Electron democracy,populism, and generational politics: The case of the April 15, 2004 general election in South Korea

The primary purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that influenced the results of the April 15, 2004 general election in South Korea. A backlash after the impeachment of President Roh Moo Hyun by a coalition of opposition parties in the National Assembly (NA) was the single most important factor that determined the election outcomes. Generational and regional differences in the parties voters supported and the “defeat movement” of citizens' organizations also had significant effects on the election processes. For the first time since the early 1960s a progressive party won a majority of the NA seats. Thirty-nine women members will serve in the 17th NA, the largest number ever, and the left-wing Democratic Labor Party became the third largest party by receiving 13 percent of the proportional representation votes. Generational and ideological shifts in the power elites seem to be evident in the election results.     

区域规划研究进展与我国区域规划重大问题探讨

区域发展规划作为对未来一定时空范围内经济、社会、资源环境等方面发展的总体部署,是国家协调发展关系与优化区域空间布局的重要政策和工具。在系统评述了国内外对区域规划在理念、理论与方法、效应评估和体制机制建设等方面的研究进展与趋势特征的基础上,针对新时代区域发展面临的新任务和新挑战,指出未来我国区域规划研究的重大理论问题是以新区域主义为导向,建构新时代中国区域规划理论新范式;重大现实问题包括四大内容:一是捋清我国区域规划历史与时空演进逻辑;二是构建中国特色区域规划评估体系,解决谁来评、评什么、何时评、如何评和给谁评五大核心评估问题;三是研究解决区域规划时效性与其目标有限性问题;四是兼顾宏观、中观和微观三个层面创新和完善新时代区域规划体制机制与政策。     

Limits of Devolution: Localism,Economics and Post‐democracy

This article challenges the narrowly founded but untroubled consensus about the alleged benefits of the Conservative government's devolution programme. It suggests that too much attention has been paid to purported benefits and too little regard to the potential risks, and draws attention to international evidence that suggests that the distribution of the benefits of devolution is crucially dependent on its design. It critically examines the case for the currently offered model of devolution and finds the underpinning economic model and limited forms of democratic accountability are likely to produce regressive social outcomes and the reinforcement of existing local elites. It calls for a wider public debate and fuller democratic scrutiny of the model of devolution on offer.     

Territorial government reforms at the time of financial crisis: the dawn of metropolitan cities in Italy

On 1 January 2015 a new institution, the metropolitan city, took its place among the Italian territorial authorities. Despite its incorporation in the Italian Constitution since 2001, the metropolitan city become a reality only when the national government carried out a process of reform and transformation of Italian territorial government by transforming 10 large cities into metropolitan cities and depriving other intermediate governments (regions and provinces) of their fundamental competences. This article critically reviews the activation of metropolitan cities and the reshuffle of Italian territorial authorities. It stresses the way in which this reform marks the shift towards a new phase of Italian regionalism, which is dominated both by a dynamic of recentralizing intergovernmental relations and by the resulting loss for provincial and regional governments.     

World Market Regionalism at the Asian Development Bank

Accounts of the “new regionalism” two decades ago identified a growing trend towards co-ordinated state action at the regional level in pursuit of both security and political economy concerns – new in terms of its “bottom-up” character, post-Cold War logic, heterogeneous focus, and relation to globalisation. More recently, proponents of “regulatory regionalism” have suggested that regional projects reshape and transform states themselves. This article identifies an emerging “world market regionalism,” within which regions are addressed in terms of their position within the world market, and regional projects are strategically oriented towards the “completion of the world market” in its dual aspect as expansion of trade and transformation of social relations of production. The focus is on the purposive transformation of the region in pursuit of global competitiveness. A detailed account is given of such a project of world market regionalism developed over the last two decades at the Asian Development Bank. It is aimed at transforming the region, and individual states within it, into a space contributory to a wider global project aimed at “completing the world market” and transforming both the social relations of production and individual attitudes and behaviour.     

东亚金融区域主义的兴起及其地缘安全影响

2008年全球金融危机以后,国际货币金融体系持续动荡,以地区金融安全合作为导向的金融区域主义逐步兴起,且成为一种显著的地缘政治经济现象。金融区域主义对地缘安全的影响主要有两个方面:一是地区金融安全,地区金融主义有助于构筑地区金融安全网络,推动地缘经济整合;二是地缘政治安全,地区金融主义会扩大地区大国的地缘政治影响力以及增加地区排斥外围国家干涉本地事务的能力。金融区域主义产生的这些地缘安全影响对不同的行为主体而言,具有不同的意义。首先,东盟作为地区性的经济共同体,会极力反对东亚大国利用金融区域主义将东盟纳入其势力范围之下,威胁东盟的地缘政治安全环境。其次,作为最大出资方,中日对地区货币金融领导权的争夺变得日趋激烈,且形成了持续的冲突性关系,从而削弱了东亚金融安全合作的政治前景。最后,东亚作为美元回流机制中的关键一环,如果将美国排斥在外,无疑会增加东亚地区与美国的地缘政治矛盾。因而,东亚金融区域主义在兴起的过程中,不仅要看到其稳定地区货币金融秩序的一面,同时也要看到其有可能制造地缘政治安全问题的一面。     

