Legitimation of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party: Socialism,Chintanakan Mai (New Thinking) and Reform

ABSTRACT

To date, scholars of authoritarianism have paid much attention to the use of democratic institutions in dictatorships to mitigate threats from both internal and external ruling elites, to co-opt and divide opposition and to solve commitment problems among the ruling elite. However, there have been no in-depth studies of legitimacy in an authoritarian regime. In communist states, opposition and dissent are addressed not through co-optation but exclusion. By contrast, communist parties attach great value for their survival to obtaining legitimacy from the masses. This article argues that the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP) has endeavoured to acquire legitimacy since the foundation of the regime through a dialogical configuration of economic reform and socialist ideology. Economic reform and ideological legitimisation always go together, interacting with each other: economic reform requires ideological modification, and ideology defines the framework of reform. In Laos, this paradoxical configuration is necessary for the LPRP to maintain legitimacy while concurrently pursuing an ideal of socialism and reality of economic reform. In making this argument, this article reassesses the nature and significance of chintanakan mai (new thinking), which was not a formal reform policy, as often assumed, but a temporary slogan for promoting economic reforms.     

The Monetisation of Consent and its Limits: Explaining Political Dominance and Decline in Malaysia

ABSTRACT

Malaysia’s 14th General Election in 2018 toppled the Barisan Nasional government after six decades in power. Barisan Nasional’s longevity was due to its performance legitimacy and a capacity to manipulate electoral mechanisms. However, it was the use of money in eliciting consent that led to a political change. This article traces how sustaining the dominance of the Barisan Nasional under Najib Razak used a strategy which we term the monetisation of consent. However, when monetising consent loses its efficacy, political dominance is challenged. We discuss why and how manufacturing consent through the use of money has its limits when regime legitimacy is challenged. Intense political competition on the electoral terrain from 2008 and the multiplication of Malay-Muslim political parties induced Najib’s greater personal grip on state funds to gain political support. This resulted in the Najib regime’s kleptocratic turn. Beyond the disbursement of largesse to political power brokers and business elites, his government monetised consent as a populist strategy. The reduced efficacy of electoral manipulation made the monetisation of consent imperative for regime survival but the use of money and unpopular fiscal policies, which deprived citizens of disposable income, led to a legitimacy crisis and the Barisan Nasional’s defeat.     

Between indifference and hesitation: France and EU enlargement towards the Balkans

Abstract

France’s hesitant stance on EU enlargement towards the Balkans is illustrative of a broader ambivalence among both French elites and citizens towards the European project. Despite principled support for the Balkans’ EU membership, achieving this step is no strategic priority for France. The official approach emphasizes strict conditionality and a rigorous monitoring of reform progress in aspirant countries. A hostile public opinion and superficial media coverage further strengthen the country’s reluctance to admit new, possibly unprepared candidates into the Union. Analysing the historical evolution of the French position on EU enlargement as well as its current political, institutional and societal expressions, this article construes France’s disinvestment from the Balkans’ EU perspective as the result of failed expectations and a growing disillusionment with the EU’s international role and its political future more broadly.     

Opposition Coordination in Singapore’s 2015 General Elections

Abstract

Recent political science scholarship suggests that when opposition political parties are able to coalesce into a united coalition against an authoritarian regime, they will perform better in authoritarian elections, and can more credibly bargain with the regime for liberalising reforms. Yet, most of this literature pays little attention to the variety of ways in which opposition parties cooperate with each other. Drawing on the literature on the bargaining model of war, the author sketches out a theoretical framework to explain how opposition parties coordinate to develop non-competition agreements. Such agreements entail opposition parties bargaining over which political party should contest or withdraw in which constituencies to ensure straight fights against the dominant authoritarian incumbent in each electoral district. The author then applies this framework to explain opposition coordination in Singapore’s 2015 general elections, focusing on the conflict between the Workers’ Party and the National Solidarity Party.     

The ideology of development and legitimation: beyond ‘Kazakhstan 2030’

The paper analyses the multifaceted discourse of development and nation-building in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. It addresses the regional clan–central elite relations and Nursultan Nazarbayev regime's legitimating agenda through the Kazakhstan 2030 Strategy for development. The economic developmental component in Nazarbayev's ideological discourses is primarily an exercise of control over regional economic and political elites and that helped building further legitimacy for the regime in various socio-ethnic constituencies on both the regional and central levels. Kazakhstan 2030 was deployed by the regime to substitute the Soviet version of ideology, legitimize the regime among various ethno-lingual audiences, and discipline the behaviour of regional elites. The paper shows how the study of elites’ interests can best explain the nature of national ideology and development projects.     

