Barely legal: racism and migrant farm labour in the context of Canadian multiculturalism

This article investigates how colonial attitudes towards race operate alongside official multiculturalism in Canada to justify the legally exceptional exclusion of migrant farm workers from Canada's socio-political framework. The Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program is presented in this article as a relic of Canada's racist and colonial past, one that continues uninterrupted in the present age of statist multiculturalism. The legal continuation and growth in the use of non-citizens to conduct labour distasteful to Canadian nationals has provided an effective means for the Canadian state to regulate the ongoing flow of non-preferred races on the margins while promoting a pluralist and ethnically diverse political image at home and abroad. In the face of a labour shortage constructed as a political crisis of considerable urgency, the Canadian state has continued to admit non-immigrants into the country to perform labour deemed unattractive yet necessary for the well-being of Canadian citizens while simultaneously suspending the citizenship and individual rights of those same individual migrant workers. By legislating the restriction of rights and freedoms to a permanently revolving door of temporary non-citizens through the mechanism of a guest worker programme, the Canadian state is participating in the bio-political regulation of foreign nationals.     

Modern Politics in an Age of Global Terrorism: New Challenges for Domestic Public Policy

Much has been written about the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 and their ramifications for international politics. This article contends that, nearly five years on, the type of terrorism which emerged that day has not only altered the way liberal democracies define and execute their foreign and defence policies, but that it has also affected their ability to attend to policy objectives domestically. Global terrorism, and the governmental policy responses to it, are not subjected to the same reciprocal balance checks that tend to limit the ferocity and lethality of domestic terrorist conflicts. Consequently, as policy-makers attempt to find responses appropriate to contain the new global threat, four values that democratic societies have come to uphold over the past two centuries are increasingly challenged: security, liberty, equality and efficiency have become fundamental principles that guide the formation of domestic public policy and constitute the criteria by which policy success is judged. Yet, our account of the political developments in the United Kingdom and the United States reveals that aspiring to those values is meeting unprecedented constraints.     

Sponsored study abroad and civic engagement in Kyrgyzstan

ABSTRACT

The article explores whether study abroad programmes sponsored by multilateral and bilateral development organizations and private philanthropic foundations promote civic engagement of their alumni upon their return to their home country. The article focuses on the case of Kyrgyzstan, which has had a number of international study abroad scholarship programmes since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The research was exploratory and utilized in-depth interviews for collecting data.

In agreement with the literature, the research found that the alumni of scholarship programmes had experienced changes in their values and worldviews as a result of being exposed to a new environment but also of having a formalized study programme that enabled them to critically reflect on their own country and culture and to expand their knowledge in the new context. These changes prompted most participants in the research to be civically engaged in the social and political issues of their society in their home country through voluntarism. Importantly, the article expands the literature by arguing that this civic engagement has positive implications for the development of civil society and democratic values and practices in Kyrgyzstan.     

Resistance from Within: Why Mexico's Attempt to Advance an Active Foreign Policy Failed

After becoming the first opposition candidate to win since 1910, President Vicente Fox kindled expectations at both national and international levels. He claimed he would enhance significantly the scope of the Mexico's foreign policy and engage the country in international politics in a way more befitting of its newly acquired democratic status. Nevertheless, little consideration was given to the fact that for many decades foreign policy in Mexico had been deployed to create an area screened‐off from domestic politics where conflicting factions were brought together and a policy consensus worked out. That consensus was sufficiently ample for the authoritarian elite, given its foreign policy goals and principles. It would, however, fail to suffice for any political leader willing to step outside the box of tradition. Fox did just that. In consequence, widespread reactions of disapproval from key political actors and the media led the president to settle for a more modest international agenda in 2002. This article explores the key processes that triggered so much internal resistance to Fox's foreign policy designs. I argue that these processes underpin what continues to be the essentially autarchic nature and scope of the Mexican foreign policy tradition. Such an autarchic approach is glorified in Mexican political rhetoric, yet has led to many lost opportunities for Mexico. Most importantly, I stress that the Mexican foreign policy tradition discourages and forecloses the kind of engagement in the international arena that seeks to share in rather than to free‐ride the collective efforts of the international community to procure security and peace. So despite its new democratic status, Mexico remains more of a spectator than an actor on the international stage.     

