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This paper explores civic illiteracy and the problem of democratic leadership -- what Alexis de Tocqueville described as the "courtier spirit" of American politicians. According to Tocqueville, the logic and mores of democratic society make it increasingly difficult to criticize or resist the decisions and views of a mass populace. Today, in the field of democratic theory, scholars of participatory democracy tend to celebrate the capacities of a properly educated citizenry, while criticizing liberalism and its tendency to view the masses as a threat in need of containment. Rather than viewing mass publics as either threats or victims, this paper approaches citizens as subjects who would benefit from the concept of agonistic leadership. Using the writings of Plato and H.L. Mencken, this project seeks to more fully understand the educatory possibilities (and political pitfalls) of outspoken criticism and critique of the demos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the reform of social contracts in East Asia from 1980-2000. In contrast to Central Europe and Latin America, East Asian transitions to democracy--where they occurred--took place during periods of high growth and robust public finances. The absence of substantial fiscal constraints permitted an expansion of social policy commitments and limited opportunities and incentives for retrenchment. The paper considers four democracies--Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines--and two party-dominant systems, Malaysia and Singapore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Of all the issues that democratic, trade union, and left wing political parties have tried to address in capitalist societies, the most difficult to challenge has been the issue of capital investment, from private investment to even their own pensions. Democratic and popular forces have been quite successful in establishing welfare states, forming trade unions, imposing regulatory controls on market activity, and achieving modest degrees of worker participation (at least in the most advanced industrialized democracies). Yet they have been generally incapable of obtaining any influence ? let alone control ? over the location of investment in these societies. This paper will examine the possibilities of raising questions of social democratic influence over private and pension investment in Western Europe. By examining the historic contours of the 20th century debates in Germany and Sweden, the two countries where the debate went the farthest, I hope to generate hypotheses as to whether this policy option might represent a viable tactic by the contemporary democratic left to both the pension and democratic deficit issues in Western Europe generally, and the EU specifically. Germany and Sweden have been chosen as critical case studies because their experiences can likely offer useful guidance about the concrete limits to utility of this approach. This paper is divided into three sections. First, it analyzes the issue of investment and private control and shows how difficult it has been for democratic societies to challenge private interests on this core issue. Despite the growing predominance of collective funds (e.g. private pensions and public social insurance funds), democratic societies have never been able to ?democratize? investment decisions. The general arguments raised against such radical proposals by traditional controllers of investment have been that they too directly challenge ?managerial autonomy? or, alternatively, such radical steps are unnecessary because the free choice of individuals to decide where to invest is the essence of individualistic shareholder democracy. Second, the paper looks at the origins of German and Swedish attempts to democratize investment via two different paths and two different kinds of political institutions. It then analyzes their evolution through the 1970s and 1980s and suggests why they ultimately were unsuccessful in achieving their respective goals. Third, the paper concludes with some speculative consideration ? and perhaps more questions than answers ? on the relationship between democracy and investment in societies, such as those in Western Europe and/or the EU, that are both democratic and capitalist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the question of the role of religious and moral conceptions in democratic decision-making. John Rawls? principle of public reason holds that we should exclude controversial religious or philosophical views from the grounds of public decision-making. Public reason is often invoked by proponents of same-sex marriage to undercut conservative claims that public policy should not encourage or promote allegedly sinful homosexual conduct. However, if it is simply a more abstract statement of antiperfectionist liberal neutrality, as many critics and proponents have affirmed, the principle of public reason may undermine the case for same-sex marriage, as against the alternative of granting equal legal recognition and support to the diverse range of personal relationships people form, since liberal neutrality excludes appeals not just to rival religious doctrines, but to all claims about the intrinsic value of rival conceptions of the good life. The paper argues that antiperfectionist liberal neutrality is not necessarily a form of public reason, and that the scope of public reason is most plausibly set in a way that does not undercut the case for (same-sex) marriage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twenty-five years of economic