Suchergebnisse

This article is a comparative study of the relationship between social movements and the individual rights of citizenship. It identifies three main connections between collective action and individual rights made in theory and history, and analyses them in the context of modern authoritarian regimes. It does so by measuring both social mobilization and the presence of rights over time in Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Spain, and analyses their mutual impact statistically - both within and across these national cases. The results demonstrate the mutual impact between rights and movements, and more importantly, constitute a robust defence of democracy as the direct result of collective struggle for individual rights. (British Journal of Political Science / FUB)

Discusses on political developments between the 1993 and 1998 elections; focuses on public support for the democratic process and rule of law, as opposed to the authoritarian nature of the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) and the 1998 election's lack of freedom or fairness. Also describes Australian-Cambodian relations.

Draws on observations of postauthoritarian transformation processes in Eastern Europe & South Africa to argue that the description of civil society presented by Hans-Joachim Lauth & Wolfgang Merkel (1997 [see abstract 9713375]) is overly normative & homogeneous. It is contended that Lauth & Merkel's three-phase model of the function of civil societies during liberalization, democratization, & democratic consolidation overemphasizes institutions, stresses political processes at the expense of economic & social ones, & neglects external actors & actors operating between civil society & the state. Further, their model suffers from a normative insistence on nonviolence & a democratic orientation, from a failure to distinguish between transformation & transition, & from the absence of a process-related explanation of social conflict, negotiation, & exchange. 8 References. Adapted from the source document.

Analyzes centralization of governmental decision-making and the more visible role for technocrats during the Fujimori administration; implications for democracy.

To explore whether political regime matters, parallel analyses were conducted of Spanish public expenditure & taxation policies under the authoritarian Francisco Franco regime & in the current democracy, as well as of decision-making processes under both regimes. Data obtained via in-depth interviews with 97 relevant government officials, 1974-1996, indicate that political regime characteristics can have a profound impact on both policy processes & outputs. Ruling out a socioeconomic explanation, it is concluded that striking aberrations in state spending & taxation policies in the early 1970s were systematic products of unusual features of Franquist policy-making processes, which were directly linked to the authoritarian nature of the regime itself. Subsequently, democratization has been accompanied by dramatic changes in both policy processes & outputs. 5 Tables, 63 References. Adapted from the source document.

Compares their development in the 15 successor states, 1990-93; some focus on the strengthening of presidential power in Russia under Boris Yeltsin.