Pluralistic Regime Research Articles

The Sovereign National Conference and the Long Unfinished Political Transition in the Democratic Republic of Congo (from 1990 to Present)

"For more than sixty years since the DR Congo gained independence, the aftermath has been characterized by the adoption of constitutional texts essentially inspired by the metropolitan model. This led one to believe that the era of democratic stability was now open. Unfortunately, this was a very short-lived moment, as authoritarianism took hold between the end of 1964 and the beginning of the 1990s with the single-party system (MPR). Political liberalization with the return of a multiparty system took place again in the 1990s following the Sovereign National Conference (CNS). After the wars of aggression and liberation of 1996-1998, the Sun-city agreement and other arrangements were signed to end the cycles of violence. These political changes have been analyzed almost exclusively through the prism of democratic transition, as have all the changes since. But in our view, these political transitions do not seem to be fading away into democratic or pluralistic regimes. We sometimes see democratic advances on the one hand, and the non-completion of the transitional process on the other. And it is this reflection that will be the subject of our analysis in this article. Keywords: independence, political transition, Africa, authoritarianism, single parties, pluralist regimes, political changes. "

Don’t Touch My Constitution! Civil Society Resistance to Democratic Backsliding in Africa´s Pluralist Regimes

AbstractAnalyzing civil society resistance to elite‐led democratic backsliding in Africa, the article argues that the non‐militant, civil society‐based transitions experienced in the 1990s left a legacy of a pro‐democracy cleavage that is mobilized when central constitutional rights are threatened. Building on insights from social movement theory, the paper argues that the conduct of multiparty elections at regular intervals provides an opportunity for contestation over constitutional rules, and the historical legacy of pro‐democracy movements provides a mobilizing structure for civil society to organize for the protection of constitutional rights. The theoretical argument is illustrated by a comparison of the democratic trajectories in Zambia and Malawi. In both countries, incumbent elites’ have attempted to remain in power through constitutional revisions. However, processes of executive aggrandizement have been stalled by civil society mobilization that again have resulted in incumbent defeat and electoral turn‐overs. Recent waves of democratic backsliding suggest that the autonomy of civil society from political parties may be a key factor for the ability of civil society to challenge autocratization. Malawi’s civil society has maintained a high degree of autonomy but in Zambia, the close cooperation between civil society and the Patriotic Front (PF) and the resulting cooptation of key civil society actors have resulted in a process of autocratization.

The Ambiguous Allure of Ashoka: Buddhist Kingship as Precedent, Potentiality, and Pitfall for Covenantal Pluralism in Thailand

In the course of the 20th century, Thai political elites fashioned a religiopolitical settlement that has a great deal in common with covenantal pluralism. They did so, furthermore, by rediscovering a historic precedent in the Indian emperor Ashoka, and reinterpreting the image of this paragon of Buddhist kingship so as to emphasize theological humility and a benevolent embrace of religious pluralism. Since the fall of the absolute monarchy in 1932, this Ashokan ideal has been reflected in the Buddhist Thai king’s constitutionally defined role as upholder of religions—in the plural. However, recent developments in Thailand highlight the difficulties associated with sustaining a tolerant and robustly pluralistic policy regime over time, and the inescapable normative trade-offs that this involves.

Jacques Maritain and the Political Theology of Contemporary Democracy

This article analyzes the democratic thought of the philosopher Jacques Maritain. A methodical reading of the integrity of his political work published since the 20s demonstrates a great continuity in the defense of a univocal concept of democratic governance, called social democracy, new Christianity, integral democracy or organic democracy in order to accommodate his thought to the political circumstances. Starting from the principle of superiority of spiritual power, Maritain has redefined the notion of democracy in an anti-rousseaunian sense. Maritain postulates a community and pluralist regime under a presidential government and non partitocratic political system. Maritainian democracy and the secular faith that must animate it, based on human rights, is conceived as an antidote against liberal neutralism and against the totalitarian temptation of a democracy understood as a political religion.

Collective action and labour militancy interrupted: Back-to-work legislation and the state of permanent exceptionalism at Air Canada

Using data collected from survey responses and interviews conducted in 2014, this study examines the consequences of back-to-work legislation from the perspective of customer service workers at Air Canada represented by Unifor Local 2002. By examining union attitudes, opinions of strikes, wildcat actions and back-to-work legislation deployed in 2011 and 2012, the study concludes that this type of legislation functioned to protect the interests of the employer in an ongoing process of corporate restructuring. Such ad hoc legislative measures, defined by political economists as ‘permanent exceptionalism’, further undermines the industrial pluralist regime that is the foundation of Canadian labour relations.

