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The political opposition in Democratic Republic of Congo reamins less studied in studies on the dynamics of democratic transition in this country for two reasons. It is about the omission of this component in the constitutionalist process after independance and the long duration of military government come to power by coup or armed insurrection. Consequently, this article proposes to operate three variables to study congolese political opposition. Institutional determinants (related to the party system, methods of voting systems), the legal expression of the opposition and finaly, the nature and charisma of congolese opposition leaders. Anyway, the congolese political opposition has its origins in an intra-party struggle to evolve into an inter-party oppositon in its fight for the conquest of state power. It remains true that on the three democratic experiences relating to the presidential elections, the congolese political, by forming electoral coalitions, managed to beat the ruling party once in the presidential elections. Nevertheless, the strategies of this opposition remain limited in terms of effectiveness because of the nature of the parties that compose it, political transhumance, the ego between its leaders in a political system combining victory in the presidential and legislative elections to govern without alchemy of cohabition. Keywords: opposition, struggle, conquest, power, DR Congo, INTRODUCTION La democratie qui a ete definie jadis par l'ancien president americain comme etant <> (1), a ete vue par les participants au seminaire parlementaire de Libreville comme etant <> [...]

Democratic erosion in the EU's Central and Eastern European (CEE) member states has confounded EU policy-makers. In this paper, we investigate the assumptions behind the climate of optimism about CEE democratization that prevailed in EU decision-making before and after the 5th and 6th enlargements, and the extent to which political science participated in this intellectual climate. Based on a qualitative analysis of EU decision-making in the early twenty-first century and a quantitative analysis of 500 randomly sampled papers published between 2000 and 2015, we find that both policy makers and the most influential research in political science shared a bias towards optimism structured by common assumptions: A procedural understanding of democracy, a rational institutionalist belief in the EU's capacity to bring these procedures about with the use of incentives and the related assumption that sociocultural dimensions of democracy would eventually follow institutions. We argue that these common assumptions help to explain both the EU's failure to pre-empt and respond proportionately to democratic erosion, and the failure of our discipline to check that optimism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper explores the evolution of voting systems, assessing vulnerabilities in traditional methods and investigating blockchain technology as a solution. Traditional voting systems encounter challenges concerning security, transparency, and accessibility, prompting a transition towards blockchain-based online voting. Blockchain, originating from cryptocurrencies, decentralizes control, thereby enhancing transparency, integrity, and security in elections. Real-world case studies from Estonia and West Virginia offer insights into implementation and successes. Ethical considerations, including privacy and consent, alongside societal impacts like inclusivity and democratization, are scrutinized. The proposed blockchain-based voting system prioritizes decentralization, tamper resistance, and interoperability. Security measures incorporate cryptographic techniques and multi-factor authentication. Transparency is assured through a publicly accessible blockchain ledger, facilitating an auditable voting process. The paper addresses challenges like voter accessibility and election anonymity, proposing mitigation strategies. Future directions entail integrating blockchain with AI and machine learning for interoperability and standardization. Collaboration among policymakers, technologists, and researchers is pivotal for advocating secure, transparent, and accessible blockchain-based voting systems, with the goal of fostering globally participatory elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This white paper is the joint product of nineteen professors of criminal law and procedure who share a common conviction: that the path toward a more just, effective, and reasonable criminal system in the United States is to democratize American criminal justice. In the name of the movement to democratize criminal justice, we herein set forth thirty proposals for democratic criminal justice reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to make a conceptual contribution to the role of the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) in regard to global education within state global heritage (multicultural) schools – using England as a representative example – in an age characterised by epistemological, historical and cultural securitisation. This paper recruits ideas and concepts taken from Lefebvre and Bourdieu in a discussion focussed on the IBO's potential