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This article briefly charts the debates surrounding the afterlife of a heritage space of political violence, the Târgu Jiu camp in Western Romania, and locates the ensuing narratives in the current contestations of the liberal democratic consensus in Central and Eastern Europe. The camp was an important Holocaust site and an equally relevant space for the early communist movement. Contrary to similar sites where competing interpretations of these histories are at play, this camp has been largely absent from debates on public memory of past political violence nationally. The significance of this space for local political history has been silenced. This article concerns itself with the long dynamic of silencing difficult heritage, its causes and implications and the selective perspectives on certain histories it entails. Târgu Jiu is a microcosm of this entanglement. Emerging in Romanian media and public debate at the time of the 2014 “refugee” reception crisis, this newly retrieved collecting memory of the camp capitalized on a history of past internal European displacement, Romanian victimhood and a sense of persecuted national sovereignty. Silencing made room for newer selective histories of this heritage space. Specifically, the complex history of the camp was appropriated into a type of politics of memory that reconfigures narratives about “liberal” values in the region. This article discusses the processes through which liberal, “European” values are appropriated and instrumentalized for the very opposite principles.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the characteristics of two political phenomena: populism and technocracy. Often seen as opposites, the two factors are linked by some elements: both are described by their proponents as remedies to the legitimacy crisis that modern representative democracies are going through; both tend to define certain practices and principles of constitutional democracy that are insufficient to ensure effective governance of society; both see as their main remedy a restriction of the classical functions of representation and of the institutions of mediation (parties and parliament among all). Nevertheless, the two phenomena seem to follow the dynamics of opposite extremes: in the phases when the democratic order is increasingly identified with technocracy, the populist democratic eschatology gains confidence on the basis of the promise to return to citizens the power stolen from them by non-elective institutions. We will attempt to identify some key features that unite the two phenomena and we will highlight the differences in principle, the possible relationships as part of a more general democratic vulnus and the different types of impact they have on democracy and its principles.

This explorative study contributes to the theoretical debate on political incivility beyond the domination of Western-centric approaches while connecting the bodies of literature in political philosophy and media research. It offers empirical evidence of Bolsonaro’s delegitimizing criticisms and uncivil expressions toward the press, some specific news outlets, and individual journalists during the first two years of his presidential mandate in Brazil. It concludes that Bolsonaro displayed the complete repertoire of the defining elements of political incivility in liberal democracies vis à vis the delegitimization of the press. He also unprecedently pushed the limits of civility in political discourse by employing the entire arsenal of verbal manifestations of impoliteness.

W książce Abusive Constitutional Borrowing. Legal Globalization and the Subversion of Liberal Democracy autorzy Rosalind Dixon i David Landau podkreślają, że globalizacja prawna ma „ciemną stronę”, ponieważ normy liberalno-demokratycznego konstytucjonalizmu można z łatwością wykorzystać do antydemokratycznych celów. Następuje dezorientacja zarówno krajowej, jak międzynarodowej areny politycznej poprzez zastosowanie norm wprawdzie właściwych demokracji, jednakże stanowiących potężne narzędzia służące konsolidacji władzy i tłumieniu opozycji. Obecna epoka to czas, w którym demokratyczne odstępstwa i ukryty autorytaryzm stały się wiodącymi problemami. Niektóry reżimy ubierają swoje działania pod pozorem liberalno-demokratycznego dyskursu. Zamiast dokonywać wojskowych zamachów stanu współcześni decydenci mają tendencję do przeprowadzania bardziej legalnych form antydemokratycznych zmian w celu podważenia demokracji wykorzystując do tego prawa konstytucyjne czy sądy (kontrolę sądową). Cechą charakterystyczną abuzywnych zapożyczeń konstytucyjnych jest zmaksymalizowanie osiągniecia antydemokratycznego celu. Jest to celowy atak na demokratyczny rdzeń minimum, który w konsekwencji powoduje stopniową erozję demokracji. Współczesne demokracje mają tendencję do cofania się w kierunku autorytaryzmu poprzez łączenie różnych form nadużyć konstytucyjnych, które dzielą się na zmiany konstytucyjne i podkonstytucyjne o formalnym lub nieformalnym charakterze. Ponadto wyróżnia się różne rodzaje zapożyczeń, tj. pozorne, selektywne, akontekstowe oraz antycelowe. In the book Abusive Constitutional Borrowing. Legal Globalization and the Subversion of Liberal Democracy its authors Rosalind Dixon and David Landau emphasize that legal globalization has its ‘dark side’ since the norms of liberal and democratic constitutionalism can easily be used for anti-democratic purposes. There appears disorientation in both the national and international political arena through the application of norms, which are peculiar to democracies, albeit they constitute potent tools for consolidating power and suppressing opposition. The present era is the time where democratic backsliding and covert autocratization have become the prevalent issues. Some regimes dress their activities under the guise of a liberal and democratic discourse. In lieu of committing military coups, modern policymakers tend to implement more legal forms of anti-democratic change to undermine democracy by using constitutional rights or the courts (judicial review). The characteristic feature of abusive constitutional borrowing is to maximize the achievement of antidemocratic goal. It is a deliberate attack on the democratic minimum core, which consequently leads to a gradual erosion of democracy. Modern democracies have a tendency to move back to autocratization by combining different forms of constitutional abuses, which can be classified as constitutional changes and sub-constitutional ones with a formal or informal character. Moreover, one can also discern various forms of borrowings i.e., superficial, selective, acontextual, and anti-purposive.

