Local elections and democracy in Indonesia: The Riau Archipelago

This essay examines the dynamics and outcomes of Indonesia's first-ever direct local executive elections in a case study of the gubernatorial election in the Riau Archipelago. Specifically, the essay examines the election process, identifies the major issues before, during and after the elections, and assesses voters' participation. The essay then examines the ways direct local executive elections have affected the dynamics of local politics in the country. Overall, this essay aims to further develop our understanding of political dynamics in the Riau Archipelago and grasp the practical significance of local political change in Indonesia more broadly.     

Economic voting in South Korea: The 1988 assembly elections

The 1988 Assembly elections in South Korea provide an opportunity to explore whether voting based on short-term economic fluctuations was a feature of the elections. The research design regresses party votes from a large sample of the 224 electoral districts against several well-known determinants of Korean voting behavior (regionalism, urban-rural residence, and social class), as well as district unemployment rates and levels and changes in income. With traditional explanations of voting behavior held constant, income variables had no apparent influence on the vote. However, the coefficients for unemployment rates are large, statistically significant, and in a direction entirely consistent with the theory of rational economic voting. There are grounds for including short-term economic variables in future modeling of Korean electoral behavior.     

Conflict Management and Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Importance of Capturing the "right Moment"

Professor Jacob Bercovitch of the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, and S. Ayse Kadayifci from the American University in Washington D.C., argue that the current conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians can be best understood as an example of a complex intractable conflict. Such conflicts are usually managed through the intervention of mediators at the "right moment," otherwise they risk failure and further conflict escalation. In contrast to the literature on "ripe moments," the authors argue that it is possible to have more then one right moment in the life cycle of a conflict, which can even be created by mediators. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there was such a moment in 1993, which was subsequently lost. In the following article, the authors analyze the Oslo Process from this "ripe moment" perspective, and suggest an integrated third party approach to create a perception amongst the parties involved that a moment of opportunity is at hand.     

国际冲突调停的理论与方法争鸣——评《调停国际危机》、《国际冲突调停》与《国际调停互动》

调停作为一种第三方干预冲突方式,近年来在国际冲突管理和解决中发挥着越来越重要的作用。传统的调停研究路径主要关注国家行为体的调停活动。然而,随着冷战的结束以及非国家行为体如联合国等在国际冲突调停中的作用的不断加强,传统的国家中心主义路径在调停研究中受到了极大的挑战,并开始逐渐失去其主导地位。在这些新的路径引导下,产生了一大批新的经验研究成果。本文结合三部代表国际冲突调停研究新方法的最新著作,围绕调停的发生、过程和效果三个层面,比较系统地梳理了当前学界关于国际调停的最新研究成果,展示了他们在理论与方法上的争鸣。最后,本文评估了这些研究的主要贡献和不足之处,并指出了有待继续拓展的一些议题。     

The Iran-Israel Conflict: An Ultra-Ideological Explanation

Iran's enmity with Israel is ideological in the first place and strategic in the second. Iran intends through anti-Israel actions and messaging to internally mobilize its populace and, externally, to claim the leadership of the Muslim world and strike a balance against a regional nuclear power. This article uses a critique based on constructivism and realism to reveal how Iran's confrontation with Israel has evolved historically from “identity-ideological” to “politico-strategic.” I argue that Iran's adoption of this approach without taking its internal and external capacities into consideration has ironically bolstered the Israeli far right, increased global sympathies for Israel, escalated Iranophobia, aligned conservative Arab states with Israel, and marginalized the issue of Palestine. To preserve its national interests and regional security, Iran needs to overcome this politico-historical stage and replace conflict with competition.     

Social change, political elections, and the middle class in Korea

The primary purpose of this study is to analyze the political orientations of the Korean middle classes as they were manifested in their voting behavior in the general and presidential elections. In addition, the present study examines the nature of the involvement of the middle classes in the context of each of the major historical events since the liberation from the Japanese colonial rule. The event-specific analysis of the middle class participation made it possible to test the fitness of different hypotheses about the political orientation of the Korean middle classes. With few notable exceptions, the middle classes had not been actively involved in protest movements. Rather, they rely on the democratic political systems to passively promote their own agenda and political transformation. Overall, the middle classes have remained a substantial and silent force, with the potential to be backbone of stability or the engine for change. Their force has been felt strongest in the general and presidential elections, where their support for or opposition to, the ruling party has consistently determined the outcomes. With the growth of voluntary associations representing a wide variety of causes, the middle classes' strength may be diluted somewhat by the number of issues for protest. A cause that finds support across the middle class An earlier version this article was presented at the Conference on “The Republic of Korea After 50 Years: Continuity and Convergence,” Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., October 2–3, 1998.     

