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Political System (political + system)
Kinds of Political System Selected AbstractsThe Prospects for a New ,Federation Settlement' (Through a More Consensual Political System)AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 2 2002Ian Marsh First page of article [source] Postmaterialism in Unresponsive Political Systems: The Canadian Case,CANADIAN REVIEW OF SOCIOLOGY/REVUE CANADIENNE DE SOCIOLOGIE, Issue 3 2004ROBERT J. BRYM Nous examinons la thèse de Ronald Inglehart selon laquelle le postmatérialisme est un phénomène politique universel qui concerne toute société industrialisée avancée. Après avoir introduit une distinction entre systèmes politiques réactifs et non réactifs, nous proposons que, dans les systèmes réactifs, le clivage matérialiste s'est enracinéà un tel point qu'il triomphait encore du postmatérialisme. Par contre, le postmatérialisme a réussi à se démarquer dans les systèmes non réactifs, ceux où le clivage matérialiste avait toujours été plus faible. Nous soutenons que les données tirées des sondages nationaux tenus lors des élections canadiennes de 1984 et 1997 confirment notre hypothèse sur les effets des systèmes non réactifs. Bien que le Canada soit l'objet principal de notre analyse, dans la conclusion nous nous penchons sur des facteurs qui pourraient expliquer les différences dans le postmatérialisme aux niveaux provincial et international. This article disputes Inglehart's claim that postmaterialism is a uniform political phenomenon that transcends differences between advanced industrial societies. We distinguish responsive from unresponsive political systems and argue that, in responsive systems, the materialist cleavage became so deeply entrenched that postmaterialism could not vie for dominance. In contrast, postmaterialism has become more salient than materialism in unresponsive systems, where the materialist cleavage was weaker to begin with. We argue that data from the Canadian National Election Surveys of 1984 and 1997 are consistent with our prediction about the effect of unresponsiveness. Differences within the Canadian electorate became weaker for materialist issues but more pronounced for postmate-rialist issues between 1984 and 1997. Although our empirical analysis focusses on Canada, we conclude by speculating about the causes of cross-provincial and cross-national variations in postmaterialism. [source] Limits to Democratic Development in Civil Society and the State: The Case of Santo DomingoDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 1 2003Anne Marie Choup Some scholars see civil society as key to democratization of the political system. In this view, pressure from civil society forces democratization of the state. However, this disregards the fact that changes in civil society's behaviour require changes in political society , changes are reciprocal. The demand,making strategies of grassroots organizations in the Dominican Republic in 1999 provide a good example of this dynamic: the incomplete nature of the democratic transition (specifically, the persistence of paternalism and clientelism) constrained the democratic strategy choices of the civil society organizations. Just as democratization within political society is inconsistent and incomplete, so will be the demand,making strategies of the grassroots towards the state. The Dominican case is of particular interest as it illustrates the blend of personalized and institutionalized elements characteristic of democratic transition. [source] DEWEYAN DEMOCRACY IN A GLOBALIZED WORLDEDUCATIONAL THEORY, Issue 4 2009Kathy Hytten Drawing primarily on the work of John Dewey, Kathy Hytten argues that rethinking democracy can help us to respond more productively to the challenges of globalization. Dewey maintained that democracy is much more than a political system; instead it is a personal way of life, a mode of associated living, and a moral ideal. Yet this is not the vision of democracy prevalent today, especially within the rhetoric of globalization. Hytten begins by describing some of the challenges of globalization. She then shows how Dewey faced similar challenges, discussing why Dewey's ideas are still relevant. Hytten goes on to trace how Dewey's conception of democracy can help us to think differently about these challenges. She concludes by arguing that Dewey offers us some valuable democratic habits, dispositions, and visions that remain important resources in building a pluralistic, socially just, inclusive, and enriching community within our globalized world. [source] Subnational political opportunity structures and the success of the radical right: Evidence from the March 2004 regional elections in FranceEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 6 2007ELINA KESTILÄ The concept of ,political opportunity structure' refers to the degree of openness of a particular political system and the external institutional or socio-economic constraints and opportunities that it sets for political parties. Comparative analysis across subnational units is conducted where the 94 departments of mainland France are the units of analysis. The significance of electoral institutions (district magnitude), party competition (effective number of parties), electoral behaviour (turnout) and socioeconomic