Showing papers on "Democracy published in 2021"

The effect of COVID-19 lockdowns on political support: Some good news for democracy?

Abstract: Major crises can act as critical junctures or reinforce the political status quo, depending on how citizens view the performance of central institutions. We use an interrupted time series to study the political effect of the enforcement of a strict confinement policy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we take advantage of a unique representative web-based survey that was fielded in March and April 2020 in Western Europe to compare the political support of those who took the survey right before and right after the start of the lockdown in their country. We find that lockdowns have increased vote intentions for the party of the Prime Minister/President, trust in government and satisfaction with democracy. Furthermore, we find that, while rallying individuals around current leaders and institutions, they have had no effect on traditional left–right attitudes.

Economic growth, renewable energy consumption, and ecological footprint: Exploring the role of environmental regulations and democracy in sustainable development

Abstract: Countries enact environmental regulations to achieve sustainable development andecological sustainability. However, environmental regulations do not guarantee envi-ronmental sustainability unless implemented efficiently. Furthermore, political institu-tions play a key role in the formulation and management of environmentalregulations. This research examines the relationship between democracy, environ-mental regulations, economic growth, and ecological footprint (EF) in the panel of G7nations from 1985 to 2017. Second generation econometric techniques are used toanalyze the data. The empirical evidence indicates that economic growth enhancesEF while democracy and environmental regulations positively contribute to ecologicalsustainability by reducing EF. The causal outcomes reveal that democracy Grangercauses EF and renewable energy indicating that democracy curbs environmental deg-radation and stimulates the share of renewables. Further, democracy and environ-mental regulations Granger cause each other. Lastly, the implication of these findingsfor sustainable development and ecological sustainability are discussed.

Participatory Budgeting: Models and Approaches

Abstract: Participatory budgeting is a democratic approach to deciding the funding of public projects, which has been adopted in many cities across the world. We present a survey of research on participatory budgeting emerging from the computational social choice literature, which draws ideas from computer science and microeconomic theory. We present a mathematical model for participatory budgeting, which charts existing models across different axes including whether the projects are treated as “divisible” or “indivisible” and whether there are funding limits on individual projects. We then survey various approaches and methods from the literature, giving special emphasis on issues of preference elicitation, welfare objectives, fairness axioms, and voter incentives. Finally, we discuss several directions in which research on participatory budgeting can be extended in the future.

Disinformation as a Threat to Deliberative Democracy

Abstract: It is frequently claimed that online disinformation threatens democracy, and that disinformation is more prevalent or harmful because social media platforms have disrupted our communication systems...

Democracy in times of the pandemic: explaining the variation of COVID-19 policies across European democracies

Abstract: In fighting the spread of COVID-19, the drastic measures undertaken by governments worldwide demonstrate a trade-off between public health and fundamental democratic principles. Yet this behaviour is not consistent across democracies, which motivates this paper to examine why some democracies were willing to constrain individual freedoms and concentrate power more than others during the pandemic’s first wave. Creating two indices to measure the degree to which COVID-19 policies interfere with these democratic principles in 34 European countries, the analyses show that the large variation cannot be solely explained by pandemic-related factors. It is argued that the strong protection of democratic principles already established in ‘normal’ times makes governments more reluctant to opt for restrictive policies. By highlighting how differences in policy responses are attributed to provisions guaranteeing individual liberties, this paper contributes to a better understanding of how democracies handle the democratic dilemma in times of crises.

Early Perceptions of COVID-19 Contact Tracing Apps in German-Speaking Countries: Comparative Mixed Methods Study.

Abstract: Background: The main German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) have implemented digital contact tracing apps to assist the authorities with COVID-19 containment strategies. Low user rates for these apps can affect contact tracing and, thus, its usefulness in controlling the spread of the novel coronavirus. Objective: This study aimed to assess the early perceptions of people living in the German-speaking countries and compare them with the frames portrayed in the newspapers during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: We conducted qualitative interviews with 159 participants of the SolPan project. Of those, 110 participants discussed contact tracing apps and were included in this study. We analyzed articles regarding contact tracing apps from 12 newspapers in the German-speaking countries. Results: Study participants perceived and newspaper coverage in all German-speaking countries framed contact tracing apps as governmental surveillance tools and embedded them in a broader context of technological surveillance. Participants identified trust in authorities, respect of individual privacy, voluntariness, and temporary use of contact tracing apps as prerequisites for democratic compatibility. Newspapers commonly referenced the use of such apps in Asian countries, emphasizing the differences in privacy regulation among these countries. Conclusions: The uptake of digital contact tracing apps in German-speaking countries may be undermined due to privacy risks that are not compensated by potential benefits and are rooted in a deeper skepticism towards digital tools. When authorities plan to implement new digital tools and practices in the future, they should be very transparent and proactive in communicating their objectives and the role of the technology—and how it differs from other, possibly similar, tools. It is also important to publicly address ethical, legal, and social issues related to such technologies prior to their launch.

