Opposition Political Parties Research Articles

After the Revolution: Gender and Democracy in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala

After the Revolution: Gender and Democracy in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala

The Islamic State or the State of Islam in Malaysia

********** issue of the Islamic state has been at the forefront of Malaysian public discourse, but even more so since the announcement by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in September 2001 that Malaysia was already an Islamic state. issue has evoked consternation and debate that is not reflected in the mainstream media, and which is symptomatic of the disjuncture between perceptions in public discourse and realities on the ground. This article examines this disjuncture through the symbiosis of the Islamic state issue with its context, the state of Islam in Malaysia. It also provides an analysis of the government's text outlining why its administration qualifies as an Islamic state, against one of the main sources used, which is the Shafi'i jurist Al-Mawardi's Al-ahkam as-sultaniyya. Introduction title of this article encompasses both the burning issue in Malaysia during 2001 about the Islamic state -- between the United National Organization (UMNO) and the Parti Islam se Malaysia (PAS) (1) and their claims to the legitimacy of Malaysia as an Islamic state -- and the layers of complexity that constitute the context of this issue, which is the state of Islam in the nation. context includes the diversity of actors, scenarios, recent historical trajectories, and the power of representation (who has the power to define public discourse) that are as important as the statements of the government, UMNO, and PAS. power to speak or write and thus shape public discourse must also be understood as the power to claim to speak on behalf of and to appropriate the voices of the assumed constituency. Hence, UMNO, PAS, and even non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and political commentators often make claims on behalf of constituencies whose views are essentially assumed and defined for them, rather than as a reflection of widespread listening and polling of most Malaysians want or think. These claims are writ large in swathes of generalizations, rendering Malaysians into groups and categories that perpetuate schisms and stereotypes. Any newspaper or newsletter will exemplify this dynamic: what Malaysians want is..., Malays feel that..., Non-Muslims in Malaysia fear..., Wo men are concerned about..., The people need more... and so on. On the one hand, the use of categories and generalizations is an economy of semantics that are employed when we are unable to nuance every single inference. On the other hand, it is important to recognize the power to make claims on behalf of, and, from this premise, to mould people think -- not just by the State but also by its opposition and even those who speak and write from a third space, or from the margins. nation is configured by its feudal cultures and precedents. This is compounded by the way politics overwhelms discourse in the nation, as well as the media whose content is shaped by political allegiance and is thus often polemical. Malaysian media, including the newsletters of opposition political parties and websites, essentially reflect either the State/ruling coalition's position or that of the political opposition only, together with a few voices of the acceptable elite who speak or write as independent of the State or its opposition, but whose columns and statements appear because their views resonate with either's larger agendas. Public discourse is, therefore, essentially dichotomous and polemical. In such a context, the diversity of opinions, questions, hopes and fears of ordinary people is often missing from a public discourse that largely reflects the agendas of those with the power to define it. This disjuncture between the public transcript and reality on the ground, or a more nuanced and complex understanding of issues such as Islam in Malaysia, became apparent during fieldwork the author undertook. In the past seven months, more than 300 ethnographic interviews of Malaysians from Kelantan to Johor were conducted in markets, shopping malls, along the road, in fields, and in their homes. …

Kesum‐body and the places of the gods: the politics of children’s masking and second‐world realities in OKU (cameroon)

As emerging nation‐states in sub‐Saharan Africa engender warfare and rapid socio‐political change that increasingly affect children, this article examines the ways in which child masking may represent a means for children in Oku, a kingdom in the Cameroon Grassfields, to incorporate references to exogenous forms of modernist violence in their fantasy‐play. The means by which children overcome their fear of adult masks and the forest spirits they represent by becoming maskers themselves is first examined. Two new children’s masquerades, one representing a white man and the other referring to the SDF opposition political party, then serve as a focus to illustrate how children now extend their use of masking to incorporate the exogenous forces of the state, transforming the fragmentation of social ties and local cosmologies these forces threaten into new trans‐local models of social cohesion.