What are the downstream political consequences of state activity explicitly targeting a minority group? This question is well studied in the comparative context, but less is known about the effects of explicitly racist state activity in liberal democracies such as the United States. We investigate this question by looking at an important event in American history—the mass internment of people of Japanese ancestry during World War II. We find that Japanese Americans who were interned or had family who were interned are significantly less politically engaged and that this demobilizing effect increases with internment length. We also find that camp experience matters: those who went to camps that witnessed violence or strikes experienced sharper declines. Taken together, our findings contribute to a growing literature documenting the demobilizing effects of ethnically targeted incarceration and expand our understanding of these forces within the U.S.

In recent times, the idea of popular sovereignty has figured prominently in the rhetoric of neo-populist thinkers and activists who argue that legal and political authority must be concentrated in one single body or individual elected by the people to act in its name. The thesis of this article is that, while the notion of popular sovereignty may seem to offer some support to the neo-populist image of democracy, it serves more persuasively to support the idea of a polycentric, constitutional democracy. The constitutional state can be polycentric and yet feature a sovereign. And if this constitutional state is democratic in the sense of distributing power relatively equally amongst individual citizens, thus empowering the people-several, then it will establish the people-corporate in the role of sovereign.

This study deepens our understanding of environmental knowledge production under varying political-economic regimes. While the extant scholarship on undone science, that is the systemic non-production of knowledge, is largely based in liberal democracies in the US and Europe, it elides important differences in the making and unmaking of science elsewhere. Using the case of Peru’s left-leaning military dictatorship (1968–1980), I show how undone science contributed to the 1973 collapse of the world’s largest fishery and one of the most studied fisheries on the planet: the anchoveta (Engraulis ringens). In an effort to reconstruct the fishery and resolve undone science, I also demonstrate how the state collapsed established boundaries by brokering research between previously antagonistic scientific fields and enabling South-South coalitions across Latin America. The evidence presented here illustrates how, during times of crisis, states can nationalize fisheries science, meaning they promote novel scholarship from domestic data sources, among local scientists, and between endemic research institutions. Thus, the main drivers of epistemic change, in this case, are state actors exercising “conventional” practices, undermining the assumption that only bottom-up and “contentious” pressure can do so. This research offers important lessons for future research on state-science relations in the Global South.

Objective/Context: People usually associate democracy with different sorts of values and desirable outcomes. An informed understanding of democracy, however, requires that the public be aware that democracy is a regime in which elections are free and fair, the government is bound by the rule of law, and citizens have equal political rights and civil freedoms. This article is a contribution to the scholarship on the public understanding of democracy as a liberal-electoral regime. The central claim is that an informed notion of democracy reinforces the relationship between perception of integrity in the electoral process and confidence in elections as a core institution in the political system. Methodology: Using survey data, the empirical analysis focuses on the case of Mexico, where several observers identify a crucial puzzle: voters systematically distrust elections that are widely regarded as free and fair. The analysis is replicated in other Latin American countries as well. Conclusions: As would be expected, voters are more likely to trust elections when they perceive that ballots are counted fairly, electoral officials are honest, media coverage is balanced, or women have equal opportunities to run for office. The results confirm, furthermore, that perception of electoral integrity is associated with a greater degree of trust in elections on the condition that voters understand democracy as a liberal regime. Originality: This research shows that an accurate understanding of democracy enhances citizens’ abilities to appreciate the link between electoral integrity and the trustworthiness of elections. Objetivo/contexto: es común que la ciudadanía asocie a la democracia con diferentes valores y resultados deseables. Una comprensión informada de la democracia requiere, sin embargo, que la gente la conciba como un régimen en el que las elecciones son libres y limpias, el Gobierno está limitado por la legalidad y la ciudadanía goza de iguales derechos y libertades. El argumento es que una comprensión informada de la democracia liberal-electoral refuerza la relación positiva entre la percepción de integridad electoral y la confianza en las elecciones. Metodología: con base en encuestas de opinión pública, el análisis empírico se centra en el caso de México, donde se observa una amplia desconfianza ciudadana en las elecciones a pesar de que los comicios suelen ser libres y limpios. El análisis se replica en otros países de América Latina. Conclusiones: el análisis revela que es más probable que los votantes confíen en las elecciones si perciben que los votos se cuentan limpiamente, los funcionarios electorales son imparciales, los medios ofrecen una cobertura equilibrada o las mujeres tienen iguales oportunidades de ser candidatas. Este estudio muestra, además, que los votantes que perciben integridad electoral y tienen una comprensión informada de la democracia expresarán más confianza en las elecciones que quienes no conciben la democracia de esa forma. Originalidad: los resultados confirman que una concepción informada de la democracia fortalece la confianza en las elecciones entre quienes perciben integridad en el proceso electoral. Objetivo/contexto: é comum que a cidadania associe a democracia a diferentes valores e resultados desejáveis. Uma compreensão informada da democracia requer, contudo, que as pessoas a concebam como um regime em que as eleições são livres e limpas, em que o governo está limitado pela legalidade e a cidadania se beneficie de direitos e liberdades iguais. Argumenta-se que uma compreensão informada da democracia liberal-eleitoral reforça a relação positiva entre a percepção da integridade eleitoral e a confiança nas eleições. Metodologia: com base em pesquisas de opinião pública, a análise empírica se centraliza no caso do México, no qual é observada uma ampla desconfiança cidadã nas eleições apesar de os comícios serem, geralmente, livres e limpos. A análise é reproduzida em outros países da América Latina. Conclusões: a análise revela que é mais provável que os eleitores confiem nas eleições se perceberem que os votos são contados de forma limpa, os cabos eleitorais forem imparciais, os meios oferecerem uma cobertura equilibrada ou as mulheres tiverem iguais oportunidades de candidatura. Este estudo mostra, além disso, que os eleitores que percebem integridade eleitoral e têm uma compreensão informada da democracia mostram mais confiança nas eleições do que aqueles que não concebem a democracia dessa forma. Originalidade: os resultados confirmam que uma concepção informada da democracia fortalece a confiança nas eleições entre quem percebe integridade no processo eleitoral.

