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Brunei Darusssalam
Abstract
Dieses Kapitel analysiert das politische System des malaiisch-islamischen Sultanats Brunei Darussalam. Zunächst wird die historische Entwicklung von der Kolonialzeit bis zur Unabhängigkeit des Kleinstaates im Jahre 1984 dargestellt und die Struktur des bruneiischen Rentenstaats ausgeleuchtet, dessen Wohlstand hauptsächlich auf dem Export von Erdöl und Erdgas basiert. Anschließend werden das Verfassungs-, Regierungs- und Rechtssystem der dynastisch-autoritären Monarchie analysiert. Es folgt die Darstellung des Aufbaus der staatlichen Verwaltung, der Gründe für das Fehlen eines bedeutsamen Systems der politischen Parteien, der zivil-militärischen Beziehungen und des Sicherheitssektors, sowie der politischen Kultur und Zivilgesellschaft Bruneis. Wie die Analyse der politischen Institutionen und Strategien der autokratischen Herrschaftssicherung zeigt, basiert die Stabilität des autoritären Regimes auf der Kombination „weicher“ Repression, der politischen Tauschlogik des Rentenstaats, sowie der Legitimation der autokratischen Monarchie im Rahmen des Konzepts der „Melayu Islam Beraja“. Wahlen, Parteien und Parlamente, denen die aktuelle Autokratien-Forschung große Bedeutung beimisst, spielen in der monokratisch organisierten, absoluten Monarchie eine geringe Rolle.
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While Vietnam suffered economically due to COVID-19, the ruling Vietnam Communist Party burnished its image through its successful management of the crisis. This review examines the roots of the party’s success and discusses why the party has nonetheless continued to stifle dissent. It also previews the 13th Party Congress.
The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Timor-Leste in 2020 was great, and the ripple effects may be felt for years. Paradoxically, it was not that the population was directly impacted—indeed, the small half-island nation stands out with only a score or so of cases, and no deaths—but that the oil-dependent economy and the status of financial reserves took a major hit with the collapse of oil and stock prices. In the interest of managing the pandemic, the incumbent prime minister declared a state of emergency, withdrawing his earlier resignation and thus averting a political crisis. Still, as the new economic realities surrounding oil-related mega-infrastructure projects hit home, we see churn among the concerned ministers and technocrats, amid a major rethink of the way ahead, and with many of the choices invidious in the challenging new economic environment.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) currently faces a series of major, historically unprecedented, challenges. Perhaps the most consequential of these new threats is the intensifying strategic, economic, and even institutional competition between the United States and China. ASEAN's rather predictable response to this geopolitical contest has been to “hedge” and avoid choosing between the two great powers. While this strategy may be understandable, it threatens to undermine ASEAN's much vaunted “centrality” and the geopolitical and diplomatic relevance of the organization as a whole. This article explores the background to these developments and Southeast Asia's relationship with both the United States and China. I argue that the limited impact of ASEAN-style multilateralism helps to explain why great powers are creating alternative forums or simply paying lip service to the notion of ASEAN centrality.
Because of a perceived (and real) risk of repressive action, some survey questions are sensitive in more autocratic countries while less so in more democratic countries. Yet, survey data on potentially sensitive topics are frequently used in comparative research despite concerns about comparability. To examine the comparability of politically sensitive questions, I employ a multilevel analysis with more than 228,000 respondents in 37 African countries to test for systematic bias when the survey respondents believe (fear) that the government, rather than an independent research institute, has commissioned the survey. The findings indicate that fear of the government induces a substantial and significant bias on questions regarding trust, approval and corruption perceptions in more autocratic countries, but not in more democratic countries. In contrast, innocuous, apolitical questions are not systematically influenced by regime type.
Baumgartner, Kada, and thier contributors examine presidential impeachment in such varied settings as the United States, Russia, Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, the Philippines, and Madagascar. In all of these countries there has been a serious impeachment attempt within the past decade or so. The results of each impeachment attempt vary, from unnsuccessful attempts to those which were successful; in the latter case, some resulted in presidents remaining in office, others in removal of the president, and, in one case, the forced resignation of a president.
The common framework of each analysis includes a discussion of the historical and constitional bases of the presidency, the institutional balance of power, provisions for impeachment, and the structure of party politics in each country; in addition, the role that public opinion plays in the process is discussed. While broad, the framework permits comparison between the cases and some general conclusions about all phases of the impeachment process and executive accountability can be drawn. One of the most important conclusions is that contrary to popular wisdom, impeachment is most definitively not a strictly legal process, but rather one that is highly political from start to finish. As the volume makes clear, it is most useful to view impeachment by way of examining the intersection of executive-legislative relations, partisan political conflict, and public opinion.
King provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of the reforms in the core institutions of democratic representation, political parties, elections, and legislatures that led the way from late 1998 through 2001. These reforms are placed in historical perspective, compared both with the electoral institutions of Suharto's New Order and with the first democratic election in 1955. King also examines the political struggles during the legislative process and identifies the compromises reached between hardliners and reformers. The new electoral policies are juxtaposed to actual practices—imlpementation—during the 1999 election at both the national and subnational levels, the latter through a case study in the heartland of Java.
