Democracy's Effect on Terrorist Organizations: Regime Type and Armed Group Behavior in Chile

How does democracy influence terrorism? The regime-responsive school argues that lack of representation in autocracies motivates violence; the regime-permissive school posits that individual liberty in democracies allows it. The schools thus disagree about the democratic feature to which violence responds—representation or individual liberty. These arguments are problematic in two ways. First, neither accounts for the potentially competing effects of different democratic features. Second, treating terrorism as a set response to operating context ignores the operational processes behind violence, described in organizational theories of terrorism. This article develops a bridge between the regime-responsive and regime-permissive schools by applying organizational theories of terrorism to their key arguments. I argue that representation and individual liberty have independent, and sometimes competing, effects on armed groups' missions, hierarchies, and membership—collectively organizational capacity, the ability to survive and influence the environment. This explains the mixed effects of democracy on terrorism: both high-functioning democracy and repressive autocracy weaken organizational capacity, but decreased representation in a democracy or higher individual liberty in an autocracy removes organizational stresses. New research on Chile between 1965 and 1995—representing five government periods, with four armed groups operating—acts as an initial test of these relationships.     

Consistency in constitutional design and its effect on democracy

ABSTRACT

Does the art of crafting and amending a constitution lead to an internal consistency among constitutional provisions, and if so, what effect does that have on countries’ democratic performance? Drawing from theoretical claims on the separation of power and electoral legitimacy, this article develops a concept that identifies the institutional characteristics of consistency and inconsistency in the constitutional design with the example of the presidency. Empirically, this concept is focused on aligning or counterbalancing the mode of presidential election and the de jure power of the president. Based on a comparative perspective of republican parliamentary and semi-presidential systems, the article focuses on the empirical trends of consistent and inconsistent design and addresses their effect on democratic development. The findings show a balance between consistent and inconsistent design in terms of quantity. The influence on democratization varies considerably across different measures but I find significant support for a positive effect of inconsistency on liberal democracy, freedom, horizontal accountability and the rule of law.     

Shaking off the neoliberal shackles: “democratic emergence” and the negotiation of democratic knowledge in the Middle East North Africa context

ABSTRACT

There is a general assumption in democracy promotion that liberal democracy is the panacea that will solve all political and economic problems faced by developing countries. Using the concept of “good society” as analytical prism, the analysis shows that while there is a rhetorical agreement as to what the “good society” entails, democracy promotion practices fail to allow for recipients’ inclusion in the negotiation and delivery of the “good society”. Contrasting US and Tunisian discourses on the “good society”, the article argues that democracy promotion practices are underpinned by neoliberal parameters borne out from a reliance on the transition paradigm, which in turn leave little room to democracy promotion recipients to formulate knowledge claims supporting the emergence of alternative conceptions of the “good society”. In contrast, the article opens up a reflective pathway to a negotiated democratic knowledge, which would reside in a paradigmatic change that consists in the abandonment of the transition paradigm in favour of a “democratic emergence” paradigm.     

Kan politieke televisiedebatte kiesers oorreed? 'n Loodsstudie

SUMMARY

The influence of political debates on television during the run-up to the general election of 6 September 1989 is examined in a pilot study. The study is not representative and aims at identifying aspects to be examined in greater depth during the next general election. The study indicates that political debates on television play an important role in influencing respondents' choice of political party. Secondly, television debates provide new information for many respondents on the parties they do not support.     

Democracy,human rights,and U.S.‐Africa trade

The nexus of economic and political relations is a central issue in international relations, and the influence of political liberalization upon trade ties lies at the center of much liberal theory. However, many facets of the empirical linkage between political liberalization—including democratization and the respect for human rights—and trade remain uninvestigated. Examining the case of U.S.‐Africa trade, this study considers two unexplored facets of these political determinants of trade: (1) the role of human rights conditions, and (2) the robustness of the relationship between democracy, human rights, and trade across a subset of vertical dyads. Using a gravity model to assess trade patterns, we find that neither democracy nor human rights conditions has a significant impact upon U.S. trade to Africa.     

Present at the Destruction? The Liberal Order in the Trump Era

Abstract

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 sent shock waves across political classes globally and prompted debates about whether his ‘America first’ agenda threatened the liberal international order. During his first year in office, Trump seemed determined to undermine the hallmarks of the liberal international order: democracy, liberal economics and international cooperation. So, are we witnessing the emergence of a “post-liberal” and “post-American” era? Four sources of evidence help frame – if not answer – the question: history, the crisis of liberal democracy, Trump’s world view, and the power of civil society (globally and nationally) to constrain any US President. They yield three main judgements. First, continuity often trumps change in US foreign policy. Second, the liberal international order may have been more fragile pre-Trump than was widely realised. Third, American power must be put at the service of its own democracy if the US is to become the example to the world it used to be.     

