The Transition to 'New' Social Democracy: The Role of Capitalism, Representation and (Hampered) Contestation

This article argues that existing accounts of the transformation from 'traditional' to 'new' social democracy has thus far only identified the contextual changes that have prompted this move. In doing so, they have failed to account for the motives of social democratic party actors in undertaking the transition to 'new' social democracy in response to those changes. The article draws upon a critical realist method, and Marxist and anti-representational theories, to conceptualise 'traditional' social democratic party relations as suffering from tensions between constituents' demands for decommodification, the attempt by party elites to contain (and thereby 'represent') those demands and the (in)compatibility of this process of containment with the need to recommodify social relations in the light of periodic crises in contemporary capitalism. It argues that these tensions explain the attempt by party elites to promote the move towards 'new' social democracy, the (eventual) acquiescence of party constituents to those attempts and the subsequent exit from social democratic constituencies which has resulted. The argument is made with reference to the British Labour Party and Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).     

The Role of Language in the Automatic Coding of Political Texts

Automatic approaches to coding party manifestos and other political texts have become more widespread. This research note addresses the question to what extent the source language of a text affects the results. To do so, Swiss manifestos in German and French are coded automatically, comparing a keyword‐based dictionary approach and Wordscores. Because of language differences, both stemming and particularly stop words are important to obtain comparable results for Wordscores. If both are used, the predicted scores are almost identical in both languages. With the right preparations, the challenge of language differences can thus be overcome.     

Seeking the Soul of Democracy: A Review of Recent Research into Citizens' Political Talk Culture

This article provides a review of extant empirical research on ordinary citizens' everyday political communication, its phenomenology, determinants, consequences, and relevance for democratic politics. It highlights the recent upsurge in interest in the study of political conversations against the background of both classic and more recent developments in democratic theory and empirical research that served as intellectual inspirations. The article discusses conceptual and methodological issues of research into interpersonal political communication and presents key findings with regard to the background and consequences of political talk, tapping into fundamental aspects of democratic citizenship such as political preferences, participation, cognitive involvement with politics as well as orientations towards fellow citizens and towards the democratic political system. It concludes with an assessment of the state of the art in this field of study, highlighting desirable avenues for future empirical research.     

马来西亚政党政治的变化及其走向

巫统一党独大是马来西亚长期以来政党政治的一大特点 ,但是 1999年末马来西亚第 10次大选却表明这种局面正在发生明显的变化 ,这必将对马来西亚的政局产生深远的影响。本文试从马来西亚政党政治变化入手 ,分析变化的成因 ,并对今后一个时期马来西亚政党政治和政局的发展趋势作一展望。     

Post‐conventional Political Cultures via Processes of Direct Democracy: Theoretical Considerations Based on Jürgen Habermas and Lawrence Kohlberg

In this article, it is proposed to differentiate political cultures in two dimensions. First, inspired by Habermas' distinction of the contents of discourse, a distinction is suggested between moral, ethical‐political and pragmatic elements of political culture as well as of an element of culture of balancing interests. Second, inspired by Kohlberg's stage models for the development of the individual moral consciousness and for moral culture, a distinction is similarly suggested between two pre‐conventional, two conventional and two post‐conventional collective stages of political culture. It can be shown that from a normative point of view, only deliberations made in a post‐conventional political culture can produce reasonable or at least fair results. Conceptual considerations indicate processes of direct democracy as the method for promoting post‐conventional political cultures. The more liberty that the citizens have to formulate and trigger processes of direct democracy, the more one can expect from them to generate post‐conventional political cultures.     

台湾海归与台湾政治

对20世纪80年代以来台湾历任最高领导人及各部委第一负责人最高学历的分析统计显示,在美国、欧洲地区各国及日本名校获得高学历之海归人士,已经构成台湾政坛的精英主体。本文梳理台湾政坛海归的基本构成、比例及影响,剖析台湾海归在台湾政治中具有的特殊软实力,同时也指出他们的政治软肋,评介台湾当局成文与不成文的相关政策法规,深化对海归参政之现实意义的认识。     

Is Brazil becoming a “boring” country?

The article looks at the condition of Brazil's political system in light of the 1998 electoral results. It critically examines arguments that electoral volatility, political fragmentation and weak institutionalisation have produced a highly unstable political system unsuitable for sound policy‐making and processing change. While not underestimating the influence of electoral rules, it argues that given the combination of political, institutional and economic turmoil of the 1980s, it is not surprising that electoral volatility over the period was amongst the highest in the world. Arguably, however, these factors are now having a diminished impact on the political system, lessening volatility and allowing the emergence of a more institutionalised party system.     

