A SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPMENT IN RECENT SOUTH AMERICAN POLITICS has been the re-emergence of populism. More interesting still has been the unexpected combination – in some countries – of traditional populist appeals (successfully made), the determined application of free market policies, and the successful re-election of the market-reforming populists. This does not mean that populist politicians can succeed to order. Many populist candidates have sought election and only a few have secured it. Of those elected as (essentially) independent candidates, only some have succeeded. Presidents Bucaram in Ecuador and Collor in Brazil were removed from office by Congress and subjected to legal proceedings for corruption. However, where populists have succeeded, they have done so on a far more impressive scale than most people originally predicted.

The Nolan Committee Has Put Parliament on Trial. Many believe that standards of public life have fallen into disrepute in recent years. The press has seized upon a series of sleaze issues: cash for parliamentary questions, the Scott inquiry into government contracts, undisclosed gifts from lobbyists, the hidden patronage of quango appointments, and the revolving door between public office and newly privatized company boards. Most believe this succession of stories has eroded public trust and confidence. Ivor Crewe's submission to the committee pointed out that agreement with the statement ‘Most MPs make a lot of money by using public office improperly’ has risen from 46 to 64 per cent in the last nine years. Lord Nolan, reflecting on evidence before his committee, noted: ‘One of the things we have been struck by is the depth of public cynicism about standards of conduct in public life, coupled with damaging cynicism about the motives of those who go into it.’ Some of the disquiet is produced by the succession of sexual imbroglios causing a series of ministerial resignations. Yet this has been of lesser concern to the Nolan Committee than standards of financial propriety at Westminster. The recommendations which emerged so far have focused on the need to avoid potential conflicts of interest, and the need for the transparent disclosure of financial dealings.

Turkey is not in the usual sense a developing country. It is a state, the fabric of which has endured for a number of centuries. Consequently, its political culture embodies elements which go far back into history. It has both an ethos and eidos of service to the state and a bureaucratic apparatus which for centuries has been entrusted with the application of the values embodied in its political culture. The structure of the state has been somewhat looser in Iran, but there too, the situation is appreciably different from what it is in the Arab states or Pakistan where the structure of the state is recent, its mark on the ethos of the people slight and its political traditions embryonic. In the case of Turkey and to a less extent in Iran, some of the crucial problems of developing nations – problems which are acute in many Arab states – such as those of building up an identity as a nation, overcoming particularistic allegiances, launching oneself into the take-off stages of industrialization are well on the way to solution. We are faced then, under the rubric of ‘Middle East’ with a number of countries which are at different stages on the scale of modernization. By itself, this would suffice to make the subsuming of all Middle Eastern countries under a single heading extremely unwise.

The making of knowledge and information into property, through intellectual property rights (IPRs) has commonly been justified using a set of cosmopolitan norms. These norms of justification have been extensively deployed within the structures of global governance for IPRs. However, the political community that underpins such norms in national jurisdictions is lacking at the global level. Many of the political problems now recognized with the globalized protection of IPRs stem from this tension between cosmopolitan legalism and the contemporary ‘thin’ global community.

This article explores the gender dimension of ideology and representation by analysing the political parties that ran in the 2019 Polish parliamentary elections, using a novel analytical framework based on gender claims and gender-related policy pledges. This article demonstrates that a left and liberal ideology largely determines feminist and pro-LGBTQ+ promissory representation. However, the gender ideologies of right-wing political parties vary in their traditional types and can include a populist element. This article contributes to comparative gender and politics scholarship by examining gender ideologies in the Central and Eastern European context, where on the one hand, populism and anti-gender campaigns have taken hold, and, on the other, feminist and progressive movements have challenged traditionalism and illiberalism. This article also differentiates a scholarly meaning of gender ideology from its populist meaning.

Green parties promote decentralization as a functional organizing principle but also a normative goal. This has been most vividly realized through the creation of comparatively devolved party structures. In federations, this can assume a territorial dimension and may lead to the adoption of confederal or federal models of party organization. Surprisingly little work has been undertaken on these arrangements when they have been implemented by green parties. This article explores whether the normative commitment by green parties to decentralized party arrangements is sufficient to preserve the integrity of dispersed party structures. This is done by examining the Australian Greens. We find that there has been gradual growth of the party’s national stratum, even in spite of formal provisions which guarantee the autonomy of the state organizations. It is argued that one of the main agents driving this outcome has been the Greens’ expanding federal parliamentary wing.

This article aims to start filling a gap in contemporary research on the rotating EU presidencies. In particular, the article pays attention to the role played by domestic factors in the development and fate of EU presidencies. What is the level of conflict between the government and the opposition during EU presidencies? This question is central for us and we address it through an in-depth analysis of one single case, Sweden, through a comparative examination of the role that domestic politics played in the Swedish EU presidencies of 2001 and 2009. In conjunction with our four main explanations for the varying degrees of political conflict during EU presidencies we present four hypotheses that could be advanced in the comparative study of EU presidencies.