role in resistance to the dominant neoliberal imaginary and cultural securitisation. However, in order to be a force for democratisation, the IBO must itself democratise through a reconceptualisation of the school spaces it operates in/produces. It will also involve a process of reassessing its notion/positioning of what constitutes symbolic (and therefore valuable) cultural capital. This will mean untethering global education from the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme. This paper highlights the possibility of a new space for global education, operationalised by moving beyond the 'IB school' to the potential of the more informal IB supported school. It is argued here that the IBO has the potential to galvanise a new wave of inclusive global education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States of America (US) committed nearly $1.4 billion in foreign assistance to Tunisia in support of its democratic transition and transitional justice process between 2011 and 2020. This paper seeks to identify and assess the ideational frameworks guiding the distribution of US assistance, and influencing US foreign policy behavior, throughout the democratization and transitional justice period in Tunisia. It provides considerable evidence showcasing the existence of two prevalent schools of thought in US policymaking circles: The first school believes that the US invested in the notion of Pacted Transitions, which advocates for rapid transitions through political compromise and power-sharing mechanisms without necessarily promoting grassroots democratic reform. This can indirectly explain the US emphasis on security sector assistance and the relative marginalization of transitional justice objectives mainly in terms of institutional vetting, lustration, and reform. The second school puts forward a Democracy Reduction Critique, arguing instead that US policymakers fell for the electoral democracy fallacy and fetishized the role of civil society. This paper critically accounts for both schools and argues that they represent two sides of the same coin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The local government is close to the people who thus, heavily rely on it for basic needs, a legislative imperative enshrined in the supreme law of the Republic of South Africa, the Constitution of 1996. Its purpose is to supply goods and services and encourage the participation of citizens in the realisation of policy objectives. This paper is one-third of a three-series composition sought through a conceptual and theoretical perspective to interrogate the ethical dimensions in which the public service exists within the interface of professionalism and compliance with municipal procurement processes and procedures. While the local sphere of government is crucial in the democratization and intensification of mass participation, there has been a rise in incidents of corruption and fraud, fruitless and wasteful expenditure, and the misuse and misdirection of funds, which gradually erode public trust. This paper employed an interpretivism paradigm and a qualitative approach, and it relied on secondary data The paper found that the erosion of public trust leads to citizens violently protesting, demanding better service delivery and that service delivery is likely to decline when funds are misappropriated since municipalities rely on the procurement of goods and services to initiate public service delivery. Furthermore, the paper found while South Africa has sound, comprehensive and clear legislative policy frameworks that regulate public procurement; implementation remains a challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes digital cultural policy as a slow and ambivalent or reluctant revolution in a policy field. In investigates how cultural policy has gradually been affected by digitalization in the field of cultural production. I argue that digital cultural policy has developed in a sedimentary fashion, but that it also has been continuously marked by a certain ambivalence towards the digital revolution. Digital cultural policy is ultimately described as a field of hyperconvergence, where ideas, political tools, technology, and policy areas are entangled to an increasing degree. This challenges the research on and the analysis of digital cultural policy. The paper is primarily based on a close reading of Norwegian cultural policy documents. I have employed all the white papers on cultural policy from the Ministry of Culture between 1973 and 2019 – both the ones that explicitly deal with cultural policy and the ones that deal with a specific field of the arts (performing arts, visual arts, music etc.), as well as annual reports from Arts Council Norway between 1975 and 2018. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author discusses aspects of the paper presented at the Nagoya American Studies Summer Seminar (NASSS) 2009 on the civil rights movement and democratization in the U.S. after the World War II by Doctor Honda Kazuhisa. The author stresses the boundaries of democracy in the global trends and the progress of democratization in the postwar period. He also cites the impact of civil rights movements on racial discrimination and the legitimacy of American democracy.

