Liberal Regime Research Articles

Shiri and the transformation of division films in South Korea’s Post-Cold War era

ABSTRACT With the advent of South Korea’s first liberal regime in 1998, division films transitioned from propaganda to commercial cinema, epitomized by the blockbuster Shiri (1999). Blending melodrama and action, Shiri reflects the evolving inter-Korean relations of the post-Cold War era, particularly under the Sunshine Policy. This article analyzes how Shiri uses genre conventions to depict the complex realities of North–South tensions, while also exploring the film’s cultural impact as a symbol of changing political dynamics. Through a mixed-genre approach, the study argues that Shiri marks a significant shift in South Korean cinema, balancing historical realism with melodramatic fantasy. The film's success highlights a new era of freedom in South Korean media, where the portrayal of national division could be both commercially viable and ideologically nuanced.

When education is positional: higher education expansion, welfare regimes and income inequality

Abstract Rectifying the imbalance of theorisation of education expansion focusing on its benefits, this study examines the relationship between education expansion and income inequality by turning our attention to its risky aspects. We investigate how expanding education might not effectively mitigate income inequality, because it brings about costly and risky competition for the positional value of education. We consider welfare regimes as relevant institutional factors associated with educational positionality based on the similarities between two environmental conditions that make education positional and two underlying dimensions of welfare regimes (de-stratification and commodification). We analysed higher education cases in twenty-four to twenty-five developed countries from 2000 to 2020. Our results show that higher education expansion initially reduced income inequality, but the reducing effect was attenuated, and eventually, it increased income inequality when higher education was positional, corresponding to the countries with a liberal regime and two East Asian countries such as Japan and Korea.

Direct democracy as a liberal political regime

This article is a theoretical contribution to the understanding of direct democracy (DD) and its properties. It departs from common definitions of DD by distinguishing between a hard meaning, according to which direct democracies are characterized by the fact that legislative initiative and veto rights are extended to the entire citizenry, and a soft meaning, according to which they are not. Building on previous findings, it argues that hard DD profoundly alters the balance of power in representative systems and reinforces the liberal features of democratic systems, such as the independence of checks and balances and the empowerment of minorities. This analysis invites us to understand direct democracies as systems in which representatives of political groups and independent institutions negotiate to find a consensual way to implement legislation, and a direct vote of the people only takes place if agreement is not reached.

Cross-country comparison analysis of individual and institutional factors of anomie and online offending

This article addresses the gap in the literature by empirically assessing a cross-national comparison of institutional anomie theory (IAT) and self-reported cyberoffending. We used survey data from Finland, Hungary, and the United States to examine the relationship between institutional anomie and cybercrime. Each country represents different types of societies, which makes them interesting cases for cross-national comparison. With Hungary representing a conservative welfare regime, Finland a social democratic welfare regime, and the United States a liberal welfare regime, we predict that the more political regimes intervene in economic relations and support non-economic institutions, the less applicable IAT's variables will be in predicting cybercrime perpetration. In line with these predictions, binomial regression models suggest that IAT works best in the United States, where individualism, achievement, and fetishism of money increased the indices of cybercrime offending. IAT variables were less useful in predicting cybercrime offending in the other nations. Yet, also in line with our prediction, family has a strong external control function in Finland, protecting participants from cybercrime offending. However, no IAT indexes achieved statistical significance in Hungary, where a work-based welfare system suppresses family-related values. Education has a mixed effect on cybercrime offending. Thus, IAT is valuable for understanding cybercrime offending; however, it should be examined in more countries with social institutions and individual value systems different from that of the United States.

The role of geographical distance in transnational institutional engagement of the Czech diaspora: a comparative study

Engagement with institutions from migrants’ country of origin, both in the destination country and in the country of origin, is distinct transnational behaviour. This study investigates the impact of geographical distance on the institutional engagement of migrants from Czechia in five global regions. We examine how geographic (physical) proximity to Czechia shapes institutional engagement with the country of origin and identify factors beyond distance influencing institutional engagement. We analyzed survey data from Czech emigrants (N = 940) in neighbouring countries, Western and Northern Europe, Southern and Eastern Europe, overseas Anglo-Saxon countries, and other countries. We found that respondents from all more distant regions have higher levels of institutional engagement in the destination country than those from neighbouring countries. Length of stay and education were relevant factors for all selected regions, while place of residence (living in a metropolis) and the level of transnational behavior had varying impacts across regions. Concerning institutional engagement in origin country, the level of transnationalism was consistently the strongest predictor across. Transnational studies should incorporate geographic variables, such as physical distance into their conceptual frameworks. We expect our findings to be generalizable to other countries similar to Czechia, i.e. high-income countries whose citizens benefit from liberal visa regimes.

