Search

Highlighting a progression of exercises, this paper develops a pedagogical model aimed at giving students tools to deliberate about justice from within the Original Position and to debate the broader goals and limitations of justice as fairness. The approach focuses on the idea of a "distribution" of primary goods without relying on caricatures or being intimidated by the more technical features of the presentation. The series of exercises shows students how to move from more intuitive to less intuitive deliberative situations-a move that depends on seeing a just distribution as a product of a pure procedure. In particular, the exercises show the importance of distinguishing carefully between a distribution and an allocation of goods. Finally, it suggests ways in which we may use the theory to engage with our own distributive practices in democratic societies by focusing on the moral significance of persons as equals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to theorise the labour and corporeal carcerability of the non-citizen non-subjects in contemporary democracies of the United States and India. I reappropriate Joy James' framework of 'Captive Maternals' to understand the relationality between the undocumented, racialised, or incarcerated with the neo-liberal states that they inhabit and serve but where they do not belong. James describes Captive Maternals as those bodies subject to consumption by the democratic order in the tradition of slavery. I expand upon her framework to argue that the dehumanisation of illegal 'aliens' and racially policed bodies not only challenges the notion of freedom in the modern democratic social organisation but rather manifests the fundamental correlation between democratic sovereignty and its exclusionary violence. This phenomenon internal to the workings of democracies challenges Hegel's idealisation of the modern rational state as the most advanced form of government characterised primarily by freedom. Democracy also constitutes the exercise of necropolitical sovereignty which I interpret not as the right to kill but as the right to police and incarcerate. Against the Hegelian struggle for recognition (Anerkennung), I deliberate on the possibility of transcending to a less than fully-determined Sittlichkeit that does not rely upon reciprocal recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Faced with contradictory outcomes in empirical studies on the relation between democracy and income inequality, this paper attempts to provide empirical relations between democracy and income inequality. In particular, the authors seek to find if any curvilinear relation exists as in the Kuznets hypothesis. Design/methodology/approach: Given elusiveness in empirical relations, the authors will consider several specifications using different estimation methods such as ordinary least squares (OLS), panel data estimation and performing statistical tests to determine the best specification for the relation between income inequality and democracy. Once the authors choose the specification, then the authors will apply this specification to the different groups of data to find any meaningful implications. Findings: Using the unbalanced panel of 136 countries spanning from 1980 to 2018, the authors found an inverse U-shaped relation, called a political Kuznets curve – income inequality increases first and then decreases later as more democracy is achieved. By quantifying the curve, the authors find that the direct impact of democracy on income inequality is small and that the incremental impact of democracy on income inequality is smaller in a semi-democracy while relatively larger in a full democracy and autocracy. Originality/value: From the study's findings, the following policy implications can be considered. First, any change in income inequality caused by democratization should not be concerning as the impact of democracy on income inequality is measured to be very small. Second, the largest factor reducing income inequality is real GDP per capita. Third, the authors find that an impact of government expenditure on income inequality is also inversely U-shaped. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pinnacle of the Novak's reflections on possible perspectives for the future of the world and the development of international relations is his vision of "Caritapolis" ("Civilization of love"), which is presented especially in the book The universal hunger for liberty – Why the clash of civilizations is not inevitable (2004a). Novak builds the concept on the religious assumptions and on the minimum level of general belief in basic principles (cultural humility, regulative idea of truth, the dignity of the individual person, solidarity), which he considers to be the key to the world security, prosperity and the democratic future of the globalized world. This "vision for the 21st century" is to contribute to the consideration of a universal civilization that would respect all its internal variations and create a certain unity despite its rich diversity of value and religious ideas. The aim of this paper is to present Novak's concept of Caritapolis and to evaluate it in terms of context of the social doctrine of the Church, Catholic social thought debates, relevance in the context of debates in the social sciences, especially the theories of international relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of this paper is to discuss the role of virtues in promoting general wellbeing for the common people. This is meant to contribute to the debate about possible linkages between overall wealth and individual character. My main source of inspiration is Michael Novak's perspectives on the cultural basis for capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Michael Novak's concept of democratic capitalism in Poland aroused great interest for several reasons. The most important of them consisted in its close relation to the teaching of the Polish Pope John Paul II. The second was its temporal coincidence with the start of a political transformation in Poland, when a model of development consistent with Polish tradition and social expectations was sought. The third was related to its Slavic roots and origin, which gained in importance given a perceived civilizational backwardness of the countries belonging to the former socialist bloc. For Polish Catholic thinkers, the concept of democratic capitalism initially seemed to promise a smooth transition to a market economy, protecting society from the shock of a possible collision with predatory capitalism. But the discussions of Michael Novak's conception which took place in Poland at that time were unfortunately burdened with fears of cultural pluralism and with leaving individuals too much freedom in implementing their