Understanding Education's Influence on Support for Democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa

Is education consequential for popular endorsement of democracy in developing societies and, if so, what are the mechanisms that account for this influence? We investigate the micro-foundations of the education–democracy nexus using a survey of 18 sub-Saharan African countries. We demonstrate that educational level is the strongest influence on support for democracy and rejection of non-democratic alternatives via its impact on comprehension of, and attention to, politics. This is consistent with a cognitive interpretation of the effects of education on democratic values rather than one which treats education as a marker of economic resource inequalities.     

Malaysia's Foreign Policy: The First Fifty Years: Alignment,Neutralism, Islamism

Abstract

What is the role of new media in driving political change in China? How do we understand the interaction of rapid increases in connectivity, regime censorship and democratic outcomes? This article seeks to assess the democratic implications of new media in China through the lens of three key and nested criteria derived from general theories of deliberative democracy: information access, rational-critical deliberation and mechanisms of vertical accountability. The key finding is that connectivity expands political opportunity. How this opportunity is exploited is up to users, who often vary widely in their political preferences, values, and norms of behaviour. The results are multiple mechanisms of change taking place simultaneously and the development of a more interactive and pluralistic public sphere. While China obviously still has to develop far more formalised and institutionalised mechanisms for managing state-society relations, political pluralism in the form of online deliberation might be considered a foundational condition for a more interactive and liberalised political order rooted in greater public deliberation and societal feedback. Moderate forms of discourse and societal feedback are tenuous and increasingly exist in a chaotic and diversified online discourse defined equally as much by new methods of authoritarian propaganda and virulent nationalist ideas.     

The Future of Chemical Weapons: Implications from the Syrian Civil War

Abstract

With chemical weapons (CW) use in Syria raising questions about the health of the CW norm, this article analyzes whether the Syrian case will lead to further proliferation and use of chemical weapons by states. We examine the use of chemical weapons at Ghouta in 2013 and on the Hama Plains in 2014 and find that: first, chemical weapons have demonstrated limited military utility in Syria, either tactically or as a tool of civilian victimization; second, the costs of use have been repeatedly demonstrated by the international reaction to their use; and third, the use of sarin—a nerve agent—has attracted a stronger international response than the use of chlorine, a less lethal agent. Consequently, we conclude that the Syrian case is unlikely to lead to significant proliferation and use of chemical weapons; any that does occur is most likely to involve states already outside the CW norm.     

‘An interesting and plausible proposal’: Bruce Lockhart,Sidney Reilly and the Latvian Riflemen,Russia 1918

The details of the plot by Lockhart and Reilly to overthrow Lenin in summer 1918 are well established, as is the role played by the Cheka in infiltrating it. One element remains unclear, however: why did Britain's Russia expert and her ‘master spy’ think that Lenin's ‘praetorian guard’, the Latvian Riflemen, might be ‘turned’. New evidence reveals that anti‐Bolshevik sentiment was growing among Latvian troops in autumn 1918, giving good grounds to embark on the enterprise. It was ‘an interesting and plausible proposal’, which failed partly because of Cheka penetration but also because Reilly changed the nature of the original proposal.     

Democracy and Interest Groups

This article analyses the differences in institutional design in national parliamentary control over European Union affairs among EU member states. It proceeds from a preference-based perspective, drawing on the principal–agent framework, and a time-based perspective, inspired by the historical institutionalist approach. The article involves a qualitative comparative analysis of strong control and a quantitative, correlation analysis of variation in the degree of control. It argues that time-based factors provide a more persuasive overall explanation for the differences in control than preference-based factors.     

Clinching the ‘Return to Europe’: The Referendums on EU Accession in Estonia and Latvia

There are two salient features of the referendums on EU membership in Estonia and Latvia. Firstly, the results with decisive pro-EU majorities went easily beyond expectations based on previous opinion poll trends, where these two Baltic states had shown less public enthusiasm for integration than other Central and East European countries. This fact owed much to convincing arguments about abandoning international isolation and about geopolitical choice, with strong historical overtones. The anti-accession cause in both countries suffered from various weaknesses even though, in Estonia though not in Latvia, Eurosceptical attitudes were in evidence. Secondly, there was much less support for EU entry among the strong Russian minorities in both countries. This difference was partly due to the higher incidence of economic circumstances in determining voting behaviour but also to the fact that pro-EU (hence, pro-West) arguments were implicitly and sometimes explicitly unfriendly to Russia. In turn, this also showed that the Soviet legacy was particular to these Baltic countries compared with other accession states from CEE.