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In the article, the authors offer information on the papers/articles to be submitted for the special issue on topics like American evangelicalism, White Evangelical America, and representative democracy.

Support for democracy is based on warmth, inclusiveness, and a general belief that others are well-intentioned. It is also related to a willingness to respect the rights of outgroups which do not necessarily share the views of one's ingroup. In this research, we analysed the relationships between different types of national identity and support for democracy. In two surveys (Study 1; American participants, n = 407 and Study 2; Polish participants; n = 570), we found that support for democracy was negatively linked to collective narcissism, measured in relation to the national group, previously associated with negative intra- and inter-group outcomes. The effect of national narcissism on democracy support was present even when accounting for national identification. In Study 2, we also found that this effect was mediated by social cynicism - a negative view of human nature. In both studies, support for democracy was positively linked to a secure national identity, that is national identification without the narcissistic component, which tends to be associated with positive attitudes towards others. We discuss implications for understanding the role of national identity in support for (il)liberal politics., (© 2021 The British Psychological Society.)

The release of genetically engineered organisms into the shared environment raises scientific, ethical, and societal issues. Using some form of democratic deliberation to provide the public with a voice on the policies that govern these technologies is important, but there has not been enough attention to how we should connect public deliberation to the existing regulatory process. Drawing on lessons from previous public deliberative efforts by U.S. federal agencies, we identify several practical issues that will need to be addressed if relevant federal agencies are to undertake public deliberative activities to inform decision-making about gene editing in the wild. We argue that, while agencies may have institutional capacity to undertake public deliberative activities, there may not be sufficient political support for them to do so. Advocates of public deliberation need to make a stronger case to Congress about why federal agencies should be encouraged and supported to conduct public deliberations., (© 2021 The Hastings Center.)

Copyright of Politics & Policy 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 paper examines three questions: (1) (How) Is democracy promoted in secondary schools in England? (2) How is the promotion of democracy understood in education and teacher education policy? and (3) To what extent does existing education policy benefit the promotion of democracy in schools in England? To explore these questions, we first discuss the policy landscape surrounding democratic education in England. We then outline our data collection and analysis methods, which comprised (a) the coding of ten different policy documents, including curriculum specifications, teaching standards and inspection frameworks, and (b) the utilisation of an original survey of more than 3000 teachers working in approximately 50% of all secondary schools in England. Together, our data allow us to raise three important points. First, education and teacher education policy neglects to specify 'how' democracy should be promoted and by 'whom'. Second, schools are offering scant provision of democratic education. Third, the majority of teachers feel fundamentally underprepared to teach democracy. We conclude this paper by arguing that, if policymakers do wish to promote democracy, there is a need for a cohesive policy and teacher education approach that guarantees democratic education for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the cascading influence of revolutionary moments on democracy and inequality, not at home, but across borders. We use data on revolutions and other social upheavals over the past 120 years and examine their cross‐national impact on a range of variables in neighboring countries. Engaging with debates on whether substantial democracy and equality increases require extraordinary circumstances, our research investigates whether revolutionary activities induce consequential spillovers, such as policy concessions from elites in neighboring contexts. In exploring spillover effects, the paper examines how significant events in one nation influence social life in adjacent ones. It encompasses an analysis of 171 countries over two centuries, connecting data on revolution with democracy and equality metrics, and hypothesizing that elite fear of revolutionary contagion may necessitate democracy and equality concessions to mitigate potential uprisings. Findings suggest neighboring revolutions positively impact domestic democracy and equality levels. We observe significant increases in an index of democracy and two indices of economic egalitarianism, although one of the egalitarianism measures is robust to all model specifications. Additionally, we find that isolated “protest‐led ousters” can moderately increase suffrage and one of our indices of egalitarianism, while coups do not seem to impact democracy or inequality variables. By examining various upheaval types and outcomes across time and space, the study illuminates the causal relationship between global mobilizations and local changes, providing insights into how global events inform domestic outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On balance, Africa generally has made some progress in good governance under liberal, multiparty democracy in the past two or three decades. But there are well‐noted, wide‐ranging dysfunctions in governance, which inhibit human development and fulfilment. Several papers have been published, which propose various solutions to the dysfunctions. Among them are proposals for types of all‐inclusive democratic politics. I examine a couple of these proposals and conclude that they generate formidable feasibility challenges, even for the types of democracy they advocate. This paper focuses on Ghana, but with a thrust intended to have import for the sustainability of democracy across Africa. The argument is basically that the operating democratic constitutions in Africa provide a normatively desirable liberal, multiparty democracy, which promises a reasonably good life for all without exception; but practice has resulted in enduring, multiple deprivations and low standards of living for millions of citizens. The reason for the undesirably wide gap between the ideal and the practice is not because multiparty democracy is inconsistent with African traditions or is otherwise not good for Africans, as some scholars claim, but because of those who tend to run it—their general incompetence, including or marked by their intellectual and ethical inability to rise above partisan limitations and failure to leverage the efficiencies of the free market system. The proposed solution for Ghana, intended to eliminate or significantly mitigate the dysfunctions just mentioned and to sustain the multiparty democracy, is to redesign the National Development Planning Commission (NPDC), a constitutional organ which serves the partisan executive, into