Showing papers on "Democracy published in 2020"

Formations of the secular: Christianity, Islam, modernity

Abstract: Opening with the provocative query "what might an anthropology of the secular look like?" this book explores the concepts, practices, and political formations of secularism, with emphasis on the major historical shifts that have shaped secular sensibilities and attitudes in the modern West and the Middle East. Talal Asad proceeds to dismantle commonly held assumptions about the secular and the terrain it allegedly covers. He argues that while anthropologists have oriented themselves to the study of the "strangeness of the non-European world" and to what are seen as non-rational dimensions of social life (things like myth, taboo, and religion),the modern and the secular have not been adequately examined. The conclusion is that the secular cannot be viewed as a successor to religion, or be seen as on the side of the rational. It is a category with a multi-layered history, related to major premises of modernity, democracy, and the concept of human rights. This book will appeal to anthropologists, historians, religious studies scholars, as well as scholars working on modernity.

The Media and the Public Sphere

Abstract: It is a commonplace to assert that public communication lies at the heart of the democratic process; that citizens require equal access also to sources of information and equal opportunities to participate in the debates from which political decisions rightly flow. This chapter argues that it follows that changes in media structure and media policy, whether these stem from economic developments or from public intervention, are properly political questions of as much importance as the question of whether or not to introduce proportional representation, of relations between local and national government, of subsidies to political parties. It focuses upon broadcasting and upon the public service model of broadcasting as an embodiment of the principles of the public sphere. Such a focus is a conscious corrective to the more normal focus in debates about the media and politics upon the press, and upon a free press model derived from the history of print communication.

Politics of the Administrative Process

Abstract: 1. Accountability PART I: The Job of Government 2. What Government Does-And How It Does It 3. The Meaning of Public Administration PART II: Organizational Theory and the Role of Government's Structure 4. Organizational Theory 5. The Executive Branch 6. Organization Problems 7. Administrative Reform PART III: People in Government Organizations 8. The Civil Service 9. Human Capital PART IV: Making and Implementing Government Decisions 10. Decision Making 11. Budgeting 12. Implementation PART V: Administration in a Democracy 13. Regulation and the Courts 14. Executive Power and Political Accountability

Democracy in America? Partisanship, Polarization, and the Robustness of Support for Democracy in the United States

Abstract: Is support for democracy in the United States robust enough to deter undemocratic behavior by elected politicians? We develop a model of the public as a democratic check and evaluate it using two empirical strategies: an original, nationally representative candidate-choice experiment in which some politicians take positions that violate key democratic principles, and a natural experiment that occurred during Montana’s 2017 special election for the U.S. House. Our research design allows us to infer Americans’ willingness to trade-off democratic principles for other valid but potentially conflicting considerations such as political ideology, partisan loyalty, and policy preferences. We find the U.S. public’s viability as a democratic check to be strikingly limited: only a small fraction of Americans prioritize democratic principles in their electoral choices, and their tendency to do so is decreasing in several measures of polarization, including the strength of partisanship, policy extremism, and candidate platform divergence. Our findings echo classic arguments about the importance of political moderation and cross-cutting cleavages for democratic stability and highlight the dangers that polarization represents for democracy.

The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article

Abstract: A portion of the public sphere comes into being in every conversation in which private individuals assemble to form a public body. The public sphere as a sphere which mediates between society and state, in which the public organizes itself as the bearer of public opinion, accords with the principle of the public sphere—that principle of public information which once had to be fought for against the arcane policies of monarchies and which since that time has made possible the democratic control of state activities. The feudal authorities, to which the representative public sphere was first linked, disintegrated during a long process of polarization. The representative public sphere yielded to that new sphere of "public authority" which came into being with national and territorial states. The bourgeois public sphere could be understood as the sphere of private individuals assembled into a public body, which almost immediately laid claim to the officially regulated "intellectual newspapers" for use against public authority itself.