Extending comparative typologies of diaspora policies: Towards a "cautiously proactive" diaspora policy state

In the past two decades, the 'diaspora turn' in research and policy has led to the development of several typologies of diaspora policies around the world. This study explores and extends Francesco Ragazzi's established 2014 global typology of diaspora policies. We use in-depth qualitative analysis of Czech diaspora policies to assess the internal validity of the typology and identify new dimensions that are central to our understanding of diaspora politics. We then replicate Ragazzi's quantitative analysis with the inclusion of new data on the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia and Poland, assessing the typology's external validity. We find a new cluster of diaspora policy types, characterized by a “cautiously proactive” mix of diaspora policy mechanisms based on relatively generous cultural and citizenship policies, variably accentuated symbolic policies and limited social and economic policies. We suggest that this mix has been structured by the tension between the countries' commitment to a (neo) liberal emigration regime and the continued importance of ethno-cultural conceptions of nationhood. In addition, we identify three new variables that should be included in future typologies: 1) the volume and distribution of funding for diaspora policy; 2) the symbolic recognition of diaspora in the legal system; 3) policy differentiation among different kinds of diaspora. Our mixed-method approach illustrates the importance of using nuanced qualitative data to provide a meaningful depiction of policy.

El culte als 'homes de lletres' i els seus usos a la Catalunya del Vuit-cents: els casos de Jaume Balmes i Antoni de Capmany

This paper analyses the main displays of posthumous cults of commemoration for the figures of Jaume Balmes and Antoni de Capmany that took place in Catalonia between approximately 1848 and 1891. Inscribing these tribute initiatives in the wider scholarship on the political uses of death and the public celebration of great men, we identify them as turning points in the cultural practice of public commemorations dedicated to writers, artists and intellectuals. Balmes and Capmany were erected as collective reference points by a significant segment of the Catalan ruling classes who were in some way attached to the liberal regime. In doing so, they sought to provide themselves with prestigious cohesive symbols for a society they wished to distance both from reactionary positions and from revolutionary popular mobilisation. Through the symbolic figures of Balmes and Capmany, the promoters of these commemorative cults were able to shore up their own reputation and claim a leading role within the Spanish nation for the local and regional areas in which they were active.

The populist challenge to the liberal democratic regime in Italy and Brazil: Jair Bolsonaro and Matteo Salvini

Brazil and Italy, Jair Bolsonaro and Matteo Salvini, two populist leaders who, in Latin America and Europe, and alongside Donald Trump in the US, experienced a strong affirmation in 2018 – Italy and Brazil — and 2016 US, respectively. This paper aims to analyse whether and to what extent Bolsonaro and Salvini have effectively created the People through the equivalential chain. That is, according to Laclau, the specificity of populism lies in the ability of a leader to transform a shapeless social group into a unique People. The leader’s speech establishes the borders, and it is through identification with the leader’s speech that the People’s collective identity is formed. Using three dimensions – the leader, the ideology and the audience – we analyse the similarities and differences between the two experiences. The results show how the populist reason of the Brazilian and Italian leaders was highly functional in creating a broad consensus but also how precarious and fragile this consensus was.

Perioperative transfusion study (PETS): Does a liberal transfusion protocol improve outcome in high-risk cardiovascular patients undergoing non-cardiac surgery? A randomised controlled pilot study.