In the second I electoral continuity path i , transitions are initiated by stable ruling parties confident of their ability to thrive under democracy. Were these stable ruling parties created by a violent shock and an unsuccessful push toward democracy? For instance, protests, civil society forces, and sanctions can expedite the process of democratization but are more likely to do so after a violent shock or in the presence of a stable ruling party.[2] A structural factor such as economic development reduces the chances of shocks but enhances the probability of democratization if a shock occurs. [Extracted from the article]

The objective of this paper is to review the rising tide of Illiberalism and its growing influence on democratization. Illiberalism, in counter to liberal democracy, refers to the kind of rule that is somewhat democratic but not genuinely democratized. Political leaders distort the mechanism of conducting elections, influence the coverage of the media, and use the notion of nationalism to strengthen their position. The qualitative method of research has been adopted whereas primary and secondary sources are adopted for data collection. Case studies from the United States under Donald Trump, India under Narendra Modi, and Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdogan illustrate these phenomena. It shows that such practices of illiberalism erode democratic institutions, civil liberties, and checks and balances in the country. The paper suggests steps for improving the electoral oversight, media freedom, Global cooperation and civic education. All these measures are critical for the sustainability of democratization in the wake of surging illiberal forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russias invasion of Ukraine in 2022 triggered a conflict that has transformed international relations through drastic impacts on policymaking, energy politics, and alliances. Such impacts have produced severe multi-dimensional consequences for African countries that have yet to be sufficiently interrogated in the literature. In response to this gap, this paper examined the security implications of the conflict for African countries to offer a comprehensive analysis that considers the intersection of the conflict with contemporary economic, human, social, and political issues confronting Africa. In discourse using a qualitative approach and rooted in a theoretical perspective drawn from the Copenhagen School, the paper underlined the security implications as evident in the areas of food security and governance, buttressing that the proxy conflicts and power struggles associated with this war have exacerbated existing challenges related to food availability and interfered with the consolidation of democracy in Africa. The paper concluded that the war's multi-dimensional impact potentially compounds political instability vectors. It generates dynamics capable of eroding social cohesion and fomenting social unrest in Africa, meriting its designation as an issue of great concern to African policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study on democratization of research diffusion through the internet have helped research in non-traditional fields. It states that the research approach heterodox economics with pre-print dissemination through the RePEc e-mail alert service New Economics Papers (NEP). It concludes that heterodox are systematically more downloaded particularly when considerinmg downloads per subscriber.

Where should I submit my paper? This is a question that young scientists and trainees frequently ask. In this Commentary, we advise on how to make such a decision whilst balancing the risks and benefits. We argue that trying to publish in top tier journals may not always be the best option and that publishing in indexed, open access journals may expose research to the same or larger audiences. The value of research should not be judged according to the publishing journal's name, but rather from other measures of impact such as successful commercialization of new technologies, number of citations, and downloads. We also highlight the role of mentors, who have the responsibility to protect the long-term interests of their trainees by balancing the consequences of acceptances and rejections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study applied the mixed approach on primary data. It is comprative study of democratic system in Kenya and Ethiopia. The developed theoretical framework prism of the two third world African Countries. The study explored the modules of the democracy in these neighboring east African states. Both nations have same colonial legacies and political mindset. It investigated causes behind post elections conflicts in these African nations and its effects. This paper explores the Democratization in Kenya and Ethiopia as third world countries, and provides a better understanding of the practical implementation of democratic principles in both Countries. The continuing wave of, as well as civil agitation carries spillover effects. It carried SWAT analysisThis paper advocates several recommendations Focus on Transparency Increase transparency and accountability in resource allocation to reduce insecurity and rebuild public trust. Both Kenya and Ethiopia need to strengthen their democratic institutions such as the judiciary and the electoral commission. Economic development is important, but it should not come at the expense of democracy. Regional Cooperation Encourage collaboration between Kenya and Ethiopia, along with other African nations, to share best practices in democratic governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between modernization and religion is contested, with the literature differing in how and in what ways religion helps or