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The three social practices – democracy, philosophy and sport – are more similar than we might initially suspect. They can be described as 'essentially agonistic social practices', that is, they are manifestations of 'agon' (contest). The possibility to participate in agonistic social practices derives from the human condition, i.e. from the necessity to care for one's existence, which requires ongoing attention and decision-making, and which sometimes means going against others. We call this character of human existence by the ancient Greek term 'polemos' (struggle), which can be manifested through various types of agon. If society cherishes agonistic social practices, it enables its citizens to compete to prove themselves and achieve goals (e.g. to push through a persuasive argument, or to win in sport) in a respectful, peaceful and productive way. Believed to have played a significant role in ancient Greece, agon presents itself in both intellectual and physical forms – in philosophy, democratic politics and sport – suggesting that the relationship between these practices is deep-rooted and significant. This paper explores the idea that developing our understanding of polemos and agon can enhance our experience of agonistic social practices and enable our existence to proceed in a more free, pro-social and enriching way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Democracy in America's chapters on war and armies in the transition from the aristocratic to the democratic social state (état social), Tocqueville briefly draws on Machiavelli regarding the conquest of a country with or without intermediary powers between political leadership and the people by which he primarily understands the existence of local nobilities. In this reference, Tocqueville is quick to express skepticism about the overstated importance of Machiavelli in the history of political philosophy. In different places of his work though a more mitigated stance is documented. A comparative approach of Machiavelli and Tocqueville on war may seem odd, even inappropriate. In this paper I argue that the "brief encounter," in Melvin Richter's terms, of Tocqueville with Machiavelli can be fruitfully explored in order to make sense of the key importance for modern warfare of the collapse of nobility in Europe. Concomitantly, Machiavelli 's intuitions about conquering an absolutist state without intermediary powers compared to a state endowed with "prince" and "barons" can be further elaborated to better grasp its impact on wars including civil strife. In this paper I first explore Machiavelli's perception of the intermediary powers in conquest and broadly in warfare paying due attention to the importance for the preservation of liberty of latent or open civil discord between social powers or classes; then I turn to Tocqueville's rich analysis of the transformation of modern warfare due to democratic centralization and obsession with private welfare. Democratic armies constantly challenge democratic liberty and they can sometimes successfully albeit perversely integrate democratic ambition and turn it against democracy. I conclude with some reflections on the connection between war and politics regarding latent civil conflicts in democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India and South Korea relationship has seen remarkable journey in the last three decades. Apart from rising political and economic weights of both the countries, India and South Korea have also emerged as important soft powers in the region. Their soft powers are based on their rich cultural and historical heritages, their democratic traditions and productions of world famous entertainment contents such as movies, dramas, music and so on. The awareness of the cultural connection between the two countries might have been less than expected but both the countries are indeed committed to reach out each other through these connections. Actually soft powers of both the countries are also useful in connecting them bilaterally as well as providing them access to the Southeast Asian countries. This paper tries to look at the role of soft powers of both the countries in their bilateral relations. When the small and middle powers of the region are forced by the US-China contests to work more on their hard powers and alliances/partnerships, the paper argues that a cooperative narrative may emerge in the region through the soft powers reach outs of India and South Korea and their attempts of agenda setting for the region. The paper would also try to explore trajectory of India-South Korea people-to-people connections and flag problems and prospects in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leadership is championed through political participation starting from the grassroots to the federal. However, Christians' participation in politics/governance has not been significant and their civic responsibilities appear to be consciously eroded given the misconceptions of biblical injunctions. To address this, qualitative methods were used in critiquing areas of duties of Christians' in Nigerian politics and democratic governance from doctrinal and moral standpoints; and examining the doctrinal and moral questions surrounding Christians' apathy. The paper revealed that three areas of obligations that Christians are to fulfill comprise: duty to God, duty to the State, and duty to neighbours. Failure of the clergymen, failure of the government, political corruption, godfatherism conundrum and failure of the security operatives were the identified moral questions. The paper concluded that the level of Christian involvement in Nigerian politics is low and democratic governance is lacking in Nigeria. It therefore submitted that Christians should fulfill their duties through political involvement and advance social justice and social welfare policies as part of the hallmarks of scriptural injunctions. The implication of the paper for practice is that except the moral questions raised in this paper are tackled, Christians would likely maintain their apathetic stand on politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarly curiosity about political friendship (the relationship of mutual care among political fellows) is increasing as liberal democracies around the world face radical polarization. Yet one worry persists: can political friendship really exist in contemporary democracies? The objective of this paper is to answer this question in the affirmative. To this end, I investigate whether members of modern polities have reasons to form friendly bonds with one another. The paper has four parts. The first establishes a fundamental desideratum that any consideration must satisfy to count as a reason for political fellows to partake in political friendship. The second evaluates and rejects a line of argument that presents bonds of mutual identification and belonging among political fellows as reasons for political friendship. The third evaluates and rejects a line of argument due to Paul Ludwig that presents the shared utility of political community as a reason for political fellows to engage in friendly practices with one another. Finally, I introduce my own novel argument—the "argument from membership"—for why political fellows have a reason to care for one another. I argue that membership in a functioning political community is indispensably valuable for any individual in virtue of playing a constitutive role in the individual's attainment of their final ends. I hold that, as constituent parts of the same political community, political fellows have a reason to value one another and, accordingly, to care for one another's well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep disagreements are those involving a disagreement about (relatively) fundamental epistemic principles. This paper considers the bearing of testimonial injustice, in Miranda Fricker's sense, on the depth of disagreements, and what this can teach us about the nature and significance of deep disagreements. I start by re-evaluating T. J. Lagewaard's recent argument that disagreements about the nature, scope, and impact of oppression will often be deepened by testimonial injustice, since the people best placed to offer relevant testimony will be subject to testimonial injustice, pushing the disagreement into one about the bearing of certain epistemic sources on the original debate. I take issue with this last step, but I build on the argument to bring attention to unappreciated and worrying ways in which prejudices can make a disagreement deep in ways that can be hidden from one or more of the participants and from observers. Finally, I revisit some of the ways that deep disagreement has been thought to be problematic for the proper functioning of a democracy, and I examine whether the kinds of hidden deep disagreements I argue for in the paper make these problems any worse, concluding that they likely do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Churches in Hong Kong have served as contractors to the state since its British colonization. To secure their political and social privileges, these churches have often been fashioned into apologists for the state. This mentality was not widely challenged until the 1980s. Since the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, some Hong Kong church leaders, theologians, and laypeople have started to articulate a democratic vision for civil society. This paper employs the notion of "religious activism" as an analytical framework to examine the role of Hong Kong Christianity in the pro-democracy movement. The influential voices and actions of Christians in 1984, 1989, 2003, 2014, and 2019 are chronologically summarized. Each political event triggered divergent reflections on the political participation of Christians. This paper offers an analysis of genealogical narratives of Christian activism and offers a prediction on the future of this political participation, particularly under the imposition of the National Security Law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines dissonant heritage from the perspective of sustainability, i.e. should we maintain and preserve artefacts from our Soviet past, such as the war memorial in the Antakalnis cemetery, which honours soldiers of the USSR who died fighting on Lithuanian soil during the Second World War? Currently, there is an intention on the part of Lithuania's political authorities to remove this apparently dissonant monument. Its presence – and/or removal – raises more than a few issues of sustainability, including those of the socio-cultural environment, policy(ies) for heritage, and matters pertaining to the legal system. Accordingly, the paper analyses this particular example of Lithuania's dissonant heritage by reference to the relevant literature, and also by presenting historical aspects of both the cemetery and the memorial. The opinions of the cemetery's visitors concerning the Soviet memorial are also analysed. The empirical research covers the purposive group of Antakalnis cemetery visitors during All Soul's Day (2 November 2022). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the paper, the author tries to answer the question, what are the sources of polarization in modern authoritarian states (that are procedurally democratic), and what are the key differences (points of conflict) between the polarized parties? Research attention is focused on the analysis of the political and broader social effects of polarization and on the dilemma of whether it is even possible to reduce the negative effects of the actions of value-opposing actors? The author observes a universal sociological regularity according to which the roots of polarization almost unmistakably arise from the pluralism of social identities that are built on ideology, religion, and ethnicity and which tend to be manipulated by political elites. Primarily, artificially created political polarization is a strategy for mobilizing the electoral base, and secondarily it represents a means for legitimizing and consolidating populist and authoritarian regimes. Once society starts to polarize, intra-group loyalty is strengthened within competing political and other groups and a group identity is created that is sensitive to any Otherness, which is reflected in conflicts with social groups and movements that are opposed in terms of interests and values. [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]

This paper discusses the dynamics of the role of intelligence in the reform era in relation to democracy and human rights. Intelligence reform places intelligence more ideally attuned to reform values. However, intelligence practices in the reform era were not as perfect as imagined. In this paper, there are intelligence opportunities and challenges in the future, as part of intelligence development efforts. This paper uses the theory of democratic intelligence owned by Uri Bar-Joseph. The conclusion of this paper is that intelligence as a tool of state security institutions can also have a great opportunity to promote democratic values if law enforcement is really implemented. However, these efforts are not as easy as turning the palm of the hand, because intelligence is still facing challenges that have not been resolved to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from the traditional public administration dichotomy 'power versus knowledge', concerned with the cleavage between politicians and bureaucrats, this paper's main purpose is to reframe a classic theoretical model, by placing the spotlight on a new, under-conceptualized public sector actor: the technocrat. Second, the paper performs empirical research starting from an own-build comprehensive database that includes all the ministers appointed in the Romanian Government during a 30-year timeframe (October 1991-November 2021). In spite of being a rather young democracy with a communist public sector legacy, research findings indicate that in Romania we can clearly identify patterns similar to other European countries (primarily Italy), consisting of appointing technocrats to the cabinet. Such nominations are discussed in correlation with the advancements of new theories of democracy and public administration, imprinted with Neoliberalism, New Public Management, and Good Governance paradigms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1989, councils involving young people have become widespread, both in developed