Elections as a democratic linkage mechanism: How elections boost political trust in a proportional system

Elections offer a privileged moment in representative democracy, when citizens have the opportunity to express their views, both on the track record of the incumbent government, as on the way the country should be governed in the future. Procedural fairness theory assumes that taking part in a decision making procedure that is perceived to be fair, strengthens the legitimacy of the entire process. Most of the empirical research assumes that the attitudinal effects of elections are mainly due to the fact that one's preferred party wins the elections. In multi-party systems, however, such a clear distinction is not always possible and therefore it is hypothesized that the winner-loser-logic is weaker in this kind of party system. In this study we rely on a unique Belgian panel study to ascertain how electoral participation has an effect on political trust. The results show that in a proportional system all voters rise in political trust following their participation in elections. The winner-loser effect is not significant. Furthermore, the analyses suggest that especially the respondents with the initially lowest trust levels gain most by participating in elections. The theoretical implication of this finding is that apparently elections are still considered to be an important and legitimate linkage mechanism between citizens and the political system.     

Russian–Japanese relations after the Russo-Japanese war in the context of world politics

Abstract

The Treaty of Portsmouth could not solve all the diplomatic problems between Russia and Japan, and dissenting voices were heard in both countries. Nevertheless, Russo-Japanese relations went in the direction of not only normalization, but also building an alliance. That radical change from hostility has not often happened in history and needs careful research, in particular the early stages of this process after the conclusion of the Treaty of Portsmouth. The construction of an alliance was not the primary goal at the beginning of Russo-Japanese negotiations after the war between the two nations. This goal appeared during the process of solving different problems, and so the international situation is extremely important to understand changes in Russo-Japanese relations. This process had several facets. First, there was the deterioration in Anglo-German relations with a corresponding realignment of British policy towards Russia. Second was the resolution of problems in Central Asia between Russia and Great Britain. Third, there was the mutual interests Japan and Russia had in China, in particular rail interests, which were related to the organic unity of the northern part of the Russian railroad in China. Finally, Russia had the desire to keep relations with France as a corner-stone of foreign policy.     

中国流动人口选举权保障问题探析

当代中国流动人口的规模已经非常庞大,短期内人口流动仍然呈现加速增长的趋势。但流动人口的选举权在现实政治生活过程中却难以实现。这一问题可能对中国政治发展和社会建设产生相当不利的影响,应当采取积极有效的措施加以解决,确立确保流动人口选举权实现的新思路。     

党对新中国命名问题的探索

“中华人民共和国”这一国名,鲜明标示了新中国成立的划时代意义、新中国的国体和政体。它以党“建立一个真正的民主共和国”为历史逻辑起点,并在党对“中华苏维埃共和国”、“人民共和国”和“民主共和国”探索的基础上,经中国人民政治协商会议筹备会讨论协商、政协第一届全体会议正式确定。“中华人民共和国”国名虽无“民主”一词,却蕴涵着新中国人民民主的国家本质。     

当前我国政治学研究方法的现状和反思——对九本政治学方法论教材的调查分析

政治学研究方法类教材的现状说明,近年来国内政治学研究方法取得较大进展,但仍存有五个方面的不足。此种状况要求在政治学研究方法中切实做到“五个结合”,进而建构科学的政治学方法论体系,促进政治学理论研究朝原创性和科学性方向发展。     

New shop owners in old buildings: spatial politics of the apparel industry in Kyrgyzstan

This article adopts a political economy approach with insights from the political geography literature to illuminate how the apparel manufacturing sector in Kyrgyzstan has thrived in a region known for significant challenges in electricity access and availability. In contrast to studies that have analyzed the role of state policies and informal relations in promoting industrialization, we focus on how myriad shop owners gain access to elite-controlled, privatized urban infrastructure through owner–tenant relations in a new market economy. Drawing upon original interviews with Bishkek-based shop owners, we find that despite the challenges associated working in these spaces, including poor infrastructure and exploitative relationships with owners, they remain due to the constant provision of electricity and convenient location. We contribute to understanding how everyday shop owners make sense of and grapple with production challenges in a new market context, against the backdrop of Soviet infrastructural legacies and post-Soviet privatization processes.     