hinders countries' social, economic, and political development. This paper draws upon the history of Christianity in South Korea to critically explore the links between religion and modernization. It makes two arguments. First, discussions of the link between religion and modernization frequently employ static definitions of religion, but Christianity is characterized by oscillations between worldly (institutionalizing) and unworldly (countercultural) impulses that theoretically make very different contributions to social, economic, and political development. Second, in the case of South Korea, it is shown that both impulses have made vital contributions to the country's modernization at different times. This suggests that the dynamic tug-of-war between the institutional and countercultural facets of Korean Christianity, although problematic for individual believers and religious leaders, helped it become an important contributor to the country's success story. However, this paper concludes on a cautionary note by warning that extreme instances of these impulses have caused cleavages between Christianity and the Korean state and society and could undermine its future contributions. This suggests that diversity and toleration—a hallmark of Korean Christianity—will continue to be the best pathway forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fostering media freedom has long been considered a means of spreading democracy. Yet, we know little about what happens to journalists and news coverage when governments ease media restrictions. How do journalists adjust when the rules surrounding journalism shift from clear and restrictive to unclear and seemingly less restrictive? Myanmar offers an opportunity to investigate these questions. Its initial steps toward democratization included the abolishment of overt censorship that coincided with an increase in violence toward the Rohingya. We focus on the efforts of a domestic, privately owned newspaper to cover this violence critically. Our comparison of a privately owned newspaper and a state-run newspaper shows that the private paper initially pushed for government accountability but eventually changed course and became more similar to the state-run paper. This study provides a snapshot of how media liberalization during political transition can be undercut if media freedom is not guaranteed and censorship lingers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of globalisation has promoted human rights education, the media and scholarly works have drawn attention to the issue of the rule of law and mob justice activities constantly recurring in developing countries. The paper examines the effects of mob justice on the rule of law and democratisation in Africa using Ghana as a case study. The paper is of the view that mob justice has both negative and positive effects on the rule of law and democratisation in Ghana. This is because the legal and criminal justice systems in some societies are seen by citizens as illegitimate as they fail to punish suspected criminals appropriately; thus, negatively destroying democracy and the image of the State. Positively, mob justice serves as a wake-up call for the State to take its responsibility to protect the rights of its citizens seriously. The paper draws on international human rights law in the light of international legal instruments, such as the UDHR, ICCPR, and African Charter, as well as the 1992 Constitution of Ghana and employs mainly the Tylerian procedural justice perspective, as well as Liberal democratic theory. It uses theoretical, critically analytical and qualitative empirical evidence (based on semi-structured interviews from purposive sampling of 15 expert opinions and relevant organisations with a keen interest in the subject matter) for the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unless the military is under civilian control, the risk of military intervention and control in politics will continue to linger even after democratization, especially in states with a history of military rule. Indonesia, Myanmar, and Thailand make up the past and present military-led regimes in Southeast Asia, in which the military has played a vital part in shaping the trajectory of each state's democratization process. Yet why are some militaries able to maintain significant military control despite transitions from military to democratic rule? What explains the Myanmar military's divergence from its Southeast Asian counterparts? The paper positions the military and the continuation of military control as the center of analysis in understanding civilian control and democratization. It proposes the reconceptualization of the military as an inherently political institution affected by path-dependency, relationalism, and rent-seeking. This framework focuses upon the military's legitimation of its role in politics, repression/co-optation of competing forces, and establishment of an independent economic base. The paper argues that the form and extent of military control in Myanmar is not only hegemonic, but has also transformed, in the decades of military rule, to become the state itself—a level of military influence unparalleled by its regional counterparts in Indonesia and Thailand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neopatrimonialism is a conceptual framework frequently used to analyse state politics. This paper reviews objectivist and positivist literature to ascertain the relevance of neopatrimonialism in analysing African state politics. It defines neopatrimonialism following the Weberian model, as the coexistence of a legal-rational domination and a patrimonial domination over the state. The paper reviews neopatrimonialism through the evolution of the African state since colonisation. It uses