Parties and Party Systems

Since the late 1980s, South Korea has established democratic rules and institutions to protect the political freedom and civil rights of its citizens. In this process, political parties played a pivotal role in building democratic institutions and became a necessary actor for democratic governance. The characteristics of South Korean political parties and party system such as non-ideological regional factionalism, personality-based party organization, growing electoral volatility due to party changes, and a cartelized two-party system have contributed to weak party system institutionalization (PSI). Despite weak PSI, South Korea successfully underwent three peaceful power transfers, thus exceeding Huntington’s two turnover test of democratic consolidation. The stability of interparty competition has been maintained despite moderate electoral volatility. While regionalism is still the most important factor in voter decisions, the ideological linkage between parties and voters has been tightening. The South Korean parties and party system have a long way to go before achieving the levels of PSI seen in the West, but they have followed in these countries’ footstep to some extent. More sophisticated measures and concepts should be developed to analyse political parties and party systems in new democracies.

Jurisprudence-Legal Government Surveillance and Interference in the Relations between Workers and Employers in Egypt

One of the most important laws of the countries is the labor law whose the target society is made of a large number of people, i.e. workers and employers. There are laws and regulations in Egypt on the relation between the workers and the employers. There are also principles for protecting this group (workers) as the fundamental principles of work, all of which are intended to improve the workers' lives and to establish rules that will better serve the interests of workers. The main aim of the labor rights is to improve the socioeconomic status of workers and to provide more security and justice and also to establish a social order for this class of society. The present study is a descriptive-analytic research, which investigates jurisprudential-legal government supervision and interference in the relation between the worker and the employer in Egypt. The results indicate that the necessity of government involvement in worker-employer relations has two main reasons. These reasons include changing the nature of labor relations after the industrial revolution and changing the function of government in contemporary time. The complexity and transformation of various relationships, including labor relations, which justifies the need for the intervention of a superior power to support the weak party of this relationship.

Neopatrimonialism in the 2020 Regional Head Elections in the Power Cube Perspective

The number of candidates who have a kinship with political and/or government entities in the 2020 Pilkada in Indonesia has shot up compared to the previous period, namely originally 59 candidates (2005-2014 period), 86 candidates (2015-2018 period), now 124 candidates (2020-2024 period). The research aims to identify the most dominating dimensions of power in kinship politics by using the power cube theory. In summary, the power cube theory analyzes the interaction of power in 3 (three) dimensions, namely levels, spaces, and forms. The method used is a quantitative method with analytical hierarchy process techniques to determine the criteria for the highest kinship politics and to determine the regions with the highest kinship political relations based on the criteria. Researchers identified the potential impact of kinship politics practice using descriptive qualitative research methods. The results of the study found a visible dimension in the power cube theory, namely that poor regeneration of political parties dominates the causes of kinship politics (73% of the criteria weighted results). The regions with the highest kinship politics based on the criteria for weak party regeneration were South Sulawesi (60.3%), followed by Sumatra (24.88%) and Java (10.07%). There are 5 (five) potential impacts of the practice of kinship politics, namely versatile coalitions, policies originating from elite compromise, marginalized crucial public issues, the birth of regulations that accommodate the interests of actors outside of government, and the declining performance of the bureaucracy in bridging the needs of the people.

Grounds for the pledge occurrence

The article demonstrates that in the modern world, a pledge is the most reliable way to ensure the performance of obligations, and, therefore, the issues related to the grounds for the pledge occurrence are quite relevant. The author determines that the pledge arises only on the basis of an agreement between the pledgor and the pledge holder, but also by virtue of the law, which allows protecting the interests of the weak party as much as possible, giving it the opportunity to get satisfaction of its claims from the value of the pledged property. The article can be used when giving lectures and conducting practical classes in the field of Jurisprudence.

The Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers under Fiqh Siyasah Dusturiyah

The position of migrant workers is often seen as a weak party. To some extent, such migrant workers are regarded as similar to slaves. In Indonesia, the government has to protect all citizens, including those abroad who have the status of migrant workers. Migrant Workers’ Protection Law 18/2017 was issued to protect citizens as migrant workers. However, several migrant workers remained legally unprotected abroad. This study used the normative approach that aimed to discuss the protection of Indonesian migrant workers from two-fold, juridical and fiqh siyasah dusturiyah perspectives. While the government protected migrant workers by issuing Law 18/2017, it has more specifically provided directions and objectives to protect migrant workers. This Law ensures human rights for migrant workers despite legal, economic, and social protection for them and their families. Then, the protection of migrant workers from fiqh siyasah dusturiyah should be under the four principles of the workforce in Islam: human independence, human dignity, justice, and the clarity of the contract and wage transaction. KEYWORDS: Indonesian Migrant Workers, Right to Work, Islamic Law.

Party group collapse and strategic switching in the European Parliament

The literature on party group switching in the European Parliament contends that members re-affiliate primarily for strategic reasons. This article advances the discussion by also considering the occurrence of non-strategic switches which follow the collapse of weakly institutionalized groups. Using an original dataset which includes DW-Nominate scores (1979–2009), I operationalize policy-seeking behavior among strategic switchers by deriving member- and delegation-to-group policy distance variables. The pooled logistic regression models using a penalized maximum likelihood estimator make it possible to address quasicomplete separation, and the results show that members from large groups and delegations have significantly lower odds of switching. Further, as members or delegations become incongruent with their group, the odds of switching increase. The study has important implications for research investigating the relationship between weak party institutionalization and parliamentary behavior.

Agreements to Eliminate Liability for Breach of a Contractual Obligation: Comparative Analysis of the Legal Regulation and Judicial Practice

Introduction: modern legal science is faced with the task of developing the concept of an agreement on the elimination of contractual civil liability: determining its legal nature, scope and conditions for its implementation. For this purpose, the authors of the paper attempt to model the theoretical and legal basis of the agreement on the elimination of contractual liability of the debtor for non-performance, improper performance of its obligations. Using the general scientific methods – synthesis, analysis, comparative and dialectical methods, as well as the specific scientific methods of cognition, in particular, formal-legal, structural-functional and others, the authors determine the legal nature and scope of the agreement on the elimination of contractual liability for violation of a contractual obligation, and examine the practice of such application. Results: it is indicated that within the framework of the agreement on the elimination of contractual liability, it is possible to expand the list of circumstances related to “force majeure”, but taking into account the criterion of the latter: emergency and insurmountability. Conclusions: an agreement to eliminate contractual liability is not possible in contractual obligations involving a weak party, unless it is concluded in its favor. Therefore, the main scope of their application is the obligations related to the implementation of business activities. The possibility of concluding this agreement is a manifestation of the principles of autonomy of will and freedom of contract.

Court as a Subject of Civil Right Protection

The article deals with the legal status of the court as a subject of protection of human and civil rights and freedoms. The article justifies that the subject matter is the cross-sectoral legal status of the court from the perspective of its human rights function with regard to human rights. The issue has been examined in terms of the human rights orientation of justice through the analysis of certain types of judicial proceedings. Certain categories of cases with the greatest human rights focus have been identified, and judicial statistics have been analysed. The human rights potential of the principle of protection of the weak party in the legal relationship was noted. It is pointed out that the protection of human rights provides a world-view of the work of the judge and determines the social effectiveness of justice. Conclusions and proposals on the development of the human rights capacity of the judiciary were formulated.