Fragmentation Of Political Authority Research Articles

Fragmentation of Political Authority and Bureaucratic Entrepreneurship: Explaining Instances of Minority Accommodation in Israel and Estonia

Why do some ethnic nation-states committed to preferential treatment of the dominant nation choose to accommodate their ethnic minorities in some realms? I argue that power struggles between elected and non-elected officials account for the variation in the treatment of ethnic minorities. Fragmentation of authority creates opportunities for entrepreneurial bureaucrats to initiate policy changes and lead to unanticipated outcomes. Drawing on nationalism studies in comparative politics and principal-agent scholarship in public administration, this article outlines a theoretical framework focused on domestic factors accounting for variation in state policies toward minorities in a novel way. I apply this framework to education policy in Israel and Estonia vis-à-vis the Palestinian Arab and Russian-speaking minorities. This article illuminates an empirical puzzle of minority accommodation under nationalist governments and explains the conditions under which it occurs, offering generalizable theoretical expectations for similar contexts.

Populism and constitutional tension

Abstract The recent resurgence of populism poses a significant challenge to constitutional law today and to the deeper tradition of modern constitutionalism. Despite resisting formal limitations on their power to represent the “true” popular will, populist regimes nevertheless find instrumental and ideological reasons to endorse their own version of constitutionalism. And despite their nativist commitments, populist leaders across the globe find common constitutional cause and mutual encouragement in their critique of cosmopolitan institutions and values. The distinctiveness of populism’s constitutional orientation rests on its occupation of a space between authoritarian and popular versions of constitutionalism, overlapping both but not reducible to either. There situated, populism involves a reaction against what it condemns as the neglect of the “unitary collective particular” in the liberal version of modern constitutionalism. Many critical of the inflated narratives and methods of populism nevertheless share some its underlying anxieties. For in an age in which an expanding commitment to the democratic pedigree of our constitutional arrangements has unfolded alongside the increasing transnationalization and fragmentation of political authority, the very instability of the balance between various constitutional goods—between plurality and unity, individualism and collectivism, and universal and particular rationalities—that fuels populists’ ire, deepens the defining tension of modern constitutionalism, and poses a challenge to all who continue to endorse it.

Populism and Constitutional Tension

The recent resurgence of populism poses a significant challenge to constitutional law today and to the deeper tradition of modern constitutionalism. Despite resisting formal limitations on their power to represent the ‘true’ popular will, populist regimes nevertheless find instrumental and ideological reasons to endorse their own version of constitutionalism. And despite their nativist commitments, populist leaders across the globe find common constitutional cause and mutual encouragement in their critique of cosmopolitan institutions and values. The distinctiveness of populism’s constitutional orientation rests on its occupation of a space between authoritarian and popular versions of constitutionalism, overlapping both but not reducible to either. There situated, populism involves a reaction against what it condemns as the neglect of the unitary collective particular in the liberal version of modern constitutionalism. Many critical of the inflated narratives and methods of populism nevertheless share some its underlying anxieties. For in an age in which an expanding commitment to the democratic pedigree of our constitutional arrangements has unfolded alongside the increasing transnationalisation and fragmentation of political authority, the very instability of the balance between various constitutional goods - between individualism and collectivism, universal and particular rationalities, and plurality and unity – that fuels populists’ ire, deepens the defining tension of modern constitutionalism and poses a challenge to all who continue to endorse it.

Nation Building or Nation Splitting? Political Transition and the Dangers of Violence

Internationally-directed nation building combines great rhetorical promise with very mixed practical outcomes. In spite of considerable optimism on the part of international actors, and in spite of often substantial desire for a functioning government among targeted populations, it has not clearly succeeded in building states or nations. The question is why? While many authors look to the weaknesses of international efforts for explanation, the answers may lie instead in the difficult process of transition itself. Although transforming political and social interactions is often necessary in post-conflict contexts, doing so can intensify vulnerabilities and uncertainties that prevent reforming governments from establishing legitimacy. That can in turn enable the fragmentation of political authority and become a sort of worst case scenario for nation building. International actors have shown no ability to counteract fragmentation and in some cases may unwittingly aid its entrenchment. One reason for this is that nation building strategies seldom take account of the hazards of transition, particularly the ways in which international preferences and domestic needs may clash. This article examines nation building within the context of political transition to assess how and when international efforts serve to unite or splinter state authority. It argues that the capacity to improve outcomes rests in better understanding the dynamics of transition, particularly the group vulnerabilities that reform exacerbates. Where nation building cannot counteract fragmentation it cannot succeed, but will serve rather to create contexts where political violence is both easier and more likely.

