CIAO DATE: 03/2011
Volume: 6, Issue: 1
February 2011
Tribunes versus experts: an analysis of the Romanian questions (PDF)
Mihail Chiru, Valentina Dimulescu
The article proposes an original framework for analyzing all the questions addressed to the European Council and Commission by the thirty-three Romanian Members of the European Parliament (EP) in the first year of their European mandate. We rely on a complex dataset that includes the parliamentarians’ age, gender, previous experience in the European legislature, position on the party list, when elected and the party national status (in opposition or government). The nearly 400 interpellations are content-analyzed and then multivariate statistical techniques are applied in order to explain first, the questions’ frequency and second, their connections to topics related either to Romania or to the MEPs’ committee work. Our results reflect the Romanian MEPs’ adaptation to the major patterns of interpellation in the EP, while at the same time emphasizing the importance of re-election seeking motivations, as well as a rather novel gender-related difference in parliamentary behaviour.
The use of gendered victim identities before and during the war in former Yugoslavia (PDF)
Tamara Banjeglav
The article discusses the construction of the self-victimization identities of former Yugoslav nations, which were developed through certain discourses and representational practices of the media controlled by nationalistic political elites. The victim identities analysed were largely constructed in gendered terms. Thus, the article analyzes examples of media reporting which used gendered victimization practices, in an attempt to reveal how national identity can be constructed as victim identity and how gender can be used to achieve this. In order to do this, the article looks at examples of articles published in some of the most prominent printed media from countries involved in the war (Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina) reporting about gender-based sexual violence. It discusses the way in which the media covered events happening before the outbreak of war, which had consequences for later developments as it introduced the idea that sexual violence could be used as ethnic violence and as an effective tool of war.
Andreas Kornelakis
The article tracks institutional changes within two central spheres for Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) theory: the industrial relations system and the finance/corporate governance system. Italy and Greece are examined in comparative perspective vis-à-vis CME and LME paradigm cases. The review of recent developments reveals that while industrial relations in both countries show signs of greater coordination, the finance/corporate governance system acquired increasingly liberal market characteristics. Thereby, this analysis casts doubt to the dual convergence thesis, arguing that the hybrid character of the two countries was exacerbated over the last two decades.
Agency theory and agency environment: elements and relations within British civil service (PDF)
Önder Kutlu
This article examines an important tool of politics, the dichotomy between politics and administration, to reform administrative systems. Due to its success and the pioneering role in the implementation of agency reform and resultant provision of lessons for many countries (i.e. Netherlands and Norway) the British case is selected for evaluation. The British Next Steps Agencies Reform is examined by deploying historical reconstruction model, and intended to find out its basic elements and interactions between different such actors of the initiative as politicians, bureaucrats, agencies and departments. This illustrates the scale and scope of the relations with the idea of having shed light on Agency theory. Having examined the essential elements the study wishes to focus on the mechanism which has been introduced by the initiative dispenses certain degree of power to agencies. In doing so, the paper targets a balance between two actors of political systems, bureaucrats, and politicians.
"Join a party or I cannot elect you": The independent candidate question in Tanzania (PDF)
Alexander Makulilo
Independent candidates are not allowed in Tanzania. This restriction has raised debate which dominates multipartism and its efficacy in the country. Since the inception of multipartism in 1992, there have been three major cases on independent candidates. In the first two cases, the High Court ruled in favour of independent candidate. However, in the third case, the Court of Appeal, while subscribing to the need of independent candidates, it nullified the previous judgments by the High Court on the ground that the court had no jurisdiction in declaring a constitutional provision to be unconstitutional; and that the independent candidate issue being political and not legal should be resolved by the parliament. I argue that the Court of Appeal failed to exercise its mandate in administering justice. I further argue that such failure is attributed to the fear by the justices from the ruling party and its government.
Dinoj Kumar Upadhyay
The unprecedented rise of China as a global power in the international arena has prompted many global scholars and researchers to embark on critical studies of its dynamism and transition. Though much valuable literature is available on Chinese economic and social transformation for the interested readers, the vast majority does not depict a clear picture of “how, where and when China was transformed exactly?” There are several misperceptions associated with Chinese transformation, the nature of its polity, its decision-making processes, economic development and the civilian-military relationship. With his most recent work, China’s Path to Power: Party, Military and the Politics of State Transition, Jagannath P. Panda seeks to explain, explore and conceptualize the Chinese transition design, “systemic incrementalism”, and provide a substantial contribution to the various facets of the never-ending debate on the rise of China. Panda argues that much of the analysis on the Chinese issues has been done through a prism of ideology and focused narrowly on its world view and economic growth. A scientific and comprehensive analysis of its gradual progressive reforms in the realm of politics and economics is missing.
Jelena Dzankic
Party Politics in the Western Balkans, edited by Vĕra Stojarová and Peter Emerson is a much-needed publication in the study of the political parties in the region. Although the Balkans area has attracted immense academic interest due to two turbulent decades, the examination of the political parties in the Western Balkans is limited to a handful of sources.
Rasa Balockaite
Finding terra incognita in a world exposed for academic gaze, a place of earth, an area of life, still not trampled down by the shoes of the theorists, still not torn into parts by their academic instruments – that’s the task. The relationship between the US President and his party is territory of that kind. One can enter here with a pioneering gaze talk about it unburdened by the heavy weight of academic authorities or big names in the field, undisturbed by previous famous dictums and quotations and taking all the pride (or failure) for himself.
Martino Bianchi
The ambiguous behavior of international financial institutions and western government faced with southern and poor countries is a highly discussed topic by social science academics, but it is also quite fashionable in newspapers, in political debate and even in films and narrative books. Less than ten years ago, Joseph Stiglitz’s Globalization and its discontents was a best seller all over the world, a unique event for a text written by a Nobel Prize winner in Economics. Debt management for development will probably not achieve the same popularity but nevertheless it gives us new and considerable insights. While Stiglitz’s contribution was more focused on the impact of the Washington Consensus over poor countries’ policies, this contribution is more specifically focused on the inefficiencies created by the mismanagement of high sovereign debt levels.
Richardo Pereira
In Political Science and International Relations scholarship HIV/AIDS as a socio-political phenomenon affecting millions of people worldwide has largely tended to be approached in global terms. Particularly in discussions of contemporary international regimes of security and human rights, HIV/AIDS is associated with the generalized idea that in time of globalization ‘there are no boundaries.’ Just like the human beings who carry them, viruses circulate apparently uncontrolled across the world. To a large extent, this assertion derives clearly from another, broader, assumption based on the retreat of nation-states, and concomitant expansion of a West-led, hegemonic project of globalization, namely with regard to technologies of management of, and response to, human-related issues. However, national contexts have always been fundamental in global approaches to social intervention.
Vadim Astashin
Collaboration with students is quite often a source of interesting research ideas. Teaching in the U.S. Naval Academy, Professor Stephen Frantzich noticed to his great wonder that his students, who would be in government service in future, were cynical about their government. The main task for teacher is “to provide real examples of relatively typical individuals who overcame cynism to affect public well-being”.(p.ix). Academic experience originated interesting research work which would help to prove that government could not ignore the people and had to respond.
Emilian Kavalski
The problems associated with climate change and their unintended consequences have challenged the capacities for comprehension. At the same time, the issues provoked by environmental degradation tend to evince the fickleness of established models for their management.