政治现实主义观念形态的变更及其理论提示——从“国家理由”观念到“现实政治”思想

国际关系理论中的政治现实主义作为一种源远流长的思想传统,在其成熟形态到来之前还经历了"国家理由"和"现实政治"两种观念形态的典型发展时期。本文通过政治现实主义两种观念形态变迁的论述,意在展现政治现实主义思想传统在特定历史语境中的丰富内涵及其一脉相承的精神本质,在普遍关注现实主义成熟形态的当今,提供一种有关政治现实主义的纵向考察,为思考当代现实主义理论的发展和创新寻找一种历史的视角,尤其是展示理论寓于时代所特有的关切和抱负。     

State retrenchment and informal institutions in Kazakhstan: people's perceptions of informal reciprocity in the healthcare sector

Despite government efforts, post-independence Kazakhstan has largely failed to provide high-quality medical services to its population. State retrenchment in the public healthcare system has led to the deterioration of medical service delivery. It has provided incentives for people to widely use informal reciprocal exchanges – personal connections and informal monetary and non-monetary payments – to gain access to better medical care. In contrast to the existing explanations focusing mostly on the cultural origin of the continuity of informal exchanges, I argue that state retrenchment from the social sphere and under-provision of state goods and services have perpetuated informal exchanges in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. Despite similarities in informal practices between Soviet and post-independence Kazakhstan, some important differences in terms of scope and the nature of informal exchanges are observed. This article draws on data collected from interviews, textual analysis, and original surveys of people's attitudes towards the healthcare system and informal help conducted in Kazakhstan in 2011 and 2013.     

From the State to the Streets: The Debate over the Civil Union Bill and Conservative Strategic Change in Peru

The adoption of SOGI policies depends on the strategies activists choose to support or oppose them. Nevertheless, the conditions that explain why some strategies are prioritised over others are not evident. In Peru, the 2013 debate over civil unions prompted a strategic shift in which the conservative wing started to benefit from intensive street mobilisation strategies. Why did this change occur? We argue that a deeply divided electoral competition and the decay of the Catholic Church's moral authority favoured this outcome. This article analyses the trajectory of these strategies over time to identify the conditions that contributed to the shift.     

State Continuismo and Pinochetismo: The Keys to the Chilean Transition

There have been two parallel processes in Chilean political economy during the 1990s. A high profile has been accorded to the transition from authoritarianism to democracy and its related debates. A relatively low profile has been accorded to the continuity in the state model of capitalism that was implemented under authoritarianism. This paper argues that transition can be best understood in terms of the role of Augusto Pinochet and his strategies for maintaining power – Pinochetismo. As such, his forced retirement from political life marks the end of transition. The second point is perhaps of more importance however. The democratic political regime has intensified the model of capitalist accumulation of the 1970s and 1980s and socio-economic polarisation has been perpetuated. While the focus on the nature of transition during the 1990s was necessary, there has been a failure to question the social relations established by capitalism. With the end of transition in July 2001, the greatest challenge for Chilean democracy now lies in creating a state based on social relations that serves the needs of the majority rather than the desires of the few.     

The rise and decline of the new party: Ideology, resources and the political opportunity structure

This paper analyses the growth and decline of Taiwan's first significant third party, the New Party (NP). The NP won numerous seats in the national parliaments in the mid-1990s and received extensive media attention. However, it has shown a steady electoral decline since the late 1990s. Despite its poor recent election performance, the NP should not be regarded as a failure, as it has actually been remarkably successful at achieving its original objectives. By 2004, the KMT's policy positions had become so close to those of the NP that the NP was prepared to promote a party merger and allow its politicians to stand for election under a KMT banner. I challenge the most common explanation that the NP rose when united and fell when divided by bitter factional struggles. Instead a framework incorporating ideology, resources and political opportunity structure is employed to explain the rise and fall of the NP. I argue that when the NP faced a benign political environment in the mid-1990s, its moderate political message and rich human resources enabled the party to grow rapidly. However, after March 1996, the political environment became progressively more hostile, and as the NP's resources were eroded and wasted and the party moved towards a narrow and extremist political project, the party began its terminal decline. The space for the NP became even more limited after 2000, when party had to face intense competition from a powerful new KMT splinter party, the PFP, and a rejuvenated, united and orthodox KMT.     

