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To help explain public sentiment about reconciliation among contemporary South Africans, two major issues are discussed. The first is how reconciliation was articulated and 'performed' by key leaders during the early transition. The second relates to factors shaping South Africans' current perceptions of reconciliation. By recalling significant statements made by political leaders, and outlining the roles of the National Peace Accord and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, it is shown that reconciliation was initially accepted by South Africans when it was defined as an acceptance of their interdependence, and was seen as being based on a commitment to justice and inclusivity. The post-apartheid leadership was mandated to build on these commitments in order to create a more just society over time. However, data from various public opinion surveys reveal that, despite important achievements, the government's failure to pay reparations, combined with state corruption and denial from the white community, have created increasing disillusionment with reconciliation.

This paper examines truth and reconciliation processes in stable, democratic societies. Its focus is on the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, which assumed that historical knowledge can lead directly to new understanding and then to reconciliation, a social change involving improved relations between Aboriginal and other peoples. The paper argues that institutions such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada – here called discursive institutions – require more careful explanations of how discourse might be related to change. Discursive institutions mobilize prior orientations and existing social, cultural and institutional levers for change; they do not create new mechanisms for doing so.

This article presents a theory of reconciliation for postcolonial settler societies. It asks: what are the scope, substance and limitations of a normative theory of political reconciliation for historical wrongs in these societies? The article begins with an assessment of communitarian and agonistic theories and then outlines an alternative based on mutual respect, which includes three core elements: critical reflection, symbolic and material recognition, and political participation. The case of the United States and Native Americans is used to illustrate this alternative theory.

The place of reconciliation in processes of conflict transformation is a deeply contested political issue. Reconciliation has played differing strategic roles in a variety of conflictual contexts. In some instances, such as Northern Ireland in the 1990s, the demands of reconciliation and the pursuit of truth seemed a step too far in the process of reducing political violence. In others, such as South Africa, it was a pivotal part of the transformative dynamic offering hope for a more unified post-apartheid settlement. Meanwhile in contemporary Australia, the idea of reconciliation continues to provide a rhetorical framing for the renegotiation of indigenous politics. This paper analyses these differing approaches to and uses of reconciliation and contends that they are underpinned by political narratives which invoke emotions of fear, hope and disappointment. This suggests that understanding these sentiments is fundamental to addressing the temporal challenges of the politics of reconciliation and the structural–agential dynamics of conflict transformation.

Is political trust in China anomalous? In most countries there are systematic differences in the level of trust in national and local government that take one of three patterns. In some countries, individuals trust the national government more than local government (hierarchical trust); in others individuals trust local government more than national government; while in some countries individuals trust both levels of government equally. Of 11 Asian societies, the only country where hierarchical trust predominates is China. Elsewhere the norm is to put more trust in local levels of government. While previous studies have described the pattern of trust in China, no study has considered relative trust as an outcome or comparatively. Taking advantage of the 2006 and 2010 Asian Barometer Survey data we consider whether the hierarchical trust pattern in China is the result of political control, culture, and/or performance. We find that political control explains the hierarchical trust pattern in China.

This article attempts to analyze the process of selective history and hegemony-making in Singapore, and makes the following arguments. Firstly, the birth of the nation-state led the political elites to rely on several hegemonic ideologies as founding myths, chief of which is the idea of 'survival'. Secondly, to create and sustain these ideologies, two things needed to be done concurrently: de-emphasize the Malay-ness of the nation's past; and accentuate the racial/religious nature of sources to instability. Finally, the article makes the claim that these ideologies have been successfully perpetuated, and outlines the contours of this success. In making these arguments, the article hopes to argue against Singapore 'exceptionalism' in studies on democratization, and further contends that the link between ideas, history and authoritarianism needs to be considered more seriously.

The Arab Spring exemplifies to many a kind of globalisation from below. It cuts across borders and challenges liberal and technocratic élites. But how far does its global resonance really go? Are publics still largely corralled within national political spaces? Are waves of revolt confined by civilisational breakwaters? Or is the cosmopolitan space that many leftists envision taking shape? Based on a three-country survey of university students, this article probes these assumptions. It finds far-reaching solidarity with the aspirations of the Arab Spring, driven by the rise of a cross-border global society. But on probing the bases of such solidarity, it also finds that the cosmopolitan cohort emerging in the Global South does not fit a simple liberal or leftist mould. The Arab Spring resonates on multiple frequencies at the same time. This complex cosmopolitanism has implications for layers of common ground as global political opportunity structures emerge.

Feminist institutionalism is concerned with the 'rules of the game' in political institutions. It is interested to explore how institutions create gender-just conditions in terms of the policies and actions they undertake and the make-up of the elected representatives they contain. It also has a growing interest in how institutions can resist or obstruct positive gendered change. It is argued here that employing the concept of 'critical actors' alongside a feminist institutionalist framework can further our understanding of why some institutions resist change. Using the example of abortion legislation in Northern Ireland, this article illustrates how the literatures on feminist institutionalism and critical actors can, when combined, help to build a fuller narrative of why gendered policy change does not happen.

How do non-governmental organizations (NGOs) affect sanction policies? Using two datasets of sanctions and NGOs, we study whether and how US-based NGOs working in a target state can influence the threat and implementation of sanctions initiated by the USA. At the threat stage, the sender government tends to perceive NGOs as a signaling device such that NGOs increase the probability of sanction threat. At the imposition stage, the presence of NGOs in a target state also increases the likelihood of a sender state imposing sanctions. In addition, the sender state tends to implement costly sanctions when NGOs have more field operations in target states. This study provides a systematic explanation of the relationship between NGOs and sanction threat and implementation.

While many studies of party system nationalization examine the effects of various institutional factors, few take into account the impact of party formation cost. This paper aims to fill the empirical gap by focusing on the interactive effect of electoral systems and party registration rules. I argue that the effect of electoral systems on party system nationalization is conditional on spatial registration rules, a requirement that requires a party to collect signatures or organize local branches in a specified geographical manner to maintain the party's legal status. Based on data for 97 legislative elections in 18 Latin American countries from 1978 to 2011, the empirical analysis demonstrates that a country with an electoral system that encourages a personal vote tends to have a much lower level of party system nationalization when that country does not have spatial registration requirements. The result is robust across different model specifications and estimation techniques.

Party group leaders seemingly use a variety of disciplinary measures to achieve unified voting behavior in party groups. However, there is little systematic knowledge about the nature of such disciplinary measures and the interaction between leaders and group members remains a black box. Most studies of party voting concentrate on institutional variables such as electoral systems and take disciplinary measures as a given. This study presents a new way to measure party discipline, based on data from semi-structured interviews with 76 party group leaders and experts from five European parliaments. The discipline index provided here is the first to consider in a systematic way the means available to reprimand or reward party group members. In a second step, the study shows that disciplinary measures can compensate for a leader's lack of control over candidate selection processes, and relate to group composition or size.