a robust, non‐partisan, independent institution, anchored on the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances, to enable it to do at least the following two things: (a) to produce, with representation from key stakeholders, including political parties, technocratically objective, competent, efficient and accountable rolling and all‐inclusive National Development Plans (NDPs) in place of vote‐inspired and partisan manifestoes, with budgets approved by parliament; and (b) to monitor, evaluate and report on the governing party's implementation of the NDPs to parliament. Democracy will become sustainable as the general quality of lives grows steadily under the continuous implementation of all‐inclusive NDPs, which are to be crafted to efficiently and sustainably deliver public goods and services that serve district, regional and the common needs and interests of all Ghanaians rather than the interests of the few and powerful or, at best, of majorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democracy is a political system that has some universal appeal, and, this seems to invest it with some kind of legitimacy over other systems of government. But this in no way suggests that it is homogenously conceived or practiced across the world—particularly in Western and African countries. Yet there is some supposition that some cultures have (almost) perfected their practice of democracy while others are learning its rudiments. This tends to arouse the philosopher's interest in the conceptual and practical bases for the supposition. In African philosophy, the notion of consensus has often been touted as a kernel and mēnsūra for evidence of democracy in traditional African thought. This paper examines the propriety of this move, taking into account the specific positions of the Ghanaian philosophers, Kwasi Wiredu and Kwame Gyekye. It explores the political dynamics of contemporary Africa and brings out the challenges and prospects for the sort of democracy that is being practiced—or, at least, is said to be practiced—in Africa. It is often debated in African political thought whether consensus or majoritarian rule (characterized by such activities as voting and multipartism) defines democracy, but the paper argues that neither of them really brings about democracy. It then highlights the humanistic end of democracy. Using the Ghanaian experience especially, the paper proposes ways of improving the understanding and practice of democracy in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper locates trade union banners and those of other campaigns and left organisations as part of the ongoing work and labour of producing democratic political cultures. It argues that engaging with the ways in which they were used, shaped, produced and re‐worked can shed important light on often neglected spatial practices and forms of agency of democratic politics. We contend that engaging with the geographical imaginaries and practices shaped by trade union engagements with democracy offers important and original perspectives on different articulations of spatial relations, labour, and democratic politics. The paper engages with Clive Barnett's influential work on the geographies of democracy and outlines an alternative position based on engaging with the generative character of political activity. The empirical part of the paper offers three cuts through different articulations of labour and democratic politics. The paper engages with the Banners of Glasgow Shipwrights to explore aspects of trade union politics and struggles for democratic reform. We discuss the relations between the STUC Black Workers' Committee and generative spaces of organising and the relations between banners and the peace movement to engage forms of antagonist democratic cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we investigate who would vote 'none of the above' (NOTA) if this were available on the ballot paper using original data from eight European countries. In particular, we examine whether NOTA would be used by abstainers and voters to protest within the electoral process. We also test whether socioeconomic factors and specific and diffuse support for democracy and its institutions correlate with a NOTA vote. We find that having NOTA on the ballot would reduce invalid balloting more than abstention and much more than protest party voting. Our results also suggest that NOTA is related to socioeconomic status, political interest, political knowledge and distrust in political institutions and authorities, but not to broadly undemocratic attitudes. These findings have important implications for our understanding of the increasingly large amounts of abstention and invalid voting, as well as the growing distrust of political institutions, in democratic countries. They also hold lessons for electoral reformers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Editors of the Global Biogeochemical Cycles express their appreciation to those who served as peer reviewers for the journal in 2023. Plain Language Summary: Peer review builds trust in the scientific process and ensures high quality standards. Reviewers not only argue against the publication of certain research papers, but also help to improve the content and presentation of the final product. GBC is proud to engage a large and diverse pool of reviewers who are experienced in the publication process and offer their unique, world class expertise to the broader community. On behalf of GBC's editorial board and the entire biogeochemistry community, we thank 388 reviewers for their contribution to scientific progress in our interdisciplinary field. It has been said that peer review is like democracy—the worst method except for all others. As in a democratic system, peer reviewers play multiple other roles as members of our GBC community. Peer reviewers also engage as authors, colleagues, mentors, mentees, and sometimes as editors. Reviewers help to shape the journal content, help authors to improve the science, and also learn along the way. In 2023, 388 colleagues produced 495 review reports for GBC. These reports are a primary tool used to ensure scientific quality, novelty and integrity. Peer reviewers stand with editors and authors to protect AGU values such as excellence, inclusion and collaboration. The high trust placed on GBC papers only exists due to the unselfish dedication of our reviewers. Our editorial board is proud to work with this large, diverse pool of reviewers from all over the world, and expresses a deep gratitude to all colleagues engaging in the complex and democratic peer review process! Key Points: The editors thank the 2023 peer reviewers [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper mainly presents a complete analysis of the impact of such sanctions on the innovation performance of target countries by exploiting the difference‐in‐differences method for panel data of 91 countries in the period 1988–2016. The empirical results confirm a significantly negative impact of overall international sanctions on innovation in the target countries; moreover, except for noneconomic sanctions, other types of sanctions have a negative impact on the level of innovation in the target countries to varying degrees. These findings are also supported by two semiparametric matchings: artificially matching according to the two factors of geographical location and land area respectively and the propensity score matching, one nonparametric matching: entropy balancing, as well as the system generalized method of moments estimates that account for any bias due to lagged dependent variables. This paper also shows that the significantly negative effect of international sanctions is manifested in the countries with high levels of trade openness, globalization, and democracy, but not in the countries with low levels of trade openness, globalization, and democracy. Our empirical findings merit particular attention from policy‐makers in target countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