State Response to Transnational Asset Accumulation: The Case of Argentina

Using the asset accumulation framework, and relying on interviews with civil servants working in the department of migrations for the Argentine government, this article addresses the response of the Argentine state to the accumulation and transfer of capital among Argentine emigrants. Contextualising the situation of Argentina in the ‘Latin American context', our primary focus is on four asset categories: financial, human, social and political. This inquiry identifies recent initiatives developed to approach Argentines residing abroad as well as some of the challenges faced by the Argentine state to ‘reconnect’ with emigrants.     

The Making of a Corporatist State in Hong Kong: The Road to Sectoral Intervention

Extant Hong Kong studies have under-stated the corporatist nature of the Hong Kong state. From the 1980s, as part of its political strategy, the Chinese government had helped to build a corporatist state in Hong Kong that incorporated various sectoral elites, leading to a change in the role of the state after 1997. Through an empirical study of the behaviour of functional constituency legislators and policy outputs after 1997, this article shows that the functional constituencies as a corporatist structure introduced many sector-oriented demands. These sectoral representatives lobbied for favourable polices, increased representation for their sectors, and more state resources. This drove the post-1997 Hong Kong state to sectoral intervention, as resources were diverted to selected sectors, creating new legitimacy problems for the regime.     

Korea and Taiwan: The Crisis of Investment-Led Growth and the End of the Developmental State

A defining feature of the Northeast Asian developmental state was a focus on maximising investment and suppressing growth in consumption. While consistently high rates of investment were an integral part of the growth model, as the South Korean and Taiwanese economies matured, the viability of this model was undermined by the inability of these economies to generate sufficient opportunities for profitable investment. At the same time, the legacies of systems of labour control associated with the developmental state have impeded the development of stable wage-led growth regimes in both political economies. Instead, they have become reliant on an unstable combination of current account surpluses and consumer borrowing to sustain growth. The legacies of the developmental state continue to define many aspects of the political-economic landscape in Korea and Taiwan. However, changes in the growth regimes, the reorientation of the financial sectors from corporate to household lending, and the downgrading of industrial policy mean that it is no longer useful to define Korea or Taiwan as developmental states. Instead, contemporary Korea and Taiwan can be best understood as post-developmental states.     

Parties and Change in the Post-Bailout Cyprus: The May 2016 Parliamentary Elections

The parliamentary elections of 2016, the first following Cyprus’ exit from the bailout programme, took place in a context of indifference on the part of the citizens. Characterised by a decline in bipartisanship, a rise in abstention and a more fragmented party system, the elections paved the way for the historical entry into parliament of the far right party, ELAM. This article sets these outcomes against the broader backdrop of the Great Recession while also paying attention to the reinvigoration of the cultural dimension of political conflict, with potentially significant constraints for future negotiations on the Cyprus problem.     

From the ruble zone to the euro zone: the political economy of Estonian macroeconomic policy

This article analyzes Estonian macroeconomic policy since the country regained independence in 1991. Estonia was the first post-communist country to introduce a currency board in 1992, and consecutive governments have systematically prioritized macroeconomic stability and fiscal prudence. Estonia implemented an internal devaluation in 2008–2009, which enabled it to become the first post-Soviet republic to adopt the euro in 2011. This article explores the origins of the currency board and shows how institutions, interests, and ideas have contributed to Estonian exceptionalism in macroeconomic policy and to euro adoption. It demonstrates that the Estonian experience can shed light on the political prerequisites of internal devaluations, which may be of great relevance both to current and future Central and Eastern European euro area members.     

From Miracle to Crisis and Back: The Political Economy of South Korean Long-Term Development

This article analyses the process of economic development and associated political transformations in South Korea since the mid-1960s. It claims that, as in the rest of East Asia, capital accumulation in South Korea has revolved around the production of specific industrial goods for world markets using the relatively cheap and highly disciplined local workforce for simplified labour processes, as appendages of the machine or in manual assembly operations. This modality of accumulation resulted from changes in the forms of production of relative surplus value on a global scale through the development of computerisation and robotisation, and the concomitant transformation in the productive attributes of the collective worker of large-scale industry. The article identifies the main characteristics of the political and economic relations through which the structural transformation of the Korean society came about throughout the period studied, as a form of realising the global unity of the process of capitalist development. This analysis not only supports the claims made about the specific characteristics of the East Asian processes of capitalist development. It also shows the intrinsic unity of seemingly diverse political-economy processes, as forms of realisation of the transformations of Korean society.