Democratic legitimacy in regional economic organizations: the European Union in comparative perspective

Regional organizations have been widely criticized for lacking democratic legitimacy, but these criticisms have been rather ad hoc, concerned with single case studies and reliant on unclear standards or metrics. Are all organizations similarly deficient? And how does the European Union (EU), the target par excellence of the criticisms, fare in comparative perspective? In this paper, we take a first step towards answering these questions by leveraging the rich debate on the EU to identify several institutional dimensions of democratic legitimacy and operationalizing them for comparative analysis. We then investigate the most important regional economic organizations (REOs) in the world. Our findings are three-fold: (i) there is systematic variation across REOs, with a group doing rather well, one mixed, and one poorly; (ii) procedural dimensions fare better than those related to representation or local self-determination; (iii) no organization exhibits or lacks legitimacy in all dimensions. These results qualify the perception that democratic legitimacy deficits are indiscriminately pervasive and indicate that the EU belongs to the most democratically legitimate group.     

Financial crises as catalysts for regional cooperation? Chances and obstacles for financial integration in ASEAN+3, MERCOSUR and the eurozone

This article compares and analyses the different answers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations+3 (ASEAN+3), Mercado Común del Dur (MERCOSUR) and the eurozone on financial crises in their respective regions. All three regions were hit by economic turmoil between 1997 and 2012, but whereas ASEAN+3 and the eurozone answered with establishing regional liquidity arrangements (RLAs) in order to fight future crises, financial cooperation did not take off in MERCOSUR. Thus, the paper asks why some regions establish RLAs in cases of crisis and others do not. It argues that the variance of regional financial integration in different world regions is due to different interests of regional powers in their respective regions. The regional powers of ASEAN+3 and the eurozone are institutionally and/or economically highly embedded within their respective regions, but this is not the case for Brazil in MERCOSUR. China and Japan suffered from negative externalities of the Asian crisis, and, consequently, have had an interest to stabilize their neighbours’ economies after the crisis. In contrast, Brazil was able to follow a beggar-thy-neighbour strategy at the turn of the millennium, which externalized some of the costs of Brazil's own economic crisis towards Argentina. As a result, Brazil has had no interest in providing liquidity for its regional neighbours after the crisis. France and Germany are not only economically but also institutionally highly embedded in the eurozone because they share a common currency with their regional neighbours. Thus, the stability of the eurozone is a vital interest for Europe's regional powers, and they devote significant resources to stabilize the economies of the eurozone's periphery.     

发展—安全互动演进的区域逻辑：以湄公河下游区域为例

发展—安全联结是国际安全领域的重大课题,它们的互动关系深刻影响着全球秩序与安全事态,这在"区域"这一国际互动与研究的关键层面尤其显著。通过引入"发展"这一关键变量,提供一个包括"发展"在内的"区域发展—安全复合体"分析框架,探究发展区域主义在区域安全与互动演进中的角色作用。湄公河下游区域是东亚发展—安全复合体塑造与演进的典型案例,通过各种发展合作活动,该区域的发展—安全复合体实现了从初级到深入的演变,从安全互动主导的"战争前线"转变为发展与安全和谐互促的"商业走廊"。在这一过程中,发展区域主义起着关键的能动作用,在物质、制度、文化等方面改变着区域的互动与结构,也造就了湄公河下游区域发展—安全复合体复合中心性与多元性、兼顾开放性与自主性以及在规范性与灵活性间寻求和谐的特征。     

Politicization of identity in a European borderland: Istria,Croatia, and authenticity, 1990–2003

In most studies of the Balkans and Eastern Europe, identity politics focuses on nationalism. Unfortunately, very few examine regional identities and how they too are politicized in similar ways for similar reasons. Istria provides a good example of how identity is politicized and how and why individuals adapt it to both internal and external influences. While in the past local and regional identities were politicized in response to colonization, more recently national divisions became more prominent. However, in the very recent past, Istrian identity again became politicized as many natives drew lines between themselves and what they saw as an external national influence emanating from Zagreb. In the 1990s, a renewed Croatian national movement competed with an Istrian regional movement. Istrian regionalists, seeking to justify taking and maintaining regional power and hoping to more quickly bring Croatia into the European Union, used this new political tactic against the nationalizing Croatian government. While both the nationalists and the regionalists claimed the other side's ideology was foreign to Istria, in actuality both have historical roots in the region. Though the competition was not as virulent as in past episodes of nationalist tension between Italians and Croats, it does fit a pattern of continuity in the region.