政治稳定视阈下腐败官员和资产外逃的惩防追缴机制建设

腐败的本质是公权私用,是权力与权利关系的异化。腐败官员与腐败资产外逃严重影响民众对于廉洁政治建设的信心,对我国的政治稳定造成严重的负面影响,鉴于此,惩防腐败对国家的政治稳定至关重要。目前,腐败行为的结构性转型使得我国对腐败官员跨境外逃和资产转移的惩防难度增大,因此,要认真对待社会转型带来的制度风险和利益冲突,正视权力结构存在的问题,健全权力运行制约和监督体系,改革政治体制,依靠民主政治和公民有序政治参与的扩大,促成对政府官员责任的落实和监督。将惩防跨境腐败上升到法治的高度,进一步完善并落实我国政府官员家庭财产申报制度,完善户籍管理、护照管理和出入境管理等制度。要在国际法和国际条约框架内,加强国际司法合作。     

The Myth of the Failed State and the War on Terror: A Challenge to the Conventional Wisdom

Abstract

A central hypothesis in the articulated rationale inspiring the war on terror suggests that failed states play a key role in the international terrorist nexus and require external intervention and guided democratization. This logic is based on two related premises; first that there is a direct link between failed states and international terrorism, second that democratic governance reduces the recourse to terrorism. This article suggests that there is no causal link between failed states and international terrorism and that the asserted ability of democratic governance to catalyze a reduction in terrorism is exaggerated if not wholly inaccurate.     

Democracy and local political participation in Sumedang,Indonesia

Indonesia is a country that implements a democratic political system. As such, the involvement of society in the political process becomes very important. The purpose of this article is to research the democracy and local political participation in Sumedang. The study uses qualitative methods with primary data obtained from field observations and direct interviews of several informants. Additionally, the researchers use secondary data as a complement to the analysis. The results of this study indicate that the community at the local level truly understands the importance of political participation. However, due to disappointment in government performance, a part of the community has become discouraged from participating in the political process conducted by local governments. Several factors hinder efforts to encourage political participation. These include limited access to political aspirations that are still rare and the process of political education that is still low.     

From consultation to participatory governance? A critical review of citizen engagement strategies in Queensland

This article explores what appears to be a major shift in the policies and practices of national and international governments–the increased attention to, and use of, citizen engagement strategies as a basis for developing more participatory forms of governance. The article examines recent citizen engagement initiatives of the Queensland state government which have grappled with these complex political, policy and service concerns. The potential innovation and effectiveness of citizen engagement techniques and approaches are examined. The limitations of technical methodologies based on a traditional consultative framework are highlighted. The article analyses the relationship between these citizen engagement practices and more strategic democratic reforms based on notions of participatory governance.     

Beyond the media's explanation: Examining the determinants of attitudes toward torture

The question of what constitutes torture has perhaps never held as prominent a place in US political discourse as it has since the attacks on 9/11. This has fueled a national conversation that causes us to consider to what extent do our actions as a nation reflect our values as a nation? In a post 9/11 world in which the country will confront terrorism at home and abroad and our values will be tested we should strive for a better understanding of citizens' attitudes towards the practices that are (and have been) used to counter terrorism. To the extent that democratic theory is correct in necessitating public policy and public opinions to be reasonably congruent, understanding the distribution and formation of citizen attitudes towards torture is an important endeavor.     