own ways of achieving happiness. Polish conservatives, who were in power at that time, did not seem to understand the important need for a dynamic moral and cultural system in a society that was just starting its modernization processes. It is paradoxical, but in these discussions what was most feared was the weakening of religious traditions in Polish society. According to the author, this fear caused distrust of the democratic conception, and especially its moral foundations, which continues to this day. This paper, therefore, also contributes to reflection on to what extent the teachings of John Paul II have been absorbed in Polish conservative circles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper delves into the conceptual delineation of the institution of the neighborhood as a catalyst for innovative political discourse and practice. It aims to set the basis for an upcoming reevaluation of the work of Andrés Ortiz-Osés, pioneer of Gadamerian hermeneutics in Spain, considering the neighborhood's potential: its co-implicated and co-implicative nature connects consistently with his symbolic hermeneutics of the sense. The neighborhood, a complex institution transcending conventional affiliations, underpins coexistence, mutual tolerance, and a kind of ethical dialogue. This work contributes to highlighting the neighborhood's political dimensions on its own and claims its philosophical relevance beyond its traditional understanding. The ambivalent space of vicinity promotes plural speech and serves as a vital agora, fostering dynamic, ethical coexistence and engaged citizenship, thereby enhancing the democratic landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains and corroborates the mechanisms by which civic and political spaces opposed to Hindu nationalism have been attacked, especially after the arrival of the right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in 2014. Three mechanisms are discerned for replacing pluralistic values with Hindu majoritarian ones. Sometimes institutions are just allowed to drift by interpreting old rules in new ways. For example, no formal rules for media control have changed but the government's control over media has increased substantially. At other times, incremental legal and policy changes are executed to make the change explicit, often building on a new moral purpose. To give another example, the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) was amended and weaponized against NGOs in a layered way in 2020. Finally, when political opposition is weak, institutions that have provided guarantees for protecting diversity have simply been displaced by new and radically different ones. This was the case with abrogating Article 370, which converted the special status of the subnational state of Jammu and Kashmir to the status of two federally administered union territories--Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. These mechanisms place India in a competitive authoritarian frame, where those in power deploy electoral majorities to systematically attack the political opposition, making it more di(cult for it to rise. Despite these propensities, opposition parties have won elections in some of India's subnational states. The challenges facing the world's most populous democracy are significant, even though competitive elements co-exist. These elements in a competitive authoritarian regime, however, are under severe stress. India's democratic credentials can be revived only if the competitive elements of India's democracy stand united against ethno-nationalist Hindu majoritarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern political trends in democracies, such as post-truth, populist, and identity politics, have produced a solid emotion-based distinction between true believers and non-believers, polarizing the perceptions of the legitimacy of political regimes and decisions. The paper aims to capture this process by introducing the concept of sectarianization built on Max Weber's thoughts on political sects in democracies and Émile Durkheim's theory of cults in modern societies. We highlight four core components of sectarianization through the illustrative case of Viktor Orbán's Hungary: artificially produced charisma; exclusive but voluntary community (schism, conversion and ex-communication); monopolized political rituals; and controlled belief system (propaganda). Building on theories of political/civil religions, personality cults, sociological research on new religious movements and studies on political behaviour and communication, we demonstrate the analytical usefulness of the concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voting is a collective activity: it requires more than one person to win a vote. In a corporation, voting allows the winning idea to become an intention of the corporate group once the vote is concluded. In this paper, argue that unlike in corporate boards, in a democratic election, the voting process does not create a group intention. The difference between the two processes is an oft-overlooked moment directly after the corporate vote in which members on the losing side ratify the decision of the group and move on with the group into the future. In state elections, because of the high cost of renouncing membership, there is typically no ratification moment. While different groups do have collective intentions prior to an electoral vote, the vote itself does not manifest the intention of a group agent such as 'the People.' This conclusion has implications for minority rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an evaluation of the information literacies used by community representatives when engaging with participatory budgeting in São Paulo City, Brazil. Using questions established from context-setting interviews with stakeholders, a focus group was held in 2019 with eight participative councillors, with in situ interpretation, resulting in a translated transcript of the discussion. Thematic analysis was used to understand information issues faced by community representatives in relation to past research. It was found that the community representatives face informational barriers to their engagement with participatory budgeting, in (a) learning about their role (b) understanding the information needs of the communities served and (c) gathering and sharing information about local issues with stakeholders. These findings allow the refining of CILIP's definition of information literacy (IL) for citizenship and provide the basis for proposing a model for the IL of community representatives. It is also proposed that future IL research could further develop the role of digitally-enabled place and community in shaping the landscape of literacy and the role of hyperlocal representation. Additionally, the