reforms have substantially transformed the social, economic and political landscapes of China. The uniqueness of China?s transformations lies in a gradual merging of capitalist principles with socialist principles, despite communism remaining the ultimate goal of the Chinese Communist Party. China has maintained a fast economic development in the past 25 years but with a growing income distribution gap between the rich and the poor. The ruling elite is seeking to redress the inequality problem, while they are still upholding the policy of creating haves as the party?s strategy to reach common prosperity in the future. This paper tries to show that the ruling elite has upheld this capitalistic development strategy because their institutional behavior is constrained by the institutional environments. Analysis of the ruling elite?s institutionalizing the protection of the private property suggests that once Chinese people was given back freedom to pursue and keep wealth, social, economic and political transformations will follow to accommodate the economic freedom. The paper concludes with a suggestion that China?s transition towards advanced economic development and a democratic polity will combine features of capitalism and socialism, which will be an evolutionary one, more stable but relatively longer than a ?big bang?. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why have the Russian media failed to support grass-roots political initiatives? In particular, the powerful medium of state television has sided continually with rulers rather than popular movements. This paper examines television content over several Russian election campaigns to track the development of the post-Soviet media as a tool of the state rather than a voice for the masses. The paper focuses on content analysis of campaign news, including the 2003 Duma elections, to analyze the lack of balance and objectivity in the Russian news process. At the same time, the study shows that there is still significant variation in content between nightly news on the prime state-run and commercial channels. How valuable are these differences? Are Russian viewers able to get enough information to make wise vote choices? Does commercial television, albeit now operating in the shadow of the Kremlin, provide a lifeline for media freedom in an increasingly oppressive system? Data from surveys and focus groups suggest that while viewers perceive the differences in coverage ? as well as the fact that they are not being given access to full information ? many have come to prefer orderly, authoritative media over the messier, more democratic approach to news. A cross-national review of media performance across a decade of elections in Russia and four other post-Soviet states shows that the pervasive problems of a lack of a professional media have presented a persistent obstacle to democratization [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does religion matter in Taiwanese politics? Our paper rejects a simple answer to it. Both the pros and cons can find statistical support from this paper. In many cases, beliefs, religious commitment, and civic-religious group types have significant impacts on Political Tolerance, Traditional Political Values, Political Participation, and Party Preference. But these impacts are not consistent across different regression models, after controlling for age, sex, income, education, and marriage. However, in most cases, we find civic-religious group type a powerful religious factor affecting political values and behaviors. This supports our social capital thesis that participation in religious groups (particularly, non-traditional religions) enables the believers to learn liberal political values and accumulate their social capital for democratic participation. Although religious leaders might indoctrinate their believers with traditional political values or favor certain political parties, they do not necessarily dictate the political thinking or behavior of the activist believers. After all, the religious behaviors of most Taiwanese believers are very personal, de-institutional, and non-theological. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to evaluate Bruce Ackerman?s theory of dualist democracy. He distinguishes two different decisions that may be made in a democracy. The first is a decision by the people themselves, which is designated as higher lawmaking that embodies the general will of the people; the second is a decision by government, which is designated as normal politics. The objective of Ackerman?s two-track theory of democracy is to resolve the tension between self-government and the rule law in American constitutionalism. I attempt to demonstrate that Ackerman?s idea of dualist democracy is a virtue-centric, populist, republicanism. His synthesis relies on the premise of the priority of self-government over the rule of law. It constitutes a solid alternative to the recent neo-Roman republicanism of Quentin Skinner and Philip Pettit, which emphasizes law-centric republican constitutionalism. The relevance of dualist democracy is explored via a contextualized analysis of the virtue-centric republicanism from Hannah Arendt to J. G. A. Pocock and Hanna Pitkin. Ackerman?s interpretation of the Federalist Paper as the main intellectual resource of his project is also examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last decade the two largest democracies of the world, i.e., India and US have been constantly coming closer. Advent of satellite channels and beginning of economic liberalization program in India has generated a keen interest in U.S. affairs. US has become the hottest destination for Indian software professionals. Sociologists have been expressing deep concern regarding Americanization of Indian youth because of channels like MTV and Hollywood movies. 