Iraq, Fragmentation, and the Global Governance of Inequalities

Since the US invaded Iraq, it has been concerned mainly with trying to limit challenges to its power and it has been willing to engage in state wrecking as well as state building in pursuit of that goal in the short term. Equally, opponents of the occupation have also been willing to engage in state wrecking and state building to try to drive the US out. The result has been the fragmentation of political authority and limited state capacity. The US has also been seeking to establish not a sovereign national state but a hierarchical governance state (that is, one which exercises mainly top-down coherent political authority through local, national and transnational public and corporate actors with governance not necessarily channelled through the national level) friendly to US interests. This is part of a wider global process of struggle over the multiple frontiers of inequality between the global North and global South. Desde que EE.UU. invadió a Iraq, su preocupación principal ha sido el tratar de limitar los retos a su poder y ha estado dispuesto a participar tanto en la destrucción estatal como en la edificación estatal para conseguir esa meta a corto plazo. De la misma manera, los oponentes de la ocupación también han estado dispuestos a involucrarse en la destrucción de estado y la edificación del mismo, para tratar de sacar a los EE.UU. El resultado ha sido la fragmentación de la autoridad política y la limitación de la capacidad estatal. Los EE.UU también han estado buscando establecer no un estado nacional soberano, pero un gobierno jerárquico (eso es, uno que ejercita mayormente la autoridad política coherente de arriba a abajo a través de actores locales, nacionales y trasnacionales corporativos con un gobierno no necesariamente canalizado a través de un nivel nacional) amigo de los intereses de EE.UU. Esto es parte de un proceso global de lucha más amplio sobre las múltiples fronteras desiguales entre el globo norte y el globo sur.

Religious freedom in Canada and the United States

This article compares the constitutional treatment of religion in the United States and Canada in light of differing patterns of religious practice in the two countries. It focuses on two questions. First, to what extent might constitutional norms or constitutional structures have contributed to their differing levels of religiosity? Though the evidence is inconclusive, the article argues that there are several constitutional differences— including differences with regard to the disestablishment of religion and the fragmentation of political authority into multiple jurisdictions—that might have affected levels of religiosity significantly. Second, to what extent have the religious differences between the two countries produced different constitutional norms of religious freedom? The article argues that, in general, the religious freedom jurisprudence of the two countries is surprisingly convergent, but there is one important difference: the idea of a ‘‘strict separation of church and state’’ pursuant to which any state support for religion or any state entanglement with religion is unconstitutional, has great power in the United States but little in Canada. Discrepancies between Canadian and American religious history have undoubtedly contributed to this difference. The United States and Canada are liberal democracies with immigrant populations, advanced economies with high standards of living, and federal political structures. Despite these similarities, Canada has undergone rapid secularization, comparable to that experienced by some Western European nations, while the United States has not. This paper asks two questions about this difference. The first is about how the countries’ constitutions have affected religious practices: To what extent, if any, is it plausible to suppose that constitutional norms or constitutional structure are among the root causes of the differing levels of religiosity? We will argue that the evidence is inconclusive; however, there are constitutional differences—including, most prominently, differences with regard to the disestablishment of religion and the fragmentation of political authority into multiple jurisdictions—that might have contributed to the disparities in the religiosity of the two countries. The second question is about how religious sociology has affected

National, Regional, and Global Governance: One Phenomenon or Many?

Since the 1980s, the concept of governance has increasingly been employed to describe policymaking in the national, regional, and global arenas. Definitions and uses of governance, however, are as varied as the issues and levels of analysis to which the concept is applied. They range from definitions that subsume any form of social coordination to policymaking in the absence of an overarching political authority, from descriptions of the withdrawal of the European welfare state to analyses of public sector reforms in Africa. (1) Common to these notions is the changing locus of political authority. The flexibility of the concept helps explain its growing popularity, but diverse uses of the term also restrict its utility. In particular, the multiple definitions tend to emphasize differences and neglect commonalities. The focus of contemporary research is restricted to detailed analyses of the specific modes of national, regional, and global governance rather than the comparison of governance arrangements across these levels. As such, there is little systematic investigation of how the rise of governance arrangements at different levels might be linked. In this article I explore whether governance might be understood as a general phenomenon and, if so, how it could be defined. The emergence and uses of governance across levels of analysis illustrate that, despite apparent differences, governance arrangements at the national, regional, and global levels display crucial similarities. Specifically, I suggest that governance can universally be defined by fragmentation of political authority in seven dimensions: geography, function, resources, interests, norms, decisionmaking, and policy implementation. Together they help to distinguish governance from government as ideal concepts of fragmented and centralized political authority. The resulting analytical framework is useful in several ways. First, if governance is understood as a general phenomenon, the framework helps to compare governance across levels of analysis. It encourages research on such questions as to what degree the problems and failures of governance arrangements at the national, regional, and global levels are comparable and whether solutions at one level are adaptable to another. Second, the proposed framework facilitates the comparison of governance arrangements across levers. It suggests that a trend from government to governance is observable not only in sectors such as commerce, but increasingly also in national and international security, which have traditionally been identified with the state monopoly of authority. (2) Third, the proposed framework helps to determine which factors have promoted the rise of governance and how governance norms and decisionmaking modes have been transferred from one level to another. My aim is to facilitate future substantive research by examining the possibilities for a common definition and comparative analysis. The first part of the article outlines the similarities of governance at the national, regional, and global levels. The second part proposes how these similarities can be used to develop an ideal-type understanding of the concept that distinguishes governance from government along seven dimensions of fragmentation and centralization. Governance at the National, Regional, and Global Levels By 1996, R. A. W. Rhodes observed that there were at least six separate uses of the term governance in the analysis of the British political system alone. Governance was employed to denote the minimal state, corporate governance, new public management, good governance, a socio-cybernetic system, and self-organizing networks. (3) As the concept of governance has increasingly been used for the analysis of not only national and subnational but also regional and global policymaking, its range of meanings has also expanded. Whereas common usage associates the term with government, the exercise of authority, or a method or system of government or management, (4) an analysis of the Social Science Citation Index between 1980 and 2000 shows that the academic literature applies the concept to more than twenty distinct subject areas (Figure 1). …

