Party Reform Research Articles

Party Inertia amid Federal Change? Stability and Adaptation in German Parties

German parties have been characterised by strong vertical linkages between party levels, but recent changes in the German federal system and the territorialisation of the party system have posed severe challenges to this organisational model. This article looks at party responses from two different theoretical perspectives. Rational choice institutionalism would predict rapid adaptation to a new political environment resulting in a significant increase of autonomy of the Land branches. Historical institutionalism, however, would expect more piecemeal party reforms and a good deal of organisational inertia. Studying the degree of vertical integration and sub-national party autonomy in the major German parties before and after re-unification, the article finds evidence for both theoretical approaches. The increase in regional heterogeneity has resulted in Land parties making more frequent use of their formal organisational competences. Yet, there are still many incentives for German parties to organise as integrated multi-level organisations.

NEGARA DAN GOLKAR (Studi tentang Konfigurasi Politik Indonesia 1971-2009)

The study aims to answer the question of how: (1) political configuration that putsIndonesia in 1971-1997 Golkar as a single force (2) political configuration in 1998 thatcaused the New Order government fell, and (3) the political configuration in 1999-2009resulting Golkar political disorientation. The results: (1) the political configuration ofIndonesia in 1971-1997 accidentally put Golkar as a single force on the grounds that thegovernment can carry out the construction with smooth and stable. Sekber-military formwith the government, Golkar then follow the 1971 general election and won an absoluteacquire 62.82% of the vote. Thanks to that victory, Golkar and the military dominatedparliament. Various attempts were made by the government in order to Golkar remains asingular force that harm the PPP and PDI, the result, until the 1997 election Golkar alwayswins absolute; (2) As a result of the New Order regime always manipulate the orderabsolute win Golkar, the public is not satisfied, the scent of corruption in the preparation ofDevelopment Cabinet VII concurrent multi-dimensional crisis of 1997 to encourage peopledemanded a change in many lives. The insistence of the President submit his cause to B.J.Habibie to date May 21, 1998. Since then New Order, (3) After the fall of the New Order,Golkar as also fell. With the remnants of the existing resources can Golkar following the1999 elections, the results dropped dramatically compared to the 1997 election due to: (1)Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the New Order era Golkar political structure intactbequeath to future generations, (2) the Golkar elite divisions; (3) the loss of support of themilitary and civil servants, (4) a more competitive electoral policies, (5) the division ofvoters into 47 political parties, (6) the emergence of a new reformist parties. The successof the Golkar Party in the 2004 elections resulting from the internal side: (1) the GolkarParty fought a modern and independent party, (2) political machine that has formedrevived; (3) more democratic, (4) the persistence of traditional voters, and (5 ) personalfactors Akbar. Of external factors as: (1) some people miss the New Order government andreselect the Golkar Party, (2) Some supporters of the PDIP in the 1999 elections Golkar.Keywords: state, Golkar, political configuration.

The AKP Era: Democratization or Resecuritization? An Assessment of the Institutional and Budgetary Reflections

Although with a leadership rooted in Turkey’s Islamist movement, the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) presented itself as the party of reform in line with European standards. A series of transformative reforms on civil-military relations in the name of democratization were initiated towards weakening of the traditional praetorian nature of modern Turkish politics among others in due course. However, succeeding policies of the AKP government have not yielded a civilianized order with the central primacy of individual rights and liberties. Conducting an exploratory analysis of the budget expenditures of the military, the Ministry of Interior, the police, the gendarmerie and the coast guard, for 1998–2014, we find that the military budget has lost significance in the AKP era, and that the deviation from the previous period is confirmed with a higher spending pattern for internal security. We discuss the authoritarian implications of our findings in relation to the legal, institutional and budgetary transformations.