Lords Reform: Some Inconvenient Truths

The failure of the Coalition government's attempt to reform the House of Lords has by no means taken further reform off the political agenda. The commitment to installing an elected upper chamber is still widely shared across the political spectrum, on the basis of perceptions that the House of Lords lacks democratic legitimacy. Against this view, this article considers recent literature upon non‐electoral representation, deliberative democracy and bicameralism, which together highlight the possibility of an unelected second chamber playing a legitimate role within a wider (democratic) system of government. The article then considers the House of Lords from this perspective, reflecting on changes in the upper chamber since the 1999 reforms and evaluating its role within the wider political system. The paper concludes by suggesting that political debate should focus upon small‐scale reforms to ensure that the Lords becomes more effective, representative and legitimate, within the constraints of its present role.     

Utilitarian Multilateralism: The Implications of 11 September 2001 for US Foreign Policy

The 11 September terrorist attacks have led the United States to reassess its foreign policy. The overwhelming priority is the defeat of terrorism and to further this end the United States is prepared to engage with states, regardless of their democratic credentials, willing and able to help the United States on the terrorist front. There is little sign, however, that the new-found interest in promoting multilateral co-operation to deal with terrorism is spilling over into other policy areas. The United States shows no sign of modifying its opposition to a number of international treaties and agreements – such as Kyoto, CTBT or the ICC – all of which its closest allies support. The US approach may be described as 'utilitarian multilateralism'.     

The Strategic Sources of Foreign Policy Substitution

While a growing body of work provides empirical support for the notion that political leaders "substitute" foreign policies depending on a variety of domestic political and economic conditions, little work examines the underlying strategic causes of substitution. This article argues that foreign states behave strategically in order to (a) avoid becoming the targets of domestically troubled executives or (b) to take advantage of the domestic trouble another state endures. Such "strategic interaction" delimits the set of foreign policies reasonably available to leaders in trouble at home, thus producing the impetus for policy substitution. This article develops a theoretical model of strategic behavior and policy substitution and reports empirical results of a multivariate probit model.     

国外妇女参政政策及对我国的启示

妇女参政是衡量一个国家文明程度和民主建设进程的重要尺度,目前,国外的妇女参政,无论从数量和比例上还是从任职结构和质量上来说,都取得了令人瞩目的成就。总结梳理世界各国近年的政策和实践经验,以期对提高我国妇女参政水平以启示。     

The political economy linkage between trade liberalization and domestic environmental regulations

This paper considers the political economy linkage between trade liberalization and domestic environmental regulations in a duopolistic product market. We investigate the environmental consequences and welfare implications of a home country’s unilateral tariff reduction on a polluting good. In a framework where the domestic environmental tax is subject to the influence of the home firm, we find that a tariff reduction on a good producing a consumption-type externality will improve the home country’s environmental quality. Moreover, we find that the home country’s tariff reduction will unambiguously enhance the home country’s welfare; and it will damage the foreign firm’s profits and thus the foreign country’s welfare, provided that the weight that the home government attaches to its social welfare is sufficiently small. This result also suggests the possibility that a unilateral tariff reduction will achieve a Pareto improvement.     

Interest mobilization in public health and social insurance: Argentina,Colombia, and Mexico in comparative perspective

One revealing test for gauging the extent to which pluralist democracy has advanced in the recently (re)democratized countries of Latin America is to determine the extent to which interest groups have come to participate in policy making in formal, open, extensive, and accepted ways as they mostly do in advanced liberal democracies. In other words, is this a new era or more of the same? To provide insights into this question, using six hypotheses, this article compares social insurance reform in Argentina and Mexico, and public health reform in Colombia. It appears that the political processes through which the reforms were adopted were fairly democratic, although aspects of the old regimes in all three countries, particularly corporatist relationships, were indispensable backups. The weaknesses that were apparent, however, stem less from the old ways of doing political business and more from the immaturity of the democratic process. Plus, pressures were felt by the executive branches and their allies to show to the international community that their country was a safe place in which to invest. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Representation is Democracy

During the Cold War, arguments about representation were a significant part of international debates about democracy. Proponents of minimal democracy dominated these arguments, and their thin notions of representation became political common sense. I propose a view of representation that differs from the main views advocated during the Cold War. Representation has a central positive role in democratic politics: I gain political representation when my authorized representative tries to achieve my political aims, subject to dialogue about those aims and to the use of mutually acceptable procedures for gaining them. Thus the opposite of representation is not participation. The opposite of representation is exclusion – and the opposite of participation is abstention. Rather than opposing participation to representation, we should try to improve representative practices and forms to make them more open, effective, and fair.     