911 attacks on US and ensuing war on terror have been extensively covered and scrutinized by Indian media. Indian media has a love-hate relationship with US. On the one hand Indian media admires American democracy, entrepreneurship and rule of law, on the other it is portraying war on terror as hegemonistic design intended to turn international politics completely unipolar. While deepening commercial ties and joint military exercises between the two countries are being welcomed by all sections of media, certain quarters are vehemently critical of US attack and subsequent occupation of Iraq. The reason Indian government dithered, debated and ultimately decided not to send troops to Iraq can be attributed to media?s vociferous opposition. Bush administration?s unstinted support to Musharraf government in Pakistan is being termed by Indian media as the most glaring example of ?double standards? in war against terror. Indian media accuses that in spite of having full knowledge of terrorist camps in Pakistan, Bush administration has refused to take penal actions against Pakistan. This paper will deal with how media has covered America?s war on terror and what impact it has had on Indian public opinion and decision making process. The perception of Indian media regarding the burgeoning American hegemony in new world order will also be analyzed in this paper. The paper will make suggestions regarding what role media can play in bringing these two countries together in their mutual fight against terror. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Patterns of Democracy, Arend Lijphart not only contends that democracy is bipolar, but also that consensus democracies are ?kindler, gentler? forms of institutional settings than majoritarian arrangements (Lijphart 1999). Although Lijphart?s analysis shows strong empirical support for his claims, his framework was never applied outside stable democracies. The present paper proposes to cover that gap by replicating Lijphart?s analysis in the post-communist context, therefore testing the relevance of his prescriptions to democratizing states. The proposed study evaluates Lijphart?s theory in two separate ways. First, if his posited split of democracies into two blocs appears in the post-communist world. Second if post-communist states with more ?consensus-oriented? attributes actually enjoy greater political rights and civil liberties, with the following results. The main finding of the paper is that by contrast with older democracies, there is no such thing as a two dimensional map of democracy in the case of post-communist countries: there is no regular pattern of correlations between indicators of consensus-majoritarian democracy in the post-communist context. Nevertheless, empirical verification reveals that some elements included in the consensus democracy framework should be introduced in new constitutions, but perhaps not as the monolithic cluster of basic laws of constitutions like Lijphart originally suggested. Hence this study casts a shadow on the relevance of the majoritarian versus consensus classification of democratic regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines political egalitarianism. Political egalitarianism forms the core of any conception of democratic legitimacy, but many different interpretations of what political equality requires can be identified in the literature on democratic theory, especially in the literature on deliberative democracy. There is a parallel between this debate and the well-known ?equality of what? debate about the appropriate informational framework for conceptions of social justice. Specifically, the paper compares two interpretations of political equality: one based on Rawlsian primary goods and the other based on Amartya Sen?s capability approach. I call ?political capabilities? those capabilities that are related to the requirements of political legitimacy. I shall argue that even though prima facie, there are some compelling arguments for the capability approach as the appropriate framework for political equality, the idea of political capabilities faces challenges that the primary goods framework does not. While the primary goods framework may appear too lean, the capability approach runs into the opposite problem: it may exempt too much from democratic decision-making. The attempt to answer the question ?Political equality of what??, the paper concludes, leads into a dilemma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of religious parties poses a challenge to secularists for whom the persistence of religious beliefs and the success of religious parties is a curse for democracy. In this paper, I pose the question: Are religious parties antithetical to democracy as secularists would have us believe or do they play a positive role in democratic politics? I argue that religious parties are characterized by dual tendencies of moderation and extremism. It is not inevitable that they will take the extremist path and undermine democracy. This paper examines the relationship between religious parties and democracy by looking at the Hindu Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) in India and the Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey. I argue that the BJP and the AKP combine strategic moderation with extremism, which creates tensions for democratic rule. While institutional and