The bases of voters' choice—election results—are explained using multivariate analysis. A key finding is that social-based voting has remained stronger than expected. King's analysis then considers the postelection, second wave of electoral reform that focused on the Electoral Commission and amendments to the Constitution. Lastly, King compares Indonesia's political reforms with those of the Philippines and Thailand. In sum, this book is indispensable to understanding the extent of Indonesia's political reforms, why the installation of electoral democracy succeeded, and the prospects for the consolidation of democracy. Of particular interst to scholars, students, and other researchers interested in political transitions in general and in Southeast Asia in particular.
This comprehensive guide to the Pacific and South Asia provides detailed and enlightening information about the many ethnic groups of this increasingly important region of the world.
Ideally suited for high school and undergraduate students studying subjects such as anthropology, geography, and social studies, Ethnic Groups of South Asia and the Pacific: An Encyclopedia provides clear, detailed, and up-to-date information on each major group in South Asian and Pacific Island countries, including India, Nepal, Indonesia, Pakistan, Singapore, Australia, Tonga, Samoa, and the Solomon Islands.
Organized alphabetically by ethnic group, each entry provides an introduction followed by accessible descriptions of the origins, early history, cultural life, political life, and modern history of the ethnicity. Alternate names, major population centers, primary languages and religions, and other important characteristics of each group are also covered. Beyond being a valuable resource for student research, this book will be enlightening and entertaining for general readers interested in South Asia and the Pacific.
This volume contains a selection of essays drawn from a major scholarly project undertaken by the American Council of Learned Societies. The ACLS hosted symposia around the world in order to broaden and stimulate the field of comparative constitutionalism. That effort brought together scholars and political actors from many countries and every region of the world to discuss the experiences of constitutionalism. Twenty-five papers were selected to represent the range and depth of possibility for serious constitutional analysis. With the staggering changes in Eastern Europe and much of the rest of the world, constitutionalism has become one of the most important phenomena in the modern world. The essays in this book represent the very best work being done throughout the world on that important topic.
China, like many authoritarian regimes, struggles with the tension between the need to foster economic development by empowering local officials and the regime's imperative to control them politically. Landry explores how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) manages local officials in order to meet these goals and perpetuate an unusually decentralized authoritarian regime. Using unique data collected at the municipal, county, and village level, Landry examines in detail how the promotion mechanisms for local cadres have allowed the CCP to reward officials for the development of their localities without weakening political control. His research shows that the CCP's personnel management system is a key factor in explaining China's enduring authoritarianism and proves convincingly that decentralization and authoritarianism can work hand in hand.
This book is a unique analysis of the struggle to build a rule of law in one of the world's most dynamic and vibrant nations - a socialist state that is seeking to build a market economy while struggling to pursue an ethos of social equality and opportunity. It addresses constitutional change, the assertion of constitutional claims by citizens, the formation of a strong civil society and non-profit sector, the emergence of economic law and the battles over who is benefited by the economic regulation, labor law and the protection of migrant and export labor, the rise of lawyers and public interest law, and other key topics. Alongside other countries, comparisons are made to parallel developments in another transforming socialist state, the People's Republic of China.
The Small Arms Survey 2013 explores the many faces of armed violence outside the context of armed conflict. Chapters on the use of firearms in intimate partner violence, the evolution of gangs in Nicaragua, Italian organised crime groups, and trends in armed violence in South Africa describe the dynamics and effects of gun violence in the home and on the street. Many of the chapters in the 'weapons and markets' section zero in on the use of specific weapons by particular armed actors, such as drug-trafficking organisations and insurgents. These include chapters on the prices of arms and ammunition at illicit markets in Lebanon, Pakistan and Somalia; illicit weapons recovered in Mexico and the Philippines; and the impacts of improvised explosive devices on civilians. Chapters on the Second Review Conference of the UN Programme of Action and the industrial demilitarisation industry round out the 2013 volume.
Continuing her series, Professor Jan White discusses why children should be able to choose to be outside when they need to
This dissertation analyzes the effect of civilian control over the military amid the defense transformation agenda in Indonesia’s nascent democracy. Studies on civil-military relations and democratization has reached a consensus that civilian control of the military positively influences the democratic consolidation process. Well-institutionalized civilian control contributes to the entrenchment of democratically-elected civilians as the ultimate decision-makers in democratic regime. Nevertheless, systematic analysis on the relationship between the degree of civilian control of the military and policy change in the defense sector remains an understudied topic. In order to fill this lacuna, the author offers an integrative framework that is primarily derived from the institutional change theory approach. Accordingly, the scope of policy change in the defense sector is perceived as a function of two factors: the veto player configuration in the political decision-making arena; and the level of policy discretion in the national defense institution. This dissertation finds that the civilian government in post-Reformasi Indonesia was able to initiate limited change on promoting military jointness within the future orientation of national defense. Under the condition of multiple veto players and military domination in the defense institution, civilian government established new foundations of military warfighting integration. However, the civilian government was unable to replace the status quo of the total people defense doctrine that is heavily influenced by the army-strategic way of thinking. Ultimately, the Army domination in the defense institution influences the scope of policy change that could be afforded by the civilians.
