Australian bicameralism as semi-parliamentarism: patterns of majority formation in 29 democracies

The article analyses the type of bicameralism we find in Australia as a distinct executive-legislative system – a hybrid between parliamentary and presidential government – which we call ‘semi-parliamentary government’. We argue that this hybrid presents an important and underappreciated alternative to pure parliamentary government as well as presidential forms of the power-separation, and that it can achieve a certain balance between competing models or visions of democracy. We specify theoretically how the semi-parliamentary separation of powers contributes to the balancing of democratic visions and propose a conceptual framework for comparing democratic visions. We use this framework to locate the Australian Commonwealth, all Australian states and 22 advanced democratic nation-states on a two-dimensional empirical map of democratic patterns for the period from 1995 to 2015.     

Competing Visions of the Rule of Law in Southeast Asia: Power,Rhetoric and Governance

Abstract

This article introduces a special issue on the emergent relationship between the rhetoric and implementation of the rule of law concept in Southeast Asia. It thematically introduces four country case studies (Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam), and the case of ASEAN’s adoption of the rule of law in region-building, which are included in this special issue. We highlight how ideals that are arguably central to the “tradition” of the rule of law are being excised, marginalised, defended and/or undermined in Southeast Asian contexts. We emphasise how the very concept is deeply contested and far from neutral – at stake is the very notion of “law” for whom, and for what. The article offers insight into the social dynamics affecting how the rule of law is being interpreted by political actors and how it is being contested and consolidated via governance practices in the region, and proposes new avenues for research in assessing how the rule of law is operating in transitional and authoritarian state settings.     

Performing space across time: a 520-year anniversary in a western Ukrainian village

Abstract

Festivals and celebrations have special significance for the foundation of community and collective memory. They are part of social practice and, at the same, also reveal much about current and historical social structures, traditions and rituals. Festivals contrast with everyday life, taking participants away from it; celebrations, conversely, celebrate and reinforce social hierarchies, the role of individuals in the community and the characteristics of the community. This is clearly demonstrated in this contribution on the example of the festivities of two western Ukrainian village communities celebrating 520 years of existence. The communities’ notable peculiarity lies in the fact that they were founded as a single village. Due the partitioning of Poland along the Zbru? River, however, the two sides were situated in Austria-Hungary and Russia, respectively. In the interwar period, they were located in Poland and the Soviet Union. Since the end of the Second World War, they were part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Although they did not have borders for the first time in 150 years, they nevertheless continued to exist as independent villages. Given this starting point, a celebration of the 520th anniversary of the founding of these communities obviously has very complex historical contexts within different past state regimes. The following analysis of the village festival will first demonstrate how such a celebration was achieved. Further, it will examine the extent to which a socio-spatial demarcation was reproduced just as efforts were simultaneously made to eliminate it. The village is a striking example of the manifestation of the experience and perception, design and imagination of present and past spaces.