韩国政治中的选举活动与党内竞选

韩国于1948年5月10日举行选举,产生了制宪国会,制定了大韩民国宪法并成立了政府,这在韩国历史上具有特殊意义。但与西方建立的普通、平等、直接保密选举的民主式选举制度不同,由于韩国民众缺乏对选举制度的深刻认识,而且权利意识淡薄,因此历届选举均由于执政者的不正当介入,民意被极大歪曲。本文通过对现行选举制度的深层剖析来探讨韩国选举制度存在的问题以及今后面临的课题。     

SECULAR QUESTS,NATIONAL OTHERS: REVISITING BANGLADESH’S CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY DEBATES

How do we understand the 15^th amendment of the Bangladeshi Constitution that restored the principle of secularism and simultaneously (re)inscribed certain populations as outside the cultural nation? I approach this question through a close reading of the Constituent Assembly debates of 1972. The precarious state of minorities, I contend, is not a symptom of an incomplete or failed secularism but a feature of the violence inherent to the nation-state form. The Bangladeshi example suggests not only that minority is a profoundly unstable category but that some minorities are visibly critical to national self-fashioning while others must be invisibilized as national others.     

Constitutional Contestation of Religion in Sri Lanka

ABSTRACT

Sri Lanka’s constitutional policy regarding religion affords the ‘foremost place’ to Buddhism and obligates the state to protect and foster the Buddha Sasana, whilst assuring the rights and freedoms of the other religions. By explicitly creating a special status for Buddhism, the constitution has produced the category of the ‘Other’ that has the potential to discriminate against minorities in a pluralistic society and to undermine the fundamental principle of equality. The creation of this distinction generated contestation during constitutional reforms. By examining reform proposals on religion, interview material and comparing the debates of the Constitutional Assembly (October/November 2017) with the Constituent Assembly debates (1970–71), this study retraces the evolution of the Buddhism Chapter and identifies the present contestations and their role in deciding a constitutional arrangement for religion.     

An Italian Leitmotiv? Corruption and Competence in the Debates of the Italian Chamber of Deputies (1946–2014)

By making use of an original data-set built based on a codification of all investiture debates of the Italian governments from 1946 to 2014, the paper investigates the main factors that explain the choice of a party to devote its attention to the valence issues of corruption and competence in its legislative speeches. Two classes of hypotheses are tested; the first concentrates on spatial reasons, and the second concentrates on contextual factors. Both sets of factors appear to play a significant role, although no clear temporal trend emerges in party attention over almost seventy years of Italian parliamentary debates.     

Commission Newsletter: 1997

SUMMARY

In this article Sandro Guerrieri discusses the parliamentary proceedings in France of 9–10 July 1940, which set up the Vichy State under the leadership of Marshal Pétain. He was then head of the government of the Third Republic and the motion of 10 July authorized him to consider and promulgate a revised constitution for the French state. In August 1944, these proceedings were formally declared to have been a coup d'état, and therefore legally null and void. It is shown that some of the politicians who voted in the National Assembly against the resolution of 10 July had already asserted this interpretation of the process by which the Vichy State was established. The article reviews the arguments that have developed around this subject, and suggests that while the actual motion, voted by the two Chambers acting as a National Assembly, could be seen as in accordance with the Constitution of the Third Republic, the manner in which it was used by Pétain and his advisers, particularly Pierre Laval, is open to legal challenge, and can be regarded as a usurpation of the powers granted by the National Assembly. Hence while it could be argued that what happened was not a coup d'état, in that the element of intimidatory violence over the legislature, usually seen as one defining characteristic of a coup, was absent, the proceedings can be characterized as at least a coup de force.     