role of translation in cross-lingual IL research is considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are the effects of extractive informal institutions on the horizontal accountability process in a developing democracy? This paper presents evidence about the harmful effects of extractive informal institutions on horizontal accountability within subnational governments in Brazil. After three decades of free and competitive elections, the institutional design of oversight institutions for state governments has hardly changed. We explore the hypothesis that more extractive informal institutions, measured by the level of income inequality, is associated with decreasing transparency levels. Given its extensive social, political, and economic diversity embedded in an overall centralized formal institutional framework, Brazil provides an appropriate setting to test the hypothesis that extractive informal institutions responsible for increased income inequality can undermine horizontal accountability in new democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The election of corrupt politicians remains a crucial global problem, yet our knowledge regarding factors determining electorates' tolerance for corruption remains extremely limited. This paper explores individual characteristics and macroeconomic factors determining an individual's likelihood to (1) vote for her preferred political party even if that party was involved in a corruption scandal, and (2) abstain from voting even when an established non-corrupt party exists. I identify several individual characteristics, such as education and income levels, gender, employment status, political leaning, and trust in local media, and macroeconomic factors, such as income per capita, country-level corruption, and political rights, significantly influencing an individual's voting choice. A few implications emerge. Corruption can be self-sustaining and may undermine democracy by discouraging political participation. While education promotes political participation, it does not reduce citizens' tolerance for corruption by their preferred political parties. Corruption might widen income and gender inequality by lowering the political participation of the poor and women, and extreme political leaning can promote political corruption. • Politicians with corruption and criminal charges continue to get elected. • I study voting behaviors in response to an individual's preferred political party's involvement in corruption. • Voting behaviors vary significantly across different socioeconomic and demographic groups. • Political corruption can widen socioeconomic inequalitiies. • Political corruption might weaken democracy by discouraging political participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Student voice is, of course, fundamental – who could argue against democracy? It is important that we do not return to a time where students were seen and not heard and positioned as subordinate figures but at the same time, do teachers suffer because of this democracy? Although student voice policies can represent positive developments, it would be naïve to be overly celebratory of pro-voice policies. This critical account focuses on some of the unsavoury ways that student voice can play out in schools: it can be used for surveillance; it can give rise to suspicion; and it can see dissenters stigmatised. Qualitative data generated through interviews with school staff are drawn on in this paper and researcher subjectivity is treated as a key asset as the author's student voice experiences at the coalface are first expounded in an autoethnographic account and then reflected in the interpretations and presentations of the interview data. What is coined the 'I(nterest) behind this research' means that student voice is not taken at face value or as an unquestionably positive initiative but something that can, even unintentionally, be more sinister. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is perennial debate in comparative politics about electoral institutions, but what characterizes this debate is the lack of consideration for citizens' perspective. In this paper, we report the results of an original survey conducted on representative samples in 15 West European countries (N = 15,414). We implemented an original instrument to elicit respondents' views by asking them to rate "real but blind" electoral outcomes. With this survey instrument, we aimed to elicit principled rather than partisan preferences regarding the kind of electoral outcomes that citizens think is good for democracy. We find that West Europeans do not clearly endorse a majoritarian or proportional vision of democracy. They tend to focus on aspects of the government rather than parliament when they pass a judgment. They want a majority government that has few parties and enjoys wide popular support. Finally, we find only small differences between citizens of different countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1990, multilateral organizations have invested in the idea that multiparty political systems are an essential part of building durable peace, and that former insurgents must be converted to political actors. To what extent does this foster longer term democracy and stability? In this paper, we focus on the role of electoral inclusion for post-rebel parties in the creation of stable party systems as one feature that supports both democratization and durable peace. We find that political integration of former insurgents in electoral politics not only serves the short-term purpose of bringing such groups "inside the tent" and smoothing the transition from war to peace. It also lays a foundation for the creation of stable party systems. We test our propositions with an original dataset and offer explanatory analysis of small set of parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the fights over banks and paper money in state constitutional conventions in the antebellum Northwest. These debates played a central role in the development of popular self-government and democracy in the region. Citizens demanded fundamental constitutional reforms that would circumvent irresponsible legislatures and thwart undemocratic financial institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: For a connected graph G, the restricted edge-connectivity is defined as the minimum cardinality of an edge-cut over all edge-cuts S such that each component of contains at least p vertices. In the present paper we introduce the more general parameter defined as the minimum cardinality of an edge-cut over all edge-cuts S such that one component of contains at least p vertices and another component of contains at least q vertices where p and q are positive integers. Analogously, we define as the