New Conventions Required: Ideas to Re-invigorate Japanese Party Politics

Over the past 20 years, Japanese politics has changed significantly. There have been many improvements over the old LDP politics. At the same time, however, the rules of the game, which were predicated on the dominance of a single political party and on factional politics, have inevitably changed, and, in accordance with this situation, the conventions that prescribed the party-political order have fallen by the wayside. Given this situation, new conventions are now required that will make Japanese politics function. This article will discuss the most pressing topics: they are the appointment of the prime minister, the political cycle, bicameralism and party politics, intra-party governance, and the relationship between ministers and bureaucrats. These rules will not derive from new laws or institutions, but will be based on new conventions agreed to by the political parties. Political parties are to be the key actors in creating the new conventions, which should provide the rules of the game for Japanese politics.     

The Condition of the Ottoman Mine Labour and Its Impact on the Republican Period

In the Ottoman state, mining was important for the conduct of war, mints, public works, crafts industry, and financing the centralized administration system. In the republican period, mines were also important in the state's industrialization project, and they were used to subsidize the developing industries through provision of low-cost raw materials. These policies of the Ottoman and Turkish states had serious consequences for mine labour. Analysis of the Ottoman mining industry in the classical and post-classical periods, and also during the Turkish Republican period, highlights a range of emerging patterns. These include the strict control of the production by the state, the common practice of subcontracting, the role of foreign capital in the history of mining, the village-based division of labour around the mines, the use of peasant cultivator miners, the exploitation of unfree labour, the lack of investment, and traditional labour-intensive working conditions. The concept of ‘development and persistence’ is invaluable in explaining the longevity and extent of these practices stemming from historical circumstances, and we can see the persistence of some of these practices during the Republican period, despite the changes in the political regime and economic development. Throughout, the miners have been in a vulnerable position in relation to the state, exacerbated by their ambiguous peasant-miner position as wage labourers.     

India's Fractured Northeastern Frontier: An Overview

The paper tries to analyze the different layers of the conflict in the remote Indian northeast. It looks at the different facets of this conflict, and argues that the conflict in the Indian northeast exists at many different levels. In relation to the different facets of the conflict, the paper has a special focus on human rights abuses, poverty, corruption, poor governance, administrative failure, the role played by external actors, and draconian laws such as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. Most of the conflicts have been associated with strong separatist tendencies and the issue of migration. The levels of violence have differed from place to place within the region. While violence has been successfully dealt with by the Indian government in states like Mizoram, the situation in states like Assam, Manipur, and Nagaland seems to be a work in progress. Assam, Manipur, and Nagaland have witnessed very high levels of violence since 1947, when India became independent from British colonial rule, until the present day. Methodologically, the paper follows a bottom up approach, and, to get first-hand information about the conflict, a series of interviews was conducted recently with some of the local residents of the region. The paper suggests demilitarization and infrastructure development in the region as the way forward.     

Correction

For some reason, the only corrections received in the last Quarterconcern the United Nations in its various forms. General Daubentonwrites to point out that the study of kwashiorkor, referredto on p. 3, 1. 19, of the present volume, was undertaken bythe World Health Organisation, as well as by the Food and AgriculturalOrganisation. A learned letter from Mr. F. R. Bray, of the InternationalLabour Office, points out the connections between the legendThe Deeds of Bokari, printed on p. 61, and the Polynesian legendof Mauitikitiki. This connection exists, but not in the originalversion, only in the mind of the teller, E. Bankole Timothy.Finally, Dr. Chalmers Wright complains of the reference to theUnited Nations publication on inquiries into household standardsof living, made in the Shorter Notices on p. 172, pointing tothe 40 columns of material provided for the inquirer. I shouldhave thought that this might have been surmised from the precedingsentence in the notice, which refers to a list of most of thefield investigation in the past decade or two. The criticismof the actual content of the notice still remains, in my opinion,valid.      

