The ‘Arab Spring’ in the historical perspectives of Middle East politics

Abstract

The events of the ‘Arab Spring’ appeared to be animated by slogans and objectives of universalist orientations to liberty, dignity and social justice, a departure from the ethno-religious nationalisms that dominated the politics of the region. They raised questions regarding the ‘exceptionalism’ of Arabs and Muslims, whom many observers and commentators considered to be tied to sentiments and solidarities of patrimonialism, tribe and religion. Yet, the forces that seemed to benefit from the transformations in Egypt and elsewhere were not those that made the ‘revolution’ but precisely religious and patriarchal parties which benefited from popular constituencies in elections. A consideration of the political history of the main countries concerned can throw some light on these transformations. The nationalist, often military, regimes which emerged from the independence struggles of mid-twentieth century headed ideological, populist, nationalist and ‘socialist’ movements and parties and authoritarian regimes which eliminated oppositional politics and social autonomies in favour of a corporatist welfare state. These regimes, facing economic and geo-political contingencies of the later decades were transformed into dynastic oligarchies and crony capitalism which broke the compact of welfare and subsidies leading to intensified impoverishment and repression of their populations. Popular strata were driven ever more into reliance on ‘survival units’ of kin and community, reinforcing communal and religious attachments at the expense of civic and associational life. These ties and sentiments come to the fore when the ruling dynasties are displaced, as in Iraq after the 2003 invasion or Egypt after the removal of Mubarak. The ideological and universalist politics of the revolutionaries appear to be swamped by those conservative affiliations.     

Welfare reforms and socio-economic trends in the 10 new EU member states of Central and Eastern Europe

The paper reviews recent socio-economic changes in the 10 new EU member states of Central and Eastern Europe and the earlier and latest debates on the emergence of the post-communist welfare state regime. It asks two questions: are the new EU member states more similar to each other in their social problems encountered than to the rest of the EU world? Do they exhibit enough common socio-economic and institutional features to group them into the distinct/unified post-communist welfare regime that deviates from any well-known welfare state typology?The findings of this paper indicate that despite some slight variation within, the new EU countries exhibit lower indicators compared to the EU-15 as it comes to the minimum wage and social protection expenditure. The degree of material deprivation and the shadow economy is on average also higher if compared to the EU-15 or the EU-27. However, then it comes to at-risk-of-poverty rate after social transfers or Gini index, some Eastern European outliers especially the Check Republic, but also Slovenia, Slovakia and Hungary perform the same or even better than the old capitalist democracies. Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, however, show many similarities in their social indicators and performances and this group of countries never perform better than the EU-15 or the EU-27 averages. Nevertheless, the literature reviews on welfare state development in the CEE region reveal a number of important institutional features in support of identifying the distinct/unified post-communist welfare regime. Most resilient of it are: an insurance-based programs that played a major part in the social protection system; high take-up of social security; relatively low social security benefits; increasing signs of liberalization of social policy; and the experience of the Soviet/Communist type of welfare state, which implies still deeply embedded signs of solidarity and universalism.     

论法官指示制度之构建——兼论《最高人民法院关于人民陪审员参加审判活动若干问题的规定》第8条之适用

我国法官指示制度的建立是人民陪审员制度和合议制度变革的需要,是化解现有陪审合议庭顽症的有效途径,也是防止现有陪审制度"平民性"丧失的新路径,对于人民陪审员制度的发展完善具有积极作用。但是,与域外的法官指示制度比较,我国现有法官指示制度具有如下缺陷:粗陋的内容规定、悖反的权威扩张、缺失的救济途径、狭小的适用空间,应从内容完善、权力制约、权利救济、适用扩展四个方面对上述缺陷予以修正。     

新生代农民工社会适应研究——基于浙江省杭州市的调查

当前,新生代农民工逐渐成为流动人口群体的主力,其社会适应程度不仅关系到农民工个体的生存质量和发展可能,也关系到城乡居民之间的关系,甚至还牵涉到整个社会和谐与稳定程度。本研究对在浙江省杭州市务工的新生代农民工的社会适应展开了调查。调查发现新生代农民工在心理认同上有一定的趋同性,社会交往上呈现封闭性,而经济生存上有着明显的脆弱性。增强新生代农民工社会适应要积极推进户籍改革,要继续增强新生代农民工的心理适应,要逐步加强新生代农民工的社会交往,要努力促进新生代农民工的经济适应。     