Small studies have shown that patients with advanced coronary artery disease might benefit from a more liberal blood transfusion strategy. The goal of this pilot study was to test the feasibility of a blood transfusion intervention in a group of vascular surgery patients who have elevated cardiac troponins in rest. We conducted a single-centre, randomised controlled pilot study. Patients with a preoperative elevated high-sensitive troponin T undergoing non-cardiac vascular surgery were randomised between a liberal transfusion regime (haemoglobin >10.4 g/dL) and a restrictive transfusion regime (haemoglobin 8.0-9.6 g/dL) during the first 3 days after surgery. The primary outcome was defined as a composite endpoint of all-cause mortality, myocardial infarction or unscheduled coronary revascularization. In total 499 patients were screened; 92 were included and 50 patients were randomised. Postoperative haemoglobin was different between the intervention and control group; 10.6 versus 9.8, 10.4 versus 9.4, 10.9 versus 9.4 g/dL on day one, two and three respectively (p < 0.05). The primary outcome occurred in four patients (16%) in the liberal transfusion group and in two patients (8%) in control group. This pilot study shows that the studied transfusion protocol was able to create a clinically significant difference in perioperative haemoglobin levels. Randomisation was possible in 10% of the screened patients. A large definitive trial should be possible to provide evidence whether a liberal transfusion strategy could decrease the incidence of postoperative myocardial infarction in high risk surgical patients.

Climate refugeehood: A counterargument

This paper argues against the idea of climate change refugeehood. Drawing on political realism, it reconstructs the idea and function of refugeehood in international politics. Refugees are not the agencyless victims merely in search of rescue by states of the Global North, as the idea of climate refugeehood as a form of humanitarian refugeehood would have it. Nor are they simply a function of reparative justice, or of defending international state legitimacy. To liberal democracies, refugees are those fleeing political oppression. They hold an important political function in inter-state relations in undermining rival political systems and strengthening liberal democratic regimes, both ideally and materially. The idea of climate refugeehood collides with the role refugeehood plays in international politics, the reasons for their admission, and the conceptualization of their plight and function. It ought, hence, to be rejected.

Understanding the consequences of international migration for housing tenure: evidence from a multi-site and intergenerational study

This research is the first to examine the consequences of international migration for housing tenure through comparisons between the ‘settler’ migrants who originated from Turkey and are now living in multiple European destinations and their ‘stayer’ and ‘returnee’ counterparts based in Turkey. The data is drawn from personal interviews performed as part of the pioneering 2000 Families Survey with 5980 individuals nested within 1770 families. The settlers differ considerably from their stayer and returnee counterparts in that they turn more towards tenancy than homeownership in their current country of residence in Europe. Strikingly, the results reveal that the least integrated reside in countries governed by liberal expansion regime (esp. Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands), promoting policy measures to ease transition of lower social classes into homeownership. The results also demonstrate an increased tendency for homeownership amongst the children of asset-rich parents across both Turkey and Europe, independently of migration status.

Impact of trade and investment on income surge in Bangladesh: Evidence from trade liberalization regime

Trade and investment are crucial drivers of economic growth. Successful execution of trade and investment policy can elevate a developing country to a sustained growth path and make it self‐reliant. Bangladesh implemented a trade liberalization policy in the 1980s, deviating much from its conservative trade policy. This article assesses the impacts of trade, investment in physical as well as human capital, and a few trade policy variables on income surge for the liberalized regime. The econometric analysis finds that export, import, and domestic investment stimulate income. The impact of foreign investment is not conducive. Public spending on education also contributes to the income surge. Among the policy variables, trade openness and currency depreciation produce a beneficial impact. Population growth retards economic growth. The baseline results hold in the estimations involving several specifications of variables and testified as robust. The article views that a comprehensive approach to trade and investment policy would ensure the comparative advantage of trade and the well‐being of Bangladesh.

Welfare stigma in a social democratic welfare regime during a decade of national public debate: production, contestation and continuities

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to investigate how welfare stigma is produced and counteracted in the public sphere in a social democratic welfare regime. The Norwegian case represents a generous welfare state that historically has been thought to lessen and avoid stigma connected to welfare benefits. While studies have identified a hardening anti-welfare consensus and stigma production in liberal welfare regimes, we know less about how the connection between welfare benefits, stigma production and resistance has played out in the recent developments in the social democratic welfare regime context. Public debates give access to a dynamic political battleground where different actors participate, and we analyse six welfare-related national debates covered in Norwegian newspapers between 2010 and 2019. We identify key stakeholders, symbolic boundaries used to distinguish deserving from undeserving recipients, and we discuss the outcomes and wider functions of these debates. The debates contain moral aspects of welfare and allegations of fraud by recipients in general as well as by targeted groups such as Somali single mothers, refugees and young adults. We find that stigmatizing framings known from other national contexts also enter the Norwegian debates and illustrate how welfare stigma production plays a role in promoting more selective welfare policies.

