Liberal Arrangements Research Articles

Detecting anticipatory design strategies: the case of asylum policy in Italy

ABSTRACT For decades, the academic literature on migration policy change suggested that migration policies in Western Europe had become overall more liberal. Yet, in an age of strong polarization, highly institutionalized policy regimes are likely to change. Adopting the theoretical lens of policy feedback literature, this paper argues that a better grasp of policy dynamics in the field of migration requires a more nuanced definition of the policy. Namely, we contend that the stability of liberal arrangements constitutes only an apparent paradox. Indeed, disentangling paradigms and instruments may enable different patterns of change and stability to emerge, as well as the role of agency. We build this argument using Italian reception policy as the case for a theory-building study on the drivers of change and stability of asylum policy regimes. Our study also suggests the benefits of applying a micro-level analysis to uncover agent-based mechanisms of policy entrenchment.

Consociational Power‐Sharing in the Arab World: A Critical Stocktaking

AbstractThe aim of this special feature is to reflect theoretically and normatively on consociational power‐sharing, take stock of its empirical record in Lebanon and Iraq, and interrogate its potential utility for other postwar states and societies in the Arab World following the popular uprisings. Allison McCulloch and Joanne McEvoy open the collection by deploying the ‘lifecycle’ heuristic to explain consociationalism’s mixed record as an institutional strategy to manage ethnic or sectarian conflict in different contexts. This process‐oriented approach allows them to shift the consociational debate towards greater sensitivity to contexts: how macro‐institutional types such as liberal and corporate consociation interact with formal and informal micro‐institutional rules in determining the success or failure of consociational power‐sharing arrangements. Paul Dixon and Ibrahim Halawi follow with critical evaluations of consociationalism’s embedded violence against alternative political economic choices. Dixon’s radical critique is chiefly aimed at how consociationalism precludes the emergence of alternative identities, political choices, and socioeconomic struggles. Halawi magnifies this critique and considers elite consociational arrangements in the Arab World to be exclusionary and counter‐revolutionary. The contributions by John Nagle and Toby Dodge converge on how the institutional architecture of consociational power‐sharing as observed in Lebanon and Iraq – whether through formal or informal rules, corporate or liberal arrangements – creates a host of distortions that ossify identities, shape modes of political mobilization, and eviscerate state institutions by turning them into clientelist platforms. Finally, Steven Heydemann and Simon Mabon explore prospects for consociational power‐sharing in Syria and Bahrain, respectively, with implications for postwar Libya and perhaps Yemen. Although in both cases prospects for power‐sharing may appear remote, both authors suggest that the reality is far more complex, and that ultimately some kind of consociational power‐sharing may prove necessary to secure postwar reconstruction and reintegration into the international community in Syria, and genuine representation and peace in Bahrain.

Post-liberal and Post-populist Democracy: Rethinking Democratic Representation

The triumph of democracy over its authoritarian adversaries inaugurated a novel political scenario in the democratized world increasingly characterized by the confrontation between “liberal” and “populist” forms of democracy. Each model is predicated on a specific reading of what democracy is and each, respectively, proposes strategies to realize their democratic ideal. In a way, liberal and populist conceptions of democracy reflect each other’s shortcomings: liberals accuse populists of authoritarianism and lack of respect for established institutions, while populists regard liberal arrangements as intrinsically elitist and conservative. The outcome is an apparent theoretical and political standoff between two antagonistic visions of what democracy should be. A central argument of this article is that despite their differences, populism and liberalism share some common assumptions regarding the workings and nature of democracy. They both rely upon variants of an electoral approach to democratic representation. To overcome the apparent standoff between those two allegedly contrasting visions of democracy requires breaking with some of their shared assumptions to develop a stronger understanding of what democratic accountability means. That notion should move beyond: (a) a purely electoral understanding to democratic representation; and (b) a notion of accountability as limited government. In brief, a democratic notion of accountability should be predicated on both post-liberal and post-populist presuppositions.