Contrasting attitudinal bases to Euroscepticism amongst the French electorate

This article examines the different attitudinal bases which potentially contribute to Euroscepticism amongst the electorates of Extreme Left-wing and Right-wing parties in France, and in particular of the Communist Party and the Front National. Controlling for other explanations of anti-European sentiment, Left–Right economic and ethnocentric attitudes are found to be strong predictors of pro-, anti- and indifferent stances on the European issue. Moreover, despite the existence of an important electoral pool on the Extreme Right, which possesses both Left-wing economic and Right-wing ethnocentric attitudinal bases to its Eurosceptic position, the nature of the economic issues on which these voters hold a Left-wing position reveals a perspective in many ways more compatible with the Extreme Right than with any Left-wing conceptualisation of economic policy. Electorally, this divergence in mass ideological demand would seem to rule out any future long-term partisan realignment around the European issue.     

关于1927年11月中共中央临时政治局扩大会议研究的几个问题

11月中央临时政治局扩大会议是大革命失败后莫斯科对华政策转折和探索的结果,它的错误是探索中的失误,它的探索对共产国际和中共中央后来确立中国革命的正确策略具有导引作用;会议对当时革命形势的估计以及在暴动策略的制定上是留有余地的,并非一味地强调即时暴动和拼命暴动;会议虽然犯了不恰当地强调党的指导机关干部工人化的错误,但是在当时提出把中共建设成为马克思主义布尔什维克党的决定,却是重新整合党的组织资源的必要,是保持无产阶级政党性质的必要,是统一全党思想认识、推进党内民主建设的需要。     

Sheikh Muhammad Abu Zahra (1898–1974) on international relations: the discourse of a contemporary mainstream Islamist

The literature on Political Islam has not devoted ample space to the intellectual contributions of contemporary moderate Islamists. This article attempts to rectify this by examining the international relations discourse of a twentieth-century Egyptian religious scholar: Sheikh Muhammad Abu Zahra. Despite Abu Zahra's prominence in the Islamic world, his writings have received scant attention from academics. The article provides a close reading of his three principal works on international relations: al-?Alaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, Nazhariyat al-Harb fi al-Islam and al-Wihda al-Islamiyya; as well as a fourth work with a significant bearing on the subject: al-Mujtama? al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam. It contends that Abu Zahra's international relations discourse is part of a more than a century-old tradition of theorizing on international relations that dates back to the religious reformers Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Muhammad Abdu. Accordingly, Abu Zahra is treated here as an exemplar of what I refer to as the moderate and reformist school in contemporary Islam, in contradistinction to the radical school that is associated with salafi-jihadist figures and movements. A close analysis of Abu Zahra's international relations discourse thus provides penetrating insights on one pivotal, albeit understudied, dimension of this reformist/moderate current in contemporary Islam: its perspectives on international relations.     

Democracy,interrupted: Regime change and partisanship in twentieth-century Argentina

Electoral volatility is much higher in new than in advanced democracies. Some scholars contend that weak partisan ties among the electorate lie behind this high volatility. Political parties in new democracies do not invest in building strong linkages with voters, they claim; hence partisanship is not widespread, nor does it grow over time. Our view is that democratic processes do encourage the spread of partisanship and hence the stabilization of electoral outcomes over time in new democracies. But this dynamic can be masked by countervailing factors and cut short by regime instability. We expect that, all else being equal, volatility will decline over time as a new democracy matures but increase again when democracy is interrupted. We use disaggregated ecological data from Argentina over nearly a century to show that electoral stability grows during democratic periods and erodes during dictatorships.