Regime type versus patronal politics: a comparison of “ardent democrats” in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

Kazakhstan is home to the longest serving ruler in post-Soviet Eurasia while Kyrgyzstan is among the region’s most competitive polities. Do these regime differences correspond to divergence in political attitudes, as an extensive body of literature posits? Are Kyrgyzstanis more likely to strongly support democratic ideals? Are Kazakhstanis less likely? Contrary to expectations, data reveal the two populations to be attitudinally indistinguishable when it comes to strong support for practices associated with democracy. Whatever country differences we find are minor or statistically insignificant. We explain this convergence by shifting focus away from the political features that distinguish the two nascent democracy versus consolidated authoritarianism to those that they hold in common. Notwithstanding major constitutional reform in Kyrgyzstan in 2010, politics there, as in Kazakhstan, remains fundamentally patronal, or patronage- based. Mass attitudes, we argue, align in many ways with the countries’ shared patronal politics, rather than with their contrasting regime types.     

Revisiting Transnational European Consociationalism: The European Union a Decade After Lisbon

This article discusses the notion of consociationalism as applied to the EU and assesses whether the institutional and procedural changes introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon (ToL) and by the management of the Euro and refugee crises still warrant considering the EU as a case of consociational democracy. Our contention is that the changes introduced by the ToL bore the promise to strengthen the consociational structural traits of the Union but that the further institutional and procedural changes engendered by the management of the Euro and refugee crises have made the behavioral dimension of consociationalism all the more necessary just as the accommodating orientation of the political elites had begun to evaporate. We support this argument by looking at empirical evidence which allows us to offer a set of propositions on the effects of the recent crises on the attitudes of the European elites towards the future of EU democracy.     

Against Localism: Does Decentralising Power to Communities Fail Minorities?

The continued decline in levels of political engagement among British citizens has led many politicians, commentators and academics from across the political spectrum to advocate a move toward a more direct form of democracy via some kind of localism. The claim is that citizens feel increasingly estranged from the democratic process, and from those organisations on which they have historically relied to represent them within the political system. Consequently, localists argue, there now exists a gap between the people, the institutions which are supposed to work on their behalf, and the decisions made in their name, so the system needs to be reformed in such a way as to give individuals and local communities more of a direct input into the decision-making process. Calls for a more direct form of democracy via localism are popular among members of the progressive left and the 'new Conservative' right, and have become so dominant in political discourse that it is often suggested that 'we are all localists now'. This article raises questions about the localist agenda, and suggests that the adoption of a more direct form of democracy in Britain may not only fail to address the decline in political engagement, but may also result in the exclusion, marginalisation, and oppression of minority groups.     

Liberal Democracy Series I, 1972–1988: Definition, measurement, and trajectories

The purpose of this paper is to provide the definitional and empirical background to the Liberal Democracy Series I Index of democracy that is available in Bollen (1998) but whose rationale has not been published. More specifically, the paper (1) gives a definition of liberal democracy that has guided the formation of this index, (2) describes measures that correspond to this definition, (3) provides a measurement model that links the indicators of democracy to the latent variables that represent the concept, (4) explains the construction of the Liberal Democracy Series I Index, and (5) compares the Series I democracy measure to two other widely used democracy measures in a latent curve model. The Liberal Democracy Series I Index provides a simple unweighted measure of liberal democracy that minimizes the bias in expert ratings, is highly reliable and highly correlated with the latent liberal democracy variable. The evidenced reviewed here suggests that its measurement properties are superior to the Polity and Vanhanen democracy indices with the exception that it is available for a more limited period of years than these latter two.     

Relativism

Modern democracies increasingly confuse civic or political equality with a radical relativism that calls into question legitimate principles of hierarchy and the very idea of reasonable value judgments. This confusion reflects a “corruption,” in Montesquieu’s sense, of democracy rooted in a refusal to recognize distinctions that are integral to both human nature and social life. A moderate form of cultural relativism is a genuine intellectual achievement that helps combat ethnocentrism and allows one to better appreciate the full range of human experience. But criteria of meaning and truth are by no means entirely dependent upon cultural context. Our contemporary awareness of the “relativity” of cultures and historical experiences must be complemented by a robust appreciation of the universality of Reason and citizenship.

全球化进程中法治基础的转变——以世界主义民主理论的全球治理为出发点

全球化进程使以主权国家为核心的世界秩序发生变化,以世界主义民主理论为基础的全球治理理论的兴起给传统法治理论提供了新的研究思路。在全球化背景下,从世界主义民主的视角来看待法治理论所面临的问题,就是要重新审视全球化背景下民族国家法治的政治基础问题,这也是中国法理学面临的重要问题。     

论和谐视阈中行政法的品格

和谐社会是我们时代的主旋律,促进或实现和谐是行政法学研究与行政法制实践的重要目标.和谐社会时代的到来意味着行政法精神、价值趋向、基本功能及其内在机理必将发生某种程度的转变,这些转变需要引起行政法学界的关注和探讨.     

香港警察晋升程序及其引发的思考

为满足警队和警员的警力资源需求,香港警队通过控制评审影响因素、规范评审程序等方式使其警察晋升工作具有晋升机会均等、晋升程序合理规范等合理性;同时,其在上级推荐的随意性、个人材料的无代表性和工作效率的不可测性等方面还有很大的发展空间。为此,应该从增加制度刚性、规范晋升程序等方面提升警察晋升的工作效率。     

一个“强化民主”的司法审查理论——对《民主与不信任》的再解读

在《民主与不信任》一书中,伊利试图通过建构一个非但不与民主相冲突,而且还促进和强化民主的一个司法审查理论,来回应司法审查不民主的质疑。伊利主张:在政府失灵,即代议程序不值得信任之时,法院在司法审查中应当积极介入;疏通政治变革的渠道,以及纠正对少数人的某些歧视,是法院的应有职能;多数人决定与少数人保护,是民主原理的内在组成部分。伊利借助于代表理论,"尊重多数人"和"保护少数人"这两项要求有机地统一在一起。对掌权者不信任的逻辑,贯穿于伊利的司法审查理论。伊利通过程序论,建构了一个比较融贯的司法审查理论,不过,却不能使宪法裁判免于价值判断。     

雷经天新民主主义司法思想论

雷经天的司法思想是新民主主义司法思想的典型体现。苏维埃司法的政法传统、边区司法正规化改革思想及马克思主义理论的中国化潮流是其思想的主要来源。围绕新民主主义司法观，雷经天提出了在司法组织上贯彻民主集中制，在法官队伍建设中加强工农干部与知识分子干部的融合，在六法全书援用中将政治立场与司法实践适度分离，在司法程序中坚持司法民主、发展司法便利等系列观点。其思想贯穿着革命性和实践性思维的特点，是时代背景与个人经验综合作用的产物。