Institutional Performance in Albania Regarding Social Protection Policies

Albania is often considered ''the most difficult case'' of regime change compared to other ex-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The long way, often too hard and chaotic, towards democracy and market economy put the country into a disadvantageous situation in comparison with other ex-communist countries because of the limited progress in these directions. Structural changes in Albania before and after the 90's are extraordinary. Now Albania is in a European integration phase, which means there's a series of standards to accomplish and political-economic challenges to be faced. In the first part, this paper will give a chronological view of social protection policies in Albanian going through the major historical phases such as communist regime and pluralist regime period. In the second part, our main focus will be the change in political regime and its consequences which dictated the need for new social protection policies. The inclusion policy or the policy of social protection in Albania is a component of a greater general frame named National Strategy for Development and Integration (SKZHI) 2007-2013, which brings in a single document the perspectives of social and economic stable development, in the framework of the integration in the UE and realization of the Millennial Objectives (SKZHI, 2008).The main social groups and social fields treaded by the policy documents such as National Strategy on Development and Integration, National Strategy on Social Protection, National Strategy on Social Inclusion will be explained. In the third part, social security and health care policies and institutions will be treated concluding with some findings from the empirical research.

Political-economy based institutional industry complex and sustainable development: The case of the salt-chemical industry in Huai’an, China

This article explains how the salt-chemical industry may evolve over time from a high-energy consumption-based industry complex in the local community to a consolidated pro-growth pluralist regime at the urban scale. The salt-chemical industry is resisting to restructure to a sustainable, environmental-friendly economic system by spilling over in the form of pro-growth political-economic coalition in local society. Theories of the Logan and Molotch's growth machine, Stone's urban regime, together with the extension of Unruh's thesis concerning the characteristics of lock-in in the technological or institutional economics approach were used to propose an enlarged lock-in political-economic framework and pro-growth Institutional Industry Complex (IIC). It is further used to explain the consensus building of the pro-growth governance. A study of the Salt-chemical and New Material Industry Park in the Huai’an Metropolitan Area, China, serves as an illustrative case. The article also suggests that the path-dependence followed in constructing a pro-growth coalition could serve as a program to unlock the pro-growth Institutional Industry Complex of salt-chemical industry and foster the anti-coalition needed.

The Next 'Great Transformation' of Markets and States in the Transnational Space: Global Assemblages of Corporate Governance & Financial Market Regulation

It is a well-known and much explored fact that capital market regulation has had a larger share of activity and visible success within the process of European integration than the long-standing efforts towards the establishment of harmonized rules in the area of corporate governance. While a unified, harmonized or effective market-wide corporate governance regime was identified early on as one of the building blocks of the European project, the historically grown, path-dependent varieties in national corporate law systems proved - for the longest time - resistant to ambitious Europeanization efforts. This paper argues that precisely at the time when companies' financing structures were being adapted to globally available and moveable capital, corporate governance rules came under immense pressure to address the interests of world-wide operating investors, and that this development resulted in a dis-embedding of the corporation. The corporation at the end of the 20th century was no longer primarily seen as an organizational entity, but had become a financial vehicle, operating in a regulatory framework largely out of control of domestic company law legislation. This emerging regulatory environment consists of supra-national legislation directed at increased efficiency of regional and global financial markets on the one hand and increasingly incentive-oriented, indirect regulation of corporate governance rules, placed to a large degree within the discretion of market actors. The financialization of corporate governance and the emergence of a transnational legal pluralist regime of applicable rules and standards provides a particular challenge to Karl Polanyi's identified 'double movement' in the regulation of increasingly disembedded markets. And, yet, this is only the first of two analytical steps that must be made to understand the present regulatory challenge. As the study of capital market law and corporate governance in the European Union illustrates, the emerging regimes cannot adequately be represented as either national or international. As they are both and yet neither exclusively, the represent examples of what Saskia Sassen calls 'global assemblages' and what I shall here study as transnational legal pluralism. While Sassen's concept provides for a powerful illustration of the autonomy of self-constituting spaces that comprise human, institutional and technological, digital elements, this framework needs to be complemented by a specifically legal perspective on the evolving forms of regulatory approaches and instruments that are present here.

