Political Regimes

Arguably, one of the reasons for the continuous appeal and topicality of Shakespeare’s plays is that there are some common elements in the attitudes to pathologies of power in modern Western societies and in the Elizabethan age. This paper addresses the problem of the moral notions of evil and violence as related to power, especially tyranny and aggression, reflected in Elizabethan literature and their implications today (un-democratic power). Using sociological tools of the modern theories of power the greatest fears of the Elizabethan age will be discussed through the chosen works of William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Winter’s Tale and The Tempest. Concerns about the legitimacy of rule, political manipulation and exhorting excess pressure shaped not only the morality of the English Renaissance but have also left a mark on Western traditions. This will be shown through the works of modern sociologists (P. Blau, R. Boesche, J. Stanley, H. Arendt and others).

""Skowronek’s (1997, 2009) ‘political time’ thesis has been significant in accounting for the relative success/failure of presidents throughout American political history.  It has taken a prominent position in the debate between individual and environmental factors as the determining element of a president’s record.  In particular, Skowronek has suggested that presidential success or failure has been largely contingent on his management of the regime (i.e. social and political forces which underpin the political system) and where he is in ‘political time’: at the establishment, consolidation or deterioration of a particular regime.

This paper develops Skowronek’s argument and insights in a number of ways.  First, it expands the study of political time beyond the US by offering a comparison with another presidential system: Brazil.  Brazil offers an important case as Latin America’s largest country and an emerging global power on the one hand and the significance of the American experience as the model for Brazil’s own republican model in 1891.  Second, it focuses on a particular subset of presidents in the US and Brazil, i.e. unelected ones as a result of death, assassination, resignation, etc.  Succession at such moments occurs in times of high drama and political intensity, thereby providing an acute insight into the nature of a given political regime.  Third, an in-depth study of 13 unelected presidential successions in in Brazil between 1891 and 1992 is conducted, providing a comparative assessment of particular issues and themes which cut across different political regimes in Brazil.

The study of unelected presidential succession in Brazil and the US reveals a number of findings.  First, the relationship between political time and regime is a more cyclical process in the US than in Brazil; whereas regimes rise and fall in the US, in Brazil the rise and fall of regimes have been punctuated with periods of stability and instability.  Second, constant constitutional arrangements have masked changes in American political regimes while changing constitutional arrangements have been the hallmark of Brazilian political life – and in some case have contributed towards political volatility.  Third, unelected American presidents tend to be engaged in the management of consolidated regimes; by contrast, the role of unelected Brazilian presidents has been more varied, including overseeing the creation, management and decline of a regime.  Fourth, the Brazilian record reveals a strong military propensity towards intervention until recently.

The paper’s findings are significant both in themselves as well as the implications for the development of the concept of political time.  On one hand, despite the common application of the political time model, there is significant variation between the Brazil and US cases.  On the other hand, that variation is present arguably highlights the need to carry out further cross-country and cross-regime studies of political time.  Only by doing so will may it be possible to provide sufficient generalization about the nature of the relationship between political time, regimes and presidents.""

What impact has the 2013 Vinegar Revolt had on Brazil’s leadership?  The paper addresses this by comparing the protests and the interaction between leaders and protestors in relation to other cases of social unrest under differrent politial regimes or ‘political time’ (First Republic, Vargas era, Second Republic, Military Regime, New Republic) in the Brazilian republic.  To assist this analysis, the paper is divided into three parts.  First, it defines the concepts of leadership and social organisation, distinguishing between transformational and transactional leadership and parochial and corporatist social organisation (the former emphasising predominant particular interests and exclusion of certain social groups during the First Republic and the latter by including different social sectors in a state-dominated system during the Vargas era, Second Republic and Military Republic).  Towards the end of the Military Regime state-society relations became more balanced through the emergence of civil society, which has continued into the New Republic.  Second, the reasons for the Vinegar Revolt are set out, including the governing party’s failure to build sufficient participatory mechanisms for civil society, its declining moral authority, growing economic uncertainty and public frustration at insufficient improving public services.  Third, the paper notes that the 2013 protests did not challenge the regime of the New Republic but demanded changes within it.  It concludes by assessing President Rouseff’s leadership in proposing a political reform package, which if successful, may label her as a transformational leader.

O objetivo deste dossiê do n. 25 da Revista de Sociologia e Política "Democracias e autoritarismos" não é discutir a discussão sobre regimes ou suas definições, em busca da mais correta (ou da mais "operacional"). Nem retomar, abstratamente, as polarizações tradicionais que estão implicadas nesse problema: coerção-consenso, autoridade-liberdade, participação-representação etc. Este dossiê, dividido em dois blocos, é um esforço dos cientistas sociais (em sentido lato) para desenvolver análises empíricas e teóricas sobre regimes políticos tanto no nível "macro", como no nível "micro".

