马来西亚国阵政府的华人政策走向

本文认为 ,由于华人选票对国阵的重要作用 ,1999年大选后继续执政的国阵政府将继续实施较宽松的华人政策。事实上 ,政府在大选前后已推出不少宽松的华人政策。然而 ,在涉及马来人特权等重大问题上 ,马来人政党巫统为首的国阵政府绝不会让步。因为占人口多数的马来人 ,始终是巫统保有强势政治地位的社会基础。马华两族的地位差别还会继续存在。     

Social Policy,Inequalities and the Battle of Rights in Latin America

Targeted social policies and other more universal forms of social protection have shaped (the shifts in) the politics of popular support in Latin America. Since the early 2000s this has led to a tendency towards the election of left-leaning governments, stimulating stronger political pressure for more extensive redistribution. Yet despite a wide range of cash transfers, subsidies and other social policies, the ‘post-neoliberal’ ideal of welfare did not reshape the political and relational powers of citizens in the ways necessary to redress the structural determinants of poverty and inequality across the region. This article reveals a ‘dark side’ of social policy in Latin America, arguing that targeted and precariously funded welfare regimes are creating tensions between the socio-economic and ecological spheres that undermine inclusive citizenship and democracy.     

Principles in the pipeline: managing transatlantic values and interests in Central Asia

After a decade of relative neglect post‐Soviet Central Asia has become a foreign policy priority for the transatlantic community. Both the United States and Europe have engaged with the region in recent years in pursuit of new strategic interests, including maintaining military basing access in support of coalition operations in Afghanistan and securing the export of Central Asian oil and gas to the West. Despite this period of renewed engagement, however, the quality of democratic governance within the region remains poor, especially in comparison with other post‐communist regions that successfully completed their political transitions. In fact, the United States and the European Union have often tempered promoting their Central Asian democratization agendas in order to maintain access to these strategically important fixed assets. The transatlantic struggle to balance the pursuit of strategic interests and democratic values has been rendered more difficult by Russia's recent resurgence as a regional power. Backed by the Central Asian governments, Moscow has challenged the purpose and influence of western‐based international and non‐governmental organizations in the region, thereby further diminishing the transatlantic community's capacity to promote sustained democratic reforms.     

Remeasuring and rethinking social cleavages in Russia: Continuity and changes in electoral geography 1917–1995

This paper examines the role of social cleavages in creating spatial associations between major pre-Revolutionary and post-Soviet political parties at the guberniya-level statistical aggregates. The paper begins with a theoretical discussion of social cleavages and a literature review of cleavage theory research applied to various Russian elections. The analysis of spatial associations between the pre-Revolutionary/post-Soviet parties involved elaborating a new measurement framework, creating a spatial database using GIS, transformation of thematic social–economic–geographic attributes, calculating the strength of the linear relationship among regional spatial units and utilizing probit statistical models. This research empirically supports the hypothesis that contemporary Russian parties are expressions of rediscovered cleavages as well as of conflicts engendered by the Tsarist and Soviet and post-Soviet periods of development. It appeared that the constituent assembly election of 1917 and parliamentary election of 1995 tend to be “maintaining” elections for the liberals. The situation appeared different for the communitarian parties. A critical realignment – significant changes in the left electorate and a split in this electorate did occur. The 1995 election results indicate that only parties with developed networks and local and regional organizations faired well in the election and that nationalization of Russian political life was still weak in 1995.     

How Turkey’s democratic backsliding compromises the international dimension of democratization

Previous research suggests that linkage to the West can have a strong democratizing influence on transitioning states. Yet, Western linkage and leverage lost much of their democratizing force by the early twenty‐first century. Turkey's political trajectory over the last decade furnishes a representative case study of the waning power of the West as an anchor for democratization in high‐linkage countries. Despite Turkey's robust ties to the West, competitive authoritarianism has been further entrenched and signs of a drift toward full‐fledged authoritarianism emerged since the failed coup of July 2016. We argue that in a context where the European Union and the United States’ willingness to support democracy declined considerably the AKP’s distancing from the West in foreign policy and balancing the Western powers with its new economic and political relations with autocratic regimes have served to stifle the democratizing pressure of Western linkage by lowering the cost of autocratic behavior for the AKP government and facilitating Turkey's illiberal turn.     

