Family policies and gender in Hungary, Poland, and Romania

This paper discusses changes and new directions in the gendered nature of the welfare state in three post-state socialist societies: Hungary, Poland and Romania. Relying on an analysis of laws and regulations passed after 1989 concerning child care, maternity and parental leave, family support, unemployment and labor market policies, retirement and abortion laws, the authors identify the differences and the similarities among the three countries, pointing out not only their status in 2001, but also their trajectory, the dynamics and timing of their change. The authors argue that there are essential differences between the three countries in terms of women’s relationship to the welfare state. They also specify some of the key historical and social variables which might explain variation across countries.     

Between a rock and a hard place: The Swedish social democratic party into Europe

Goran Therborn, European Modernity and Beyond: The Trajectory of European Societies, (Sage, London 1995). 403pp. ISBN 8039 8934 2.

John McGany and Brendan O'Leary, Explaining Northern Ireland, (Blackwell, Oxford 1995). 535pp. ISBN 0–631–18349–3.     

Socialism,political ideas and the labour party

Nicholas Ellison, Egalitarian Thought and Labour Politics. Retreating Visions, (Routledge, London 1994). 272pp. ISBN 0–415–06972–6 (hb).

Eric Shaw, The Labour Party Since 1979. Crisis and Transformation, (Routledge, London 1994). 276pp. ISBN 0–415–05614–4 (hb), 0–415–05615–2 (pb).

Robin Archer, Economic Democracy. The Politics of Feasible Socialism, (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1995). 280pp. ISBN 0–19–827891–8 (hb).     

Foreign threat and political party change: Russia and changes in party manifestos

How do political parties react to foreign security threats? There has been very little attention paid in the literature generally to how parties react to international events, particularly how parties react to foreign policy threats. Using data from the Comparative Manifesto Project, we examine how political parties in countries in Europe have reacted to Russian actions in terms of their emphasis on security issues. Based upon our analysis of the manifestoes from 331 parties in 36 countries we find that, generally, interstate threats have no significant effect on the military position adopted by political parties, although these effects vary by party type and by the type of threat. Russian based threats appear to be associated with the Far Left becoming more dovish (which is consistent with what would be expected by the literature) and the Far Right becoming significantly less hawkish.     

Political parties,party systems,and economic reforms: The Turkish case

Turkey’s experience with economic reforms and democratization since the early 1980s underscores the importance of the political parties and the party systems in the interactions between these two processes. The country’s experience with democratic politics and a multiparty system made a significant contribution to the resumption of electoral politics and redemocratization following three years of military rule in the early 1980s. However, the opening up of the political space and the reemergence of competitive party politics ultimately created problems for the successful completion of the economic reforms, as one-party dominance and majority-party governments gave way to fragmentation in the party system with weak coalition governments. The Turkish case is instructive of the difficulties facing countries that seek to simultaneously consolidate their democracies and liberalize their economies. Sabri Sayari is executive director of the Institute of Turkish Studies and research professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He has written extensively on Turkey’s domestic politics and foreign policy, and on issues related to political development, parties and party systems, and democratization.     

2006年匈牙利、捷克、斯洛伐克议会选举与左翼政党的发展

在2006年议会选举中,匈牙利和捷克延续了以往的左翼政党格局,斯洛伐克的政党格局则发生了很大变化;同时,三国左翼政党或胜或输,表现出不同的起落轨迹.左翼政党格局和地位的变化与其所在国家的政治发展、经济形势、对外关系乃至各党自身的条件和努力密切相关.     

Institutional decay and distributional coalitions in developing countries: The argentine riddle reconsidered

This article examines the relationship between political institutions and interest group behavior within the context of developing countries, taking Argentina as an example. More specifically, it tries to explore the relationship between the decay of weak governmental institutions and the development of strong distributional coalitions following Mancur Olson's theory of interest group behavior. While integrating the findings of previous works by political scientists and economists, this article advances an explanation that links institutional weaknesses with the failure of Argentina's main distributional coalitions to develop collective action. Lastly, the study analyzes the recent economic reforms of the Menem administration and their impact on the process of democratic consolidation. Drawing upon the theoretical and empirical discussion presented, the article argues that, contrary to the opinion of many pundits, such reforms are likely to strengthen the socioeconomic power of a select number of distributional coalitions. Thus serious doubts exist about the prospects of institution-building in Argentina in the long-run. Reprinted fromInstitutions, Parties, And Coalitions In Argentine Politics, by Luigi Manzetti, by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.     

Ad hoc coalitions and institutional exploitation in international security: towards a typology

Abstract

While the increasingly thick web of global, regional and sub-regional security arrangements and institutions has received ample scholarly attention, the phenomenon of ad hoc military coalitions and how they impact these institutions has been relatively little explored. We examine ad hoc coalitions in international security responses and develop a tentative typology of military responses that takes ad hoc coalitions into consideration, where we differentiate in terms of institutionalisation and duration. Following a rational-choice institutionalist logic, we argue that institutional proliferation increases the chances of institutional exploitation. We illustrate this with how states apply a pick-and-choose approach in which institutional products but not frameworks are used. They use the interoperable forces, a common culture and mainstreamed doctrine, but not the formal deployment of rapid response mechanisms of eg the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the African Union. In closing, we observe that institutional proliferation in international security facilitates a functionalist approach mainly inspired by national self-interest. Future research should examine whether this could result in dwindling relevance of international institutions, first in the domain of security, but later also in other domains.