That parties fulfil their pre‐election pledges once they are in government is a fundamental idea of many democracy models. This paper addresses the question of whether the government/opposition status of their party affects how much citizens want governments to fulfil their promises. We hypothesize that interest‐driven, rational voters are more likely to prefer their own party to keep its promises and investigate whether this rationale is impacted by public opinion and expert views. The analysis is based on a survey experiment conducted in Australia and Austria. It finds that voters broadly adhere to the democratic principle of expecting pledge fulfilment but, at the same time, some take a rational approach to government promises. The opinions of the public and experts mitigate but do not change this effect. Another key finding is the significant difference in the preference for promise keeping versus promise breaking between government and opposition voters in the Austrian case, the country with the more heterogeneous and polarized political system. This paper contributes to the literature on voters' attitudes on democracy and pledge fulfilment by showing that voters are normatively driven but a significant number of voters deviate and instead follow the rational voter logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political accountability requires that voters understand the distribution of policy outcome responsibility among their vote choice options. Research on partisan‐motivated reasoning suggests that voters do not meet this requirement. The problem is that voters condition their attributions of responsibility to the government on their party identification. Government identifiers credit the government for desirable outcomes and blame external forces such as the global economy for undesirable outcomes. This paper draws a more optimistic conclusion. It argues that focusing on the perceived responsibility of the government and external forces is not sufficient for understanding whether voters meet the responsibility attribution requirement. It is also necessary to compare the perceived responsibility of government parties to the perceived responsibility of opposition parties because those are the options that voters get to choose from. This party distribution of perceived responsibility is analyzed with original survey data from Denmark and the United Kingdom. The results demonstrate that while party identification does indeed condition voters' responsibility attributions, both government identifiers and independents attribute systematically more responsibility to the government than to the opposition regardless of the desirability of the outcome. This suggests that voters tend to meet the responsibility attribution requirement of accountability despite the presence of partisan‐motivated reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper conceptualizes intellectual dissent as a galvanizer of academic freedom in a post‐totalitarian academia that is moving toward democratization. Drawing on the case of Ukraine, the analytical narrative describes difficulties in overcoming legacies in universities emerging from repressive rule that discouraged creativity, initiative, and critical inquiry, and having to envisage a transition to democratic governance in the context of neoliberal geopolitics. The case analysis suggests that intellectual dissent is essential but limited in its ability to establish the praxis of academic freedom under increasing control by oligarchic governments and a self‐serving bureaucracy. By exploring interdependencies between intellectual dissent and academic freedom, this paper lays ground for an analytical framework that can be helpful in rethinking the prospects of universities at the crossroads of authoritarianism and democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The internet is a major part of our lives today. This applies to politics as well, and accordingly, the question of whether it is possible to realize democracy on the internet has arisen. Using the arguments of Hannah Arendt, the paper aims to determine what online democracy should look like. It is argued that the internet's decentralized structure is advantageous because it facilitates the implementation of the Arendtian system of political councils. Due to the character of online political platforms – mainly social media – these political councils should ideally revolve around shared issues that simultaneously create the common world on the internet. At the same time, clear rules need to be laid down for the functioning of these online political councils. Based on Arendt's arguments, it is claimed in the paper that these rules include the principles of mutual promises and covenants on the issues themselves. It is also argued that because Arendt emphasizes the role of appearing in the public sphere, the process of authentication – that is, verifying that there is a concrete person with a physical body behind each online account that wants to actively participate in a particular online political council – is required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The euro crisis has sparked changes in the EU's economic governance framework and a crisis of legitimacy across the union. While the institutional repercussions of the crisis have been studied before, the democratic impact at the national level has received much less attention. This paper aims to fill this gap, focusing on the procedural changes that the EU's new economic governance (NEG) framework has brought to national budgetary decision‐making. Building upon the Varieties of Democracy framework, the paper adds empirical nuance and conceptual clarity to the notion of 'throughput legitimacy' and its components: openness, inclusiveness, transparency and accountability. Detailed case studies of post‐crisis Austria, Italy and Portugal show that the NEG improved access to national budgetary decision‐making and enhanced executive scrutiny, while excessive complexity remains the Achilles' heel of EU fiscal rules. We submit that these procedural changes are too meaningful to be overlooked in post‐crisis debates about EU democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges some widespread theoretical assumptions and practices in the study of populism and proposes a new multidimensional approach to generate and analyse data on this latent construct. Rather than focusing on categorising subjects as populists or not, it recommends reaching a better understanding of what populism is, the salience and relative weight of its attributes and how they interact creating an inner populist logic. Despite the increasing media and academic attention, historical discrepancies in how to conceptualise and operationalise populism have hindered cumulative