Minimal democratic audit of Islamic and other identitarian regimes

Empirical evidence overwhelmingly shows that democracy in Muslim societies is poorly institutionalized. Many scholars of democratization studies critique that the methodology of Western institutions that audit democracy and freedoms worldwide employs normative metrics which are insensitive to cultural particularisms and thus biased. This paper presents a minimal framework for democratic audit of electoral Islamic regimes that while being normative, answers to this criticism. It is also shown to be in the self-interest of modernizing elites in such regimes. This framework is premised on the transference of the burden of legitimacy from ‘majority consent’ to ‘minority concern’ by basing itself on the substantive ‘political equality’ proviso of Dahl. This is achieved without constraining the democratic capacity of the majority. Structured as a guarantee of rights and two guarantees of justice in a system of fairness, the framework can be used for democratic audit of a much larger set of electoral regimes.     

Commentary: Food regime analysis and agrarian questions: widening the conversation

The central disagreement between McMichael and Bernstein boils down to how each of them analyses food and agriculture in relation to capitalist dynamics. McMichael thinks the main contradictions of capitalism now stem from agriculture, and any positive future will be guided by farmers. Bernstein thinks capitalism has fully absorbed agriculture (including farmers not expelled from the land) into circuits of capital, turning agriculture into simply one of many sectors of accumulation and a major font of surplus labor. They have arrived by different paths to the same deeper question: Granted its illumination of the past, does the food regime approach remain useful for interpreting present contradictions, and if so, how? To invite a wider exploration of this very real and important question, I have tried to shift the debate towards a conversation about the complexity of the current transition. I start by widening the frame of the debate to include other writings by McMichael (his method of incorporated comparison) and Bernstein (his distinction between farming and agriculture). I conclude that food regimes and agrarian changes must be located in a wider set of analyses of agrarian and capitalist transitions, each of which misses something important. Older agrarian thought about urban society has much to offer but misses larger food regime dynamics; socio-technical transitions and new commons literatures offer critical analysis of technics, but lack appreciation of the centrality of food and farming; recent works recovering Marxist thought about human nature in a possible transition to a society of abundance and collaboration also ignore food and farming. Connecting with literatures outside the frame of food regimes and agrarian questions offers a way forward for those literatures and for ours.     

Hybrid Politics and New Competitiveness: Hong Kong’s 2007 Chief Executive Election

In recounting Hong Kong's chief executive election in 2007, this paper charts the unexpected appearance of an “unauthorized” candidate and the occurrence of vibrant campaigning. Further, as electoral competitiveness increased, the liberal form of authoritarian rule that has characterized politics in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) began to change in ways that parallel the electoral authoritarianism practiced in Singapore. This paper argues that such change, if regularized and enhanced, may bring greater stability to the HKSAR’s politics, yielding greater legitimacy, popular compliance, and hence, new efficiencies in control. Even so, analysis of the chief executive election shows that this competitiveness was strongly resisted by the central government in Beijing.

Program Evaluation in the Context of Supervision Regime Change: Motivational Interviewing in Colorado

This study assesses the effectiveness of an evidence-based counseling strategy employed by Colorado parole officers called Motivational Interviewing (MI), which aims to reduce parolee recidivism. I employ a quasi-experimental research design in which the caseloads of MI-trained officers are divided into two sub-samples: parolees supervised before the achievement of MI certification and parolees supervised after certification. Regression analyses show that MI is associated with recidivism reduction, but this relationship would not have been revealed without accounting for a high-profile crime that interrupted the study period—the murder of the Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Corrections by a high-risk parolee that had absconded from supervision. This crime caused a public relations crisis for the parole agency, which responded by lowering tolerance for misconduct. This reduction in tolerance increased recidivism rates among parolees in Colorado, obscuring the effect of MI on parole outcomes. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.     

从出土文献看六朝时期西北地方法的特点——以鄯善、河西、高昌诸政权与中原的比较为重点

本文将出土文献与传世文献相结合,探讨了六朝时期西北地区鄯善、河西、高昌诸政权法制建设的特点及户籍法、奴隶身份法的几个问题。指出六朝时期西北诸政权大多以六朝等中央政府为正朔所在,在国家行政体制、社会基层组织、文化教育传统等方面,既形成了自己的地方特色,又保持了与汉晋文化的高度一致性,成为除江南以外保存汉文化最多的地区,因此才能成为陈寅恪先生所讲隋唐制度渊源的"河西因子",深深影响到北魏的各项改革,成为隋唐帝国典章制度的重要来源之一。     

国际公害物品的全球管理

本文提出了国际公害物品以及全球管理的概念,并试图构架全球管理的框架。全球管理主要通过各种国际制度发挥作用,其理念是增强各国政府自身的管理能力,并将国家、非国家行为体以及其他参与管理的行为体整合为一个整体,在全球管理的框架下研究制度设计是本课题的研究方向。     

Opposition Coordination in Singapore’s 2015 General Elections

Abstract

Recent political science scholarship suggests that when opposition political parties are able to coalesce into a united coalition against an authoritarian regime, they will perform better in authoritarian elections, and can more credibly bargain with the regime for liberalising reforms. Yet, most of this literature pays little attention to the variety of ways in which opposition parties cooperate with each other. Drawing on the literature on the bargaining model of war, the author sketches out a theoretical framework to explain how opposition parties coordinate to develop non-competition agreements. Such agreements entail opposition parties bargaining over which political party should contest or withdraw in which constituencies to ensure straight fights against the dominant authoritarian incumbent in each electoral district. The author then applies this framework to explain opposition coordination in Singapore’s 2015 general elections, focusing on the conflict between the Workers’ Party and the National Solidarity Party.     

Introduction: Understanding Thailand’s Politics

ABSTRACT

Thailand’s politics from the mid-2000s has seen considerable conflict and contestation, with seven prime ministers, two military coups, and scores of deaths from political violence. This article, as well as introducing the eight articles in the Special Issue, examines various aspects of this tumultuous period and the authoritarian turn in Thai politics. It does this by examining some of the theoretical and conceptual analysis of Thailand's politics and critiquing the basic assumptions underlying the modernisation and hybrid regimes perspectives that have tended to dominate debates on democratisation. While the concepts of bureaucratic polity and network monarchy shed light on important political actors in Thailand, they have not grappled with the persistence of authoritarianism. In theoretical terms, the article suggests that it is necessary to understand historically specific capitalist development as well as the social underpinnings that establish authoritarian trajectories and reinforce the tenacity of authoritarianism.     

Hybrid regimes and the challenges of deepening and sustaining democracy in developing countries1

South Africa's history of political domination during apartheid and the tendency of its companies to dominate business development on the continent may undermine the country's aim of being an African powerhouse due to resentment in other African countries. The article argues that South Africa's global ambitions can only be achieved if it is a leader on its own continent.