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s early as the dawn of modern age, Benjamin Constant (1819) wrote that the current democracy, unlike the ancient one, based on slavery and perpetual wars, is based on capital, while Braudel (1979) shows that capitalism as a concept could not exist without the other concepts preceding it in the sequence they occur in society, i.e. capital and capitalist. Therefore, I regarded capital, meaning the foundation of both democracy and capitalism, as a particularly challenging object of study from the standpoint of its formation, development, location in the economy and ownership in post-communist Romania. I deem the amount, quality, origin and behaviour of capital are pivotal for a solid democracy and an efficient functioning of capitalist market economy in our country. The book Capital in post-communist Romania, based on long data series, may cast a historical perspective on the economic and social phenomena and processes under scrutiny. They are meant to help devise and implement public policies for making the objectively necessary corrections to the Romanian society after such an intricate transition, as well as to prepare the actions for securing Romania’s future development. I viewed this scientific endeavour as useful after identifying a shortage of information and, against this backdrop, of analysis on economic and social results of Romania’s transition, also by comparison with other former communist countries.

The article portrays the ballot paper as a constitutional instrument of electoral democracy. The authors argue that the result of an election often depends on the form, the content, and the method of filling out the ballot. It is shown that a ballot is an election instrument of standard form, by means of which a voter votes for candidates and/or lists of candidates, and which later allows to establish the election results. It is concluded that the definition and classification of ballot types has not only theoretical but also practical value. In particular, this issue is of great practical significance in four cases: 1) simultaneous elections of differing types (sometimes including a simultaneous vote at a referendum); election of candidates for elective offices under different types of electoral systems or different types of territorial constituencies; 3) the vote count and establishing the outcome of the election; 4) prosecuting criminals for the illegal use of ballots.

This paper investigated the reflections of Electoral Commission (EC) officers and voters in the Jaman South District with regard to ballot paper wastage in elections in Ghana using descriptive exploratory research design. Purposive and convenience sampling techniques were used to select 172 respondents for the study with questionnaires, structured interview and interview guide as the research instruments. The study revealed that elections were conducted to help select leaders for the nation and to help ensure that leaders are accountable to the people. Policies and ideologies of candidates were found to have little influence on how persons vote. Factors such as protest voting, low public education on elections, and high level of illiteracy were responsible for rejected ballots in the district. Rejected ballot paper was a cost to the EC officers and the voters in terms of resources, time and energy especially during periods of run-offs. The study recommended that the government effectively collaborate with the EC officials in the district to implement policies that will increase voters’ appreciation of issues underpinning democracy. The EC officers in the district should properly collaborate with the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) to provide adequate public education to enable the electorates in the district to have a proper understanding of basic electoral issues.Key words: Elections; democracy; democratization; disenfranchisement; rejected ballots.

Despite the narratives of authoritarian states, the concerns of journalists and public intellectuals in democracies, and the results of some early studies, this paper shows that democracies fare no worse than authoritarian regimes in combating the Covid-19 pandemic. Democracy is not associated with higher Covid-19 death rates, nor is it associated with lower vaccination rates. Moreover, among many democratic countries, high levels of key democratic components -such as fundamental rights and impartial administration—seem to help prevent deaths and boost vaccination rates. These conclusions are based on statistical analyses of democracy components, as measured by International IDEA’s Global State of Democracy (GSoD) Indices, and the reported Covid-19 death rates and Covid-19 vaccination rates in all countries of the world with a population of at least one million people.

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, governments have implemented a variety of extraordinary legal and policy measures to protect lives, mitigate the spread of the virus, and prevent health systems from breaking down. These measures have often included curbing some human rights, restricting travel, shuttering up classrooms, suspending government services, ordering the temporary closure of businesses, controlling or curtailing news reporting, and sometimes delaying elections. To do this, many governments have activated emergency legal frameworks that provide for the assumption of emergency powers by the executive and, in some cases the weakening or setting aside of ordinary democratic checks and balances. It is helpful to understand the different types of laws relied upon (or not) by governments to justify their assumption of emergency powers and their imposition of emergency measures. This paper examines and compares different types of legal bases for emergency powers, built-in safeguards and constraints specific to each type of emergency regime, the factors that may influence choices about which emergency legal response to apply, and the associated advantages and risks.