Negotiating normative premises in democracy promotion: Venezuela and the Inter-American Democratic Charter

ABSTRACT

This article analyses negotiations on democracy promotion by looking at the case of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. It argues that Venezuela contested the concept of representative democracy during the Charter negotiations, advancing the notion of “participatory and protagonist democracy” and that, even if it was unsuccessful in its demands, the country contributed to deepening the debate on the concept of democracy, on which there is far from worldwide consensus. The article suggests that the main drivers of the negotiation process and the final agreement were domestic political changes in Venezuela, specific features of the negotiations, and the structural position of Venezuela in the field of democracy promotion in the global and regional contexts, which were, at the time, favourable to a compromising attitude to conclusion of the Charter, even if not to the concept of democracy.     

South African election posters: Reflecting the maturing of a democracy?

Abstract

The South African democracy has survived three national and provincial elections and three local elections, since 1994. In comparison to other young democracies in Africa, South Africa has experienced a relatively stable transition to democracy. However, the ruling ANC has not been under pressure from opposition parties. Although this has helped pave the way, a dominant governing party does not necessarily encourage the growth of a mature, democratic political culture. The assumption of this article is that political parties in developing societies have a normative obligation to do more than canvas votes during election campaigns. Political parties should also be instrumental in fostering a democratic political culture by communicating democratic values, encouraging participation in the democracy and enabling voters to make an informed electoral choice. Although political posters contribute mainly to image building, the reinforcement of party support, and the visibility of the party, posters are the agenda setters or headlines of a party's campaign – it is therefore argued that political parties in developing societies also need to design political posters responsively, in order to sustain the democracy. In general it seems that the poster campaigns of parties have matured since 1999, in the sense that there was less emphasis on democratisation issues in the past, and the campaigns conformed more to the norm of Western political campaigning.     

2011年新加坡大选中工人党的竞选策略探析

在2011年国会大选中,新加坡工人党在保住后港单选区的基础上,在阿裕尼集选区击败外交部长杨荣文率领的人民行动党团队,共取得了6个议席。这是自新加坡1988年集选区制度实行以来,反对党第一次战胜人民行动党拿下集选区,也是1966年以来反对党取得议席最多的一次大选。这届大选被认为是新加坡的政治分水岭。工人党之所以能取得如此战绩,是由于它采取了正确的竞选策略：工人党整合人才资源,物色到了可媲美人民行动党的候选人;抓住转战时机,刘程强适时走出后港;提出了“第一世界国会”“副司机”等全国性课题;不为反对而反对,打造理智的建设性反对党形象;挟上届大选余威,综合考量历史、地理因素;准确把握竞选过程中的细节。     

Assessing the statistical rarity of wars between democracies

The ‘small numbers objection’ to the democratic peace claims that the relative rarity of militarized conflict between democracies is due to their small numbers coupled with the infrequency of violent interstate conflict, not to an alleged pacifying effect of democracy. This study assesses this objection directly by treating the number of militarized disputes between democracies as a random variable. Since the historical record provides only one observation for this variable, full estimation of its distributional characteristics requires repeated simulation of the process by which dyads are ‘selected’ for conflict We employ Monte Cario techniques to carry out this process. The simulation results indicate no support for the small numbers objection. The results remain stable when important control variables are introduced and when the analysis employs a weaker definition of democracy. Finally, the simulation enables a precise identification of the point within the 1816–1992 temporal domain when the democratic peace moved from an apparent statistical artifact to significant phenomenon.     

Poland's political scapegoats

Abstract

General Jaruzelski's regime assists Moscow's polemical offensive against the West by claiming that Poland is a victim of political subversion. The imposition of martial law in December 1981 and the suppression of democracy are elaborately justified by Warsaw with reference to political foes conspiring to destroy socialism in the country. Four scapegoats are regularly attacked—domestic opposition, previous administrations, the West, and Polish society itself—in order to attain four objectives: self‐justification, diverting responsibility, crisis management, and ideological packaging. Propaganda campaigns against political scapegoats, and the implementation of policies to combat them, are important mechanisms for liquidating independent movements and extending government controls over society.     

Sport and Diplomacy: A Global Diplomacy Framework

ABSTRACT

The actors, or “players,” involved in the transactions of diplomacy occasioned by sport are manifold. In the case of the world’s “global game”—association football—they include but are not limited to individual footballers, football clubs, national leagues, national associations, football’s international governance structures, multi-national sponsors, and numerous hangers on. Importantly for this analysis, such a panoply of actors creates an architecture, replicated across other sports, which speak to the necessity of furthering the understanding of the relationship between sport and diplomacy. These two phenomena share a long-standing similarity in global affairs; both having been over-looked as means of comprehending relations between different polities otherwise centred on the nation-state. This exegesis advances our understanding in two areas. First, it addresses the parameters of the discussion of “sport and diplomacy” and problematises the discourse between the two with a note on language; and second, it utilises a framework provided by an appreciation of “global diplomacy” to explore concepts of communication, representation, and negotiation in sport and diplomacy.     