The International Refugee Regime and the Liberal International Order: Dialectics of Contestation

Abstract The international refugee regime finds itself in a delicate balance between two conflicting principles of the liberal order: the particularism of sovereign states and the universalism of human rights. This article proposes a theory of endogenous contestation, rooted in the dialectic of law, propelling liberal aspirations, and politics, vindicating sovereign control. In doing so, we identify three shifts in the international refugee regime. Following 1945, legal consolidation in a propitious geopolitical context engendered a phase of regime expansion. The provisional “triumph” of liberalism in the early 1990s bolstered the regime’s geographical and normative clout but fueled political backlash. This set the stage for a new phase of regime contestation, where liberal democracies adapted political practices to ostensibly uphold the asylum norm while precluding access to it. The article concludes by exploring whether this subversion signals a gradual evolution or a fundamental shift in the nature of the liberal refugee regime.

The Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime as a “Failed Promise”: Contestation and Self-Undermining Dynamics in a Liberal Order

Abstract The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) forms the core of the most prominent multilateral security governance regime of the liberal international order (LIO). Despite being a widely supported and remarkably successful security regime to prohibit the spread of nuclear weapons, NPT politics have become increasingly polarized. In this article, I analyze contestation and self-undermining dynamics in the nuclear regime. The NPT is a strongly institutionalized but weakly liberal regime. However, it is unevenly institutionalized. Patterns of contestation in the regime derive from these characteristics. The basic source of contestation is the fundamental inequality between the nuclear “haves” and “have-nots.” Specifically, dissatisfied states seek to strengthen the rules and obligations in the less institutionalized domain. I argue that when efforts at order-consistent reform fail, states shift to a more radical strategy of liberal counter-institutionalization to pursue their goal of equality. Nonnuclear states have long been dissatisfied with the uneven distribution of the burdens and benefits of the regime, and especially the nuclear-armed states’ failure to pursue their obligation of disarmament. Most of the contestation in the NPT over the decades has been order-consistent and pursued “liberal reform.” However, when proponents of nuclear disarmament failed to achieve meaningful progress through the NPT, they shifted to a liberal counter-institutionalization strategy and adopted an entirely new legal instrument, the 2017 Nuclear Prohibition Treaty, to pursue disarmament. This was a direct—but liberal—challenge to the existing suborder. This treaty, which prohibits nuclear weapons for all, legalizes the NPT obligation to pursue disarmament.

Attention to disability in child protection policies across four liberal welfare regimes

ABSTRACT How child protection and welfare policies address the disability community is a matter of utmost importance and urgency in the context of well-established inequalities. We present a policy content analysis of national policy documents across the United States, Northern Ireland, Australia, and the Republic of Ireland through the theoretical frame of a welfare regimes typology. Key findings include the conflation of disability with vulnerability in all but one context. Also evident is a lack of overt definition of disability, and opportunities for developing specific jurisdictional guidance and regulations focussed on embedding best practices in supporting disabled clients at all system levels.

Values and economic performance across European welfare state regimes: Direct and indirect effects through social capital, human capital and managerial skills.

The values that people hold are linked to their economic performance. These links can be either direct or indirect, operating through moderating variables such as social network participation, interpersonal trust, trust in institutions, human capital, managerial skills and hours worked. In this paper these effects are studied using structural equation modelling (SEM) methodology applied to European Social Survey data from 28 European countries in 2018. Schwartz classification of values is used, distinguishing between Self-Enhancement (Power, Achievement), Openness to Change (Self-Direction), Conservation (Tradition, Security, Conformity) and Self-Transcendence (Universalism, Benevolence) values. It is found that Power has the strongest positive direct effect on economic performance, further strengthened by a positive indirect structural effect through hours worked. Self-Direction is indirectly positively linked to economic performance through higher managerial skills and hours worked. Tradition has a strong negative direct effect on economic performance. Security is indirectly negatively linked with economic performance, owing to its negative effects on interpersonal trust, management skills and hours worked. Some of the identified effects are context-dependent and vary across European welfare state regimes. For example, Power is statistically significantly linked to economic performance only in the liberal and conservative regime. Values promoted by respective welfare state regimes are not necessarily associated with higher incomes within those regimes, e.g., Tradition and Security values promoted in the conservative and Mediterranean regime are associated with lower incomes. These findings may lead to a range of policy implications, particularly in relation to the policies on immigration, demographics, the labor market, and work-life balance. Unfortunately, due to the cross-sectional character of the dataset, causal relations among the variables of interest could not be identified.