How can we understand the role of the police in Brazil’s public security system? In particular, have reforms initiated since the 1985 transition to democracy made the police more accountable to the public? This article addresses those questions. The next section describes the importance of public security as a political issue in Brazil. The article then examines the notion of accountability, and offers a justification of the use of case studies from Recife with which to explore the dilemmas of public security reform. In the following sections, the article analyses the impact of two new accountability mechanisms on policing in Recife – the police ombudsman and community councils. The article argues that so far, the operation of these mechanisms has been marked by informal barriers, barriers that have stymied the enhancement of police accountability to the public. The conclusion summarizes the argument.

In April 2019, the U.K. released a white paper about Online Harms. The White Paper proposes to take Internet censorship to a new height, essentially unmatched by any other Western democracy. It’s a sign of how comprehensive censorship has moved beyond repressive regimes to become trendy even in leading republican democracies. To redress a wide range of anti-social online activity, the White Paper seeks to tightly circumscribe user-generated content — so tightly that only a small number Internet giants will be able to profitably publish user-generated content. Other Internet publishers will be pushed towards licensing professional content and cover those costs by charging subscriber fees to consumers. Thus, the White Paper will produce a reconfigured Internet 3.0 that will resemble the cable TV industry, not the current Internet we know and love. This essay addresses three main points. It first deconstructs the some of the “facts” the White Paper uses to justify its censorious ideas. Then it highlights some of the proposals’ worst policy aspects. The essay concludes by explaining how the White Paper will reshape the Internet and kill off most user-generated content.

The revival of the non-delegation doctrine, foreshadowed last term in Gundy v. United States, signals the end of a distinctive style of legal and political thought. The doctrine’s apparent demise after the 1930s facilitated the development of a methodological approach that embodied what Lon Fuller once called “the spirit of the Federalist Papers”: an open-ended engagement with the problem of designing democracy and controlling public power. At its best, this discourse was critical and propulsive, with each purported solution generating more questions than it answered. The turn against congressional delegations will likely bring to a close this period of open and self-critical experimentation. In its place, we are likely to see the emergence of warring visions of the administrative state, each claiming legitimacy — neither credibly — according to its own comprehensive normative doctrine.

On the 3rd of April 2016, the offshore secrets of the world’s political and financial elites were made public, as a year-long investigation of one of the biggest data leak in history came to fruition. The so-called Panama Papers contained the names of heads of governments, celebrities, criminals and CEO’s; and heavily represented in the leaked files, were the names of high-ranking Icelandic politicians and elected officials. This master’s thesis is a sociological case study of Iceland and the Panama Papers, focusing on the political accountability process sparked by the huge data leak. Using a single-case, process-tracing approach, in congruence with an explorative design and a grounded theory approach to theory development, this thesis seeks to develop a conceptual framework for assessing the relative success of political accountability processes. Analysing the empirical case of Iceland and the Panama Papers through this framework, this thesis will argue that successful political accountability can be achieved in modern liberal democracies, despite the challenges of globalisation and digitalisation. By incorporating the global reach of a new type of activists, and integrating the technologically resourceful journalist collective into the accountability process, political accountability processes can catch up to the globalised elites and overcome the challenge of information overload.

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Scholars concur that free and fair elections are essential for proper democratic functioning, but our understanding of the political effects of democratic voting systems is incomplete. This article mitigates the gap by exploiting the gradual transformation of voting systems and ballot structures in Brazil’s 1998 executive elections to study the relationship between voting systems and viable and nonviable candidates’ vote shares, using regression discontinuity design. It finds that the introduction of electronic voting concentrated vote shares among viable candidates and thus exhibited electoral bias. We posit that this result occurred because viable candidates were better able to communicate the information that electronic voters needed to cast valid ballots than were their nonviable counterparts. The article uses survey data to demonstrate that electronic voters responded to changes in ballot design and internalized the information viable candidates made available to them.

