Towards consolidating democracy: The paradoxical role of democracy groups in Thailand

Civil society is thought to contribute to consolidating democracy, but exactly how this happens is not especially well understood. This article examines the recent experiences of ‘democracy groups’ in Thailand. While acknowledging there are other factors that contribute to democratic consolidation, it finds the cumulative effect of Thailand's intermediating organizations, such as democracy groups, appears to be a redistribution of information and resources in ways that are causing changes in state‐society relations, making the country more pluralistic and contributing to consolidating democracy. Democracy groups and other civil society organizations are providing a widening circle of Thais with virtually unprecedented opportunities to participate in the policy‐making process. Yet despite their accomplishments, these groups might have greater consolidating effects if they themselves adhered more to democratic norms and procedures. Nevertheless, without democracy groups and other civil society organizations, Thailand would be less democratic than it is, although democracy is not fully consolidated yet.     

Does Distance Matter Morally to the Duty to Rescue

Law and Philosophy -     

Governing Globalization? The State,Law, and Structural Change in Corporate Governance

Current analysis of the 'globalization' of the activity of capitalist corporations tends to argue that the legal institutional frameworks of the nation state are of little importance in determining the governance of those corporations, and that the regulation of those corporations therefore is impossible. This view simply ignores the role that those frameworks do in fact play. In this paper, various styles of corporate governance are analysed in terms of the influence of the company law, financial market regulation, and employment law promulgated by nations or nation state groupings. Rather than the globalization of corporate governance reflecting the unimportance of the nation state, it reflects a change in the style of regulation.     

Iranian Involvement in Yemen

For at least a decade, there have been numerous Yemeni, Saudi, and other countries’ assertions that Iran has been involved in supporting northern Yemeni rebels seeking autonomy from the Sana’a government. Iranian diplomatic and political support for this rebellious group (known as the Houthis) is undeniable, but Iranian military assistance for them has not always been easy to prove. This situation appeared to change in 2011 when Iran's increased involvement in Yemen occurred in response to both the chaotic situation there during the final year of the Saleh regime and the danger that the Arab Spring revolutions would leave Iran increasingly isolated. Evidence of Iranian efforts to supply weapons to the Houthis now seems overwhelming in contrast to uncertain reports prior to 2011. In addition, at least some of Yemen's southern secessionists also appear to be receiving at least limited Iranian financial support.     

Conservative Leaders,Coalition, and Britain’s Decision for War in 1914

Conservative leaders may have had a decisive impact on the decision by the Liberal government to enter the Great War in August 1914. In a seminal article of 1975, Keith Wilson argued that their readiness to fight “cut the ground … from beneath the feet of the non-interventionists” in the Cabinet. Those ministers who had hitherto opposed war now recognised that continued divisions could bring the government’s collapse, in which case the Unionists, probably in a coalition with pro-war Liberals, would take office and enter the conflict anyway. Since Wilson’s essay, important light has focussed on Unionist thinking by works that look at the July Crisis as part of a longer party history. This analysis provides a detailed investigation of the actions of Unionist leaders in the days immediately leading to war. It resolves some of the main contradictions in the primary evidence, argues that the possibility of a coalition was very real and demonstrates that one key player—the first lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill—subsequently tried, with some success, to disguise his activities.