A pivotal claim in research on American political behavior is that the typical citizen knows very little about politics. Public opinion surveys provide a considerable body of evidence in support of this position. However, survey protocols with respect to factual questions about politics violate established norms in educational testing in that “don’t know” answers are encouraged rather than disc...

The economic and political crises that have engulfed Southeast Asia over recent years should not have come as such a surprise. A consideration of the region’s historical position and economic development demonstrates just what formidable obstacles still constrain the nations of Southeast Asia as they attempt to restore growth and stability. This paper places the Southeast Asian experience in hi...

The paper empirically investigates whether people’s attitude towards the progress in political transformation in Eastern Europe are influenced by economic factors. Thereby it addresses the question of independence between economic and political system. Using a large panel data set, containing about 68000 observations on individuals from 19 countries over 6 years, this question is analysed in th...

In this article, I use Albert Hirschman's consumer-based 'exit' and 'voice' concepts in order to set out the political ecology of voice (PEV), an innovative theoretical framework that aims to examine the causes of environmental pollution from a new angle. I begin by providing a brief overview of political ecology, and why it provides such a useful framework from which to position Hirschman's id...

China has developed a more consequential role in Sudan over the past two decades, during which it has become bound up in the combination of enduring violent internal instability and protracted external adversity that has characterized the politics of the central state since the 1989 Islamist revolution. Two inter-related political trajectories of China’s Sudan engagement are examined here. The ...

The agreement signed by the Irish and British governments and most of the political parties in Northern Ireland on 10th April 1998 (Good Friday) was a truly historic step. The agreement itself marks the most significant shift in party political positions since the partition of Ireland. This, coupled with the fact that the agreement is open-ended, and indeed under its provisions must develop bey...

this essay is a studying the structure of the social mentality of the iranian society in establishment situation of political islam discourse. after the event of the islamic revolution in iran, political islam as the central ideology of the new political system gained a dominant and almost incontestable position. political disputes constituted in the following years led to the genesis of partic...

Criticism of contract theory has always played an important role in Hartmut Kliemt’s writings on political philosophy. Notwithstanding his objections to a consent-based justification of the state he has never subscribed to an anarchist position. In Hartmut Kliemt’s view, a minimal state which protects the basic liberties of its citizens has to be considered legitimate. The article begins with a...

After an election, when party positions and strengths are known, there may be a centrally located large party at the core position. Theory suggests that such a core party is able to form a minority government and control policy. In the absence of a core party, theory suggests that the outcome be a lottery associated with coalition risk. Stochastic models of elections typically indicate that all...

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), attributing a particular importance to “woman” -in the narrow senseand to all oppressed groups -in the broad sense-, has a peculiar position in the history of political thoughts. Taking a position different from the modern male thinkers in her era, she expanded such ideas as “reason”, “natural rights”, “social contract” towards relations between genders and patr...