Democratic regression in comparative perspective: scope, methods, and causes

Abstract: Between 1974 and 2005, a majority of states became democratic for the first time in history. However, a global democratic recession began in 2006 and has persisted – and deepened – over the past 14...

The Militarization of Law Enforcement: Evidence from Latin America

Abstract: What are the political consequences of militarizing law enforcement? Across the world, law enforcement has become increasingly militarized over the last three decades, with civilian police operating more like armed forces and soldiers replacing civilian police in law enforcement tasks. Scholarly, policy, and journalistic attention has mostly focused on the first type, but has neglected the study of three main areas toward which we seek to contribute: 1) the constabularization of the military—i.e., when the armed forces take on the responsibilities of civilian law enforcement agencies, 2) the extent to which this process has taken place outside of the United States, and 3) its political consequences. Toward this end, we unpack the concept of militarized law enforcement, develop theoretical expectations about its political consequences, take stock of militarization in Latin America, and evaluate whether expectations have played out in the region. We show that the distinction between civilian and military law enforcement typical of democratic regimes has been severely blurred in the region. Further, we argue that the constabularization of the military has had important consequences for the quality of democracy in the region by undermining citizen security, human rights, police reform, and the legal order.

Does High Public Trust Amplify Compliance with Stringent COVID-19 Government Health Guidelines? A Multi-country Analysis Using Data from 102,627 Individuals

Abstract: Purpose To examine how public trust mediates the people’s adherence to levels of stringent government health policies and to establish if these effects vary across the political regimes. Methods This study utilizes data from two large-scale surveys: the global behaviors and perceptions at the onset of COVID-19 pandemic and the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT). Linear regression models were used to estimate the effects of public trust and strictness of restriction measures on people’s compliance level. The model accounted for individual and daily variations in country-level stringency of preventative measures. Differences in the dynamics between public trust, the stringent level of government health guidelines and policy compliance were also examined among countries based on political regimes. Results We find strong evidence of the increase in compliance due to the imposition of stricter government restrictions. The examination of heterogeneous effects suggests that high public trust in government and the perception of its truthfulness double the impact of policy restrictions on public compliance. Among political regimes, higher levels of public trust significantly increase the predicted compliance as stringency level rises in authoritarian and democratic countries. Conclusion This study highlights the importance of public trust in government and its institutions during public health emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results are relevant and help understand why governments need to address the risks of non-compliance among low trusting individuals to achieve the success of the containment policies.

Gender Revolution in Rojava : The Voices beyond Tabloid Geopolitics

Abstract: Kurdish women fighters of the Women’s Protection Unit, YPJ (Yekineyen Parastine Jin) received considerable attention in Western Europe and the United States. They made the headlines of mainstream newspapers and magazines. The emergence of an all-women, secular military force in the Middle East initiated a multi-layered process of conditional recognition of the Kurdish struggle – a ‘recognition’ in the sense of wide media coverage, but ‘conditional’ since it sought to divorce the feminist approach from its very specific political narrative and then reconnect it with Western liberalism. This paper critically delves into questions of a gendered geopolitics that portrays the Kurdish (feminist) struggle in the US popular discourses while silencing the voices of women and ignoring its historical roots and development. Based on an analysis of articles published in The Washington Post, New York Times, and Newsweek about the struggle for Kobane, we discuss the ways in which geopolitics, Orientalism and gender are interrelated in reports about this struggle. One of our main conclusions is that not despite, but rather through, the portrayal of Kurdish women fighters as heroines–even as angels–the idea of the Middle East was reproduced as a geography of fear, backwardness, and violence. The images of Kurdish women fighters may have superficially appeared to suggest a recognition of their struggle, this is a recognition that works through the presentation of images (portrait) at the expense of silencing the voices of the actors engaged in a struggle for a project that envisages a non-statist democracy. Although the portrayal of this struggle in Western media, in which the image of struggling women is disconnected from their politics, does not contribute to a recognition of their struggle, the women’s enunciation of their struggle in historical and political terms pushes the door for the audibility of Kurdish women’s voices.