and developing countries. However, these councils are said to reflect the hierarchical nature of parliamentary and representative democracy, leading to tokenistic participation. Studies on the formal structures of youth participation have tended to focus on their failings and reveal little about structures and processes that might encourage youth participation. To address this gap, this paper examines three youth councils in Denmark and argues that the structures of these youth councils – referred to as 'dialogic democracy' in this paper – are what encourage effective participation, ensure the fairness of decision-making processes and develop young people's citizenship skills so that they can have agency in the arena of local policy. Crucially, dialogic democracy can be seen as a form of informal learning, with peer learning being central. Lessons can therefore be drawn for developing citizenship education programmes in other national contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a new insight on the Condorcet Jury Theorem (CJT) in the theory of epistemic democracy. This theorem states that democratic decision-making leads us to correct outcomes under certain assumptions. One key assumption is the 'independence condition', which requires that voters form their beliefs independently when they vote. This paper examines the role of an opinion leader as an informational source, which potentially violates independence. We demonstrate that voters' beliefs may be correlated in the presence of the leader, and that the CJT can fail if the leader's opinions are reliable. This leads us to the following paradoxical observation: for epistemic democracy, good leaders may be bad, while bad leaders may be good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review article presents the results of an exploratory study for illuminating the state of the research concerning public policy in Colombia. A core assumption of the project is that the national capacity (intellectual capital) for producing relevant and thorough research in public policy, theory and practice, is a key element for the quality of its democracy and the sustainability of the system. A systematic documentary review of the research papers produced between 2008 and 2018 was conducted, spanning a total of 1010 papers. The results point to the relevance of continuing this type of study within Colombia and to the need of involving all the stakeholders in a dialogue about how to improve the country's capacity to design, implement, and evaluate sound public policies. Related Articles: Asongu, Simplice A. 2016. "Sino‐African Relations: A Review and Reconciliation of Dominant Schools of Thought." Politics & Policy 44(2): 351–83. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12152. De Lombaerde, Philippe. 2015. "The Political Economy of Trade Protection in Colombia." Politics & Policy 43(6): 855–86. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12140. Seefeldt, Jennapher Lunde. 2020. "Lessons from the Lithium Triangle: Considering Policy Explanations for the Variation in Lithium Industry Development in the 'Lithium Triangle' Countries of Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia." Politics & Policy 48(4): 727–65. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12365. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines democracy's impact on the labor share of income: the share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) dedicated to wages, salaries, and benefits. I hypothesize democratic regimes afford labor the opportunity to increase its share of national income. While previous empirical work finds cross-sectional evidence for the hypothesis, this paper employs a time-series cross-sectional analysis using data for 119 countries between 1950 and 2017, indicating the labor share of income is higher in democratic countries. The estimates are robust to different specifications of the statistical model. This paper also examines a potential causal mechanism that links democracy to a higher labor share through the supply of labor (the average number of hours worked in the economy). The relationship between democracy and the supply of labor lends additional evidence to my hypothesis. In a world characterized by diverging democracy, the results imply the path countries choose between democracy and dictatorship matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using President Joe Biden's opinion article published in The Washington Post ahead of the June 14, 2021 NATO Summit as a point of departure, the present paper examines how NATO members fare in terms of the core constituent elements of liberal democracy such as civil liberties and freedom of expression. To this effect, the paper uses three indices constructed and published by the Varieties of Democracy project. The Liberal democracy, Civil liberties and Freedom of expression indices. The results from club convergence analysis that covers the post-Cold War period, indicate the presence of different convergence clubs among NATO's member-states and Turkey as the single divergent country. Moreover, given that many NATO countries are also EU members, the paper examines the comparative effect the dual NATO and EU membership had on the democratisation process of East European countries and Turkey. The findings suggest a statistically stronger impact of EU membership vis-à-vis NATO membership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the combative drafting process of a new Chilean constitution under the government of left-wing president-elect Gabriel Boric, this paper retrospectively analyzes three documentaries by Patricio Guzmán over the past decade--Nostalgia for the Light, The Pearl Button, The Cordillera of Dreams--to argue that they represent a post-transitional trilogy that departs from Guzmán's previous works during Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship and transition to democracy. Taking heed of Chile's extended cartography of disappearance of both indigenous minorities and political dissidents, this study steers away from human-centric critique of documentary historiography, instead delving into Guzmán's chronotopic presentations of two nonhuman actors: grand landscapes on the macroscale and small objects at the microscale. This paper demonstrates how their affective materiality, by running through and across human and nonhuman bodies, leads to excavations below History's surface, conjuring up small histories of the abovementioned two categories of los vencidos obliterated from postcolonial-ethnocentric and neoliberal-authoritarian imageries. Relying on non-representational methodology and theory of haptic visuality--respectively these destabilize human/landscape and human/thing dichotomies while converging on nonhuman affect--it proposes that it is through evocation of sensations that Guzmán's post-transitional aesthetics form diligent inquiries into the palimpsest of Chile's collective and individual counter-memories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of automated decision-making systems is increasing in education. While the potential impacts of ADM are becoming widely known amongst experts, the perspectives of those impacted by ADM remain peripheral. To broaden expertise