Turkey – from tutelary to delegative democracy

Guillermo O’Donnell’s influential work ‘Delegative Democracy’ set the discourse on a peculiar type of democracy. Lying between representative democracy and authoritarianism, the uniqueness of delegative democracy lies in its features, including an absence of horizontal accountability, strong centralised rule, individual leadership with unchecked powers, a cult figure embodying the nation and clientelist practices. While delegative democracies seem to arise out of presidential systems, Turkey, though a parliamentary system, has also displayed the distinctive features of delegative democracies. This paper identifies three characteristics of delegative democracy, which are responsible for the lack of democratic consolidation, if not the erosion of democracy itself: anti-institutionalism, an anti-political agenda and clientelism. Arguing that delegative democracy is the best concept with which to examine contemporary Turkey, the paper lays out how, post-2011, Turkey has demonstrated the three elements of delegative democracy. The final section discusses the implications of the Turkish case for scrutinising the very possibility of delegative democracy in parliamentary regimes.     

The politics of HIV/AIDS in South Africa: government action and public response

A decade ago it seemed likely that African governments would be destabilised by the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This article tests some of the presumptions in such forecasting with an examination of the South African case. It begins with an assessment of the effects on the public health system of the South African government’s efforts to cope with the illness. Efforts to implement universal treatment of people who are HIV-positive appear to have strengthened government, while the costs have been affordable. The efforts have extended the embrace of the public health system and prompted the engagement of civil society in policy formation and implementation. Survey evidence suggests that the government has gained public approval and that its health service delivery has become more socially accountable. Civil protest to engender political reforms in the treatment of AIDS patients has enhanced the role of constitutional checks on executive authority.     

Securitization,history, and identity: some conceptual clarifications and examples from politics of Finnish war history

This article shows how we can use the securitization framework to study extreme history politics. Securitization refers to a speech act or discursive process in which an actor makes a claim that some referent object, deemed worthy of survival, is existentially threatened. If successful, securitization justifies the use of extraordinary measures to counter the threat. After introducing the concept of securitization in detail, the article presents three ways in which history and securitization can be connected: history can serve as a facilitating condition of securitization; history can be explicitly used to strengthen a securitizing move; or history, or a particular interpretation of it, can be the referent object of securitization. The second half of the article is devoted to a discussion on the role of history in the securitization of national identities. Historical myths are the standard building blocks of national identities; challenging these myths can be presented as threats to the survival of the nation. The article also discusses potential forms of resistance against securitization of history/national identities. Illustrative examples from the political use of WWII history in Finland will be used to show the practical consequences of various conceptual choices.     

Fair Trade and justice: a comment on Walton and Deneulin

In this article we first point out that the different conceptualisations of Fair Trade, which are sometimes analytically contradictory, actually form a coordinated set. Understanding the Fair Trade project is impossible without taking these interlinked conceptualisations into consideration. Second, this set basically forms a mechanism of structural, institutional and moral reforms that guide actions. In this way Fair Trade sets out to produce less injustice than is usually the case with the structures and institutions that govern conventional trade. Nevertheless, it does not try to define what a just society is or even to perfectly define ‘fair trade’. This implies the adoption of a comparative justice angle. It is precisely by linking comparative individual situations with the structures that produce these situations that relative justice can find its strength and purpose.     

Perception of the relations between former colonial powers and developing countries

People register and process stimuli every day, creating an image of space–time reality involving multifaceted relations between various states. The authors have created a database consisting of articles from the periodical Le Monde diplomatique from 1954 to 2009. This paper focuses on investigating how strong relations are between former colonial powers and developing countries. The authors present an index showing the frequency of coincidence of opinion-shaping content in articles about one of the selected world powers and a developing country; they next establish a quantitative reference to dependency and world-systems theories.     

The Young-Girl in Theory

This essay situates Tiqqun's Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl within a long history of leftist art and theory that uses the figure of the girl to respond to, reflect on, and even to attempt to subvert the various subjective crises of late capitalism. At the same time, and reading Tiqqun against the grain, it asks whether the Young-Girl might be of any use for thinking through the new questions about subjectivity and representation that neoliberalism has presented for feminism.     

都市生态治理中党政干部领导力探讨

推进都市生态治理是促进区域经济社会协调可持续发展的应有之义.本文以A省S市都市生态治理中党政干部领导力为基点,阐释了S市党政干部在生态治理中发挥的核心作用,同时也发现其中面临领导动力弱化、领导效益损耗、领导协同失效、领导制度选择性执行等困局.因此,应从增强都市生态治理中党政干部领导自洽力、提升领导转换力、激活领导制度力...     

强化哲学社会科学的宣传功能:理论主题与实践进路

新时代强化哲学社会科学宣传功能的重性与价值正日益凸显.时代所需、历史使命澄明的是强化哲学社会科学宣传功能需面对的理论主题,而实践进路是对强化哲学社会科学宣传功能从理论到实践的辩证发展与创新的不断探索,这成为我们思考这一论题的三重向度.哲学社会科学有两项主使命,一是学术研究和学科建构,二是理论传播和宣传教育.哲学社会科学...     

清代搜查制度初探

在源远流长的中华法制文明的历史上,尽管有着重实体轻程序的传统,但随着历史的发展,法制文明的进步,传统法上的搜查制度也在实践中不断地完善。清代法制是中国封建法制的高峰,相应的,清代法律中的搜查制度也比较完善。它对搜查的主体、搜查的对象、搜查的执行方式、搜查主体的责任等方面都有比较详细的规定,并且体现出有效保障原则、遵循令状原则、合理根据原则、针对性的搜查原则以及鲜明的国家利益至上的法律思想与人本主义的法律思想。     

《毒品识别与检验》实验教学体系创新性探索

目前公安教育普遍面临着实验教学体系薄弱的现状,在教学中为培养具有综合能力和创新能力的禁毒警察,改变现阶段禁毒民警业务知识薄弱的现状,我院禁毒学专业对“毒品识别与检验”实验教学体系进行改革,进行创新性教育的探索。