The predicament of 'civil society' in Central Asia and the 'Greater Middle East'

This article discuses the concept of 'civil society' and how it has been used by the international community to promote democratization. It addresses some of the dimensions and side-effects of the policy, such as the relationship with traditional societies and power networks. It also addresses the importance of attending to the conditions of implementation, political issues such as nationalism and Islam, and political actors who may only have recent democratic credentials. Political democratization—free elections—is clearly popular in the Greater Middle East and Central Asia. During the last two years people have voted every time they have had the opportunity, despite the dangers. The debate concerning the compatibility of Islam and democracy overlooks the fact that the main obstacle to democratization in the area is usually not a religious but a secular authoritarian regime. The difficulty of building a democracy with people we do not consider to be democrats is discussed. There can be no democratization process without taking into account the mainstream Islamist parties and without acknowledging the importance of nationalism. There is a clash between the 'war on terror' approach and the call for elections: one cannot put Hamas and Hezbollah on the terrorist list and call for free elections in which both would emerge as legitimate and representative political movements.     

Incomplete Sovereigns: Unpacking Patterns of Indigenous Self-Governance in the United States and Canada

ABSTRACT

In the early 1970s, both the Canadian and United States federal governments introduced modern land claim agreements as a first step forward in the states’ recognition of Indigenous goals for self-determination. Since then, both the United States and Canadian federal governments have incrementally expanded their recognition of Indigenous rights to include Indigenous goals for political self-determination. Yet, despite the fact that both countries began implementing broadly similar policies at approximately the same time, the degree to which Indigenous political and economic self-determination has been realized varies considerably both within and between the two countries. The variation in Indigenous self-governing power and authority suggests that the policy shift towards Indigenous self-determination is incomplete and has faced important barriers to implementation. This paper investigates two key aspects of this variation in Indigenous self-determination in the United States and Canada: (1) institutional histories embedded in geography, and (2) the temporal nature of policy frameworks. I argue that the full realization of Indigenous self-determination has been shaped in different ways and, ultimately, is limited by the intersection of embedded institutional legacies and federal political dynamics.     

Democratization and museum policy in South Korea

ABSTRACT

This article examines the two distinct historical policy paths taken by the South Korean government in the late twentieth century towards the democratization of museums. One was based on the creation of a museological public sphere as an extension of the political democratization movement of the 1980s. This demonstrated the potential to become a valuable component of the wider incipient national public sphere within which civic subjects could discuss their individual and collective historical memories. However, despite this potential, a museological public sphere failed to influence the general trajectory of national policy regarding the democratization of museums that had been in development since the early 1980s. This other policy path towards cultural democratization was triggered by the award of the Seoul Olympics in 1981. It was based on public participation and entitled the ‘cultural Olympics’. An important strategy of the cultural Olympics was the construction of a new institutional infrastructure to expand the public right to enjoy culture. This path facilitated an increasing entanglement with neoliberalism in 1990s. Finally, the 1997 IMF crisis furthered the association between a superficial idea of democratization through institutional expansion and the practices of neoliberalism, a trend which continues within South Korean museum policy today.     

From the ‘new localism’ to the ‘new regionalism’? The implications of regional development agencies for city–regional relations

Throughout the last three decades efforts to regenerate British cities have been based around the construction of new institutional alliances and policy networks supported by a series of urban-based initiatives. Successive Conservative governments premised their intervention on the assumption that cities (and particular parts therein) were the most appropriate geographical level around which to organise policy intervention. In pursuing this city-based agenda, the policies were themselves instrumental in constituting the city as an object of policy: a problem in need of a solution. The aim of this paper, however, is not to explore how certain spaces or scales become constructed through, for example, government policy, political practices or state restructuring. Rather the paper augments work conducted on the socially constructed nature of ‘cities’ and ‘regions’. It explores for regeneration policy and politics the implications of the tendential shift away from a model of ‘new localism’ towards an alternative model of ‘new regionalism’. The origins of the central element of New Labour's emergent regional project — the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) — are established before the paper moves on to examine the likely political relationships between the local state, drawing upon the example of Manchester, and the regional state, drawing upon North West England, under the new institutional arrangements.     

Political Equality and the Regulation of Election Spending by Parallel Campaigners

The regulation of political finance, including the funding of political parties and election campaigns, remains contentious in many democracies. A particular focus of debate has been the regulation of ‘parallel campaigners’– that is, non-candidate and non-party political actors – wanting to influence the election outcome by bringing to bear their economic resources. Drawing on both recent unsuccessful and current attempts at reforming the regulation of election spending by parallel campaigners in New Zealand, this paper explores the conflict between the democratic right to freedom of expression and the idea that all citizens should have a fair opportunity for effective political influence. It is argued that Joshua Cohen's principle of political equality, which entails the balancing of these two values, provides a justifiable framework for regulating political finance, including parallel campaign expenditures, in liberal democracies.     