The international business press has been a powerful and influential voice in modern societies and, as its formative years took place during the Cold War, a closer look at the ideologies that were promoted in this part of the press is of interest. Until the 1970s, Farmand was the only Norwegian business magazine of any size and standing. Trygve J. B. Hoff, Farmand’s editor from 1935, was part of the Mont Pèlerin Society (MPS), a neoliberal intellectual collective established in 1947 with participants such as Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. This article is a study of the ideas that Hoff promoted, particularly in Farmand, from the 1940s to the 1970s.

vol.16(4) (2017) 035-047, The paper discusses the open, inclusive, dynamic, proactive notion of cultural heritage that is emerging in the international scientific debate. Some significant innovations are examined first: the overcoming of the dualism between tangible and intangible cultural heritage, the increasing role of local communities in the processes of heritage recognition, safeguarding and enhancement and the need for valorisation as a democratic mandate. Aiming at developing this approach, the second step of the research focuses on industrial heritage, investigating its specific features and values. A case study is provided in order to understand some crucial issues concerning industrial heritage management and value creation. Focusing on the City of Paper (Fabriano, Italy), the activities carried out by the Museum of Paper and Watermark and by the Institute of Paper History Gianfranco Fedrigoni (ISTOCARTA) are analysed in-depth, highlighting the role of collaboration among the different actors involved in industrial heritage management in order to promote sustainable local development.

In moving away from older linear narratives around the costs and benefits of ‘corruption’ to development and democratic processes, social scientists have tended to down play temporality in their work on the phenomenon in the global South. Historical research however offers a different kind of nuance around moments in which corruption becomes important in political and administrative discourse. Examining archives on corruption in detail and comparatively, poses different questions about the operation of the everyday state. It also provides alternative means for exploring the nature of citizenship, national belonging in India and how the disempowered are often unevenly affected by corrupt acts. Using two case studies in the Public Works Department during state transition in the late 1940s and early 1950s, in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, this article examines how archives convey multiple and contingent meanings to early postcolonial discourses of ‘corruption’. Such archives present the phenomenon as a vehicle or symbolic resource for larger political processes over the period. This potentially challenges our perspective on some of the larger questions surrounding the early postcolonial state, the nature of civil/political society in that period for India, ideas of national belonging and the relationship between India and Pakistan.

This study faces the problem of female participation in politics, since historically they are excluded of elections. The Article 10, paragraph 3, of Law 9,504 / 97 establishes electoral gender quota rule. This device has been changed with the electoral reform of 2009 (Law 12,034 / 09). Takes care here the state that provides for inclusion minority that has no representation in homes to legislate, in an attempt to correct the distortion caused historically in representative democracy. But the literature used showed that until now this device was not successful, because it is urgent to change other parts of the Brazilian electoral system, and the promotion to empower women, not only in terms the right to vote and be voted on, but in the other freedoms inherent in their economic and social development, without which moves away from the promotion of human dignity. O presente trabalho enfrenta o problema da participação feminina na política, vez que historicamente excluídas dos pleitos eleitorais. Assim, o artigo 10, §3º, da Lei 9.504/97 estabelece regra de cota eleitoral de gênero. Tal dispositivo foi alterado pela reforma eleitoral de 2009 (Lei 12.034/09). Cuida-se então de uma providencia estatal para inclusão por meio de políticas públicas de minoria que não encontra representatividade nas casas legiferantes. Isso numa tentativa de corrigir a distorção provocada historicamente na democracia representativa. Mas pela pesquisa bibliográfica utilizada evidenciou-se que até o presente momento referido dispositivo não logrou êxito, porquanto urge a modificação de outros pontos do sistema eleitoral brasileiro, bem como o fomento para o empoderamento feminino, não somente no que tange o direito de votar e ser votada, mas nas demais liberdades inerentes ao seu desenvolvimento econômico e social, sem os quais se distancia da promoção dignidade da pessoa humana.