Brahmin Left Versus Merchant Right: Changing Political Cleavages in 21 Western Democracies, 1948–2020

Abstract: This paper provides new evidence on the long-run evolution of political cleavages in 21 Western democracies by exploiting a new database on the vote by socioeconomic characteristic covering over 300 elections held between 1948 and 2020. In the 1950s-1960s, the vote for democratic, labor, social democratic, socialist, and affiliated parties was associated with lower-educated and low-income voters. It has gradually become associated with higher-educated voters, giving rise to "multi-elite party systems" in the 2000s-2010s: high-education elites now vote for the "left", while high-income elites continue to vote for the "right". This transition has been accelerated by the rise of green and anti-immigration movements, whose key distinctive feature is to concentrate the votes of the higher-educated and lower-educated electorate, respectively. Combining our database with historical data on political parties' programs, we provide evidence that the reversal of the educational cleavage is strongly linked to the emergence of a new "sociocultural" axis of political conflict. We also discuss the evolution of other political cleavages related to age, geography, religion, gender, and the integration of new ethnoreligious minorities.

Power to the people? Populism, democracy, and political participation: a citizen's perspective

Abstract: Much research is devoted to the relationship between populist parties and democracy. However, relatively little is known about the relationship between citizens’ populist attitudes and democracy. T...

Nation-Building and Education

Abstract: Democracies and dictatorships have different incentives when it comes to choosing how much and by what means to homogenise the population, i.e., ‘to build a nation’. We study and compare nation-building policies under the transition from dictatorship to democracy in a model where the type of government and borders of the country are endogenous. We find that the threat of democratisation provides the strongest incentive to homogenise. We focus upon a specific nation-building policy: mass primary education. We offer historical discussions of nation-building across time and space, and provide correlations for a large sample of countries over the 1925–2014 period.

Effects of economic complexity, economic growth, and renewable energy technology budgets on ecological footprint: the role of democratic accountability

Abstract: The economic structure of countries can influence economic growth, energy demand, and environmental footprints. However, the literature on economic complexity and ecological footprint (EFP) nexus is scarce. Besides, democracy is an important factor that may affect environmental policies and environmental sustainability. Hence, this paper investigates the effect of democracy, economic complexity, and renewable energy technology budgets on the EFP in G7 countries controlling income and financial development from 1985 to 2017. The findings from Westerlund (J Appl Econ 23:193–233, 2008) and other cointegration methods depict cointegration among variables. The long-run estimates from the continuously updated fully modified method unfold that economic complexity contributes to reducing the EFP. However, greater democratic accountability boosts the EFP figures rather than reducing them. On the flipside, renewable energy technology budgets and financial development are evidenced to mitigate EFP. Moreover, the study unveils a U-shaped linkage between economic growth and EFP, which indicates that an increase in income level will boost EFP. Further, the study found causality from economic complexity, democracy, and renewable energy budgets to EFP. Based on these findings, it is pertinent for the G7 countries to increase the manufacturing of sophisticated and complex products. In addition, enhancing renewable energy technology budgets is essential to ensure environmental well-being.

To Emerge? Breadwinning, Motherhood, and Women’s Decisions to Run for Office

Abstract: Women’s underrepresentation in American politics is often attributed to relatively low levels of political ambition. Yet scholarship still grapples with a major leak in the pipeline to power: that many qualified and politically ambitious women decide against candidacy. Focusing on women with political ambition, we theorize that at the final stage of candidate emergence, household income, breadwinning responsibilities, and household composition are interlocking obstacles to women’s candidacies. We examine these dynamics through a multimethod design that includes an original survey of women most likely to run for office: alumnae of the largest Democratic campaign training organization in the United States. Although we do not find income effects, we provide evidence that breadwinning—responsibility for a majority of household income—negatively affects women’s ambition, especially for mothers. These findings have important implications for understanding how the political economy of the household affects candidate emergence and descriptive representation in the United States.

COVID‐19 and Global Governance

Abstract: The COVID-19 epidemic has sent economic and social shockwaves reverberating across the globe, and has shaken governance institutions at every level and across a range of issues, from trade to health and climate change An important question is whether COVID will accelerate, slow, or perhaps reverse some key trends in global governance Most prominently, the global and multilateral governance regimes that developed post-World War II were already weakening and fragmenting before COVID (Acharya, 2016) In a closely related phenomenon, cosmopolitan liberalism, as a set of institutions and ideologies committed to a democratic open society, human rights, and multiculturalism, has also retreated in the face of rising populism and authoritarianism in recent years (Norris and Inglehart, 2019) COVID could also affect a third important trend, the decline of state regulation and the rise of private, voluntary, and disclosure-based governance (Levy, Brown, and de Jong, 2010) The impact of COVID on these trends suggests some fruitful new directions for scholars of global governance and organizations

Going Beyond the Smart City? Implementing Technopolitical Platforms for Urban Democracy in Madrid and Barcelona

Abstract: Digital platforms for urban democracy are analyzed in Madrid and Barcelona. These platforms permit citizens to debate urban issues with other citizens; to propose developments, plans, and policies ...

Corporations, Politics, and Democracy: Corporate political activities as political corruption:

Abstract: Corporate involvement in democratic processes typically takes the form of corporate political activity (CPA). In this paper, I develop a framework of political corruption to explain the corroding i...