Comparing types of transitions: Spain and Mexico

This article compares the processes of democratization in Spain and Mexico. The central arguments are: first, in order to understand the process of democratization, it is essential to look at the process of contestation‐mobilization from below that preceded democracy. Second, the level of institutionalization of the authoritarian regimes is a key variable in explaining the relatively ‘rapid’ democratization of the Spanish regime and the protracted transition taking place in Mexico. Third, that this level of institutionalization also helps us to understand the strength or weakness of the authoritarian elites. Fourth, the contestation‐mobilization process is linked to the process of organization of the political parties of the opposition in the democratization process. Finally, although in Spain the opposition political parties, in particular the Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol was able to become a governing alternative, in Mexico the structure and strength of the regime have slowed the possibilities of alternation and more generally, of a full transformation of the authoritarian regime into a competitive and inclusive democracy.

The Politics of Privatization in the Malaysian Health Care System

Despite a strong commitment, for both ideological and pragmatic reasons, to of state enterprises and services, and pronouncements that public health care services would be privatized, Malaysian Government has introduced only a selective degree of in health Haemodialysis, pharmaceutical distribution and hospital support services have been transferred to private Several privatized entities have links with dominant party in ruling coalition government. Moves to privatize public hospitals have politicized health care policy in Malaysia and generated opposition from interest groups and demands for greater public consultation in policy-making. Both political and practical factors have restrained government from introducing wider policies within health Introduction Health encompasses high politics of very role of state in providing health care to its citizens: extent to which Malaysia's historical welfare model of public health care is to be replaced by one in which individuals and employers are responsible for health care costs and services provided by private, rather than public, Any radical change in role of state as a provider of public health care poses problems of political legitimacy for a ruling coalition which has historically projected itself as delivering socio-economic benefits to population and especially to its principal constituency, rural Malays. Organized opposition to health from medical, consumer and trade union interest groups and inclusion of health care in common manifesto of four major opposition political parties have demonstrated growing politicization of health care policy, which had previously escaped levels of political conflict which c haracterized such policy areas as education, culture and economics. Moreover, an investigation into how health policy has been made tells us much about political culture of Malaysia which, despite country's rapid industrialization and socio-economic development, is still characterized by reluctance of government decision-makers to consult with consumer interests and to open their decisions to a degree of public scrutiny. Finally, an exploration of ways in which has been carried out in health reveals close political linkages of many of successful tendering consortia with United Malays National Organization (UMNO), dominant party in Malaysia's ruling coalition government. It is important to explore some of meanings of term In its general application, Malaysian Ministry of Finance has defined in very broad terms as the transfer of public activities and functions to private sector. [1] More specifically, as Jomo has pointed out in his discussion of wider Malaysian experience, term privatization can be applied to a range of measures, including actual sale of state enterprises, leasing out assets, joint public--private ventures, private financing of projects, ending public monopolies, and contracting out to private of services previously provided by public [2] The concept of applied to health system has attracted a number of definitions. Scarpaci conceptualizes it in terms of a shift away from public sphere, defining it as reduced levels of public provision, subsidy or regulation of either preventative or curative health services. [3] Muschell points out that the encouragement of financing and provision of health services by private sector can also be regarded as a form of privatization. [4] In case of Malaysian health care system, a number of elements of can be identified in actions and articulated policy intentions of government. …

Catholic Responses to the Crisis of Everyday Life in Lima, Peru

Since the end of the 1980s, Peru has undergone a dramatic political and economic transformation. The failure of traditional political par ties to solve the country's deepening economic crisis and political vio lence led Peruvians, especially poor Peruvians, to turn to a former university rector and political unknown, Alberto Fujimori, in what some saw as a last desperate attempt to stave off total breakdown. In 1990, Fujimori took over the reins of government in the context of hyper-inflation and a growing threat from the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrilla movement. In his first year of office, Fujimori implemented a draconian shock therapy program, despite having cam paigned against such policies during the elections. Like his counter parts elsewhere in the region, Fujimori jumped on the global bandwagon of neo-liberal economic reforms.1 Feeling increasingly frustrated by political opposition parties in the legislature, Fujimori shut down the Congress in April 1992 and suspended the constitution in a coup d'etat that undermined the country's fragile democratic tran