This article examines the Albanian political regime, as a single case study, for the period 2013-2021, as part of the Western Balkans' experience of democratic backsliding, by investigating the framework of factors linked with the formidable challenge posed by the emergence of a hybrid regime of Albania in these years. For the first time in Albania's post-communist history, the incumbent Socialist Party of Albania won for the third time in a row the parliamentary elections of April 2021, thus making the bid for the power of the leading opposition parties much harder. This paper uses country-expert statistical data from V-Dem and qualitative data analyses. The study reveals that the over-reliance on strong leaders, the growing government control over public life, fragmentation of the opposition, its lack of appeal, organization and mobilization, the boycott of the parliamentary mandates, combined with the weakening role of media and distrust of the citizens in democratic institutions, led to the resurgence of the authoritarian mechanisms, making the liberal democratic transformation in Albania an increasingly challenging task.

Australia's post-war programme of mass immigration has been accompanied by growing ethnic and racial diversity. This process of diversification accelerated markedly from the 1970s onwards after the abandonment of the White Australia Policy in the 1960s. Despite this diversification, Australia has been able to sustain itself as a peaceful liberal democracy. It is the contention of this article that Australia's policies of multiculturalism have played an important role in contributing to this state of relative peacefulness. This article seeks to assemble some evidence from the Australian experience to ‘test’ the notion that the peacefulness of Australian society may, in some measure, be understood as a product of the contribution of its policies of multiculturalism to engendering and reinforcing those very virtues which liberal democracies require in order to sustain themselves over time.

Sveprisutnost reči kriza ne samo u svakodnevnom govoru, već i u akademskim radovima, nije ispraćena adekvatnim određenjem značenja reči. U prvom delu teksta autor nastoji da prikaže promene značenja reči kriza tokom istorije, argumentujući da kriza ne mora nužno imati negativnu konotaciju, već da može predstavljati priliku za promenu. U drugom delu teksta autor istražuje šta se podrazumeva pod pojmom „kriza demokratije“, pri čemu zastupa tezu da su tokom dvadesetog veka različiti autori, zavisno od svojih normativnih i političkih pozicija, pod time podrazumevali različite stvari, nudeći sasvim drugačija rešenja za krizu demokratije. Za objektivno stanje predlagana su različita subjektivna rešenja za prevazilaženje krize, što ilustruje da „demokratija“ i „kriza demokratije“ nemaju fiksirano značenje, već zavise od društvenog i političkog konteksta. This paper specifies the meaning of terms crisis and crisis of democracy. The ubiquity of the word crisis, not only in everyday speech, but also in academic papers, is not accompanied by an adequate determination of meaning of the word. In the first part of the paper, the author tries to show changes in meaning of the word crisis throughout history, arguing that a crisis does not necessarily have a negative connotation, but that it can be an opportunity for change. It shows what the word meant during the ancient period, when it encompassed the fields of law, medicine, and theology, and how the transfer of meaning from medicine to politics took place. The author especially points out duality of meaning of the word – the crisis implies an objective state that can be determined by impartial observation and, at the same time, a subjective recommendation of a remedy for the crisis. It is precisely the subjective moment that is an opportunity to point out that the terms often do not have objective and scientific meanings, but are colored by the normative and political positions of the authors. In this way, the notion of “crisis of democracy” is approached and the analysis of how the notion of democracy was reconceptualized in the crisis periods (two crises during the twentieth century and the current crisis of democracy). Hence, in the second part of the paper, the author explores what is meant by the term “crisis of democracy”, arguing that during the twentieth century, different authors, depending on their normative and political positions, meant different things and offered completely different solutions to the crisis of democracy. For the objective state of the crisis, various subjective solutions have been proposed for overcoming the crisis, which illustrates that “democracy” and “crisis of democracy” do not have a fixed meaning, but depend on social and political context. When parliamentary democracy was in crisis during the interwar period it was heavily criticized for being ineffective in making decisions in times of crisis and some authors argued in favour of switching towards dictatorship. On the other hand, parliamentarism is resented for the fact that, by depoliticizing economic and social relations, it has made sense to take over power through elections. Models of radical democracy have been proposed as a solution to this problem. After the Second World War, debates about the crisis of democracy were conducted in the context of the Cold War, when some theorists identified democracy with the elitist model. Causes of the crisis are then found in the excessive demands of the citizens and a robust welfare state. Limited participation and disintegration of the welfare state was offered as a solution to this problem This diagnosis of the problem and the proposed solutions have been criticized in favor of greater participation and overcoming the elitist model of democracy. The modern crisis of democracy, especially after 2008, is manifested by the growth of indifference and apathy among citizens. Political field narrowing, impossibility of qualitative change through elections, and growth of distrust towards political parties motivated reconceptualization of liberal democracy in favor of participatory models.

The article analyzes the role of religion in socio-political processes in Europe, in the post-Soviet space, and more broadly in the Western world. The structural and functional approach, methods of sociological and political analysis of the religious factor as a political phenomenon are applied. The purpose of the study is to analyze the role of religion (mainly Christian churches) in democratic processes on the example of the EU member states and the post-Soviet space. Special attention is paid to the participation of various Christian churches in socio-political transformations, conflicts and “orange” revolutions, as well as to the opposition of religion to the ideology of modern liberal democracy from the standpoint of traditionalism (identity). It is concluded that religion has become an important marker of a global phenomenon that can be called the “fourth wave” of democratization (following the periodization of S. Huntington). If within the framework of the third wave, religion was one of the elements and at the same time objects of democratization, then since the 2000s religion is the main impulse factor of the entire process of traditionalist democratization in social, political and cultural dimensions. The civic activity of believers corrects liberal democracy, makes it more “moral,” and not archaic. The merit of religion is that it has clearly defined the boundaries beyond which the democracy of the future should not be transgressed: the recognition of the right to traditional moral foundations for entire societies and states along with the usual liberal freedoms, i.e., equality of all races and peoples, the value of every person, the freedom of speech.