Democracy and the Politics of Coronavirus: Trust, Blame and Understanding

Abstract: This article explores the relationship between crises and democracy through a focus on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic Its central argument is that to interpret the current pandemic purely in terms of its epidemiology and public health implications risks overlooking its potentially more significant socio-political consequences This is because the challenges posed by the coronavirus crisis have themselves become overlaid or layered-upon a pre-existing set of concerns regarding the performance, efficiency and capacity of democratic political structures The aim of this article is to try and understand and warn against what might be termed a rather odd form of cross-contamination whereby the cynicism, negativity and frustration concerning politicians, political processes and political institutions that existed before the coronavirus outbreak is allowed to direct, define and automatically devalue how democratic structures are subsequently judged in terms of how they responded to the challenge As such, this article focuses on the link between the Coronavirus crisis and the democratic crisis; or, more precisely, the risk that the Coronavirus crisis may mutate into and fuel a broader crisis of democracy

How the EU can achieve legally trustworthy AI: a response to the European Commission’s proposal for an Artificial Intelligence Act

Abstract: This document contains the response to the European Commission’s Proposal for an Artificial Intelligence Act from members of the Legal, Ethical & Accountable Digital Society (LEADS) Lab at the University of Birmingham. The Proposal seeks to give expression to the concept of ‘Lawful AI.’ This concept was mentioned, but not developed in the Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on AI’s Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI (2019), which instead confined its discussion to the concepts of ‘Ethical’ and ‘Robust’ AI. After a brief introduction (Chapter 1), we set out the many aspects of the Proposal which we welcome, and stress our wholehearted support for its aim to protect fundamental rights (Chapter 2). Subsequently, we develop the concept of ‘Legally Trustworthy AI,’ arguing that it should be grounded in respect for three pillars on which contemporary liberal democratic societies are founded, namely: fundamental rights, the rule of law, and democracy (Chapter 3). Drawing on this conceptual framework, we first argue that the Proposal fails to reflect fundamental rights as claims with enhanced moral and legal status, which subjects any rights interventions to a demanding regime of scrutiny and must satisfy tests of necessity and proportionality. Moreover, the Proposal does not always accurately recognise the wrongs and harms associated with different kinds of AI systems and appropriately allocates responsibility for them. Second, the Proposal does not provide an effective framework for the enforcement of legal rights and duties, and does not ensure legal certainty and consistency, which are essential for the rule of law. Third, the Proposal neglects to ensure meaningful transparency, accountability, and rights of public participation, thereby failing to reflect adequate protection for democracy (Chapter 4). Based on these shortcomings in respecting and promoting the three pillars of Legally Trustworthy AI, we provide detailed recommendations for the Proposal’s revision (Chapter 5).

Corporate Purpose Needs Democracy

Abstract: The British Academy proposes that some of the manifest failures of shareholder capitalism can be addressed by requiring corporations to declare a purpose – a profitable solution to the problems of people and planet that does not cause additional problems – and creating a set of supporting mechanisms to ensure the pursuit of purpose. Shareholder capitalism has a lot to answer for, arguably including the opioid and obesity epidemics, the hazards to people and democracy posed by profit‐driven tech firms, and catastrophic climate change. Moreover, the forces that orient public corporations toward share price are powerful and pervasive, while public corporations are disappearing in the USA and the UK under the weight of outside pressures. If we want the corporations that remain to behave themselves, the surest path is more democracy: greater worker control from below, and more effective state regulation from above.

Why did Turkish democracy collapse? A political economy account of AKP’s authoritarianism:

Abstract: After decades of multiparty politics, Turkey is no longer a democracy. A theory-upending case, the country has descended into a competitive authoritarian regime under the Justice and Development Pa...

Democracy of Climate and Climate for Democracy: the Evolution of Quadruple and Quintuple Helix Innovation Systems

Abstract: Quadruple and Quintuple Helix innovation systems are based on democracy and ecology. Two propositions are here key: (1) without a democracy or knowledge democracy, the further advancement of knowledge and innovation are seriously constrained, so in that sense, knowledge and innovation evolution depend on democracy and knowledge democracy; (2) ecology and environmental protection represent a necessity and challenge for humanity, but they also act as drivers for further knowledge and innovation (this should lead to a win–win situation for ecology and innovation). Therefore, for an innovation system to be a Quadruple/Quintuple Helix innovation system, the political regime hosting these helixes needs to be democratic in essence, not just in form. The next stage in evolution of innovation systems may be that this also will require a “democracy of climate” (promoting a social, cultural, economic, and political “climate for democracy”), where democracies as innovation enablers are creating innovation that regard the ecology as a crucial driver for further innovation and for responsible innovation.