The Spitzenkandidaten Exercise One Year Later - The Unsung Hero A year has gone by since the last elections to the European Parliament. One significant innovation in those elections was the Spitzenkandidaten exercise. At the recent fifth edition of the "State of the Union" organized by the European University Institute I conducted a public interview with Vice President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans. Vice President Timmermans and I reached the point where we touched on that perennial topic of the still existing deficiencies of European democracy, resulting, inter alia, in widespread indifference as expressed in the low turnout to the last European elections - 2014 scored the lowest turnout ever. Here is an edited transcript from the interview. Weiler: [...] Part of the problem is that when people go and vote for the European Parliament, they are not really being offered a real political choice (the way, for example, yesterday they were offered in the United Kingdom - Labour or Conservative.), neither as regards the policies that will be pursued nor as regards who will govern them. So the delicate question is whether the Union in its processes needs to become overtly more political? Do you think the bold, even though limited, experiment of the last elections to the European Parliament with the "Spitzenkandidaten", who delivered here in this space [the Salone dei cinquecento of the Palazzo Vecchio] one of the televised debates, should be pursued and perhaps deepened as one of the ways of addressing that problem of citizen disengagement? Timmermans: Yes, first of all ... the core of the problem also refers to one of my favourite authors, Hannah Arendt, who ... actually, if you bring back the essence of some of her writings [says] "It is not the anger of the minorities that hates us, it is the indifference of ...

Technological innovations are crucial drivers of economic, social, and environmental progress. Law and regulation are expected to enable innovation while protecting society from unintended consequences, such as risks to public health and the environment, privacy, data protection, and other fundamental rights and interests. However, law is often considered either as an obstacle to innovations or as unable to protect society from their risks. Moreover, the very notion of the Rule of Law as a principle governing legitimate exercise of power in democratic societies is undergoing change, and, in some extreme cases, might even be challenged where technological fixes are replacing traditional legal rules. This collection of policy papers is based on the sixth annual conference hosted by the Amsterdam Centre for European Law and Governance at the University of Amsterdam on 4 November 2016. Against the backdrop of revolutionary technological developments in the digital world as well as the impacts of technological innovations on health, safety and the environment, the contributors explore the relationship between law and technology with a particular focus on challenges and opportunities for EU law and regulation.

Corruption in civilized society is disease like cancer which is not detected in time is sure to spread its malignance among the polity of the country leading to disastrous consequences. Corruption is opposite to democracy and social order and being of only anti-people but also due to fact that it effects the economy of a country and destroy its cultural heritage. It poses threat to the concept of constitutional governance and shakes the very foundation of democracy and rule of law. The purpose of this study is get rid from fraud and corruption committed by the criminals, outsiders customers and employees of the banks and financial institutions and other State, Central and Local bodies, public and private sectors. The detection of fraud and corruption has become a big problem. This phenomenon surprisingly is not limited to a particular area, city, or country. It is throughout the world. The word fraud is defined under Sec. 17 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 and Forgery is defined under Sec.163 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860. The main objectives of this research paper are as under:  To study the information’s of law relating to fraud and corruption in banks and financial institutions is essential.  To examine the nature of evil of fraud and corruption in the banks and financial institutions which is increasing in spite of implementation of various law?  To study dimensions of fraud and corruption in earlier and modern time.  To identify and examine the role played by the C.B.I., Central Vigilance Commission, Police and other agencies with regard to fraud and corruption in the banks and financial institutions..  To study the law and policies in India for prevention of fraud and corruption in Banks and financial institutions.  To study the need to strengthen and harmonize the law and policies regarding fraud and corruption in banks and financial institutions while ensuring its compliance with international law. The fraud, forgery and corruption is commonly found in exchange of services rely on Information and Technology and the absence of physical bank branches to provide these services to the customers. There is great increase in E-banking and M-banking. The virtual banking becomes very popular amongst the customers due to speed, convenience and round-the-clock access. The Information Technology Act, 2000 has been passed by the parliament which gives recognition to the transitions undertaken through computer system and internet. Frauds and corruption are on increase. Some of the reasons are: speedily expansions of foreign and private banks i.e., increase of number of branches, increase in volume of business, increase inn number of employees, number of customers and spread of operations. These are the contributing factors to the higher incidence of banks frauds and forgeries.

In his 2016 essay “An American Utopia,” Fredric Jameson appropriates Lenin’s concept of “dual power” to ruminate on its potential meaning in the present U.S. context. Jameson’s remarks on “dual power” and U.S. politics offer a starting point to explore both the most recent developments in the U.S. and to revisit Lenin’s State and Revolution fruitfully to review the concept of “the commune” as a post-capitalist political theory. Lenin’s work transcends anodyne demands for abstract democracy. Indeed, my intervention aims to explore the limits of “democracy” in U.S. political discourse, demanding a reconsideration of Leninist political theory. In so doing, the conditions of struggle in the U.S. potentialize the dialectical development of struggles to extend democracy (reform) with struggles to overcome democracy (revolution).