minimum cardinality of a vertex-cut over all vertex-cuts such that one component of contains at least p vertices and another component of contains at least q vertices. A connected graph G is -connected (-connected), if () is well-defined. First we give useful equivalences to -connectivity and -connectivity and characterize the classes of graphs which are -connected and -connected. Then we prove which generalizes Whitney''s well-known inequality . Finally, we characterize the class of graphs for which is minimum, i.e. and the class of graphs for which is maximum, i.e. or . [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In recent years, democracy has been facing increasing challenges. How has comparative regime research responded? Focusing on the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project, this paper argues that the perception of serious threats to democracy in general and liberal norms in particular has given rise to a convergence around the liberal conception of democracy, reversing a previous turn towards recognising its conceptual contestability. In tracing V-Dem's discursive turn from the contestation to the decontestation of democracy, the paper reconstructs two mechanisms that concern the ways in which academic research relates to the outside world and that have jointly pushed V-Dem scholars towards embracing unequivocally liberal conceptions of regime type and regime change. As a response to the crisis of democracy, this gradual abandonment of a pluralist conceptualisation of democracy is understandable but also deeply problematic as it contributes to downplaying the inherent limitations of liberal democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the multiple issues of the digital public sphere threaten our democracies and the cohesion of our societies, most attempts for a betterment of the digital networks and platforms revolve around a risk-response approach. This paper takes the opposite approach and develops a positive definition of the ideal ethical public sphere, combining normative features with original taxonomies. In view of defining common standards for a healthy digital public sphere, this paper offers an interdisciplinary literature review, and original recommendations, before discussing potential leverages for implementing these changes. The suggested ethical normative features derive from a positive approach to the digital public sphere, as ideal common standards. Sustained by the underlying assumption that the composite landscape of the media ecosystem and its different layers (networks, platforms, users) cannot be steered by government regulations alone, the normative (deontological) approach serves to understand and justify the need for a normative approach, to help envision new pathways for an ethical transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The African Union is emerging as a prominent actor in election assistance and observation. Considering the continued centrality of the electoral process to democracy-building efforts in Africa, African continental and regional organisations are increasingly monitoring elections and taking the lead in election observation processes across the continent. This paper contributes to the African agency literature by showing how agency is operationalised and implemented through international election observation. Focusing on Malawi's recent electoral history (2004–2020), this paper argues that the African Union is institutionalising its election observation protocols and challenging the dominant position of western international actors, through enacting the role and agency of continental and regional actors. It critically assesses the African Union's ability to undertake these efforts and how it has addressed elections, and the politics surrounding them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study deals with the AKP (Justice and Development Party) right-authoritarianism during the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey, as seen from the perspective of necropolitics. It examines the relationships between politics and death, asking the question of how such relationships fell into an authoritarian character adversely influencing democracy and democratic values. For this, the study centres on the AKP government's response to the pandemic crisis, discussed as a manifestation of necropolitics. The paper explains the concept of necropolitics and underlines two of its fundamental characteristics: state of exception and creation of enemy. The paper focuses on these two traits to frame and critique the AKP's right-authoritarian politics during the COVID-19 outbreak. The aim of the analysis is to show how AKP politics has politicised death, bearing in mind the social and political opposition's moves against such politics in Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores a polemical debate that took place in France during the Covid-19 crisis, around two formulas: "health dictatorship" (dictature sanitaire) and "civil disobedience." It first analyses the arguments that justify their use; it then explores the verbal confrontation where Proponents and Opponents attack each other's stance, thus shedding light on important issues that underlie the discussion on the anti-Corona health measures: the nature and limits of democracy, the question of authority and obedience in a democratic regime. In the third step, the paper examines the actors behind the roles of Proponent and Opponent, namely, political figures and movements. A difference is drawn between the extremists and the candidates for the 2022 Presidential elections who supported the protest but did not adopt the formulas for fear of compromising themselves. However, the fact that the extremist voices and the voices of ordinary citizens merged in the same protest threatens to whitewash trends that used to be outside the Republican consensus and to bring the French closer to them. This risk calls for a better training in rhetorical analysis allowing the citizens to protect themselves from the manipulation of the authoritarian politicians who pose as the champions of Liberty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the configuration of corruption in democracies and simultaneously looks at whether civil society figures in this configuration. It does so via a fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis of 30 democracies in the third wave of autocratization. Results of the analysis suggest that the presence of high perceived corruption is accounted for by the absence of a robust civil society combined with the absence of wide and independent public deliberation and the presence of high political exclusion. On the other hand, the absence of high perceived corruption is explained by the presence of wide and independent public