International Regimes and Democratic Governance: Political Equality and Influence in Global Institutions

Proponents of cosmopolitan democracy rely primarily on institutional design to make their case for the feasibility of democratic governance at this level. Another strategy seems more plausible: proposing a 'non-ideal' theory in Rawls's sense that examines the social forces and conditions currently promoting democracy at the international level. The strongest forces operating now are various transnational associations that help to produce and monitor regime formation and compliance. Such a highly decentralized form of governance suggests that democratization is thereby promoted by a dense network of associations in international civil society, a global public sphere, and responsive political organizations. However much these forces disperse power through the normative principle of equal access to political influence, they could also fall well short of realizing desirable ideals such as free and open deliberation. In order not to devolve into an interest group pluralism, the decentralized strategy requires that a richer democracy be realized through the legal institutionalization of free and equal access to the global public sphere.     

Economic Integration and the Politics of Independence

Abstract. Are nationalism and international economic integration irreconcilable? This paper explores the theoretical connections between these two phenomena and develops a framework to assess the implications of international economic integration for nationalist movements in the developed West. We focus upon the structural context of nationalism in democratic societies, emphasising the impact of changes in the international political economy and the influence of domestic institutions. Although the demand for secession may not stem from economic calculations, the expected costs and benefits of independence are constraints to nationalist mobilisation and are conditioned by the structure of the international political economy. We identify three ideal types of international structures and discuss how the strategies and prospects of nationalist movements are shaped within each of them. We find that a structure of ‘institutionalised interdependence’ is most conducive to nationalist mobilisation in a liberal democratic context, but the impact of economic integration depends largely upon conditions defined by domestic institutional structures.     

Ceaser's American Political Science

Abstract

The transition and subsequent consolidation of countries that move from an authoritarian to a democratic regime have been widely explained by factors such as the international environment, economic conditions, political culture, institutions, and most prominently, elite behavior.¹ But although elites can make decisions about the institutional, political, and economic future of a country in transition, they cannot guarantee that those decisions will be implemented or supported by the populace, or that the incipient democratic system will stabilize. What is frequently neglected in these elite-centered accounts of democratic transitions, then, is civil society and its links to elites.     

Bounded political contestation: the domestic translation of international health and housing rights in Australia

Political contestation within liberal democratic states is an important, albeit limited, guide in defining how these states domestically implement their international human rights obligations. While often ritualistically endorsing human rights standards, political actors allow themselves a limited policy space with their domestic political contest circumscribed by more pervasive influences, often at odds with the state's international commitments. This article examines recent health and housing policy initiatives by Australia's two major political parties and assesses them against its international commitments. Applying a social constructivist approach, this article argues that the dominant neoliberal political discourse and the state's institutional structure set contextual boundaries to the parties’ policy contestation and reveal the limited influence of domestic political contestation in determining Australia's rights implementation.     

Water quality in international river basins

The major issue of pollution control in water quality management is too often postponed or neglected in treaties concerning international river basins. Deterioration of transboundary waters cannot be dealt with unilaterally, and is often treated by the affected parties as secondary to the primary goal of economic development, even in settings conducive to high levels of pollution. This frequently results in environmental crises.This paper focuses on the way in which water quality is addressed in seven selected international basin accords. A framework for the structured comparisons of these basins is presented, based on the following four major forces that were found to influence the extent to which pollution issues were encompassed within the accords: flash-points, financial capacities, globalization/regionalization, and political windows of opportunity.The extent to which the above forces were mobilized to influence the water quality aspects of the treaties that have been studied, varies in accordance with: the severity of the water quality problem in relation to the basins' physical and human settings; the level of competitive uses of basin waters; the level of economic development of each riparian and the co-basin states as a whole; the locational setting and political power asymmetry among riparian states; and whether or not the institutions or agreements are basin-wide. The forces identified in this study are meant to provide some guidance to the factors conducive to failure or success.     