Newman on Vatican II by Ian Ker

Reviewed by: Newman on Vatican II by Ian Ker James Pereiro Newman on Vatican II. By Ian Ker. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2014. Pp. xii, 167. $40.00. ISBN 978-0-19-871752-2.) Ian Ker’s Newman on Vatican II maintains that, had Cardinal John Henry Newman taken part in it, he would have aligned himself with the reformist party at the Council. Reformers, Ker then adds, “sooner or later divide into moderate and extreme factions” (p. 159). In the case of the latest council, there were those who [End Page 629] wished to interpret its decrees in the light of Tradition and those who embraced a hermeneutic of discontinuity with the past, championing radical change in doctrine and practice. Newman, the great proponent of doctrinal development, would have defended a “hermeneutic of reform in continuity” (p. 159), in which true developments continually build on Tradition, clarifying and enriching it. The first two chapters introduce Newman as a “conservative-radical” (p. 6), proposing change in continuity—a continuity defined by the notes of a true development that he delineated in the Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (London, 1845): that the development retain the same type and principles as the original idea, that its beginnings anticipate its subsequent phases, that the later phenomena protect and subserve the earlier, and so on. In the following chapters Ker applies the notes to the doctrines of the Second Vatican Council, particularly those on the nature of the Church, the action of the Holy Spirit within it, Evangelization, and conscience. He sees them not only in continuity with Tradition but also with Newman’s own ideas on those subjects. Ker considers that the cardinal had already advanced some conciliar doctrines; pointed in the direction of others; and, in some cases, gone beyond what the Council actually promulgated. A case in point of the latter, according to Ker, is evangelization. He expresses the opinion that Vatican II did not explicitly deal with the topic of evangelization. This is open to question. Apostolicam Actuositatem, on the apostolate of the laity, was the Council’s clarion call to a capillary evangelization; a call that has not yet perhaps produced all the fruits intended by the Council. Newman’s theory of development is central to Newman and Vatican II. Ker uses the book to comment briefly on different interpretations of the Essay’s origins and value. Among other points made, he disagrees with the author of this review about the genesis of Newman’s theory of development. This reviewer responded to Ker’s comments in a more recent book; let the arguments rest there. Newman on Vatican II is written with Ker’s usual verve and thorough knowledge of his subject. It is a short book, but it takes the reader through a considerable part of the Newman corpus and of his fundamental ideas. In length and style it might be said to be in line with the Oxford Movement’s Tracts for the Times: short, passionate, and addressing important questions of the moment. James Pereiro University of Navarra Copyright © 2016 The Catholic University of America Press

China’s “Rule of Law Policy and Communist Party Reform

In this article I analyze the “rule of law” policy, which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) adopted as a principle of government at the 15th Party Congress in 1997. I investigate the emergence of rule of law policy and the context in which the CCP introduced it, then examine the concrete measures and actual implementation of the policy. I argue that the rule of law policy is the CCP’s attempt to institutionalize its legal and performance legitimacy. The policy comprises several parts, including intraparty regulations, comprehensive law education for leading cadres, and the readjustment of party-legislative relations. However, the policy has serious problems and consequently has achieved limited results.

Online voting: Boon or bane for democracy?

Estonia is the only country in the world where all voters can vote online in national elections. In the 2015 election, 31% of voters did so. This paper discusses the sociology and politics of online voting in Estonia. I first show that online voting is a partisan project. Liberal, conservative, and social democratic parties support online voting as a way of modernizing the electoral system, while populist and agrarian parties oppose it as a tool for political manipulation. I then show that online voting is demographically and politically biased. Online voters are more urban, richer, and better-educated than conventional voters and non-voters. The opposition left-populist Center Party receives fewer votes online than the governing market-liberal Reform Party. This is a bad thing for democracy and Estonia should discontinue online voting.

The prairie populist: How Stephen Harper transformed Canada

Sounding a note of warning for Europe's mainstream political parties, Claudia Chwalisz traces the rise of Stephen Harper and Canada's populist right-wing Reform party, which she argues was able to capitalise on a public disenchantment with traditional parties that today is being felt in many European democracies.

Unattainable Mission? The Democratic Party of Japan's Unsuccessful Policymaking System Reform

In December 2012, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) fell from power after ruling the country for only three years. An important cause of the DPJ government's downfall concerned its failure in policymaking system reform. When it came to power in September 2009, the DPJ vowed to dissolve the policymaking system created under the lengthy dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party. It pledged to practice “Cabinet‐led policymaking” by strengthening the Cabinet's leadership fundamentally. It also promised to curtail bureaucratic power. But in reality, the DPJ's policymaking system reform turned out to be an utter failure. This article points out that there are four major reasons for the DPJ government's failure in policymaking system reform: (i) lack of internal unity, (ii) ineffective top leadership, (iii) institutional depth of bureaucratic power, and (iv) the twisted Diet.

