Analysis of the second wave of democratic transition in Eastern and Central Europe’s “color revolutions” has tended to focus on causal variables such as regional diffusion, leadership strategy, and ...popular protest. Yet it may be inaccurate to describe the postcommunist authoritarian turnovers the region has witnessed as part of a “wave”; longer-term variables such as state and party capacity and the strength of a country’s connection to the West may held shed light on why certain countries have experienced such revolutions while others have not.
This paper examines significant changes (and continuities) in the realm of government in contemporary China through drawing upon the insights of governmentality studies. It summarizes the organizing ...concerns of governmentality studies, arguing that they have functioned, albeit by default, to preclude a consideration of how governmentality is played out in non-liberal contexts. This argument is developed by outlining shifts in the nature of government in China, in particular the shift from a concept of 'government' to one of 'governance', and subsequently suggesting that the Chinese Party-state is 'regrouping' rather than 'retreating'. The conclusion highlights the significance of the papers contained in this issue of Economy and Society in terms of extending the study of governmentality to both non-Western and authoritarian contexts.
There has been a rise in research on rap and hip hop as tools to unite and empower marginalised groups and communities in recent years. To contribute to this growing discourse, this paper draws from ...my fieldwork with Bali-based Eastern Indonesian rap group Mukarakat to explore the use of rap and hip hop as tools to unite and empower marginalised Eastern Indonesian domestic migrants in Western Indonesia. By framing my analysis through the notions of ethnic language rap as "grammar of the unpolitics," I identify three key political features: provincial, regional prejudice and cultural preservation. My research shows that these rappers, who are displaced from their hometowns, attempt to re-imagine their Indonesian identities while promoting the decentralisation of power and governance in Indonesia. To do so, these rappers, and others who follow them, have used ethnic languages as the focal point of their politics. By using ethnic languages from Eastern Indonesia that are rare in modern usage and unfamiliar to most Indonesians, the group links the topic of decentralisation of governance and cultural preservation to national prejudice and racism. They seek to influence changes while introducing these issues into the country's popular discourse in an increasingly segregated Indonesia.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Scholars have found an association between membership in regional intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and democracy, and IGO enforcement is often credited as an important factor explaining this ...link. But empirical evidence reveals great variation in whether these organizations actually respond to violations of democratic norms, even in democratic regions. Why do IGOs punish some norm-violating countries but not others? What does this variation imply for theories about how IGO membership helps states make credible commitments? This article presents a theoretical framework for understanding variation in multilateral norm enforcement. It identifies two obstacles to enforcement—the presence of competing geopolitical interests and uncertainty about the nature and scope of norm violations—and it argues that international monitoring can help mitigate these obstacles by revealing and publicizing information that pressures reluctant member states to support enforcement. An original data set of democracy enforcement in Latin America and postcommunist countries is used to examine regional IGO enforcement in response to one prevalent type of democratic norm violation: electoral misconduct. I find that enforcement is less likely in countries of high geopolitical importance, but the presence of election observers increases the probability of enforcement, and the content of observers' reports influences the type of enforcement that is imposed. These findings suggest that the link between IGO membership, credible commitments, and democracy should be theorized and tested as a conditional relationship, depending on country- and incident-specific factors that influence the likelihood of enforcement.
Projecting EU Referendums de Vreese, Claes H.; Boomgaarden, Hajo G.
European Union politics,
03/2005, Letnik:
6, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
This study tests competing hypotheses about public support for European integration
and projects referendum voting behaviour. It emphasizes anti-immigration sentiments
as a key variable for ...understanding reluctance about integration. Drawing on survey
data, it is shown that anti-immigration sentiments, economic considerations and the
evaluation of domestic governments are the strongest predictors of both attitudinal
support for integration and individuals’ propensity to vote
‘yes’ in a referendum on the enlargement of the European Union (EU).
This article aims to explain the evolution of forms of political regulation for the allocation of resources and representation of interests in Southern Italy, at length qualified as clientelistic. It ...will show how managerial principles can be taken up in a context with a historical resistance to bureaucratic change as well as a political orientation which contests neoliberal beliefs. To this end, it analyses a sequence of political change in the Apulia region, while focusing on the political strategies and discourses concerning local development tools for entrepreneurs. It shows how the objective to increase the regional council's institutional capacity to deliver public policies turned into a managerial drift. It is argued that the critique of clientelism, considered the main factor hindering the development of the South, led to the prioritisation of efficiency over representation of collective interests. The critique of clientelism corresponds to the mechanism through which managerialism has spread in a context of economic crisis.
The Turkish model of democracy, economic competence and regional influence is notunravelling because of a clash between Islam and secularism. The real conflict isbetween electoral democracy and ...liberalism.
This paper assesses the extent to which party systems are nationalized in four federations. In doing so, the research addresses two questions. First, is dual accountability operational across ...decentralized countries, or do sub-national voters turn to national cues as a means to economize in a complex information environment? By bringing a cross-national dataset to bear on this question, we are able to provide insight into where and why dual accountability might operate. Second, what explains variation in the extent to which party systems are nationalized across countries and time? We build on previous literature to suggest a number of factors likely to impact the extent of nationalization. We examine those factors in the context of provincial-level elections in Argentina, Canada, Germany and the United States. Using national and sub-national economic data, we find little evidence of dual accountability in any of our countries. We find that economic performance matters little for regional electoral outcomes, and where it does, sub-national outcomes reflect national rather than sub-national conditions. More important are the roles of partisan relations across levels of government and election timing. Sub-national co-partisans of the nationally governing party lose votes, particularly as the time from the most recent national election grows. The strength of these effects varies across our cases in predictable ways.
Vote Choice in Suburban Elections OLIVER, J. ERIC; HA, SHANG E.
The American political science review,
08/2007, Letnik:
101, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Despite the importance of local elections in the United States, political scientists have little knowledge of what shapes vote choice in most municipalities and special districts, particularly in the ...suburbs where a majority of Americans live. This article develops and tests models of local voting behavior using unique survey data of over 1,400 voters in 30 different suburban communities. Suburban electoral politics are dominated by a nonrepresentative group of “stakeholders,” who are highly informed and interested in local affairs. Because of this, vote choice in suburban elections ends up sharing many characteristics with larger contests (i.e., issue salience, partisanship, and candidate likeability), although their impact varies with the size and diversity of the particular community (e.g., in smaller suburbs, voters are more engaged in local politics, more likely to know candidates personally, and more likely to vote against incumbents). These findings suggest the importance of developing new theories about voting behavior in micro-electoral contexts.
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