Le Président Nicolas Jannon,les deux éditions du Développement et une vision contre‐révolutionnaire et ‘parlementaire’ de la Constitution traditionnelle de la France

SUMMARY

In this article, Maria Sofia Corciulo analyses the political significance of the period of the Italian Restoration. The author suggests that the revolutions which took place in both Naples and Piedmont in 1820–21 affected the apparently static institutional tranquillity of the ‘restored’ Italy to such an extent that they represent a break from the preceding period—the Five-year Period, during which the Napoleonic institutions had been, anyway, partly retained. The revolutionary action which, as in Spain, was sparked by the military, was characterized by forms of participation and aims that constituted, at least where they could be fully expressed, the beginning of a new historical period, surely overshadowing that of Restoration: the Risorgimento. The Neapolitan Revolution was carried out under the banner of the most democratic principles of those years, as they had been sanctioned by the Constitution of Cadiz of 1812. Although the Italian revolutionaries of 1820–21 were defeated, the principles of the Cadiz Constitution remained vivid in the minds of the patriots, especially Neapolitans, in an intricate sectarian world, where even the participation of the most humble classes was welcome and accepted in the name of the egalitarian principles of the Carboneria. The article suggests that this Revolution spelled the de facto end of the Restoration, even it was to continue to exist de jure, in its limited dynastic sense. This is true not only for the Kingdom of the two Sicilies but also for the other Italian states, because so-called ‘public opinion’ became a reality in this period: the existence of political plots and conspiracies from a rising number of secret societies is clear evidence that Italy's Risorgimento was under way.     

African Customary Law and Common Law in South Africa: Reconciling Contending Legal Systems

ABSTRACT

The multicultural fabric of contemporary South African society is the result of the interaction between various and differing historical narratives, each with their own knowledge system, which led to the emergence of legal pluralism. The common law and African customary law are the major legal systems. A historical- political construction of the common law indicates that it has been influenced by the dominant political power. From an historical perspective, the contraction and expansion of the common law is due to its continuous deconstruction, whereby new knowledge is introduced into the existing system. Section 173 of the Constitution of 1996 provides that the judiciary is now responsible for developing the common law. However, under the new constitutional dispensation, the reconstruction of African customary law that is now on an equal footing with the common law indicates that it is being remodelled to fit the mould of Western legal values. In order to achieve jurisprudential parity between the two systems, the humanistic values of ubuntu should be adopted to infuse African equity into the common law. The realisation of this objective is possible if an interpretative paradigm is recognised as a means of ameliorating the legalistic consequences of the prevalent positivist paradigm. Within an African Renaissance model, adherence to an interpretative paradigm would advance restorative justice, and curriculum transformation along with research and development that resonate African/South African values. This would instil new vigour into the law and the Constitution that is seemingly becoming stulted due to its adherence to Western values.     

Israel's Middle Eastern Jewish Intellectuals: Identity and Discourse

The intellectual movement HaKeshet HaDemokratit HaMizrahit (The Eastern Democratic Rainbow) was established in 1996 by second and third generation Middle Eastern and North African Jewish immigrants who are faculty members, graduate students, actors, artists, educators, businessmen and women, and media workers. These self-identified Mizrahi Israeli intellectuals aimed to initiate new debates in Israeli society with their criticism of Zionist narrative and policies by applying post-colonial theory to expose the construction of social categorisation among Jewish Israelis. In their discursive contribution they addressed several issues of historical and contemporary inequality between groups of Israeli citizens. By examining the motivation behind this intellectual activism, the present article asks what the Mizrahi identity means to people labelled as Mizrahim and why it is important.     

William III's conflicts with the city council of Amsterdam

SUMMARY

In this article, Scan Perrone draws attention to the Assembly of the Clergy in Castile in the early-modern period. This is a significant representative institution with a long history of active participation in government which has received little attention from scholars outside Spain. The Assembly was never a part of the Cortes of Castile, but was made up by delegates from the Cathedral Chapters, excluding the bishops themselves, which negotiated the clerical subsidies to the Crown on behalf of the whole clergy of Castile, and then apportioned them among the clergy of the different dioceses. The article analyzes the composition and working of the Assembly, which enjoyed considerable freedom from Crown interference both in its elections and its proceedings, and produces evidence to suggest that the Assembly functioned successfully as a means of keeping the subsidies within bearable limits, and apportioning the burden with reasonable equity.     

