, the Movement for Democratic Change, ZANU(PF) engagedin violence and intimidation, often relying on youth and warveterans, even as it accused its opponents of subversive violence.Moreover, ZANU(PF) appealed to its liberation war credentials,while dismissing its chief opponents as puppets of British imperialismand reactionary white settlers. After the election, PresidentMugabe appealed for reconciliation between winners and losers,only to permit violence against those who had voted againstthe ruling party. For ruling party perpetrators of violence,there was impunity and later a presidential pardon. The purposeof this article is to demonstrate how the ruling party usedremarkably similar strategies in every general election since1980, notwithstanding striking differences in the contexts,issues, and nature of the chief opposition party. Given thiswell established pattern of ruling party violence and intimidationand characterization of opposition parties as illegitimate,the article seeks to understand why analysts repeatedly sawin the regular multiparty elections either a democratic systemor one that was amenable to democratization.     

Framing language policy in post-Soviet Azerbaijan: political symbolism and interethnic harmony

This article describes how the successive Azerbaijani governments of Heydar Aliyev (1993–2003) and Ilham Aliyev (2003–present) have pursued a largely symbolic language policy, enabling them to portray themselves as protectors of both a unique Azerbaijani identity and interethnic harmony while actually expending minimal resources. Given the demographic dominance of Azerbaijanis in Azerbaijan, language revitalization is framed as being inevitable and natural, requiring little state intervention. Indeed, the Aliyev governments have framed such symbolic policies as being preferable to the more nationalistic approach favoured by the pan-Turkic government of the Azerbaijani Popular Front (1992–93), the remnants of which have become the main opposition to the Aliyev governments. However, the Azerbaijani opposition has since largely adopted policies similar to those of the government; the difference between the two groups lies in how they portray the government's efforts.     

The Challenges of Transitioning from Opposition to Government: Liberal Party Planning for Government 1983 – 1996

Studies examining opposition transition to government processes and planning usually emphasise the responsibility of oppositions as a legislative institution and the role of party leaders. However, such approaches place too much emphasis on notions of responsible opposition and party leaders. They de‐emphasise the importance of partisan considerations that shape transition planning or how party organisations have attempted to assert control over parliamentary parties. Drawing on archival materials, policy documents, and elite interviews, this study examines both public and internal transition to government strategies undertaken by the Liberal Party of Australia during their opposition years (1983–1996). The paper finds that while party leaders became more important over time, the party organisation's involvement remained significant. The Liberal Party transition planning focused primarily on cabinet processes, Australian Public Service (APS) organisation, particularly the senior bureaucratic level, and selecting political staff. In so doing, the Liberal Party anticipated many of the Hawke government's 1987 reforms to the APS. The Liberal Party was motivated by its desire to restructure the machinery and culture of government and to allocate sufficient political staff resources to government. Its aim was to better equip the party to achieve its political and ideological goals when next in government.     

So Close and Yet So Far: Strategies in the 13th Malaysian Elections

Abstract

This article examines the strategies employed by the ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional (or National Front), and the opposition alliance, Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Alliance), in the 13th general election held in Malaysia in May 2013. It argues that while the opposition used the right strategy for the 2013 campaign, it lost because it could not overcome the three biggest hurdles for opposition politics in Malaysia: East Malaysia, the rural Malay votes and a biased electoral system.     

BETWIXT AND BETWEEN: 'TRADITIONAL AUTHORITY' AND DEMOCRATIC DECENTRALIZATION IN POST-WAR MOZAMBIQUE

The end of civil war in Mozambique has been accompanied by democratizationof political processes, as exemplified by the 1994 multi-partypresidential and parliamentary elections. Under the rubric ofdemocratization, the issue of state decentralization has alsobeen raised. Current political debates focus on what role ‘traditionalauthority’ might play in local governance. Advocates arguethat ‘traditional authority’ constitutes a genuinelyAfrican form of local governance, while detractors suggest thatthese institutions were irrevocably corrupted by their involvementwith the colonial administration. This article challenges notonly the black-and-white framework in which the present-day‘legitimacy’ of ‘traditional authority’has been debated, but also questions the value of the term ‘traditionalauthority’ itself. The article explores the diverse historiesof kin-based political institutions in Mozambique, arguing thatthe meaning and function of ‘traditional authority’has been transformed many times over with changes in the largerpolitical contexts in which local institutions have existed.As a result of historical events, the issue of ‘traditionalauthority’ is, today, intimately bound up with the dividebetween the ruling FRELIMO party and the opposition, RENAMO.Only by approaching the issue of ‘traditional authority’through an understanding of its variegated and contentious historywill policy-makers and Mozambican residents alike be able totranscend existing political divides on issues of local governance.     

