1989 and the Politics of Democratic Performativity

In light of the fact—despite a widespread impression to the contrary—that the collapse of Communism in the fall of 1989 did not happen overnight, the paper explores the kind of gradual societal work that had led to the emergence of democratic polities in Central Europe but that had generally escaped the notice not only of policy makers and the leaders of the “free world” but also of theorists. The concept and practices of performative democracy as it manifested itself in the period of late Communism (1970s–1989), but also in South Africa at the dusk of apartheid, and the conditions for political performativity, as well as its main features, are then discussed.     

Security Beyond the State: Private Security and International Politics

Toward a Political Economy of Development: A Rational Choice Perspective. Edited by Robert H. Bates. Berkeley, Los Angeles, CA and London: University of California Press, 1988. Pp.x + 393. $48.50 and $14.95. ISBN (not provided for HB edition) and 0 520 06052 0.

Politics and Class Analysis. By Barry Hindess. Oxford and New York: Basil Blackwell, 1987. Pp.136. £29.95 (hardback); £7.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 631 15067 6.

Farmers’ Movements in India. By M.V. Nadkarni. Ahmedabad: Allied Private Publishers, 1987. Pp.xiv + 237. Rs.100.     

日本政治的未来发展趋势——从各政治主体相互关系的视角

目前,在日本政治中,选民与政党的关系因利益集团的衰退而尚未固定下来,政府与社会的关系更是由于行政改革处在较大的变化之中,决策过程中的议员与官僚的关系甚至有些紧张,世界政治经济格局尚未成型下的外交方向不确定选择也影响到国内政治的变化。因此,持续的政界分化组合引起的政权更替使日本政治乃至政局在一段时间内难以稳定下来。未来的日本政治体制将仍以一个较大的政党为中心组建政权,选民通过政策取向决定自己手中的选票,政党主导决策过程的趋势加强,市民组织型社会也有所发展,但日本在国际舞台上的影响力将逐渐减弱。     

The Politics of Environmental Licensing: Energy Projects of the Past and Future in Brazil

How do societies make complex choices about concrete energy alternatives? Can citizens play effective roles in balancing risks and benefits? This article proposes that energy choices can be best understood as the result of a balance of power between state-society coalitions that aim to either block or enable the project. Environmental licensing and financing decisions are two decision points where the coalitions face off—and where energy projects go forward or are stopped. The article demonstrates that environmental licensing has become an unexpectedly stringent process in Brazil, with both formal opportunities and historic practices increasing the influence of blocking coalitions. Yet case studies of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam and massive new petroleum reserves in the “pre-salt” region show that blocking coalitions emerge inconsistently in the same institutional context, illustrating the hazards of relying on public mobilization for addressing certain kinds of risk situations. An “anticipatory state” may also pre-empt mobilization by proactively responding to the concerns blocking coalitions are likely to raise.     

Culture on the Rise: How and Why Cultural Membership Promotes Democratic Politics

Selectively using Tocqueville, many social scientists suggest that civic participation increases democracy. We go beyond this neo-Tocquevillian model in three ways. First, to capture broader political and economic transformations, we consider different types of participation; results change if we analyze separate participation arenas. Some are declining, but a dramatic finding is the rise of arts and culture. Second, to assess impacts of participation, we study more dimensions of democratic politics, including distinct norms of citizenship and their associated political repertoires. Third, by analyzing global International Social Survey Programme and World Values Survey data, we identify dramatic subcultural differences: the Tocquevillian model is positive, negative, or zero in different subcultures and contexts that we explicate.     

德国民主社会主义党大选失利及未来走向

在德国2002年大选中,民主社会主义党被挤出联邦议会,其失利的重要原因是社会民主党政策上向左摆动抢了它的地盘和话题.在党代会上,民社党"正统派"把"改革派"清除出党的领导层,同时把未来的走向定为抗议性"反对党".但由于该党面临分裂的危险,也未真正找到符合时代和国情要求的发展路线,前途实际上相当渺茫.西欧左翼党和共产党大都有相同的处境,面临着类似问题.     

从德国看欧洲政党政治制度的危机与改革前景

近年来,西欧政党政治出现了严重危机.当前德国各个政党的普遍问题主要是缺乏一个明确的领导核心,政党政治危机首先体现在思想理论方面.为适应新形势,必须进行革新.     