Beyond Hybridity to the Politics of Scale: International Intervention and ‘Local’ Politics

The evident failures of international peacebuilding and statebuilding interventions (PSBIs) have recently prompted a focus on the interaction between interventions and target societies and states. Especially popular has been the ‘hybridity’ approach, which understands forms of peace and governance emerging through the mixing of local and international agendas and institutions. This article argues that hybridity is a highly problematic optic. Despite contrary claims, hybridity scholarship falsely dichotomizes ‘local’ and ‘international’ ideal‐typical assemblages, and incorrectly presents outcomes as stemming from conflict and accommodation between them. Scholarship in political geography and state theory provides better tools for explaining PSBIs’ outcomes as reflecting socio‐political contestation over power and resources. We theorize PSBIs as involving a politics of scale, where different social forces promote and resist alternative scales and modes of governance, depending on their interests and agendas. Contestation between these forces, which may be located at different scales and involved in complex, tactical, multi‐scalar alliances, explains the uneven outcomes of international intervention. We demonstrate this using a case study of East Timor, focusing on decentralization and land policy.     

Tracking democracies: Italy and Japan in historical perspective

Abstract

The Italian and Japanese roads toward democracy have been paved by external forces, by the timing of economic development, by ‘great’ leaders and by such factors as institutions, class structure, geography and even by accident. In finding a pair of countries where so much is similar, and yet where fundamental differences penist, comparativists have fertile ground in which to look for key factors in political (and democratic) change. This article, in short, takes aim at illuminating these factors by distinguishing between the structural and cultural conditions within which democratic tracks were laid in Japanese and Italian history. It concludes that a closer examination of leadership and agency is necessary to explain more fully democratic development in Italy and Japan.     

Struggles of recognition: adverse effects of China’s living human treasures program

ABSTRACT

Heritagization processes have resulted in struggles of recognition across the globe. Scholarly work has demonstrated that determining what and whose cultural architecture, objects and practices are to be considered ‘heritage’ results in inclusion and exclusion effects which deprive some individuals, communities or ethnic groups of recognition. Many of these studies build on Western theories of recognition as developed by Axel Honneth or Nancy Fraser. However, due to the Western origin of these theories and – in most cases – application to democratic nation-states, the question arises whether Western theories of recognition can in fact be applied to non-Western authoritarian states. Taking the Chinese LHT system, the so-called ‘representative ICH Inheritor program,’ as a case study, I explore to what extent Western theories of recognition explain struggles of recognition in PR China. I argue that while these theories are useful in explaining the effects and purposes underlying struggles of recognition, authoritarian regimes like China may exacerbate struggles of recognition since their ‘institutional patterns of value recognition’ can more openly and forcefully use recognition and misrecognition as a tool to foster political and economic objectives. However, citizens respond by resigning, contesting or circumventing official decision-making processes.     

Community Engagement: Participation on Whose Terms?

Community engagement and citizen participation have long been important themes in liberal democratic theory, although managerial versions of liberal democracy have typically been dominant. In the past two decades, however, many countries have seen a shift away from a managerial or top-down approach, towards a revitalised emphasis on building institutional bridges between governmental leaders and citizenry, often termed ‘community engagement’. This paper outlines some of the main explanations for this shift, including international trends in governance and political economy; the availability of improved communications technologies; the need to share responsibility for resolving complex issues; and the local politics of managing social, economic and environmental projects. Some critical perspectives are also raised, suggesting a degree of scepticism about the intentions of government and implying serious limits on the potential influence of the citizenry and community groups. Important distinctions are drawn between policy arenas, in relation to the different dynamics and opportunities in different policy fields. The importance of building effective capacity for citizens and all non-government organisations (NGOs) to participate is emphasised. Typologies of community engagement are outlined, and linked to ideas about social capital.     

International Institutions and Social Learning in the Management of Global Environmental Risks

This article investigates the role played by formal international institutions in the broader process of international efforts to respond to and manage global and transboundary environmental risks. Because few international institutions are designed to deal with the broad nature of environmental risks, it focuses on institutional learning. By analyzing the experiences of the United Nations Environment Program, World Meteorological Organization, and other international institutions involved with global warming, this article identifies institutional properties (or functions) that encourage or inhibit social learning in the management of global environmental risks by international institutions, and that influence the adoption of such lessons by their constituent members.     