deliberation combined with the absence of high political exclusion. It is particularly in the latter case that civil society's role, whether in its presence or absence, is elusive. The paper contributes to the discussion on the contextual dependencies of corruption and the conditionality of civil society's anti-corruption role. Prospects for future research on the conditional and possibly indirect anti-corruption role of civil society in democracies are put forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines mass public opinion in three small states of the South Caucasus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, to understand why some individuals in these states prefer a pro-Western foreign policy orientation–pursuing membership in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU), while others do not. We draw on social identity theory to hypothesize the potential affinity some individuals feel toward the West. Using public data from the South Caucasus region where Russia has strongly attempted to block Western penetration, the paper demonstrates that the commitment to democratic values is central to the understanding of mass opinion over foreign alliances in small states: individuals who demonstrate pro-democracy attitudes and support democratic values are more likely to approve of pro-Western foreign policy orientation. These findings suggest that the study of foreign policy preferences in small states is important for our understanding of great power politics and alliance competition. [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]

This paper examines the limits of Indonesian civil society activism in advancing democratic politics. This activism, mainly by middle-class reformers, has not only failed to prevent democracy from being hijacked by illiberal interests but also contributed to justifying the deepening of political illiberalism. A predominantly anti-political approach among civil society activists mainly aims to establish new institutions and policy designs to generate reforms, while allowing entrenched power relations to remain unchallenged and to pervade new institutions. Meanwhile, social protests mobilized by this kind of activism, both on the streets and social media platforms, also tend to be sporadic and have no clear leadership and structure, while protest demands are often contradictory, making these too weak to challenge anti-democratic interests. This paper challenges existing studies that extoll Indonesian civil society activists for their success in advocating certain legislation, policies, and institutions. The weakening of the Indonesian Corruption Eradication Commission (Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi, KPK) illustrates how even trusted democratic institutions equipped with extraordinary powers and capacities are vulnerable to vested interests. Not only have Indonesian civil society activists failed to defend the KPK, but many of them have justified attempts to paralyze this agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is the first of a pair of articles in which we argue that what we term the 'centre-idea' was fundamental to British modernist architecture and planning thought from the mid-1940s onwards. We locate this idea's roots in the pre-1939 British voluntary sector, specifically the activities of the Peckham Experiment and the Pioneer Health Centre which housed it. We evidence its long-term influence on post-1945 architecture and planning in the invitation to the Experiment's co-creator George Scott Williamson to speak at CIAM's eighth Congress in 1951. The paper begins with a discussion of the Experiment, an architectural and urban setting which was understood to effect new forms of human relationships and subjectivity suited to a democratic, post-imperial modernity. We then consider other environments to show how this 'centre-idea' was widespread in progressive circles by the late 1930s. The paper concludes by discussing the community centre as an emerging building type increasingly supported by the state. This coming together of the British state, modernist architecture and progressive voluntarist thinking by the outbreak of war in 1939, would mean that the 'centre-idea' had a significant impact on reconstruction debates and post-war planning; the subject of our forthcoming companion article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary sport governance contexts are marked by a trend towards efficiency-based board composition and an increasing use of instruments aimed to (re)shape boards. Yet, democratic governance is integral to many countries' sport systems, and research tells us that representation still matters in sport governance. Considering this, the aim with this paper is to provide researchers and practitioners with a vocabulary to understand and address issues of representation in board composition. The paper builds on interviews with nomination committee representatives of 62 Swedish national sport federations (NSFs). The analysis provides insights into the meaning and implications of four distinct views of representation, along with an interpretation of potential responses to board-shaping instruments engendered by these views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to determine the effect of extreme wealth on economic development (human development index and sub-indices) in 64 countries during 2005-2018, with special emphasis on Mexico and China. A dynamic estimation (sys-GMM) is followed. Estimations show that extreme national wealth acts as a constraint on human development for the entire sample of countries, including Mexico and China. Income is found to be most sensitive to this type of wealth, followed by the education index. The analysis confirms that democracy, economic freedom, investment and social spending are underlying factors of HDI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Progressive Era (1890–1920) in the U.S., the debate on women's enfranchisement involved two opposite sides: detractors (Antis) and supporters. Detractors converged on the idea that women's enfranchisement might have harmed the natural harmony of society, based on a strict division of roles between sexes. Supporters developed three different arguments: women's suffrage would have reinforced the democratic system; it would have strengthened social cohesion; it would have led to several economic advantages of the society as a whole. Major American economists of the time joined the debate. The aim of this paper is to describe the position of the foremost male academic economists of the time by digging the lesser-known propaganda literature of the period. By showing the position of those who were against women's suffrage, we point out their illiberalism which, in some cases, was actual chauvinism. By