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Full-Text Articles in Political Science

Unintended Consequences Of Repression: Alliance Formation In South Korea's Democracy Movement (1970-1979), Paul Y. Chang Dec 2008

Unintended Consequences Of Repression: Alliance Formation In South Korea's Democracy Movement (1970-1979), Paul Y. Chang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Research regarding the impact of repression on social movements has yielded conflicting findings; some argue that repression decreases the total quantity of protest events while others argue that it motivates protest. To move beyond this impasse, various scholars have suggested exploring how repression influences the quality of social movements. This study assesses the impact repression had on the information of alliances between different social groups participating in South Korea's democracy movement. Results from negative binomial regression analyses show that repression facilitated the formation of alliances between movement actors at a time when the overall number of protest events decreased. This …


Chinese Visions Of World Order: Post-Hegemonic Or A New Hegemony?, William A. Callahan Dec 2008

Chinese Visions Of World Order: Post-Hegemonic Or A New Hegemony?, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Lately, there has been increasing interest among international relations (IR) scholars in Chinese thought, both as an alternative to Eurocentric IR, and because the PRC as an emerging power will soon have the institutional power to promote its view of the world. Rather than look for suitable Chinese parallels to "international," "security," or other mainstream concepts, this article will examine the concept of "Tianxia All-under-Heaven" to understand Chinese visions of world order. Tianxia is interesting both because it was key to the governance and self-understanding of over two millennia of Chinese empire, and also because discussion of Tianxia is becoming …


Compared To What? A Comment On "A Robust Transformation Procedure For Interpreting Political Text" By Martin And Vanberg, Kenneth Benoit, Michael Laver Dec 2008

Compared To What? A Comment On "A Robust Transformation Procedure For Interpreting Political Text" By Martin And Vanberg, Kenneth Benoit, Michael Laver

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In “A Robust Transformation Procedure,” Martin and Vanberg (2007, hereafter MV) propose a new method for rescaling the raw virgin text scores produced by the “Wordscores” procedure of Laver, Benoit, and Garry (2003, hereafter LBG). Their alternative method addresses two deficiencies they argue exist with the transformation of virgin text scores proposed by LBG: First, that the LBG transformation is sensitive to the selection of virgin texts, and second, that it distorts the reference metric by failing to recover the original reference scores when reference texts are scored and transformed as if they were virgin texts. Their proposed alternative is …


The Campaign Value Of Incumbency: A New Solution To The Puzzle Of Less Effective Incumbent Spending, Kenneth Benoit, Michael Marsh Oct 2008

The Campaign Value Of Incumbency: A New Solution To The Puzzle Of Less Effective Incumbent Spending, Kenneth Benoit, Michael Marsh

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

A puzzle in research on campaign spending is that while expenditure is positively related to votes won, this effect is far more strongly, or even exclusively, enjoyed by challengers rather than by incumbents. We unearth a new explanation for the puzzle, focusing on the hidden, yet variable, campaign value of office perquisites which incumbents deploy in their campaigns to win votes. When these variable office benefits are unobserved, then the effect is to make observed incumbent spending less effective than spending by challengers. Using data from the 2002 Irish general election, where incumbency was assigned a variable campaign value and …


Global Governance And Energy, Ann Florini Aug 2008

Global Governance And Energy, Ann Florini

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Energy has risen to the top of policy agendas around the world. There is now widespread recognition that energy policy has become key to international security, economic development, and the environmental sustainability of modern civilization. Yet this importance is not reflected in the world’s institutional infrastructure for managing global problems. A handful of international organizations work in uncoordinated fashion on various pieces of the energy puzzle. No organizational infrastructure exists to support the global conversation that is now badly needed about how to move the world onto a sustainable path that provides appropriate, reliable, and affordable energy services.