the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) dataset to assess the prevalence of neopatrimonialism across the world and within Africa. It assesses two propositions to conclude that there can be a "developmental neopatrimonialism" if its practices are regulated but that, inversely, "predatory neopatrimonialism" hinders development. Additionally, the detrimental effect of neopatrimonialism on democracy is ambiguous and democratisation can promote or hinder neopatrimonialism. The paper concludes that neopatrimonialism is a useful research concept if it is specific and able to account for the diversity of practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Being part of the former Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia, according to the Constitution and applicable legislation, Kosovo had social ownership expressed through social enterprises, state properties and ownership by private owners. This system was unique to former Yugoslavia and differs from other former socialist countries. In this aspect, Kosovo, in the democratic transition process, faced the challenges of transforming the first two types of ownership to adapt to the market economy. Social ownership (social enterprises) was presented for privatization through the competent institution (Kosovo Trust Agency, Privatization Agency of Kosovo), while state enterprises received a new status - public enterprises which were transformed into joint-stock companies. This paper elaborates on the privatization process of social and state property according to the model of the free market economy. The paper analyses the legislation and the role of competent institutions as carriers of the property transformation process in the Republic of Kosovo. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the difficulties and challenges of the process of democratic transformation of the society and state institutions of Kosovo from the Socialist System to the Liberal Democracy expressed through the transformation of ownership - the process of privatization of social enterprises and the transformation of state enterprises into public joint stock companies. The paper is analysed by a methodological framework expressed through analysis and synthesis, descriptive method, statistical and comparative method. The paper highlights the difficulties which Kosovo has been passing and continues to face as a new state in the process of privatization and the unwanted effects that this process has had on the economic development of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lack of data democratization and information leakage from trained models hinder the development and acceptance of robust deep learning-based healthcare solutions. This paper argues that irreversible data encoding can provide an effective solution to achieve data democratization without violating the privacy constraints imposed on healthcare data and clinical models. An ideal encoding framework transforms the data into a new space where it is imperceptible to a manual or computational inspection. However, encoded data should preserve the semantics of the original data such that deep learning models can be trained effectively. This paper hypothesizes the characteristics of the desired encoding framework and then exploits random projections and random quantum encoding to realize this framework for dense and longitudinal or time-series data. Experimental evaluation highlights that models trained on encoded time-series data effectively uphold the information bottleneck principle and hence, exhibit lesser information leakage from trained models. Healthcare data democratization is often hampered by privacy constraints governing the sensitive healthcare data. Here, the authors show that encoding healthcare data could be a potential solution for achieving healthcare democratization within the context of deep learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why was the route to democracy in Scandinavia extraordinarily stable? This paper answers this question by studying Scandinavia's eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century peaceful agrarian reforms, which contributed to auspicious state–society relations that made democracy progress relatively smoothly. Based on comparisons with contemporary France and Prussia and process-tracing evidence, the paper shows that Scandinavia achieved relatively extensive and peaceful agrarian reforms because of relatively high levels of meritocratic recruitment to the central administration and state control over local administration, which ensured impartial policymaking and implementation. These findings challenge prevailing theories of democratization, demonstrating that the Scandinavian countries represent an alternative, amicable path to democracy led by civil servants who attempt to transform their country socioeconomically. Thus, strong state-cum-weak society countries likely have better odds of achieving stable democracy than weak state-cum-weak society countries. However, building bureaucratic state administrations alongside autonomous political societies is probably a safer road to democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The women in developing countries face a lot of hurdles in effective participation in the political, social and economic development of their countries. This is particularly true for women in Pakistan who comprise 48.54% of the total population but their contribution in political and economic development is not proportionate to their numerical strength. This research paper aims at to find out the impediments of women participation in political development of Pakistan. It also highlights the conceptual framework work under which this research paper has been written i.e.by using some of Lucian Pye's aspects of political