国家治理视域下制度现代化的理念塑造

自党的十九届四中全会以来,有关“中国之治”的探讨业已成为学术热点。作为一种新型国家治理体系,“中国之治”的本质就在于充分发挥中国特色社会主义制度优势并转化为治理效能,不断推进国家治理现代化。制度现代化是国家治理现代化的实质与路径依赖,推进国家治理现代化,必须加强制度现代化建设,核心是确立正确的制度现代化价值取向,树立和强化制度人民化、制度民主化、制度法治化、制度公正化、制度科学化、制度合理化、制度协同化、制度公开化、制度稳定化、制度可行化等十大理念。     

Education and development; females’ education and fertility reduction in Africa: The case of Tigray,Ethiopia

The livelihood of the population in general, and females in particular, is affected by different socio-economic, demographic, environmental, cultural and other factors. the three main demographic variables: fertility, mortality and migration, which are also functions of some other variables, determine the quality of women’s lives. Some of the variables that are expected to determine the levels of fertility, mortality and migration may include literacy status, educational level, occupation, income, place of residence, marital status and other factors. Fertility is the most important variable in the population dynamics. A study was made in tigray, ethiopia, that included 2290 individuals. Of these, 1371 (60%) were females. the method of enumeration was used in order to collect the necessary information from the target population. the age structure, household composition, place of residence, educational level and other background variables were analysed. Results show that the literacy status and educational level were important variables that determined the age at first marriage, the use of family planning services, and antenatal and postnatal care. thus, it was concluded that female education is a key variable that enhances the participation of women in the development process by improving their status through the reduction of fertility.     

Rewriting the African diaspora: Beyond the Black Atlantic

This essay argues that despite the growing popularity of diasporastudies, our understanding of the African diaspora remains limitedby both the conceptual difficulties of defining what we meanby the diaspora in general, and the African diaspora in particular,and the analytical tendency to privilege the Atlantic, or ratherthe Anglophone, indeed the American branch of the African diaspora.It begins by trying to explore the various conceptions of theAfrican diaspora, foregrounded by a critique of Paul Gilroy'sinfluential text, The Black Atlantic. This is followed by discussionsof what the author considers to be the four dominant dimensionsof the global African diasporas, namely, the intra-Africa, IndianOcean, Mediterranean, and Atlantic diasporas. Finally, the essayexamines the emergence of the new global African diasporas.     

“一国两制”下的香港司法机关

香港特别行政区司法机关得到国际社会和香港本地社会的高度评价。本文阐述了香港司法制度的结构,包括法院的架构、规模以及双语法制;介绍了香港的法官制度,包括法官的任命和服务条件,法官的选拔、培训、考核和行为守则,对法官的投诉机制,法官的任期、薪酬待遇以及司法行政等;梳理总结了香港对司法独立和司法公义的制度保障。在“一国两制”的宪制安排下,香港司法也体现出特殊性。香港享有终审权,各级法院对基本法亦有解释权,但全国人大常委会颁布的基本法的解释,香港各级法院必须遵从。     

Communist China’s entry into the Korean hostilities and a U.S. proposal for a collective security arrangement in the Pacific offshore island chain

In late 1950, against the background of communist China’s full entry into the Korean War, the U.S. government put forward a Pacific Ocean Pact, which would comprise the United States, Japan, the Philippines, if possible Indonesia, Australia, and New Zealand. This article, after tracing China’s intervention in the Korean War, discusses U.S. policy planning on the proposal for a Pacific Pact, and examines the precise objectives of the proposal. It is argued that the American proposal for a Pacific offshore island chain pact was basically intended to enhance U.S. security interests in Northeast Asia, particularly Japan. The Pacific Pact proposal therefore contained a scheme for committing formally substantial U.S. armed forces to the defense of the Pacific Ocean; the revitalization of Japanese power; and the welding of the resources of strength of Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines to the defense of Japan.     