Local Politics,Central Power: The Future of Representative Local Government in England

When Labour took power in 1997, local government was battered and bruised, but it had survived, and indeed retained much of its vitality. What would happen next? Where the Conservatives had used the language of competition, New Labour promoted its policies around an ideology of modernisation, and rapidly introduced a new legal framework, new powers and strong incentives to improve performance. But by 2004, in the run-up to another general election, Labour increasingly emphasised the rights of consumers to choose providers of services, and the value of involving the private sector in public sector provision. There were proposals to take the finance for education and social services out of local authority control. A complex geography of partnerships and networks had developed, which required small executives of salaried councillors, far fewer than the large numbers needed by the committee system. But turnout in local elections remained low, and membership of both Labour and Conservative parties declined. The paper uses a simple stakeholder analysis to show how councillors and local activists were marginalised. It suggests that the government has a choice: it could either accept that the era of multi-skilled councillors responsible for the multi-purpose local authorities is ending, or it could radically rationalise the present quangos, partnerships and other governance structures to re-create it.     

Democratic Representation and the National Dimension in Catalan and Basque Politics

This paper contributes to the research strand within empirical democratic theory dedicated to operationalizing representation and measuring levels of responsiveness. It discusses the merits and limits of the criterion of responsiveness for assessing the functioning of representative institutions. It builds on comparative findings about the susceptibility of party hierarchies to capture by relatively privileged segments of society, and on comparative findings about the consequences of policy packaging. It posits these as two crucial mechanisms that help account for the propensity of the democratic arena to become a relatively autonomous, privileged site for the construction of ideological hegemony. Furthermore, it presents original data from an elite survey of members of regional parliaments in Spain to illuminate the role of representative institutions and parties in recent efforts to forge and consolidate a particular type of ideological hegemony—micro-nationalist hegemony—in Catalonia and the Basque Country. It contrasts and explains the political dynamics operative in the two regions, emphasizing the divergent trajectories of left-wing party construction. In so doing, it contributes to the literature on nationalism as well, by honing in on the neglected arena of democratic politics as a critical site where the struggle for the success of nationalist hegemonic projects takes place.     

从总裁选举看日本自民党的派阀政治

2008年9月1日,日本首相福田康夫突然辞职.日本自民党经过一番党内竞选,2008年9月22日,麻生太郎毫无悬念地成为了自民党第23代总裁,并顺理成章地当上了日本战后第30位首相.     

How the Politics of Recognition Enabled India’s Democratic Exceptionalism

This article explores a significant puzzle: the persistence of modern representative democracy in post-independent India. It demonstrates how a politics of recognition, based on identities of caste, language, and religion, is crucial for understanding the origins, character, and trajectory of modern Indian democracy. These politics suffer various infirmities. Yet liberal, Marxist, and republican critiques of the politics of recognition in India, while offering valid theoretical alternatives and powerful moral visions, also suffer their own limitations. Perhaps more importantly, they evade questions of historical possibility, political efficacy, and practical reason that confront every political theory. The relative historical predominance of the politics of recognition in post-independent India, in contrast, reflects its capacity to engage powerful social imaginaries that enabled the realization of democratic norms, institutions, and practices. The general argument put forward develops several key themes that distinguish Charles Taylor’s philosophical vision of alternative modernities—the power of social imaginaries, nature of explanation in the human sciences, and vicissitudes of culture, politics, and history—to explain the trajectory of modern Indian democracy.     

Attitudes towards gypsies in Ukraine (1989)

The national movements of sub-state national societies are divided into two or three competing political orientations (independentists, autonomists, and federalists), which vary over time. This article compares the process that led to the founding of the ADQ (autonomism) in Quebec, with the process that culminated in the transformation and de facto re-founding of ERC (independentism) in Catalonia during the period 1976–2005. Using the cases of two nationalist parties in two different national movements that have successfully established new political orientations, I analyze the political origins of this form of temporal variation. My outcome variable is the “tipping point” at which these nationalist political parties get established. This “tipping point” was reached through a temporal sequence that evolved in four phases. In each of these phases, a key variable was involved: the existence of a preexistent ideology, the occurrence of a central state constitutional moment, an impulse from the sphere of sociological nationalism, and the consolidation of a new leadership nucleus.     

当代西方社会民主政治思潮概观

当代西方民主理论流派主要是指第二次世界大战以来在西方产生的各种资产阶级民主学说,它反映了资产阶级民主思想在当代的新发展.深入了解和剖析这些理论流派,对于深刻认识资本主义民主政治的实质及发展趋势,是很有必要的.