Barking At The Big Dogs: South Africa's Foreign Policy Towards The Middle East, Eduard Jordaan Aug 2008

Barking At The Big Dogs: South Africa's Foreign Policy Towards The Middle East, Eduard Jordaan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article places South Africa's foreign policy towards the Middle East in the context of the country's general foreign policy. South Africa is classified as a middle power, given its penCHANt for international 'bridge-building' and multilateralism. With regard to the Middle East, South Africa has frequently offered itself as a mediator in the region's various conflicts and continues to do so. However, the argument proposed here is that there is an 'anti-imperialist' strain in South Africa's foreign policy that renders it unlikely to be regarded as an impartial broker in the various Middle East conflicts. South Africa's middle power proclivities, …


The Evolution Of Human Rights Thinking In North Korea, Robert Weatherley, Jiyoung Song Jun 2008

The Evolution Of Human Rights Thinking In North Korea, Robert Weatherley, Jiyoung Song

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The official discourse of human rights in North Korea has shown signs of evolution in recent times, reflecting a variety of philosophical foundations and a need to respond to mounting criticism from the West. While Confucianism and Marxism have been key in influencing North Korean rights thinking, some of the more recent official pronouncements on rights have a distinctly nationalistic or ‘juche-oriented’ complexion. This shift in emphasis reflects the growing importance of juche to North Korea's state ideology in light of what is perceived as an increasingly hostile international environment that has confronted North Korea since the end of the …


Making Transparency Work, Ann Florini May 2008

Making Transparency Work, Ann Florini

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

A commentary on Gupta and Mason, who provide a valuable service in highlighting the complex andcontested nature of transparency as a tool of governance. In an era in which information flows and information technology play such fundamental roles, andin which norms about who has the right to know what are so rapidly changing,transparency clearly deserves its place as, in Gupta’s words, “a key concept of ourtimes.”


Sanctions Against Belarus: Normative Unintended, Clara Portela Jan 2008

Sanctions Against Belarus: Normative Unintended, Clara Portela

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The goals pursued by the EU vis-à-vis Belarus through its sanctions policies are unequivocally normative. The EU refers to the ‘violations of international electoral standards’ in the 2006 presidential elections and the ‘crackdown on civil society and democratic opposition’ as the primary reasons for the imposition of sanctions. The EU sanctions strategy against Belarus has followed an incrementalist logic, unfolding in parallel to the evolution of the Belarusian state towards authoritarianism.


Anarcho-Multiculturalism: The Pure Theory Of Liberalism, Chandran Kukathas Jan 2008

Anarcho-Multiculturalism: The Pure Theory Of Liberalism, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Most modern states today are, at least to some degree, culturally diverse.Trade, tourism, international dialogue among scholars, scientists, and artists,and the movement of skilled labor—as well as migration—have ensured thatfew countries do not contain within them significant numbers of people fromalien cultures. The one cultural minority found almost everywhere is the international frequent flyer. Many societies today are multicultural because theyare open to a diversity of peoples who come and go and, sometimes, stay.


A Trans-Tasman Business Elite?, Nicholas Harrigan, Shaun Goldfinch Dec 2007

A Trans-Tasman Business Elite?, Nicholas Harrigan, Shaun Goldfinch

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article examines the close relationship between the Australian and New Zealand business communities to ask whether the relationship is best characterized as simply a bi-lateral trading relationship, or whether there is evidence of the formation of a transnational business community. This article also seeks to explore the nature of Australia—NewZealand integration, and specifically the degree to which the relationship is interdependent or asymmetrical. Data are drawn from quantitative sources — including a dataset developed from the IBISWorld's Largest 2000 Enterprises in Australia and New Zealand, Who's Who in Australia, and Who's Who in Business in Australia — and qualitative …


The Eu's "Sanctions Paradox", Portela, Clara Oct 2007

The Eu's "Sanctions Paradox", Portela, Clara

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The forthcoming Summit meeting between the European Union (EU) and Africa next December will be the first event of this kind in the past seven years. However, the row over the participation of Zimbabwe’s President, Robert Mugabe, is casting a shadow over the upcoming event: A number of African states have threatened to boycott the meeting if Zimbabwe's leader is not invited, while the British government has indicated that it will not attend the meeting if he does. At the root of this row is an “EU sanction”: a visa ban prohibiting the entry into EU territory to Zimbabwean high-rank …