development. The role of women participation in political development of Pakistan is being analyzed with regard to economy, mobilization/participation, democracy and modernization. Women's inadequate involvement in economic sector, the lack of their representation in legislative, executive, administrative and judicial bodies not only negatively impacts the political development but it also has an even deeper impact on the progress at familial, communities and even individual levels. The question how these impediments determine the process of political development in Pakistan has been resolved by applying qualitative method of research. The countries where females are marginalized are unlikely to modernize and capitalize on its benefits. Democracy is not workable in such countries where almost half of the population is ignorant or deprived of their due rights and duties. It is infer that there is a need to bring radical socio-cultural changes in Pakistan to empower women and put the country on the path of political development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Autonomy is the freedom to maintain and promote the special interests of the region, with its own finances, determine its own laws, and self-government. Purpose. Educational autonomy according to the National Education System Law No. 20 of 2003 is revealed in the rights and obligations of citizens, parents, communities, and governments. Method. The research and development method is a research method used to produce certain products, and test the effectiveness of these products. Results. The results of this paper show that autonomy aims to autonomize a person or an institution or a region, so that educational autonomy has the aim of providing an autonomy in realizing the function of institutional education management. Conclusion. However, since the implementation of educational autonomy, it turns out that its implementation has not gone as expected, instead the implementation of autonomy has created many problems, namely the high cost of education. Meanwhile, the meaning of educational autonomy actually implies democracy and social justice, meaning that education is carried out in a democratic manner so that the expected goals can be realized and education is intended for the benefit of the community, in accordance with the ideals of the nation in educating the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the aftermath of the Arab uprisings, the European Union’s (EU) relations with the Southern neighbour countries (SNCs) have been reframed in the light of a new élan of democracy promotion. The underlying logic of this approach was to leverage the building and consolidation of democracy and rule of law through enhanced cooperation in terms of more ‘markets, money and mobility’. A sort of mobility-democracy nexus has been assumed by the European Commission as a crucial dimension of the EU’s external relations with SNCs. Within this strategy, Mobility Partnerships (MPs) with SNCs have been identified as a key policy tool for EU democracy promotion. Via original qualitative analysis of European Commission’s documents, MPs, and other migration and mobility agreements that the EU has negotiated with SNCs since 2011, this paper explores how the mobility-democracy nexus has been defined in the Commission’s talks. We critically discuss the effectiveness of this nexus and demonstrate the inefficacy of MPs as a tool to promote democracy by fostering more mobility and regular migration flows. Looking at the content of MPs with three SNCs (Tunisia, Morocco, and Jordan) allows to trace the transformation of EU external relations with SNCs from a principled approach into selective issue-oriented cooperation based on more specific and sectorial policy choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the standpoints of Critical Pedagogy and the Emancipatory view of education, this paper addresses the issue of developing alternative educational practices that can lead to a change in relationships in the classroom and possibly in the broader social context. In relation to some of the contemporary pedagogical views, some alternative pedagogical models are presented that promote changes in the relationships between teachers and students, and between students themselves. In an effort to create a more democratic environment, we address the question of how these models can also be establisheded in contemporary schools. Starting from the promotion of didactic teacher strategies that support student autonomy, some theoretical and practical pedagogical implications are highlighted that can encourage teachers to actively and cooperatively change the classroom and wider social relations and conditions with students. In addition, the paper provides an overview of contemporary education and gives a general recommendation for education workers who want to actively work for education based on ideas of emancipation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the trilogy framework of decarbonisation, decentralisation and democratisation and its relevance in the implementation of just energy transition agendas in rural communities of Global South countries (GSCs). It argues that just energy transition should be implemented via developing nationally independent but locally driven renewable energy projects in GSCs. To corroborate the trilogy framework, the paper discusses case studies of India's Panchayat institutions, Nepal's community renewable projects, and Bhutan's hydro projects. The paper recommends that the trilogy framework be implemented in GSCs through the concept of 'energy prosumer communities'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Norwegian parliament has agreed to fund the Nansen Support Program for Ukraine, promising to deliver a total of NOK 