Electoral Cleavage Map of Russia: Based on an Analysis of the 2011 State Duma Election and the Regional Elections of 2012–14

The article presents a methodology for the research of cleavage structure in post-Soviet Russia on the regional level (municipalities as cases). This methodology is applied to the results both of the 2011 Duma election and elections to regional legislatures over the period 2012–14. The electoral cleavage map of today's Russia is constructed on the basis of the 2011 election results. All Russian regions are divided into five groups by the degree of their political competitiveness: (1) the least competitive group of six North Caucasian republics; (2) the group of four regions with the single ‘authorities versus community’ electoral cleavage (Mordovia, Mari El, Tatarstan and Tyumen oblast); (3) the ‘under-competitive’ cluster of 19 regions (including Adygea, Bashkortostan, Kalmykia, Tuva, Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Kemerovo, Orel, Tambov and Ulyanovsk oblasts); (4) the ‘average’ cluster of 31 regions (including Moscow) and (5) the most competitive cluster of 20 regions (including Saint-Petersburg). It also concludes that the 2012 ‘party reform’ led to the ‘entropy’ of electoral preferences, an augmentation of political space dimensions and indirectly, a growth in the number of electoral cleavages in elections to regional legislatures (2012–14). It is recognized that in some regions the level of political competition has really increased, but the reason was not the appearance of new participants, but relaxation of administrative pressure on the strata depending on the state support. In these regions, especially in ethnic republics, not so much a liberalization of the electoral process but inter-clan conflicts took place.

Conclusion: How to Rule the Void? Policy Responses to a ‘Hollowing Out’ of Democracy

type="graphical" xml:id="gpol12235-abs-0001"> Democracy requires the critical engagement of practitioners and experts alike.

Robert Stolz. Bad Water: Nature, Pollution, and Politics in Japan, 1870–1950.

Like Caesar's Gaul, Robert Stolz's Bad Water: Nature, Pollution, and Politics in Japan, 1870–1950 is divided into three parts: intellectual history, environmental studies, and critical thought from Karl Marx to Harry D. Harootunian. The author aims to explore “Japan's environmental turn, a broad historical moment [at the end of the nineteenth century] when Japanese thinkers and activists experienced nature as alienated from themselves and were forced to rebuild the connections” (p. 6). He then asks, “What sort of conceptions of nature can be the basis of a new politics adequate to the environmental crisis?” (p. 10). The most sustained and original parts of this deeply researched, relentlessly argued volume address the environmental ideas of the reformer and ecologist Tanaka Shōzō (1841–1913), the journalist and anarchist Ishikawa Sanshirō (1876–1956), and Kurosawa Torizō (1885–1982), founder of Snow Brand Dairy, for many years Japan's largest. Starting in 1877 the Ashio Copper Mine north of Tokyo contaminated the Watarase and Tone Rivers with copper waste and, during repeated floods in the 1890s, polluted nearby lands worked by hundreds of thousands of farmers. The earliest of modern Japan's environmental disasters, Ashio prompted Tanaka to make “a key breakthrough in environmental thought when he argued that humans could neither transcend nature nor completely control it” (p. 15). Until the early 1890s Tanaka was a loyal member of the Constitutional Reform Party “committed to Japan's modernization,” but once he confronted the Ashio crisis, his career thereafter showed “the limits of liberalism and its autonomous, private individual to deal with the unprecedented horrors of industrial pollution” (p. 66). In speeches to the national parliament (Diet) Tanaka argued that “the government has been completely overrun by the private power of the Furukawa zaibatsu,” owners of the Ashio mine (p. 71), leading to Tanaka's theory of “national death” (bōkokuron) in which a public Japan no longer existed; instead corruption, bribery, and private gain now ruled. In 1901 Tanaka and the socialist Kōtoku Shūsui (1871–1911) made a quixotic appeal (jikiso) to the Meiji emperor to remove the poisoned earth and make the Watarase River pure again. When this petition failed, Stolz notes, Tanaka abandoned “Meiji liberalism to develop a radical environmental politics” (p. 79).