conditions (immigration and unemployment) on the ability of the FN to gather votes across the departments is assessed by means of multiple regression. The empirical results show that the subnational political opportunity structures have been of great importance for the FN. Some four out of the five independent variables are statistically significant and explain a great deal of the variance in the two dependent variables (electoral support for FN list and index of electoral success). Turnout and district magnitude are negatively correlated with the electoral fortunes of the FN, while unemployment and the effective number of party lists are positively correlated with the success of the FN in the regional elections. The variable that indicates the share of non-European immigrants does not provide additional explanatory power in a statistically significant way. [source] The conditional party mandate: A model for the study of mass and elite opinion patternsEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 3 2007HENRY VALEN What is the level of issue congruence between voters and elected leaders? The article introduces two ideas for the analysis of mass and elite opinion patterns. First, the authors challenge the unidimensional conception of mass-elite linkages, and argue that the opinion structure of political parties may best be understood in the context of a multidimensional policy space. Second, they contest the proximity logic of the traditional party mandate model. In so doing, they propose the ,conditional party mandate model', arguing that ,direction' rather than ,proximity' attracts voters' interest and attention. The authors contend that in issues of principle significance for a particular party (so-called ,core issues'), the party's voters and representatives will proceed in the same direction, but the representatives will stress their position more strongly than the voters. In issues that are less significant to the parties, the relationship between the two levels will be fortuitous and less clear. The analyses, which are based on elite and mass survey data from the Norwegian political system, support the authors' hypotheses concerning positional issues. When the direction of an issue is given, representatives are more extreme than voters. [source] Examining rival theories of demographic influences on political support: The power of regional, ethnic, and linguistic divisions in UkraineEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 4 2002Lowell W. Barrington What effects do regional, linguistic, and ethnic divisions have on support for the government and political system? What is the effect of each when the others are controlled for? Are apparent differences in support across regions simply compositional effects of ethno-linguistic patterns in those regions? This article provides answers to these questions, through the analysis of late 1998 mass survey data from Ukraine. The results indicate that region of residence strongly shapes support for the government and regime. Ethnicity and language, on the other hand, have weaker effects than scholars would expect, once region is controlled for. Thus, regional differences are not simply reflecting ethno-linguistic patterns in Ukraine, as scholars have often implied. These findings shed light on rival theoretical approaches to understanding regional, ethnic and linguistic sources of identity. They also highlight the necessity for scholars who have emphasized ethnic and linguistic cleavages in other countries to consider controlling for region of residence before jumping to conclusions about effects on political attitudes. Finally, the findings have narrower, but important, implications for the study of Ukraine and for its stability. [source] The Self-Referential European Polity, its Legal Context and Systemic Differentiation: Theoretical Reflections on the Emergence of the EU's Political and Legal AutopoiesisEUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 4 2009Jiri Priban It highlights the role of statehood in those debates and suggests moving beyond the constraints of institutionalist and constructivist perspectives by adopting specific notions from the theory of autopoietic social systems. The following part describes the EU political system as self-referential, functionally differentiated from the system of European law, and internally differentiated between European institutions and Member State governments. Although the Union transgresses its nation-state segmentation, the notions of statehood and democratic legitimacy continue to inform legal and political semantics of the EU and specific responses to the Union's systemic tensions, such as the policy of differentiated integration legislated by the flexibility clauses. The democratic deficit of instrumental legitimation justified by outcomes, the most recent example of which is the Lisbon Treaty, subsequently reveals the level of EU functional differentiation and the impossibility of fostering the ultimate construction of a normatively integrated and culturally united European polity. It shows a much more profound social dynamics of differentiation at the level of emerging European society,dynamics which do not adopt the concept of the European polity as an encompassing metaphor of this society, but makes it part of