Transitional Justice (TJ) focuses on the processes of dealing with the legacy of large-scale past abuses (in the aftermath of traumatic experiences such as war or authoritarianism) with the aim of fostering domestic justice and creating the basis for a sustainable peace. TJ however also entails the problem of how a torn society may be able to become a self-determining member of a just international order. This paper presents a minimal conception of TJ, which departs from Rawls' conception of normative stability of the international order, which suggests disentangling the two goals of fostering democracy within torn societies and TJ itself. The scope of TJ is therefore limited to enabling these societies to create minimal internal conditions for joining a just international order on equal footing. This paper makes an original contribution to two different debates, namely normative research on TJ, and post-Rawlsian literature in general. First, it provides a new direction for normative theorizing about TJ which takes both its domestic and international dimensions seriously into consideration. Second, it extends Rawls' political liberal outlook to an area where it is not usually understood to apply.

Philosophers now commonly reject the value free ideal for science by arguing that non-epistemic values, including personal or social values, are permissible within the core of scientific research. However, little attention has been paid to the normative political consequences of this position. This paper explores these consequences and shows how political theory is fruitful for proceeding in a world without value-neutral science. I draw attention to an oft-overlooked argument employed by proponents of the value free ideal I dub the “political legitimacy argument.” This argument claims that the value-free ideal follows directly from the foundational principles of liberal democracy. If so, then the use of value-laden scientific information within democratic decision making would be illegitimate on purely political grounds. Despite highlighting this unaddressed and important argument, I show how it can be rejected. By appealing to deliberative democratic theory, I demonstrate scientific information can be value-laden and politically legitimate. The deliberative democratic account I develop is well suited for capturing the intuitions of many opponents of the value free ideal and points to a new set of questions for those interested in values in science.

The undisputed success of Sri Lanka’s first Election Commission (2015 – 2020) was the conduct of free and fair elections, that is to say, electoral management. I argue in this article that, by design and in practice, it was unable to or failed to advance electoral integrity that is urgently required for the health of Sri Lanka’s constitutional democracy. At critical points when electoral integrity and constitutional democracy were threatened, it is the Court, the traditional institutional check on the Executive and the Legislature, that prevented its further erosion. In this regard, the Commission made a modest contribution, but that contribution was contingent on personal disposition of the Commissioners. The Commission, therefore, was an institutional innovation that addressed symptoms of Sri Lanka’s ailing constitutional democracy but not its root-causes. The Commission has been a necessary but insufficient fix for the electoral pathologies of Sri Lanka’s constitutional democracy. Its ‘guarantor’ function, as I illustrate in this article, is narrowly conceived, perceived and lived out.

This book engages with current debates on ‘planetary urbanization’ and the nature of urban political theory but notably considers the implications of illiberalism on space, territory, and power. Such a focus is timely, as illiberalism (across various settings and terrains) is producing, and embedded in, increasingly complex, hybrid, multi-scalar, non-linear, and globally networked flows.Through ordinary explorations drawn from diverse empirical case studies (China, the United States, India, South Korea, and Singapore) and via mixed methodologies, the chapters in this volume seek to advance theory that moves beyond assumptions and certainties of what illiberalism is, how and where it operates, what it looks like, and how it is experienced and embodied in different contexts, offline and online. Chapters critically reflect upon themes like authoritarianism and the spatialization of illiberal power, from the grassroots up to national governments, and stress the need to move beyond normative understandings and portrayals of these terms and concepts. Presciently, this volume looks back on recent history, pre-dating the Covid-19 pandemic and some of the shocking political transformations now underway: as such, the chapters offer a valuable lens to critically consider issues like public health policies, surveillance and policing, borders and bordering, and activism and resistance.The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Territory, Politics, Governance.

In this paper I draw on qualitative material from the first complete data set of the ‘Measure of the quality of life in detention’ (MQLD) survey in the UK to explore common causes of distress in immigration removal centres and to reflect on their implication for understanding and challenging these sites. While similarities between immigration detention centres and prisons make it tempting to place the testimonies from people in detention within the framework of the ‘pains of imprisonment’, I propose an alternative reading of these first-hand accounts. Rather than approaching them as sociological statements of suffering, caused by the loss of liberty, I interpret them as political statements which, in turn, demand a political response. Immigration Removal centres, these people assert, are fundamentally at odds with key values of a liberal democracy. Those detained within them are not considered to be equal members of a shared community of value; rather, their incarceration in detention centres marks them out symbolically but also, as the testimonies in this piece make clear, quite practically, as outsiders to these ideas. The pain people describe illuminates the need for a new politics of detention.

Using composite indices that quantify the quality of institutions and democratic functioning, the paper argues that Turkey has always deviated in terms of liberal democracy and civil liberties from...

Este trabajo busca presentar, a partir de un testimonio directo, una visión legible y actualizada del concepto de Europa Central, como subregión diferenciada en el contexto de la Unión Europea. Entender la construcción de una nueva Europa Central luego del fin de la era comunista -caracterizada hoy por democracias liberales y economías de mercado consolidadas y con gran potencial- es uno de los retos más significativos de la política exterior de México. El concepto instrumental que orienta este trabajo es la construcción y funcionamiento del Grupo Visegrado, formado en 1991 e integrado por Polonia, República Checa, Eslovaquia y Hungría como la expresión política y de cooperación más consistente y clara de Europa Central en la actualidad. La reflexión que presenta este trabajo tiene como punto de partida un diálogo directo de los autores con uno de los artífices del Grupo Visegrado y actor central del fin del comunismo en Europa: el célebre líder obrero y expresidente polaco Lech Walesa. A treinta años de distancia de la creación del Grupo Visegrado, resulta fundamental conocer su perspectiva.

