The 2019 Greek parliamentary election: retour à la normale

Abstract

The July 2019 parliamentary election was the first national election since Greece officially exited the eight-year bailout programmes in August 2018. It was preceded by three ballots on European Parliament, regional and municipal elections in May 2019, which served as a decompression valve for the electorate to punish the incumbent government and indicate a clear will for governmental change, since the conservative party ND won by a landslide. Whereas ND’s victory in the parliamentary election was anticipated, it was its scale that would define the shape of the new government. Increasing its score by 11.76 points since September 2015, ND won 39.85% of the vote, securing a comfortable majority of 158 out of 300 seats. This is the first majority government in Greece since 2011, marking the return of the country to a new normality. Even if SYRIZA failed to deliver the anti-bailout programme which had initially brought the party to the centre of electoral competition, it still gathered 31.53% of the vote, losing just 3.93 points since its last victory in 2015, hence securing its place as one of the two key actors in the new two-partyism. Party fragmentation was limited to six parliamentary parties instead of eight, with the neo-Nazi party, Golden Dawn, having lost its parliamentary representation.     

Scripted Messengers: How Party Discipline and Branding Turn Election Candidates and Legislators into Brand Ambassadors

Political parties with strict party discipline are well-placed to demand that their election candidates and legislators promote the party brand. The franchise-franchisee relationship causes representatives to relinquish individual expression in exchange for centralized party messaging. This article looks at how a strategic desire for party unity combines with internal brand management to turn lower-ranking politicians in a parliamentary system into party brand ambassadors. Our Canadian case study draws on in-depth interviews with party leaders, Members of Parliament, political staff, candidates for office and prospective candidates. The implications for representative democracy in a Westminster system are considered, including the representational constraints for racial and sexual minorities.     

令人警醒的特权感知:当前领导干部对特权现象感知状况的实证分析

领导干部的特权感知是认识官场特权现象的特殊视角。调查显示,领导干部对于官场特权现象感知强烈,具体表现为:特权思想严重、特权行为多样、特权关系复杂、特权危害严重。特权现象具有寄生性、虚假性、垄断性、不平等性和扩张性等本质属性,在官场中呈现出特权群体广泛、"关键部门"和"关键环节"特权现象明显、制度性特权明显的特征。调查对象认为政治建设、法治建设的不足是滋生特权的关键因素,他们认同制度建设、思想教育和强化监督等治理措施,并对中央开展特权治理充满期待,但对治理前景持谨慎态度。     

Parliamentary Bills of Rights: An Alternative Model?

This paper examines the emergence of a new model for protecting rights (referred to as the 'parliamentary rights' model) in Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the Australian Capital Territory. This parliamentary model is distinguished from the more traditional, judicial-centric, approach to rights protection in at least two ways. The first is that this parliamentary rights model incorporates the notion of legitimate political dissent from judicial interpretations of rights. The second way it challenges the court-centred model is by incorporating the systematic evaluation of proposed legislation from a rights perspective. Both of these features allow for the possibility of a broader range of perspectives on the appropriate interpretation of rights or the resolution of disagreements involving claims of rights than those arising from more judicial-centric bills of rights. The paper assesses whether this alternative approach to rights protection satisfies those sceptics who doubt the virtue or prudence of conceiving of political disputes as legal rights claims for which the judiciary has the dominant role in their interpretation and resolution.     

The role of the European Parliament in Turkey-EU relations: A troublemaker or a useful normative actor?

This article analyzes the role of the European Parliament (EP) in Turkey–EU relations. More specifically, it explores the reasons why in practice EP’s role in promoting fundamental values of the European Union (EU) in Turkey remained largely limited. Drawing on the broader socialization literature, it concludes that a combination of factors related to the socializer (EP) and to the socializee (Turkey) limits the EP’s effectiveness to emerge as a normative actor in its relations with Turkey. In particular, the study points to the mismatch of values promoted by the EP and those embraced by the Turkish political elite as the real obstacle that prevents any socialization mechanism from being triggered.     

再谈公车改革

推动公车改革，遏制公车腐败，是一项能够消减腐败土壤，提升党的形象，获取公众支持，进而巩固党的执政地位的工作。公车改革探索已走过18个年头，虽然取得了一定成效，但仍然没有达到理想效果，距离节约、高效、廉洁的目标还有一定差距。深刻认识公车改革与巩固党的执政地位的关系，积极推进公车改革，有效遏制公车腐败，仍然是一个必须解决的重要问题。     

The election timing advantage: Empirical fact or fiction?

Do non-fixed election dates in Westminster parliamentary democracies create an unfair incumbent advantage? The consensus in the literature is that the incumbent party can gain an advantage at the ballot box by controlling election timing (Bakvis, 2001; Docherty, 2010; Smith, 2004; White, 2005; Wolinetz, 2005). Surprisingly, however, there is a lack of empirical evidence to support this claim. We address this lacuna by providing an empirical test of whether the election-timing power matters for incumbent vote support. We do so by employing an innovative web-based voting experiment. Our findings show that the government does gain an advantage by timing an election when it is to their advantage, but the context is limited to conditions where the election follows immediately after a heightened level of positive government coverage.     

立法机构在公共政策制定中的功能与作用——韩国国会与中国全国人大的比较

国会的立法决策是公共政策的最基本形式之一。在议会政治中,政党、国会议员代表选民输入利益需求,经过立法活动的整合、调整,最终形成能够代表或反映特定利益诉求的、以法律或其他特定权威形式表现出来的公共政策。本文以韩国国会在公共政策制定中所扮演的角色、发挥的功能为参照,对比中国全国人大在公共政策制定中的作用和影响,通过总结韩国国会的经验和教训,试图为全国人大的制度建设提供有益的借鉴和启发。     

Amendment Of China＇s Criminal Procedure Law Highlights Human Rights Protection：on Privilege Against Self- Incrimination and Exclusionary Rule

此次我国《刑事诉讼法》修改,规定了不得强迫任何人证实自己有罪,还增加了非法证据排除的规定。这些新增内容之间存在紧密联系,每一项又有各自的意义。“不强迫自证其罪”条款是“尊重和保障人权”的进一步体现,关系到我国刑事侦查、检察和司法部门的职责和个人权利的保障;非法证据排除是落实不强迫自证其罪的具体措施,通过约束侦查部门取证行为对侵犯个人权利提供了补救措施。这些都是我国《刑事诉讼法》在原则性和制度方面的重大修改。文章详细研究了新增加的这些条款的确切含义,指出其中的进步意义,分析了存在的问题,提出执行新增加的这些法律条文必须注意的事项。