self-referential and self-limiting semantics of the functionally differentiated European political system. [source] After the Public Interest Prevails: The Political Sustainability of Policy ReformGOVERNANCE, Issue 2 2003Eric Patashnik The prevailing political science wisdom is that narrow interests regularly triumph over the general public. Yet the stunning passage of broad-based policy reforms in the face of intense clientele opposition suggests that the U.S. political system has a greater capacity to serve diffuse interests than has often been thought. Some of the most provocative policy-oriented political-science research during the 1980s and 1990s examined how these surprising reform victories occurred. Unfortunately, general-interest reforms do not always stick; reforms may be corrupted or reversed after their enactment. The long-term sustainability of any given policy reform hinges on the successful reworking of political institutions and on the generation of positive policy-feedback effects, especially the empowerment of social groups with a stake in the reform&s maintenance. This paper explores the postenactment dynamics of three canonical instances of general-interest reform legislation: tax reform, agricultural subsidy reform, and airline deregulation. Only in the airline-deregulation case has the self-reinforcing dynamic required for political sustainability been unmistakably evident. For analysts and advocates of general-interest reform measures alike, the clear lesson is to attend far more closely to what happens after reforms become law. [source] Party-System Reform in Democracy's Grey Zone: A Response to MoraskiGOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 2 2009Kenneth Wilson This article analyses the party-system reforms introduced in Russia during Vladimir Putin's presidency. It contests Byron Moraski's interpretation, published in an earlier edition of this journal, which claims that the reforms introduced in Putin's second term were a response to the 2003 Duma election and were intended to preserve the unity and discipline of United Russia, the regime's ,party of power'. This article argues that Moraski's explanation of the second-term reforms is flawed and contends that the first- and second-term reforms were part of a wider reform programme designed to centralize Russia's political system, consolidate its party system and contribute to the construction of a façade democracy. The article also challenges Moraski's argument that these reforms, while introduced to advance the regime's interests, could further democratization in the longer term by adding the crucial caveat that stronger opposition parties that could act as a democratizing influence will only emerge if practices of electoral manipulation lessen or fail. [source] Still the Anomalous Democracy?GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 1 2009Institutions in Italy, Politics Until the early 1990s, the Italian political system was regarded as anomalous among advanced democracies because of its failure to achieve alternation in government. Since then, that problem has been overcome, but Italy has been popularly viewed as continuing to be different to other democracies because it is ,in transition' between regimes. However, this position itself is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain because of the length of time of this so-called transition. Rather than focus on what is rather an abstract debate, it may be more fruitful to analyse what, in substance, is distinctive about Italian politics in this period: the manner in which a debate over fundamental institutional (including electoral) reform has become entangled in day-to-day politics. This can best be exemplified through an analysis of two key electoral consultations held in 2006: the national elections and the referendum on radically revising the Italian Constitution. [source] Machine Politics and Democracy: The Deinstitutionalization of the Argentine Party System1GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 4 2008Gerardo Scherlis This article contends that intra-party dynamics based on particularistic exchanges constitute a double-edged sword for a political system. On the one hand, they provide party leaders with strategic flexibility, which can be essential for their party stability and for the governability of the political system. On the other hand, in permitting office holders to switch policies whenever they consider fit, these dynamics render governments unpredictable and unaccountable in partisan terms, thus debasing the quality of democratic representation. The hypothesis is illustrated by recent Argentine political development. [source] Political Violence in the Republic of Rome: Nothing New under the SunGOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 4 2006Brenda J. Lutz At various times the Roman Republic faced outbreaks of domestic political violence, including riots and intimidation, assassinations and conspiracies to overthrow the government. Violence was particularly noticeable in the Early Republic and the Late Republic. These activities were quite similar to the terrorism and violence used by mobs and groups during the French Revolution and the tactics of fascists and leftists in Europe in the 1920s or 1930s. More accurately, the actions of mobs and others