The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World (review)

from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World. Edited by Angeliki E. Laiou and Roy Parviz Mottahedeh. (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. 2001. Pp. vii, 297. $48.00.) This collection originated in a symposium held at Dunbarton Oaks in May, 1997. fifteen papers printed here range over such issues as holy war, relations between Byzantium and other peoples, commercial relations with Latins and Muslims, and western influences on art and architecture. volume opens with an introduction on The Historiography of the Crusades by Giles Constable. This essay is especially valuable since the last forty years have witnessed major changes in the study of the crusades, many of which have come quite recently. Not even the fundamental idea of crusade has escaped revision in the works of scholars like Hans Eberhard Mayer, Joshua Prawer, Jean Richard, Jonathan Riley-Smith, and Christopher Tyerman. work of some Byzantinists has also contributed to a better understanding of the place of the crusades in the history of the empire. This has been especially true of the work of Ralph-- Johannes Like, Paul Magdalino, and a number of the contributors to this collection. But it is fair to say that Byzantine scholarship has, in the past, been too concerned about emphasizing its uniqueness, even to the point of overlooking the often close relations between East and West. Of course, there were differences, but these have too often swallowed up essential pieces of a complex history in which common needs brought about co-operation. While many of the essays in this volume make substantial contributions in specific areas, their agenda still lags behind recent trends in crusade historiography. Roy Parviz Mottahedeh and Ridwan al-Sayyid provide a discussion of the treatment of jihad by Muslim intellectuals prior to the crusade that illustrates its evolution not merely over time but also in varying circumstances. As an idea, jihad possessed a definable content in early Islam, but never seems to have been embraced entirely in practical terms. George Dennis concentrates on the role of the Byzantine emperors as defenders of the Christian people. He revisits the reasons why Byzantine wars against the Muslims had a different character from those in the West. His presentation of the Byzantine circumstances is most helpful, but he is less satisfactory in dealing with the West. imperial presence in the East and the Papacy in the West made all the difference. fragmentation of political authority in the West combined with the traditional relations between the Byzantine emperors and the papacy were critical in shaping the Western role in the war against the Muslims in the East. In essays by Malcolm C. Lyons and Nadia Maria El-Cheikh, we get views of the crusaders and the Byzantines from the Muslim perspective. …

‘The Generous Utopia of Yesterday Can Become the Practical Achievement of Tomorrow’: 1000 Years of Monetary Union in Europe

Monetary unions have been a recurring element in European history, driven by the need to overcome obstacles to trade caused by the fragmentation of political authority. Between the 14th and the 19th centuries, a series of coinage unions were set up in the German speaking world, which served as models for the Latin and Scandinavian monetary unions in 1865 and 1872. With the growing size of participating states and the transformation of money, thanks to the end of bimetallism and the wider use of bank notes and deposits, the objectives and the practical management of monetary unions became more complex and more political. Monetary union became strictly associated with European federalism and required new common institutions after the end of the classical metallic standards in 1914.

Political Legitimacy and the Invisibility of Politics: Exploring the European Union’s Communication Deficit

The debate about the legitimacy deficit of the European Union (EU) has so far devoted little attention to the role of political communication in legitimating governance. The resignation of the Commission has highlighted the consequences of communicative failure and points to the new role of the media in EU affairs. The article analyses and evaluates the Commission’s media communicationand places it in the context of the EU’s broader institutional set‐up and decision‐making procedures. The article argues that the Commission’s public communication suffers from the fragmentation of political authority, a pervading technocratic mindset and a lack of adequate staffing. More importantly, however, the Commission is located within a system of governance which depoliticizes conflict and obfuscates political accountability. This system has been used by Member States to circumvent public scrutiny and externalize public dissatisfaction to the Commission.