How to avoid a coup d'état: The Federalist on the American constitution

SUMMARY

In this article Jack Pole considers whether the Constitution of the United States, as drafted in the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 could be regarded as the result of a coup d'état, since the original remit of the Convention had been to modify the existing Confederation of independent states, while the outcome was a constitution for a new sovereign, federal state. The article is based on the use of the collection of essays that were later published collectively as The Federalist to illustrate the thinking of the Convention leaders. It is important that The Federalist was not a work of political theory, but a collection of the ideas of Hamilton, Madison and Jay, which were written in response to developments with the aim of persuading the public to vote for ratification. The central problem for the authors was to balance their wish for a strong central government against the widespread contemporary belief, rooted in Whig thinking, that a strong central government was the most dangerous of all threats to individual liberties. The authors, collectively ‘Publicus’, begin with an orthodox view of sovereignty as ‘indivisible’: but this view was modified in face of strong Anti-Federalist attacks on ‘consolidation’. Key issues were open to later judicial interpretations. The article suggests that, quite apart from the complete absence of armed coercion on the Convention of 1787, the results of its deliberation cannot be seen as the result of any kind of coup.     

Before the window closed: internationalism,crossing borders,and reaching out to sisters across the seas

Abstract

This article puts into conversation existent and new scholarship regarding black radical women of the Left in the United States and South Africa during the twentieth century. It is primarily concerned with the evolution of women’s protest from localized issues of race-based discrimination to international, anti-colonial protests of the era. It is a timely response to contemporary historical analyses that emphasize the necessity of broadening historical concepts to include themes that cross traditional chronological, ideological, and geographical lines. This article posits four women whose ideological and organizational connections extended far beyond their own national borders and helped to change contemporary ideas regarding the supposed place of black women in national and international protests. The article illustrates the high level of awareness and commonality between communities in protest, and speaks directly to the conflicting intersections of gender, race, and protest that traversed both ideological and geographical divides.     

Good Governance and Bermuda’s Public Access to Information Act

Abstract

This paper examines the context surrounding, and debates concerning, freedom of information-type legislation in the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda. It situates the law within a wider push by the British Government for good governance in the British Overseas Territories. It explores the expectation for more ‘open and transparent’ government held by international government organisations, the British Government, and the Bermudian electorate. It analyses the resultant political debates, which are framed by traditions of governance that encouraged secrecy and legacies of distrust between political parties formed soon after universal suffrage was introduced in the 1960s. It investigates the implementation of the Act in response to global, metropolitan and local pressures.     

Persian ‘Rashti jokes’: modern Iran’s palimpsests of gheyrat-based masculinity

Abstract

For almost a century, a Persian ethnic joke cycle has circulated among Iranians about the men and women of the northern Iranian city of Rasht, labelling them as cuckolds and promiscuous women. A foray into the historical background and possible (gendered) functions of these jokes is long overdue. I argue that the central motif of Rashti jokes is gheyrat—a gendered social construct based on a man’s sense of honour, possessiveness and protectiveness towards certain female kin—which remains pivotal to our understanding of the texts and the historical context of the jokes. Critically reviewing extant theories on the historical origins of Rashti jokes, I argue they have roots in two modern phenomena: (a) debates among turn-of-the-twentieth-century Iranian thinkers over women’s (un)veiling; and (b) Reza Shah’s methodical promotion of an Aryanist, pan-Persian ideology. Focusing on the gender-disciplinary functions of the jokes, I then show how some contemporary Rashti jokes are deployed to project and inscribe gender-hierarchical notions that clearly surpass the jokes’ immediate, ethnic targets by commenting on broad socio-political topics. Such instances suggest that as a culture-wide joke cycle, Rashti jokes may also reinforce a form of Iranian masculinity obsessed with gheyrat-motivated control and aggression.     

“Disorder Yields to Order Fair the Place”: The emergence of political parties in Western and Central Europe

SUMMARY

In this article Professor Best writes as a social scientist interested in how historical data can be used statistically to test hypotheses about conflict structures. The study uses the voting data from the two Constituent Assemblies of 1848 in Paris and Frankfurt to test alternative theories about the development of conflict in democratic assemblies elected on universal male suffrage. One predicts that free elections would naturally generate complex conflict structures, the other that they would generate polarity around opposite extremes. The statistical model employed suggests that in these assemblies, where the basic issue was between the status quo and change, the pattern that emerged was one of polarisation.     