Libyan deportees on the Italian island of Ustica: Remembering colonial deportations in the (peripheral) metropole

In 1911, the Italian liberal government launched the colonial occupation of what is now known as Libya, which was met with unexpected local resistance. The government resorted to mass deportations to the metropole to sedate the resistance, which continued for more than two decades under both the liberal and Fascist regimes. This chapter of Europe’s and Italy’s colonial history has been almost entirely removed from collective memory. The article explores the extent to which colonial deportations are remembered on the Sicilian Island of Ustica, which witnessed the deportation from Libya of more than 2000 people. Currently, the island is home to the only cemetery in Italy that is entirely dedicated to Libyan deportees. I argue that the visits of Libyan delegations, which took place from the late 1980s to 2010, succeeded in challenging colonial aphasia at the local level. Yet, as a result of Ustica’s peripheral position within the national space, the memory work developed through the encounter between local and Libyan actors remained marginal, despite its potential to redefine the Mediterranean as a symbolic space where colonial histories are articulated and remembered. Italy’s outsourcing of the memory work in relation to colonial deportations implies a missed opportunity to interrogate the postcolonial present and thus question persistent dynamics of power in Europe that exclude the constructed Other.

Capture land as abolition geography: The mutuality of placemaking and flight

Capture land is a Jamaican colloquialism for land that is (or is presumed to be) occupied without the authorization of the landowner. Working through two quotes, “just to make life for a time,” and, “we’ve always been here,” this article examines how the practice of capture indexes abolitionist spatial practices of varied temporalities: rooted in belonging to place, but also alighting provisionally. Through ethnographic research, this article reveals the use of capture for both placemaking and flight, parallel but in tension with the fixity and fluidity inhered in the liberal property regime. Compared with earlier ethnographies of land tenure in Jamaica, this points to an epistemology that is less preoccupied by ownership. What takes primacy is the care for generations of plants, children, rebels, and futures unfolding through “the plot” and its multiple agendas—sustenance (plot of land), refusal (plot to rebel) and the plotting of alternate futures. While here emerges through the spatiotemporalities of life in the interstices of racial capitalism, it also challenges us to reimagine how to think land after colonialism and beyond property. From here, we might imagine simultaneity of apparently discrepant temporalities of Black freedom dreams and speculate on the spacetimes of “freedom is a place.”

Exploring the influence of Islamic governance and religious regimes on sustainability and resilience planning: A study of public administration in Muslim-majority countries

This research delves into the relatively uncharted territory of Islamic governance and its impact on strategic sustainability and climate resilience planning in Muslim-majority countries. It scrutinizes the role of religious regimes in public administration and policy-making within these nations. The study employs a case study methodology, focusing on 11 strategically chosen countries within the Islamic world, and evaluates their respective climate resilience and sustainable development objectives. Forty-five reports, plans, and government documents from 2017 to 2023 are analyzed using a two-cycle coding process facilitated by software. The paper makes three significant contributions. Firstly, it addresses the academic call for understanding the positive governance of sustainable development and resilience planning in Muslim-majority countries, specifically focusing on the role of religious regimes. Secondly, it reframes the general understanding of governance in public administration related to resilience planning in Islamic countries. Lastly, it offers an understanding of religious regimes to analyze climate resilience planning. The analysis reveals several thematic categories, each representing a different resilience and sustainability planning governance aspect. The study’s results suggest that nations with the most effective plans tend to have robust economies, comprehensive educational institutions, pluralistic societies, inclusive governments, and liberal religious regimes, all of which positively influence sustainable development and climate resilience planning.