Grand Coalitions are a specific type of government known in Austria and Germany as the cooperation of the main competing parties in government, rallying behind the governments' vast parliamentary ...majorities. Grand Coalitions subject their partners to specific challenges in terms of achieving party goals and demands on their policies. This, in turn, increases the demands on coalition governance. The article analyses how the Grand Coalition under Angela Merkel has coped with the problems of coalition management. In so doing it compares its management mechanisms with those employed by the German Grand Coalition of the 1960s and the many Austrian cabinets of this type. It measures the level of intra-coalition conflict and shows how coalition management instruments have been employed to mange or resolve conflict. Specifically, it shows that the coalition committee was summoned more frequently when conflict levels were up and that most of the Grand Coalition's key decisions had already been contained in the coalition agreement. Yet not all plans were fully implemented. Overall the Grand Coalition enacted important reforms. While failing to meet the high expectations a Grand Coalition raises because of its capacity of overcoming resistance, it did well when considering the constraints specific to Grand Coalition governance.
There are good security and political economy reasons for furthering integration towards a world political community (WPC), possibly assuming the form of a world state. However, would these reasons ...provide a legitimate and sustainable basis for the WPC? It is argued in this article that, while the standard security-military and functionalist political economy arguments for world unification may work to a certain point, they are insufficient and may become counterproductive. Especially if perceived in terms of rationally calculative orientation of action, they are not enough and may even work against the WPC. There must also be a belief in normative legitimacy, which may be anchored in universal principles such as popular democracy and human rights. In this light, theories of civilizing process and stages of ethico-political learning are explored. Collective human learning not only explains the quest for democratization but also points towards cosmopolitan ethico-political sentiments. However, there is an internal relationship between democracy and identity, and identities tend to be particular. The case is made, first, for thinking that the otherness of one’s narrated ‘self’ can be located either in the past or, alternatively, in our contemporary being, when seen from a point of view of a possible future position in world history. Second, within a higher level identity-in-difference, a co-constitutive and mutually transformative relation between self and others can involve letting many differences just be.
Chanting for Southern Independence Augustin, Anne-Linda Amira
Middle East report (New York, N.Y. 1988),
01/2014, Letnik:
44, Številka:
273
Journal Article
'Our revolution is the South Arabian revolution,' shouted five or six men at a march in Crater, a district of Aden, on March 20, 2014. The mass of demonstrators answered in unison: 'Get out, get out, ...o colonial power!' The call-and-response pattern continued: 'Our revolution is the South Arabian revolution.' 'Against the power of the tyrants.' The stanza concluded with the chant leaders prompting, 'No unity, no federalism,' and the crowd again thundering, 'Get out, get out, o colonial power!'. Adapted from the source document.
Approximately 2.5 million Hungarians live as national minorities in states bordering Hungary. Budapest's policy of promoting these communities so that they may preserve their national identity is met ...with scepticism. Neighbouring countries are concerned that this policy could trigger secessionist efforts. Before accession to the European Union, it had been possible to settle the conflict-laden issue of individual and collective minority rights. Now inter-state tensions have appeared again. Hungary's passage of a new citizenship law, which allows Hungarians abroad to acquire Hungarian citizenship, and its current confrontational, ethno-nationalist politics of nationhood are responsible for this. Adapted from the source document.
The development of federalism in the context of the neoliberal era in the 2000s has partly created the conditions for a more stable co-operation between the federal and Quebec governments, ...contributing to the trend of separatism being sidelined in Quebec. In the context of neoliberalism, federal–provincial agreements have created conditions for just enough asymmetry in the relationship between the federal government and Quebec, something that Quebec has historically demanded, for separatism to remain off the agenda. What separates this relationship from past ones is a significant change in the context whereby the neoliberal orientation is becoming the common currency for co-operation. If Canadian federalism continues its present course under neoliberalism without any major mishaps, for the first time since the divisive period of the 1990s and early 2000s, federal–Quebec relations likely will be stable without national unity crises of the kind that culminated in the 1980 and 1995 Quebec referenda on sovereignty. Résumé. Le développement du fédéralisme dans le contexte de l'ère néolibérale dans les années 2000 a en partie créé les conditions pour une coopération plus stable entre les gouvernements fédéral et québécois, contribuant ainsi à la tendance du séparatisme au Québec d'être marginalisés. Dans le contexte du néolibéralisme, des ententes fédérales-provinciales ont créé les conditions pour un peu assez de relation asymétrique entre le gouvernement fédéral et du Québec, quelque chose que le Québec a toujours exigé, au séparatisme de rester hors l'ordre du jour. Ce qui sépare cette relation de celles du passé est un changement significatif dans le contexte dans lequel l'orientation néo-libérale devient la monnaie commune pour la coopération. Si le fédéralisme canadien continue son cours actuel sous le néolibéralisme sans encombre majeur, pour la première fois depuis la période de division des années 1990 et début des années 2000, les relations fédérales-Québec probablement seront stable sans crises unité nationale du genre qui a culminé dans les années 1980 et 1995 référendums sur la souveraineté du Québec.