Grist For The Sceptic's Mill: Rwanda And The African Peer Review Mechanism, Eduard Jordaan Sep 2007

Grist For The Sceptic's Mill: Rwanda And The African Peer Review Mechanism, Eduard Jordaan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The article delves into the impact of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) to Rwanda's achievement of greater democracy and respect for political freedom. It aims to show the improbability that the APRM can influence the country due to its insufficient ability and volition to pressure further democratization and respect for political rights on Rwandan government, the APRM's optimistic view of political governance, and the APR Heads of State Forum's ratification of a program of action discounting the issues of democracy and political freedom. The author stresses that the weaknesses of APRM may be attributed to the existing reduced authorization …


Aid Suspensions As Coercive Tools? The European Union’S Experience In The African-Caribbean-Pacific (Acp) Context, Clara Portela Aug 2007

Aid Suspensions As Coercive Tools? The European Union’S Experience In The African-Caribbean-Pacific (Acp) Context, Clara Portela

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Since the signing of the Cotonou Agreement in 2000, the European Union (EU) has suspended development aid towards a number of African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries in response to breaches of Human Rights and democratic principles by activating the so-called Human Rights clause (article 96). The present article analyses the use by the EU of aid suspensions as political tools and their efficacy in achieving the desired policy goals, in an attempt to identify and explain the determinants leading to the success of these measures. The investigation finds that the use of development aid suspensions is frequently effective. Classical …


U.S.-Hong Kong Relations: Prospects For A Unique Partnership, Bates Gill, James T. H. Tang Jul 2007

U.S.-Hong Kong Relations: Prospects For A Unique Partnership, Bates Gill, James T. H. Tang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Hong Kong has survived turbulent economic, social and political changes in the past ten years since the former crown colony’s reversion to Chinese sovereignty. Following setbacks in the wake of the Asian financial crisis and the avian flu outbreak in 1997, the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003, and several massive political demonstrations in recent years, Hong Kong’s economy has had a robust and steady rebound. Hong Kong has maintained its position as a leading business and financial hub in the Asia-Pacific region and for the world. It has continued to play a pivotal role in China’s …


Political Dialogue And Human Rights In The Framework Of The Cotonou Agreement, Clara Portela Jul 2007

Political Dialogue And Human Rights In The Framework Of The Cotonou Agreement, Clara Portela

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The present study analyses the use of the political instruments for the protection of Human Rights, democracy and the rule of law under the Partnership Agreement between the European Union (EU) and the African-Caribbean–Pacific (ACP) countries embedded in the Cotonou Agreement: the consultations under article 96, intensified and regular political dialogue. It briefly outlines the legal provisions of the revised treaty, reviews recent practice, and looks into the involvement of civil society and parliamentary bodies in the political dialogue.


Future Imperfect: The European Union's Encounter With China (And The United States), William A. Callahan Jul 2007

Future Imperfect: The European Union's Encounter With China (And The United States), William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

There has been much talk in recent years about an emerging EU-China axis that challenges the United States in a new strategic triangle. The EU-China strategic partnership, which was declared in 2003, suggests that both sides are gaining global influence as a new kind of superpower that seeks to avoid the bloody conflict that characterized the Cold War. Rather than discuss the contours of this new geopolitical axis, this essay argues that EU-China relations are shifting the meaning of security in an emerging arena of global symbolic politics. It analyzes the symbolic politics of EU-China relations through a close reading …


Electoral Laws As Political Consequences: Explaining The Origins And Change Of Electoral Institutions, Kenneth Benoit Jun 2007

Electoral Laws As Political Consequences: Explaining The Origins And Change Of Electoral Institutions, Kenneth Benoit

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this review article, I identify the key questions raised by the treatment of electoral systems not as causal influences on party systems but as effects or byproducts of party systems. Framing these questions in the context of the classic consequences-oriented study of electoral institutions, I first review the classic approach, which treats electoral systems as causes, and explore the potential implications when electoral systems are viewed instead as outcomes of party systems. I then survey a variety of principal explanations of the origins and change of electoral laws, followed by a focus on several of the more explicitly defined …