This thesis adopts a contextual perspective for exploring the relationship between regional political elites and governmental institutions during the "Estado Novo" regime in Brazil (1937-1945). Focusing on the case of São Paulo, four issues are examined: the political and bureaucratic institutions of the political regime, the change in the socio-professional profile of the ruling class, their collaboration in the management of the apparatus of dictatorial rule, and the processes through which this elite comes to adhere to the ideology of an authoritarian State. The study focuses on a political group made up of fourteen individuals placed in the Administrative Department of São Paulo state. In order to explain the decline of the São Paulo oligarchy (along with political parties, their national leaders, their liberal ideology and its political power), four hypotheses are tested, as follows: i) the new political hierarchy among the several elite groups is the result of the new order stipulated by ruling circles among different decision-making levels of institutional system of the state; ii) government intermediating sites that house regional elites, such as the Administrative Departments, are not instances of decision on State policy; rather, they constitute a locus for controlled participation within the game of political negotiation; iii) the transformation of the social profile of regional political elites is an effect of both successive changes in the conditions of political competition, and in the institutional structure that has been conceived to recruit and conform them to the purposes of the dictatorship; and iv) the presence of certain regional elite groups within the new structures of the State contributed decisively to their conversion to authoritarian ideology. It was of decisive importance the political institutions in the process of renewing the political elites in Brazil after the 1930 Revolution.

"Comparative Analysis of John Locke's Second Trestise of Government and Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince and Discourses of the Livy.
Author: Angel Versetti

"A wise ruler should nip any rebellion in the bud, claims Machiavelli’s Prince. Yet people have a right to rebel even against the shadow of tyranny, according to Locke’s Second Treatise. These two notions might suggest eternal confrontation between the oppressive ruler and rebellious citizenry, paranoid and suspicious of each other’s schemes. This is where the moderating approach from Machiavelli’s Discourses comes in: rebellion is a nuisance, but since the ruler needs the power of people to assist him in his quest for glory, let them rant and mob a bit."""

"In the foreseeable future, it seems, the Global Forum on Migration and
Development (GFMD) is here to stay. The third meeting of the Forum in
Athens in November 2009 marked the end of the first half of a journey
leading up to the proposed next UN High Level Dialogue on Migration in
2013. The host countries of the next three GFMD meetings have already been
agreed upon, and there certainly has been development and improvement
of the forum structure since it was first proposed in 2006. There are even
indicators pointing towards institutionalization of the so far strictly stateled,
informal and non-binding process, albeit merely slight ones. But while
Athens could be seen as a step forward in these regards, the civil society
component of the forum was criticized by several participants as a step
backwards from where it was left off in Manila. They denounced a lack of
transparency, especially with regards to the selection of participants and the
formulation of the recommendations to the government forum.
In this article1 I will discuss the opportunities and obstacles of the
process that became apparent during the Athens GFMD and compare it to its predecessor in Manila. To this end, I will first give a very brief overview
of the GFMD process and the literature on the forum and possible theoretical
frameworks. In the second part, I will discuss the civil society meeting,
the government meeting and the parallel events of the GFMD."

Pakistan's 1988 transition to democracy defies most of the conventional wisdom on democratization as well as the bulk of the literature on democratic transitions. This peculiar case can be understood as a case of 'temporary democracy', in which democracy emerges as a short-term outcome that is not likely to be sustained. Pakistan's military leaders chose to democratize because of the high short-term costs of repression coupled with the low long-term costs of allowing democracy. The authoritarian elite agreed to allow democratization knowing that the prospects of democratic consolidation were dim. In this sense, the same factors that made the consolidation of Pakistan's democracy unlikely made the transition possible.

Can the U.S. use foreign aid to buy human rights votes in the General Assembly?  To empirically uncover the effect of foreign aid on human rights votes in the U.N. General Assembly, we adopt a statistical model that simultaneously estimates country ideal points and the effect of aid on human rights.  Our empirical finding shows that the U.S. cannot buy votes on human rights issues in the U.N.G.A.  Despite the credible threat that recipient countries will receive less aid, recipient countries do not vote with the U.S. on human rights.  We show that recipient countries value the impact of their votes more than the benefits of foreign aid.  The causal mechanism lies in the leadership.  Autocratic countries are more likely to vote "no" on human rights regardless of the foreign aid they receive, because leaders prioritize their political survival.  Autocratic leaders can expose their tenure to external threats if they vote to condemn other countries for their human rights violations.