and participation, this paper proposes that ADM needs to be considered as a sociotechnical controversy, as part of a technical democracy approach that utilises hybrid forums. Following Callon and colleagues, in this paper, technical democracy refers to the process of learning through uncertainty about sociotechnical controversies, and hybrid forums refer to the specific sites of democratisation. This paper first identifies key uses and concerns with ADM in education. Second, it proposes that restricted capacity for participation can be addressed through technical democracy. Last, it proposes that hybrid forums can create moments of democratisation through shared uncertainty, material politics, and collective experimentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of the paper is to analyse T. G Masaryk's ideas about the importance of education in democratic systems. In particular, the study analyses the ideas that Masaryk associates directly or indirectly with the nature of democracy or with the improvement of the democratic system through changes in the education system. The first part of the paper traces the basic aspects of democratic systems in his work that immediately condition ideas about the importance and role of education in democratic systems. The second part analyses the importance of education in the reproduction of national values, the role of the arts and humanities in the formation of the "democratic man", and the significance of education of broad social strata and political authorities in democratic systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trilogues represent a decisive stage in the European Union (EU) legislative process and often settle the substantive content of EU legislation. During trilogues, negotiations move fast and new solutions are actively identified by the negotiators. The (lack of) transparency of trilogues has been repeatedly criticised in recent years, yet the EU institutions have defended their "space to think". Relying on a set of interviews with trilogue participants, this paper mirrors the institutional practices in the final stages of EU law-making against the requirements of openness in the EU Treaties, which aim to strengthen "democracy by allowing citizens to scrutinize all the information which has formed the basis of a legislative act". The paper argues that, despite noble proclamations, the EU's legislative practices are characterised by institutional discretion and the lack enforcement of transparency requirements. The paper describes how trilogues are conducted and how questions involving risk management and technically complex issues are assessed in this process. Greater transparency would also help to ensure that risks and alternatives are properly assessed and would thus contribute to better-quality risk regulation in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Programme planning models found in the current body of literature provide some practical strategies for developing effective adult education programmes, but how political and economic systems of a country shape the nature and scope of planning is missing. This paper aims to fill this theoretical void by bringing political economy perspective into scholarly discussion. The paper theorises that the state, the market, and the civil society are key components for undertaking political economy analysis. It focuses on how different coordination mechanisms among these components affect the way adult education planners define and undertake needs assessment. The main argument of the paper is that since strengthening democracy is one of the key objectives of adult education, planners should prioritise the needs of marginalised adults over the needs of the state and the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Only five countries have extended universal voting rights to non-citizen residents for all political spheres (local, intermediate and national): Uruguay in 1934, New Zealand in 1975, Chile in 1980, Malawi in 1994, and Ecuador in 2008. These cases constitute a unique intercontinental medley and an opportunity to study the conditions behind such revolutionary change. Through a calibrated comparative strategy based on most similar system designs (inspired by Mill's method of difference) using QCA, this paper finds that the extension of national voting rights to non-citizen residents transpired in two distinct scenarios. The first setting (Chile, New Zealand, and Uruguay) took place within unitary states with already-existing local voting rights for non-citizen residents and settler trajectories, but that were not undergoing a liberalisation process. On the other hand, the second configuration (Ecuador and Malawi) developed within unitary states that recognised nationality by ius soli and were going through a process of liberalisation, but without previous local voting rights for non-citizen residents or a settler trajectory. To our best knowledge, this paper offers the first cross-national explanation that involves all cases that have broadened their respective political communities (demoi) to include national voting rights to all non-citizen residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the notion of tolerance in education. In general, tolerance is perceived as a means to resist hostility, raise awareness of cultural differences, mitigate violence, and maintain liberal and democratic values. In education, there are various initiatives, such as the International Day for Tolerance (UNESCO in Declaration of principles on tolerance, 1995), that aim to build resilience against different forms of hate and cultivate openness and acceptance of the other. Yet the idea of tolerance includes different understandings and interpretations. This paper argues that cultivating an embodied sense of tolerance among students, in particular in divisive communities, requires us to move beyond deliberative interpretations of tolerance and to advance a pragmatic understanding of tolerance through an agonistic lens. This paper starts with a review of several dominant interpretations of tolerance. The heart of the paper focuses on interpreting Dewey's pragmatism as a theoretical basis for advancing tolerance. The final part of the paper explores how pragmatism through an agonistic lens can support a more flexible and humane approach to dealing with political conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following article aims to analyze the legal position of the student movement of the time which dynamism the process of the pre- constituent who gave birth to the 1991 politic constitution, this towards the initiative seeking of a second presidential reelection in the Colombian constitutional system; the Constitution of 1991 was a tough race in constitutional control model and this participative exercise safeguard the Political Constitutional letter; the analysis focuses on the close execution plans to the High Court ruling roaches; the article seeks to generate a sense of reflection in regards to the constituent derivative and primary on this Colombian Constitution history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the debate on postmodernity in Brazil. Postmodernity has entered the intellectual force field in Brazil in the early 1980s. Notions such as the postmodern, postmodernity and postmodernism answered the need to rethink the dominant categories of local cultural historiography during a time of transition from military dictatorship to a democratic regime. A major shift in the fields of ideology and political was taking place. As the debate unfolded, it was the liberal in politics but conservative in culture who rejected the validity of the issues brought up by postmodern critique.