Tianxia, Empire And The World: Soft Power And China’S Foreign Policy Discourse In The 21st Century, William A. Callahan May 2007

Tianxia, Empire And The World: Soft Power And China’S Foreign Policy Discourse In The 21st Century, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

China’s recent ‘charm offensive’ is captivating the world stage. Although there has been a thorough cataloguing of China’s soft power assets in terms of the effectiveness and limitations of the PRC’s public diplomacy, much less attention has been paid to how the normative aspect of China’s growing soft power will set the world agenda. This essay will examine the concept of ‘Tianxia’ to understand Chinese visions of world order. Tianxia is interesting both because it was key to the governance and self-understanding of three millennia of Chinese empire, and also because discussion of Tianxia is becoming popular again in the …


Chinese Visions Of World Order: Tianxia, Empire And The World, William A. Callahan Mar 2007

Chinese Visions Of World Order: Tianxia, Empire And The World, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Lately there has been increasing interest among IR scholars in Chinese thought both as an alternative to Eurocentric IR and because the PRC as an emerging power will soon have the institutional power to promote its view of the world. Rather than look for suitable Chinese parallels to ‘international’, ‘security’ or other mainstream concepts, this paper will examine the concept of ‘Tianxia’ to understand Chinese visions of world order. Tianxia is interesting both because it was key to the governance and self-understanding of three millennia of Chinese empire, and also because discussion of Tianxia is becoming popular again in the …


Benchmarks For Text Analysis: A Response To Budge And Pennings, Kenneth Benoit, Michael Laver Mar 2007

Benchmarks For Text Analysis: A Response To Budge And Pennings, Kenneth Benoit, Michael Laver

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Budge and Pennings (2007) criticize the “Wordscores” method for computerized content analysis on essentially two grounds. The first is that the best test of Wordscores accuracy is whether it can “reproduce the rich time series produced by the MRG/CMP covering a 50 year period” (Budge and Pennings, 2007: 5), which Budge and Pennings claim it does not do. The second is that Wordscores time series estimates, as implemented by Budge and Pennings, yield very little variation around mean scores for the entire time series. In this brief response we make three simple points.


Estimating Party Policy Positions: Comparing Expert Surveys And Hand-Coded Content Analysis, Kenneth Benoit, Michael Laver Mar 2007

Estimating Party Policy Positions: Comparing Expert Surveys And Hand-Coded Content Analysis, Kenneth Benoit, Michael Laver

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this paper we compare estimates of the left-right positions of political parties derived from an expert survey recently completed by the authors with those derived by the Comparative Manifestos Project (CMP) from the content analysis of party manifestos. Having briefly described the expert survey, we first explore the substantive policy content of left and right in the expert survey estimates. We then compare the expert survey to the CMP method on methodological grounds. Third, we directly compare the expert survey results to the CMP results for the most recent time period available, revealing some agreement but also numerous inconsistencies …


Trauma And Community: The Visual Politics Of Chinese Identity In Sino-Japanese Relations, William A. Callahan Jan 2007

Trauma And Community: The Visual Politics Of Chinese Identity In Sino-Japanese Relations, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

With the coming of industry to Europe and European empire to the world, individual bodies took on a new role to represent the modern body politic in international space. [...]the Boy Scouts was established as a way of safeguarding the fitness not just of specific boys against venereal disease, but of safeguarding the general fitness of British imperial rule that was 'threatened' by miscegenational temptations in the colonies.2 2. Rather than producing and distributing positive role models of Chinese patriots like the Boy Scouts, the National Humiliation Gymnastics primer uses basically the same image to construct the community of China …


Nationalism, Civilization, And Transnational Relations: The Discourse Of Greater China, William A. Callahan Jan 2007