Limited Pluralism in a Liberal Democracy: Party Law and Political Incorporation in South Korea

ABSTRACT

Formal modes of political incorporation in South Korea rest on a foundation of limited pluralism. The notion that the state should impose rigid boundaries on political representation pervades the country’s democracy. This notion is enshrined in law – in particular in the constitution’s Article 8 and in the Political Parties Act – and is upheld and perpetuated by the judiciary, the election commission, and the parties that dominate representative institutions. Labour is particularly disadvantaged by the limited pluralism contained in party laws. The role of party law in shaping modes of political incorporation is frequently overlooked. This account of party law in South Korea echoes this issue’s attention to the quiet ways that the state in Asia has silenced or ignored particular groups while maintaining the formal institutions of electoral democracy. In this case, the effect is to facilitate a rightward drift by the state as left-leaning actors face greater challenges in contesting elections.     

Laissez-faire versus Strict Control of Political Finance: Hegemonic Parties and Developmental States in Malaysia and Singapore

ABSTRACT

This article compares the financing of political parties and candidates in two Southeast Asian countries. In Malaysia, some political finance regulations exist only on paper, and political financing is for the most part not restrained at all. In contrast, the financing of candidates and parties has always been tightly circumscribed in Singapore. These different strategies, “laissez-faire” versus “strict control,” are the consequence of various factors. In Malaysia, the New Economic Policy has effected a close, often economically unproductive linkage between the state, the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, and business. The rise of businesspeople has resulted in the commercialization of competition within (the United Malays National Organisation. Additionally, increasing competition between the ruling coalition and the opposition has resulted in growing expenditures for electioneering in the form of advertisements and electoral patronage. The laissez-faire style of regulation has been compounded by the difficult-to-control practices in East Malaysia (Sabah and Sarawak), where vote buying, electoral patronage based on the largesse of oligarchs, and obvious nonobservance of the rules have been typical. In contrast to Malaysia as a whole, the costs for parties and candidates are still relatively low in Singapore. As a cadre party, the PAP (People's Action Party) is relatively autonomous from private business interests, and intraparty competition is not commercialized; the developmentalist state is highly productive, and the ties between the state, the PAP, and business are not characterized by cronyism. Moreover, electioneering is not very commercialized because the opposition is still relatively weak.     

日本政治中的“世袭”现象及潜规则

日本在明治维新后废除了身份制度,贵族制度也随之消失。但封建时代的许多旧俗仍然不可避免地残存下来,并在现代日本的政治生活中发挥着不可小视的影响。其中,“世袭议员”现象就是最为典型的政治文化遗产,折射出日本政治中某些传统的潜规则。日本政坛长期以来存在的“家族世袭”现象,在某种意义上对过去几十年日本的经济发展和政治稳定都起到了积极作用。但同时,“世袭”现象也使日本政坛的关系过于复杂化,权钱交易丑闻时有发生,增加了政治和经济改革的难度。日本大选使得民主党和自民党在这一问题上展开了激烈的斗争。“世袭议员”制度的政治传统面临着改革的压力,然而日本民族文化深远的影响力同样不容忽视。关注2009年日本大选背景下日本有关“世袭议员”现象的争论,从制度成因变化的角度分析日本政治的传统与变革之争,并尝试对“世袭议员”现象的前景做一展望。     

泰爱泰党与泰国的政治发展

泰爱泰党以自己清晰具体的政策和组建大联盟政府的具体做法给泰国的政治发展注入了某种活力,在某种程度上,使泰国政治超越了传统的金钱政治以及政治掮客的控制,实现了资源分配的相对公平,实现了政府权力的长期稳定运行.而泰爱泰党之所以能够做到这一点,关键在于该党政治家及时地顺应了社会的要求.     

民进党时期的台湾政治生态--以"核四"事件为分析个案

本文旨在以"核四"事件为分析个案,对当前台湾政治生态进行研讨.本文认为在台湾的"民主政治"表象之下仍保留着大量不良的政治文化,不过相对于过去而言,台湾目前在政治制度发展方面的若干实践仍是值得肯定的.     

俄国知识分子与社会革命党政治恐怖主义路线

知识分子是俄国社会革命党领导阶层的重要组织部分,他们以极大的热情投身革命事业,但由于认识上的局限性和政治思维出现的偏差,他们片面而偏激地宣传政治恐怖主义.正是这种政治思维所导致的错误惯性断送了社会革命党的政治生命.     