Defending a cosmopolitanism without illusions. Reply to my critics

This essay engages with several critiques of my project a ‘cosmopolitanism without illusions.’ Who is the subject of rights? What are the objects of rights? Is there a distinction between human and moral rights? Furthermore, what is prior in this cosmopolitan account: democracy or human rights? Do democratic iterations exhaust the meaning of principles of rights? Finally, does the ‘scarf affair’ really signify the return of ‘political theology’ or have not such disputes always accompanied secularization and modernity? I argue that moral rights comprise more than human rights and that non-human beings such as animals can have moral rights claims against us. Democratic iterations and rights complement one another; neither is prior and that although debates about religion and secularization have been endemic to modernity, the return of references to Carl Schmitt’s ‘political theology’ is rather new.     

War and (the Democratic) Peace: Military Service,Citizenship, and the International Environment

Is there a significant relationship between military structure and political liberalization? If so, can military structure and organization be manipulated to influence the process of democratization for the purpose of enhancing inter-state peace? To test the implications of these questions, I will investigate a decidedly contentious premise. Military factors traditionally considered destabilizing in the international environment (to include large, well-trained armed forces organized for offensive or out-of-country operations) have, at critical junctions in the Western experience, had a distinctly positive impact on the emergence and maintenance of the liberal democratic state. If this is indeed the case, and liberal democracy can be shown structurally and normatively to produce inter-state peace, then the preferred policy of peace-desiring states should be to promote and implement military reform at home and abroad that most efficiently generates democratic structures and values, regardless of intuitive fears of international instability. In short, I will argue that if liberal democratic states do not go to war with each other, then the size, proficiency, and strength of their military forces should not be a security dilemma issue.     

Diffusion through Democracy

Many argue that international norms influence government behavior, and that policies diffuse from country to country, because of idea exchanges within elite networks. However, politicians are not free to follow their foreign counterparts, because domestic constituencies constrain them. This article examines how electoral concerns shape diffusion patterns and argues that foreign templates and international organization recommendations can shift voters’ policy positions and produce electoral incentives for politicians to mimic certain foreign models. Experimental individual‐level data from the field of family policy illustrates that even U.S. voters shift positions substantially when informed about UN recommendations and foreign countries’ choices. However, voters receive limited information about international developments, biased towards the policy choices of large and proximate countries. Aggregate data on the family policy choices of OECD countries show how voters’ limited information about international models shapes government decisions: governments are disproportionately likely to mimic countries whose news citizens follow, and international organizations are most influential in countries with internationally oriented citizens.     

Looking the Part: Television Leads Less Informed Citizens to Vote Based on Candidates’ Appearance

As long as there has been democratic government, skeptics have worried that citizens would base their choices and their votes on superficial considerations. A series of recent studies seems to validate these fears, suggesting that candidates who merely look more capable or attractive perform better in elections. In this article, we examine the underlying process behind the appearance effect. Specifically, we test whether the effect of appearance is more pronounced among those who know little about politics but are exposed to visual images of candidates. To do so, we combine appearance‐based assessments of U.S. Senate and gubernatorial candidates with individual‐level survey data measuring vote intent, political knowledge, and television exposure. Confirming long‐standing concerns about image and television, we find that appealing‐looking politicians benefit disproportionately from television exposure, primarily among less knowledgeable individuals.