We are living in a world which is severely crisis-ridden and faces some major challenges. The fact that we are currently facing a genuine global pandemic (COVID-19) brings about even more uncertainty. The social and political institutions, which emerged and consolidated during the 20th century, and which created stability, have become fragile. The young generation born in the 1990s and onwards have experienced 9/11 and the ‘war against terrorism’, the financial crisis of 2008, changes to climate, environmental degradation, and most recently the COVID-19 pandemic. The generation born between 1960 and 1990 have had the same experiences along with severe economic crises in the 1970s and 1980s and the Cold War. Some of these challenges are in different ways intertwined with capitalism and its crises, while others are linked to the rapid development of new technologies, in particular innovations within communication and information technologies. This introduction lists the most important grand challenges facing the world as they have emerged more recently. The five articles following this introduction address some of these challenges, with particular attention to the problems of capitalism and democracy and the relation between these two areas. Most authors agree that climate change and the destruction of the environment are the biggest and most pertinent problems to address, but it is their stance that we can only meet these challenges if democracy is functioning well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Thesis Eleven is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The nature of state governance in consolidated liberal democracies has important implications for the ideal theory debate. The states of these societies are polycentric. Decision-making power withi...

Constitutional theory dating to Montesquieu identified three branches of government, each with a specific function: the legislature enacted general rules, the executive enforced the rules, and the judiciary resolved disputes about the rules’ meaning and application. Every government had to have these branches in some form; that is, the branches were necessary elements in a governance structure. In addition, the branches were exhaustive: that is, taken together they did everything a government could do.

This text sets out to examine the dilemma of the 2021 second round of elections in terms of a tragic conflict. Both electoral options pose authoritarian political proposals that violate the principles and practices of liberal democracy. As Polybius warned, the corruption of democracy leads to the oclocracy, a political figure that dissolves all forms of institutionality that produces the tyranny of the crowd. The only way to face this danger lies in the recovery of civic ethics, as well as the reconstruction of historical memory.

Este texto se propone examinar el dilema de la segunda vuelta electoral de 2021 en términos de un conflicto trágico. Ambas opciones electorales plantean propuestas políticas autoritarias que vulneran los principios y prácticas de la democracia liberal. Como Polibio advirtió, la corrupción de la democracia lleva a la oclocracia, una figura política que disuelve toda forma de institucionalidad que produce la tiranía de la muchedumbre. La única forma de enfrentar este peligro reside en la recuperación de la ética cívica, así como la reconstrucción de la memoria histórica.

In order to determine the possibilities of wider application of the ideas of Eurasianism in the foreign policy of Russia, including the EAEU, but not limited to it, an analysis of various methods and approaches used for integration processes is carried out. At the same time, the current geopolitical situation and the factors of multi-vector approach in international relations are taken into account. It is also proposed to take in attention the role of identity in a broad sense as a political attraction. At the same time, various problems at the organizational, social, humanitarian and economic levels are also considered. The broad security factors that also play a role in the Eurasian integration are also taken into account. The relevance of this study is due not only to the implementation of strategic directions within the EAEU, but also to the general course towards multipolarity that Russia is pursuing. In addition, the crisis of liberal democracy in the West provides an additional opportunity for Russia to implement its own ideas and doctrines at the international level. The author believes that Eurasianism, including its classical version, can become one of the imperatives of Russia’s foreign policy.

This article examines how understandings of the rule of law are shaped in the Chechen diaspora in Norway. Taking as our point of departure studies of legal pluralism and the co-existence of traditional Adat, religious Sharia and Russian secular law in Chechnya, we examine the effect of living in a host country by asking: How do members of the Chechen diaspora, here defined as conflict-generated diaspora, view and internalize legal models in Norway? What type of state governance do they see as ideal for themselves and for Chechnya in the future? Further: what might the underlying explanation for their choices be? We assume that just as different waves of violence in Chechnya created different diaspora communities that today exhibit specific social, cultural and political traits, the latest wave of forced emigration to Europe after the post-Soviet Russo–Chechen wars may have made specific imprints on the legal preferences of this diaspora. The picture that emerges from our in-depth individual interviews and surveys is one of gradual adaptation and adjustment to Norwegian state governance and rule of law, demonstrating the complex and co-constitutive relationships between changing identities and legal preferences.

The four Visegrad countries (V4) are widely perceived to be undermining liberal democracy and the stability of the European Union they joined in 2004. The essays in this special issue approach this...

The relationship between Eastern Orthodoxy and the political ethos of the West is of crucial importance for contextualizing the Church’s social engagement in the present day. Aristotle Papanikolaou and Vigen Guroian highlight points of tension in their respective accounts of the relationship between the Orthodoxy and western democratic social orders. Analysis of their argument provides a context for examining their contrasting understandings of human rights as a dimension of the public engagement of Orthodox Christians with the political realm. While neither completely rejects appeals to human rights, neither claims that such rhetoric manifests the full truth about the dignity of the human person according to the theological anthropology of Orthodox Christianity. Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, Archbishop Anastasios Yannoulatos of Albania, the statements of the Council of Crete (2016), and several other contemporary Orthodox voices place appeals to human rights in a theologically nuanced context that affirms their legitimacy while refraining from identifying them with the fullness of the moral and spiritual vision of Orthodox Christianity. Analysis of the debate between Papanikolaou and Guroian gives rise to a tentative affirmation of the critical use of the language of human rights in Eastern Orthodox social ethics.