Pluralism and Empire: From Rome to Robert Cover

In his famous engagement with pluralism and sub-political associations, “Nomos and Narrative,” Robert Cover invokes empire as both an exemplar of statal power and an alternative to contemporary liberal democratic regimes. This essay takes his reflections as a point of departure, in order to explore two themes. First, Cover posits a dynamic relationship between jurispathic and jurisgenerative regimes. This invites reflection on the stability of pluralist regimes in practice. This essay takes up that challenge in the case of Rome where, it is argued, structural features of both politics and practice impelled a standardization of legal regimes in both procedural and positive law, despite a principled commitment on Rome’s part to the autonomy of alien communities within the empire. Second, Cover seeks to elide the true object of his inquiry, the autonomy of religious groups, by assimilating them to voluntarist associations. This brings certain advantages in respect to constitutional law and anticipates potential liberal and feminist critiques of religious law. But it also raises problems of political theology, by surrendering the ontological priority vis-à-vis the state that in the self-understanding of religious groups normally justifies their claims to self-regulation. One form such problems might take is illustrated by Hobbes, in his theory of sovereignty by acquisition, which draws on Roman theory. That theory has been now been vindicated by Roman legal instruments, discovered in the 19th and 20th centuries and therefore unknown to Hobbes, in which conquered parties were ordered to continue their ancestral legal practice, on sufferance of Rome.

Exploring Pluralism in Oral Health Care: Dom Informal Dentists in Northern Lebanon

This article describes a pluralistic regime of oral health provision in a rural part of northern Lebanon, where dental care came from two main sources: professionally trained dentists and "informal" Dom dentists with Syrian nationality. Relying on a combination of interviews and ethnography, I offer a multivocal view of oral health services that incorporates data from patients and formal and informal providers. I argue that informal dentistry constituted an interstitial and translocal mode of dental care. In the northern Lebanese Biqa Valley, close to the Syrian border, the local articulation of neoliberal health governance created opportunities for heterodox practices in oral health. The organization of informality was predicated on the presence of the open border between Syria and Lebanon, which favored patterns of flexible cross-border mobility. In this context, informal dentistry was not alternative, but supplementary and lateral in relation to official forms of oral health provision.

Institutional development and stock price synchronicity: Evidence from China

Better developed legal and political institutions result in greater availability of reliable firm-specific information. When stock prices reflect more firm-specific information there will be less stock price synchronicity. This paper traces the experience of China, an economy undergoing dramatic institutional change in the last 20years with rich variation in experiences across provinces. We show that stock price synchronicity is lower when there is institutional development in terms of property rights protection and rule of law. Furthermore, we investigate the influence of political pluralism on synchronicity. A more pluralistic regime reduces uncertainty and opaqueness regarding government interventions and therefore increases the value of firm-specific information that reduces synchronicity.

Legal Pluralism in the Pacific: Solomon Island's World War II Heritage

AbstractThe country of Solomon Islands, like most Pacific island nations, has a legally pluralistic regime. That is, customary law operates in parallel with the common law, a legacy of Solomon Islands' colonial past. Legal pluralism raises significant difficulties, including in the way cultural heritage is protected and managed. To date, the courts have rarely been called on to deal with such issues, but in 2010 the High Court had to examine legislation designed to regulate the recovery and export of World War II relics. This seemingly innocuous case raised a number of issues concerning the rights of different stakeholders to this material. Moreover, it raised a foundational question as to whether these relics might be considered cultural heritage, and if so, just whose heritage it was. A consideration of this case and the legislation that applies to this heritage serves to illustrate some of the difficulties that arise in protecting cultural heritage within pluralistic legal systems.

Institutional Development and Stock Price Synchronicity: Evidence from China

Better developed legal and political institutions result in greater availability of reliable firm-specific information. When stock prices reflect more firm-specific information there will be less stock price synchronicity. This paper traces the experience of China, an economy undergoing dramatic institutional change in the last 20 years with rich variation in experiences across provinces. We show that stock price synchronicity is lower when there is institutional development in terms of property rights protection and rule of law. Furthermore, we investigate the influence of political pluralism on synchronicity. A more pluralistic regime reduces uncertainty and opaqueness regarding government interventions and therefore increases the value of firm-specific information that reduces synchronicity.

The Political Cultivation of Moral Character: Kant on Public Moral Feeling as a Precondition for Right

Does the liberal state have the legitimate power to shape the moral character of its citizenry? One common liberal answer, which draws on a traditional reading of Kant's distinction between morality and right, is “no”: the scope of state authority extends only to the external actions of individuals, not to their inner, moral lives. This article explores an alternative reading of Kant in which the liberal state defends individual rights yet also has the duty to supply the preconditions for enjoying those rights. One precondition is the moral character of the citizenry, even though the government's provision of this precondition would seem to undermine the “external freedom” of citizens. The article thus both challenges a traditional interpretation of Kant's view of the state, and develops a liberal line of reasoning about moral character within a secular, pluralistic regime.