Role conceptions,order transition and institutional balancing in the Asia-Pacific: a new theoretical framework

The dawn of the twenty-first century witnessed a new wave of multilateral initiatives in the Asia-Pacific. By integrating institutional balancing theory and role theory, the author proposes a new theoretical framework—‘balance of roles’—to explain the variations in institutional strategies by different states. It is argued that a state’s role conception will shape its institutional balancing strategies in an order transition period. An order defender, like the USA, is more likely to adopt exclusive institutional balancing to exclude its target from its dominated institutions. An order challenger, such as China, will choose both inclusive and exclusive institutional balancing to maximise its own power and legitimacy in a new international order. As a kingmaker, a proactive second-tier state is more likely to pick an inter-institutional balancing strategy to initiate new institutions for competing for influence with existing institutions. An institutionalised order transition might be more peaceful than widely perceived.     

智力迁移国外研究进展

智力迁移是一种国际现象,是世界各国普遍关注的问题。目前有关国际智力迁移的理论成果尽管很丰富,有新古典经济学理论、二元劳动力市场理论、新迁移经济学理论、相对贫困假说、世界体系理论、社会网络理论和机构理论等,但这些理论都有其侧重点,都不能全面综合的解释智力迁移现象。在评述这些理论的基础上,把影响智力迁移的要素归纳为四种:经济、社会、政治和国家联系;重点分析了智力迁移对迁出国的不利影响,认为应该通过国家之间的补偿机制逐渐消除其不利影响。     

Citizen-led democratic reform: innovations in Indi

Contemporary political systems are experiencing a democratic disconnect between formal institutions of representative government, and the more informal spaces of political participation. Rather than offer an institutional remedy, this article turns to practice and considers how citizens themselves are seeking to transform dysfunctional democratic practices. The article provides an in-depth analysis of democratic events that have unfolded between 2012 and 2017 in the Australian federal electorate of Indi. The analysis explores the intertwined participatory efforts of the citizens’ group, Voices4Indi, and the local Independent federal member, MP Cathy McGowan. The Indi experience demonstrates that while citizens may be frustrated with ‘politics as usual’, they are not rejecting the system but rather instigating creative democratic reforms.     

The EHCA 1985 (NSW): A Historical Perspective on Issues Arising in the Control of Toxic Chemicals

The paper applies the social systems theory of Claus Offe to a case study of the Environmentally Hazardous Chemicals Act (EHCA) 1985 (NSW). The events of the case study lead to the conclusion that the EHCA represents a failed attempt at democratic rationalisation and reform of toxic chemicals legislation in NSW. Moreover, the values embedded in the legislation reflect the interests of international corporate goals and domestic political expediency. Offe's exposition of the contradictory role of the advanced capitalist state illuminates both critiques. Not only must the state actively foster the process of capitalist accumulation but it must prevent this drive from suffering its own consequences through the violation of 'natural limits' as well as instigate policies to maintain and further its own legitimacy. Hence the paper acts as a study of the structural impediments to environmental policy reform.     

Global Society and Its Ancient Greek Antecedents

Can a democratic Global Society become the alternative to Empire and bring order into present international anarchy? One hundred percent sovereignty in nation states gives “security” to each but creates “anarchy” in relations between states. To bring order into international relations some sovereignty has to be surrendered. Empire, which does bring an order of sorts, is imposed from outside, is undemocratic and aggrandising. Global Society can be conceptualised as its alternative. Sharply contrasting Global Society to Empire tends to pose the former as a panacea, but it is important to know its potential faults. Global Society can be envisioned at the constitutive stage and as continuing to exert influence within the institutions it creates. At the difficult constitutive stage, it will be fragile and of unwieldy size and ought only be called into play at critical junctures. The institutions it creates will be a democratic federal regime of regional blocks of states. To resolve issues, Global Society presumes effective consocial dialogue and participation rather than violent contention. Classical and Hellenistic Greece provide examples where vision and honour battled with the ambitions and greed of Empire and remarkably sometimes won. All the Greek city-states were under some sort of regional federal alliance at different times and drew strength from shared religious sanctuaries and their attached Games. The various interchanges between democratic Federalism and Empire in ancient Greece offers a microcosm of today's interregnum between modern and postmodern international relations.

