Institutionalizing the democratic party-state: political parties as ‘public utilities’ in Italy and West Germany, 1945–75

This article argues that the rise of parties as ‘public utilities’, that is, semi-state organs crucial in the functioning of democracy, which is currently observed by political scientists, has long historical roots. It looks from an institutionalist perspective to the development of party–state relations in Germany and Italy since the Second World War, paying specific attention to how institutional reform corresponded to changing normative assumptions about the position of political parties in twentieth-century democracy. The first notions on the ‘statist’ dimension of parties were put forward as an answer to the challenges of mass politics in the interwar era. After 1945, politicians and constitutional judges drew upon this tradition in their efforts to stabilize mass democracy. They deliberately constructed ‘party-state democracies’, in which parties influenced the state and the state managed individual parties and the party system. This became visible in the constitutionalization of political parties, as well as in the enactment and normative justification of party (finance) laws in the 1960s and 1970s. The advent of parties as public utilities, even though fiercely criticized today, was therefore embedded in an ideological tradition that sanctioned the ‘party-state’ as crucial for the stability of modern democracy.     

The case for extending measures of democracy in the world “Beneath”, “Above”, and “Outside” the national level

This article applies spatial theory, or the view that phenomena are distributed in space, to democracy. This analysis demonstrates that plural (two or more) democratic practices are evident in three spatial categories: (1) vertical stratification (i.e. at different levels of governance), (2) horizontal separation (i.e. among different agents operating at each level of governance), and (3) social association (i.e. in workplaces, families, schools). This finding, that plural democratic practices are demonstrated by agents operating at multiple levels of governance and in various non- or quasi-governmental associations prompts us to argue that measures of democracy in the world should be extended to spaces “beneath”, “above”, and “outside” the national level – presently the dominant locus for regular batteries that test the quality and extent of democratic practices globally. However, global data on the quality and extent of democracy at these other levels needs to be built before such an extension can happen.     

Historiography as a political battlefield (1956–1989): Italian left-wing historians on early German Social Democracy

The debate surrounding German Social Democracy during the era of the Second International represents an important chapter in the historiography of post-Second World War Italy. At the same time, it also marks some crucial moments in the political and intellectual life of Republican Italy. This article aims to show the close relationship between the investigation of the past and the ongoing political struggle that has characterised research on this issue. Study of the topic was practically monopolised by left-wing historians, who, in dealing with the history of German Social Democracy, aimed also to direct the political strategy of workers' parties. Considering the studies appearing after the 1956 crisis and in the mid-1970s, such a goal seems evident. It was only during the 1980s that the research opened itself to different perspectives – no longer influenced by ideological controversies.     

On the earliest contacts between Dubrovnik and England

According to tradition, King Richard I of England visited Dubrovnik (Ragusa) in 1192. Much of the evidence for this visit comes from a dispute at the end of the sixteenth century concerning the rights of the abbot of Lokrum. Medieval evidence can also be taken into contribution, notably the comments of the English chronicles of the early thirteenth century and the surviving documentation for the career of a Ragusan archbishop who later became bishop of Carlisle. The author concludes that King Richard's visit was a reality.     

孙中山“训政”思想与现代政治民主

以革命手段推翻专制制度和逐步地建立＂民主政治＂,是孙中山民主革命的基本内容之一。而颇有特色的是,孙中山把这一建设过程分为军政、训政、宪政三个阶段。训政时期是进入宪政时期、实现五权宪法的必经阶段,是一种程序设计,也是在革命三阶段中别出心裁而又最具争议的部分。尽管它与孙中山毕生追求的民权目标存在内在冲突,但在一定程度仍对现代民主政治建设具有积极意义。     

“Vote with your feet”: Neoliberalism,the democratic nation-state,and utopian enclave libertarianism

This paper examines a series of emerging utopian discourses that call for the creation of autonomous libertarian enclaves on land ceded by or claimed against existing states. These discourses have emerged in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and can be seen as a response to the crisis on the part of free-market advocates who critique previous waves of neoliberal reform for failing to radically transform the existing structures of the state. Enclave libertarianism seeks to overcome neoliberal capitalism's contradictory relationship to the liberal democratic state by rethinking the state as a “private government service provider” and rethinking citizens as mobile consumers of government services. Citizens are thus called to “vote with their feet” by opting-in to the jurisdiction that best fits their needs and beliefs. The paper argues that these utopian imaginaries are key to understanding specific new manifestations of post-crisis neoliberalism, and calls for more research into the diversity of discourses and imaginaries that circulate through networks of neoliberal actors beyond specific policy initiatives.     

Blinded like a state? Urban sanitation,improvement and high modernism in contemporary Myanmar

This article explores urban sanitation in the city of Mandalay, upper Myanmar, as an entry point to better understand the issue of improvement in the country in the current era of political change. Based upon qualitative data gathered in Mandalay between 2015 and 2018, the article focuses on the state's ways of seeing urban improvement after 2016, when the National League for Democracy government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi took office. The article builds upon James Scott's work on statecraft to frame the analysis, and it uses this framework to argue that a localized form of authoritarian high modernism is emerging and shaping urban improvement in Mandalay today. The case is noteworthy as high modernism in Mandalay is not associated with attempts to render the city more legible; on the contrary improvement seems to be carried out by a state unwilling, or unable, to see and thus being blinded. The article develops this argument to make a twofold contribution, to discussions on statecraft and the “failure of development” in contemporary Myanmar from the perspective of political geography; and to debates on states' ways of seeing and the practice of improvement in postcolonial contexts.     

Myths and the political use of religion in Christian Democratic culture

Abstract

In this essay, the author will attempt to analyze the overall relationship established between the party of Christian Democracy (so named for its affiliation with a traditional religion) and the phenomena of the sacralization of politics that have so profoundly shaped the character of mass parties in the twentieth century. The quest for consensus led the Catholic party to adopt a new language, based on mythical thinking and profoundly indebted – in content and mode of communication – to the experiences of totalitarianism. The active rivalry with political religions marked, both in the phase of development and in the process of communication, the forms of mass political expression of Christian Democracy. De Gasperi's proposal concerning the definition of new identities and political affiliations, both on the national level and on the broader Western level (both in European and Atlantic terms) was the product of a unique ideological development in keeping with the requirements of modern mass politics.