The Fourth Plenum of the CPC Makes an Important Decision on Law Reform in China

During the Fourth Plenary Session of the 13th Communist Party of China (CPC) Congress, a new and important reform document was adopted. Announcing reforms mainly in the juridical sector, the 'Decision of the CPC Central Committee Concerning Some Major Questions in Comprehensively Moving Governing the Country According to the Law Forward' is part of the overall reform package kicked off at the Third Plenum last year. This article points out the document's main objectives, and provides a preliminary analysis of the announced reforms. Three main themes are identified. First, the document is part of the overall goal of developing a special Chinese system of 'socialism with Chinese characteristics'. Second, not only institutions but also the minds and work styles of officials are to be reformed. Third, the document strongly affirms the CPC's role as the legal guardian of the reform process, as well as juridical matters.

Revamping the Chinese Communist Party

The 2014 Party reform aimed to modernise the CCP. The Politburo passed the “Action Plan for Deepening Party-building Institutional Reforms”, outlining 26 concrete reforms in four key areas to be completed by 2017. Notable departures include the re-emphasis on ideological unity, the rollback on intra-party democracy, the renewed emphasis on intra-party legislation and the control on the growth of the Party's size. However there are inherent dilemmas in building a Leninist party in a globalised market economy.

The American election 2012: contexts and consequences

Introduction - The American Election 2012: Contexts and Consequences R. Ward Holder and Peter B. Josephson PART I: THE STATE OF THE PARTIES IN 2012 1. The Consequences of Party Reform in the 21st Century Terri Susan Fine 2. Closed for Repairs So It Can Reengage with the World: Prospects for Reforming the Republican Party Douglas M. Brattebo 3. The 2012 Elections and the Southern Roots of Polarized Politics: The Continuing Power of Southern Conservatives After Obama's Reelection Allen Neal 4. The Ever-Widening Gap: Gender and the 2012 Presidential Election Derya Rix 5. Data, America's Shifting Landscape, and the Meaning of 2012 Dante Chinni PART II: EMERGING STRATEGIES IN THE 2012 CAMPAIGN 6. Are Super PACs Really Arms of Political Parties? A Study of Coordination Dante Scala 7. Economic Appeals in Unequal Communities: Stump Speeches in the 2012 Presidential Election Christopher B. Chapp 8. Casualties of the Ground War: Personal Contacting in 2012 and Its Discontents Robert Boatright 9. Unfriendly to Women? Female Politicians, Rape Comments and the GOP in 2012 Jennifer Lucas and Tauna Sisco 10. Weighing In or Waiting: When, Whether, and Whom Republican Officeholders Endorsed in 2012 Kevin J. Parsneau and Christopher Galdieri PART III: IMPLICATIONS OF THE 2012 ELECTION: DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICIES 11. The Past as Prologue: Obama, Health Care and the Election of 2012 Anne Marie Cammisa 12. Healthcare Spending and Prevention within the Affordable Care Act: Contrasting the Public Health and Medical Models of Prevention T. Lucas Hollar 13. Natural Uncertainty: Reconciling the Contrasting Environmental Goals of America's First Natural Security President - Barack Obama Mark O'Gorman 14. Federal Judicial Vacancies: Obama's Record and Prospects Susan Siggelakis 15. The Politics of Presidential Foreign Policy: Unilateral Authority and the Role of Congress Brandon Prins and Bryan Marshall 16. Decline or Not: America's Continued Primacy in the Persian Gulf? Wesley Renfro and Marc O'Reilly PART IV: FAITH AND POLITICS: 2012 AND BEYOND 17. Courting the Catholic Vote: Obama, Romney, and the U.S. Catholic Bishops in the 2012 Presidential Election Richard J. Powell and Mark D. Brewer 18. Catholic Vice Presidential Candidates and the Politics of Abortion: The 2012 Debate in Context Angela Senander 19. What Romney's Nomination Means for Mormons and the Presidency Luke Perry 20. The Liberal State and the Gay Marriage Debate: Lessons from American Catholic Thought Aaron Taylor 21. Obama and the Common Good Daniel Daly 22. The Rise of the Liberal Protestant? Faith and Politics in the Obama Administration R. Ward Holder and Peter B. Josephson