The predominant Mayangna narrative of the Nicaraguan Civil War holds that the Miskitu tricked them into joining the conflict. However, I argue here that the Mayangna leadership and the Sandinista ...government were also responsible, as Sandinista denial of the importance of ethnic difference in Nicaragua allowed Miskitu nationalists, using the language of religion, to co‐opt Mayangna leaders, while subsequent Sandinista violence turned Mayangna civilians against the revolution. Accusations of trickery stem from later Mayangna disillusion with the war and from problems with the autonomous political system set up in its wake, which encourages the Mayangna to underplay the role of their own leaders and the Sandinista government in embroiling them in the conflict. This one‐sided narrative, however, increasingly defines Mayangna interpretations of their very identity as a people.
When diplomatic breakups occur Bellamy, Paul
New Zealand international review,
03/2015, Letnik:
40, Številka:
2
Journal Article
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the sudden break in diplomatic relations between Australia and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea or the DPRK). This widely publicised and ...controversial break, along with somewhat bizarre developments, occurred only shortly after the establishment of relations in 1974 and helped lay the foundations for a challenging future; official relations did not resume until May 2000. Canberra hoped that New Zealand would also recognise the North. Developments were watched closely across the Tasman Sea, and they ultimately helped to discourage Wellington from taking similar steps. Indeed, official relations with North Korea would only be announced in March 2001.
//ABSTRACT IN GERMAN: Die bundesdeutsche Politik der Inneren Sicherheit' der 1970er Jahre traf in Frankreich auf harsche Kritik. Die Bundesrepublik wurde in weiten Teilen der französischen Linken als ...ein Staat gesehen, der im Kampf gegen den Terrorismus seinen rechtsstaatlichen Charakter aufgab. Markus Lammert zeichnet die unterschiedlichen Positionen der französischen Kritiker nach, unter denen sich sowohl Linksextremisten als auch linksliberale Politiker befanden, die wenig später Regierungsämter übernahmen. Ihre Motive lassen sich nicht auf einen historisch begründeten Antigermanismus' reduzieren. Die mit dem Terrorismus ringende Bundesrepublik diente vor allem als Projektionsfläche für das Ausfechten aktueller innenpolitischer Konflikte in Frankreich selbst. Der Ausbau des Rechtsstaats in der V. Republik, größere bürgerlichen Freiheiten und ein besserer Schutz der Menschenrechte gehörten zu den zentralen Themen der französischen Linken in den 1970er Jahren. Transnationale deutsch-französische Netzwerke förderten zudem die grenzüberschreitende Mobilisierung von Protest gegen die Anti-Terrorismus-Politik der Bundesregierung. //ABSTRACT IN ENGLISH: The West German 'Internal Security' policy of the 1970s was harshly criticised in France. In many sections of the French Left, the Federal Republic was seen as a state which was abolishing the rule of law in its struggle against terrorism. Markus Lammert traces the different responses of the French critics, among them left-wing extremists as well as left-liberal politicians, who were soon to move into government positions. Their motives cannot be reduced to a historically founded 'anti-Germanism'. Mostly, the Federal Republic and its struggle with terrorism served as a projection screen for internal political conflicts within France itself. The extension of the rule of law within the Fifth Republic, extended civil liberties and improved human rights protections were among the central themes of the French Left during the 1970s. Additionally transnational German-French networks fostered cross-border protest mobilisation against the anti-terrorism policy of the German government.
Despite the restoration of parliamentary democracy in Bangladesh since 1991, political governance of the country is still mired by innumerable ills. It broadly features a wide array of confrontation, ...competition, monopolization of state institutions and resources by the party in power. This trend of politics has tremendously weakened the formal accountability mechanisms and put governance in crisis. This article depicts the nature of confrontational politics in Bangladesh, its causes and impacts on governance with supportive evidence from both primary and secondary sources. As case examples, it shows how bureaucracy and local government institutions are grossly politicized as a result of confrontational politics and their impact on governance.
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