Obtaining Party Positions on Immigration in Switzerland: Comparing Different Methods

The position of political parties on policy issues is crucial for many questions of political science, including studies of political representation. This research note examines different methods for obtaining party positions on immigration in retrospective. Party positions are obtained using pooled expert surveys, manual coding of party manifestos with a conventional codebook, manual coding of manifestos using check‐lists, and automatic coding of manifestos using Wordscores and a dictionary of keywords respectively. In addition, positions from a media analysis and a retrospective evaluation of researchers in the field of immigration are used. The results suggest that most methods differentiate the same order of party positions. While there are high correlations between many methods, the different methods tend not to agree on the exact positions. The automatic dictionary approach does not seem to measure party positions reliably.     

政治身份认同与缅甸果敢同盟军的瓦解

生存达二十年之久的缅甸非政府武装组织果敢同盟军于2009年8月被缅甸中央政府解除武装而宣告瓦解。本文通过对果敢同盟军、佤邦联合军和掸邦东同盟军这三个背景相似的缅甸非政府武装组织的比较研究,提出导致果敢同盟军瓦解的内部深层次的支撑性原因是该组织政治身份认同的缺失的观点。通过这一案例,本文试图提出政治身份认同是非政府武装组织在主权国家内生存的必要条件这一一般性假说。     

The evolution of the New Patriotic Party in Ghana

This paper examines the emergence and development of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) government in the context of a broader examination of the roles of political parties within the Ghanaian political landscape. After describing the political architecture as well as some significant constitutional issues of Ghana's democracy and the roles played by other societal stakeholders, the paper examines the rationale for the formation of the NPP, its manifesto, structure, constituency, power brokers. It then analyses various aspects of the implementation (or not) of the NPP's political and economic objectives since it came to power in 2000 with a message of ‘positive change’. The electoral politics of the campaigns against its major opposition, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and issues of regionalism, ethnicity and other factors are considered in detail. The paper concludes with some lessons learned and generic recommendations for emerging African political parties in relatively young democracies.     

韩国政治社会化的历史分析及启示

政治社会化是政治文化的传播、维持和改变。一国政治文化主要依赖于内部诸条件的相互作用与耦合,但外部因素也是影响政治文化乃至政治社会化进程的重要变量。由于特殊的历史原因,韩国社会经历过多次传统社会的价值观和生活规范的解体、分化与重组。韩国政治文化及其社会化受外部因素的影响特别大,尤其是受中国、日本和美国的影响巨大。从历史的角度考察三国对韩国政治文化和政治社会化的影响,分析韩国政治社会化的历史与现实,将为包括中国在内的诸多发展中国家走向政治现代化提供有益借鉴与启示。     

The Italian Democratic Party from Merger to Personalism

Abstract

The Partito Democratico (PD) was born as an original Merger Party on the cusp of the economic crisis in October 2007. The party’s genesis and formative years were critical to the party’s failure to institutionalise around a new common ideology or vision, as a result of the persistence of two party souls which could not find unity. Rather than a genuinely ‘new’ reformist party, the PD resembled an organisational vehicle through which the two former parties could continue their struggle. This weakened the organisational nature of the PD and made it a candidate for takeover by a dominant, personal leader such as Matteo Renzi. He set about establishing a personal party whose existence has in many ways confirmed the failure, if not exhaustion, of the PD’s mission to become the reformist party of the majority.     

Social Movements within Organisations: Occupy Parties in Italy and Turkey

This paper analyses a little-studied phenomenon: movements within parties. While parties and movements are often assumed to be separate entities, the borders between the two have proved to be more fluent. Parties frequently play a pivotal role in movement politics, and movements influence parties through the dual militancy of many of their members. The article presents two cases of Occupy movements taking place within major left-of-centre parties – the Italian PD and the Turkish CHP – and analyses the causes of discontent within the party and the choice of activists to voice this discontent rather than exit the party. It is argued that, beyond country specificities, shared factors include the perceived betrayal of social-democratic values, a lack of internal democracy, and electoral defeats. In both cases, activists’ choice to refer to Occupy in their opposition inside the party can be explained by the normative resonance of anti-austerity protest claims and forms within the party, as well as the instrumental exploitation of mass media attention to Occupy as a logo.     

"碎片化"社会的政治整合——马来西亚的政治文化探析

复杂多元、碎片化的政治亚文化使马来西亚的各种族、各政党、各团体之间存在着紧张关系,削弱了政治整合的效能,而自由民主制度的竞争性特征更加剧了这一趋势。然而,由于各种族、各阶层的政治文化存在着相近的或共融的内容,比如权威主义心理取向和集体主义价值观等,再加上政治运作过程中逐渐磨合出的政治妥协、合作和理性等精神,既构成了马来西亚主流政治文化的内在机理,也为马来西亚的政治整合提供了有效的政治文化资源。这种政治文化奠定了马来西亚软权威主义政治的重要基石,从而成为后发国家政治发展中的一道独特的政治景观。