progress in the literature. Initially most efforts were devoted to the study of specific movements, without a clear comparative angle, and the concept of populism was often conflated with that of nationalism. When the literature started to pay more attention to the analysis of the attributes associated with populism serious disagreements emerged concerning its true essence. Populism has been conceptualised as an ideology, a cynical strategy, a performative style and a discursive logic of articulation. The disputes between these competing interpretations have arguably slowed down the generation of comparative data. Although this article is meant to be a critique of the current state of the field and a call to make it pivot into a slightly different direction, it does not adopt an iconoclast stance and largely tries to reconcile the different existing research traditions – ideational, discursive, performative and strategic. It shows that their efforts are to a great extent complementary but mostly operating on different rungs of the ladder of abstraction. This paper argues that shifting from minimal definitions into a multidimensional approach may stimulate the generation of comparative data on a wider range of attributes and facilitate the identification of degrees and varieties within populism. This paper develops a new analytical framework which deconstructs populism into five dimensions: (1) depiction of the polity, (2) morality, (3) construction of society, (4) sovereignty and (5) leadership. These dimensions, that synthesise the most influential conceptualisations of populism, are empirically and theoretically interconnected and encompass ideational, discursive and performative attributes suggested in the literature. These dimensions are in turn composed of lower order attributes forming a multilayered network structure. This multidimensional framework provides a heuristic template that can be adapted and operationalised in diverse ways depending on the hypotheses, type of data and subjects of the analysis. Some examples of how to turn these dimensions into variables to capture supply‐ and demand‐side populism are introduced. Future empirical research could help map and better understand the network of interactions and intersections among these dimensions and attributes. This could be the key to settle some of the current conceptual debates about populism and its varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporations significantly influence the public and political spheres. In light of this corporate power in society, academics have criticized the lack of legitimization (i.e., the legitimacy gap) and highlighted a potential divergence between corporate resource allocation and the needs and preferences of the public (i.e., the social issues gap). To address these problems, democratizing organizations has been proposed as a potential solution. In line with this, the authors argue that an increase in corporate power outside the economic realm should be counterbalanced by more democratic corporate governance (i.e., an internalization of democracy). While important groundwork exists, academic attention to these topics remains limited. The authors provide an overview of the literature linking corporate power and the claim for democratizing organizations, advocate for legitimization, identify research gaps, and develop a research agenda to inspire and guide future research efforts. The paper's findings suggest the importance of conceptual and empirical research on the micro‐, meso‐, and macro‐levels and the cross‐level effects, which is needed to advance this incipient research area. Future research must (1) clearly define corporate power and discuss how democratizing organizations can contribute to more legitimate organizational decisions, (2) unveil novel approaches for more democratic corporate governance, and (3) understand the organizational‐ and individual‐level factors necessary for the successful realization of democratic organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how a structure of Weberian rational domination has been built and consolidated in Spain since 1959, the year when the so‐called Economic Stabilization Plan was approved. This sort of economic constitution represents one of the most important foundations of a technocratic regime that survived the death of a dictator (General Francisco Franco), not only transcending the traditional differentiations between autocratic and democratic regimes but also offering a different perspective to the debate about the degree of continuity and rupture attained by the Spanish political transition in the 1970s. We analyze the institutions, leadership, most influential networks, political discourse, and historical myths through a theory of power and elites to examine the Spanish case. With this remarkable example of structural transformation and institutional resilience over decades, we also propose a more complex and multidimensional approach that could be fruitful to understanding some of the problems of political representation that current democracies are undergoing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a democracy, when a group of deliberators have a set of differing (and contrary) views and beliefs about a particular policy or action, p, a recommended course of action is for them to pursue, and ultimately reach, a consensus on p. The pursuit of consensus allows deliberators to 'reach over the aisle' in accommodating dissenting views through rational dialogue until a consensual agreement is reached by all the deliberators. What fuels this pursuit of consensus is the 'will to consensus'—a 'frame of mind' or a 'disposition' to resolve disagreements into a consensus. In this paper, I will raise some conceptual problems with positing a 'will to consensus' that is prior to, and supervenes on, the rational discussion of deliberators. Instead of a 'will to consensus', democratic theorists should be content with the minimal claim of a 'will to dialogue'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes Rawls's moral psychology and the claim that a just society must foster a sufficiently strong sense of justice. When Rawls investigates the development of the sense of justice under a just basic structure, he tacitly narrows down the focus: he only demonstrates the development of a sense of justice on the premise that all members of society are already in possession of a full‐fledged sense of justice, save the one individual under investigation. This begs the question, largely presupposing what needs to be explained, namely, how citizens at large develop a sense of justice. Rawls's narrowing of perspective leads to distortions in the analysis of stability, particularly with regard to a property‐owning democracy. However, in lesser known parts of his work, Rawls offers clues for a more plausible account. Here, the idea is that institutions must be structured such that they enable all of us to nurture the sense of justice of each of us. With this idea of collective self‐transformation in place, it becomes clear that economic institutions must be broadly democratized because of their profound educational role. Thus, the choice between a property‐owning democracy and liberal socialism falls more strongly upon the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Swiss Political Science Review 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.)