The metaverse is seen as a future generation of the Internet in which the virtual and the real merge into a common world. Technologies such as IoT, cloud computing, artificial intelligence or the reality–virtuality continuum underpin the metaverse and condition its evolution. This paper presents a bibliometric study on the WoS database (from 1995 to 2022) to obtain a comprehensive and non-subjective understanding of the metaverse. The study identifies the main subject areas and sources, the leading countries and authors. It also analyzes the evolution over time and the core and future research themes. Extended reality, blockchain, artificial intelligence and sensors are identified as core themes, while building information modeling, digital twins and governance emerge as future themes. Based on the bibliometric study, a general layered metaverse architecture is proposed that streamlines open challenges in the metaverse to assist researchers and companies in introducing innovative and disruptive improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an ecocritical interpretation of Walt Whitman's renowned work, "Leaves of Grass." The primary objective is to delve into the multifaceted interpretations of this text within the broader context of Whitman's literary corpus. Our research is grounded in the premise that the act of writing is intricately interwoven with the natural world, particularly plant life. Consequently, we aim to scrutinize the various manifestations of plant imagery and symbolism present in Whitman's oeuvre. The argument unfolds across three distinct sections: the first section delves into the influence of Ralph Waldo Emerson on Whitman's thought; the second section investigates the portrayal of nature's principles within "Leaves of Grass"; and finally, the third section critically examines the assumptions and implications of Whitman's poetic approach to nature. Central to our thesis is the assertion that what we term "minimal natures" not only shape poetic construction and life itself but also engage with pertinent political issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the behaviour of credit rating agencies (CRAs) during the ebbing 'pink tide'. It claims that the actions of S&P Global, Moody's and Fitch contributed to dismantling left-wing regimes in Latin America, to the benefit of their right-wing competitors. The methodology draws on case studies of Brazil and Argentina, where the governments of Dilma Rousseff and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner were replaced by those of Michel Temer and Mauricio Macri, respectively. The research is based on sovereign ratings, reports and press releases the agencies issued during those transitions, which are analysed in the light of critical theories of their modus operandi and confronted with the political processes unfolding in both countries. This allows us to draw conclusions that are consistent with the presented argument, thereby contributing to advance the research agenda around the CRAs and to shed light on Brazil and Argentina's recent critical presidential transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I outline Du Bois's WWI-era theory of democracy, which comprises three parts: first, an historically specific explanation of the racially exclusionist character of the modern struggle for democracy; second, a justification of universal suffrage; and third, an account of democratic culture, the promotion of which he believed was necessary to supplement the enfranchisement of black people where white supremacy still threated the achievement of justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last few decades, universities in India have witnessed the joining of a record number of students from marginalized communities and oftentimes struggle. This expansion of access has brought about changes within classrooms and college campuses, sometimes giving rise to contention and causing numerous conflicts as well. Centered around my experiences of teaching in a working-class college in Bangalore, a metropolitan city in Southern India, this paper offers reflections on education in challenging circumstances. Further, the essay explores the possibilities of democratic pedagogic practices through the theoretical framework of Maitri. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study analyses the explanatory order of variables such as political identification, political efficacy and electoral participation in the political system from a multi-directional perspective. It also investigates how these variables are in turn influenced by segmentation variables, including age, gender, income, educational level, social class and religiosity. The paper examines the structural relationships between socio-demographic profiles and voter turnout, considering the potential influence of political efficacy and party identity. Structural models were applied using data from the CIS 3226 Survey. The findings indicate the significant role of political identification in explaining perceived political efficacy and electoral behaviour, the effect of political efficacy on voter turnout, and the changing influence of classical segmentation variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National identity, referred to in Article 4(2) TEU, has been interpreted in different ways by the Court of Justice of the European Union and by different constitutional jurisdictions in some member States. This paper examines the evolution of the regulation of constitutional identity in the Union's treaties and in the case law of the Court of Luxembourg and certain constitutional courts, and proposes, in the light of the analysis carried out, some hypotheses as to which bodies should be responsible for invoking national identity, in which cases and with what effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan and India are the two oldest and largest democracies in Asia. Since the inception of their diplomatic relations in 1952, the two countries have maintained a cordial relationship. They remain aloof during the Cold War period due to their ideological differences. After that, India following the economic liberalization followed by the "Look East" policy in the post-Cold War period had a positive impact on bilateral relations. This took a sudden gap due to India's second Pokhran nuclear test in 1998 followed by Japanese economic sanctions. However, the relations normalized soon when Mori visited India along with other South Asian nations in 2000. The bilateral relations further improved when the two countries signed the "strategic orientation of Japan-India global partnership" during Koizumi's visit in 2005. Since then, the two countries have been engaging in different aspects of strategic partnership, and a peaceful and