Regime types and regime change: A new dataset on democracy, coups, and political institutions

Abstract: Social scientists have created a variety of datasets in recent years that quantify political regimes, but these often provide little data on phases of regime transitions. Our aim is to contribute to filling this gap, by providing an update and expansion of the Democracy-Dictatorship data by Cheibub et al. (Public Choice, 143, 67–101, 2010), originally introduced by Alvarez et al. (Studies in Comparative International Development, 31(2), 3–36, 1996), where we add the following three features: First, we expand coverage to a total of 192 sovereign countries and 16 currently self-governing territories between 1950 and 2018, including periods under colonial rule for more than ninety entities. Second, we provide more institutional details that are deemed of importance in the relevant literature. Third, we include a new, self-created indicator of successful and failed coups d’etat, which is currently the most complete of its kind. We further illustrate the usefulness of the new dataset by documenting the importance of political institutions under colonial rule for democratic development after independence, making use of our much more detailed data on colonial institutions. Findings indicate that more participatory colonial institutions have a positive and lasting effect for democratic development after transition to independence.

Violence against Women in Politics

Abstract: Political scientists and practitioners have long been troubled by political violence, defined as the use of force, or threatened use of force, to achieve political ends. However, gaps in existing approaches to understanding political violence have become increasingly evident. In the 1990s, there were efforts to recognise rape as a tool of war and since then feminist political scientists have expanded the definition of political violence. Dialogue and partnerships across the scholar–practitioner divide have been vital for raising awareness, collecting data, and devising solutions. Consensus is developing that violence against women in politics is a serious threat to democracy, human rights, and gender equality around the world—it cannot simply be dismissed as ‘politics as usual’ or the ‘normal cost’ of political participation.

Transnational Models of Citizen Participation: The Case of Participatory Budgeting

Abstract: This article pursues two main objectives. First, it provides a transnational overview and analysis of participatory budgeting, which has been central to the literature on democratic innovations in citizen participation. Second, it combines this broad empirical project with a theoretical approach based on the construction of ideal-types in the Weberian tradition. Namely, it presents six models of citizen participation: participatory democracy, proximity democracy, participative modernization, multi-stakeholder participation, neo-corporatism, and community development. Although these models have evolved from participatory budgeting and the European context, it is our contention that they can help us to understand the socio-political and ideological dynamics, contexts and impacts of civic engagement and democracy today at the transnational scale.

Deliberative Democracy and the Problem of Scope

Abstract: This article addresses the challenges of scaling up deliberative democracy beyond the level of individual communities. It begins with a general discussion of the problems that scope poses for deliberative democratic practice. It then proceeds to look critically at a range of initiatives that have, in recent years, attempted to overcome these problems in the American context. The concluding sections suggest guidelines and concepts aimed at helping practitioners approach large-scale public engagement more strategically, as well as areas that research and theory should explore.

Remaking Participation in Science and Democracy

Abstract: Over the past few decades, significant advances have been made in public engagement with, and the democratization of, science and technology. Despite notable successes, such developments have often...

Agrarian social movements: The absurdly difficult but not impossible agenda of defeating right‐wing populism and exploring a socialist future

Abstract: Parallels, resemblances, and interconnections between contemporary right‐wing populism and the populism of agrarian movements are examined in this essay. The two are partly linked through their social base in the countryside. This paper explores an agenda for political conversation and research on possible contributions to the twin efforts of splitting the ranks of right‐wing populists while expanding the united front of democratic challengers. The challenge is how to transform the identified interconnections into a left‐wing political project that can erode right‐wing populism. This requires a reclaiming of populism. In exploring this agenda, the paper revisits the ideas and practices of right‐wing populism and agrarian populism and the awkward overlaps and fundamental differences between them. It concludes with a discussion on the challenge of forging a reformulated class‐conscious left‐wing populism as a countercurrent to right‐wing populism, and as a possible political force against capitalism and towards a socialist future.

Democracy, Capacity, and Coercion in Pandemic Response: COVID-19 in Comparative Political Perspective.

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged governments around the world. It also has challenged conventional wisdom and empirical understandings in the comparative politics and policy of health. Three major questions present themselves: First, some of the countries considered to be most prepared-having the greatest capacity for outbreak response-have failed to respond effectively to the pandemic. How should our understanding of capacity shift in light of COVID-19, and how can we incorporate political capacity into thinking about pandemic preparedness? Second, several of the mechanisms through which democracy has been shown to be beneficial for health have not traveled well to explain the performance of governments in this pandemic. Is there an authoritarian advantage in disease response? Third, after decades in which coercive public health measures have increasingly been considered counterproductive, COVID-19 has inspired widespread embrace of rigid lockdowns, isolation, and quarantine enforced by police. Will these measures prove effective in the long run and reshape public health thinking? This article explores some of these questions with emerging examples, even amid the pandemic, when it is too soon to draw conclusions.