Economy, corruption or floating voters? Explaining the breakthroughs of anti-establishment reform parties in eastern Europe

This paper discusses a new group of parties that we term anti-establishment reform parties (AERPs), which combine moderate social and economic policies with anti-establishment appeals and a desire to change the way politics is conducted. We analyse the electoral breakthroughs of AERPs in central and eastern Europe (CEE), the region where AERPs have so far been most successful. Examples include the Simeon II National Movement, Movement for the European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) (Bulgaria), Res Publica (Estonia), New Era (Latvia), TOP09 and Public Affairs (Czech Republic) and Positive Slovenia. We examine the conditions under which such parties broke through in nine CEE states in 1997–2012 using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). We find five sufficient causal paths combining high or rising corruption, rising unemployment and party system instability. Rising corruption plays a key role in most pathways but, unexpectedly, AERP breakthroughs are more closely associated with economic good times than bad.

Radicalism, Protest Votes and Regionalism: Reform and the Rise of the New Conservative Party

For descriptive and analytical reasons there is an understandable tendency to view political parties as homogenous. Yet it is widely known that most parties, particularly those that compete in single-member plurality systems, are effectively coalitions. This paper explores support for the Reform Party of Canada in part to better understand the character of the current governing Conservative party of which it was a founding component. We find a party that attracted two distinct kinds of supporters: radicals, for whom support reflected the appeal of Reform party policies, its leader and ideology, and protest voters for whom it was mainly an alternative to the then-governing Liberals. These supporters were geographically concentrated; the former in Western Canada, the latter in Eastern Canada. Such diversity describes one of the central challenges confronting all parties operating in Canada’s single member plurality system: sustaining a coalition of supporters in which reasons for attachment to the party vary by region. As with previous governments, it helps to explain the peculiar political demands that confront the current Conservative government as it seeks to maintain this coalition.

Кризис многопартийности в России

The article states that multi-party system developed in Russia in the wake of radical reforms, has been in a constant state of crisis. Based on the data from representative sociological surveys it examines the signs and the main causes of the crisis, paying special attention to peculiarities of the modern transformation of multiparty system. The authors emphasize that the ongoing changes of party policy implemented “from the top” to optimize the party system, only hinder the creation of a truly competitive political parties and disorient people. Recent years have seen the low level of trust in political parties, lack of interest in their activities, weak linkages of large groups of population with traditional political institutions, the constant loosening of newly formed party loyalties. Compared to modern democratic societies, where parties are viewed as the most important structural and functional elements of the political organization of society, in Russia political parties are estimated by a large majority of citizens as less important in comparison with other political institutions. Russians claim that the possibilities of the parties, except for the ruling party, to adequately respond to the increased demands and requirements of groups whose interests they express are very much limited. There are noticeable signs of weakening of the opposition parties in the Duma, not able to compete with the ruling party. As well as strengthening of barriers to the creation of new authoritative political forces capable to improve political life in the country. The authors emphasize that constant and considerable changes of party politics prevent the establishment of a stable system of party loyalties, weaken the dependence of political behavior of citizens on society traditions of political choices and increase the likelihood of unpredictable political behavior. Analysis of the balance between the party reform plans and mass political sentiments leads to the conclusion that the course of creation of a multi-party system with wide pluralistic orientation finds no support in the overwhelming majority of Russians.

Legally Armenian: Tolerance, Conversion, and Name Change in Turkish Courts

AbstractOver the last fifteen years, hundreds of Muslim citizens claiming Armenian descent have submitted petitions to Turkey's secular legal authorities asking for changes to both their name and religion in the public record. In this article, I discuss the name-change cases of Armenian return converts to further the debates on Turkish secularism and to critique the body of scholarship that welcomes the governing Justice and Development Party's legal reforms as a measure of growing religious tolerance. In the article's first part I analyze the historical foundations of the regulation of religion and name changes in Turkey by fully and explicitly engaging with law as a site where minority difference is constructed, authorized, and challenged. The article's second half offers an alternative reading of how tolerance functions as an aspect of the Justice and Development Party's reforms. Based on my investigation of specific legal forms of argument that converted Armenians and their lawyers put forward in today's secular courts, and how legal officers of the state respond to them, I demonstrate that legal reform has shifted the definition of religion as a marker of minority difference in legal space. I argue that the historical context of name change and religious conversion forces the limits of existing understandings of freedom of religion in Turkey, and that this renders visible historical injustices that cannot be resolved simply through the notion of “religious tolerance” in the courts.