La rémunération des députés aux États généraux de France et son incidence institutionnelle

SUMMARY

In 1814, after the defeat of the Napoleonic Empire, the Allied states decided to unite the former Dutch Republic and the former Habsburg Netherlands (the later Belgium), as part of their attempt to elaborate a balanced system of European states. As the age of nationalism was arriving, the chances of this unification succeeding depended upon the gradual integration of the two parts into one Netherlandish nation. Stefaan Marteel argues that the eventual failure of this project, which abruptly came to an end with the Belgian Revolution of 1830, can to a large extent be ascribed to the differences in the political and intellectual history of the two countries, differences that found expression in the development of irreconcilable political languages during the constitutional debates of 1815 and thereafter. In the Northern Netherlands, despite the experiments with radical constitutionalism since the Patriot Revolution, the republican past proved a major obstacle to the construction of a functional constitutional monarchy. The paradoxical result was the enforcement of monarchical authority within a political model that was clearly designed to be constitutionalist. In the Southern Netherlands, on the contrary, the rupture that occurred in its political history owing to the annexation of France allowed, in 1814, for certain innovations in political thought. These innovations were further inspired by the idea that the new political order lacked historical legitimization. Consequently, when social issues arose, such as problems concerning education, religion and public freedom, the government and the political opposition in the Belgian provinces would persistently draw on different interpretations of the constitution. This, in turn, reinforced the impression of a fundamental national division, and created the conditions, should a popular revolt occur, for a rapid radicalization in a nationalist direction.     

New perspectives on the subcontinent

Abstract

Kathleen Gough and Hari Sharma's Imperialism and Revolution in South Asia marks something of a breakthrough in the field of South Asia scholarship: the first edited collection of Marxist writings by both Western and Asian scholars, journalists and activists covering most of the crucial issues in the field. It shows some omissions and contains some unresolved and not clearly delineated debates, but this is inevitable given the vast amount of work still to be done and the important questions of theory and practice still debated among Marxists; it has some unevenness in articles but at the same time contains some of the best of recent analysis. All in all it is a fine collection.     

Regions and the constitution for Europe: German and British impacts

Regions have attempted to influence the emerging constitutional order of the EU for around 20 years. The German Länder have made a particular impact in sensitising the Union to regional concerns at successive Intergovernmental Conferences since Maastricht. They were also the leading regional voice in shaping debates at the Convention on the Future of Europe, though the Scottish government also succeeded in leaving an imprint on the Constitution for Europe. This article contrasts the different understandings in Germany and Scotland of how regions should make their interests felt. The German Länder have opted for a strategy focused heavily on using the structure of the member state to limit EU regulation of their fields of competence, while the Scottish government developed a more open-ended and flexible strategy based also in constructive engagement beyond the member state at the EU level. In the light of the Scottish approach the article questions whether the Länder strategy is too one-dimensional, leaving them over-dependent on the German federal government.     

Transgender Inclusion and Australia's Failed Sexuality Discrimination Bill

In 2013, one of the final acts of the Gillard government was to amend Australia's Sex Discrimination Act to add sexuality, gender identity and intersex variations as protected categories. This was not the first time the Commonwealth had considered anti‐discrimination legislation protecting LGBTI people. The most prominent example was the Democrats‐sponsored Sexuality Discrimination Bill, introduced to Parliament in November 1995, which included provisions to protect transgender people as well as gays, lesbians and bisexuals. The Senate referred the bill to an inquiry by the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee, which received 436 submissions. Approximately 100 of these submissions specifically addressed transgender discrimination, some advocating for the rights of transgender Australians, and others focusing their attacks against the bill based on the transgender provisions. This article draws on the concept of transgender citizenship to examine the transgender‐related aspects of the inquiry and the debates in parliament, to understand the ways that the public and politicians framed transgender rights in the mid‐1990s. These debates are telling in how transgender issues and anxieties over gender fluidity have consistently become an easy target in wider debates about equality for sexual and gender minorities.     

Between Interest and Responsibility: Assessing China's Foreign Policy and Burgeoning Global Role

Abstract

This article is situated within the contemporary debates about the nature and purpose of China's growing power. It uses the concepts of “national interest” and “international responsibility” as a framework of analysis for Chinese foreign policy, and develops a three-dimensional typology to conceptualize their relationship (antagonistic; instrumental; mutually constitutive). This article adopts two main arguments. First, a stronger China is one gravitating toward greater notions of international responsibility, albeit instrumentally. Second, observable trends in China's evolving worldview indicate, however, that it is conceiving its national interests more broadly, embracing further socialization and greater normative commitments to international society. One may therefore view China's burgeoning global role as a great power with a degree of “cautious optimism.”