Abstract:

In light of the Kuomintang’s (KMT) electoral resurgence in Taiwan, it is well worth reconsidering the election that initiated its time out of power. In this talk, I draw on comparative evidence to challenge two narratives about the 2000 presidential election: one emphasizing the KMT’s declining resource advantages as the primary cause of its defeat, and the other placing the blame on personality conflicts within the party or on other idiosyncratic factors unique to Taiwanese politics. Instead, the KMT’s defeat had much to do with the simple fact that presidential elections are higher-variance than parliamentary ones. Thus, we should not be surprised either that the KMT lost or that it has subsequently returned to a position nearly as dominant as it was in prior to 2000.

Speaker Bio:

Kharis Templeman received a BA (2002) from the University of Rochester and a Ph.D. in political science (2012) from the University of Michigan. For the 2012-13 academic year he is a post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies at the University of Michigan’s International Institute. A fluent Mandarin speaker, he has lived, worked, and traveled extensively in both Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China. His dissertation is a comparative study of the origins and decline of dominant party systems, in which incumbent parties hold power for an extraordinary period of time despite facing regularly, contested elections. 

Current interests include democratization, party system development in newly-contested regimes, and political institutions, with a regional focus on the new and transitioning democracies of Pacific Asia. He is also engaged in collaborative research on constitutional design for divided societies, on the effects of regime change on how client states manage the arms-allies trade-off, and as a regional manager for the Varieties of Democracy project.

In addition, he has taught a wide array of courses while at Michigan, ranging from an introduction to college writing to a senior seminar in the International and Comparative Studies program; in 2010, he won the political science department’s Kingdon teaching award for outstanding graduate student instructor.   

In Singapore the People’s Action Party has held power continuously since 1959, having won 13 more or less constrained legislative elections in a row over more than half a century. In Malaysia the Alliance Party and its heir, the National Front, have done nearly as well, racking up a dozen such victories over the same 54-year stretch. These records of unbroken incumbency were built by combining rapid economic growth with varying degrees and types of political manipulation, cooptation, and control. 

In both countries, as living standards improved, most people were content to live their lives quietly and to leave politics to the ruling elite. In the last decade, however, quiescence has given way to questioning, apathy to activism, due to policy missteps by the ruling parties, the rise of credible opposition candidates, increasing economic inequality, and the internet-driven expansion of venues for dissent. 

As the ground appears to shift beneath them, how are the rulers responding? Will their top-down politics survive? How (un)persuasive have official warnings against chaotically liberal democracy become? Are ethno-religious and even national identities at stake? Are comforting but slanted historical narratives being rethought? And how principled or opportunistic are the agents of would-be bottom-up change? 

Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh is the author most recently of Floating on a Malayan Breeze:  Travels in Malaysia and Singapore (2012) and The End of Identity? (2012). Before joining The Economist Group in Singapore in 2006 he was a policy analyst on foreign investment for the government of Dubai. He has written for many publications, including The Economist, ViewsWire, and The Straits Times, and been widely interviewed by the BBC and other media. He earned a master’s degree in public policy from the Kennedy School (Harvard, 2005) after receiving bachelor degrees in Southeast Asian studies and business administration (UC-Berkeley, 2002). His service in the Singapore Armed Forces in the late 1990s took him to Thailand, Taiwan, and Australia.

In this talk, Mayling Birney presents evidence that China uses a distinctive form of governing, what she calls a “rule of mandates” in contrast to a rule of law. Under a rule of mandates, standards for accountability are relative rather than absolute, as lower officials are effectively directed to adjust the local implementation of the center's own laws and policies in order to meet the center's highest priorities. In China, this governing system has helped promote stability and growth, yet curtailed the potential impact of rule of law and democratic reforms. Birney demonstrates this impact by drawing on evidence from original surveys, interviews, and archival work. Yet she also explains why this governing system is likely to become more problematic for China in the future, potentially jeopardizing even the economic growth and stability it has thus far supported.

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Dr. Mayling Birney (London School of Economics) is a comparative political scientist with a special expertise in China. She is currently finishing a book about China’s distinctive form of authoritarian governing, in which she highlights its consequences for stability, justice, rule of law, and political reform. Prior to arriving at LSE, Dr. Birney was jointly appointed as a fellow in the Princeton University Society of Fellows and a lecturer in the Woodrow Wilson School.  She has also served as a fellow at the Brookings Institution and as a Legislative Aide in the United States Senate. She holds a PhD in political science from Yale University, an MSc in economics from LSE, and a BA in government from Harvard University.

Abstract:

Civic engagement underpins a healthy democracy when it provides channels outside of elections for citizens to express preferences and demands to politicians. This mechanism of democratic accountability is undermined when groups of citizens face differential access or barriers to participation. It is well-documented that marginalized groups participate less, particularly in developing countries where economic and social inequalities are higher. I discuss two primary constraints: marginalized groups face higher material and social costs, and they are less likely to have the information and knowledge necessary for engagement. I test the second of these two explanations in the West African country of Mali with a field experiment that randomly assigned an information intervention to some localities and not others. An exogenous increase in civic and political information had no net effect on treated communities, but had significant effects conditional on gender: men participated significantly more in civic activity while women participated less. I show this disparity is not driven by pre-existing differences in knowledge or skills but rather higher social costs faced by women. However, it appears the increase in civic activity among men is driven by individuals more dissatisfied with government and the decrease among women is driven by more satisfied individuals dropping out. Together, these findings suggest that citizens face an information constraint to civic participation that can be addressed, in part, by improving information, but that information alone cannot overcome inegalitarian social norms – and may even exacerbate them.

Speaker bio:

Jessica Gottlieb is a 2012-2013 CDDRL pre-doctoral fellow and a PhD Candidate at Stanford University. She studies political behavior, institutions, and government performance in developing countries with a regional focus on sub-Saharan Africa. Her dissertation demonstrates how low voter expectations, collusion among political parties, and social inequalities together undermine electoral accountability in Mali. In her past and current research, Gottlieb combines extensive field work, sound research design and rigorous methods such as field, survey and behavioral experiments. She received an MA in Economics from Stanford in 2011 and expects to complete the PhD in Political Science by June 2013.

Static websites, mailing lists and blogs propelled Howard Dean to the chair of the DNC in 2005.  Dean’s campaign heralded a new era in the use of digital technology in election campaigns.  Merely seven years later the role of technology in election campaigns has undergone a profound change. Digital strategy is so central to election campaigns today that it is difficult to imagine that it was only in the previous round of US presidential elections that a digital strategist became a part of the core campaign team for a candidate.  Digital strategists are no more a bunch of people in the sidelines of election campaigns: they drive it.  In a bid to understand this phenomenon we have invited key players from the Obama and Romney campaigns, and a Washington Post journalist who just published a book on this topic for a discussion on Feb 13, 2013.

The panel will explore the state of technology in election campaigns among Democrats and Republicans, its implication for democracy and how technology will shape campaigns in the near future.

During the past few years, the European Union has experienced one of the most difficult periods in its now sixty-year long process of unification. To fight the current eurocrisis, the EU has taken further steps toward integration that seemed unthinkable just a few years ago. In this seminar, we will discuss the challenges and opportunities the crisis offers for more European unification.

Ambassador Veestraeten has been the Belgian Consul General in Los Angeles since September 2012. Prior to his arrival in California he was Belgian Ambassador to Thailand. He has also held positions at the Belgian Embassies in Nigeria, Bulgaria, Kenya and Washington DC. Amb. Veestraeten holds a degree in Romance Literature from KU Leuven.

This event is part of The Europe Center's series on the "European and Global Economic Crisis."