showing the arguments of those who supported women's suffrage, we point out different nuances of endorsement: while some were in favor in the name of gender equality, others did not give up forms of biologically determinism and gender-biased stereotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses, from the "demand" point of view, one of the most impressive phenomena of the political-electoral rise of the new Latin American right-wing: that of the self-styled "libertarians" of Argentina, grouped around the figure by Javier Milei. Based on data obtained from different surveys that were carried out between 2021 and 2022, we address different questions about what the vote for La Libertad Avanza expresses in terms of a possible political identity. Our findings show that i) we are not facing a fully constituted political subjectivity that fully coincides with the electoral "offer" proposed by the libertarian leader, ii) but that it is an adherence to some of his proposals of neoliberal economic content, which iii) expresses anger with almost the entire political class and that iv) does not necessarily imply an agreement with those more reactionary positions that define the "radical" character of this new political phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gamification in digital design harnesses game-like elements to create rewarding and competitive systems that encourage desirable user behaviour by influencing users' bodily actions and emotions. Recently, gamification has been integrated into platforms built to fix democratic problems such as boredom and disengagement in political participation. This paper draws on an ethnographic study of two such platforms – Decide Madrid and vTaiwan – to problematise the universal, techno-deterministic account of digital democracy. I argue that gamified democracy is frictional by nature, a concept borrowed from cultural and social geographies. Incorporating gamification into interface design does not inherently enhance the user's enjoyment, motivation and engagement through controlling their behaviours. 'Friction' in the user experience includes various emotional predicaments and tactical exploitation by more advanced users. Frictional systems in the sphere of digital democracy are neither positive nor negative per se. While they may threaten systemic inclusivity or hinder users' abilities to organise and implement policy changes, friction can also provide new impetus to advance democratic practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham has been one of the main beneficiaries of the fragmentation of state power in Syria, developing from a transnational jihadist group affiliated to al-Qaʿida to a locally rooted actor and de facto state power. This paper considers how the group has enacted a performance of sovereignty and statehood that has developed over time, and how central legal identity has been to these efforts. It examines how Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham has attempted to perform as the legitimate governing actor using control over identity documentation and also how this performance engenders a relationship between ruler and ruled in Idlib. Each act as an authority reproduces the group as the state power. But in few other areas of governance is the act so explicit, the performance so overt, as in the use of legal identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 21st century has seen a revival of populism in politics worldwide. Although scholars in different fields have extensively investigated populism, the term remains controversial and fragmentary. This article uses the bibliometric method to analyze the scientific production, critical points, and main trends of studies on populism from 2000 to 2020 based on the literature retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection, to better understand relevant themes and issues and conduct a comparative study. Populism research shows a general upward trend in three stages and covers a wide range of disciplines, with political science contributing the largest number of publications and sociology sharing the closest links with other subjects. Two relatively large cooperation groups of institutions were found in European countries, but cross-region links between institutions are weak. No relatively stable and large academic teams have been formed between political scholars, and low cooperation exists between prolific scholars in different disciplines. Literature with high co-citation counts are mainly conceptual and comparative studies, and research hotspots include the relationship between populism and democracy, the polarization of populism, and national populism. We believe that future research may shift focus to polarization, European populism, and political trust. Plain Language Summary: A systematic review of the state of populism research (2000–2020) In this paper, we perform a bibliometric and visual analysis of populism research across disciplines by using CiteSpace (2000–2020). The aim of this study is not only to explore the field of knowledge, its evolution over time, its frontier, and a visualized presentation of results, but also to provide an example of conducting a literature review using quantitative methods. Populism research shows a general upward trend in three stages and covers a wide range of disciplines, with political science contributing the largest number of publications and sociology sharing the closest links with other subjects. Two relatively large cooperation groups of institutions were found in European countries, but cross-region links between institutions are weak. No relatively stable and large academic teams have been formed between political scholars, and low cooperation exists between prolific scholars in different disciplines. Research hotspots include the relationship between populism and democracy, polarization of populism, and national populism. We believe that future research may shift focus to polarization, European populism, and political trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decades, emerging focus has been on how teachers in Norway can foster citizenship in their classrooms to strengthen democracy. Yet, in conjunction with rising concerns of homegrown terrorism, a new curriculum in Norway draws on democratic education as a bulwark against terrorism. This paper explores the securitisation of the Norwegian educational domain. We analysed three counterterrorism policy documents to explicate the governance of security in school. Analyses of terrorism discourses show a depoliticised and individualised representation in the Norwegian security policy field. These discourses are accompanied by growing urgency where educators are expected to be vigilant towards presumed vulnerable students and report