Public sector audit is a vital activity within democratic states, which underpins the relationship between the government and the governed, the executive and the legislature, and different parts of the government. While there has been a lot of exceptional work in recent years on public sector audit, the sector faces new challenges. These challenges include regulatory space considerations, digitalization, the impact of service delivery design change, how audit and accountability arrangements address crises such as austerity, Brexit, black lives matter, climate change, disease in the form of COVID‐19 and war, and increased skepticism about the role of audit in society more generally. In this special issue, a group of scholars came together to describe this crisis in public audit, how the current literature addresses different facets of it and show how future research can contribute to analyzing it. This introductory article provides a brief summary of the current context of the "what, why, when, how, where and who" of public audit, before considering the contribution of each individual paper in this special issue to assisting in understanding the crisis of public audit, and finally setting out a conclusion and future directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This helps to see why fully identifying the I demos i with the citizenry fails to yield a I demos i properly: in such a framework, there simply is no I demos i ; there is only a I polis i and a citizenry. It should be noted that, while acknowledging conceptualisations of the I polis i in which it cannot be easily dissociated from citizens or the I demos i , I use the word I polis i throughout this paper merely as a convenient terminological opposition to I demos i , indicating state institutions as opposed to the agents in whose collective name they supposedly operate. Due to the conflation of citizenry and I demos i , it has appeared unproblematic to prioritise the I polis i , since if the I demos i is taken to be identical with the citizenry it is taken to be an institution, in which case it is proper to the I polis i . As the concept of the I demos i is one of the primary concerns of this paper, a more precise definition of the I demos i will become clear below, but as a basic point of departure I take I demos i to be analogous to what Claude Lefort calls "indeterminable" (Lefort, 1986, pp. 257-258). To deny that any I demos i is a political artefact is to depoliticise the I demos i as such; in the final instance, to depoliticise the I demos i is to divest it of what renders it a I demos i . [Extracted from the article]

Tolerance has long been identified as a crucial feature of liberal democracies. Although the limits of tolerance are debated, the extent to which citizens are open and willing to accommodate others who are different from them is often regarded as a sign of a healthy and well‐functioning liberal democracy. The goal of this paper is to empirically investigate the state of political tolerance in Europe today. The main questions we ask are: What explains the different levels of tolerance across individuals in various countries? Which groups in society are the most likely targets of intolerance? We understand political tolerance as the willingness to allow the free articulation of interests and ideas in the political system of groups one opposes. Previous research emphasizes education, civic activism and threat perceptions as important determinants of tolerance. We redirect the debate to a set of novel correlates of tolerance. We argue that conspiratorial thinking and cosmopolitanism are critical factors that explain levels of tolerance among Europeans. The analysis employs original survey data collected as part of a mass survey conducted in 2017 in 10 European Union member states: Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom. Our descriptive analysis shows that far‐right groups (i.e., fascists and neo‐Nazis) and Muslims are the most disliked groups in Europe. When it comes to the level of tolerance towards these groups, we find that more than half of the respondents in each country are willing to deny their most disliked group parliamentary representation. Moreover, we find that even after controlling for traditional determinants of tolerance, conspiratorial thinking and cosmopolitanism emerge as the most important predictors of political tolerance. Our analysis suggests that the recent rapid spread of various conspiracy theories related to the COVID‐19 pandemic is likely to have far‐reaching implications for tolerance as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studying a relatively under‐researched aspect in economics, this paper examines the nexus between corruption and academic freedom. Our main hypothesis is that greater corruption undermines academic freedom and we test this hypothesis using data for 104 nations from 2012 to 2018. Our results support the main hypothesis, and this finding also generally holds across alternative aspects of academic freedom. Another contribution of this work lies in dissecting the direct and indirect (through corruption) effects of various drivers of academic freedom. Finally, additional insights are gained by considering different dimensions of academic freedom and how they are impacted by corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does trade openness systematically imply bigger governments, as proposed by Rodrik (Journal of Political Economy, 106, 997 and 1998)? This paper presents a novel and more refined explanation for when and why international trade may enlarge the public sector. We propose that trade openness is associated with bigger governments via the compensation pathway if i$$ (i) $$ the price volatility of a country's export basket is substantial andii$$ (ii) $$ the country is democratic. The first condition satisfies the prior that trade openness introduces uncertainty and external risk. The second condition ensures that the people's desire for greater economic security can be realised through government spending. Empirical evidence for 137 countries, that account for approximately 95% of world population, from 2000–2016 is consistent with this hypothesis. Exploring areas of public spending, we find intuitive patterns. Consistent with the compensation hypothesis, government spending on economic affairs and housing increases significantly with trade openness, whereas spending on education, health care, and the military is not affected. As with our general result, this is only the case in democracies that are subject to high price volatility on the global market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Swiss Political Science Review 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.)