Sectoral Versus Territorial Regional Planning and Development in Norway

New regional policies in Norway and many other countries try to empower their regions through creating a balance between central governing with emphasis on redistribution of activities and resources, and local mobilization with emphasis on self reliance, innovation and learning by doing. In Norway municipalities and counties have for a long period had this double function, but we now see that the vertical policy of implementing national welfare policy has grown and become dominant. As a consequence, the horizontal policy of social mobilization has been neglected, and has to some extent been taken over by inter-municipal and interregional organizations. Normally, these organizations are in practice organized as regional development agencies. They seem to be vulnerable political institutions that seek legitimacy from--and need acceptance and support from--both territorial and sectoral governments. The regional planning process is regarded as an important tool in their political institution building process. In this paper I want to explain how regional planning and institution building in Norway in practice have moved towards a two-parallel system.     

Policy Instrument Choices for Growth Management and Land Use Regulation

What factors account for local government land use practices and their choices among specific growth management policy instruments? We apply the political market framework to examine how land use policy choices in Florida are shaped by institutional features of county governments and the demands of organizations and interests in a community. Local policy decisions reflect a balance of the conflicting interests and responses to economic and political pressures. The results demonstrate that county government structure and election rules play critical roles in the adoption of urban service boundaries, incentive zoning, and transfer of development rights programs. We report evidence consistent with the argument that these “second‐generation” growth management policies are motivated by exclusionary goals.     

NORTHERN REPLIES TO THE BRIAND MEMORANDUM IN 1930

The Briand Memorandum in 1930 was the most important effort to create stronger European political unity in the interwar period. The responses by the governments of Sweden, Finland and Estonia have not been studied before. It is convenient to study these replies together and focus on possible cooperation between neighbouring countries. Whilst France was using the Memorandum to europeanize her relations with Germany, Sweden, Finland and Estonia also adopted the Memorandum to their foreign policy. As a result a common policy towards the Memorandum could not be found, despite the fact that the three countries agreed on multiple issues.     

Parties,Governments and Pollsters: A New Form of Patronage?

In its first term, the Howard government hired Australasian Research Strategies (ARS), headed by pollster Mark Textor, to conduct market research for several Commonwealth departments and agencies. This was, the Labor Opposition claimed, a case of the Liberals handing jobs to their 'mates'. Textor played a key role in the Liberals' 1996 and 1998 federal election campaigns. However, Labor's attack rings hollow since in the 1980s the Hawke government similarly contracted Rod Cameron's ANOP to conduct opinion research for Commonwealth departments and agencies. At the time Cameron was Labor's strategic pollster and centrally involved in planning Labor election campaigns. On both sides of Australian politics, governments have begun to channel patronage towards their party's pollsters. In this research note, we suggest that this development cannot be explained as 'jobs for the boys'. Instead, this new form of patronage has its roots in the vital role that pollsters now play in guiding election campaigns, and in the commercial reality that Australian politics provides too little work to sustain specialist political pollsters. Parties in government now appear to utilise incumbency to sustain an ongoing relationship with the commercial polling organisations like ANOP and ARS to whom they will entrust much of the planning of their campaign for re-election.     

What Can the State Do for You?

It has been suggested that Swedish policy during the early post-war period was strongly directed towards mobility-increasing expenditures – most notably relocation allowances – aimed at moving labour from north to south. While this view has dominated the academic discussion on labour market policy, there is little direct evidence. We make three claims. First, the relocation allowances have to be evaluated against the regional policy. Second, by doing so we show that the mobility-oriented policy was predominant only for a short period of time: in the early 1970s, there was a decisive shift towards a policy directed at stimulating employment in the north. Third, drawing on this, we revaluate the previous view on policy making in Sweden. Our analysis suggests that the Social Democratic government acted in a voter-maximizing way. The relocation allowances were introduced at the behest of the Trade Union Confederation (LO). The regional subsidies were expanded when voter sentiment turned against the perceived depletion of rural regions. However, this strategy interacted with the political and institutional environment. The new election law in 1970 and political competition from the Centre Party pushed the Social Democrats to shift their policies on regional subsidies.     

