Self-expression values,loyalty generation,and support for authoritarianism: evidence from the Arab world

This study examines the micro foundations of political support in Arab polities. Most Arab states rank highly in aggregate human development or economic wealth, but they lag behind in democracy defying the predictions of modernization theory. Modernization and human development perspective implies that increased resources and self-expression values will induce critical political outlooks toward the regime. This study questions the applicability of this theory to the Arab region and proposes that colonial state formation history, international patron–client relations, and the domestic patronage networks have more leverage in explaining regime support in the Arab region. A series of multilevel and fixed effects regression estimations utilizing the Arab Democracy Barometer reveal that modernization perspective has some relevance. However, world system theory inspired patron–client perspective and loyalty generation through domestic distributive mechanisms play a greater role in shaping political attitudes. The results provide important insights about micro foundations of Arab authoritarianism and the differential utility of emancipative values formed in the context of hierarchical world order.     

Demand for democracy in resilient authoritarianism: evidence from rural China

This article investigates the sources of public demand for democratic institutions under authoritarian rule. While a growing body of literature recognizes that in authoritarian polities such as China, economic development does not lead to democratization in a linear fashion, our understanding of the sources of democratization in resilient authoritarianism remains limited. This article provides an empirical test of the three most compelling theories to subsequently emerge: modernization theory, social capital theory, and institutional theory. The results of a survey conducted in the countryside of Zhejiang and Sichuan provinces provide support for the institutional approach in understanding public demand for democracy in rural China, while the modernization theory and social capital theory are shown to be less useful. Specifically, results show that people working in the government system are core supporters of the regime, whereas income, education attainment, social trust, and one’s satisfaction with regime institutions turn out to be irrelevant and do not serve as direct sources of public demand for democracy. These results extend our understanding of the complex interaction between an authoritarian regime and its people, shedding new light on the democratic prospects for resilient authoritarianism.     

Was Tito's Yugoslavia totalitarian?

State authorities in Croatia and Slovenia have recently indiscriminately designated Tito's Yugoslavia as totalitarian without reservations. Neither of these authorities referred to any systematic considerations of totalitarianism, nor did they analyze the manner of the alleged system's presence and its time limits. The current paper indicates that, from the middle of the 60s, millions of copies of religious newspapers were published and economic enterprises operated beyond the state command economy. In addition, the republics were largely autonomous players and catered for their own interests. Although Tito's cult was promoted, his power was limited by the federal nature of the state. Neither any other elements of totalitarianism could be found.     

比较政治学在东南亚权威主义研究中的新进展:议题、方法与趋势

自21世纪以来,比较政治学研究发生了从"民主转型"到权威主义政治的转向,东南亚的权威主义国家也得到了比此前更多的关注。现有研究已经建立起系统的理论分析框架,形成了从权威主义起源到运作过程,再到持续结果的主要研究议题,出现了以斯雷特、比宾斯基和布朗利为代表的学者群体,他们分别提出了抗争政治与权威主义利维坦形成、执政党组织与权威主义持续性以及精英联盟关系与经济危机结果等理论。这些研究采用了诸如控制式比较、过程追踪和正负面案例的比较分析方法,并引入了时间和空间等维度去发展和检验理论。在未来的研究中,澄清起源和运作过程对权威主义持续结果的作用以形成统一的理论框架,在权威主义韧性外引入经济发展、社会稳定和公共福利等国家治理维度的议题,拓宽研究视野,将区域政治与国别政治相结合,是东南亚权威主义三个值得进一步探讨的研究方向。     

民主化和区域主义相关性研究:东盟的地区实践

民主化的实践对于东南亚区域主义产生了深远影响。随着东南亚地区合作的不断推进,政治转型成为该地区当下所面临的重要议题。本文拟结合民主化与区域主义两者关系的分析,探索传统上以精英为主导的区域主义正在经历的深刻嬗变。研究表明,民主化对于东南亚区域主义发展范式的影响是复杂的,以公民社会为主要载体的参与式区域主义方兴未艾,两种类型的区域主义勾画了东盟地区治理的图景。     

