Modern Political System Research Articles

The Sale of Offices, Political Values and the Revolution of 1911

The relationship between economic development and political institutional changes has always been the focus of academic attention. There are still many different interpretations of the causes of political changes during the late Qing dynasty. This paper responds to the discussion of social mobility and the 1911 revolution in the academic circles, takes the sale of offices during the late Qing dynasty as an entry point, and proposes the new hypotheses that trigger the Revolution of 1911through sorting out the factors affecting modern political reform and institutional changes. It shows that the sale of offices is one of the important factors that lead to the outbreak of the Revolution of 1911. The political consciousness and political values of the donation officials not only directly affected the revolutionary response of the areas they served, but also influenced the political attitudes of their native elite through local relation networks. As an important tool for the promotion of social mobility during the late Qing dynasty, the sale of offices not only promoted the rise of modern bureaucratic class, but also advanced the changes in modern political rights pattern through new-style education, popular opposition, revolutionary groups and so on, and accelerated the process of the Revolution of 1911. The sale of offices promotes the changes in modern political system through the influences on class mobility and political consciousness of the officials, which provides an important empirical basis for understanding the changes in Chinese traditional social elite groups and the association changes in political systems.

The Use of Sectarian Ties Inside Syrian Modern Political System

The Use of Sectarian Ties Inside Syrian Modern Political System

Schooling as a rational rite of passage

Starting from Illich’s identification of the compulsory schooling process with the rational initiation rite to the modern, free-market, society, the paper aims to detach the philosophical premises this expensive and unequal ritual is grounded in. After having referred to Van Gennep’s conception of the rites of passage, we shall show that the schooling rite corresponds to basic myths of the modern age, that is, progress, tolerance, freedom, and equality. In the second part of the paper, the genealogy of the modern schooling system shall be traced back to the first fully modern political theory, the one Thomas Hobbes had elaborated. According to Hobbes there are two ways out of state of nature and imperfect socialization: the universal possession of the new science of nature and of human nature grounded in mechanism; and the simultaneous renunciation to natural freedom which gives birth to the irresistible power of the sovereign. Hobbes accorded preference to the first one. The constitution of the rational political body represents a shortcut towards the perfect socialization which derives from equal and universal possession of science. The schooling thus represents a way out of pre-modern forms of political dissociation marked by inequality, servitude, and unhappiness, that is, a rational rite of passage from feudal society to the modern one. From this perspective, the modern economic and political system makes a whole with universal and compulsory schooling.

Political Parties, Voting Systems, and the Separation of Powers†

This Article aims to show that whatever the formal arrangements on the separation or “fusion” of executive and legislative powers—whether presidential, parliamentary, or semi-presidential—the way any constitution operates in terms of concentrating or dispersing power is significantly a function of both the political party and electoral systems in place. They can not only fuse what a constitution’s executive-legislative relations provisions separate, but also separate what they fuse. As a result, the same set of institutional relations can function quite differently in separation-of-powers terms depending on party and electoral system contexts. In so doing, the Article broadens and deepens the insight that the original Madisonian framework of institutional competition between the President and Congress has been rewritten by the subsequent, unanticipated development of the modern political party system, so that concentration or dispersal of political power—unified or divided government—depends mostly on electoral outcomes. It broadens the insight by showing this is true of all forms of government and not only the U.S. presidential system. It deepens it by drilling down one layer further and taking into account how party systems and electoral outcomes are themselves affected by the method of voting employed. The Article seeks to counter the tendency of constitutional lawyers to focus on interbranch relations alone and to overlook other important institutional variables in thinking about separation of powers and constitutional design more generally. It also aspires, through the use of comparative and historical examples, to enhance our understanding of the U.S. system of “separation of parties, not powers.”

Modernization Process in Iran: Historical Overview

Modernization process in Iran began in 19th century by Iranian officials like Abbas Mirza Ghaem Magham and Amir Kabir in order to change the traditional structure of government and replace it with a new and modern one. After the establishment of Pahlavi dynasty, the process of modernization continued by Reza Shah and Mohammad Reza Shah. After the victory of Islamic revolution of 1979 modernization didn’t stop and continued until now. This paper examines the process of modernization in Iran from 19th century up to the present. Research shows that although 100 years have passed since the victory of Iran’s Constitutional Revolution and in spite of 150 years passing since modern political concepts introduced by intellectuals and inclusive struggles to establish modern political system, none of these have been incarnated in a tangible way. As a result, Iranian society is still in search of the rule of law, freedom and democracy, which had been introduced for the first time more than hundred years ago.