during the French Revolution and leftists and fascists in Europe were very similar to the techniques used in the Roman political system in the last five centuries BCE. [source] Unequal Plurality: Towards an Asymmetric Power Model of British PoliticsGOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 3 2003David Marsh Until recently, Rhodes's ,Differentiate Polity Model' (DPM) has been the most analytically-developed model of the British political system, but it is not without its problems. Here, we argue that the DPM over-stresses the diffuse nature of power in Britain and the extent to which the state has been hollowed out. Instead, we contend that the British political system is more closed and elitist than the DPM acknowledges; rather than being hollowed-out, the state has been reconstituted and the core executive still remains the most powerful actor in the policy process. These themes are reflected in our own ,Asymmetric Power model'. [source] A spy on the payroll?HISTORICAL RESEARCH, Issue 220 2010William Herle, the mid Elizabethan polity A body of recent work focusing on the components of Tudor policy has drawn attention to those ,second-rank' figures crucial for the efficient running of the Elizabethan administration. After close archival excavation, men like Robert Beale, largely marginal to the historiography of the period for so long, have now been identified and credited with a role which was fundamental to the smooth operation of the Tudor political system. In this group of men, participating on the fringes of the polity and whose activities, whether clerical or more recondite, contributed to the formation of domestic and international policy, is found William Herle, an agent, diplomatic envoy and intelligencer for Elizabeth I's ministers. An elusive figure, and passed over by many scholars, Herle's epistolary contribution to the administrative and intelligence bureaux of William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, and Sir Francis Walsingham reveals the information channels and structures behind the decision-making process of this triumvirate of political heavyweights and their conciliar fraternity. [source] The Republics of Ideas: Venice, Florence and the Defence of Liberty, 1525,1530HISTORY, Issue 279 2000Stephen D. Bowd The sixteenth century has often been regarded as a crucial period in the history of political events in Italy, and in the history of political ideas. The contributions of Florence and Venice to this process have long been acknowledged. Florentine admiration for the Venetian political system reflected internal political instability in the former city. The evidence for Venetian-Florentine contacts, and for a Venetian concern or admiration for Florence has been less noted. This article aims to show that there is evidence that Venetian concern for the defence of republican liberty after 1525 was allied to an awareness of Florentine political events and their significance for Venetian political practices. This awareness was stimulated by the pressure of imperial intervention on the peninsula after 1525. Florence and Venice were allies under the treaty of Cognac, and diplomats in both cities articulated a concern for republican libertas in Italy and an antipathy towards imperial rule. The work of Gasparo Contarini can be placed in this context, and as a result the critical point in the development of his arguments about Venetian political stability can be placed in the 1520s rather than in the years around 1509. The politics and political ideas of both cities were therefore developed in a wider context than has hitherto been supposed. [source] Militant rhetoric and the business cycle: the case of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial OrganizationINDUSTRIAL RELATIONS JOURNAL, Issue 2 2006Barbara Sgouraki Kinsey ABSTRACT During economic downturns, when the strike becomes less of an option, labour unions may use militant rhetoric to target often electorally vulnerable actors in the political system. I find that labour's rhetorical intensity is largely determined by the business cycle and the partisanship of administrations, and provide evidence of its political effect. [source] Correcting misconceptions about the development of social work in China: a response to Hutchings and TaylorINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WELFARE, Issue 1 2008Cunfu Jia Hutchings and Taylor, in their article entitled ,Defining the profession? Exploring an international definition of social work in the China context'[International Journal of Social Welfare 16: 381,389], no doubt had good intentions in offering their account of the development of social work in China, as the opening and concluding sections of the article show. Within the text, however, their critique of contemporary social work in China is, in my opinion, unfair in relation to, among other things, (i) the undemocratic nature of the Chinese political system, which they say hinders the development of social work in China; (ii) the ideology of the Communist Party, the government, and traditional Chinese culture, which they say are at odds with Western social work's value system and methodology; thus concluding that (iii) it is doubtful whether social work development in China could integrate with that of the international