Can citizens care too much? Investment in election outcomes and perceptions of electoral legitimacy

Might there be a downside to citizen engagement with elections? The tendency for citizens who supported a winning candidate or party to be more supportive of the democratic system and more trusting of government than supporters of the losers has been well documented. I test the extent to which individual-level investment in a presidential election campaign amplifies effects of winning or losing using the online component of the 2008 NAES to track the same individuals' from pre-election to post-election. The analysis provides strong evidence of amplifying effects of investment on the relationship between winning or losing and perceptions of electoral legitimacy. Certain types of investment—policy agreement and participation—appear to hold significant implications only for losers and not winners.     

Bring the party back in: Institutional design for ‘smart election fraud’

Autocrats face a dilemma. Continue with fraudulent electoral practices and risk revolt, or reduce fraud and risk losing elections. One solution is to structure electoral governance such that it allows for independence and professionalism at the center, lending credibility to the electoral process, and partisan local-level administration, enabling fraud at the micro level. Partisan poll workers can help deliver the vote by the use of ‘smart fraud’ – fraud that minimizes the risk of being caught and is used only when needed. In Armenia, the ruling party's vote share, as a proportion of all registered voters, increases with 2.5 percentage points in polling stations where the chairperson was randomly assigned to the ruling party. Fraud forensics suggests that one of the mechanisms behind this was falsification of the results protocol during the count. I conjecture that fraud is only used in high-stakes elections and that election observers are unable to detect it.     

代理治理模式：一种统治类型的讨论--以基层政府治理体系为分析单位

代理治理模式揭示基层政府治理的性质,指出基层政府治理体系的核心元素是政治治理而不是科层治理,是党政统合体系与威权治理结构的多重因素作用结果。代理治理模式有三个基本特征：代理治理是政治职能与行政职能的统合体系;代理治理与社会是一种统治关系;代理治理是一种多中心权威治理结构。代理治理模式的权力来源在国家,不在基层社会,向上级政府（国家）负责,与基层社会没有授权关系。代理治理模式的现代转型,应从基层政府的政治职能与行政职能的分离着手,以民主法治原则来建构基层政府的权力结构和治理体系,在行政职能上建构政府治理的公共本质,在政治职能上建构基层治理的社会授权关系。     

The Underexplored Species: Selective Participation in Direct Democratic Votes

While electoral research usually distinguishes voters from abstainers, in the Swiss direct democratic context one needs to take into account a third category of citizens, the selective voters, who decide anew at each vote whether they will participate or not. This article offers an investigation of this common but under‐researched form of participation. To that end, we take advantage of a unique data‐set linking official turnout data with survey data. Our results show that selective voters constitute the bulk of the electorate. While they form a heterogeneous group in terms of socio‐demographic characteristics, selective voters lean more towards abstainers than towards permanent voters with respect to political variables. We argue that this is not necessarily bad news in terms of democratic theory.     

Britain and the abdication of Reza Shah

On the eve of the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in the Second World War, Sir Reader Bullard, the British minister in Tehran, urged on his government the desirability of removing the Iranian ruler, Reza Shah, from office. Association with the ‘universally detested’ shah, whom he described as a ‘greedy ignorant savage’, was detrimental to Britain's interests and its war effort. In the weeks that followed the Anglo-Soviet occupation of Iran, Bullard continued to press for and to shape the ultimate British decision to force Reza Shah to abdicate and go into exile. Yet, this was not always Bullard's view of Britain's relationship with the Iranian ruler. When he presented his credentials 20 months earlier, Bullard described it as his ‘urgent duty’ to win Reza Shah's favour. Nor did Bullard's insistence that Britain depose the Shah initially find favour with the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, his Middle East staff at the Foreign Office, or with Churchill. This article traces the evolution of Bullard's own view of Reza Shah and the developments that led the Foreign Office, initially eager to win Reza Shah's favour and even ready to offer Reza Shah a ‘substantial bribe’ for his cooperation, to take steps to topple Reza Shah from the throne.     