Political transformation in Japan as a source of insight

Abstract

This article is based on the assumption that the Japanese political system is fully comparable with the systems of other major systems, and that its analysis may afford useful insights for the understanding of political systems more generally. Its focus is upon five successive transformations of the system since the late nineteenth century that, in sequence and taken together, have created the present system. These are: (1) the revolutionary changes of the Meiji period (1868–1912), leading to modernisation, militarism, and ultimate defeat in war; (2) occupation, democracy, economic resurgence and single-party dominance (1945–1990); (3) low growth, electoral reform and neo-liberalism (1991–2006); (4) Liberal Democratic Party decline and the opposition in power (2006–2012); and (5) authoritarian leadership with weak opposition (2012 onwards). The article concludes with a discussion of three issues: (1) ambiguous aspects of strong leadership; (2) the chronic weakness of Japanese political opposition and its implications for democracy; and (3) the significance of radical transformations for the understanding of a political system.     

Sharīʻa,Islamism and Arab support for democracy

ABSTRACT

The Arab Spring and its aftermath reignited the debate over the relationship between Islamism and democracy. This analysis improves upon previous research by demonstrating the crucial contribution which a more precise understanding of the multiple meanings of the concept of Sharī?a can have on our assessment of the future of democracy in the Arab world. While support for the Sharī?a-conformity of laws has a positive impact on the preference for democracy, the insistence that Sharī?a represents the word of God as opposed to the human attempt to interpret it reduces support for democracy. These findings are of considerable significance for academics and policy-makers interested in the future of democracy in the Arab world as it suggests that generic expressions of support for Sharī?a are less relevant in explaining support for democracy than what Arab women and men consider to be its essence.     

Book reviews

Liberal democratic governments may differ in both their kind and degree of democracy. However, the literature too often conflates this distinction, hindering our ability to understand what kinds of governing structures are more democratic. To clarify this issue, the article examines two prominent contemporary models of democracy: developmental liberal democracy (DLD) and protective liberal democracy (PLD). While the former takes a ‘thicker’ approach to governance than the latter, conventional wisdom holds that these systems differ only in kind rather than degree. The article tests this assumption through an empirical comparison of electoral, legislative, and information-regulating institutions in two representative cases: Sweden and the United States. The empirical findings lead us to the conclusion that developmental liberal democracies represent not only a different kind, but also a deeper degree of democracy than protective liberal democracies. The implications for democracy promotion appear substantial.     

Media Logic and Political Communication

Abstract

The election of 1952 saw the beginning of the age of telepolitics. In that year the medium of television played a decisive role in the nomination by the Republican Party of Dwight D. Eisenhower since it exposed convention proceedings to a national audience and gave that national audience, as well as representatives of the media, major influence over convention events. In the post‐convention period, Eisenhower's public relations advisors used television to soften the General's military image, reach Democrats and Independents, and increase the pro‐Eisenhower voter turnout. Whereas Stevenson never fully mastered the demands of television, Eisenhower was adept and skillful at using the medium as a major new campaign vehicle.     

Typing Politics: The Role of Blogs in American Politics,by Richard Davis

The purpose of this paper is to advance our understanding of how negativity affects voters’ assessments of the positions candidates take on issues. We argue that the inferences people make about candidates’ positions on issues differ depending on whether the information they encounter comes from attack or self-promotional statements. Specifically, we posit that attacks offer two pieces of information to voters—insight into the positions of the target and the sponsor—whereas, positive information only affects perceptions of the sponsor. Further, we contend that attacks offer important correctives to candidates’ often misleading self-promotional claims. By drawing attention to the differences between the informational content of negative and positive appeals, we offer new insights into the inferences voters make about candidates’ positions on issues. We support these claims using data from an internet-based experiment employing a nationally representative sample of nearly 4,000 people. The paper concludes by teasing out a series of implications that arise from these insights.     

Small states and the ‘throughput’ legitimacy of international organizations

Abstract

The unequal participation of member states in international organizations (IOs) undermines IOs’ legitimacy as global actors. Existing scholarship typically makes this assessment by referencing a combination of input—the interests IOs serve—and output—the decisions they take. This scholarship does not, however, pay enough attention to how IOs have responded to these concerns. We argue that IOs have used the participation of small states—whose membership most studies typically ignore—as an important means of generating what Vivian Schmidt calls ‘throughput’ legitimacy for their operations. We organize our analysis of ‘throughput’ legitimacy in IOs around four institutional mechanisms—(1) agenda setting; (2) leadership (s)election; (3) management and operation; and (4) service delivery—in which all states seek to exert influence. What emerges is an account of IOs seeking to balance ‘inputs’ and ‘outputs’ by way of ‘throughputs’. We conclude by arguing for an expanded focus on the means by which IOs generate ‘throughput’ legitimacy in future research.