community. In this response, I comment on (i) the information base of the authors; (ii) the disconnection between their conceptualisation and historical facts; and (iii) their use of the international definition of social work. [source] The UNHCR and World Politics: State Interests vs.INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW, Issue 1 2001Institutional Autonomy This article situates the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) within the context of world politics. States remain the predominant actors in the international political system. But this does not mean that international organizations like the UNHCR are completely without power or influence. Tracing the evolution of the agency over the past half century, this article argues that while the UNHCR has been constrained by states, the notion that it is a passive mechanism with no independent agenda of its own is not borne out by the empirical evidence of the past 50 years. Rather UNHCR policy and practice have been driven both by state interests and by the office acting independently or evolving in ways not expected nor necessarily sanctioned by states. [source] Articulating the Nexus of Politics and Law: War in Iraq and the Practice within Two Legal SystemsINTERNATIONAL POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY, Issue 1 2008Philip Liste Does law rule foreign affairs in the democratic state? Basically, one might expect that democratic executives operate on the ground of what is called the Rechtsstaat, and that in a political system with checks and balances operations,especially those eventually dropping out of that ground,are subject to judicial review. However, legal systems are more often than not willing to abstain from a legal governance of its countries' foreign policy,because of "political reasons." Moreover, democracies obviously vary according to their legal operations. At least in the area of foreign affairs, the relationship of democracy and law does not take up a necessary character. Facing this contingency, the article engages in the discursive construction of a politics and law nexus in the course of the operations of two legal systems, in the United States and Germany. For that reason, it will proceed by deconstructing two legal decisions related to the war in Iraq. Building upon the premise that legal practices are intertwined into a larger web of (legal) text, the article argues that the possibility of a judicial abstention in cases bearing reference to foreign policy issues depends on meaning produced in the course of the signification and positioning of discursive elements like "politics" and "law." Thus, speaking law is a politico-legal practice. [source] Racial redistricting in the United States: an introduction to Supreme Court case law,INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE JOURNAL, Issue 183 2005Jean-François Mignot Racial redistricting is a form of territorial rearrangement of electoral districts implemented in the United States in 1990s. Its purpose and effect is to increase the number of districts with an African American or Hispanic majority in order to increase the number of elected officials from those minorities. Racial redistricting is thus a public procedure that takes explicit account of the ethno-racial identity of individuals. The emergence of racial redistricting is explained by the fact that, in the political and legal context of the late 1980s, the officials in charge of redistricting had a vested interest in adopting such a scheme in order to ensure their own continued presence in positions of power. However, racial redistricting had hardly been implemented than its constitutionality was challenged. The Supreme Court then defined the conditions for racial classifications to be validly taken into account in the redistricting process. The Court's complex case law is particularly concerned to make the account taken of racial factors in redistricting as invisible as possible. The objective is to ensure more complete integration of African Americans (and Hispanics) into the US political system. [source] Migration Control in Europe After 9/11: Explaining the Absence of Securitization,JCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 3 2007CHRISTINA BOSWELL Rejecting the predominant view that 9/11 encouraged a ,securitization' of migration control, this article argues that political discourse and practice in Europe have remained surprisingly unaffected by the terrorism threat. This finding challenges the critical securities literature, implying the need for a more differentiated theory of the political system and organizational interests. [source] Assessing Democracy in a Contested PolityJCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 4 2001Christopher Lord After reviewing difficulties with the literature on the democratic deficit, this article concludes that a method is needed for assessing democracy in a political system where there is fundamental agreement on what would constitute adequately democratic institutions. It then goes on to explore two suggestions for such a method: the development of well-specified indicators of democratic performance for contrasting ideal-types of Euro-democracy; and the attribution of self- and peer assessments to institutional actors with competing perspectives on