俄罗斯民主化时代的政治腐败--再论"民主不是万应灵丹"

苏联解体后以叶利钦为首的民主改革派所推行的“民主化加私有化”改革,非但没有得到如民主崇拜者所料想的那种“清除政治腐败”、“倡行社会公正”和“振兴国家经济”的效果,反而使俄罗斯陷入了比苏联时期有过之无不及的政治腐败;其结果,导致黑社会组织横行无忌,社会公正被藐视和践踏,经济发展捉襟见肘,国际地位一落千丈的窘境。这种情形不啻是对“民主万能”神话的辛辣嘲讽,其原因有必要引起学术界的反思。     

Power and Public Chambers in the development of civil society in Russia

Embodying a state vision of how civil society ought to function and be designed by the authorities, Public Chambers in Russia have been criticized as means of state control. This state dominance is the starting point in this article, which asks what room to manoeuvre a regional Public Chamber has. Drawing upon fieldwork this article examines how members and local observers of the Public Chamber give meaning to this activity. The analysis assesses the role of state dominance, discussion of routines and responses to local demands, and concludes that these incremental developments form civil society in Russia.     

The Theory of International Media Diffusion: Political Socialization and International Media in Transitional Democracies

Despite the long-standing normative assumption that, for individuals in transitional states, exposure to Western media cultivates stronger attachments to Western political and economic values, the evidence presented here suggests otherwise. Using mass public survey data from the mid-1990s in five Central and Eastern European countries, this article demonstrates a general lack of support for international media’s positive contributions to individuals’ democratic attitudes and preferences for market economies. This finding is particularly unexpected because the countries under investigation represent ideal cases based on their proximity to Western democracies and international (Western) media sources’ capacities for extensive transnational media penetration into the region. Yet this failure to find persuasive evidence of the influence of international media diffusion on the development of Western political values sharpens our understanding of the process of political socialization in democratizing countries by eliminating an assumed source and is thus relevant to students of democratization, international development, and mass media.

Prosecuting high-level corruption in Eastern Europe

Do Eastern European courts effectively constrain politicians and uphold the rule of law? Criminal prosecution of grand (high-level) corruption can further the central principle of equal responsibility under the law by demonstrating that even powerful political actors have to submit to the laws of the land. This article introduces the Eastern European Corruption Prosecution Database, which contains entries for all cabinet ministers (927 in total) who served in a government that held office in one of seven post-Communist Eastern European countries since the late 1990s. The systematic data collection reveals that Bulgaria, Romania and Macedonia consistently indict more ministers than Croatia, the Czech Republic, and Poland; Slovakia has barely indicted anyone. We aim to start a research agenda by formulating hypotheses about which countries will see more corruption prosecutions and which ministers' characteristics would make them more likely to face the court. We use the database to begin testing these hypotheses and find some evidence for several associations. We find no strong evidence that EU conditionality or membership raises the profile of the grand corruption issue or leads to more indictments. Party politics seems to affect the frequency of corruption indictments more than the structure and behavior of legal institutions. Indictment rates are lower when a former Communist party controls the government and individual ministers from junior coalition partners are more vulnerable to indictment than other ministers. The existence of a specialized anti-corruption prosecution or a more independent judiciary do not seem to lead to the indictment of more ministers on corruption charges. Finally, we discuss avenues of future research that our database opens, both for the analysis of country-level and individual-level variation.     

Democratic ‘freedom’ in Myanmar

In Robert Dahl’s work on ‘polyarchy’, democratic ‘freedom’ is liberty from the abuses of the state and freedom for citizens to formulate and express their preferences. This meaning of freedom is central to contemporary scholarship on democratization. At the same time, freedom has also been a key concept for activists and leaders involved in Myanmar’s long democratic struggles. Yet, when freedom is referred to by Burmese activists and democratic leaders, does this entail support for liberty or freedom of the type outlined by Dahl? This article argues that Berlin’s distinction between ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ freedoms can help to clarify overlaps and divergence in notions of freedom. When exploring ‘negative’ democratic freedoms, such as freedom from government restrictions on speech or association, there is considerable overlap between the visions of Burmese activists and democratic leaders and the key elements of Dahl’s democratic freedom. In considering ‘positive’ freedoms, however, there is more divergence. Amongst activists and democratic leaders in Myanmar, there is a focus not on freedom as the exercising of own entitlements but rather on freedom for moral conduct; freedom to bear to the responsibilities and discipline of democracy.     

Lawyers and Hong Kong’s democracy movement: from electoral politics to civil disobedience

Research on Hong Kong lawyers has so far focused on their internal differences and the rise of cause lawyering. Not much has been done on their role in promoting political liberalism. This paper fills a gap by reviewing the history of lawyers’ political activism before and after Hong Kong’s sovereignty shifted from a liberal-colonial to an authoritarian regime in 1997. It argues, first, that Hong Kong’s post-colonial constitutionalized politics and prolonged democratic deficit have given the legal complex—which includes lawyers and also increasingly legal academics—a key role in its pro-democracy movement, and second, critical political junctures have driven activist lawyers to use various means, from electoral politics to civil disobedience, to defend the rule of law and Hong Kong’s tortuous democratization.     

When the center can hold: The primacy of politics in shaping Russian democracy

Violations of rights, a weak Duma, political parties dominated by bureaucrats, and corrupt privatization are ordinarily taken as signs or even causes of the failure of democracy in Russia or at best as normal traits of electoral politics in a middle-income state. Yet all of these are natural consequences of introducing democracy in a country with the Russian electorate’s distinctive recent experience of a loss of a third of the state’s territory and half its population. In such a democracy only a centrist, not a liberal, strategy can block a return to authoritarianism, and such a strategy in Russia will subordinate rights to the task of privatization that a Duma weakened by ideological, demographic and geographic impediments to party development cannot conduct. Consequently what are taken as signs or causes of democratic failure in Russia are instead necessary effects of introducing democracy in Russia’s special circumstances.     

经济全球化与韩国民主化：以发展战略转型为视角

自20世纪60年代实施出口导向型发展战略后,韩国被纳入国际经济体系之中,并与之同步演化。随着新自由主义意识形态主导的全球化的进一步发展,出口贸易的严重依赖使得韩国政治经济发展受到全球市场的制约与影响。本文运用相互依赖理论来分析经济全球化的发展与韩国发展战略转型之间的相关性以及韩国经济结构的变迁及其与政治转型相互型塑的发展结果。     

颠覆型民主化:菲律宾民主转型的力学博弈及依靠力量

通过"二月政变"率先实现颠覆型民主化,是菲律宾政治和社会长期发展的产物.在转型的博弈过程中,菲律宾未能形成体制内改革派集团,体制和反体制势力间的势力平衡急速地倾向于后者,在野党缺乏动员大众并使政府让步的能力.军队的反叛和教会的介入是民主转型最重要的依靠力量,这使得菲律宾颠覆型民主化的实现成为可能.     

民主化进程中东南亚国家的华人政治参与——以菲律宾、马来西亚和印度尼西亚为例

近年来东南亚华人政治参与发展很快,但各国在参与形式、所选渠道、参与层次及绩效等方面仍存在较大差异.本文通过对菲律宾、马来西亚和印度尼西亚三国华人政治参与的比较分析,发现民主化进程的确推动了华人政治参与的扩大,但具体影响方式、影响范围和影响力大小又是不确定的.合作、竞争和依附,至少构成三种不同的路径选择.较之民主化因素,民族身份认同对东南亚国家华人政治参与模式选择的影响更大.