The relationship between Kenneth Koma and the Botswana Democratic Party, 1965-2003

This article assesses the weaknesses of opposition in Botswanathrough the case of Kenneth Koma, the influential Presidentof the Botswana National Front (BNF) from 1977 to 2001. Thisis done by examining the perception that from 1997 Koma's relationshipwith the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) destabilizedand weakened the opposition in the country. The article challengesa view, held by some of his detractors in the opposition, thathis leadership style was out of tune with global trends. Italso argues that what some people have viewed as ‘tribalism’— the domination of the BDP leadership by members of theBangwato tribe (of which Koma is also a member) — seemsto be primarily a matter of expediency. This alleged tribalismis used by Koma's critics as a smear. The article analyzes therelationship between Koma and the BDP at both political andpersonal levels. At the political level, Koma's failure to keepthe BNF united has been capitalized on by the BDP to tightenits grip on power. At the personal level, Koma has used hisconnections in the BDP to advantage in his business dealings.Koma's cult status and his personal and political choices havetherefore significantly contributed to de facto one-party rulein Botswana.     

The opposition Pakatan Rakyat in the twelfth Malaysian parliament, 2008–12, and parliamentary behaviour on the budget process

In the post-2008 Malaysian general election, the opposition political parties the Parti KeADILan Rakyat, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party and the Democratic Action Party started to gain currency, especially when the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) government was denied its two-thirds of the majority in parliament. The 2008 result indicated that there was a substantial shift in support from the incumbent BN to the opposition parties. The opposition later on was formed into a coalition known as Pakatan Rakyat (PR). The minor victory of the PR in the 2008 election suggested that it had secured a considerable number of seats in the twelfth Malaysian parliament. This article argues that the 2008 electoral outcome exhibited substantial competitive parliamentary behaviour despite the authoritarian nature of Malaysia. The article examines PR behaviour in the twelfth parliament with reference to the budget process. Besides elections, the Malaysian parliament is a very crucial indicator of the development of democratic governance in Malaysia. This article argues that the opposition PR is still relevant in the way in which it has fully exercised its legal parliamentary capability, especially its de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim, in questioning and posing constraints on the ruling BN policies concerning the budget process.     

The Sources of Authoritarian Control after the Cold War: East Africa and the Former Soviet Union

Why have some post-Cold War autocrats consistently been able to sideline opposition and avoid debilitating elite defections while others have faced repeated challenges? Drawing on interviews, the media, and the academic literature, this article focuses on two sets of factors affecting the extent of incumbent control over opposition: the degree of state economic control and the extent of divisions in national identity. Two sets of most similar cases are compared: Belarus and Ukraine, and Kenya and Tanzania. These comparisons are used to highlight the importance of distinguishing between the causes of democracy and those of authoritarian breakdown.     

Failure of security co‐operation in SADC: The suspension of the organ for politics,defence and security

Political opposition parties are considered crucial to the nurturing, enhancing and consolidating of democracy in every political system. Indeed, their existence is proof of political tolerance, competitive party elections, the provision of choices to the voting public and the possibility of alternation in power. However, the political opposition on the African continent is generally weak, and particularly so in Botswana, resulting in the predominance of the ruling party in political affairs. This article analyses the weaknesses of Botswana's opposition parties by tracing their historical evolution, characteristics, electoral base, and performance against the background of the political and electoral system in Botswana and the strength of the ruling party itself. It concludes that future prospects for the opposition to make greater inroads into the Botswana Democratic Party's support are small because of the fragmented nature of the opposition itself and the relative satisfaction of citizens with the current government's performance.