Is Brazil becoming a “boring” country?

The article looks at the condition of Brazil's political system in light of the 1998 electoral results. It critically examines arguments that electoral volatility, political fragmentation and weak institutionalisation have produced a highly unstable political system unsuitable for sound policy‐making and processing change. While not underestimating the influence of electoral rules, it argues that given the combination of political, institutional and economic turmoil of the 1980s, it is not surprising that electoral volatility over the period was amongst the highest in the world. Arguably, however, these factors are now having a diminished impact on the political system, lessening volatility and allowing the emergence of a more institutionalised party system.     

承前启后继往开来丰富和发展马克思主义建党思想--论党的第三代领导集体对马克思主义建党理论的重大贡献

中国共产党诞生80年来,坚持把马克思主义建党理论与中国共产主义运动相结合,取得了举世瞩目的成就.以江泽民为核心的第三代中央领导集体,承前启后,继往开来,进一步丰富和发展了马克思主义建党理论,形成了比较完整的党建理论体系,为无产阶级政党走向新的胜利奠定了坚实的理论基础.     

American Progressivism and the Obama Presidency

US progressivism is half espoused, half rejected, by an ambivalent if talented President. The Republican image of the President as ‘socialist’ is one which the social democratic Democrats wish were true. The President's readiness to compromise has not tempered the extreme hostility of the Republicans. It has been exploited by the political agents of business and finance. It has used by the permanent war party: the campaign against ‘terror’ enables it to retain mastery of foreign and military policy. The New Deal's heirs, seeking more social democracy and less militarism, are bereft of new forms of political action. US democracy is threatened by an eruption of cultural and religious fundamentalism, racism, and xenophobia, as well as a compulsive refusal of social solidarity. Withal, the situation is open as well as complex, and the President in the long run may be much more successful than his angry detractors and disappointed supporters allow.     

属人法的新发展——当事人所在地法

国际私法中属人法的最新发展动向表现为国籍将逐步淡出冲突规范的连接因素，住所连接因素的适用范围也在缩小。一个主要强调客观存在地的连接因素——“当事人所在地”开始出现在冲突规范的最新国际立法中，在有关跨国商事法律关系的法律选择适用中呈扩大化趋势。这样，“惯常居所”替代住所成为在有关自然人的身份、能力等普通民事法律关系领域的主要连接点，而“当事人所在地”将替代“注册登记地”、“营业地”以及“管理中心地”等在商事法律关系中发挥主要连接作用。     

论团体诉讼的制度理性

团体诉讼是民事诉讼中当事人制度体系中的一个范畴,我国学术界迄今尚未对其进行系统的理论研究。本文主要探讨两个问题:一是辨析团体诉讼的概念内涵和制度特征,以求证其立法上应有的制度空间。通过分析,团体诉讼与集团诉讼等相近范畴的界限变得更加清晰。二是着重探讨了团体诉讼制度的优势和弊端,深刻地揭示出团体诉讼制度所蕴含的社会发展前提及其强劲的政治影响功能,最后得出结论认为:我国应当引进团体诉讼制度,并与选定当事人制度、集团诉讼制度形成并存的三驾马车,从而完善我国的复杂当事人制度体系。     

代表性建设是参政党建设的重要内容

代表性建设是参政党建设的重要内容.加强民主党派的代表性建设,要正确认识民主党派的代表性问题,正确处理民主党派的代表性与代表件人士的关系,正确处理政治思想的进步性与成员思想观念的广泛性、根本利益的一致性与成员具体利益的多样性、一般成员与代表性人士、中共党委的肯定与民主党派成员的认同、领导班子中整体的代表性与成员个体的代表性之间的关系,正确把握理论建设、人才培养和机制建设三个主要环节.     

What voters want from their parties: Testing the promise-keeping assumption

How should party governments make representative democracy? Much of the democracy representation literature assumes that voters prefer parties to fulfill the promises of their election campaigns, with higher preference for promise-keeping placed on the party a voter supports. That voters agree with these assumptions, however, remains largely unclear and this is the main hypothesis of this article. Within the context of Australia, this article investigates voter preferences regarding three ideal party representative styles: promise-keeping, focus on public opinion, and seeking the common good. Furthermore, it tests whether voters prefer their party – over other parties – to keep their promises. Based on novel and innovative survey data, this study finds that, generally, voters care least about parties keeping their promises and their preferences are unaffected by their party support. These results, if confirmed in other contexts, not only challenge the primacy of promise-keeping, but also the assumed ubiquitous party effect.     

What consideration sets can teach us about electoral competition: A two-hurdle model

Consideration set models (CSMs) offer a novel way to study electoral behavior. Until now, they have been mostly studied at the micro-level of the voter's decision process. By contrast, we focus on the implications of CSMs for understanding the phenomenon of party competition. We propose a two hurdle model whereby parties compete for both consideration and selection, pursuant the consideration and choice stages of the CSM. We operationalize these hurdles in terms of a party's inclusivity—is it being considered?—and exclusivity—is it considered on its own?—and formally derive lower- and upper-bounds for the electoral fortunes of the party. We also show how consideration set data can be used to sketch the competition landscape in an election and to characterize the system-wide competitiveness of a political system. We illustrate our concepts and ideas using data from the 2010 Dutch and 2014 Swedish parliamentary elections.     

Party convergence and vote switching: Explaining mainstream party decline across Europe

How can one explain the significant vote losses of mainstream parties across Europe in recent years? In this article, it is argued that mainstream party convergence is an important determinant of the recent political and electoral volatility in European party systems. More specifically, it is hypothesised that as mainstream parties converge on the left-right scale, voters will switch from supporting a mainstream party to a non-mainstream party in the next election as they look for an alternative that better represents their ideological views. To test these theoretical expectations, data is combined from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and the Manifestos Project for nearly 15,000 vote choices of individual voters in 30 elections in 16 West and East European countries from 2001 until 2013. The findings have important implications for understanding the recent rise of non-mainstream parties, the changing nature of party systems and the increasing complexity of cabinet formation across Europe.     

National parliamentary control and voting in the Council of the European Union

This article explores the different ways governments express dissent in the Council of the European Union (EU) through ‘No’ votes, abstentions and recorded negative statements. A game-theoretical model is presented that studies voting behaviour and analyses how the national parliaments’ levels of control over their governments’ EU policies affect it. It is concluded that governments that are strongly controlled by their parliaments are not more likely to express dissent. However, when they do express dissent, they vote ‘No’ more often. Parliamentary control depends on the presence of formal oversight institutions as well as the motivation of parliamentarians to hold their governments accountable. Empirical support is found in an analysis of votes on 1,387 legislative proposals that represent more than a decade of Council decision making in the period 2004–2014. This article contributes to the discussion on the involvement of national parliaments in EU affairs, and clearly distinguishes the different forms of dissent in Council decision making.