Shintō Shrines and Secularism in Modern Japan, 1890–1945

From the late eighteenth century to WWII, shrine Shintō came to be seen as a secular institution by the government, academics, and activists in Japan (Isomae 2014; Josephson 2012, Maxey 2014). However, research thus far has largely focused on the political and academic discourses surrounding the development of this idea. This article contributes to this discussion by examining how a prominent modern Shintō shrine, Kashihara Jingū founded in 1890, was conceived of and treated as secular. It also explores how Kashihara Jingū communicated an alternate sense of space and time in line with a new Japanese secularity. This Shintō-based secularity, which located shrines as public, historical, and modern, was formulated in antagonism to the West and had an influence that extended across the Japanese sphere. The shrine also serves as a case study of how the modern political system of secularism functioned in a non-western nation-state.

E-participation in the Decision-Making Process in Post-Communist Countries

Besides other aspects, one of the fundamental conditions of the modern political system is active and powerful civil society. Representatives of civil society and their increasing influence provide the background for increasing political participation and civic activism with the aim to make decision-making processes more effectual and having an impact on public policy actors. In that context, the objective of the article is to pay particular attention to one of the forms of participation, specifically using a comparative method to theoretically analyse the perspectives and limits of e-participation. The paper presumes the inevitable role of e-participation in the current modernisation of public administration processes which could overcome obstacles related to the participatory gap in post-communist countries.

Port governance in the UK: Planning without policy

The UK's highly privatised port system means that, while many of the issues in the port governance literature relevant to port concessions do not arise here, the respective roles of harbour authorities and port operators continue to be questioned. The concern in the UK is whose role it should be to monitor the capacity and service quality of the port sector, including how to govern the ways in which the different classes of port stakeholder interact.This paper describes and discusses the UK port sector, the main ports and cargo types, the governance system and recent developments. Recent changes in national policy are reviewed and potential new developments in governance are considered, reflecting on how the UK case represents some key theoretical considerations regarding infrastructure governance within a modern political system favouring private ownership and operation of the transport sector.

Reflections on Chinese governance

A modern political system consists of three sets of institutions: a modern, impersonal state, rule of law, and mechanisms for democratic accountability. China developed the modern state more than two millennia ago, but has yet to achieve a real rule of law limiting state power, and has no democratic accountability. Current Chinese government under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party replicates many features of dynastic rule, including top-down organization and upward, rather than downward, accountability. The system is unbalanced, with insufficient constraints on executive power, risking emergence of the ‘bad Emperor’ problem. The current anti-corruption campaign is unsustainable in the absence of a true rule of law. Transition to a more fully modern political system should sequence rule of law before democratic accountability, placing real constitutional limits on state power and only gradually opening up the system to greater political pluralism.

THE SOFTER ONE, THE STRONGER IT: HYBRIDIZATION OF POWER

The article is devoted to considering soft power as a new form of power within the modern political system. The emerging importance of the corresponding mechanisms which regulate social development would lead, on the one hand, to the growing competition between countries for an opportunity to promote their own agendas, and on the other hand, it would undermine state monopoly on internal communication and produce new risks for sovereignty. Non-state actors who are more fl exible and responsive to diversifi ed demands of civil society pretend to e capable to build an alternative for the contemporary state and world order. One of consequences is likeliness of a state to “mimicry” into civil society institutions to react early to emerging threats.

ДОСВІД І ПРАКТИКА НАЦІОНАЛЬНОГО ПРИМИРЕННЯ В ІСПАНІЇ

The contemporary political theory envisages the Spanish transition from authoritarianism to a modern multiparty political system as an important landmark and one of the most successful examples of the ‘third wave’ of the process of global democratization. Commenced in Southern Europe, the transition towards the democratic rule has affected Latin America, South Africa and a number of Asian countries and then went further to the majority of Central and Eastern European states. The political reforms and regime change became possible due to the ‘national reconciliation’, a series of compromises negotiated between the government and the leaders of the top political parties. This mechanism ensured a gradual peaceful process of political changes and their successful constitutional legitimization, as well as their implementation in the legislature. However, the transition towards a competitive multiparty democracy won’t cover the reconciliation of ideologies, neither did it consider a common moral and political assessment of the past. Both veterans of the Civil War of 1936 – 1939 and victims of the Franco’s dictatorship were completely rehabilitated only 30 years after the political transformation have been launched.

МЕСТНОЕ САМОУПРАВЛЕНИЕ В ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОЙ СИСТЕМЕ СОВРЕМЕННОЙ РОССИИ

The article discusses issues related to referring of local government to the institutions of civil society and its role and place in modern political system of Russia in the context of the study of the principle of democracy at the municipal level.
 The author proves that in the context of political modernization, the local government and its reform should be viewed not only as economic and technological transformations in the local municipal areas of the state, but as an actor of political reforms, set up in modern political processes.