Reclaiming our minds; reclaiming our souls; reclaiming our people: A call to the black world

Abstract

From Barbados to Burundi and from New Guinea to Nigeria, almost all that is known about crucial developments in other black nations comes from white world news organisations ‐ BBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and other corporate‐controlled media. Owing to this, as well as to the general longstanding relationship between the white world and the African Diaspora, our peoples, our strivings, our triumphs ‐ are either routinely ignored or grotesquely distorted. There is no structural mechanism for the sharing of information throughout the African Diaspora. As a result, we truly are at the mercy of a corporate‐controlled media that not only presents either no information or distorted information about the African Diaspora to the rest of the world, but feeds these distortions to us throughout the African Diaspora. In the process, the international media promotes and inculcates standards and values that are philosophically and culturally discordant with the global African reality.

Governments and peoples of the African Diaspora must begin to discuss, debate, and re‐think for ourselves, and amongst ourselves, those circumstances and conditions, those values and realities, those yardsticks by which we will measure and judge ourselves. It is based on these standards that we should judge and assess the health and appeal of all nations. There are certain priorities, of course, that all nations and peoples should embrace ‐ an informed and educated populace; affordable health care for all; employment that serves the needs of the individual and the interests of the nation. Beyond that, however, throughout the Diaspora we in the African Diaspora must recognise the strengths that are uniquely ours, and build on them. The giraffe becomes a pathetic caricature when it attempts to be a gazelle. The time has come for us to reclaim and re‐assert our essential African‐ness; to build societies where the social, economic, and spiritual development of the human being is paramount; to recognise all that is ours materially and spiritually ‐ the minerals in the earth, the forests above it, our waterways, our God‐given resources that for so long have been the source of enormous wealth for everyone but us; our traditions, our values, culture, our kinship networks, our humanity.     

Biomedical loopholes, distrusted state, and the politics of HIV/AIDS "cure" in Nigeria

As socio-medical phenomena, epidemics are revealing of the cultures in which they are experienced. The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa exposes antecedent tensions between state and society, and, on a broader canvas, between the global north and south. As a contribution to the emerging literature on the social ramifications of HIV/AIDS, this article examines the saga of the Nigerian physician and immunologist, Dr Jeremiah Abalaka, who like other innovators in sub-Saharan Africa claims to have developed a curative HIV vaccine. Whilst articulating the social conditions that enabled Abalaka to thrive, the article explores the marked differences in the reaction to his "discovery" among state representatives, the scientific establishment, the general public, people living with HIV, and the media. Finally, the article valorizes the emergence of new actors in the African health sector, and the diversity of strategies used by ordinary people to achieve and maintain wellness.     

German influence on Italian jurists' perceptions of the British constitutional model in the late nineteenth century

In Great Britain, the Magna Carta of 1215 was regarded as the guarantor of parliamentary sovereignty for centuries. During the nineteenth century the Charter continued to be interpreted in law schools, particularly through William Blackstone's 1759 edition. By the mid-nineteenth century, both politicians and lawyers proceeded with a revision of the law, and provided the first Statute Laws Revision Act of 1856. Two further acts followed in 1861 and 1863, repealing hundreds of obsolete laws; subsequent legislation abrogated much of Magna Carta and, by the 1880s, even more chapters of the Charter were revoked. In the rest of Europe throughout the nineteenth century, eminent continental scholars were authoritative voices regarding the interpretation of the English juridical system. By examining historical, legal and political-theoretical aspects of the continental, particularly the German, reception of the English concept of law, the aim of this article is to contribute to a wider understanding of European constitutionalism of that time, since the nineteenth century can be considered a constitutional era. Various aspects of constitutional history both within and outside of continental Europe are examined from a comparative, juridical and historical perspective. In Italy, German studies on English constitutional and parliamentary history were translated and commented on. This article is a working hypothesis about the influence, or the rejection, of the legal system in place across the Channel. The essays by distinguished German jurists interpreting the English institutional inheritance were translated into Italian. These translations and, in particular, the comments thereon, reflect the road taken by Italian legal thought to reach a constitutional model and to gain an insight into what lessons Germans drew from the English legacy in order to form their own doctrinal opinion.     