This article analyses the activity of the Catalan Parliament which has to do with Catalonia’s political future. The analysis begins with the parliamentary resolution of 2013 that declared the sovereignty and right to decide of the people of Catalonia and goes as far as the latest resolutions on the independence process adopted during the current legislature by the majority that came out of the elections held on 27 September 2015. All these decision have opened up a legal debate on basic constitutional principles, in particular those of democracy and legality. The debate revolves around the following points: how to defend and promote a political project that does not fit in with the established constitutional order? Can the Constitutional Court intervene in non-legal acts of a strictly parliamentary nature? What are the effects of disobeying the duty to comply with the Constitutional Court’s decisions? The article studies all these questions from a legal perspective but without neglecting socio-political considerations that are essential for putting them in the proper context., Aquest article analitza l’activitat del Parlament relacionada amb el futur polític de Catalunya. L’anàlisi parteix de la resolució parlamentària de 2013 que declarava la sobirania i el dret a decidir del poble de Catalunya i arriba fins a les darreres resolucions sobre el procés d’independència adoptades durant la legislatura actual per la majoria parlamentària sortida de les eleccions del dia 27 de setembre de 2015. Totes aquestes decisions parlamentàries han obert un important debat jurídic sobre principis constitucionals bàsics, en particular el de democràcia i el de legalitat, debat que gira al voltant dels punts següents: com defensar i promoure un projecte polític que no s’ajusta a l’ordre constitucional establert? Pot el Tribunal Constitucional fiscalitzar actes no normatius de naturalesa estrictament parlamentària? Quins són els efectes de desobeir el deure de complir les resolucions del Tribunal Constitucional? L’article estudia totes aquestes qüestions des de la perspectiva jurídica, sense ometre, però, consideracions d’índole sociopolítica indispensables per contextualitzar-les adequadament., Este artículo analiza la actividad del Parlamento relacionada con el futuro político de Cataluña. El análisis parte de la resolución parlamentaria de 2013 que declaraba la soberanía y el derecho a decidir del pueblo de Cataluña y llega hasta las últimas resoluciones sobre el proceso de independencia adoptadas durante la legislatura actual por la mayoría parlamentaria salida de las elecciones del día 27 de septiembre de 2015. Todas estas decisiones parlamentarias han abierto un importante debate jurídico sobre principios constitucionales básicos, en particular el de democracia y el de legalidad, debate que gira en torno a los puntos siguientes: ¿cómo defender y promover un proyecto político que no se ajusta al orden constitucional establecido? ¿Puede el Tribunal Constitucional fiscalizar actos no normativos de naturaleza estrictamente parlamentaria? ¿Cuáles son los efectos de desobedecer el deber de cumplir las resoluciones del Tribunal Constitucional? El artículo estudia todas estas cuestiones desde la perspectiva jurídica sin omitir, sin embargo, consideraciones de índole sociopolítica indispensables para contextualizarlas adecuadamente.

Background: The very rich vegetable patrimony of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) demands a local abundant production of its fruits, roots and seeds by means of appropriate technology to relieve somewhat the problem of population health because indeed those fruits, seeds, roots and leaves are reputed to have very excellent virtues in various fields such as medicine, pharmacology, cosmetic products, food and so forth. Prior to this work papers have been published on Gourd seeds oil and Moringa seeds oil extractions in order to size a continuous stirrer pilot tank of extraction. KUNYIMA method has been successfully used and is still successfully used in this present article concerning sesame (Sesamum indicum L.) seeds oil extraction in dilute medium. Aim and Objective: In this paper it can be seen the reasoning leading to KUNYIMA method is relevant and can be used to size commercial tank giving thus home rational technology. Methodology: The Soxhlet extraction of oil from sesame (Sesamum indicum L.) seeds has been performed in dilute medium using petroleum ether as solvent. Results: The obtained results are satisfactory and are perfectly in agreement with the proposed model. Commercial tank construction on rational calculation is now possible. Conclusion: KUNYIMA method once more is valid and allows to calculate the sizing factor needful to determine the reactor optimal volume.