The Communist Tragedy

In two already classic works, Margarete Buber-Neumann, a German communist who took refuge in Moscow after Hitler’s victory, tells how she was deported to Siberia by Stalin, then handed over as a Jew to the Gestapo by the NKVD in 1940, and held prisoner at Ravensbruck. Upon her liberation from the camp in 1945, she recounts how she wandered around a devastated Germany and more particularly how she met up with French communists to whom she explained her double imprisonment. Their reaction was one of astonishment and then outright hostility and almost panic. What, there was collusion between the Little Father of the peoples and the Fürher, between the liberator of Man and the enemy of men? Between one system and the other there was just a difference of degree, not of nature? This was impossible. Had she herself not been manipulated by a fifth German column without knowing it? How could the doctrine of emancipation, Marxism-Leninism, turn into the doctrine of oppression? This exchange says it all. Communism is remarkable in that it was criminal out of love for humanity. Which makes it the modern heresy of a certain Christianity and allows us to see in magnified form the flaws of the former. Marxist powers persecuted, and with great ferocity, Christians of all persuasions—Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox—but they took their principal concepts from that faith. What is the working class if not the redemptive class par excellence , the class that, being nothing, becomes everything? Marxist theoreticians envisioned future society as the earthly fulfillment of the scriptures. Rosa Luxemburg took her cue from the Church Fathers and saw in the communist dream the secular religion of the downtrodden. Che Guevara himself appears in his iconography as a modern reincarnation of Christ when he was known for his cruelty during the Castro revolution. In addition, both systems require a fundamentalist adherence that leaves no critical space in one’s consciousness. "Outside the Church, no salvation," said the Council of Trent in 1545, during the Counter-Reformation. Likewise, the various communist parties would not have words harsh enough to criticize reformist parties (social democratic ones or others) guilty of not wanting to be subsumed in them.

Reforming the Supreme Court Appointment Process, 2004-2014: A Ten Year Democratic Audit

This paper analyzes the Supreme Court appointment process over the 10 year period from 2004 through the end of 2013. It conducts a democratic audit of the Supreme Court appointment process and not an evaluation of the judges appointed through this process.The paper has six parts. Part I is an introduction. Part II presents a short history of the Supreme Court appointments process between 2004 and 2013. Part III introduces the concept of a democratic audit and identifies the drivers of change to the appointments process. It argues that prior to 1992 proposed reforms to the Supreme Court amendment process were motivated by concerns about federalism: incorporating a role for the provinces in the appointment process. However, after the failure of the Charlottetown Accord (1992), the motivation changed to concerns about the "democratic deficit" so that reforming the Supreme Court appointment process became part of a democratic reform agenda proposed first by the opposition Reform Party, then by Liberal leader Paul Martin both in his leadership campaign and during his tenure as Prime Minister and finally by the Conservative Party led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. This part also addresses an issue that did not factor into the reforms: any perceived deficiency in the quality of past appointments or concerns about the legitimacy of the Supreme Court itself. Since 1992, the key factors that were articulated as the basis for changing the appointment process have been (1) transparency; (2) accountability: and (3) public knowledge about the Supreme Court and its judges. These are the factors that I use for evaluation through this democratic audit.In Part IV, I conduct the democratic audit and find that the reforms have largely failed to deliver on the promised transparency and accountability. Conversely, I also conclude that the reforms have been very successful in serving a public education function about the Supreme Court and the work that Supreme Court judges do. Part V offers my recommendations for "reforming the reforms" in order to achieve the goals of transparency and accountability in the appointment process. I argue that the government should publish a detailed protocol to be styled Guide to Appointment of Supreme Court Justices which would set out the qualifications, consultation to be followed, procedure for evaluation, etc. I propose a revamped advisory committee which would operate in a more open and transparent fashion and produce a report on their work. The public hearings of nominees should continue, but only if the Minister of Justice also appears to answer questions about the process and about why the nominee was selected. Finally, the paper ends with a brief conclusion in Part VI.