For as democratic political theorists at the start of the twenty first century, we do not seem to be able to do without the legitimizing idea of the People, but we do not know what to do with it.

—Margaret Canovan, “The People, the Masses, and the Mobilization of Power: The Paradox of Hannah Arendt's ‘Populism’”     

Regime Complexity and the Institutions of Crisis and Development Finance

The theory of regime complexity offers a useful lens through which to analyse the increasing density of international institutions and the patterns of conflict and cooperation among them. Scholarship on crisis and development finance would benefit from more fully employing this approach to explain the emergence of overlapping institutions and offer recommendations for designing regime complexes. The theory advanced here emphasizes the strategies of key states to use institutional overlap to limit agency ‘drift’ away from their preferences. Prioritizing control often comes at the cost of conflict among the institutions, however, and can thus impede the achievement of financial stability and development goals. The regime complexity approach is distinct from the rational design of institutions, institutional experimentalism and theoretical realism. Drawing on lessons from the euro crisis, this article offers informed conjectures on financial arrangements in the regions of Latin America and East Asia and their interaction with global multilateral institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund.     

To the barracks: the President,the military and democratic consolidation in Portugal (1976–1980)

After two turbulent years in which different pathways for the future of the political and institutional framework of Portugal clashed, the country began a process of consolidation of the democratic institutions delineated between 1975/6. However, the role played by the military in the fall of the previous dictatorial regime and the fragility of the new democratic institutions did not allow their immediate withdrawal from political life. The President of the Republic was a military man and the political parties had agreed to maintain an unelected sovereign body, the Council of the Revolution, which only dissolved in 1982. Based on primary sources that only recently became available, this article presents some elements that help to understand the success of democratic consolidation in Portugal. This long process should not be interpreted as a confrontation between civilians, desirous to put an end to military tutelage, and the military, who at all costs sought to keep their privileges. The dividing line should be placed between those who defended the maintenance of the status quo, and the supporters of military subordination to the civil power.     

International Assistance to the Former Soviet Union: Conditions and Transitions1

Since the demise of the Soviet Union the newly independent states (NIS) have attempted the wholesale reform of their economic, political, and social institutions. With varying levels of success they have sought to create new institutions or reorganize old institutions, often so as to mirror similar institutions in western Europe and North America. Many nations and international organizations have sought to influence these transitions with technical assistance, foreign aid, concessional loans, and trade/investment promotion programs. In this article we attempt to bridge the conceptual, analytic, and empirical gaps between those who argue that external influences remain unimportant and those who believe that international organizations and foreign governments can support reforms. Specifically, we argue that although external assistance can play a positive role in the successful consolidation of political and economic reforms, the contribution of external assistance to the post-Soviet transitions has been limited by the institutional arrangements, technical proficiency, and political motivations of the aid providers. We thus analyze patterns of foreign assistance to demonstrate that implicit conditionalities imposed by aid donors upon recipient countries—with regard to geographic distribution, program priorities, timing, and graduation criteria—often force recipients to comply with reform agendas that may or may not be favorable for the recipient.     

Australian discourses of democracy

Democracy is to a significant extent what political actors and ordinary people make of it. The inquiry reported here determines how the individuals who are the constituents of any actual or potential Australian political order conceptualise democracy and their own place in it. Political discourse analysis and Q methodology are deployed to reveal the discourses of democracy present in Australia. The four discourses uncovered are termed resigned acceptance, inclusive republicanism, right‐minded democracy, and anxious egalitarianism. Their results illuminate Australian political culture, the attractiveness and feasibility of different kinds of institutional innovation, and the real‐world prospects for various kinds of democratic theory.     

Rationalising parliamentary systems

Public Choice analysis of democratic political institutions focuses on the issues that are most salient under US constitutional arrangements. Parliamentary systems offer different institutional arrangements and different challenges to the Public Choice approach. We outline a Public Choice account of parliamentary democracy which concentrates attention on the roles of electoral competition and disciplined political parties, while also offering a discussion of parliamentary procedure. The Public Choice approach is contrasted with the mainstream view of representative, responsible government in which disciplined political parties are often seen as a threat to parliamentary democracy.