Volume 7, Issue 1
Electoral Engineering and its Impact in the Former Yugoslav Republics
Danica Fink-Hafner, Damjan Lajh and Alenka Krašovec, p. 7–34
Abstract: Electoral engineering in the six former Yugoslav republics in the first decade following the first multi-party elections has helped to maintain or even recreate the authoritarian systems in which dominant parties could gain power and manipulate the timing and institutional rules of parliamentary elections. Institutional engineering in the context of war delayed the democratisation processes. Attempts at international and autonomous institutional engineering in ethnically segmented societies have so far failed to lead to the consolidation of democracy.
Keywords: electoral engineering, democratic transition, former, Yugoslav republics, political parties, ethnically segmented societies
Comparing National Security Strategies of the United States toward Central Europe and East Asia after the Cold War (1990-2010)
Pavel Hlaváček, p. 35–56
Abstract: Central Europe and East Asia have played significant role in the US foreign policy since the end of the Second World War. Since the end of bipolar division, however, its importance has changed. Our data, taken from the US National Security Strategies, confirm that the interest of the USA in Central Europe gradually declines to the lowest recorded levels since 1990. In case of East Asia, it has fluctuated and stabilized at the levels from the beginning of the 1990s.
Keywords: National Security Strategy, Central Europe, East Asia, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama
Path Making: Democracy in the Baltic States Twenty Years After
Lars Johannsen and Karin Hilmer Pedersen, p. 57–73
Abstract: Despite shared values and similar choices with respect to the institutions of democracy there is a difference between Estonia on the one hand and Latvia and Lithuania on the other. Estonia has had more success and developed a mature democracy whereas Latvia and Lithuanian are bogged down by corruption, polarization and populism. Articulating and establishing a discourse the virtuous circle in Estonia is the result of an unusual high degree of consensus among an alternatively elite that formulated a political project and acted under a sense of urgency.
Keywords: consensus, consolidation, institutionalism, Baltic states, path making, populism
Indonesia After Soeharto: Thirteen Years of Democratic Reforms
Tomáš Petrů, p. 74–85
Abstract: This paper attempts to provide an analysis of Indonesia´s trajectory from a ruthless authoritarian regime of General Suharto to a new emergent democracy in less than a decade. While hailed by some as the only democratic regime in the region and a potential economic powerhouse, others deride Indonesia as a flawed democracy where chaos, corruption and nepotism thrive, Suharto´s former cronies are still influential and human rights of minorities are at stake. Therefore, it is the objective of this paper to provide a more balanced look on the political transformation of this remote, but important and fascinating country, including the reforms in four key fields - i.e. the decentralization of the state, electoral legislature, the army, and the judiciary - and to assess their outcome.
Keywords: Indonesia, Soeharto, authoritarian regime, post-Soeharto, demise, transition, transformation, democratic reforms, election laws, decentralization, corruption
Money Can Buy Love: How Money Rolled Over Anticommunism and Support for Democracy. China’s Strategy to Delegitimise Taiwan and What Was Taiwan Able to Do?
Šárka Waisová, p. 86–97
Abstract: This paper attempts to provide an analysis of Indonesia´s trajectory from a ruthless authoritarian regime of General Suharto to a new emergent democracy in less than a decade. While hailed by some as the only democratic regime in the region and a potential economic powerhouse, others deride Indonesia as a flawed democracy where chaos, corruption and nepotism thrive, Suharto´s former cronies are still influential and human rights of minorities are at stake. Therefore, it is the objective of this paper to provide a more balanced look on the political transformation of this remote, but important and fascinating country, including the reforms in four key fields - i.e. the decentralization of the state, electoral legislature, the army, and the judiciary - and to assess their outcome.
Keywords: Indonesia, Soeharto, authoritarian regime, post-Soeharto, demise, transition, transformation, democratic reforms, election laws, decentralization, corruption
DISCUSSION
Petra Andělová: The Transformation of China After 1989
Adam Gwiazda: Ambivalent Approaches to Research in the Political Sciences
BOOK REVIEWS
Ľubomír Lupták: Grenzgebiet als Forschungsfeld. Aspekte der ethnografischen un kulturhistorischen Forschung des Grenzlandes