Between Co-Option and Radical Opposition: A Comparative Analysis of Power-Sharing on Gender Equality and LGBTQ rights in Northern Ireland and Lebanon

This article provides a comparative analysis of two types of power-sharing: Lebanon's corporate version and Northern Ireland's relatively liberal arrangements. Our aim is to explore whether these power-sharing institutions augment or stymie gender and LGBTQ equality, while also illuminating the complex ways in which LGBTQ movements conceptualize power-sharing. We argue that while Northern Ireland's liberal arrangements, predicated on a minority rights regime, theoretically offer opportunities for gender and LGBTQ mobilization and equality, these rights claims are frustrated as they become embroiled in the wider ethnonational conflict for group rights. In Lebanon's corporate system, alternatively, where gender and LGBTQ rights are absent, feminist and LGBTQ movements identify power-sharing as institutionalizing patriarchy and homophobia and thus engage in a radical campaign of opposition to consociationalism.

20세기후반 이후 패션 구성 방식에 나타난 모듈러 시스템 -욜리 탱, 존 리베, 갈야 로젠펠드 작품을 중심으로-

Since the late 20C, a lot of fashion designers have considered about new construction system in fashion. Many arguments about architectural form and construction system have being supported on enlargement of range of functionalism fashion through the consideration about new shape and combination among various any other spheres. Modular concept, which is able to divide complex construction of integration into separated basic unit and use various and liberal arrangements, is regarded alternative idea of economic construction that creates new shape and constructive beauty through the simple operation and changing combination continuously. Specially, fashion designs of Yoehlee Teng, John Ribber, and Galya Rosenfeld are estimated that they are effectively utilized architectural modular system pursuing multi-function and multi-change in fashion. Modular system utilized in fashion construction will be classified as follows: 1) layering system of Yoehlee Teng, 2) combine system of john Ribber, and 3) lego system of Galya Rosenfeld. This thesis will presents beneficial guide for simple and practical functionalism fashion design development in 21C.

Air Transport in the Asian–Pacific Region

SummaryAir transport in the Asian–Pacific region is growing faster than anywhere else. Asian airlines (other than Japanese) are the lowest cost operators in the world. But like all airlines, they operate in a tightly regulated framework. Some 2000 bilateral air service agreements among 160 countries specify which airline flies on a route, what capacity it offers and how much capacity third–country airlines are allowed. The regulatory system is now coming under various pressures: from the growth of a tourist industry demanding lower fares, from increased competition with the emergence of a new generation of low–cost airlines, and from the US ‘mega carriers’ and their alliances. The airlines of the region have the opportunity to benefit from these changes in the regulatory environment. But this will require a more trade–oriented approach to aviation than some countries of the region now have.A number of guiding principles for civil aviation policy in the 1990s suggest themselvesMore liberal arrangements for the allocation of traffic rights would benefit the regional economiesSuch liberalization is possible within the current bilateral system, but faster progress would be achieved through regional negotiationsSuch regional negotiations are likely to make greater progress if conducted jointly with other trade issuesThere remains a role for GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services) type arrangements, especially in relation to so–called ‘soft rights’, and in laying down ground rules for regional negotiations.

A Probable Addition to the Thackeray Canon

In the manuscript diary of Evert A. Duyckinck, under the date April 16, 1844, there occurs the following entry:I called upon Wikoff and was well satisfied with the further statement of his plans for the Republic. It is to publish a well filled judicious paper on the London standard. He has made the most liberal arrangements for reporters, correspondence, at home and abroad. Thackeray, for instance—Fitzboodle, Titmarsh etc. of Fraser—is his Paris correspondent.I called upon Wikoff and was well satisfied with the further statement of his plans for the Republic. It is to publish a well filled judicious paper on the London standard. He has made the most liberal arrangements for reporters, correspondence, at home and abroad. Thackeray, for instance—Fitzboodle, Titmarsh etc. of Fraser—is his Paris correspondent.

Total eclipse of the sun, 1900, May 28. Preliminary account of the observations made at Ovar, Portugal

An expedition to observe the total solar eclipse of May 28 having been sanctioned by the Admiralty, it was arranged, in concert with the Joint Permanent Eclipse Committee, that the Royal Observatory party should take photographs of the corona on a large scale for structural detail, and on a smaller scale for the coronal streamers, and should also photograph the spectrum of the “flash” and of the corona. The programme thus naturally divided itself into two parts, Mr. Christie, assisted by Mr. Davidson, taking charge of the first part, and Mr. Dyson of the second. The party are much indebted to the Portuguese Government for the liberal arrangements made for the conveyance of the observers and their instruments in Portugal free of all charge to and from their observing station at Ovar, and for the great assistance rendered in erecting the instruments, and for a daily time-signal from the Lisbon Observatory direct to the observing station.