Postwar recovery efforts foreground gender equality as a key component of building more liberal democracies. This review explores the burgeoning scholarship on women's rights after war, first grappling with war as a period of possibility for building new gender-inclusive institutions. We review efforts in three arenas: increasing women's political representation in postwar democratic transitions; improving access to justice for women through the extension of property rights and bodily autonomy within systems of carceral justice; and integrating women into labor markets and security sectors through various components of the Women, Peace, and Security agenda. Yet these inclusionary efforts have too often sought to dismantle one form of oppression (gender inequality) without challenging others. We document how projects to center women in liberal democratic reforms following war inadvertently overlook other manifestations of violence at the core of these institutions.

This study deals with the political theory of Thomas Hobbes and its implications to the political dynamism in Indonesia. The aim of this research is to analyze the philosophical concept of Hobbes on human rights and the theory of liberalism, and its relevance to the current situation in Indonesia, which has recently been exposed to the politics of populism. The presence of the populist movement is not new in Indonesia; but the rise of the politics of identity, it could threaten the protection of human rights and liberal democracy. We utilize the methodology of text analysis based on Hobbes’s original writing, Leviathan, and his other political treatises to explore his account on human rights and liberalism, and then employ Hobbes’s thoughts to investigate the phenomenon of populism. We divide the study into two sections, the first deals with the philosophy of human rights which Hobbes elucidates in the perspective of his hypothetical notion of the state of nature, the concept of authority, and his theory of liberalism; the second discusses populism in Indonesia today. The study found that the concept of human rights and liberalism would lead to awareness of mutual respect in society, while the populist movement becomes a real challenge to the implementation of human rights and the development of liberal democracy. The philosophy of human rights is in accordance with the political dynamism of Indonesian society. On the contrary, the populist movement could possibly plunge the country into a conflictual precipice of religious, racial-regional, and socio-political identities.

Bioethicists and philosophers dominate the on-going debate on human enhancement. They have debated the definition of human enhancement as well as the potential impacts of human enhancement technologies (such as pharmaceutical enhancements or pre-natal selection). These discussions have percolated, through bioethics bodies and bioethics recommendations, policy makers and have eventually been translated into policy. While some suggestions have been based largely in Western liberal democracies, others have deliberated the geopolitical consequences of human enhancement technologies. This paper argues that the present debate currently lacks perspectives from developing countries. It begins by introducing the current debate on human enhancement and recognizes Allen Buchanan’s well-raised concerns on how these technologies may potentially cause new injustices for low- and middle-income countries (‘developing countries’). It then provides two arguments calling for further research into human enhancement from the perspective of developing countries. First, this paper will argue that the current frames with which enhancement technologies are viewed are inherently neoliberal and require change. The second argument shows how the potential impacts of human enhancement technologies in developing countries have not been fully realized by analyzing how human enhancement technologies will impact Thailand, a developing country.

Polarization in society may hold consequences beyond the undermining of social cohesion. Here we provide the first evidence highlighting the power of perceived moral polarization in society to drive support for strong leaders. Across two studies and four samples drawn from the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States (N = 1,664), we found evidence linking perceived moral polarization with perceived anomie in society (defined as the perceived breakdown of social fabric and leadership) and with the rise in support for leaders with both a conservative/authoritarian and progressive/democratic style. Specifically, via the perceived breakdown in social fabric, heightened moral polarization predicted increased support for conservative/authoritarian style strong leaders, and via the perceived breakdown of leadership, increased support for progressive/democratic style strong leaders. Experimentally, using a fictionalized society paradigm, we then established causal links between moral polarization and the desire to elect conservative/authoritarian and progressive/democratic strong leaders. The current research is the first to identify the potential political consequences of heightened perceived moral polarization in two-party liberal democracies and contributes to the growing body of research highlighting the role of societal factors in driving support for strong leaders.

During the rule of law backsliding crisis in Poland since late 2015, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) have been active in the struggles to defend judicial independence. CSOs cooperate closely with judges and support their ‘judicial resistance’. This Article has three main objectives: describe and analyze the relationship between judges and CSOs; show the evolution — both continuity and discontinuity in their relations over time; assess whether CSOs’ activities are of any practical significance and therefore worth attention. The CSO-judicial relationship is analyzed for three periods: 1976–1989, the years before the transformation of Poland from a ‘people’s republic’ to a democracy; 1989–2015, the time of building liberal democracy and the rule of law; 2015–2020, the time of defending the rule of law from a populist attack.Drawing on sources including years of participant observation providing unique and insider knowledge, the author analyzes the activities and outputs of CSOs and judges focusing on their interactions and cooperation. The author argues that CSOs play a significant role in the struggle for the rule of law and judicial independence. This Article demonstrates that CSOs’ current engagement and input is not an extraordinary, ad hoc phenomenon, but rather one that arose from the previous interactions between the judiciary and civil society. The author argues that what we witness in Poland is an unprecedented phenomenon, both in the character of the relationship between judges and CSOs, and the scale and diversity of their cooperation. At the same time, the author claims that CSOs are underappreciated, including by academia, their work is taken for granted, and their role in the legal complex can be seen as a partly lost opportunity. If noticed, appreciated, and supported CSOs activities and their role could be more meaningful.

The German federal election of 2021 reshuffled Germany's party‐political hierarchy, but left the six‐party system intact. For the first time since 2002, the SPD narrowly overtook the CDU/CSU to become the party with the largest vote share. The Greens and the FDP also gained votes while the CDU/CSU and the Left party suffered high losses and the AfD minor losses. Crucially, party system continuity coexists with severe challenges for German policy makers, namely regional and global insecurity, decline in the country's infrastructure and social coherence, as well as the highly divisive management of the Covid crisis. While the electorate still focusses mostly on social protection and economic security, it is unclear whether Germany's political class can deliver on such expectations in a multi‐crisis context. Crucially, technocratic updating at the expense of liberal democracy and constitutional order will worsen rather than improve the current situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Political Quarterly is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article explores how the concept of democracy is constructed, conveyed, and instrumentalised in the discourses of the populist radical right in the current EU context. The comparative analysis of the speeches of the leaders of two dissimilar PRR parties in government (Polish Prawo i Sprawiedliwość) and in opposition (French Rassemblement National) in the run-up to the 2019 European elections using tools of the discourse-historical and discourse-conceptual approaches to CDS highlights the common core of PRR interpretations of democracy, influenced by the shared axiological, institutional, and discursive framework of the EU. It shows that in the EU the PRR constructs the concept of democracy as an ideological complex, by diluting its essentially populist interpretation of democracy with liberal democratic elements. Only by advancing nativist and authoritarian interpretations of the people, does the PRR bring the concept of democracy in line with its ideological core of nativism, authoritarianism, and populism.