[Abstract] This paper reflects to the political reform and the political initiative in quarter of a century after cold war, and in addition to this, reflecting to the collapse of government of Democratic Party of Japan (DP) . At first, we try an analysis about the point of argument that has what kind of political meaning of the House of Representatives election in December, 2012 which decided to the collapse of DP Government. Next, with looking back over the political history about the political reform and the political initiative in quarter of a century, and also with exchanging the suggestion of 21 Seiki Rincho which has led the discourse of the political reform, we reflect about the state of the political initiative that DP Government was unsuccessful. Therefore, we summarize the conclusion of political reform and the political initiative in quarter of a century, we look out over the future.

Lungisile Ntsebeza. Democracy Compromised: Chiefs and the Politics of the Land in South Africa. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers, 2005. x + 326 pp. Maps. Bibliography. Index. $38.00. Paper. Jaap DeVisser. Developmental Local Government: A Case Study of South Africa. Antwerp, Belgium: lntersentia, 2005. Distributed by Gaunt, Inc., 3011 Gulf Drive, Holmes Beach, FIa., 34217. xix + 313 pp. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index. euro59.50. Paper. As a component of both democratization and development, local government has increasingly assumed a central role in the discourse of "good governance." Reflecting the assumption that local government is inherently more democratic and responsive to the needs of the people, the power of local government is increasing under the rubric of devolution, decentralization, and deconcentration. In South Africa, this policy was enshrined in the 1997 Constitution, which marks local government as the "epicenter" of development. Localization marks a significant reverse of postcolonial models of state-led development in Africa. Until the introduction of structural adjustment, state-led development was also at the heart of the developmental programs of the international financial institutions. Since the early 1990s, however, development has increasingly emphasized decentralization of political and economic authority away from the central state toward various subnational units. The two works reviewed here thus represent important efforts to come to terms with the scope and nature of local government in the South African context. DeVisser contends that decentralization is a key tool for economic development in South Africa. For him, the establishment of developmental local government must be predicated on three principles: autonomy, supervision, and cooperation. The bulk of the work consists of exploration of these three principles in the context of the South African case. However, such decentralization can be successful only insofar as the power and autonomy of local government are institutionalized in legal structures, particularly the South African Constitution. The most important source of autonomy, argues DeVisser, is the fiscal autonomy necessary to ensure that the financial resources available to local government are sufficient to satisfy their developmental obligations and responsibilities. Reflecting the legal background of the author, DeVisser's book is at its strongest when exploring the legal framework necessary to establish local developmental government. Indeed, the text makes extensive reference to legal debates over the nature of the emerging federal system playing itself out in South African courts. The institutional model for developmental local government outlined in the text was developed through extensive consultations with local governments across South Africa. However, the text has little to say regarding the informal power relationships that underscore relations between various levels of government in a federal system. Ntsebeza offers a fundamentally different take on the nature and importance of local government in contemporary South Africa. Instead of focusing on the broad legal structures of national-local relations, he looks at the historical political economy of local rule. His analysis offers a more thorough and complete consideration of the historical position of local government in South Africa. Unlike DeVisser's book, which offers only marginal comments on the historical specificity of the South African case, Ntsebeza's text is almost exclusively historical, with most of the chapters devoted to the history of local rule in Xhalanga District, Eastern Cape, during several distinct time periods. The book offers only a brief analysis of the postapartheid system. Most impressive is the well-supported argument regarding the antidemocratic nature of rural authorities (headmen, chiefs, traditional authorities) as shown in the concrete case of Xhalanga District-an analysis that traces the evolution of rural authority from before the establishment of white colonial rule, through apartheid, and into independence. …

Never before have the fates of individual communities and nations been so intertwined, exemplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. And never before have our safety and well-being depended so much on the safety and well-being of others. A new approach to thinking about safety and security is required: an approach where we commit to our mutual well-being and equitable access to resources. Shared security is a paradigm that promotes the safety and well-being of people throughout the world. It is the idea that shared problems require shared nonviolent solutions and that our interests are best served when we foster peaceful and just relationships together. The vision of shared security is very simply the idea that “my peace is your peace”—the understanding that peace and security are indivisible. It is a peace-building paradigm and belief that we can find mutual solutions to societal problems without weapons or violence. A shared-security approach invests seriously in peace building instead of war building in the name of security. It imagines a world where leaders are mobilized not to build walls, separate families, and bomb targets but to work together to prioritize peace building, support people-powered movements, and invest in early interventions that address the root causes of conflict long before violence and discrimination erupt, dividing civil society and fracturing the institutions that enable cooperation and democracy.