Contested urban landscapes of nationalism: the case of Taipei

We discuss how Chinese Nationalist political leaders usurped the urban landscape of Taipei to promote the concept of a Chinese nation and national identity in an effort to legitimize their right to political power. The result was the creation of a cityscape which symbolizes the belongingness of the inhabitants of Taiwan to the Chinese nation and which celebrates Chinese Nationalist heroes. In the recent past, oppositional political parties and social movements have challenged these inscriptions and reappropriated the urban landscape to contest both the legitimacy of Nationalist political power and the concept of the Chinese nation promoted by Nationalists. Contestations involved the promotion of an alternative Taiwanese nation and national identity, as well as the questioning by aboriginal people of the Taiwanese nation as a unitary category.

I Spit on Their Graves (Book Two of The Past Tense...): Testimony Relevant to the Democratization Struggle in Cameroon, and: Wading the Tide: Poems (review)

Reviewed by: I Spit on Their Graves (Book Two of the Past Tense . . . ): Testimony Relevant to the Democratization Struggle in Cameroon, and: Wading the Tide: Poems Robert Ness Gobata, Rotcod. 1996. I Spit on Their Graves (Book Two of the Past Tense... ): Testimony Relevant to the Democratization Struggle in Cameroon. Bamenda: Kola Tree Press; Bellingham, Wash.: CamNexus. $10.00 (paper) Doh, Emmanuel Fru. 1998. Wading the Tide: Poems. 2d ed. Bamenda: Kola Tree Press; Bellingham, Wash.: Camnexus. $10.00 (paper) Rotcod Gobata, the nom de plumeof a faculty member at the University of Yaoundé, Cameroon, has a taste for vituperation and a knack for arresting titles (his previous collection of essays, to which this is the sequel, was called The Past Tense of Shit). The 50 essays in this collection were originally published between December 1992 and January 1994 under the column “No Trifling Matter” in the Cameroon Post, an English language newspaper allied with the political interests of the main opposition political party in Cameroon, the Social Democratic Front (SDF), headed by John Fru Ndi, who wrote a forward to this edition. These publication dates coincide with the most crucial political events in Cameroon in this decade, and thus the essays serve as witness, from an extremely partisan point of view to be sure, of the turmoil following the presidential election of October 11, 1992. For the reader unfamiliar with this period, I will provide a brief outline, without which the “Son of Gobata”‘s caveats and recriminations might be a bit obscure. Although democratic reforms were undertaken in Cameroon in 1990, political power remained in the hands of the President, Paul Biya, and a small circle of advisers drawn primarily from his own ethnic group (Beti) and the former single party, the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM). By 1992, the date of Cameroon’s first multiparty elections since single party rule had been declared in 1966, Biya had been in power for 10 years and appeared headed toward almost certain defeat. Biya’s principal opponents were John Fru Ndi, a bookseller from Bamenda in the English speaking part of the country, and Mäigari Bello Boúba’s National Union for Democracy and Progress (UNDP), with support mostly in northern Cameroon. The government refused to convene a national conference to devise rules for the upcoming local and national elections. The opposition responded by calling in June 1991 for a series of general strikes, dubbed Opération Villes Mortes(Operation Ghost Town), designed to shut the country down. The economy was already in tatters (per capita income had fallen by nearly half since 1985), and many observers predicted that Fru Ndi would [End Page 133]be elected. According to official results, however, Biya was reelected with 40% of the vote. Biya won the election through widespread fraud, according to international observers. He was assisted by the military, which zealously harassed the government’s opponents. Cameroon’s foreign patron, France, played a malign role, as well. Distrustful of “Anglo-Saxon” influence in its former colonies, France assisted Biya’s cause by retiring part of Cameroon’s debt and twice during 1991 paying the back salaries of civil servants. The fragmentation of the opposition did not help the cause of change; an alliance between Fru Ndi (whose “official” total was 36% of the vote) and Bello Boúba (19%) would have been virtually impossible to beat, but Bello Boúba had refused to step aside for the more popular Fru Ndi, insisting that Cameroon was not ready to be ruled by an Anglophone. Many Cameroonians believed that John Fru Ndi had been fraudulently defeated. Rioting erupted, especially in Bamenda. Martial law was declared, and many beatings, arrests and killings followed. Police tried to arrest Fru Ndi but were prevented by human shields of thousands of civilians. Rotcod Gobata’s acrimonious essays are a mirror of these events and speak to the frustration felt by the opposition SDF, whose every move had been trumped by the wily Paul Biya and his domestic and foreign supporters. Their republication is not without risk to their writer, whose first collection, The Past Tense. . ., was confiscated by the police at its Yaoundé launching. Journalists...