75 billion (EUR 6.7 billion) in military and civilian aid to Ukraine over the period 2023–2027. In 2023, half of the aid was delivered in the form of military support, the other half constituted civilian support, including humanitarian relief and direct support to the Government of Ukraine. Over the next four years, the distribution between military and civilian aid through the Nansen Support Program will be decided on an annual basis. To achieve the long-term goal of making Ukraine ‘well-functioning, democratic and safe’, and supporting the country’s ambitions for European integration, the Norwegian aid is intended to strengthen democratic institutions, the rule of law and civil society in Ukraine. This paper examines the debate on Norway’s assistance to Ukraine and discusses the competing, or even conflicting, goals of helping Ukraine win the war and strengthening Ukrainian civil society, looking for answers to several difficult questions: How will the Norwegian government ensure that funding to Ukraine is in fact spent ‘in line with Ukraine’s needs’ and does not enrich criminals or facilitate unlawful activities? How will the funding help strengthen Ukraine’s democratic institutions and civil society? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the years following the 2011 overthrow of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, the international democracy promotion community enthusiastically embraced Tunisia’s burgeoning civil society. Ten years later, however, when the democratically-elected president Kais Saied began to dismantle the country’s democratic institutions, civil society largely stood on the side-lines. This paper examines what happened during the intervening decade that left civil society’s international funders so disappointed. The paper finds that three key changes over time help explain the gap between donor expectations and what civil society ultimately delivered: the development of an antagonistic and uncooperative relationship between civil society and the state; differences between Tunisian civil society activists and international donors on the types of issues they prioritized and other matters; and an overall lack of trust and lack of cohesion among civil society activists in working towards common goals – despite some successful coalition work around particular legislation – which came on full display after July 2021. This paper contributes to studies of Tunisian civil society’s development process in the context of its transition experience between 2011 and 2021, and of how and why donors continue to ‘miss the mark’ in their efforts to support civil society as a means of promoting democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the practice of the Hungarian Constitutional Court regarding the restrictions of fundamental rights during the state of danger between 2020 and 2023. The state of danger – which is a type of special legal order in Hungary – was first introduced in March 2020 due to Covid-19. The rules of the Fundamental Law related to the special legal order reserve the Government the opportunity of broader restrictions on certain fundamental rights than in a normal legal order. It was the first period when the Constitutional Court could have established its practice and defined its own role in a special legal order, since the democratic transition in Hungary. The need for the interpretation of the constitutional rules on special legal order never applied before has posed a significant challenge to the Constitutional Court. The paper first examines the development of the constitutional rules on special legal order situations since the democratic transition, then reviews the most important parts of the Constitutional Court's practice on the cases related to the restrictions of fundamental rights in special legal order with a focus on the elements of the test used for checking the constitutionality of the challenged items of legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democratic institutions were seriously challenged across Europe between 1917 and 1939. In 1920, most European states were parliamentary democracies, by 1939 the majority had become authoritarian. However, some states weathered the crises they faced and successfully maintained democracy. There is a significant literature on democratic breakdown, but considerable attention has now been given to those that survived. This paper revisits the question of democratic survival by focussing on the Irish Free State and its experience when compared with other European states. It argues that while the Irish Free State was fragile in a comparative context, sharing many of the challenges associated with breakdown, it also showed considerable resilience. Various factors associated with survival and breakdown are critically assessed to explain the positive Irish outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study explores the symbolic political phenomenon of Karaeng power in Jeneponto, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. The main objective of this research is to understand how Karaeng traditional symbols of power are maintained and utilized in the local political context. Qualitative research methods are used by conducting in depth interviews with community figures and content analysis of related primary and secondary data. The research results show that traditional Karaeng symbols of power still have strong relevance in influencing local political dynamics, even in the modern era and ongoing democratization. The discussion in this paper highlights the importance of understanding the role of symbols in the local political context, as well as its implications for power dynamics and community political participation in Jeneponto. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]