Matthew Carlson

Citizens' Perceptions of Human Rights Practices: An Analysis of 55 Countries

Human rights abuses occur regularly around the world, affecting millions of citizens each year. Unfortunately, few studies have sought to examine the structure and role domestic perceptions play when such abuses transpire. The purpose of this article is to investigate the macro- and micro-level factors that shape the dynamics of human rights perceptions. The authors argue that perceptions are shaped not only by the human rights conditions within a country, but also by individual-level factors such as gender and political allegiance. Previous research on this topic has been limited to the analysis of a single survey question in fewer than 20 countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The authors expand the analysis to cover 55 countries from most regions of the world and examine alternative survey questions pertaining to human rights issues. The authors include variables that measure perceptions of general human rights conditions, as well as specific rights such as freedom from torture. They find linkages between expert-based measures of human rights conditions and perceptions of the general human rights situation in the country as well as for the more extreme aspect of torture. This suggests that the concept of human rights may share similar meanings in the minds of citizens and experts for at least some aspects of human rights values.

Public Support for Democratic Governance in Southeast Asia

Abstract The transition and consolidation of democracy in Southeast Asia has proven fragile and tenuous some 30 years after the current wave of democratization began. A critical ingredient in the process of democratization is the role of public opinion and the extent that the public supports the democratic ‘rules of the game’. This study uses 2006 and 2007 public opinion data from the AsiaBarometer Survey of six Southeast Asian countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia and Singapore) to examine popular perceptions of democracy and democratic principles and practices. Specifically, it seeks to shed light on the following interrelated questions: Do democratic institutions in Southeast Asia work well in the short and long term? To what extent are citizens in these countries satisfied with various political and civil freedoms? Do citizens trust specific institutions to operate in the best interests of their society? Does the current political system and government perform well?

Scandals During the Abe Administrations

This chapter provides a detailed overview of the scandals that plagued the Abe administration between the 2014 and 2017 elections. After briefly profiling the cabinet members who embarrassed the government, the authors describe two scandals of a new type: sontaku scandals. These sontaku scandals involve special treatment given to projects associated with Prime Minister Shinzō Abe or his wife, but do not charge either with having done anything improper. Instead, bureaucrats seem to have acted in anticipation that it would please the prime minister.

Popular perceptions of political regimes in East and Southeast Asia

Political regimes in East and Southeast Asia run the full spectrum from liberal democracy through various hybrid democratic-authoritarian types and on to full-blown authoritarianism and totalitarianism. While political scientists have invested much effort and ingenuity in creating typologies of regimes to better understand the empirical diversity of political structures and processes, much less attention has been paid to what the citizens think. How do people in East and Southeast Asian countries perceive their own institutions and performance of governance? This article uses public opinion data derived from the AsiaBarometer 2006 and 2007 Surveys of 12 East and Southeast Asian countries to map what citizens actually think about their structures, processes, and outcomes of governance and compare these with the regime classifications of political scientists. The results revealed universal commitment to elections but disillusionment with political practice, positive estimations of the institutions of governance in Southeast Asia but much less enthusiasm in East Asia, and a preference for moderate opinions. There is no clear overall correlation between regime type and popular perception.

Election law violations as campaign effort: turnout in Japan's House of Councillors elections

Electoral fraud is a form of corrupt behaviour but it is also a form of electoral behaviour. Once the grosser forms of stuffing the ballot box have been eliminated, illegal campaigning often involves precisely the same activities as does legal campaigning. What makes it electoral fraud is ‘stepping over the line’, spending X + Y when the legal limit is X for example. In this study we analyse the determinants of legal and illegal campaign efforts as well as the impact of such efforts on voter turnout. We use the aggregate number of election law violations per district as a measure of Y, which is normally unobserved because it is illegal and thus unreported. We further distinguish between various types of election fraud such as vote-buying and canvassing and determine their effects on turnout. We find that electoral fraud is more common in close races and when there is intraparty competition. Similarly, illegal campaign effort in general mirrors legal efforts in increasing turnout although its effects depend on the type of violation in question.

Campaign Finance Irregularities, Sex Scandals, and the Election

Political corruption has been an enduring feature of Japanese politics. During the postwar period, it became a central issue in many national elections and often resulted in the defeat of the government and a victory for the opposition (Reed 1999). Although major reforms of the electoral and campaign finance system in the 1990s have appeared to reduce the levels of corruption in general, the frequency of scandals involving the use of money in politics as well as infidelity and other sex scandals have exploded. Many of these scandals have had important political consequences for parties and individual candidates even if few have become a central issue in recent national elections. The scandals also shed light on the murky world of campaign finance as well as the efforts of the LDP to tarnish the DPJ.

Public Opinion on Dimensions of Governance in East Asia: An Analysis of Citizen and Expert Evaluations

In recent years, institutional financial institutions such as the World Bank have taken a keen interest in the links between governance and economic development in East Asia and in other regions of the world. However, the concept of governance has proven difficult to measure in cross-national studies and its meaning in the minds of citizens and experts may differ noticeably. This article examines elite and mass perceptions of governance using the World Governance Indicators developed by scholars affiliated with the World Bank and survey data derived from the 2006 wave of the AsiaBarometer Survey conducted in seven ‘Confucian’ societies. The results of the analysis capture considerable variation at the country and individual levels for how citizens and experts perceive governance in this region of the world. In addition, a multivariate test uncovered some convergence between citizen and expert assessments but only for some of the various governance components.