stable Indo-Pacific along with the "rule-based order" has always been their priority. Thus, different scholars and statesmen from both countries started the discussion on building a new architecture of 'rule-based order' in the Indo-Pacific. To that end, Japan and India have continuously engaged themselves in bilateral and multilateral dialogue such as G4, Shangri-La Dialogue and Quad. Thus, this paper will try to see how far the two countries can persuade the international community to push the concept of "rule-based order" in the Indo-Pacific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on data sources systematically tracking government activity such as budgets and bill hearings, the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory literature has demonstrated that policy processes in both democracies and nondemocracies feature long periods of stasis interrupted by dramatic changes. However, there is a lack of research that systematically examines China's policy process. In response, this article introduces a new dataset drawn from China State Council Gazettes from 1980 to 2019 to measure policy punctuations and agenda diversity in China. We find that punctuations in China's policy process are more intense than those in democracies. The findings further show that China's policy process features more positive punctuations than negative punctuations. We also find an overall increasing trend of agenda diversity and a pattern of alternation between agenda expansion and concentration across the forty years analyzed in this paper. These findings provide new long-term evidence regarding patterns of policy stability and change in the Chinese context and contribute to our understanding of China's politics of attention and its linkage with information inefficiency and survival politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I argue for a normative reconstruction, from a decolonial perspective of critical theory in Brazil and Latin America, of a democratic ethos that despite its weaknesses and normative deficits is capable of fostering an increasingly deliberative, participatory, and egalitarian democracy by making extensive use of new digital technologies (comprising both AI systems and digital governance). Its argumentative core boils down to the promotion of intersectional egalitarianism (socio-economic, gender, racial-ethnic, environmental) through digital inclusion, which seems only feasible to us from a perspective capable of accommodating the normative claims of a critical decolonial theory combined with a naturalistic view of sustainability, within a research program that I dubbed “mitigated social constructionism” in response to the phenomenological deficit of normative and naturalistic theories (including critical theory and neurophilosophy). If what matters is normativity, then to avoid the divide between naturalism and non-naturalist normativity one nonfoundationalist alternative is to resort to hermeneutical and procedural accounts of normativity as helpful clues to making sense of the naturalism-normativity problem, avoiding reductionist interpretations of both naturalism (Churchland) and normativism (Parfit). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent climate activism has played a key role in denouncing the unsustainability of representative democracy. Previous research has investigated the attitudes of climate activists towards representative institutions along the conceptual distinction between 'environmental' and 'ecological' democracy. Yet, little attention has been paid to climate activists' critique of capitalism and how it relates to demands for democratic reform. Our paper addresses this gap by conducting a mixed-method analysis of protest survey data collected in Belgium in 2019. Our findings show that activists display low levels of trust towards representative institutions, but still abide by the ideals of environmental democracy within the boundaries of existing institutions. At the same time, we observe a widespread critique of capitalism, signaling attraction towards the ideals of ecological democracy. Overall, our findings challenge the binary distinction between environmental versus ecological democracy, and raises normative questions about the role of environmental social movements in economic and democratic reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers Habermas's translation proviso, which requires religious concepts to be translated into secular language when in the public sphere. Translation, for Habermas, protects the state from religious interference and elicits essential aspects of pre-rational thought—that is, religious and metaphysical thought, which post-metaphysics cannot generate for itself, e.g., social solidarity. The task undertaken by Habermas's translation proviso is illustrated through his own work of translation: that of the translation of the biblical image of humanity as created in the image of God into the identical dignity of each human being. To provide context to and to highlight the difficulties involved in Habermas's translation proviso, consideration is given to the thought of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI and Alasdair MacIntyre on these themes. What is demonstrated is that Habermas's translation is, in essence, assimilation and re-appropriation. In practice, it manifests itself as the truncation of Christian metaphysics, in which the divine Logos is replaced by or collapsed into the logos of intersubjective human language. The relational image of humanity as a creature distinct from the Creator, in which human reason is analogous to divine reason, is erased, leaving autonomous human beings, from which human reason emerges out of the discursive communication of the logos of intersubjective human language. The conclusion is that the translation proviso fails in its objective. An alternative to Habermas's translation proviso, the presupposition proviso, is presented as a more apt approach to addressing the underlying issues involved: facilitating human flourishing in an orderly, free, and just society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cambodia is undergoing profound change in its pursuit of economic development. Respect for human rights and democracy deteriorated in Cambodia post the 2018 General Election. In retaliation, the European Union (EU), Cambodia's second most important export destination, launched the procedure to withdraw Cambodia's preferential trade scheme, the Everything but Arms (EBA), in an attempt to generate economic pressure to encourage democratic reform and respect for human rights principles. In assessing whether this procedure has been successful or not, this paper finds that the EU has not been effective at promoting democracy and human rights in Cambodia through these measures. Not only is the EU's conditionality mechanism flawed, but the EU has also lost much of its leveraging power due to the growing presence of China and actions from the UK to boost trade with Cambodia. Ultimately, the EU's conditionality punishes the wrong groups, and so in effect is a contradiction of what the EU is trying to achieve in opening space for democracy and the improvement of human rights principles for the people of