Copyright of Swiss Political Science Review 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 paper considers what concept of accommodation is necessary to identify and address discrimination, disadvantages and disparities in such a way that the plurality of religious people with their beliefs, values and practices may be justly accommodated in healthcare. It evaluates threats to the possibility of such accommodation pertaining by considering what beliefs and practices might increase the risk of unjust discrimination against and disadvantage for religious people, whether as individuals or as groups; and the risk of disparities between the care provided to religious people. The claim is that there is an important cluster of risks that are political in kind and emergent within philosophical bioethics. While not amounting (yet) to a trend, they are sufficiently threatening to a just civic life for patients and healthcare staff as to warrant scrutiny. After an Introductory Section 1, Section 2 evaluates a criticism of 'accommodation' and the apparently additional health-related requirements that those of religious faith demand, when compared with other people. It does so by comparing Lori Beaman's idea of agonism with that of a distinct and somewhat complementary approach in Jonathan Chaplin's political philosophy, before examining the role of established religion in setting the conditions for the accommodation of religion and belief in healthcare. Section 3 examines risks to such accommodation by engaging critically with three health-related instantiations of political philosophy that differ radically from both Beaman and Chaplin. A concluding Section 4 focusses on appropriate modes of communicating about religious and other beliefs in healthcare., (© 2022 The Authors. Bioethics published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

This paper explores a major road to substantive representation in democracies, by clarifying whether demands of rich and poor citizens are taken up in the electoral platforms of political parties. Doing so constitutes a substantial broadening and deepening of our understanding of substantive representation – broadening the countries, issue‐areas and years that form the empirical basis for judging whether democracies manifest unequal representation; and deepening the process of representation by clarifying a key pathway connecting societal demands to policy outcomes. The paper hypothesises that party systems in general will respond more strongly to wealthy than to poor segments of a polity. It also hypothesises that left parties will more faithfully represent poorer and less significantly represent richer citizens than do right parties. We find substantial support for these expectations in a new dataset that combines multi‐country, multi‐issue‐area, multi‐wave survey data with data on party platforms for 39 democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid‐19 crises in the United Kingdom and the United States show how democracies may struggle to confront disasters that are increasingly impinging on the Global North. This paper highlights the extent to which disasters are now 'coming home' to Western democracies and it looks at some of the principal reasons why democracy has not been especially protective, at least in the case of the UK and the US. These include: reconceptualising disaster as a good thing (via 'herd immunity'); the influence of neoliberalism; and the limitations in the circulation of information. A key pandemic‐related danger is the conclusion that democracy itself is discredited. Disasters, though, call for a reinvigoration of democracy, not a knee‐jerk invocation of autocratic 'emergency' rule. A fundamental problem in the UK and US is that these countries were not democratic enough. The paper underlines the risk of a move towards a disaster‐producing system that is self‐reinforcing rather than self‐correcting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper was to assess the effects of social inequality, democracy, and economic growth on the climate justice performance of a nation. To achieve this goal, the research technique Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS‐SEM) was applied to a sample of 133 countries selected based on indicators available in international databases in 2019. The main results of the analysis were: (a) the effect of democracy on the performance of climate justice is positive; (b) the moderating effect of inequality on the relationship between democracy and climate justice is negative; and (c) economic growth has a U‐shaped relationship with climate justice performance, which indicates the existence of a Kuznets curve for climate justice performance. Based on these results, the main theoretical implications of this study were the discoveries that: (a) the weakening of democratic institutions may be associated with increased social inequality, which reduces the implementation of climate policies aimed at guaranteeing justice; (b) forms of cooperation and financing of climate actions at the global level may be ineffective only if the quality of democracy in vulnerable countries is observed, which can be explained by the persistence of high social inequality; (c) allowing women access to income, education and health might be ways of reducing gender inequality and improving the level of adaptation of countries vulnerable to climate challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how a country's constitutionally imposed democracy in an academic performance evaluation system was designed and practiced. Building upon agonistic democracy and deliberative democracy perspectives, a qualitative inductive case study in a Vietnamese public university involved 52 interviews, direct observations, and the analysis of archival documents. The findings revealed three dimensions of democracy in the university's performance evaluation system, namely, democratic context, democratic discourse, and democratic outcomes. The university enforced democracy in its performance evaluation system for academics in line with the country's constitutional obligation. In such an explicit democratic context, there happened democratic discourse (debating academics' performance in public forums) and implicit discourse (informal social interactions). The outcome of this democracy at the practice level resulted from temporary consensus supported by shared cultural values within the country's socio‐political context with an understanding that it will change as with any change in the