Роль інтеграційних та дезінтеграційних процесів у сучасному світі

Сучасні міжнародні відносини є поєднанням відносно автономних видів, у першу чергу політичних (дипломатичних і військових), економічних, культурних та медіа­відносин. Інтеграційні процеси є багатогранним і складним явищем, тому що вони досить складно піддаються аналізу і не мають єдиної та остаточної типології. Питання дослідження інтеграції напряму пов’язані з інтеграційними процесами в реальному світі, спрямовані на виявлення загальних тенденцій, причини, умов та основних рис цього явища. Інтеграція визначає закономірності розвитку сучасного світу, бо під її впливом відбуваються зміни глобальної структури, глобального управління і нова інтеграційна структура має забезпечити активний розвиток людства в цілому. Це основний критерій та принцип сучасного світу і відповідно до цього. Процесу інтеграції протиставляється процес дезінтеграції. Ці процеси тісно пов’язані між собою. Навіть активний інтеграційний розвиток може зупинитись у разі домінуючих дезінтеграційних тенденцій. Роль дезінтеграції полягає не лише в запереченні інтеграції, але вона також створює імпульс для нової конфігурації на регіональному просторі. Процеси інтеграції та дезінтеграції набувають все більшої актуальності у сучасній світовій політичній системі.

WHY PEOPLE DO NOT JOIN POLITICAL PARTIES? ANALYSING THE ATTITUDES OF LITHUANIANS TOWARDS PARTY MEMBERSHIP

Partisan activity has been the main and the most important mode of institutionalized political participation (in addition to electoral participation) in the modern democ­racy. Even though mass party membership is a distinct feature of modern political system (although not necessarily democratic), since 1960-ies the decline of party membership is observed in many democratic countries. Lithuania is a typical example of post-communist region, where party membership is regarded as a specific elitist activity rather than an ordinary practice of political involvement. In the article, the attitudes of Lithuanians towards party membership are analyzed to answer the question if and why people are not keen to join political parties. Public attitudes are explored using the data of a representative public opinion survey carried out in 2005 and qualitative data of in-depth interviews with ordinary people collected in 2008. Using a mixed method research strategy, the article analyses the image of political parties in Lithuania, determines the potential of party membership and inves­tigates the dominant reasons of avoiding partisan activity.In the first part of the article, the theories explaining partisan activity are pre­sented. In addition to Civic voluntarism model and General incentives theory used by Paul Whiteley and Patrick Seyd to explain partisan activity, the broader theories explaining changes of political culture and transformation of party models are dis­cussed. Moreover, the theoretical arguments for the exceptionalism of post-commu­nist societies are presented.In the second part of the article, the analysis of the qualitative data is presented. The exploration of public attitudes reveals that partisan activity can be perceived in several different ways: as a specific occupation, as a civic self-expression, as belong­ing to power elite, as a privilege, as dependence, and as partiality. These images of parties held by people are related to their attitudes towards party membership. The reasons provided by the people of not joining political parties can be grouped into three groups: 1) the lack of necessary resources or personal characteristics (e.g. old age, low education, etc.); 2) critical attitudes towards political parties; 3) dislike of partisan activity because of indifference towards politics or individualism and appre­ciation of personal independence.In the third part, the quantitative data drawn from the public opinion survey isanalysed. The data shows a surprisingly high potential of party membership in Lithua­nia: about 11 percent of all respondents and about 20 percent of respondents in the age group of 18–39 have an inclination to join a political party. However, 87 percent of individuals admit that they were not invited to join a political party during the last 5 years. This proves that Lithuanian political parties are not active in expanding their membership.The quantitative data approve the trends observed from the qualitative research. The two most popular reasons of not joining a party are the lack of resources or neces­sary characteristics (surprisingly, young age seems to be one of the most important of them) and an indifference towards politics. These two motives fit well into the Civic voluntarism model. Disappointment with politics or a negative attitude towards politi­cal parties in general, contrary to expectations, proved to be of secondary importance. The importance of individualist attitudes, i.e. the avoidance of commitment and appre­ciation of independence, unfortunately, could not be evaluated due to the lack of data.Summing up, the analysis of Lithuanian case suggests that low party member­ship in post-communist countries might be explained by low demand rather than low supply. In other words, we should look for the explanation of low enrolment in the process of recruitment of party members rather than in the attitudes of people. The research do not provide any evidence for a popular theory of “communist legacy” claiming that a “bad” image of parties inherited from communist regime accounts for the low party membership in post-communist societies. On the contrary, the data demonstrate rather positive attitudes towards partisan activity among Lithuanian population.