Liberal government and authoritarianism

This paper examines the intelligibility of authoritarian measures within Foucauldian analyses of the liberal government of the state. Such measures are understood as following from a liberal understanding of the task of government itself. This understanding rests on a distinction between the legal and political order (of 'the state') and a 'liberal police' of what is exterior to it, classically conceived as 'civil society'. The relation between these two aspects is conceived as a series of 'foldings' between the two sides of a liberal governing, which turn the injunction to govern through freedom into a set of binding obligations potentially or actually enforceable by coercive or sovereign instruments. The paper places this perspective within aspects of the genealogies of economy, poverty, welfare and police and discusses the trajectories of such foldings in the present.     

Revenge,Retribution, and Values: Social Attitudes and Punitive Sentencing

This study examined the pattern of relations between vengeance attitudes, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), and social dominance orientation (SDO) using the structure of value types proposed by Schwartz (Adv Exp Soc Psychol 25:1–65, 1992). Relations between these variables and support for a variety of sentencing options, including capital punishment, were then investigated. One hundred and forty-eight students in Adelaide, South Australia, completed a Vengeance Scale (Stuckless and Goranson, J Soc Behav Pers 7:25–42, 1992), measures of RWA and SDO, the Schwartz Value Survey (1992), and a Sentencing Goals Scale. As predicted, vengeance attitudes and SDO were found to be positively related to the importance of power values and negatively related to the importance of universalism and benevolence values. Vengeance attitudes were negatively related to rehabilitation and positively related to support for retribution and incapacitation sentencing goals, while RWA was positively related to the endorsement of deterrence and incapacitation as sentencing goals. Regression analyses indicated that only RWA and vengeance attitudes were unique predictors of death penalty support. Results provide support for the suggestion that vengeance is closely associated with our notion of retributive justice.     

民主转型中的韩国政党政治

就推动韩国政治转型的直接因素来说,韩国政党无疑具有相当关键的作用。然而国内的韩国学研究当中,长期以来,人们却忽视乃至刻意回避了韩国政党在民主政治转型过程中所体现出来的不可替代的重要作用。作者尝试着对韩国政治转型过程中政党这一"隐形的力量"所具有的民主化功能进行了初步地考察和分析,并将这种研究视角推及到了整个东亚地区,以期表明这种研究成果的地区规律性,及其地区借鉴意义和启示作用。     

Are today's authoritarian leaders doomed to be indicted when they leave office? The Russian and other post-Soviet cases

The attitudes of leaders toward their personal future are very important to domestic and international politics. These views are particularly vital in the case of leaders of non-democratic regimes who could face legal prosecution for their corrupt acts or violations of human rights in their own country and abroad. In spite of these fears, however, the leaders in many authoritarian societies trespass laws, both domestic and international, in order to preserve their power and enrich their families. They expose themselves to the danger of the prosecution after they leave office or lose control of the regime. In this context, the author pays special attention to Vladimir Putin's political future and to the developments in Russia, which favor and disfavor his continued stay in power after 2008.     

The limits of feminist political intervention in Singapore

This article uncovers the strongly ideological quality in Singapore's theory and practice of pragmatism. It also points to a strongly pragmatic quality in the ideological negotiations that play out within the dynamics of hegemony. In this complex relationship, the combination of ideological and pragmatic manoeuvring over the decades has resulted in the historic political dominance of the People's Action Party (PAP) government in partnership with global capital. But in an evolving, diversifying and globalising society, this manoeuvring has also engendered a number of mismatched expectations. It has also seen a greater sensitivity and attention to the inherent ideological contradictions and socio-economic inequalities that may erode what has been a relatively stable partnership between state and capital. This article argues that Singapore's one-party dominant state is the result of continuous ideological work that deploys the rhetoric of pragmatism to link the notion of Singapore's impressive success and future prospects to its ability to attract global capital. In turn, this relies on maintaining a stable political system dominated by an experienced, meritocratic and technocratic PAP government. While this Singaporean conventional wisdom has supported the political and economic interests of the state and global capital in a period of neo-liberal globalisation, its internal contradictions and external pressures have also begun to challenge its hegemonic pre-eminence.