‘Defying’ democratization and environmental protection in Kenya: The case of Karura Forest reserve in Nairobi

It had been assumed that the rise of multipartyism in sub-Saharan Africa in the late 1980s and 1990s would necessarily lead to better environmental management. Limited studies, mostly based on experiences in southern Africa, suggest that the relationship between the environment and democratization in sub-Saharan Africa still remains an open question. Furthermore, democratization in sub-Saharan Africa has coincided with the implementation of neoliberal-inspired economic adjustment programs. So far, most discussions of the environmental effects of democratization in the region reflect studies of democratization and neoliberalization which tend to treat the two processes separately, failing to recognize their complex interconnections, both in their material and discursive dimensions. This paper is, therefore, an effort to broaden the discussion of the interactions between democratization and the environment in sub-Saharan Africa. Accordingly, the paper investigates the change in the protection of Karura Forest, a key public forest reserve in Nairobi, Kenya, during a period of multi-party politics and election and neoliberal economic reforms in the country in the early 1990s. The paper uses the urban political ecology perspective to help tease out the interactions between democratization and the environment, and highlights how neoliberalism may complicate those interactions. Ultimately, this paper supports cautionary observations about the environmental effects of democratization in sub-Saharan Africa.     

Ideology and Realpolitik: East German Attitudes towards Zionism and Israel

Over several decades, the East German stance towards Israel was marked by condemnation of Zionism, a unilateral position on the Arab-Israeli conflict and denial of reparations and restitution claims. This position had its ideological background in the communist approach to the “Jewish question,” anti-Semitism and nationalism, while the most important criterion in shaping attitudes towards Israel was the incorporation of the German Democratic Republic's Middle East policy into the foreign policy of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. In addition, the East German political elite followed its own political interests when it tried to break through the West German Hallstein doctrine with the help of some Arab countries.     

Regional economic resilience: the role of national and regional policies

In recent years, economic resilience has become a popular term in both theory and policy practice. This interest was triggered by the fact that some regional economies were extremely vulnerable, while others have managed to overcome, more or less effectively, the worse consequences of the current economic crisis. Within this context, questions arise regarding the role that policies at both the national and subnational levels can play in shaping regional economic resilience. Although high in the academic and political agenda, understanding the policy and governance aspects of resilience still remains a relatively underdeveloped area. The paper contributes to this debate focusing on an area which has been most severely hit by crises, the Region of West Macedonia, in Greece. The case study builds on the historical trajectory of the region in order to explain how different types of policies have influenced the ability of West Macedonia to respond to economic slumps and crises of the last 30 years. Evidence suggests that national protectionist policies largely explain not only resilience of the region against previous crises, but also its vulnerability towards the still ongoing economic crisis.     

Policy Agendas in Australian Politics: The Governor-General's Speeches, 1945–2008

The Policy Agendas Project collects and organises data from official documents to trace changes in the policy agenda and outputs of national, sub-national and supranational governments. In this paper we use the policy agendas method to analyse the changing contents of those Australian Governor-General's speeches delivered on behalf of incoming governments between 1945 and 2008. We suggest that these speeches provide an important insight into how the executive wishes to portray its policy agenda as it starts a new term of government. In mapping the changing agenda in this way we address four questions: which issues have risen or fallen in importance? When and in relation to what issues have there been policy ‘punctuations’? How stable is the Australian policy agenda? How fragmented is the policy agenda? We find evidence of a number of policy punctuations and one turning-point: the election of the Whitlam government.     

The Long Sunset of Strategic Partnership: Russia's Evolving China Policy

The strategic partnership between Moscow and Beijing is arguably the greatest Russian foreign policy achievement of the post-Soviet period. In just over a decade, the relationship has grown from a barely civil interaction to one of political and strategic convergence and flourishing economic cooperation. Once divisive issues such as border demarcation and Chinese 'illegal migration' into the Russian Far East have been largely defused, while bilateral trade has tripled during the past four years. Nevertheless, despite these successes, the strategic partnership remains fragile and vulnerable to bilateral and international developments. A negative historical legacy, enduring cultural prejudices and strategic suspicions, and even commercial disagreements threaten, over time, to undermine many of the gains of the recent past. In the transformed global environment after 9/11 there are signs that Moscow is rethinking its approach towards China as part of a more general evolution in Russian strategic calculus in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. China's emergence as the next super-power, the spectre of increased Sino-American tensions, the changing balance of power between Moscow and Beijing, and rival agendas in Central Asia all have the potential to rekindle once dormant political differences and security fears. Although the breadth of common interests means there is no early prospect of confrontation, the much-vaunted Russia–China strategic partnership may be giving way to a growing strategic divergence.