macro or micro contexts. These findings contribute to the literature by providing insights into how individuals pursue democracy in an accounting tool legally built to promote democracy through their multiple voices and collective wisdom. Thus, democratizing accounting technologies and processes, such as an academic performance evaluation system, can effectively promote democracy in multi‐cultural workplaces across the globe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large body of literature argues that macroeconomic stability is a prerequisite for the sustainable development of economies. Moreover, it is also recognized that the most dynamic economies do not necessarily grow faster than others in good times, but they do manage to be more resilient and limit the extent of a downturn in bad times. Therefore, this study draws on this theoretical framework to examine the effect of macroeconomic instability on access to electricity in developing countries. We find that macroeconomic instability reduces access to electricity for the total urban and rural populations. In addition, macroeconomic instability increases the access gap between urban and rural populations in terms of electricity access. However, the adverse effect of macroeconomic instability on access to electricity is more pronounced in oil exporting countries. However, democracy mitigates this deleterious effect of macroeconomic instability on access to electricity. Based on these results, several policy recommendations are discussed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Epistolary periodicals associated with English coffee house culture have often been associated with Jürgen Habermas' model for the rise of the 'bourgeois public sphere'. Habermas proposed this ultimately gave rise to the free articulation of public opinion and the emergence of democratic values. Written at a time of socio‐political upheaval, John Dunton's serial publications relied upon anonymous authorship, particularly his most famous periodical, the Athenian Mercury (1691–97), which pioneered the question‐and‐answer format and gave rise to many imitations. In the present era, we are witnessing democracy imperilled by the proliferation of AI‐driven 'fake news'. This paper proposes that the origins of this phenomenon may be found in epistolary periodicals which normalized giving and receiving offence in print. The pernicious quality of anonymous print, free from personal accountability or consequences, embedded from its inception a fatal flaw in the project of constituting a democratic public sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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When and why did Sterling Area countries stop holding sterling as the majority of their foreign exchange reserves? This paper takes a comparative approach to examine the relative importance of various determinants of adherence to sterling in its declining years as an international currency. Using an original cross‐national panel dataset covering the period 1965–79, we conduct survival analysis which systematically evaluates a comprehensive set of economic and political factors, at the country level as well as in international relations, about when and why countries chose to diversify their reserves away from sterling. Our results highlight the significance of international transactional factors in influencing adherence to sterling, while the effects of British geopolitical retrenchment, Commonwealth cultural ties, and distributional issues were more ambiguous and sensitive to local conditions. We also find that domestic political and historical factors, such as democracy and imperial legacy, played a role in sterling's international unravelling. Finally, we use our results to examine the experience of individual sterling countries and their decisions to diversify. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses how democracy can affect public finance and state capacity investment. We show that the effect of democracy on public policy can take two forms: direct and indirect. The direct effect transpires when increasing democracy leads to an increase in public expenditure which results in increased public goods provision and reduced political rent. The indirect effect emerges when increased democracy leads to a reduction in state capacity investment and, subsequently, to a reduction in public goods provision. Paradoxically, lower political rents deteriorate the incumbent's incentive to invest in state capacity, at the expense of public goods provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars of participatory democracy have long noted dynamic interactions and transformations within and between political spaces that can foster (de)democratisation. At the heart of this dynamism lie (a) the processes through which top‐down "closed" spaces can create opportunities for rupture and democratic challenges and (b) vice‐versa, the mechanisms through which bottom‐up, open spaces can be co‐opted through institutionalisation. This paper seeks to unpick dynamic interactions between different spaces of participation by looking specifically at two forms of participatory governance, or participatory forms of political decision making used to improve the quality of democracy. First, Mark Warren's concept of 'governance‐driven democratization' describes top‐down and technocratic participatory governance aiming to produce better policies in response to bureaucratic rationales. Second, we introduce a new concept, democracy‐driven governance, to refer to efforts by social movements to invent new, and reclaim and transform existing, spaces of participatory governance and shape them to respond to citizens' demands. The paper defines these concepts and argues that they co‐exist and interact in dynamic fashion; it draws on an analysis of case study literature on participatory governance in Barcelona to illuminate this relationship. Finally, the paper relates the theoretical framework to the case study by making propositions as to the structural and agential drivers of shifts in participatory governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, Sarah Stitzlein considers the consequences of honesty on our democracy, especially for citizens' ability to engage in civic inquiry together as they face shared problems. Honesty is a key component of a well‐functioning democracy; it develops trust and fosters the sorts of relationships among citizens that enable civic dialogue and reasoning. Post‐truth attitudes and truth decay pose serious