The mirror has broken: Increasing divergence between national and land elections in Austria

Austrian party politics has involved increasing dissimilarity between national and Länder voting, with the ÖVP now doing much better in Land elections than in national elections, and the SPÖ showing a reverse pattern. This analysis measures dissimilarity and related values both over time and across the Länder. It is shown that there have been three phases in terms of overall dissimilarity. Moreover, the nine Länder are grouped into four clusters based on the national‐Lander variations in voting for each of the two major parties. Such variations are best explained by the more decentralised organisation of the ÖVP.     

Influencing votes,winning elections: clientelist practices and private funding of electoral campaigns in Albania

ABSTRACT

The present article is part of a broader effort to understand and analyse the relationship between formal and informal norms and institutions in the Balkans. Free and fair elections are a central component of any functioning democracy and, in the case of Albania, an essential element of its EU accession process. Elections can also be affected by political clientelism, which puts their outcomes’ credibility into question. Political clientelism is a principal sector of informal relations and practices and informal and/or illegal funding of electoral campaigns are identified as its key mechanisms. This article addresses a number of issues related to clientelist practices and private funding of electoral campaigns, focusing on the general parliamentary elections of June 2017. The main research question investigates the ways in which private funding of electoral campaigns works in practice. Based on data gathered through ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, reports on the electoral process, and other secondary sources, we argue that informal clientelist practices permeating private funding of electoral campaigns enable political parties to further and strengthen clientelist relations and to influence the electoral result.     

属灵的冲突来自属物的冲突--东南亚宗教冲突初探

宗教问题和民族问题将是21世纪困扰人类社会最复杂的问题,东南亚是一个多宗教的地区,婆罗门教、佛教、伊斯兰教、天主教都曾经在东南亚盛行一时,东南亚国家在独立以后,一些国家内部的宗教冲突一直连续不断,特别是20世纪60、70年代泰国南部地区穆斯林和佛教徒之间的冲突;70、80年代菲律宾南部的穆斯林和天主教徒之间的冲突和90年代末印度尼西亚马鲁古群岛穆斯林和基督教徒之间的冲突,导致社会的激烈动荡,带来了经济、文化等方面的重大损失.本文通过分析60年代到90年代在东南亚地区发生的不同宗教教徒之间的冲突,阐释产生冲突的历史渊源,并从制度的角度观察精神世界的冲突.笔者认为属于精神层面的宗教冲突在很大程度上来自一些制度层面的失误.因此,解决宗教冲突的关键并不是单纯地针对精神层面的因素,解决宗教冲突的外部原因比解决宗教的内部原因更为重要.     

The Chilean presidential elections of 1999–2000 and democratic consolidation

This article examines the campaign and the outcome of the presidential elections held in 1999–2000 in Chile. It argues that the election marks a crucial phase in the consolidation of democracy in Chile. It can be seen as the first “normal” election since the return to democracy in 1990. It was unusually competitive and the result was in doubt until the second round vote. The election was notable for its emphasis on the future. Issues of the past were largely ignored ‐ as was the position of General Pinochet in London. The campaign of the Right was based upon an above‐party appeal while that of the ruling coalition relied on the traditional weight of parties in Chile. The result can be seen as an endorsement of the policies of the Concertacion government, but it also represented a resurgence of the Right. The victorious candidate, Ricardo Lagos, has stressed his commitment to social justice and to equity ‐ but he faces the problem of a governing coalition with internal differences still to be resolved, and a Right better placed to be a formidable opposition.     

Ghana's elections of 7 December 2016: A post-mortem

Ghana went to presidential and parliamentary polls on 7 December 2016, leading to the defeat of President John Mahama and the National Democratic Congress government by the opposition, the New Patriotic Party led by Nana Akufo-Addo. The outcome of the elections therefore followed in the same vein as those held in Ghana in 2000 and 2008, in which the incumbent party lost to the opposition. This article is based on a desk study review of the 2016 elections. There is a brief overview of the state of affairs in Ghana's electoral politics, followed by a discussion of Ghana's electoral reforms, the organisation and management of the elections, the candidates and the campaigns, and the outcome of the elections, as well as some of the challenges that faced the transition process.     

Development as a Source of Conflict: The Sahukars,Displaced People and the Maoists in Koraput

The dominant debate in India on the role of development in reducing conflicts still remains open. Despite development measures by both state and non-state actors, conflicts continue to emerge frequently in the country. In Koraput district of Odisha state, development models implemented by the state and by non-state actors have accentuated conflicts. The Sahukar-model of development has caused land alienation among marginalised communities leading to conflicts between the landowners and the landless. Large-scale displacements caused by mega development projects have intensified the confrontation between the displaced and the state. The Communist Party of India-Maoist (‘Maoists’ in short) claims to have an alternative development model, which rejects the state-led development plan. The alternative model imposed by the Maoists—reclaiming land from the rich and adopting ‘Community Farming’—has further exacerbated the conflicts among various communities. Though the nature of conflict and its contenders keep changing, the conflicts as such refuse to die down in Koraput.