THE PRODUCTION OF HISTORY IN MALAWI IN THE 1960s: THE LEGACY OF SIR HARRY JOHNSTON, THE INFLUENCE OF THE SOCIETY OF MALAWI AND THE ROLE OF DR KAMUZU BANDA AND HIS MALAWI CONGRESS PARTY

This article joins the debate on culture, history and politicsin postcolonial Malawi. Concentrating on the production of historyin the 1960s, the paper shows how the decade marked the beginningsof serious research, teaching and public discourse of Malawi'shistory. It proceeds to examine factors, such as the existingliterature, which helped to fashion the direction which theplayers, mainly teachers and researchers, took in accomplishingtheir tasks. In this connection the paper considers the mannerin which Harry Johnston, the first person to write widely onthe peoples of the Lake Malawi region, influenced the historiographyof the country. It also evaluates the role of the Society ofMalawi and its publication, the Society of Malawi Journal, inthe production of history. Finally, the article pays attentionto the ways in which the work of historians was affected byPresident Kamuzu Banda and the policies and actions of his rulingMalawi Congress Party.     

关系正常化前夕的中美资产要求问题谈判

《上海公报》发表后,美国政府着手推动中美双边贸易关系的发展,资产要求问题遂成为其优先寻求解决的议题。中美两国围绕资产要求问题的谈判经历了明显的起伏。在尼克松第二任期的后期和福特任期内,由于美国政府始终未能做出实质性努力以实现中美关系正常化,它试图依靠双边经贸关系的进展来显示两国间紧密联系的做法无法获得中方的认同,所以导致中美双方关于资产要求问题的谈判未获成功。     

马来亚印度人国大党的成立及早期政治活动(1946~1957)

二战前,马来亚印度人指向祖籍国印度的民族主义和爱国主义明显加强,进而暂时消除、弥合了印度人群体中一些分化因素,这是马来亚印度人国大党成立的重要社会背景。在尼赫鲁的积极推动下,1946年8月,马来亚印度人国大党正式成立。虽然马来亚印度人国大党深受尼赫鲁和印度国大党的影响,该党成立之初也支持当时的印度政府和印度国大党的反殖反英运动,但它并不隶属于印度国大党。自成立后至1957年,马来亚印度人国大党先是主要致力于开展印度民族主义的活动,不久又深度卷入马来亚制订民主宪法的斗争中,积极争取对印度人有利的公民权问题。在马来亚积极争取独立的浓厚政治氛围中,经过一番犹豫之后,1955年3月,经正式商谈之后,马来亚印度人国大党选择全面加入巫统马华联盟。同年7月,巫统、马华公会和马来亚印度人国大党结成的三大民族政党联盟在竞选中获胜。马来亚联合邦随后正式成立,马来亚印度人国大党作为执政联盟成员之一,长期参与执政。印度人群体的相对弱小及其社会内部的严重分化,部分程度地削弱了马来亚印度人国大党在马国政治中的地位和作用。它的政治活动对马来亚的政治民主化和多元化起到了一定的推动作用。     

Kompensationsmöglichkeiten föderaler Vollzugsdefizite. Das Beispiel der kantonalen Alkoholpräventionspolitiken

The implementation of public policies in Switzerland is highly federal and decentralized with the main competencies at the sub‐national level of the member states, i.e. the cantons. Comparing alcohol prevention policies in the Swiss cantons, the present article supports the thesis of considerable differences in the cantonal provision of respective outputs. At the same time we can find cooperative implementation strategies compensating the resulting performance deficits. However, this so‐called “secondary harmonization” only is applied by about half of the cantons. We identify three reasons for that fact: First, only those cantons engage in horizontal cooperation that, on the one hand, have an actual interest in improving their policy performance, and, on the other hand, can afford it resource‐wise. Second, today's paradigm of the “lean state” leads to competitive rather than cooperative implementation strategies. Third, the federal administration neither encourages horizontal cooperation, nor do we find a vertical cooperation between the higher and the lower federal level on an equal basis.     