concerns to relevant authorities. This article provides new insight into what security expectations are placed on educators in Norway and their potential consequences for pedagogical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reconsiders the claim made by mainstream internet platforms that they inherently foster a democratic public sphere, offering reasons why the opposite may be true. It surveys past studies that have supported both views, showing how the position taken by scholars tends to depend on their disciplinary perspectives. Historically, scholarly approaches to the public or political impacts of the internet and social media have been characterised by four main interpretative lenses: technodeterminism, behaviourism, and the prioritising of either ideology, or the economics of media ownership. This article pays particular attention to the last two, and to Facebook, which among mainstream internet platforms has notably associated itself with democratic ideals. The article describes how many of the democratic ideals associated with Facebook's impacts on society are in fact reversed by the platform's practices, with effects that directly contradict the platform's stated principles. The article ends by suggesting that Facebook consciously pretends to favour the public sphere, and that such Orwellian doublethink is a deliberate attempt to divert attention away from its augmentation of private and personal issues at the expense of collective engagement and empowerment. designed differently, Facebook could have had favourable impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Athenian ostracism has long captured democratic imaginations because it seems to present clear evidence of a people (demos) routinely asserting collective power over tyrannical elites. In recent times, ostracism has been particularly alluring to militant democrats, who see the institution as an ancient precursor to modern militant democratic mechanisms such as social media bans, impeachment measures, and lustration procedures, which serve to protect democratic constitutions from anti-democratic threats. Such a way of conceptualizing ostracism ultimately stems from Aristotle's "rule of proportion," or the removal of "outstanding" individuals in a polity who threaten to disturb the achievement of communal eudaimonia (Aris. Pol. 1284a). However, this way of interpreting the institution only presents a truncated view, one which is overly centered on the ultimate expulsion of an individual from the polity, rather than on its broader contextual telos—the transformation of the ostracized individual and of the community. To move past this simplified view, this paper considers all elements of ostracism with equal force, and argues that ostracism offered a shared opportunity and shared space for all members of the polis—citizens, non-citizens, and elite members alike—to reform the character of the subject individual and to instill and reaffirm democratic values in the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re-examines the idea of political vanguardism—long consigned to the dustbin of defunct scientific socialist ideology—to shed light on the theory of democratic representation. The discussion connects the use of the term "vanguard" by two prominent early socialist thinkers to what it terms the "cosmological" dimension of their writings. It shows how each author figured vanguard agency as fomenting different visions of the intellectual progress required for representative government, and that these visions were sustained by analogies to the origin and development of astronomical objects. The "utopian" socialist Henri Saint-Simon (1770–1825) first invoked the vanguard metaphor to describe a way of thinking about scientific progress that would naturalize a new governing elite. The revolutionary communist Auguste Blanqui (1805–1881) then appropriated the vanguard idea to reimagine scientific authority in a way that would preserve and expand citizens' capacities to hold their representatives accountable. The article pursues three goals. First, it provides a revisionist history of well-known scientistic attempts to stabilize mass democracy in the nineteenth century, revealing how claims to scientific authority were contested from within a socialist republican tradition usually seen as complicit in such agency-inhibiting ideologies. Second, the concept of vanguardism it reconstructs from this history, as a response to the "usurpation" of a vigilant attitude between citizens and office holders, offers new resources for theorizing democratic representation. Finally, it draws attention to the importance of cosmological rhetoric in the history of modern republican and socialist political thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how educational commons, in which education and learning are shaped by the members of the educational community in terms of equality, freedom, and creative participation, contribute to addressing inequalities, empowering democracy, and enhancing inclusion. The discussion focuses on the crucial debate around public formal education and the potential for radical democratisation it offers through three case studies carried out in formal and non-formal educational settings in Thessaloniki, Greece. The research was conducted in three different types of education centres: a public kindergarten, a self-organised autonomous libertarian educational community, and an after-school programme of a primary school where Workshops for Nurturing and Developing Environmental Resilience (WONDER) were implemented by the environmental organisation Mamagea. Through patterns of commoning practices, like peer governance, co-creation of knowledge, and peer learning, the case studies aimed to establish the prerequisites for the co-creation of a community that offers pupils and students, teachers, and educators the chance for self-formation and equal participation. The article makes the case that educational hierarchies and governance models can be reconfigured in order to incorporate the democratic values of solidarity, equality, self-organisation, and self-formation even in structures that are still tailored to formal schooling. The article argues that educational commons can make a decisive contribution to tackling inequalities, and the commons logic can grow effectively in school education under specific conditions. The pedagogical practice is shifted in educational commons in ways that balance out contemporary enclosures based on several inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the democratic provenance of the law ground a pro tanto duty to obey the law? According to the social-egalitarian argument, it does, because individuals have a pro tanto duty to uphold relations of social equality, and because, by obeying a