Commentators suggest that the UK is entering a period in which general election results are unlikely to produce a clear winner. In such a situation, how and where the constituency boundaries are drawn is crucial, as different configurations of seats in particular places could have a significant impact on an election outcome. Although those configurations are recommended to Parliament by non-partisan Boundary Commissions, research has shown that Labour has been significantly advantaged by their recent proposals because they incorporated the equivalents of two well-known American electoral abuses – malapportionment and gerrymandering. This article illustrates how and why they have operated and discusses how the Conservatives’ failed attempt to remove one of them (malapportionment) and influence the other (gerrymandering) might have impacted on its position prior to the 2015 general election.

Political analysts are variously divided over the prospects for South Africa's democracy. This article both explores and explains their great diversity of opinion. It investigates the implications, both positive and negative, of African National Congress one-party electoral dominance. The paper goes on to assess the reliability of the mechanisms through which an electorally dominant government can be rendered politically accountable. It then explores the implications of political challenges — concerning capital and skills flight, HIV/AIDS, and corruption — that have licensed further speculation about South Africa's future, and concludes that a cohesive ruling alliance offers the best hope of entrenching the country's imperfect democracy.

As described by T. H. Marshall sixty years ago, the Western itinerary to modern democracy and the welfare state followed the sequence of civil, political and social citizenship rights. We demonstrate that Marshall's sequence is no longer the prevalent one in the developing and transformation countries of the contemporary era. Instead, political rights are generally at least as effective as civil liberties which are at least as effective as social rights. This new sequencing is attributable to the combination of ‘liberal hegemony’ and inauspicious structural constraints. More generally, our results suggest that the historical route to liberal democracy and the welfare state – beginning with liberal constitutionalism – is unlikely in today's world.

COMPARED TO OTHER COMMUNIST STATES IN EAST-CENTRAL Europe, Romania offers a fascinating case of neo-Stalinist radicalism cloaked in nationalistic language. A hyper-centralized model of leadership, based on clan instead of party dictatorship, an obedient, corrupt and strikingly incompetent political class, a marked preference for coercive rather than persuasive methods of domination, and stubborn opposition to reforms have contributed to the development of a deep and potentially explosive social, political, and economic crisis. But the price for this unabated commitment to the Stalinist model has been a gradual institutional erosion, the growing deterioration of the social fabric, the heightening of economic tensions, and intellectual asphyxiation. The conflict between state and society has been exacerbated by president Nicolae CeauSescu's wilful and increasingly idiosyncratic behaviour.

WE LIVE IN A TERRORISTIC AGE. FEW, EVEN AMONG THE MOST favoured and secure, can fail to be haunted by the ugly sights and ghastly dreams of terroristic murder, massacre, and torture and the suffering of the innocents. Numerous international organizations and the mass media at least agree in characterizing our era as one ‘full of dismal terror’. There have been repeated calls for serious scientific study of the nature and causes of terrorism culminating in the recent decision of the UN General Assembly to establish a special committee for this purpose. Many students of politics will suspect that the creation of ‘study committees’ by such organizations as the UN and the Socialist International will simply serve to reflect the self-interest of the national participants, or that they will simply turn into propaganda exercises.

THAT THIS ESSAY SHOULD HAVE TURNED OUT TO BE AS MUCH a matter of introspection as of retrospection should not, after all, have surprised me. As Pascal said, ‘la dernière chose qu'on trouve en faisant un ouvrage est de savoir qu'il faut mettre la première’. If the study of politics has changed over the last half century, why then, so have I. ‘You cannot step into the same river twice’. This is my apologia for starting off, not with my subject matter, but with myself!

Interviews have been the basis for some of the greatest insights in many disciplines but have largely been on the backstage of comparative political inquiry. I first rely on bibliometric data to show the limited use of interviews in research published by major journals in the past 30 years. I then focus on how interviews are used to study a hard-to-reach population: far-right actors. Using the extant literature and reflecting on my field experience with far-right leaders and functionaries, I examine in detail how interviews help investigate this phenomenon; I analyse challenges related to interview access, rapport, analysis and ethics and offer remedies. I argue that comparativists using interviews need to address these challenges by explicating and reflecting on the process through which they collect interview data rather than solely focusing on the data itself.

How do ethnically divided countries create inclusive and stable democratic institutions? Why do some kinds of federalism fail while others evolve? Scholars looking for answers to these kinds of questions have tended to focus on the West. Yet there are important lessons arising from the substantial democratic and federal reforms that have taken place in Asia over the last few decades. These reforms signal a new model of federal democracy in Asia, comprising multilevel ethnoterritorial federalism, mixed-majoritarianism and a party system that includes both ethnic and multi-ethnic parties. This model has emerged as a response to ethnic conflict and secession risks and reflects the high diversity of clustered communities and cross-cutting cleavages. Despite its overarching majoritarianism, the federal model has led to highly fragmented party systems and coalition governments, with positive implications for democratic stability. Together, these features go some way towards blending otherwise conflicting consociational and centripetal paradigms.