Does Public Support Help Democracy Survive

Abstract: It is widely believed that democracy requires public support to survive. The empirical evidence for this hypothesis is weak, however, with existing tests resting on small cross‐sectional samples and producing contradictory results. The underlying problem is that survey measures of support for democracy are fragmented across time, space, and different survey questions. In response, this article uses a Bayesian latent variable model to estimate a smooth country‐year panel of democratic support for 135 countries and up to 29 years. The article then demonstrates a positive effect of support on subsequent democratic change, while adjusting for the possible confounding effects of prior levels of democracy and unobservable time‐invariant factors. Support is, moreover, more robustly linked with the endurance of democracy than its emergence in the first place. As Lipset (1959) and Easton (1965) hypothesized over 50 years ago, public support does indeed help democracy survive.

Conceptualizing News Avoidance: Towards a Shared Understanding of Different Causes and Potential Solutions

Abstract: News avoidance is considered an increasing problem for the news industry and democracy at large. As news companies lose consumers, democracy loses the informed foundation for an engaged citizenry. ...

Ethnopopulism and democratic backsliding in Central Europe

Abstract: Ethnopopulism is an elite strategy for winning votes and concentrating power – a common playbook for the erosion of liberal democracy that is empowered and justified by a companion playbook of ethn

False equivalencies: Online activism from left to right.

Abstract: Digital media are critical for contemporary activism-even low-effort "clicktivism" is politically consequential and contributes to offline participation. We argue that in the United States and throughout the industrialized West, left- and right-wing activists use digital and legacy media differently to achieve political goals. Although left-wing actors operate primarily through "hashtag activism" and offline protest, right-wing activists manipulate legacy media, migrate to alternative platforms, and work strategically with partisan media to spread their messages. Although scholarship suggests that the right has embraced strategic disinformation and conspiracy theories more than the left, more research is needed to reveal the magnitude and character of left-wing disinformation. Such ideological asymmetries between left- and right-wing activism hold critical implications for democratic practice, social media governance, and the interdisciplinary study of digital politics.

Modelling environmental degradation in South Africa: the effects of energy consumption, democracy, and globalization using innovation accounting tests.

Abstract: This study investigates the effects of energy consumption, democracy and globalization on environmental degradation in the context of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) for South Africa between 1971 and 2014. To this end, the study applies the combined Bayer-Hanck cointegration test and the fully modified ordinary least squares (FM-OLS) estimation approach. The empirical results confirm the presence of cointegration among the variables, and thus validate the EKC hypothesis for South Africa. In addition, while energy consumption increases environmental degradation, the effect of democracy is positively insignificant. The finding also suggests that globalization condenses environmental degradation. The results of the long-run causal relationship divulge that economic growth, energy consumption, democracy and globalization Granger-cause environmental degradation. The results also find causality running from CO2 emissions, economic growth, democracy and globalization to energy consumption. In the short run, a causality is found running from globalization to CO2 emissions, energy consumption to CO2 emissions and globalization to energy consumption. In addition, economic growth is said to Granger-cause democracy while democracy Granger-causes CO2 emissions. These results are validated by the innovation accounting tests.

Energy democracy as a process, an outcome and a goal: A conceptual review

Abstract: ‘Energy democracy’ has evolved from a slogan used by activists demanding a greater say in energy-related decision-making to a term used in policy documents and scholarly literature on energy governance and energy transitions. This article reviews the academic literature using a combination of three methodological elements: (1) keyword searches of major bibliographical databases for quantification purposes; (2) an innovative method referred to as ‘circulation tracing’ to assess impact; and (3) in-depth discussion of the theoretical underpinnings, implications and interconnections of different parts of the literature. A conceptual framework is developed around three divergent understandings of the term ‘energy democracy’: (1) a process driven forwards by a popular movement; (2) an outcome of decarbonisation; and (3) a goal or ideal to which stakeholders aspire. The review also highlights some weaknesses of the literature: fragmentation between its European and American branches, which barely relate to each other; implicit or absent linkages between ‘energy democracy’ and broader theories of democracy; a tendency to idealise societal grassroots; confusion about the roles of the state, private capital and communities; and lack of attention to the threat posed by energy populism. Proponents should not assume that more energy democracy will inherently mean faster decarbonisation, improved energy access or social wellbeing. Finally, more emphasis should be placed on the role of research in providing evidence to ground energy democracy-related analyses and discussions.