Nationalism, Civilization, And Transnational Relations: The Discourse Of Greater China, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This essay examines the interplay between nationalism and foreign policy in China—but with a twist. It seeks to loosen up analytical categories to expand from cultural nationalism to see how civilization constructs identity in national and transnational ways. It examines the limits of Chinese trans/nationalism according to the main Chinese expression of inside/outside—‘civilization/barbarism’—as it constructs Chinese nationalism and Greater China. The purpose is to both critically examine Chinese nationalism and to trace what our focus on the nation-state obscures: namely, transnational politics. Rather than recounting one master narrative of Chinese nationalism, the essay argues that civilization and barbarian define Greater …


Globalization, The Developmental State, And The Politics Of Urban Growth In Korea: A Multilevel Analysis, Yooil Bae, Jefferey M. Sellers Jan 2007

Globalization, The Developmental State, And The Politics Of Urban Growth In Korea: A Multilevel Analysis, Yooil Bae, Jefferey M. Sellers

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article explores the politics of urban growth in a transitional society. Korea, which is experiencing rapid industrialization, urbanization and democratic transition exemplifies a set of conditions that may seem to favor the emergence of an urban growth politics and business-led growth coalition much like that found in urban areas at the time of industrialization, and still prevalent in much of the US and other western democracies today. Yet our multilevel case analyses show that the transformations in Korea as a late industrializer, late democratizer and late adopter of urban policy have helped to consolidate more restricted policies toward urban …


Party Groups And Policy Positions In The European Parliament, Gall Mcelroy, Kenneth Benoit Jan 2007

Party Groups And Policy Positions In The European Parliament, Gall Mcelroy, Kenneth Benoit

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

As the legislative body of the European Union (EU), the European Parliament (EP) comprises 732 elected representatives from over 150 national political parties from 25 member states. At the EP level, these members are affiliated with seven major party groups representing distinct policy positions. Here we provide precise estimates of these policy positions based on expert surveys, in addition to characterizing the dimensionality of policy competition in the EP. Our results suggest not only that party groups have identifiable and differentiated positions on multiple issues of policy, but also that these positions group broadly into two orthogonal dimensions: one consisting …


The Cartel Party And The Rise Of The New Extreme Right, Riccardo Pelizzo Nov 2006

The Cartel Party And The Rise Of The New Extreme Right, Riccardo Pelizzo

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.


With The Grain Or Against The Grain? Energy Security And Chinese Foreign Policy In The Hu Jintao Era, James T. H. Tang Oct 2006

With The Grain Or Against The Grain? Energy Security And Chinese Foreign Policy In The Hu Jintao Era, James T. H. Tang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Are China’s growing energy needs insatiable, and is a resource war between China and other major energy-consuming countries, such as the United States, inevitable? China’s pursuit of overseas energy resources to feed its fast-growing economy has given rise to observations that energy is now the driving force behind Chinese foreign policy and predictions that potential conflicts between China and other countries are likely to arise as China becomes more aggressive internationally in search of resources.


Who? Whom? Reparations And The Problem Of Agency, Chandran Kukathas Sep 2006

Who? Whom? Reparations And The Problem Of Agency, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

If a person is wronged, whether by a physical violation of his person or by having his property unjustly taken, or even by the besmirching of his reputation, he is, most people agree, entitled to some form of compensation or restitution from the person or persons responsible for the wrong. What form the reparation should take, and how great it should be, are sometimes difficult problems, but this does not change the fact that something is owed and someone must be held to account. If a restaurant goes bust because a supplier fails to fulfill his commitments and a newspaper …


Richard Rorty And Moral Progress In Global Relations, Eduard Jordaan Aug 2006

Richard Rorty And Moral Progress In Global Relations, Eduard Jordaan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Richard Rorty's navigation of the pitfalls of the cosmopolitan-communitarian debate, concern with human suffering, recognition of the contingency of communal identities and relationships, and his endorsement of liberal societies, by definition inclusive and always in search of a greater justice, make it appear as though his thought can guide us towards greater concern for the world's poor. However, this article questions the progressive potential of Rorty's thought. Obstacles to such (global) moral progress include Rorty's unquestioned statism and his focus on internal outsiders who are suffering and/or oppressed, instead of external outsiders beyond national borders; his insistence on a public-private …