Interest Groups in Modern Political System: A Comparative Study

Interest Groups in Modern Political System: A Comparative Study

Phenomenon of refugeeness in the modern political system

So far, the multidisciplinary research of the phenomenon of refugeeness demonstrated, that the standard institutional, social, discursive response can be observed, regardless of the historic, social and geographical context. Using the autoethnographic research method and a part of his biography, the author is proposing the explanation for that situation. In his interpretation, the hegemonic discursive, institutional and social approach is a consequence of the structure of the modern political system, more precisely, "the place" that refugees occupy inside the system. They are placed at the border, between sovereign political entities occupying the liminal position between the internal and the external, law and state of exception, the human and the animal. So, they are dominantly represented as dangerous, filthy, helpless group of people and the aberation from the normal state that should be removed. In that sense, they can not achieve normal identity and are not in position to represent themselves.

The Civil Examination System in Late Imperial China, 1400–1900

Scholars often contend that civil examinations were what made imperial China a political meritocracy. They point to the examination system to show that the selection process served more as a common training program for literati than as a gate-keeper to keep non-elites out. Despite the symbiotic relations between the court and its literati, the emperor played the final card in the selection process. The asymmetrical relations between the throne and its elites nevertheless empowered elites to seek upward mobility as scholar-officials through the system. But true social mobility, peasants becoming officials, was never the goal of state policy in late imperial China; a modest level of social circulation was an unexpected consequence of the meritocratic civil service. Moreover, the merit-based bureaucracy never broke free of its dependence on an authoritarian imperial system. A modern political system might be more compatible with meritocracy, however. One of the unintended consequences of the civil examinations was creation of classically literate men (and women), who used their linguistic talents for a variety of non-official purposes, from literati physicians to local pettifoggers, from fiction-writers to examination essay teachers, from Buddhist and Daoist monks to mothers and daughters. If there was much social mobility, i.e., the opportunity for members of the lower classes to rise in the social hierarchy, it was likely here. Rather than “social mobility,” this phenomenon might be better described as a healthy “circulation” of lower and upper elites when compared to aristocratic Europe and Japan.

A Sociology of Constituent Power: The Political Code of Transnational Societal Constitutions

This article proceeds from a critical sociological revision of classical constitutional theory. In particular, it argues for a sociological reconstruction of the central concepts of constitutional theory: constituent power and rights. These concepts, it is proposed, first evolved as an internal reflexive dimension of the modern political system, which acted originally to stabilize the political system as a relatively autonomous aggregate of actors, adapted to the differentiated interfaces of a modern society. This revision of classical constitutional theory provides a basis for a distinctive account of transnational constitutional pluralism or societal constitutionalism. The article argues that the construction of transnational normative orders needs to be placed, in a sociological dimension, on a clearer continuum with classical constitutional models. Although contemporary society is marked by multiple, nationally overarching, and often functionally specific constitutions, such normative structures extend the original functions of constituent power and rights. The article sets out the concluding hypothesis that rights form a running constitution in contemporary society, facilitating highly improbable acts of transnational structural construction and systemic inclusion. It is around the code rights-relevant/rights-irrelevant that transnational society constructs its processes of politicization and political inclusion. This code, however, brings to light a subsidiary or skeletal coding, which was latently co-implied in the political exchanges of modern society, and which was already expressed in early constitutionalism.

Introduction—Authority Migration: Defining an Emerging Research Agenda

In every modern political system, power is shared to a greater or lesser extent between levels of government. These power sharing arrangements are perhaps most explicit in formal federal systems like the United States and Canada, where federal constitutions define the relative powers of central and subnational governments. They may be no less important, however, in unitary democracies and even authoritarian regimes where central governments require local actors to implement policy on the ground and often delegate significant authority to them. Indeed, in any large and complex modern society, effective governance requires some sharing of power between higher levels of government, capable of coordinating many disparate actors and interests, and lower levels of government, capable of responding to local conditions.

Freemasonry and party building in late 19th-Century France

At the beginning of the 20th century, the French Third Republic political system was still composed only of parliamentary groups and politically oriented voluntary organisations. No modern political parties existed yet. The formation of the Radical Party in 1901 created a new political order in France. From that year on, the Third Republic was to possess, like the USA and Britain, a modern political party system. Who created the Radical Party, and how? The French Freemasonry was the major actor in that it formed the Radical Party using two political instruments developed throughout most of the 19th century. These are the 'regional Masonic congresses' and the 'civil leadership model'. This article analyses the way French Free masonry moulded these tools and used them in creating the Radical Party.