Nationwide inclusion and exclusion thresholds of representation

The theoretical inclusion and exclusion thresholds are, respectively, the vote shares below which a party cannot possibly win a seat, and above which it cannot possibly fail to do so. They are important in evaluating how hospitable electoral systems are to small parties. Previously, they have been calculated at the district level. Here the theory is extended to the national level. Surprisingly, the inclusion threshold depends on the smallest district in the country — not the largest. The exclusion threshold depends on all districts. The theoretical results are compared to empirical observations for 23 electoral systems. The inclusion threshold is indeed close to the minimal vote share that ever led to a seat in the national assembly. In stark contrast, the exclusion threshold is much higher than the maximal vote share that ever failed to produce a seat in practice. The total number of districts emerges as a significant variable.     

我国“国家有关规定”规定的立法完善

我国法律法规规定中含有“国家有关规定”字样的条文非常多,将这些条文进行粗略的分类,按照涉及技术类规范制定、引导法律适用、另行引用专门规范、作为兜底条款加以引用、涉及细化规定等可划分为5类。在不同的分类中,“国家有关规定”规定的效力不同,有的是绝对有效,有的是相对有效,有的则是模糊不精。必须在保证立法科学性、合法性、民主性的前提下对现行含有“国家有关规定”字样的法律法规条文进行清理,同时在新制定法律法规时要分清情况,慎用“国家有关规定”字样的规定。     

Restricting Russians: language and immigration laws in Soviet Latvia, 1956–1959

In 1956, a prominent faction within the leadership of Soviet Latvia, the Latvian national communists, launched two ambitious initiatives designed to redress perceived Stalinist Russification polices – a language law and residency restrictions. This article examines and evaluates these two policies and asks if they were part of a “Latvianization” program that deliberately targeted Russians for denial of residency permits and required Russians to gain Latvian-language competency within a two-year timeframe or face the threat of dismissal. In an effort to restore the primacy of the Latvian language, the national communists created a law enforcing knowledge of Latvian and Russian for Communist Party and government functionaries and service sector personnel. Using the Soviet legal system, the national communists also attempted to halt the influx of predominantly Slavic immigration to the Latvian capital, Riga. By instituting passport restrictions on settling in the city, the national communists sought to limit Slavic migration in order to maintain Riga’s Latvian character and reduce pressure on the city’s housing supply and municipal services. Existing studies deem passport restrictions in other Soviet cities a failure. The author argues, however, that the national communists’ scheme was generally successful, dramatically curbing migration to Riga during its operation.     

“Islamic cafés” and “Sharia dating:” Muslim youth,spaces of sociability,and partner relationships in Bosnia-Herzegovina

The paper explores forms of sociability and partner relationships among pious young Muslims in Sarajevo with a focus on the emic concepts of Islamic cafés (hospitality establishments perceived to operate according to Islamic moral principles) and Sharia dating (premarital relationships perceived to be sanctioned by Sharia). It draws on 10 months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in different spaces of Islamic worship, learning, and sociability. This paper places the renewed interest in Islam within the context of a post-Dayton Bosnia characterized by complex and impractical government structures, lingering post-war grievances, and a brutal transition to a neoliberal capitalist economy. Although it acknowledges the continuing relevance of Islam as a resource for Bosniak nation building, it suggests treating the Muslim faith community as overlapping but distinct from the Bosniak community. By focusing on gendered interaction and partner-seeking strategies, this paper explores how young members of this faith community contextually negotiate their Islamic beliefs with mainstream local expectations of conventional behavior. The paper argues that believers’ varying responses to this predicament can be observed as an example of the localization of Islam, but they do not constitute a return to local, traditional gender roles and marriage practices, nor are they an introduction of foreign cultural patterns.     

Turkic poetic heritage as symbol and spectacle of identity: observations on Turkmenistan’s Year of Magtymguly celebrations

This paper presents one case study of state-sponsored cultural activities that occurred throughout 2014, Turkmenistan’s Year of Magtymguly, the 290th anniversary of this Turkmen poet’s birth. Such activities constitute examples of public culture; they can organize representations of a society’s past and present to reaffirm for participants the values and power structure of their society and revalidate its philosophical underpinnings. After examining this Turkic poet’s iconicity, this paper compiles 2014's celebratory events from disparate sources, complementing broader general literature on Central Asia’s spectacles of public culture and their role in nation-building and identity-formation. Rather than merely resulting from any top-down decision specifying required activities nationwide, the year’s events involved numerous synergies as artists, museum and theater administrators, composers, and other cultural-sector workers benefited by responding to the potential of aligning their work with a theme as broad, as widely appreciated, and as eligible for various forms of support as this one. In addition, Turkmenistan’s strong central leadership benefited from this widely shared and highly visible celebration, especially emphasizing one element within Magtymguly’s eighteenth-century vision, an end to his people’s tribal conflicts within a unified Turkmenistan under one leader.