试析昂山素季对缅甸军政权态度的转变

2003年4月23日,昂山素季对缅甸军政权的态度发生了转变,首次公开抱怨与军政权的秘密谈判没有取得进展.2003年4月25日,缅甸军政权认为反对派领袖昂山素季的抱怨是毫无意义的,认为上述批评无助于全国和解.国家和平与发展委员会新总理钦纽上将在2003年8月30日讲话中提出了关于国民大会推动缅甸国家未来政治走向的新计划.钦纽将军还阐明了缅甸民主"路线图"的七个步骤,并声明将重新启动1996年临时中断的国民大会;按照国民大会制定的基本原则起草新宪法草案;举行全民公投,通过宪法草案;按照新宪法举行公平的大选以组成议会;由议会选举产生新政府.以昂山素季为首的缅甸反对派和国内外政治活动分子对这一计划进行了谴责.     

Political culture,state elites and regional security in West Africa

This article analyses the dominant patterns of political culture among West Africa's state elites in an attempt to understand what standards, beliefs and principles they cherish. We suggest that although there are significant differences across the region's states, the dominant political culture can be characterised as neopatrimonial, that is, systems based on personalised structures of authority where patron–client relationships operate behind a façade of ostensibly rational state bureaucracy. In order to explore these issues the article proceeds in four parts. After providing a definition of political culture and why it is an important topic of analysis, we examine the central characteristics of the political culture held by state elites in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) region. The section ‘The Nigerian factor’ briefly discusses some of the malign effects that this culture has had upon governance and political economy issues in the regional giant, Nigeria. The final section explores whether the region's elites are living up to their own claims that they are embarking upon a serious attempt to engage in state reconstruction or are instead simply searching for alternative ways to sell their more traditional concern with regime protection. We conclude that, without a fundamental recasting of the political culture guiding the region's elites, a security culture that prioritises democracy and human security is unlikely to emerge within ECOWAS.     

推动建设和谐世界与完善国际能源秩序

推动建设和谐世界外交战略思想,是进入新世纪后中国倡导的国际秩序观,有助于推动国际秩序向公正合理的方向发展。全球能源安全充满了不和谐因素,公正合理的国际能源秩序迄今尚未建立,影响了世界的和平稳定与共同繁荣。中国应以和谐世界理念为指导,与其他国家共同努力建设和谐的国际能源秩序。     

机制创新与地区合作--以东盟非正式决策机制为例的分析

东盟的"5-1"决策方式和抽象肯定、具体否定的决策惯例是东盟正式决策机制所没有的,是东盟在具体的合作过程中的一个创新,是东盟决策机制的创新;这一创新很好地解决了国家利益和地区利益之间的冲突问题,是东盟具体合作得以开展的一个重要因素.     

从中外反腐的经验教训 看全面落实“三个代表”的重要性

纵览中外一些历史王朝的兴亡和世界上一些大党老党的成败,可以看到,人心向背是决定一个政党、一个政权兴亡的根本性因素。新时期,深入开展反腐败斗争是全面落实"三个代表"重要思想的本质要求和题中之义。     

Nobody Knows Best: Alternative Perspectives on Forest Management and Governance in Southeast Asia

In this paper we propose a framework for understanding how dominant perspectives, or worldviews, influence the crafting of institutions, and how these, in turn, constrain the functions and goals of knowledge systems. Alternative perspectives carry their own set of assumptions and beliefs about who should be making the rules, where the best knowledge lies to guide decisions, and about where more knowledge is needed. Initially, four contrasting perspectives are elaborated: state-, market-, greens-, and locals-know-best. We illustrate the framework by exploring the recent history of forest governance in Southeast Asia, finding several examples of battles of perspectives leading to a new dominant perspective. In each case the dominant perspective itself, old or new, is shown to be defective in some critical way and was, or should be, replaced. The problem is that each of the perspectives considers the world as knowable, manageable, and relatively constant, or at most changing only slowly. Ecological and socio-political crises, however, are recurrent. Management plans and regulations or policies that aim to establish the land-use allocation, the best crop, the best forest management system or the best price or system of incentives, are doomed to failure. If uncertainties are accepted as fundamental, solutions as temporary, and scientific knowledge as useful but limited, then Nobody Knows Best is a modest, but effective heuristic for forest governance.