Kalenga v. Zambia

326Human rights — Freedom of expression — Author of complaint persecuted for membership of opposition political party — Violation of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966, Article 19Human rights — Freedom of movement — International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966, Article 12Human rights — Detention — Arbitrary detention — International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966, Article 19 Conditions of detention — Duty to treat detainees with dignity — International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966, Article 10

India's freedom from famine: The case of Kalahandi

The article begins with Amartya Sen's observation that democratic institutions and a free press enable a country to combat the threat of famine. Looking at the situation in Kalahandi in the Indian state of Orissa, an attempt is made to discuss the extent to which an independent and active press, together with opposition political parties, can provide an early warning of impending food crises, and thereafter hold the government and the administration accountable for inadequate implementation of relief. Kalahandi has faced recurrent drought and famine conditions over the years, although the situation has particularly deteriorated in recent times. Is the case of Kalahandi an exception to India's otherwise successful record in combating famines? If so, why?

The Rise of Multipartyism and Democracy in the Context of Global Change: The Case of Africa

Abbreviations Preface Introduction: Issues, Approaches, and Theoretical Considerations The Nature of Democratic Discourses in the 1990s The Opposition Political Parties and Their Discourses The Role of the Church in Democratic Pluralism in Africa Ethnicity and Nationalism: Real Challenges to Multipartyism? The Military Factor in the Current Democracy Equation Structural Adjustment Programs and Their Implications in the Struggle for Democracy A General Conclusion: What Lessons from the Past and Where to Go from Here? Selected Bibliography Index

Democratization and Political Succession in Suharto's Indonesia

Research Article| March 01 1997 Democratization and Political Succession in Suharto's Indonesia Leo Suryadinata Leo Suryadinata Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Asian Survey (1997) 37 (3): 269–280. https://doi.org/10.2307/2645663 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Leo Suryadinata; Democratization and Political Succession in Suharto's Indonesia. Asian Survey 1 March 1997; 37 (3): 269–280. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/2645663 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAsian Survey Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1997 The Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

The local and global in North African popular music

On 29 September 1994, Cheb Hasni, the most renowned Rai singer living in Algeria, was gunned down outside his family's house in Gambetta, a quarter of the city of Waharan (Oran). He was one of many public figures (and some 50,000 others) who have been killed since the main opposition political party, the FIS (Islamic Salvation Front) was prevented from assuming power by the annulment of elections that they would have won in 1991. Like the most notable of Algeria's victims of violence, which include journalists, lawyers, doctors, television presenters and top policemen, Hasni represented a version of Algerian identity that some people clearly could not tolerate. Responsibility for his assassination has not been claimed, but the manner of his death was identical to others carried out by the armed faction of the fundamentalist Islamic movement, the GIA (Armed Islamic Group). His death has possibly marked the demise of a genre of North African popular music known as Rai as it was produced in Algeria. Rai has been a particularly problematic idiom for Islamists and secularists alike. Both groups nurture distinct views of the place of Algeria, and Algerians in the world, and the role of Islam and liberal secularism in Algeria. Rai music constructs its own distinct trajectories linking local and global, ‘East’ and ‘West’, and, in this way, constitutes a distinct problem for Algerians, and indeed other North Africans today.