应对挑战与积极外交:2019年俄罗斯的内外政策

普京开启总统第四任期以来,俄罗斯面临政治稳定的挑战与经济增长的压力。2019年,在政治领域,普京直面政权党"统一俄罗斯"党在2018年地方选举中受挫的现实和普京民意趋势走低的挑战,在治国理念上从官方层面倡导"普京主义",并坚决抵制西方政治干预,确保在2019年地方选举中基本完成预定目标,维持了政治稳定的局面。在经济领域,面对经济停滞不前和民生水平下滑引发民心思变的社会情绪,普京治下的俄罗斯曾寄希望于"突破性发展"战略的有效推进,但由于经济结构、投资水平、劳动力人口等因素的影响,俄罗斯的经济发展成效有限。在外交领域,着眼于国家利益,俄罗斯对外政策的主要目标依然是深化欧亚地区一体化进程,管控与西方矛盾,采取了一系列积极外交举措。2019年,中俄关系继续向好,稳中有进,中俄全面战略协作伙伴关系进入新时代。总体看,俄罗斯国家特质呈现动态均衡性的特点,但发展面临的挑战依然存在。     

‘The Russians are Coming,the Russians are Coming’: American Management of the Crisis Associated with Ending the October 1973 War

This article follows the last 72 hours of the October 1973 Yom Kippur War; that is, the three days from the collapse of the first ceasefire, on 23 October, until 25 October, when the United Nations Security Council Resolution 340, which ended the war, was adopted. The goal is to present and analyse the interests of the United States and how it managed its policy vis-à-vis Israel and Egypt during the ceasefire imbroglio. However, the article devotes special attention to the serious crisis with the Soviet Union that played out during those fateful hours. It stemmed from the note sent by the leader of the Soviet Union, Leonid I. Brezhnev, to US President Richard M. Nixon on 24 October. From the contents of the message, senior American decision-makers concluded that the Soviets were planning the unilateral deployment of an armed force to the Middle East. In response to this threat, these officials decided to raise the state of alert of the American armed forces to Level 3. The main conclusion of the research, however, is that no real Soviet threat existed. On the contrary, the Soviet Union was interested in preserving détente and in continuing to cooperate with the United States in order to put an end to the violence in the Middle East.     

美国第115届国会涉台立法探析

第115届美国国会的涉台立法在立法数量上达到空前规模。这些立法有些已通过立法程序而成为公共法律,有些尚未完成立法程序,内容涉及美台之间的政治、经济、军事交往,以及对台军售和台湾的国际参与等诸多方面。以《与台湾交往法》为代表的涉台立法挑战了"一个中国"的政策,破坏了中美关系的政治基础,对中美关系产生了严重的负面影响。美国涉台立法的这一现象反映出在两岸力量对比发生明显有利于大陆的变化后,美国行政和立法部门试图以立法手段实现对台湾的"再保证"。虽然美国涉台立法的实施取决于行政部门对相关政策可行性的认知和判断,但以《与台湾交往法》为代表的涉台立法已成为中美关系的破坏性因素。     

天皇制立宪主义——传统的发明、断裂与延续

明治维新过程中,天皇亲政与公议成为新的政治原则,二者集约在明治宪法之中,立宪主义、万世一系政治神学与君民一体政治理想相辅相成,天皇制被"再发明",可称天皇制立宪主义,天皇在集大权于一身的同时,其亲政的主动性也受到限制。如大正期所示,天皇个人意志可能"被无视",天皇制与民众政治亦有深度融合之可能。经过摄政期政治练习的昭和天皇,在有着充分权威自觉的同时,又对宪法表示尊重,但随着政党政治的结束与战争开始,日本走向大政翼赞体制。二战后,日本确立国民主权与象征天皇制,天皇与国民情感间依然有很强连带感。