democratically made law, they uphold relations of social equality. In this paper, I argue, however, that even if we grant the premisses of the argument, the conclusion still does not follow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper questions the configurations in which contemporary European cultural policies attribute explicit positive values to culture. It begins with a reflection on the meaning of value, before identifying, through the analysis of a corpus of scientific articles, books and research reports as well as press articles, the numerous values identifiable in the history of cultural policies. From this collection, we propose a principle of classification into five major families of values: democracy, identity, well-being, aesthetics and economy. Finally, we describe the dynamics of emergence and transformation of the values attributed to culture in historical configurations, through three examples: the valuation of heritage, the conflicts over the values of democracy, and the values underpinning the concept of sustainable development. Our exploratory research shows that values already present in the twentieth century are becoming increasingly important in cultural policies, without taking precedence over values with which they can compete or, on the contrary, find a form of compatibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elections in fragmented states are usually contested along the divisive lines present within the geo polity, and this plays an important role in the emergence of political leaders. Nigeria, one of the most heterogeneous countries in the world, has exhibited predominantly ethnic voting since the consolidation of its fourth republic, and this has contributed to mixed socioeconomic and political fortunes. Using a qualitative approach based on secondary sources such as, books, journals, articles, this study highlights that mature democracies exhibit retrospective voting, through which objective scrutiny of government performance in the economy and other aspects of the state is done to determine whether to reward or punish political leaders at the polls. The limitations of primal and ethnic voting considerations in Nigeria, visible in development outcomes, call for a new guardrail to electoral choice. This paper argues the need for economic voting to predominate the ethnic considerations that determine electoral choice, as this can guarantee developmental outputs, and ensure political accountability that benefit the state. This study concludes that, if Nigeria is to experience significant changes in its fortunes going forward, the 2023 elections must change the narrative from non-evaluative considerations to evaluative voting considerations, for positive socioeconomic dividends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite waves of democratic backsliding over the last decade, most global citizens still claim to support democracy. On the other hand, many citizens become more supportive of specific anti-democratic actions when their preferred political side can benefit. How, then, do citizens justify their consistent "explicit support for democracy" with their more malleable support for the implementation of liberal democracy? This paper uses cross-national survey data from 74 countries and two methods—a standard cross-sectional analysis and a within-country variation design—to show that a citizen's conceptualization of democracy, or what democracy means to them, is subject to partisan-motivated reasoning. In other words, citizens are more likely to conceptualize democracy in illiberal terms, like emphasizing the need for obeying authority, when their preferred political party is in power. The findings suggest one's conception of democracy can be a fluid attitude that citizens mold to match their partisan self-interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fake news is being disseminated rapidly and it is discussed constantly on social media through "likes", sharing and comments. Fake news undermined the contribution of media and gives space to powerful institution and specific parties to promote their policies as given. In this paper, I discuss that in order to understand in depth the fake news/disinformation, a phenomenon that threats democracy, each citizen should have the ability to connect the context, the words, the image and the extralinguistic features in order to "read" behind the lines and identify the intentions that are hidden. To support this claim, a specific excerpt from fake news by Donald Trump is being analysed thoroughly with the combination of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Social Semiotics (SS). From the analysis it is shown that not fake news merely, but rather elaborated myths are being constructed which attribute characteristics in social groups, in order to serve specific goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is democracy's place in the shifting international order? There is a fear that a more geopolitical order will only aggravate the general crisis of democracy; or that a more plural order will dilute the efforts to defend the rules governing it. Yet, while recent political and normative trends corroborate this concern, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has in some ways given greater prominence to the defence of democratic values around the world. This paper explores the impact that geopolitical tensions and shifting international order on global democracy. And in the context of the crisis of meaning affecting democracies, it examines whether Russia's war in Ukraine has served both as a catalyst of the international dimensions of support for democracy and as a factor magnifying its fragility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What, if anything, is the import of Hayek to epistemic democracy? Although Hayek is revered by epistemic democrats for his insights into the epistemic aspects of the market sphere, it is generally believed that his theory is moot with respect to democratic reason. This paper aims to challenge this verdict. I argue that a Hayekian analysis of inclusive public deliberation contributes at least three valuable lessons: (1) Hayek makes the case that under certain conditions even unbiased deliberators are permanently unable to converge on the best available policy option. Call this the problem of 'persistent hidden policy champions'. (2) He demonstrates that to unlock hidden policy champions, reasonable minority factions need the opportunity to act on their own evidential standards. (3) He challenges epistemic democrats to think more carefully about how to design the "epistemic basic structure" (Kurtulmus and Irzik 2017) of society in order to account for persistent hidden policy champions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]