Swedish county abandons breast screening

Doctors and opposition political parties across Sweden have launched a campaign to overturn a controversial decision by Alvsborg County Council to abandon a breast cancer screening programme for women aged between 40 and 74 years. The move, by the county's ruling Social Democrats, is unprecedented in Sweden, where breast screening has been carried out in 24 of the country's 26 counties since 1986. The decision, taken in January, has prompted a parliamentary debate on the availability of mammography, and representatives of Alvsborg's left and liberal parties …

Democratic politics and the fall of the military regime in Bangladesh

The main objective of this article is to explain the rise of democracy and the demise of the authoritarian military regime in Bangladesh. In this process the various subaltern social groups played a major role, though their political aspirations remain unrealized in the new government. On the basis of subaltern participation in the antimilitary agitation, the article argues for a separate political space for the subaltern categories that occupy a dialectical relationship with both the existing state structure and opposition political parties. This separate political space is, indeed, the core of democratic polity in Bangladesh.The fall of the military regime of General H. M. Ershad in 1990 ushered in a new phase in democratic politics in Bangladesh. Given the extent of mass participation in antiauthoritarian social agitation, Bangladesh proudly stands with countries like the Philippines, Haiti, and many other socialist and nonsocialist countries. At the same time, the downfall of the military regime of General Ershad paved the way for the democratically elected Khaleda Zia government and the totally new conception of democracy and participatory governance it introduced.

A SEMINAR WITH IBRAHIM YAZDI

Dr. Yazdi, a pharmacologist, university professor and political activist, served as deputy prime minister and foreign minister under the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, resigning in protest during the hostage crisis of November 1979. He served in the Majlis (parliament) 1980‐84 and is now secretary general in the opposition political party, the Liberation Movement of Iran. He shared his views with the Middle East Policy Council as a private citizen. His interlocutor was Geoffrey Kemp of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

El análisis de contenido en, la evaluación del nuevo modelo de atención primaria en la comunidad valenciana

The objective of this research is to find out how the process of implementation and development of the new model of primary health care is taking place in the Valencian Community, according to the press and the opposition political parties. An analysis of two types of texts was conducted: daily journal articles parliamentary questions. The press referred to implementation more often than to development, assessing the implementation in a positive way and the development in a negative one. The opposition political parties in the regional parliament also questioned on the model implementation more often on its development, and negatively assess the process as a whole.

Somalia: A Country Study, 4th ed. (review)