Chinese Corporate Governance Regime from a Historical-Cultural Perspective: Rethinking Confucian System of Governance

Research Issue: Transplanted modern laws from the Western might be ill suited for China, because they are alien and reflects Western ideals and values. Looking back into China’s own rich history, there appeared to be an effective indigenous system regulating governance, one that was non-legal and based on Confucian doctrines governing Chinese merchants for centuries. Therefore, it might be prudent to revisit and revive such value based, norm driven self-regulated system to regulate corporate governance in China. Research Findings/Insights: At the heart of this Confucian centered benchmark, is the notion of san gang wu chang. This system of governance is not state or rule centered, rather this is a value based, norm driven, and community enforced framework, aimed at creating social harmony. These Confucian moral values aspire to higher standards of behaviour, much greater than what laws could because it is archetype standards of a righteous person. History has shown that in China’s regions like An Hui and Shan Xi merchants had voluntary observed these Confucian traditions. There was even a Chinese terminology to describe merchants that adhere to such self-regulatory standards, known as ru shang. More importantly, such self-regulatory governance measure had worked in China for centuries. Theoretical/Academic Implications: First, this study contradicts myths and misleading claims by observers like Max Weber who claimed that Confucianism had prevented China from developing capitalistic economy. Second, the analysis of san gang wu chang, as a governance and regulatory mechanism, it appears to work as a community of practice at the macro level, and on a micro level compliance is motivated by an individual’s beliefs and compulsion to do so. This was more than an ideal for the reason that moral benchmarks combined with hierarchical order creates a socially binding set of obligations. Examples from An Hui and Shan Xi had offered antidotal evidence of how this Confucian centered system was reaised. Furthermore, this regime was far more complex and sophisticated than a set of moral principles. Unlike rules, it was flexible with harmony, instead of set of laws as its an end goal. Practitioner/Policy Implications: China had an indigenous set of governance code that was no less effective than contemporary Western laws and thus should look at its own rich history and culture to provide an alternative set of company laws, one that is based on Confucianism. This is not to say that Chinese or Confucian centred regulatory order is necessarily superior to Western models, rather this is intended to offer greater variety to suit different types of investors and incorporators in China. This alternative is expected to be more culturally receptive from a Chinese perspective. Critics might argue that this is unnecessary. This paper argues that the present choice of different Western models of governance are based on Judo-Christian heritage and elements of Roman civil law dating back to the Roman Empire, all of which might be culturally estranged and meaningless beyond superficial compliance for the Chinese. Yet this paper does not advocate the removal of existing Western modeled corporate laws in China, the regulation solution would most likely be the establishment of a pluralistic governance regime, one the international markets are familiar with and the other, a Confucian based Chinese framework for those who subscribe to Confucian values.

Transport energy futures: Exploring the geopolitical dimension

The future of road transport, being currently reliant on carbon-based liquid fuels, is largely unclear. Some advocate the necessity of single renewable energy paradigm, but its realization is potentially fraught with difficulty owing to technological challenges, existing sunk costs, and path dependencies associated with existing and emerging options. It could also result in disadvantageous outcomes to emerging economies. Another school of thought proposes that future road transport, even within single nations, will require multiple energy types, mainly because a single source will be insufficient to meet projected needs. A multiple paradigm has the potential to be expensive because several infrastructures have to be implemented simultaneously. This paper aims to assess both concepts by considering the largely neglected dimensions of resource location and regional geophysical attributes, in addition to national technical expertise, industry capacity and modal factors. Case studies from both the developed world (the European Union and Australia) and the developing world (sub-Saharan Africa and China) will assess the possibility of implementing a single transport energy paradigm versus a more pluralistic regime. The results will help to inform policy making and enable greater foresight with regard to making long-term transport infrastructure investment decisions.

Dissenting families and social movement abeyance: the transmission of neo-fascist frames in postwar Italy1

What explains the re-emergence of social movements after abeyance? Based on interviews with activists who belonged to the Italian neo-fascist movement of the late 1960s to early 1980s, this article documents the preservation of a neo-fascist mobilization potential after 1945 through the parent-child transmission of frames. This process involved learning through talk, action and text. Both the nature of family frames and their congruence with movement frames depended on whether parents were right-wing or non-partisan. Research on abeyance should include the family among institutions that uphold continuity between waves of contention in pluralist regimes.