Beyond Incivility: Understanding Patterns of Uncivil and Intolerant Discourse in Online Political Talk:

Abstract: This article takes up the popular argument that much online discussion is toxic and hence harmful to democracy, and argues that the pervasiveness of incivility is not incompatible with democratical...

The German Right, 1918–1930: Political Parties, Organized Interests, and Patriotic Associations in the Struggle against Weimar Democracy

Abstract: The failure of the Weimar Republic and the rise of National Socialism remains one of the most challenging problems of twentieth-century European history. The German Right, 1918–1930 sheds new light on this problem by examining the role that the non-Nazi Right played in the destabilization of Weimar democracy in the period before the emergence of the Nazi Party as a mass party of middle-class protest. Larry Eugene Jones identifies a critical divide within the German Right between those prepared to work within the framework of Germany's new republican government and those irrevocably committed to its overthrow. This split was only exacerbated by the course of German economic development in the 1920s, leaving the various organizations that comprised the German Right defenceless against the challenge of National Socialism. At no point was the disunity of the non-Nazi Right in the face of Nazism more apparent than in the September 1930 Reichstag elections.

The exhausted futures of neoliberalism: from promissory legitimacy to social anomy

Abstract: The distinction between input-oriented legitimacy and output-oriented legitimacy (Scharpf, Fritz W, 1997. Economic Integration, Democracy and the Welfare State. Journal of European Public Policy, 4...

Democracy versus the Melting Pot: A Study of American Nationality

Abstract: It was, I think, an eminent lawyer who, backed by a ripe experience of inequalities before the law, pronounced our Declaration of Independence to be a collection of “glittering generalities.” Yet it cannot be that the implied slur was deserved. There is hardly room to doubt that the equally eminent gentleman over whose signatures this orotund synthesis of the social and political philosophy of the eighteenth century appears conceived that they were subscribing to anything but the dull and sober truth when they underwrote the doctrine that God had created all men equal and had endowed them with certain inalienable rights, among these being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That this doctrine did not describe a condition, that it even contradicted conditions, that many of the signatories owned other men and bought and sold them, that many were eminent by birth, many by wealth, and only a few by merit all this is acknowledged. Indeed, they were aware of these inequalities; they would probably have fought their abolition. But they did not regard them as incompatible with the Declaration of Independence. For to them the Declaration was neither a pronouncement of abstract principles nor an exercise in formal logic. It was an instrument in a political and economic conflict, a weapon of offense and defense. The doctrine of “natural rights” which is its essence was formulated to shield social orders against the aggrandizement of persons acting under the doctrine of “divine right”: its function was to afford sanction for refusing customary obedience to traditional superiority. Such also was the function of the Declaration. Across the water, in England, certain powers had laid claim to the acknowledgment of their traditional superiority to the colonists in America. Whereupon the colonists, through their representatives, the signatories to the Declaration, replied that they were quite as good as their traditional betters, and that no one should take from them certain possessions which were theirs.

When Polarization Trumps Civic Virtue: Partisan Conflict and the Subversion of Democracy by Incumbents

Abstract: When Polarization Trumps Civic Virtue: Partisan Conflict and the Subversion of Democracy by Incumbents

The populist citizen: Empirical evidence from Europe and Latin America

Abstract: Scholars are increasingly interested in ‘populist attitudes’, which – studies show – can explain party support and vote choice. However, current research has not yet analyzed in detail the characteristics of those individuals with populist proclivities, or so-called populist citizens. To address this research gap, we harmonize survey data on populist attitudes for nine European countries, five Latin American countries, and Turkey in order to uncover shared or distinct features of populist citizens. Our findings are threefold. First, we identify differences in the sociodemographic characteristics of populist citizens, notably between Europe and Latin America. Second, we find similar patterns of heterogeneity in the political features of populist citizens. Third, we show that populist citizens across all countries have the same democratic profile. They systematically support democracy over other forms of government, while being dissatisfied with its implementation. This suggests populist attitudes are intrinsic to the political culture of contemporary democracies.

Caesarean politics in Hungary and Poland

Abstract: We propose the new concept of Caesarean politics to explain democratic deconsolidation in Hungary and Poland. We argue the move towards illiberal democracy in both countries has been made possible ...