The state of civil-military relations in Thailand in 2021-2022
This paper investigates the Singapore state’s varied responses toward dissent and explores the modes of control employed by the state towards varied dissent. We argue that any attempt to understand the politics of control in Singapore is incomplete without understanding how the state calibrates liberalisation as a third primary strategy. This study contributes to a more nuanced comprehension of how hybrid regimes can expand their modes of control. It offers a new framework to understand how tools of dominance are calibrated to adapt to a shifting socio-political landscape and calls for viewing liberalisation as a method of extending control.
Presidential term limits have been a crucial institutional feature of the third wave of democratization. They are meant to safeguard democracy by promoting alternation in office and preventing the personalization of power. However, since the 1990s term limits have been subject to frequent contestation by incumbents. This process has often been considered a sign of autocratization because it involves the weakening of other constitutional constraints, such as courts and legislatures. Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa are focal points of these trends, despite their different histories of presidentialism and diverging types of term-limit rules. Term-limit contestations have attracted the attention of scholars working with a global perspective as well as with a regional or country-specific one too. In this article, we argue that bringing together the regional scholarship on Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa can generate new both empirical and theoretical insights. We further present our findings on institutionalization, the power of precedence, incumbent-centred strategies and approaches to protect presidential term limits. We also show that despite frequent reforms, term-limit rules have persisted until today in the majority of constitutions found in the two regions.
The 2008 Constitution of the Union of Myanmar establishes the framework for a ‘discipline-flourishing’ constitutional democracy in which the Tatmadaw , the Burmese military, retains a significant degree of power. Under this Constitution, the Union Election Commission (UEC) is vested with significant authority to supervise elections, regulate political parties and electoral campaigns, register voters, suspend elections, and to make conclusive determinations in electoral disputes. Between 2010 and 2020, the UEC oversaw three consecutive general elections and three by-elections. Following a term under the former military leadership, the country's major democratic opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won a resounding victory in the 2015 elections. In the years that followed, civilian-military relations were a source of tension, as the NLD attempted to reform the executive and legislative roles for the military guaranteed by the Constitution. These tensions became in particular tangible during the 2020 elections, which the NLD again won in a landslide victory. The military alleged the election was marred by fraud while the UEC rejected this allegation. On 1 February 2021, hours before the new parliament was to convene, the Tatmadaw staged a coup d’état . This article reviews the UEC in its constitutional and political context. It identifies its institutional features, significant points in its brief history, and the impact of UEC leadership as a contributing factor in fostering confidence in the electoral process.
The National League for Democracy secured an astonishing electoral victory in Myanmar’s 2015 general elections after nearly three decades of repression of the party. Despite this victory, there are conflicting accounts on whether the NLD was a strong or a weak party leading into these elections. Appealing to data from an original survey and extensive qualitative field research, this article measures the NLD’s strength in 2015 and explores the mechanisms behind it. When operationalized as reported contact with voters, the NLD appears to have been a very strong party, but this strength can be explained by the same widespread enthusiasm for change, for democracy, and for Aung San Suu Kyi that existing scholarship appeals to in explaining the party’s victory in general. This finding has important implications for the NLD in the 2020 and future elections, as well as for our understanding of the dynamics of party strength in transitional regimes and new democracies more generally. Most importantly, the strategies parties have employed in transitions are unlikely to be successful in subsequent elections, as widespread enthusiasm and momentum gives way to everyday politics, but newly governing parties are likely to keep appealing to them precisely because they were so successful.
Die Staaten des vorderen Orients leben von den Renten, die das Erdöl nahezu ohne Gegenleistung abwirft - die einen mehr und direkt (ökonomische Renten), die anderen weniger und indirekt durch Zahlungen der Erdölförderstaaten (politische Renten) und Überweisungen der aus ihrem Lande stammenden Gastarbeiter (Migrantenrenten). Dieses Rentensystem hat tiefgreifende Auswirkungen in politischer, wirtschaftlicher und sozialer Hinsicht und führte zu einem starken Staat. So erscheint es lohnender, sich mit dem jeweiligen politischen System zu arrangieren als auf eine Demokratisierung hinzuarbeiten, und es ist profitabler, sich als Unternehmer um Privilegierungen zu bemühen als Risiken einzugehen, wenn man nicht gar von vornherein eine Beschäftigung im aufgeblähten Staatsapparat anstrebt. Die ärmeren Bevölkerungsschichten können mit Lebensmittelsubventionierung und kostenlosen Dienstleistungen (Gesundheit) ruhig gehalten werden. - Die Preiseinbrüche auf dem Welterdölmarkt jedoch zwingen zu Umstellungen, wobei die Liberalisierung von Ausmaß und Struktur der Renteneinnahmen abhängig ist. Das Beispiel Israels zeigt jedoch, daß die Rentier-Theorie das Verhalten politischer Systeme nicht allein erklären kann: Trotz hoher politischer Renten aus den USA hat sich hier eine Rentier-Mentalitat nicht durchsetzen können.
