当代亚洲政党政治演进的主要特点

亚洲国家的政党政治发源于19世纪,其发展历程蜿蜒曲折、复杂多样,大体经历了三个发展阶段:第一阶段,从19世纪到二战结束,为亚洲政党政治的形成阶段,产生了一批民族主义政党和工人阶级政党.第二阶段,从战后到冷战结束,为其迅速兴起和蓬勃发展的阶段,各种类型的政党相继出现,政党政治在多数国家立足并发挥作用.第三阶段,从冷战后至今,为其调整与演变阶段,政党政治出现了更为复杂的变化,多党民主浪潮在亚洲部分国家兴起,许多国家的政党政治发生深刻变动.     

Ethnicity as political cleavage: the political agenda of the Polish national minority in Lithuania

This article examines the role of ethnicity in the formation of political cleavage and is based on the analysis of the political agenda of the Polish national minority in Lithuania after the re-establishment of the independent state in 1990. It analyzes the political performance of the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania (EAPL), an ethnic-based “niche” political party that tends to keep a monopoly over the representation of interests of the Polish minority in Lithuania and collects a vast majority of the votes of citizens of Polish origin. The article considers how specific in comparison to the titular nation the interests of the Polish national minority are, and how different in comparison to the political agendas of other political parties the political agenda of the EAPL is.     

Terrorism and the political process

In conventional terms, politics is defined according to the common usages in the context under discussion. In functional terms, politics is defined to serve the need of specialists for a common frame of reference for comparative purposes. Functionally, politics is the process of receiving and giving support in making important decisions in the social process. “Important decisions” are enforceable if challenged by the most severe sanctions available to a group (territorial, pluralistic). Terrorism as a problem is discussed in terms of policy goals, trends, conditions, and alternatives. We are particularly interested in sanctioning objectives and strategies: deterrence, withdrawal, rehabilitation, correction, prevention, and reconstruction. In a terror process we distinguish the terrorist, the proximate victim, and impact targets. Terrorists are participants in the political process who strive for political results by arousing acute anxieties. Terrorist strategy proceeds by the symbolic enhancement of instruments of procedures of destruction. Some selected systematic studies of terror are reviewed, especially as a phase of rebellion and as a system. Recurring seizures by a sense of weakness are likely to precipitate periodic revivals of terror as a strategy of territorial or pluralistic elements in the world social process.     

Surviving the political consequences of neoliberal policies

In many countries in Latin America and also western Europe, leftist parties have succeeded in winning repeated re-election even though they have implemented neoliberal economic policies when in government. According to the existing literature, these parties should suffer electoral punishment since they are diverging from their traditional policy course and their electoral promises, and their neoliberal policies are potentially costly for their core support groups. Analysing the cases of left-of-centre parties in Spain and Costa Rica, this article argues that policy implementation strategies, together with strategic use of institutional rules, help to obfuscate the policies' impact, deflect blame, and make re-election possible. The reform of welfare and the way we live now: a critique of Giddens and the Third Way     

Indicators of political development

Development implies goals and the positing of goals requires values. Economists have generally agreed that the increase of wealth (or perhaps welfare) is the proper object of economic development. Political scientists, probably happily, have no similar agreement in regard to the appropriate goal for political development. Moreover, it is doubtful that the various aspects of political change are located along a single continuum. This is an empirical question but investigation ought to begin at least with provision for an n‐dimensional space. Finally, political scientists should concentrate on political change that has too often been neglected in favour of economic and purely social change.     

Classifying political regimes

This study presents a classification of political regimes as democracies and dictatorships for a set of 141 countries between 1950 or the year of independence and 1990. It improves existing classifications by a better grounding in political theory, an exclusive reliance on observables rather than on subjective judgements, an explicit distinction between systematic and random errors, and a more extensive coverage.     

欧盟的一次"政治地震"

法国全民公投结果,对<欧盟宪法条约>说"不".荷兰继之.受此影响,本来对"一体化"半心半意的英国,乘机宣布搁置公投.这无疑是欧罗巴大陆的一次"政治地震".这次"地震"是欧盟内外,政治、经济、社会错综复杂矛盾的总暴露.     

外国政党动态

2007年12月16日,吉尔吉斯斯坦"光明道路"党在议会选举中获胜,成为议会的第一大党.     

Municipality size,political efficacy and political participation: a systematic review

ABSTRACT

It is an old adage that local government is a training ground for democracy. Its human scale means that political amateurs can contribute effectively and meaningfully to the politics of a state. But in a political climate seemingly driven to consolidate local government into ever larger units, can a not so local local government still elicit an efficacious and participatory citizenry? This paper explores the effect of municipality population size on two important aspects of democratic culture: political efficacy and political participation. Via a two-part systematic review, the paper examines how extant empirical literature bears on the relationship between size and both of these aspects, hypothesising that political efficacy plays a mediating role between size and participation. The findings are unequivocal: citizens of smaller municipalities feel a greater sense of political efficacy and participate to a greater degree in local politics.