The political philosophy of Walzer’s social criticism

This article calls for a critical re-evaluation of Walzer’s theory of justice. It argues that there is a deep tension between Walzer’s social criticism and his complex equality. Social criticism is based on the normative value of a connected and ‘whole’ self, and complex equality is based upon a value pluralism that threatens to fragment this sense of wholeness. Walzer therefore commissions a tacit premise, borrowing from the same ‘political philosophy’ that he explicitly repudiates, and which social criticism is intended to supplant. This premise is a Kantian-inspired conception of self; brought to the argument as an a priori premise and thus in violation of Walzer’s own stated commitment to ‘internalism’ and ‘interpretation’. Furthermore, this same conception of self is the moral source of Walzer’s substantive commitment to the universal value of pluralist political regimes. The article closes with a suggested reconciliation of the inherent tension within Walzer’s theory.

Legal Pluralism in Post-Colonial Africa: Linking Statutory and Customary Adjudication in Mozambique

Legal pluralism is a contemporary reality and a challenge in most post-colonial African states, as they grapple with how to preserve the cultural heritage reflected in their customary law and institutions, while attempting to function as modern constitutional regimes. Few of them have found structural solutions for linkages between and mutual co-existence of multiple legal regimes within the same state.The policy that will drive the establishment of proper linkages must be approached with an eye to what the purpose of preserving a legally pluralistic regime, distinguishing the motivations of many - colonists in the past, and political opportunists today - who have exploited pluralistic systems for their own self-interest. It is also necessary to recognize and preserve the virtues inherent in customary systems - systems historically undervalued as “primitive,” and still under attack by those who see them as threats to the protection of human rights.There are no easy answers for how to correlate and link pluralistic adjudication in post-colonial African states, and Mozambique may present a particularly troublesome case. Although the precise mechanisms cannot be articulated with specificity, perhaps, the core underlying principles can. Those principles should respect traditional systems and values, affording them dignity as independent systems. To make them subservient to the state institutions, allowed to exist as long as they serve the state institutions on the state’s terms, would be nothing more than a repackaging and relabeling of tried-and-failed colonial approaches. Instead, the pluralistic regime should operate on the principle of “maximizing” the role and impact of indigenous law, and giving equal dignity to the institutions that apply such law. This will require state courts to defer to community-based adjudication, even declining to exercise jurisdiction when the case can be appropriately resolved in the latter forum. It will grant concurrent jurisdiction wherever possible, supplementing it with consent jurisdiction for those who could not otherwise be subject to the authority of the traditional forum. The most troubling aspects of traditional law, the oft-cited human rights violations, cannot be ignored. A mechanism can and must be developed for guarding against those, doing as little violence as possible to the autonomy and dignity of traditional fora. A system of collateral review - giving statutory courts limited jurisdiction to review a traditional forum’s decision for compliance with constitutional human rights standards - can serve that function. It is calculated to tamper with traditional dispute resolution systems as little as possible, and to respect the community forum as much as possible. Most importantly, it allows customary law to respond in its own way to the human rights requirements, not threatening customary law with restrictions, but strengthening customary law by fostering its legitimacy and relevance. Most importantly, it will allow the customary law, and its application, to remain solely the province of traditional authorities, where it can continue to function as a vital and highly adaptive foundation in rural society.Operational solutions - for Mozambique as well as other pluralistic societies that face similar challenges - will require ongoing attention, but the central values of legal pluralism can be maintained as long as the implementation does not stray from these core principles: maximization of indigenous law, and equal dignity for the traditional forum.

Grounds for citizenship: Public attitudes in comparative perspective

Information on the institutional arrangements of citizenship is increasingly available. However, we currently have only limited knowledge on the contours of public opinion towards citizenship. We seek to remedy this neglect by documenting patterns of support toward the most dominant citizenship principles: jus soli, jus sanguinis, and jus domicile. Specifically, we combine responses to questions on these principles to create a single measure of opinion toward citizenship law that encompasses three dominant citizenship approaches: assimilationist, exclusionary, and pluralist. Using data from the 2003 International Social Survey Program (ISSP) module on National Identity, we examine cross-national differences in support for the three approaches. Our results indicate that only two regime-types can clearly be identified – a pluralist regime, which centers on the importance of jus soli and includes traditional settler societies and Sweden, and an assimilationist regime, which is typified by its acceptance of jus domicile and includes the post-colonial empires of France and Britain. On the individual level, our analysis highlights the importance of perceptions of threat, either economically or culturally, in shaping public opinion toward citizenship.