Between anti-westernism and development: political Islam and environmentalism

As Turkey's Gezi Park protests reminded us, Islamist parties the world over demonstrate utter disregard of the environment in their discourse and actions. However, Islam as a religion places strong emphasis on environmental protection. Thus, as the representatives of Islam that these parties claim themselves to be, it is puzzling that environmental policy is all but absent from most Islamist platforms. I ask, what explains the poverty of Islamists in regards to the environment? I argue that the reason for this poverty is found within and conforms to political Islam's problematic relationship with modernity, particularly in regards to their strong anti-western sentiment and self-purported victim status. My findings suggest that the inattention Islamists give to the environment is due to their association of environmentalism with the West and because of the uniquely unfavourable socio-economic environments in which they exist, which sends environmentalism to the purview of ‘low politics’. This analysis points to an inherent weakness in Islamist ideology – their lack of pragmatic policy. Hence, the peculiar case of Islamists and the environment is but a symptom of a larger issue within Islamism and can be a key element to understanding why and how Islamism is likely to fail.     

The feminist movement during the AKP era in Turkey: challenges and opportunities

This article explores women's rights activism in Turkey during the Justice and Development Party's (AKP) time in power (2002–present). A comparative analysis of three feminist campaigns for policy reform shows that in a context in which majority public opinion and the policy preferences of the ruling party militate against feminist policy proposals, a strong political ally (the European Union) was necessary to generate a policy change. The article also argues that the political opportunity structures within which feminists are embedded have been reconfigured over the course of the AKP's three terms in power, leaving the AKP in a stronger position to resist feminists’ demands. This explains the paradox of an internally stronger and more dynamic social movement that, nevertheless, appears to have weakened vis-à-vis the state. Furthermore, because some recent legal reforms do not significantly reflect the AKP's or much of the public's preferences, the movement has been less able to generate implementation of recent policy changes.     

泰国社会转型过程中的“缓冲器”——制造可控的政治危机

20世纪90年代以来,泰国正经历着社会的全面转型,社会转型带来不可避免的社会动荡。然而有着自身政治发展规律的泰国却通过制造一系列可控的政治危机消减社会转型造成的过剩能量,维持着整个社会的基本稳定,推进着国内政治的发展。可以预见,在泰国社会转型没有最终完成之前,其国内政治危机仍将是社会常态。     

东北亚区域经济合作的政治环境

国际政治环境不仅是一个国家制定内、外政策的依据,更是影响其发展的关键因素。东北亚国际政治环境对于区域经济合作具有重要意义。东北亚这一区域正在经历全球体系中发生的三项重大变革:即,全球化、现代化与国际体系力量核心的转移。这些变革直接影响到区域内的国家之间的关系及其地区内的格局。其中,全球化、国际体系与国家关系的演变对区域合作产生重要的影响。     

政治生态话语中的生态观迷失与回归

近年来的高压反腐和全面从严治党激发了中国"政治生态"的话语热潮,然而,当前的"政治生态"话语更多的是一种政治实践话语,而非学术话语。在国际学术界,政治与生态基于不同方式的结合而形成了生态政治学和政治生态学,生态政治学已发展成为包含不同理论流派和理论分支的成熟学术领域,而政治生态学则研究较少。中国现有的泛化的政治生态话语、文学化描述的政治生态话语、本末倒置的政治生态话语存在生态观的严重迷失。要走出生态观迷失的困境,建构政治生态学理论,需要在生态内涵上实现个体性评价向结构性和规则化观念的回归;在生态伦理上实现从道德整体主义与等级制向个体生命伦理与互利共生关系的回归;在生态运行方式上实现从一体化结构的单向控制向多元分化与制约平衡的回归。当然,生态学的政治价值是有限的,除了"自然正义"以外,我们还需要求助于"社会正义"作为现代政治转型的理论支撑。