Cambodia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the case studies of Hungary and Israel, this article proposes an expansion of the term 'political violence' to encompass the phenomenon of using harsh language followed by punitive measures, which are not necessarily physical. It aims to gain additional power, intimidate opponents, and narrow the public and political abilities of social and political forces with a different ideology. One major consequence is a transition from a democratic regime to a non-democratic one. The paper concludes that political violence is currently mainly verbal in Israel, but in Hungary, it also has the practical dimension of hurting the government's political opponents. This policy has a direct implication on the state national identity, which is in both cases a more national-religious one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conspiracy theories are rather a popular topic these days, and a lot has been written on things like the meaning of conspiracy theory, whether it's ever rational to believe conspiracy theories, and on the psychology and demographics of people who believe conspiracy theories. But very little has been said about why people might be led to posit conspiracy theories in the first place. This paper aims to fill this lacuna. In particular, I shall argue that, in open democratic societies, citizens justifiably presuppose that the epistemic authorities—journalists, academics, scientists, and so on—are engaged in a good faith pursuit of the truth. This presupposition generates certain normative expectations on the behaviors of the epistemic authorities—they ought to be open to new evidence, possess a healthy degree of skepticism, be willing to engage with opponents, and so on. So, when an epistemic authority is presented with some putatively anomalous data or an alternative hypothesis for some event or phenomena, people expect the epistemic authority to respond in a way that is consonant with these norms. In some instances, however, the epistemic authorities do not respond in this way and instead are dogmatic, dismissive, and engage in ad hominem. From the point of view of the citizen, there's a tension here between how the epistemic authorities ought to behave and how they have, in fact, behaved which is best resolved either by taking the epistemic authorities less seriously or by positing a conspiracy theory. Put another way, the failure of the epistemic authorities to adhere to the norms by which we take them to be governed when presented with apparent anomalies or alternative hypotheses is one reason for which one might initially posit a conspiracy theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies offer new ways of conducting decision-making tasks that influence the daily lives of citizens, such as coordinating traffic, energy distributions, and crowd flows. They can sort, rank, and prioritize the distribution of fines or public funds and resources. Many of the changes that AI technologies promise to bring to such tasks pertain to decisions that are collectively binding. When these technologies become part of critical infrastructures, such as energy networks, citizens are affected by these decisions whether they like it or not, and they usually do not have much say in them. The democratic challenge for those working on AI technologies with collectively binding effects is both to develop and deploy technologies in such a way that the democratic legitimacy of the relevant decisions is safeguarded. In this paper, we develop a conceptual framework to help policymakers, project managers, innovators, and technologists to assess and develop approaches to democratize AI. This framework embraces a broad sociotechnical perspective that highlights the interactions between technology and the complexities and contingencies of the context in which these technologies are embedded. We start from the problem-based and practice-oriented approach to democracy theory as developed by political theorist Mark Warren. We build on this approach to describe practices that can enhance or challenge democracy in political systems and extend it to integrate a sociotechnical perspective and make the role of technology explicit. We then examine how AI technologies can play a role in these practices to improve or inhibit the democratic nature of political systems. We focus in particular on AI-supported political systems in the energy domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Illiberalism emphasizes traditional values and national sovereignty over liberal democratic ideals, which can lead to the erosion of democratic norms and institutions. Against this background, the paper investigates the relationship between illiberalism and various political and social factors in Romania, taking into account a particular context (the Russian invasion in Ukraine). Romania has experienced a rise in illiberal attitudes and the spread of populist and nationalist rhetoric, which is particularly concerning given its strategic location as a member of the European Union and NATO, and its proximity to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. This study aims to investigate the associations between various attitudes, news consumption habits, and perceived exposure to misinformation, and how these factors relate to levels of illiberalism in Romanian society. Given the increasing prominence of illiberal and populist ideologies globally, a nuanced understanding of these relationships is critical. The study employs a quantitative approach, leveraging an online survey to collect data from a sample of 1000 Romanian citizens. Soft quotas were used to ensure a diverse representation across age, gender, and education levels. Data collection was carried out by Dynata, a globally recognized market research firm, between March 1–9, 2022. Our analysis, informed by multiple regression models, uncovers complex relationships between trust in institutions, attitudes towards Russia and Ukraine, news consumption habits, perceived misinformation, and demographic factors in shaping illiberal perspectives. By providing a comprehensive understanding of the contributing factors, this study aims to inform public discourse and policy-making processes on how to address illiberal tendencies in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central and Eastern Europe has become a ripe target for disinformation and malign narratives propagated by foreign actors. A deluge of propaganda deployed by hostile states is aimed at polarizing societies, undermining the decision-making capabilities of governments, and influencing public policy. Against the backdrop of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the stakes are enormous. Heeding research on debunking and pre-bunking strategies recognizing the limitations and potential of these approaches in inoculating populations against disinformation, this paper examines how several tactics deployed in the CEE region can both speak to and draw from this literature. While certain segments of CEE populations may be vulnerable to disinformation, the region also boasts civically engaged publics that want to take an active part in fostering societal resilience. The rise of digital elves (volunteer information warriors