Political transition

An excerpt from my volume Bevezetés az összehasonlító neveléstudományba (Introduction to Comparative Education, Hungarian), completed with my other published texts on the policy and politics of education. Used as a textbook for MA and PhD students.

The task to reshape governments in the countries confronted with the Arab Spring prompts the question whether there are necessary conditions to realize a stable society that simultaneously seeks to eliminate the elements that have led to the uprisings. Acknowledging some constitutional rights seems indispensable in such a process. I argue that such a state of affairs is indeed the case, at least now that the ‘old’ justifications to differentiate between people do not suffice anymore. That is not to say that the countries involved will have identical laws in each respect, but merely that a common basis has to be realized, manifested in political and legal equality, so this given does not derogate from the fact that each country’s specific legislation needs to be shaped in the light of its own history. Such a basis has no ‘moral’ character, but is simply a necessary condition to prevent sedition.

Like Weimar Germany, contemporary Russia is home to fascist actors and widespread nationalism. But unlike interwar Germany, the party system in post-Soviet Russia is heavily manipulated and civil society remains underdeveloped. This means that fascists have not had a chance to use elections or to penetrate civil society in order to build up political support. The continuing presence of a resolutely authoritarian, yet non-fascist “national leader” (Vladimir Putin) keeps the country from becoming a liberal democracy but it also, for now, makes it less likely that the regime will become fascist.

This study examines the phenomenon of ‘terrorism’ and the transition of ‘terrorist’ groups to political parties through the lens of conflict resolution.  The aim of this research is to establish why Van Engeland and Rudolph argue that Hamas has successfully transitioned from ‘terrorist’ group to political party according to their framework, when the environment Hamas is operating within as of 2013 is hostile and constrained.  I hypothesized that a factor is missing from the framework to account for this misrepresentation of Hamas’ current position.  Having identified the missing variable, recommendations could be made for Hamas’ continued forward momentum.  In order to find the missing element, I undertook a comprehensive methodology that included reapplying the framework, using two comparative case studies, and supplementing the entirety with additional literature on the subject.  Three significant factors that are not emphasized in Van Engeland and Rudolph’s framework are drawn out and examined in greater detail to see if their addition might provide a different result.  However, this process produced the same conclusion as Van Engeland and Rudolph, mainly that Hamas is an example of a successful transition.  The disconnect I was trying to pinpoint stems from external factors -  relating to economic instability sustained by global politics.    Hamas has moved along the transition process according to Van Engeland and Rudolph’s framework, but their current position is stalled due to the dynamics of current global politics.  These results suggest that such transitions can be helped or hindered by external pressure from global powers.  Additionally, special attention needs to be paid to ripe points in protracted conflicts in order to encourage transition from terrorist group to political party.  Finally, this study concludes that if moves away from violence and towards politics are not recognized and affirmed, a group may regress back towards tactics that garner the desired attention.

A (very) personal note about the years of 1970, 1980 and 1990 in Hungary. During those decades the author emerged from his earlier status of a school teacher of a country elementary school to a social researcher and university instructor. The debates, quarrels, tensions and fights among researchers and their institutions of sociology and education at the time are also touched upon.

"Who Runs the School" was an icebreaking book in the (than) new series of the political transition in Hungary. The book came up with the idea that educational policy is not action of the government and the party (in a one-party system. Rather, it is a game with various actors. The author of the present paper looks back to the 1990s from the present time (2015). After a bried overview of the development of educational policies of the last twenty-five years, the author suggests that the main idea of the book is still valid. That is, the school has a its relative independence if it can establish and realize its horizontal and vertical dependencies.

The year 2013 is the year of crisis for the interim institutions set up by the Troika coalition after the election of the National Constituent Assembly (ANC) on 23 October 2011. The development of violence and the deterioration of the security situation, phenomena towards which the Troika in power seemed strangely passive, fuelled a political tension that contributed to the division of Tunisian society into two antagonistic poles, one "secularist" and the other "Islamic-conservative". The assassination on 6 February 2013 of Chokri Belaïd, one of the emblematic leaders of the Tunisian extreme left and that of Mohamed Brahmi on 25 July, Arab nationalist deputy of the Constituent Assembly, created the conditions for a profound crisis of legitimacy of these interim institutions. The opposition and the secularist civil society will not cease throughout the year to denounce the hijacking by the Ennahdha movement of the political transition to its exclusive benefit: the Islamist party, characterised by a hegemonic will within the Troika, would have appropriated the levers of the state apparatus to perpetuate its power in the perspective of the next elections. In fact, these political murders are only catalysing the components of a multifaceted crisis that has been in the making for nearly a year, with Tunisia going through a zone of economic, social, political and security turbulence.

