From victorious rebels to strong authoritarian parties: prospects for post-war democratization

ABSTRACT

In a number of cases, rebel movements that won civil wars transformed into powerful authoritarian political parties that dominated post-war politics. Parties whose origins are as victorious insurgent groups have different legacies and hence different institutional structures and patterns of behaviour than those that originated in breakaway factions of ruling parties, labour unions, non-violent social movements, or identity groups. Unlike classic definitions of political parties, post-rebel parties are not created around the need to win elections but rather as military organizations focused on winning an armed struggle. Key attributes of victorious rebel movements, such as cohesive leadership, discipline, hierarchy, and patterns of military administration of liberated territory, shape post-insurgent political parties and help explain why post-insurgent parties are often strong and authoritarian. This article seeks to identify the mechanisms that link rebel victory in three East African countries (Uganda, Ethiopia, and Rwanda) to post-war authoritarian rule. These processes suggest that how a civil war ends changes the potential for post-war democratization.     

Empowering the Party-Crasher: Donald J. Trump,the First 2016 GOP Presidential Debate,and the Twitter Marketplace for Political Campaigns

This article argues that an important political marketplace of keywords expands in social media around campaign events such as a debate; that rhetorical efforts to define the situation in which a campaign event occurs are met in this marketplace by user responses that more or less echo the keywords, thereby enhancing or diminishing the political power of their “caller” or speaker; and that social media monitoring platforms can enhance our understanding of public opinion influence competitions among candidates through the careful selection, tabulation, and inspection of words and phrases being voiced. In the case at hand, an analysis of Twitter volume data and a reading of a sample of 1200 tweets between July 30 and August 15, 2015, a period enveloping the first 2016 Republican presidential candidate debate on August 6, 2015, helps us understand how Donald J. Trump escaped political punishment from party and media elites for subverting Republican and U.S. norms of candidate behavior. Elite voices greatly disapproved of Trump’s debate performance and conduct, a traditional augury of declining public support. But the presence of social media voices enhanced Trump’s capacity to succeed with an insurgent marketing strategy, one he would continue into his election as president fifteen months later. Specifically, comparatively high user volume on a debate-oriented section of Twitter (i.e., posts with the hashtag #GOPDebate) for Trump’s name, slogan, and Twitter address, and for such advantageous keywords as “political correctness,” “Megyn Kelly,” and “illegal immigration” relative to terms and phrases favoring other candidates and Republicans as a whole indicates the presence of heavy and active popular support for Trump. The contents of the corresponding tweet sample exhibit Twitter-savvy techniques and populist stances by which the Trump campaign solicited that support: celebrity feuding, callouts to legacy media allies, featured fan comments, a blunt vernacular, and confrontational branding. The contents also illustrate ways in which users manifested their support: from the aforementioned high keyword volume to imitative behavior and the supplying of evidence to verify Trump’s contested claims during the debate.     

Residual history: memory and activism in modern Poland

This article examines the divide between national and local collective memory in Poland and investigates the role of “memory activists” in mediating and exploiting this divide. It narrows its focus to the ethnic cleansing of Poles by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) from 1943 to 1944 and the forced relocation of Ukrainians in Poland, Operation Vistula, in 1947. It surveys local and national newspapers to understand competing interpretations and analyzes what incidents (e.g. protests, disputes, commemorations, reenactments, etc.) related to these events take place in local communities. It highlights the many actors, “memory activists,” and associations involved in pushing specific, often ahistorical, interpretations of these events – motivated by political gain, careerism, or personal conviction. It uses the theoretical works of Maurice Halbwachs and Karl Mannheim to effectively distinguish between local and national phenomenon and to elucidate the various nuances of collective memory.     

“落后妇女”——农业合作化叙事中的“症候”

在20世纪50-70年代农业合作化题材的文学作品中,出现了一个人数众多的"落后妇女"群体,她们思想品德不佳,好吃懒做,出身不好,同时还伴有身体的病痛。狂热的农业合作化和人民公社运动在当时造成的劳动力的巨大缺口,是这类人物大量出现的时代原因和逻辑起点。她们的大量出现及其躯体的反应是女性婚姻、女性生育、女性健康、女性身份与激进运动紧张关系的表征,同时也成为农业合作化叙事无法消弭的"症候"。     