‘Municipal entrepreneurs’: local politicians and the delivery of urban sanitation in Kumasi,Ghana

ABSTRACT

The municipal government in Kumasi has been the focus of numerous reforms to improve local policymaking and delivery of public goods to the city’s dwellers. Yet, the reforms have spurred strategic reactions from local actors who exploit institutional ambiguities to pursue their interests. This paper draws on empirical data on the city’s sanitation franchising to show how ordinary local politicians exploit reform ambiguities; they establish themselves as local entrepreneurs to deliver urban sanitation services and also contest the municipal executive. The manipulations do not only undermine reforms proffered by the regime and external actors but the municipal government’s promise to deliver efficient public services also becomes problematic. Management of urban sanitation is a contested arena between bureaucrats and political actors all vying for their interests. The sanitation reforms are eventually subsumed under the ‘local politics as usual’ logic.     

Half measures and incomplete reforms: the breeding ground for a hybrid civil Society in Ukraine

Abstract

In the space of 24 years, Ukraine has experienced three ‘revolutions’: the revolution for independence, the ‘Orange Revolution’ and the ‘Dignity Revolution’. On each occasion the event has been lauded as a triumph of democracy over authoritarianism and as evidence that Ukraine will soon be able to assume its rightful place as a free, democratic state in Europe. On two out of three occasions the reverse has occurred; while the people have taken to the streets to protest against flagrant corruption and abuse of power, the oligarchs have responded with only minor changes to the political system. The reins of political and economic power have remained firmly in their hands, and Ukraine’s prospects for political and economic development have deteriorated. The Dignity Revolution of 2014 is seen as different from preceding revolutions because civil society appeared to be much more active and it has succeeded, in part, in maintaining pressure on government for reform. It is important to understand, however, that despite periodic and dramatic demonstrations of outrage over the corrupt and authoritarian practices of the political elites, civil society has generally been classed as apathetic, weak and ineffectual. Thus, the current challenge for Ukrainian civil society is to overcome its own limitations so that it can better hold government to account.     

Le parlement belge de fonctionnaires 1830–1848

ABSTRACT

The recent publication of two volumes of the acts of the Sardinian Parliament, edited by Laura Galoppini, offers an opportunity to pay attention to this extraordinary rich documentation now covering a continuous period of 175 years. In 1355 King Pedro IV of Aragon convened a first assembly, modelled on the Aragonese corts. The second meeting, in 1421, aimed at the completion of the island’s conquest and the financing of that conquest. It was only since the 1480s that regular meetings took place, albeit it that their convening was determined by the royal need for subsidies. The remarkably long negotiations on the estates’ petitions and complaints reveal new insights into the island’s social tensions and economic problems, and its role in the struggle for domination in the Western Mediterranean.     

Militarizing Japan’s Southwest Islands: Subnational Involvement and Insecurities in the Maritime Frontier Zone

Abstract

This paper sheds light on a relatively underexplored aspect of Japan’s recent security changes by examining the subnational level where the impact has been far-reaching. It focuses on Japan’s maritime frontier zone: the Yaeyama Islands located at the southwestern end of the Japanese archipelago and administered as part of Okinawa Prefecture. It argues that while Yaeyama militarization has been primarily a national response to China’s portrayed assertiveness in the East China Sea, it has also been facilitated by the strategic actions of local political elites, in cooperation with sympathetic extra-local forces. Political elites from two islands, Yonaguni and Ishigaki, have been motivated primarily by diverging material and ideational factors. Yonaguni elites have viewed militarization largely through the prism of “compensation politics.” Their counterparts in Ishigaki have been driven by more ideological objectives, seeking militarization for deterrence purposes and otherwise transforming the island into a rightist breeding ground in defence of Japanese territory. Yaeyama militarization has not only diminished enthusiasm for seeking autonomy and enhancing economic security through microregional cooperation, but has also enhanced local-level insecurities while creating and exacerbating divisions.     

The ignoble savage in urban Yerevan

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on a recent development in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, described by its urban population as a ruralization process. I explore what it means to call something or someone ‘rural’ or ‘urban’, and I compare the social category of ‘rural people’ with the social category of the (old) urban intelligentsia. This includes an analysis and reconsideration of the traditional ‘nature–culture dichotomy’ and its meaning for the architecture and urban planning of Yerevan. It also interrogates the classification of people into newcomers from the countryside, urban dwellers, new elites, and young men called rabiz.     

Making Sense of North Korea: Pyongyang and Comparative Communism

Abstract

Highly repressive, heavily militarized, strongly resistant to reform, and ruled by a dynastic dictatorship that adheres to a hybrid ideology, North Korea might be “the strangest political system in existence.” While distinctive, North Korea is an orthodox communist party-state best classified as an eroding totalitarian regime. Although weakening, Pyongyang remains durable and could survive for many more years. Absent “regime change,” North Korea is unlikely to demilitarize—including relinquishing its nuclear program—and will continue to reject thoroughgoing economic reform, cling to ideology for legitimacy, and make every effort to engineer a successful dynastic succession.     