The article goal is to explain the European Union approach to artificial intelligence based on principles of democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights incorporated on the development of the AI-based products. So, the article is focused on the description of the main elements of the European Union strategy lunched to face the issues of the legal and ethical issues related to IA. Thus, the framework mentioned above will be used to describe a scientific experiment realized in an Institute of the Italian National Research Council (CNR), that is an application requiring the adoption of innovative Artificial Intelligence techniques, where the ethical component to be faced is not limited to the aspect of privacy, but, much more important, to the intelligibility of the reasoning process.

This excellent book explores how and why people participate in politics, focusing mostly on those without the educational, financial, and civic resources that enable democratic participation in the United States. How is it, Hahrie Han asks, that a large, underresourced population returned to New Orleans against great odds to vote in a mayoral election? Han problematizes the received wisdom about political participation, bringing new attention to the seemingly intractable problem of political inequality in the United States. How did these people manage to come from out of town, many of them busing in and out on the same day, to vote in a municipal election? If we find the answer to this question, we may discover new ways to expand political participation in the United States, particularly among those populations that seem to be the most difficult to pull into the democratic decision-making process.

This study faces the problem of female participation in politics, since historically they are excluded of elections. The Article 10, paragraph 3, of Law 9,504 / 97 establishes electoral gender quota rule. This device has been changed with the electoral reform of 2009 (Law 12,034 / 09). Takes care here the state that provides for inclusion minority that has no representation in homes to legislate, in an attempt to correct the distortion caused historically in representative democracy. But the literature used showed that until now this device was not successful, because it is urgent to change other parts of the Brazilian electoral system, and the promotion to empower women, not only in terms the right to vote and be voted on, but in the other freedoms inherent in their economic and social development, without which moves away from the promotion of human dignity., O presente trabalho enfrenta o problema da participação feminina na política, vez que historicamente excluídas dos pleitos eleitorais. Assim, o artigo 10, §3º, da Lei 9.504/97 estabelece regra de cota eleitoral de gênero. Tal dispositivo foi alterado pela reforma eleitoral de 2009 (Lei 12.034/09). Cuida-se então de uma providencia estatal para inclusão por meio de políticas públicas de minoria que não encontra representatividade nas casas legiferantes. Isso numa tentativa de corrigir a distorção provocada historicamente na democracia representativa. Mas pela pesquisa bibliográfica utilizada evidenciou-se que até o presente momento referido dispositivo não logrou êxito, porquanto urge a modificação de outros pontos do sistema eleitoral brasileiro, bem como o fomento para o empoderamento feminino, não somente no que tange o direito de votar e ser votada, mas nas demais liberdades inerentes ao seu desenvolvimento econômico e social, sem os quais se distancia da promoção dignidade da pessoa humana.

Google is a multinational technology company whose massive advertising profits have allowed them to expand into many areas, including education. While the company has increasingly faced public scrutiny, the use of Google software and hardware in schools has often resulted in little debate. In this paper, we conduct a technoethical audit of Google to address ethical, legal, democratic, economic, technological, and pedagogical concerns educators, students, and community members might consider. We describe how Google extracts personal data from students, skirts laws intended to protect them, targets them for profits, obfuscates the company's intent in their Terms of Service, recommends harmful information, and distorts students' knowledge. We propose that educators and scholars more closely interrogate the tools of Google and other technology companies to move toward more democratic and just uses of technology in schools.

The literature on hybrid regimes has a new and undisputed heavyweight champion. Eight years after their widely cited Journal of Democracy article first unveiled “competitive authoritarianism” as a distinctive type of hybrid regime, Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way have constructed a volume that theorizes and traces the trajectories of the countries that have fit into this category since the Cold War's end—all thirty-five of them. While the theoretical ambition of Competitive Authoritarianism stakes the book's rightful claim to the title of hybrid-regime champion, the book's voluminous empirics unmistakably place it in political science's heavyweight class.