Book Reviews Somalia: A Country Study, 4th ed. Helen Chapin Metz, ed. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993. The collapse of Somalia in 1991 catapulted that country into prominence in the U.S. and world media. The distorted coverage, stereotypes, and general misinformation portrayed by the news networks greatly hindered the ability of persons without a background in the region's history to make sense of the situation, and United States propaganda made the task no easier. This volume, on the other hand, effectively untangles the complex historical factors and roles of prominent personalities behind Somalia's failure. Although the book is an official United States government publication, its views are those of the contributing authors. Incorporating data available until mid-1992, the chapters emphasize historical explanation, and only Metz's introduction defends United States intervention, beginning December 1992 and leading to the arrival of United Nations forces in early 1993. Said S. Samatar's first chapter is a vast sweep of Somali history, from the migrations that peopled the eastern Horn to the late 1980s. In relation to the rest of the book, it is most useful for the post-independence period, discussing political groups, political leaders, the nature of and changes in Somali political alliances, and the establishment of Said Barre's personal power. Samatar's second chapter, "The Society and Its Environment," is a standard overview of the physical setting, Somali social structures, religion, education, women's status, health and refugees . David D. Laitin's account of the economy concentrates on the period since independence, especially after 1970. It is the weakest chapter of the book, presumably owing to the paucity of available data, but in-® Northeast African Studies (ISSN 0740-9133) Vol. 2, No. 2 (New Series) 1995, pp. 189-217 189 190 Book Reviews eludes an interesting analysis of the "real" (i.e. informal and unofficial) economy in the 1980s. Eric Hooglund's "Government and Politics" focuses on the governmental structures and political dynamics during Barre's rule. It looks at the different opposition political parties, their power bases and their relations with each other, and concludes with a section on Somalia's foreign relations. The last chapter, "National Security," by Thomas Ofcansky , describes Somalia's internal and external security concerns, and cites a wealth of statistics on the military forces and armaments. It traces the history of the military in Somalia, its impact on social life and the economy, its relationship to the government, and its sources of materiel and training. The chapter ends with a treatment of the various internal security forces, the justice system, and the human rights situation since 1970. There is considerable overlap throughout the book, but rather than annoy the reader this repetition actually ties the chapters together and better explicates different topics, such as the organization and relative strengths of political movements opposed to Siad Barre's regime. The chapters are lucidly written, well rooted in the Somali literature, and complemented by many photographs, but the maps do not locate all the place names mentioned in the text. Overall, this book presents broad historical accounts which collectively explore and explain the varied dynamics behind Somalia's disintegration and the continued chaos and conflict there. Tim Carmichael Michigan State University The Soviet Union in the Horn ofAfrica: The Diplomacy of Intervention and Disengagement Robert G. Patman Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, Volume 71 in the Soviet and East European Studies Series. 407 pp. + xvii. Any scholar, particularly recent doctoral students, attempting to make sense of our rapidly changing world, must feel a certain sympathy for ...

Alternative Voting Systems for Representative Democracy

The ideal electoral system in a representative democracy is one allowing all eligible citizens to cast an equally weighted vote, and for united groups of voters, except very small ones, to elect one or more of their candidates to a governing body. Approximate proportional representation on governing bodies would be a happenstance and not deliberate. Majority/plurality electoral systems, however, favor the dominant group and often leave women and minority groups with no direct representation.Designers of electoral systems historically have employed various devices to reduce the influence of opposition political parties or groups and to make it difficult for them to elect their candidates to a governing body. Growing concern that numerous black citizens were prevented from voting in southern states resulted in the U.S. Congress using the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution to enact the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (79 Stat. 437, 42 U.S.C. § 1973), a statute applying to a state or local government meeting two criteria. The Congress in 1975 employed the Fourteenth Amendment to extend the Act's (89 Stat. 438, 42 U.S.C. § 1973) protection to language minorities defined as “persons who are American Indian, Asian American, Alaskan Natives, or of Spanish heritage.”The Act has eliminated invidious discrimination against protected groups, yet many law-making bodies are still unrepresentative of their respective constituencies.

Alternative Voting Systems for Representative Democracy

The ideal electoral system in a representative democracy is one allowing all eligible citizens to cast an equally weighted vote, and for united groups of voters, except very small ones, to elect one or more of their candidates to a governing body. Approximate proportional representation on governing bodies would be a happenstance and not deliberate. Majority/plurality electoral systems, however, favor the dominant group and often leave women and minority groups with no direct representation. Designers of electoral systems historically have employed various devices to reduce the influence of opposition political parties or groups and to make it difficult for them to elect their candidates to a governing body. Growing concern that numerous black citizens were prevented from voting in southern states resulted in the U.S. Congress using the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution to enact the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (79 Stat. 437, 42 U.S.C. § 1973), a statute applying to a state or local government meeting two criteria. The Congress in 1975 employed the Fourteenth Amendment to extend the Act's (89 Stat. 438, 42 U.S.C. § 1973) protection to language minorities defined as “persons who are American Indian, Asian American, Alaskan Natives, or of Spanish heritage.” The Act has eliminated invidious discrimination against protected groups, yet many law-making bodies are still unrepresentative of their respective constituencies.