我国食品公共安全规制体系的政策取向

食品公共安全规制体系包括四个基本要素:规制主体、规制客体、规制工具和规制目标。本文基于确保公众身体健康和生命安全的规制目标,分析了我国食品公共安全规制其他三个基本要素各自的现状及问题,提出了完善我国食品公共安全规制体系的政策取向:一是加强规制主体之间的协调,克服规制失灵;二是强化对规制客体的规制,克服市场失灵;三是设计和优化规制工具组合,提高规制效率。     

社会救助非政府主体参与机制研究——社会救助需要多元化发展

本文运用公共物品私人提供理论与公共服务市场化理论,从社会救助非政府主体参与的必然性和可能性上探讨社会救助主体的多元化发展,进而探讨非政府主体参与机制的建立,从而推动社会救助制度的完善与发展。     

The challenge of public law law reform: reflections on a failed Law Commission project

This article reviews the history of the Law Commission project on administrative law and the citizen from 2003, a project which the Law Commission essentially substantively ended in 2010. The project provides lessons both about the initiation and design of law reform projects and on the prospect of law reform being institutionally capable of contributing to the development of core areas of public law.     

Constitutionalism and imperialism Sub Specie Spinozae

This paper examines the public, private and political in the work of Adriana Cavarero by drawing upon the situations of two women whose lives feature in her work: Elizabeth I and Penelope. It includes an analysis of the way in which Cavarero is rethinking Hannah Arendt’s view of ‘the political.’ Cavarero’s exposition of the metaphor of the King’s two bodies in the common law is explored, along with her critique of hylomorphism. Finally, it extends her work in Stately Bodies by considering different images of the power of the body in later political discourses regarding the worker’s body and the effect of the advance of techno-science. This paper was presented at ‘The State He’s In – Political Philosophy and the Figural: A Conference with Adriana Cavarero on her book Stately Bodies: Literature, Philosophy and the Question of Gender’ at Warwick University, Department of Philosophy in May 2004. I would like to thank Adriana and all the conference participants for their comments. Thanks also to the referees of this paper. I have kept the informal style of presentation from the conference, along with the emphasis upon theoretical, rather than historical, analysis.     

Elizabethan ‘Spinning’ and Penelope’s Weaving: The Political, the Common Law and Stately Bodies

This paper examines the public, private and political in the work of Adriana Cavarero by drawing upon the situations of two women whose lives feature in her work: Elizabeth I and Penelope. It includes an analysis of the way in which Cavarero is rethinking Hannah Arendt’s view of ‘the political.’ Cavarero’s exposition of the metaphor of the King’s two bodies in the common law is explored, along with her critique of hylomorphism. Finally, it extends her work in Stately Bodies by considering different images of the power of the body in later political discourses regarding the worker’s body and the effect of the advance of techno-science. This paper was presented at ‘The State He’s In – Political Philosophy and the Figural: A Conference with Adriana Cavarero on her book Stately Bodies: Literature, Philosophy and the Question of Gender’ at Warwick University, Department of Philosophy in May 2004. I would like to thank Adriana and all the conference participants for their comments. Thanks also to the referees of this paper. I have kept the informal style of presentation from the conference, along with the emphasis upon theoretical, rather than historical, analysis.     

Democracy,social capital and school governing bodies in South Africa

Critics of school governing bodies (SGBs) – both on the left and on the right – tend to rely upon arguments that ignore significant portions of the act that created SGBs – the South African Schools Act (SASA) – the exact nature of the changes to SGBs wrought by amendments to the act and the manner in which the courts, in interpreting the act, have both reinforced the autonomy of SGBs at the same time as they have set limits on those powers. The authors’ reading takes seriously all of the provisions of SASA, its amendments and various court constructions of SASA's provisions. This close reading of the South African Constitution, SASA, SASA's amendments and the case law reveals the lineaments of a fourth level of democratic government. Even with their uneven success as a fourth tier of democratic government, SGBs reflect, in many respects, the most important interactions that citizens have with the state. The authors contend that SGBs provide a vehicle for popular political participation that is quite real, and that participation is made no less real by the strictures imposed upon them by South Africa's constitutional and regulatory order. Despite concerns about their lack of capacity, SGBs enjoy popular acceptance and participation across class and language divides. The legal status of SGBs does not merely enhance various forms of local democracy, SGBs also maintain and create effective social networks that generate new stores of social capital. The ability to provide new forms of democratic participation and to create new stores of social capital suggests that SGBs have the makings of a great, new and rather unique ‘South African’ political institution.