Post-GE13: Any Closer to Ethnic Harmony and Democratic Change?

Abstract

Malaysia’s general election in 2008 seemed seriously to challenge the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), converting its simple party dominance into a two-party system. UMNO elites were stunned by the results, encouraging some of them to call for political reforms and greater cross-ethnic cooperation. Gradually, most reformers were swept aside. Even so, expectations mounted among politicians and observers that the opposition would make still greater gains in the next general election, held in 2013, possibly even winning outright. However, though the opposition did win a slight majority of the popular vote and more seats in parliament, UMNO was able to claim victory. It did this by tightening its grip on bedrock Malay supporters in rural areas, while retaining its hold on voters in Sabah and Sarawak, then heightening its numbers through extreme malapportionment of the country’s single-member districts. Further, if UMNO elites had grown fractious after Malaysia’s 12th general election, they displayed new unity, even defiance, after Malaysia’s 13th general election (GE13). Thus, they perpetuated the ethnic suspicions of the Chinese that they had heightened during the campaigning; and they imposed new controls on opposition party leaders and organisers. Far from advancing democratic change, then, GE13 has served to roll democracy back.     

Communications

Abstract

President Nixon’s January 25th speech represented not the beginning but the end of negotiations. It signified that the U.S. is downgrading the Paris talks and that no further secret negotiations are taking place. Nixon’s statement of the “U.S.-South Vietnam Proposal for a Negotiated Settlement” and its rejection by the other side is the latest clarification of a truth which has underlain the Paris Peace Talks since they began, namely that the contradictions between the Nixon Administration’s vision of a peace in Indochina and that of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (PRG) and the North Vietnamese are irreconcilable. Nixon has never been, and is still not, willing to make the kind of concessions necessary to make real progress in the negotiations because he has throughout been committed to the maintenance of a staunchly anti-communist government in Saigon and the continuation of dominant U.S. influence over the domestic politics of South Vietnam. As a result, the PRG has not been willing to make the kind of concessions which would allow scope for negotiation because this would mean committing political suicide by entrusting itself to the tender mercies of the Thieu government.     

‘Reform dissonance’ in the modern rentier state: how are divergent economic agendas affecting state-business relations in Saudi Arabia?

ABSTRACT

Large fiscal deficits brought about by the decline in oil prices in late 2014 and long-standing challenges with youth unemployment have been two of the dominant underlying pressures driving economic policy in Saudi Arabia in recent years. In decades past, issues of unemployment were addressed through public sector hiring, but with increasingly limited resources, these old mechanisms are becoming less viable, giving way to a post-distributive policy environment. By exploring the dual pressures being exerted on the state by high levels of unemployment on the one hand and large fiscal deficits on the other, the resulting, seemingly contradictory policy outcomes are identified, examined, and contextualized in this paper. ‘Reform dissonance’ is the term used to describe the complex picture that emerges, where the private sector is confronted with a confusing policy landscape resulting from liberal and statist economic agendas being pursued simultaneously and in the absence of significant coordination. In particular, this chapter argues that this phenomenon of ‘reform dissonance’—contradictory policy outcomes resulting from the lack of coordination between different reform initiatives—is manifested in persisting public sector entitlements, the crowding-out effect by SOEs, and the persisting mismatch between the pace of human capital development and labour nationalization quotas.     

Zur Geschäftsordnungsreform des österreichischen Reichsrates vom Dezember 1909

SUMMARY

In 1907, the (Cisleithanian) Austrian House of Representatives considered an electoral reform which was initially supposed to be connected with a comprehensive reform of the rules of procedure (Geschäftsordnungsgesetz); however, difficulties in the course of the negotiations led to the decision to let the House decide its own procedure in future. Subsequently, government bills were introduced repeatedly but remained either unfinished or altogether ignored. Furthermore, motions which were mostly politically motivated and focused only on certain aspects of procedure were put forward by various deputies.

The Austrian parliamentary system suffered from an antiquated procedure, with procedural wrangling and filibustering (Obstruktionen) against government and prime minister as impediments. At the end the eighteenth sitting of the twentieth session (15.12–19.12.1909), devoted mainly to such wrangles, saw a tactical move leading to a provisional procedural reform which was modest in content. The path towards this reform was paved with superficial discussions which were to uncover differences of opinion and breaches of the law; however, even the majority of parties who refused either reform or its development were actually in favour of it because they were after all supporters of a functioning parliamentary system. Reform contained various possibilities for speeding up the formal business routine as well as an ineffective paragraph on servants of the house (Hausknechtsabsatz), which enabled the Speaker to exclude a representative from a sitting.