taking the fight to online trolls), the outsourcing of counter-disinformation activities to popular public institutions (like the police and military), and the use of crowdfunding to support news literacy education and independent media outlets present compelling alternative strategies towards responding to foreign influence. These activities show promise in overcoming obstacles faced by conventional approaches to disinformation and addressing CEE-specific issues related to media distrust and state capture of the media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on theorists of jurisdiction to make visible how democratic self-government and the rule of law take effect in the modern administrative state. Through the lens of Caring Society v Canada, a Canadian human rights case about the funding of social services for Indigenous children, I explore an idea of jurisdictional justice that is inherently connected to the quality of democratic engagement and focuses attention on political, legal and human relationships. I argue that in the face of challenges posed by populist politics and the colonial administrative state, this relational understanding of jurisdiction provides resources for building a sense of legality that can sustain shared public meaning and promote practices of political accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The diversity of features attributed to populism - and, as a result, the variety of critiques leveled at it - are remarkable. It sometimes seems as though people are using the same terms to address very different phenomena. Is there any distinctive meaning to populism? Is populism inherently anti-democratic or, on the contrary, is it the epitome of democratic practice? What should an engagement with populist movements mean for the theory and practice of democracy? This paper seeks to map the discursive ecosystem that populism determines. It canvasses the phenomena often associated with populism, proposes an interrelated set of concerns that is distinctive to populism, suggests how populism intersects with propensities and affinities with which it is often associated, emphasises the role of growing economic inequality, and suggests responses to populist movements that are grounded in a truly democratic constitutionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two of the dominant frameworks for criticizing capitalism and liberal democracy in contemporary political theory is Socialist republicanism, on the one hand, and radical democracy, on other hand. Whereas radical democratic thinkers have for decades criticized liberal democracy for being elitist, hierarchical and outright anti-popular, socialist republicans have for the last 10 years developed critiques of capitalism centred on the neo-republican idea of freedom as non-domination and proposed various arguments for workplace democracy and cooperative forms of ownership. Despite the common ambition of uncovering hierarchical relations of economic, political and social power, and creating new egalitarian and participatory modes of political organization, no systematic comparison of socialist republicanism and radical democracy exists. This paper fills this gap by comparing the different understandings of (a) institutions and (b) political action and (c) their diverging historical and political relations to socialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the dramatic increase in the international democracy promotion efforts toward the Arab Middle East in the period between the September 11, 2001 attacks and the Arab uprisings in 2010, the authoritarian regimes in the region have paradoxically become more entrenched. This paper tries to analyze this puzzling development by taking democracy promotion toward the Arab Middle East as an international regime. By examining the constitutive norms, procedures, and the institutions of this international democracy promotion regime, I argue that the weak character of the regime produced what I call ‘reverse emergent properties’—contradictory systemic effects that cannot be reduced to its individual parts, in this case the individual democracy promotion initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within what is known as the post-truth era, politicians strategically trade in alternative interpretations of data, make bold populist claims and on occasions be completely dishonest for party political gains. Such practices coincide with ever-declining trust in politicians and the democratic system, a phenomenon common to both Spain and the UK. We enquire whether public mistrust is deserved exploring the extent party leaders employ misinformation as part of their strategic communication. The paper analyses falsehoods made by political leaders as determined by major fact-checking sites EFE Verifica and Newtral in Spain, and the UK's BBC Reality Check and Full Fact. We categorise falsehoods as misinformation, alternative facts, bullshit or lies. Results show right-wing parties most responsible for all forms of falsehoods, or they are most likely to face analysis from factcheckers. Falsehoods are used by governments defending their policies, but also by oppositions to attack the government; especially alternative facts. The overwhelming majority of policy attacks based on false information are from opposition parties, particularly Spanish parties on the right. The flagrant use of bullshit and lies, while simultaneously calling out their more mainstream opponents for similar practices, poisons the notion of democratic pluralism and makes low public trust seem perfectly justified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the articulation of race, class, gender, and politics in erotic magazines during the Argentine and Peruvian destapes in the transition from dictatorial to democratic rule at the turn to the 1980s. We argue that porn, as a genre, was not limited to a niche of readers seeking to use the magazines only for erotic purposes. In Peru, porn was one of the main agents in the opposition to military rule, and it only became a separate, autonomous genre devoid of politics with the coming of democracy. The emergence of magazines focused mostly on eroticism developed as editors attempted to lure readers among recent migrants from the Sierra who lived in the pueblos jóvenes (squatter settlements) in Lima. In this context, the audience demanded pictures of local women to replace foreign white female nudes. In Argentina porn became a crucial aspect of democratic politics, understood as a tool to overcome inhibitions, develop a self-exploration, and undermine traditional mores while fostering democracy. Driven by an impulse to emulate the alleged open-mindedness of Europe and the US, Argentine porn cemented white middle-class identity at a time of economic decline. In this context, Argentine erotic magazines praised sexual experimentation as courageous and gave voice to women, gays, and lesbians. Our approach combines social, political, and cultural history focusing on how the readership shaped magazines and at times achieved significant editorial changes. Through the study of porn we offer new insights regarding the transition to democracy in late Cold War Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]