In this paper we examine the relationship among business groups (BGs) in Chile in the long run, focusing on the relations between the state viewed as a BG and privately-owned BGs from 1970 to 2010. Our analysis proceeds within the methodological perspective of interlocking directorates (IDs) analysis.  Working with a unique database of the boards of affiliated firms to BGs, we consider IDs as a way to learn about the cohesion and relation between these BGs. We include a period of political change and institutional and economic modernization in Chile, which also involved a transformation in the character of the entrepreneurial class in the country. We find that the state BG has played an important role in the networks of Chilean capitalism. Our work complements the literature on BGs and state capitalism, showing the rich nature of social networks in a capitalist society.

A reading of the Tunisian Constitution of 27 January 2014 shows that many independent public authorities have been constitutionalised. Alongside the Supreme Council of the Magistracy and the Constitutional Court, five independent authorities are now mentioned in a specific chapter of the Constitution. One might be tempted to analyse the constitutionalisation of these authorities as the triumph of a democracy of impartiality, the result of a consensus of Tunisian constituents who are now committed to respecting the "international standards" of the rule of law and democracy. In its observations on the final draft constitution, the Venice Commission did not fail to welcome the creation of independent constitutional bodies. It made a number of recommendations aimed at strengthening their independence, in particular through a sufficiently diversified composition based on the expertise of its members, the diversity of their geographical origin and gender parity. Ultimately, Tunisia's independent public authorities are part of a process fuelled by the dynamics of depoliticisation and politicisation correlated to the political situation. Initially conceived as tools for neutrality, impartiality and expertise, intended to reduce the "political burden" of certain issues perceived as vital by political actors marked by relations of mistrust, they find themselves accused of serving this or that partisan interest and become objects of conflict.

La transición política en Túnez y Egipto se caracteriza por mucha ambigüedad mientras que los partidos islamistas, ganadores de las elecciones, no representan el movimiento social que se movilizó durante las revueltas. Analizando las condiciones políticas y socioeconómicas que dificultan la democratización en los países árabes, las principales causas de las revueltas y examinando los elementos del proceso de transición, se busca la posibilidad de desarrollar un sistema político basado en valores democráticos en Túnez y Egipto. El papel de los partidos islamistas en la configuración de una nueva realidad política es determinante y la redacción de la constitución se considera un gran desafío. La institucionalización del movimiento social que puede canalizar las principales demandas de la calle árabe es indispensable. El papel de los actores externos, como los EE.UU y la Unión Europea es también importante para apoyar, entre otras cosas, un proceso que garantiza el respecto a los derechos humanos. Abstract: The political transition in Tunisia and Egypt is characterized by much ambiguity, while Islamist parties, the winners of the elections, do not represent the social

Myanmar Media in Transition: Legacies, Challenges and Change is the first volume to overview the country’s contemporary media landscape, providing a critical assessment of the sector during the complex and controversial political transition. Moving beyond the focus on journalism and freedom of the press that characterizes many media-focused volumes, Myanmar Media in Transition also explores developments in fiction, filmmaking, social movement media and social media. Documenting changes from both academic and practitioner perspectives, the twenty-one chapters reinforce the volume’s theoretical arguments by providing on-the-ground, factual and experiential data intended to open useful dialogue between key stakeholders in the media, government and civil society sectors. Providing an overview of media studies in the country, Myanmar Media in Transition addresses current challenges, such as the use of social media in spreading hate speech and the shifting boundaries of free expression, by placing them within Myanmar’s broader historic social, political and economic context. The introductory chapter "Introduction: Myanmar Media Historically and the Challenges of Transition" ia available for free download at: https://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg/publication/2387#contents

This article puts forward a proposal for the broadening of the research agenda on corruption through a twofold change in perspectives, namely concentrating on the “corruption talk” in place of essentialist views, and addressing anti-corruption in place of corruption. An evaluation is undertaken of the role of anti-corruption discourse in times of political change on the basis of the Dutch Republic in the mid-seventeenth century. Analyzing the exemplary speech by Adriaen Veth against corruption, given to the Great Assembly in 1651, and the role of the figure of Cornelis Musch, this article depicts the anti-corruption discourse as an important tool of argumentation for the newly established regime to gain legitimacy with regards to both its theoretical foundation and for the process of coming to terms with the previous regime.