Superficially, reform was designed to strengthen the Speaker of the House of Representatives but in fact none of the leading parties was really interested in getting rid of procedural obstruction by this means. What was of greater importance to them was to have an opportunity to agitate against the government or the majority in the House. Thus it does not seem surprising that shortly after the reform, obstruction started anew.     

The politics of consensus: al-Nahda and the stability of the Tunisian transition

Abstract

Tunisia&s transition away from authoritarianism has been shaped by a politics of consensus, which has brought together representatives of the former regime with their historic adversary, the Islamist movement al-Nahda. This article argues that consensus politics was a legacy of the authoritarian regime that was re-produced during a democratizing transition. The politics of consensus was encouraged and enabled by al-Nahda, which prioritized its inclusion within this elite settlement to provide political security for itself and the broader transition. However, this came at a cost, engineering a conservative transition, which did not pursue significant social or economic reform. The Tunisian case shows that historical legacies, such as consensus politics, can shape a transition as much as contingent, pragmatic decisions by political leaders.     

Protesting gender discrimination from within: women’s political representation on behalf of Islamic parties

Abstract

In recent decades, Islamic political movements, and their subsequent political parties, have been increasingly recruiting and nominating women to high-level decision-making positions despite the fact that the ideology they espouse often acts to dissuade women from assuming positions of political leadership. My ethnographic research on religious women’s activism in Iran and Turkey helps explain this unexpected trend by shedding light onto the role of Islamic party women in challenging the gender discriminatory attitudes and behaviours of their male party leaders. In particular, I highlight the role that a number of high-ranking Islamic party women with close ties to the ruling elites played in pressuring their male party leaders to address women’s political underrepresentation in formal politics. Women’s close ties to the ruling elites consisted of formal ties with key Islamic leaders that evolved thanks to women’s long-term devotion to the Islamic movement or learning at Islamic seminaries. I demonstrate that such close ties to the leaders, as well as the presence of a public discourse in favour of women’s increased access to politics, enabled influential Islamic women to leverage a form of ‘internal criticism’ as an important strategy to enhance women’s political rights and status from within the Islamic movements.     

Les députés de Lyon en cour et l’art des communications de la ville et du pouvoir royal au XVIe siècle*

In the ancien régime, major municipalities in France constantly sent delegates, or deputies and solicitors to the court to make petitions and refer disputes to arbitration seeking favour for the city. Their mission was to defend the interests of the city. The deputies of Lyon were most often urban elites, who were expected to play an active part in negotiations with the royal government. J.P. Gutton ranked the deputies and clarified the activities during the seventeenth century: ‘The agent responsible for the affairs of the city’ resides permanently in Paris, ‘the ordinary deputy’ resides normally in Lyon and travels with instructions made by the consulate, and the ‘extraordinary envoys’ accompany ordinary deputies. However, in the sixteenth century, the deputies were not yet specialized and the consulate decided which deputy to send to court if necessary. This article aims to clarify the appointment of deputies, their relations with the royal officers in the government, as well as the contents of their business. To this end, the correspondence exchanged between the deputies and the consulate in series AA of the archives municipales de Lyon will be analysed, especially the consular deliberations in series BB, on the selection of deputies and the purpose of dispatch. Finally, this article will focus on understanding the negotiations that were held between the important city, Lyon, and the monarchy through the intermediary of the deputies. An analysis of the deputies of the city would also suggest where they went to get decisions in the royal administration and how consensus was formed in sixteenth-century France.     

Encounters with Europe in an Era of Domestic and International Turmoil: Is Turkey a De-Europeanising Candidate Country?

Abstract

This article provides a novel conceptual framework to understand the impact of the European Union on Turkish politics and policies in the aftermath of the opening of accession negotiations in 2005. It argues that the post-2005 developments in Turkey not only attest to lesser and more limited Europeanisation, but also entail a process that is increasingly gaining momentum in the country and which is referred to as ‘de-Europeanisation’.     

Significant in Isolation: Sri Lanka’s Right to Information Regime in Enactment and Operation

ABSTRACT

Over 2015 and 2016, Sri Lanka enacted a comprehensive right to information (RTI) regime by constitutionally recognising the RTI and passing enabling legislation. Taking into account the context of the country’s political and bureaucratic culture, its history of RTI jurisprudence and repeated legislative attempts and the particularities of the enacted provisions themselves, this article argues that the RTI regime represents a significant constitutional advance in Sri Lanka. The regime’s operationalisation has unearthed a number of operational difficulties as well as promising advances, underscoring both the challenges and the potentials of effectively providing for the RTI. As one of the few governance reforms enacted by the national unity government, however, the RTI regime’s lone operation within a deficient and unreformed architecture of transparency and accountability places a particular and heavy burden on it, one which may also adversely impact its future sustainability.