This paper presents a novel philosophical analysis of the problem of law enforcement’s use of biased face recognition technology (FRT) in liberal democracies. FRT programs used by law enforcement in identifying crime suspects are substantially more error-prone on facial images depicting darker skin tones and females as compared to facial images depicting Caucasian males. This bias can lead to citizens being wrongfully investigated by police along racial and gender lines. The author develops and defends “A Liberal Argument Against Biased FRT,” which concludes that law enforcement use of biased FRT is inconsistent with the classical liberal requirement that government treat all citizens equally before the law. Two objections to this argument are considered and shown to be unsound. The author concludes by suggesting that equality before the law should be preserved while the problem of machine bias ought to be resolved before FRT and other types of artificial intelligence (AI) are deployed by governments in liberal democracies.

Parallels have been drawn between the 1930s and today, notably the existence of unstable economic conditions as well as deepening, antagonistic ideological divisions. In the 1940s, two books appeared that presented opposing diagnoses of, and remedies for, the problems that faced Western societies at that time. In Man and Society, Karl Mannheim argued that forms of political organization had not adapted to changing social, economic, and technological conditions, and that this explained the rise of communism and fascism. He insisted that, in order to avoid disorder and political extremism, liberal democracies needed to engage in greater planning of their economic and social affairs, with sociology providing the synthesis of scientific knowledge required for this. Just a few years later, Friedrich Hayek published The Road to Serfdom, in which Mannheim's work was a central target. He insisted that only the preservation of liberal freedoms and competitive markets could prevent the spread of totalitarianism. This paper outlines the arguments of each of these authors and provides an account of some of the historical background against which their disagreement arose. It also explores the relevance of their very different positions today, at a time when the neoliberal ideology that Hayek championed continues to have great influence but is under increasing attack from across the political spectrum.

The narrowing eligibility and increasing conditionality of social security payments in Anglophone liberal democracies like Australia has been accompanied by growing attention to the ways benefit recipients navigate the personal and practical challenges of life amid welfare reforms. This article reorients the study of getting by on welfare benefits to focus on the material and affective investment in making life liveable. I argue that the generative dimension of getting by is suggested but submerged within the reactive orientation of much welfare scholarship on coping and resilience. This article takes up the challenge of telling sociological stories of hope in hardship without romanticising everyday struggle. It does so by focusing on the pleasures, pursuits and projects – however modest and muted – that sustain a liveable life in hardship but do not necessarily conform to normative ideas of ‘good resilience’.

In what follows, I reflect on themes arising from my reading of Jacob Levy’s The Separation of Powers and the Challenge to Constitutional Democracy. According to Levy, the separation of powers in contemporary constitutional democracies is failing, thus endangering the rule of law. Briefly, this is because political parties have bridged the gap between the legislature and the executive: by giving rise to partisan politics that cross the institutional divide, political parties have dampened, if not disabled, the institutional incentive and motivation of the legislature to keep the executive in check. Furthermore, when this is combined with the myth of the united and undifferentiated people, which the executive, populistically, can easily claim to embody, the simple act of opposing the executive may be framed as seditious. In the end, the power of the executive is set free by the partisan loyalty of fellow party members and by the framing of opposition as disloyal and deleterious to the polity.

This work intends to investigate the different conceptions—accommodation and laicization—that underlie processes of legislative regulation and judicial decision in matters of conflicts involving the right to religious freedom, in the legal systems of North America and Brazil. We will also investigate the potential for harmonization of legal in conflicts with other fundamental rights. The objective here is to build possibilities in order to establish a synthesis meaning for the right of religious freedom, in accordance with the democratic constitutional models of law to begin with, the recent modulations which allowed the fundamental right to religious freedom, especially from the edition of some US federal and state legislation, as well as from a set of decisions taken by Brazilian courts. As a corollary of these modulations, the article intends to assess the consequences that these new laws and judicial decisions caused in the legal system, through social andinstitutional democratic practices related to any fundamental rights. We used the dialectical method, since the idea and the foundation of the right to religious freedom follow a three-stage approach: thesis (religious freedom in its original sense and secularized conception), antithesis (right to religious freedom as a possibility to act in the exercise of belief, by claiming accommodation with other rights), and synthesis (the perspective to elaborate a proper sense to liberal democracies). Initial results indicate that both models based on secularization and accommodation can generate democratic and undemocratic meanings to the right of religious freedom; both models can either harmonize conflicting rights or escalate social antagonisms.

The history of political philosophy serves as a valuable resource for the current research paradigms in political science. In comparative terms, the paradigm of Western research is essentially “change-oriented” and tends to shift constantly with its evolving thoughts. Due to the influence of bourgeois revolutions around the world, contemporary politics has transpired as the synopsis of governance of the established order. As the “governing strategies” of the established order encounter multiple social crises, the Marxist political science or Marxism has emerged as the naturally preferred alternative research paradigm. During the Cold War period, such governing strategies were adopted as universal values in Western political science, effectuating the prediction of “the end of the history.” After the launch of the reform and opening-up campaign, “change-oriented” liberal democracy became an instrumental paradigm for Chinese political science. However, as the contemporary world order disfavored this paradigm, Chinese scholars shifted their research focus to developing an independent discourse power in democracy and governance, as well as prioritizing state governance as their primary research paradigm and methodology. Thus, political science is expected to resume its common sense nearly after a century of political chaos.