The aim of this work is to study the political dynamic of the reconstruction of federalism in Brazil during the Geisel Government, in the very beginning of the Brazilian transition to democracy. This analysis will begin in November 1974, when the
results of the election moved the federal government to start using the economic and political relations of federalism to conduct and control two complementary projects: the controlled political liberalization and the Second Brazilian Plan for Development.

En paralelo al proceso de democratización del Estado español acontecido durante la transición política (1975-1982) se produjeron importantes cambios en la realidad deportiva del país, tanto en el posicionamiento de las diferentes administraciones como en la realidad de este fenómeno. Esta investigación se centra en el análisis de algunas de las iniciativas más destacadas de los movimientos vecinal y educativo en la promoción del deporte escolar en la ciudad de Barcelona durante el citado periodo, así como en el papel que desempeñaron las administraciones, especialmente a partir de 1979. A nivel metodológico esta investigación ha adoptado un enfoque hermenéutico, a partir del análisis de fuentes secundarias y hemerográficas. La acción de los citados agentes permitió disminuir el déficit deportivo existente tras la dictadura franquista, mediante iniciativas como la creación de clubes deportivos en centros educativos, del Consejo del Deporte Escolar de Barcelona o de las escuelas de iniciación deportiva.

Em paralelo ao processo de democratização do estado espanhol ocorrido durante a transição política (1975-1982) foram produzidas importantes mudanças na realidade esportiva do país, tanto na posição das diferentes administrações como na realidade deste fenômeno. Esta investigação se concentra na análise de algumas iniciativas mais destacadas dos movimentos de vizinhos e educativos na promoção do esporte escolar na cidade de Barcelona durante o período mencionado, bem como no papel que desempenharam nas administrações, especialmente a partir de 1979. Metodologicamente esta pesquisa adotou uma abordagem hermenêutica, a partir da análise de fontes primárias e secundárias. A ação dos agentes mencionados permitiu diminuir o déficit esportivo existente depois da ditadura franquista (1939-1975), através de iniciativas como a criação de clubes esportivos em centros de educação, do Conselho do Esporte Escolar de Barcelona ou das escolas de iniciação esportiva.

Parallel to the democratisation process of Spain which took place during the political transition (1975-1982), there were major changes in the status of sports in the country, in both the different administrations’ positions and in the reality of this phenomenon. This study focuses on analysing some of the most noteworthy initiatives in the neighbourhood and educational movements to promote school sports in the city of Barcelona during this period, as well as the role played by the administrations, particularly after 1979. Methodologically, this study has taken a hermeneutic approach via the analysis of primary and secondary sources. The actions of these agents helped to diminish the sport deficit which existed after the Franco dictatorship (1939-1975) through initiatives such as creating sports clubs at schools, the School Sports Council of Barcelona and sports introduction schools.

Over the past two decades, African countries have experienced major political transitions that seemed to have checkmated the excesses of governments with authoritarian tendencies leading to aggravated security and development challenges. What has been the impact of democratic governance on socio-economic development and security in Africa, past and present? To what extent has the opening up of the political space impacted on the peoples’ living standards in Africa during the same period? Understanding the impact of democratic administrations on the provisions of social and economic needs of the citizens will provide real insights into the roots of insecurity in Africa’s quest for national stability and protection of their citizens. The perspective of this paper is that one of the causes of escalating trends of insecurity and obstacles to the achievement of human security as well as guarantee of national stability is heavily, if not fundamentally, bad governance. We identify and inte...

This book is a study of the interaction between liberal economic and political reforms in Nigeria between 1983 and 1993. The work investigates the causes and outcome of the Nigerian state's decision to undertake a simultaneous, dual transition. It considers the role of the state, multilateral organizations and domestic politics as potential causes of policy and the dynamic interaction between economic and political processes during the transition as determinants of the outcome. Few studies focus on the interaction between the role of the multilaterals, external creditors, and the state as well as the state and powerful domestic actors as determinants of development strategy on contemporary Africans. Nigeria's dual transition reveals complex power struggles by these domestic and international actors. By providing evidence of the dynamic interaction between state, society, and external forces during a period of grave economic crisis, the underlying power relations which shaped...