democratic standards in the EU. [source] Legitimizing the EU: Is there a ,Post-parliamentary Basis' for its Legitimation?JCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 3 2001Christopher Lord This article argues that its character as a non-state political system makes little difference to how the EU ought to be legitimated. Minimum requirements for the legitimation of the liberal democratic state (performance, democracy and identity) also hold for the legitimation of Union power, both normatively and sociologically. This constrains the application of innovative legitimation strategies to the Union, requiring that post-parliamentary solutions be recast as complements, rather than substitutes, for a system of representative politics in the European arena, if the EU is to meet the core standard of democratic rule, which we take to be public control with political equality. [source] How Pervasive are Euro-Politics?JCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 2 2000Effects of EU Membership on a New Member State While the consequences of becoming an EU Member State for national policies are usually the core concern of pre-membership debates and of post-accession assessments, studies of the effects of European integration on the political systems of the Member States have so far been less numerous. Among the new EU members, which are ideal cases for studying domestic accession effects, Austria is a particularly challenging case in terms of top-down impact on the national political system. A number of specific precautions were taken in order to protect typical features of the national political system (notably the traditional roles of parliament, Länder and social partners) from being eroded in the multi-level system. The basic research question of this article is whether or not these measures were actually successful. How ,sticky' is the EU upon closer inspection, i.e. how pervasive are its effects on adverse national structures? Can national measures, even at the constitutional level, outweigh specific consequences of participating in Euro-politics? If not 9as the Austrian case indicates), why not? The conclusions distinguish specific Austrian variables from generalizable ones and discuss the findings in the light of the existing literature. [source] Modernizing UK health services: ,short-sharp-shock' reform, the NHS subsistence economy, and the spectre of health care famineJOURNAL OF EVALUATION IN CLINICAL PRACTICE, Issue 2 2005Bruce G. Charlton MD Abstract Modernization is the trend for societies to grow functionally more complex, efficient and productive. Modernization usually occurs by increased specialization of function (e.g. division of labour, such as the proliferation of specialists, in, medicine),, combined, with, increased, organization, in, order to co-ordinate the numerous specialized functions (e.g. the increased size of hospitals and specialist teams, including the management of these large groups). There have been many attempts to modernize the National Health Service (NHS) over recent decades, but it seems that none have significantly enhanced either the efficiency or output of the health care system. The reason may be that reforms have been applied as a ,drip-drip' of central regulation, with the consequence that health care has become increasingly dominated by the political system. In contrast, a ,short-sharp-shock' of radical and rapid modernization seems to be a more successful strategy for reforming social systems , in-between waves of structural change the system is left to re-orientate towards its client group. An example was the Flexner-initiated reform of US medical education which resulted in the closure of nearly half the medical colleges, an immediate enhancement in quality and efficiency of the system and future growth based on best institutional practices. However, short-sharp-shock reforms would probably initiate an NHS ,health care famine' with acute shortages and a health care crisis, because the NHS constitutes a ,subsistence economy' without any significant surplus of health services. The UK health care system must grow to generate a surplus before it can adequately be modernized. Efficient and rapid growth in health services could most easily be generated by stimulating provision outside the NHS, using mainly staff trained abroad and needs-subsidized ,item-of-service'-type payment schemes. Once there is a surplus of critically vital health services (e.g. acute and emergency provision), then radical modernization should rapidly improve the health service by a cull of low-quality and inefficient health care providers. [source] Too much of a good thing: the ,problem' of political communications in a mass media democracyJOURNAL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, Issue 3 2007Ivor Gaber Francis Fukuyama asks: ,,,is liberal democracy prey to serious internal contradictions, contradictions so serious that they will eventually undermine it as a political system?' This paper argues that one of these ,internal contradictions' is the political communications process and it can be sufficiently serious to undermine the democratic system,but such an undermining is not inevitable. The problem can be described as follows: Democratic systems require that citizens are kept fully informed by governments (and others) in the interests of transparency and ultimately accountability. Hence, all political communications have, as their final objective, the accountability of politicians at the ballot box. Thus all political communications have what can be described as ,above' and ,below' the line content. The above-the-line is the actual content of the message, the below-the-line is the implicit one of ,think better of me and my colleagues think worse of my opponents'. Consequently, no matter how personally honest and open an individual politician might be, the democratic system requires her or him to be always thinking about securing a successful result at the ballot box. Thus we have the ,political communications paradox'. Voters want politicians to be honest and accountable but this very demand means that politicians, implicitly, always have to have another agenda in operation when they are communicating with the public, i.e. securing their approval and then their support. As a result the trust which is a fundamental to the workings of a democratic system is constantly being undermined. This has two effects. First, that governments are obliged to make communications, rather than delivery, their real priority and second trust, not just in politicians but in the political system as a whole, tends to wane over time, which in turn endangers the very system it was designed to underpin. But this decline is not inevitable because the system has some in-built self-correcting mechanisms These include: the rise of new parties and/or leaders who portray themselves as ,new' and ,untainted',New Labour, New Conservatives, etc., an almost regular ,re-balancing' of the power relationship that exists between politicians and the civil service, particularly in the communications field, the rise of new forms of communication that seek to by-pass the institutional roadblocks that are perceived as being the cause of the problems and finally increased attention by journalists and academics to the process of political communications makes it more difficult for politicians to continue with ,business as usual' as far as their communication activities are concerned. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Lake Chivero: A management case studyLAKES & RESERVOIRS: RESEARCH AND MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2003C. H. D. Magadza Abstract Lake Chivero in Zimbabwe was shown to be hypereutrophic. Historical data showed that the eutrophication process had been arrested in the late 1970s. However, a combination of poor planning, multiplicity of jurisdiction, mismatch between rate of urbanization and waste management investment, recent changes in the local climate and a permissive, immature political system that called for no public accountability resulted in environmental management breakdown leading to hypereutrophication of the lake. The case of Lake Chivero is presented as an example of a wider global issue regarding the status of environmental management in competition with other priorities in emerging democracies. [source] Democracy and Social Policy in Brazil: Advancing Basic Needs, Preserving Privileged InterestsLATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 2 2009Wendy Hunter ABSTRACT Has democracy promoted poverty alleviation and equity-enhancing reforms in Brazil, a country of striking inequality and destitution? The effects of an open, competitive political system have not been straightforward. Factors that would seem to work toward this goal include the voting power of poor people, the progressive 1988 Constitution, the activism of social movements, and governance since 1995 by presidents affiliated with center-left and left parties. Yet these factors have been counterbalanced by the strong political influence and lobbying power of organized interests with a stake in preexisting arrangements of social protection and human capital formation. An analysis of four key federal sectors, social security, education, health care, and public assistance, illustrates the challenges for social sector reforms that go beyond raising basic living standards to enhancing socioeconomic inequality. [source] Law versus the State: The Judicialization of Politics in EgyptLAW & SOCIAL INQUIRY, Issue 4 2003Tamir Moustafa This study seeks to explain the paradoxical expansion of constitutional power in Egypt over the past two decades, despite that country's authoritarian political system. I find that the Egyptian regime established an independent constitutional court, capable of providing institutional guarantees on the security of property rights, in order to attract desperately needed private investment after the failure of its socialist-oriented development strategy. The court continued to expand its authority, fundamentally transforming the mode of interaction between state and society by supporting regime efforts to liberalize the economy while simultaneously providing new avenues for opposition activists and human rights groups to challenge the state. The Egyptian case challenges some of our basic assumptions about the conditions under which we are likely to see a judicialization of politics, and it invites scholars to explore the dynamics of judicial politics in other authoritarian political systems. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||