Este artigo resgata alguns conceitos doutrinários sobre o tempo até sua compreensão como uma instituição social, com referencial teórico no filósofo belga François Ost. Com base nessa concepção, o trabalho identifica quatro momentos característicos no período transcorrido entre o golpe civil-militar e a democracia constitucional no Brasil. Conclui-se que o processo transicional brasileiro se revela como atrasado e inacabado, e que no momento em que a Constituição brasileira completa trinta anos é urgente retomar o processo constitucional de transição, sob pena de surgirem fissuras no Estado Democrático de Direito brasileiro. Enviado el (Submission Date): 18/10/2020 Aceptado el (Acceptance Date): 22/12/2020

Objetiva este artigo enfocar a crise da democracia liberal com a ascensão de movimentos populistas e o seu riscodemocrático, sob a perspectiva do sistema interamericano. Para tanto, foram analisados três julgados emblemáticosda Corte Interamericana de Direitos Humanos, identificando dois importantes aspectos: a tendência populistaem atacar a independência judicial e o princípio da separação de Poderes; e a essencialidade da atuação conjuntados atores institucionais internos e internacionais para a necessária proteção dos princípios básicos democráticos,considerando, sobretudo, o impacto do sistema interamericano de proteção dos direitos humanos.

The aim of this paper is to analyse political activity in the mass media discourses of states with more democratic and more authoritative regimes respectively, so as to show a clear difference in the context of a formal analysis of mass media content. The current study examines political news on qualitative online media portals in Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. Thirty years ago, these states began their independent transition from a closed system to openness/democracy. However, at today’s transition point, only Lithuania is considered a democratic country. In different periods Ukraine has been considered an example of competitive authoritarianism, while Belarus deviated towards complete authoritarianism and dictatorship. All political news items between 2005–2020 (for delfi.lt – since 2007) were collected with the help of the Python program. To measure the indicators, several Python programs were designed. The results of the research confirmed that the intensity of political activity differs in the mass media discourses of states with more democratic (Lithuania, Ukraine) and more authoritative (Belarus) regimes. Furthermore, a clear difference was shown in terms of five indicators, average indicators and the dynamics thereof.

Based on a nationwide survey dataset collected by Taiwan’s Executive Yuan (2017) (N = 2737) and adopting structural equation modelling with bootstrapped method, we confirm that citizens’ positive appraisal of liberal democracy can foster subjective wellbeing via political trust but find civic participation irrelevant in this model. The proposed model remains significant after age, education, residency and personal income are controlled. The only exceptions are the gender effects in the relationship between appraisal of liberal democracy and political trust and that between political trust and civic participation. The former is positively stronger for female, whereas the latter is negatively stronger for male. While civic participation has long been widely accepted as a foundational component of any consolidated democracy, empirical evidence of this study calls for reflection on the application of this notion in an East Asian setting.

Across Africa, as in Ghana, state funding of political parties continues to generate debates across academic and policy circles. Against this background, three constituencies in the Upper West Region of Ghana were selected purposely to interrogate views of the public on this development. A combined 78 participants were selected in a mixed study design through purposive and quota sampling techniques. Primary data were gathered through focus group discussions and interviews revealed that 72.2% of the respondents favoured direct state funding of political parties indicating this will make multi-party democracy vibrant and competitive. 44.2% favoured full-state funding, whilst 32.7% proposed state-private partnership funding. 27.8% however, disapproved with state funding of political parties arguing that Ghana is already burdened with poor health systems, lack of quality education and unemployment. The study further revealed that the political parties’ programmes and activities proposed to be financed by the state principally include training of party agents, candidates and leaders (42.3%). Key words: Political parties, democracy, state funding, constitution, consolidation.

In this paper, we argue that solutions to normative challenges associated with autonomous driving, such as real-world trolley cases or distributions of risk in mundane driving situations, face the problem of reasonable pluralism: Reasonable pluralism refers to the fact that there exists a plurality of reasonable yet incompatible comprehensive moral doctrines (religions, philosophies, worldviews) within liberal democracies. The corresponding problem is that a politically acceptable solution cannot refer to only one of these comprehensive doctrines. Yet a politically adequate solution to the normative challenges of autonomous driving need not come at the expense of an ethical solution, if it is based on moral beliefs that are (1) shared in an overlapping consensus and (2) systematized through public reason. Therefore, we argue that a Rawlsian justificatory framework is able to adequately address the normative challenges of autonomous driving and elaborate on how such a framework might be employed for this purpose.

In his 1953 novel of ideas, The Outsider, Richard Wright ominously predicted that industrial capitalist society would inexorably result in “the total and absolute in modern life.” Wright did not mean that Soviet communism would prevail, capturing the hearts and minds of Americans. His point was that the West's capitalist democracy was just as capable of slouching toward a dystopian, totalitarian future as the Soviet Union. How might Wright’s prescient thoughts on the death of liberal democracy inform our attempts to save ourselves from the “totalitarian danger” looming in the United States? As multiracial American democracy, voting rights, and the rule of law are under assault from the U.S. far right, it is abundantly clear that anti‐Black racism animates the enemies of democracy and those who would establish and support autocratic rule. These reflections seek to historicize the assault on democracy in the US and the epochal events of 2020, including: the global protests following the murder of George Floyd by police;the death of hundreds of thousands in the US during the global Coronavirus pandemic;and concerted efforts by Trump and the far‐right to destroy multiracial democracy before and after the 2020 election, culminating in the violent insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Peace & Change is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)