obstacles to good civic reasoning as citizens struggle to draw clear distinctions between fact and opinion, weigh personal beliefs and emotions over facts, and increasingly distrust traditionally respected sources of information. Stitzlein employs a Deweyan pragmatist account of truth and a distinctly social account of democracy to build a case for foregrounding honesty in the development of citizens. She describes how schools can employ communities of inquiry to cultivate habits of honesty within citizenship education. She explains how a better democracy — one grounded in a wider understanding of social life and relationships — might head off the temptation to be dishonest for self‐serving reasons, focusing on how dishonesty jeopardizes our relationships to each other as citizens and our ability to engage in civic reasoning together to fulfill shared goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In societies where civic space is closing, integrity in the civic sector is critical for its sustainability. Where state regulatory frameworks are inadequate, or worse, manipulative, self‐regulation can help defend the sector's integrity and strengthen the ability of civic associations to serve the public and contribute to democracy. This paper describes the strategic role in self‐regulation of a particular type of third sector actor in Mexico, the coordinating body or civic network. A case study of the Mexican Center for Philanthropy (CEMEFI) and its Accreditation in Institutionalization and Transparency project illustrates the contribution of NGO networks in service to the sector, and their key role in diffusion of norms of transparency and accountability within the civic sector and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informal political representation can be a political lifeline, particularly for oppressed and marginalized groups. Such representation can give these groups some say, however mediate, partial, and imperfect, in how things go for them. Coeval with the political goods such representation offers these groups are its particular dangers to them. Mindful of these dangers, skeptics challenge the practice for being, inter alia, unaccountable, unauthorized, inegalitarian, and oppressive. These challenges provide strong pro tanto reasons to think the practice morally impermissible. This paper considers the question: On what conditions is the informal political representation of oppressed and marginalized groups permissible? By responding to skeptics' challenges, I develop a systematic account of moral constraints that, if adopted, would make such representation permissible. The account that emerges shows that informal political representatives (IPRs) must aim to fulfill two sets of sometimes conflicting duties to the represented: democracy within duties, which concern how the representative treats and relates to the represented, and justice without duties, which concern how the representative's actions advance the aims of the representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The democratic jurisdiction in Africa meant to re‐instil peace in the continent, unite her people and champion the philosophy of Ubuntu. It has endeavoured to eradicate the enduring legacies of colonial hegemony and assert a new identity distinguished by autonomous ideologies. Despite the dispensation of these efforts, African societies are still bedevilled by colonial fragments. This is evinced by the appalling racist undertones and xenophobic spells that are overbearing in Africa in the democratic wave. Today, the African continent is vexed by the increasing rate of xenophobic outbreaks that sometimes appear to be anchored in racist connotations. This, inter alia, menaces African humanism and social development in African societies. This qualitative paper has aimed to uproot racist precipitants in xenophobic attacks. It is theoretical in nature and evaluates the rapport between racism and xenophobia from an Afrocentric perspective. The study has found that the xenophobic sentiments in the present day are framed within the imaginings of race. It has illuminated racial identity as a catalyst for xenophobia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For Jean‐Jacques Rousseau, freedom functions as a foundational value for his entire political philosophy. Parallel to this emphasis is his deep and abiding condemnation of "slavery", at least the slavery that he claims marked the social existence of his European contemporaries living under unrepresentative monarchical systems. However, the striking aspect of Rousseau's work is his virtually complete silence concerning the institution of chattel slavery of his day. Despite his ubiquitous condemnation of the "slavery" of his "civilized" contemporaries, Rousseau wrote next to nothing about the actual enslavement of millions of people who pervaded the social landscape of the European–African–American triangle in the 18th century. In this paper, I trace out the various passages in Rousseau that could be seen as touching on the subject of contemporary slavery practices and show how very scant they were. I also discuss his views on the relation between climate, character, and persons' fitness for democratic forms of government (and hence freedom). I combine these points to draw particular lessons about the dangers of neglect and exclusion inherent in Rousseau's views of democratic freedom, suggesting how similar dangers lurk for contemporary visions of democracy inspired by his views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to noncompliance with the EU's fundamental values such as democracy and the rule of law in Hungary and Poland, the EU Commission has established the Justice Scoreboard, the Rule of Law Framework and the Rule of Law Mechanism. Moreover, the Commission has proposed linking the disbursement of funds to respect for the rule of law (Rule of Law conditionality). However, the deployment of these measures has not restored compliance. Drawing on the two dominant approaches in compliance studies, the management approach and the enforcement approach, this paper argues that with the exception of Rule of Law conditionality, the Commission's tools are characterized by a mismatch between the causes of the problems identified and the solutions chosen. Instead of sanctioning voluntary noncompliance, they rely on soft measures, which are recommended in cases of involuntary noncompliance, but which are not suitable in cases of deliberate noncompliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]