electoral constraints prevent these parties from taking a consistent turn toward extremism, until religious parties abandon strategic moderation in favor of ideological moderation, they are likely to continue to pose a danger to secularism and democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the possible explanations for the variation in violations against human rights defenders (HRDs). Using a variant of the ?who did what to whom? model popular in recent truth commissions, this paper codes a series of narrative reports on violations against HRDs across sixty-eight countries from 1997 to 2000. The paper maps the types of violations and their geographical distribution, and then explores a variety of first-order relationships between those violations and general levels of repression, economic development, democracy, conflict, and global interdependence. The most common forms of violation include arbitrary detention, threats, harassment, and summary execution, while the most common known perpetrators are the police, armed forces, state authorities, security agents, and the judiciary. The results of the bivariate analysis suggest that high levels of violation against HRDs are positively associated with general levels of human rights violations and involvement in domestic conflict, and negatively associated with a higher number of international NGOs. Such abuse is not significantly associated with levels of economic development, democracy, IGO membership or human rights treaty ratification. The paper concludes with a discussion of the findings, the remaining methodological challenges, and areas for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we build an explicit defense of the study of regions in comparative politics. We discuss two analytical problems that demand a detailed focus on specific regions: causal heterogeneity and intra-regional dissemination and diffusion patterns. The first section of the paper argues that the three major analytical strategies in comparative politics (case studies, comparative studies, and large-N work) have for the most part failed to conceptualize regions as units of analysis in a systematic way. In sections two and three we illustrate the issue of causal heterogeneity, showing that the effects of per capita income on democracy have been different in Latin America and in other regions of the world. Sections four and five address intra-regional dissemination and diffusion of regime types. We show that, at least in the Latin American case, intra-regional dissemination has been stronger than cross-regional dissemination and explore the reasons for this phenomenon. Our conclusions emphasize the need to avoid simplistic generalizations about regions as homogeneous entities while at the same time giving them a prominent role in research design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes recent developments and legitimating discourses in the relationship between the "civil society", especially the NGOs, on the one hand, and the EU institutions. After briefly reviewing the developing involvement of NGOs in policy areas such as environmental policy or development policy, the paper examines recent attempt by the Prodi Commission to involve civil society actors as an Commission-wide strategy of constructing "Citizen’s Europe". Further, it analyzes discourses of several NGOs to remedy "democratic deficit" by their participation in policy processes. Based on these descriptive findings, the paper contends that: (1) current policy developments and discourses contains a bias toward what I call "corporatist state-society relations" model, which leans toward deeper direct involvement of civil society actors in policy processes; (2) this model lies behind discourses of NGOs, too. This is because there exists partial congruence of interests between NGos and the Commission; i.e., the need of the Commission to restrict the number of participants for the sake of efficiency and inconvenience for the NGOs of applying strictly pluralist criteria of "representativeness" based on "number"; (3) but this model has its inherent weakness in the dilemma of governance and legitimacy, exemplified by the difficulty defining "representativeness" of the NGOs. The Commission seems to advance efficiency of consultation process by inducing civil society actors to form coordinating framework such as the Social Platform. But, this strategy put the very legitimating potential of NGOs at risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores dynamics of change and continuity in subnational (provincial) authoritarianism in nationally democratic regimes. Borrowing from theories of territorial politics, it provides a framework for analyzing the strategic context in which incumbent authoritarian elites and local and national opponents pursue strategies of territorial control and opposition. Subnational authoritarianism must be understood not as a local issue but as an outcome of broader dynamics of national territorial governance in democratic regimes. Conflicts between incumbents and opposition are played out across multiple territorial arenas in the national political system. In nationally democratic regimes, incumbent authoritarian elites will pursue three types of strategies across territorial arenas: the parochialization of power, the nationalization of influence, and the monopolization of national-subnational institutional linkages. Subnational democratization, when it occurs, will result from intervention by actors in national political arenas. To this end, a distinction is made between two ?modes? of subnational political change: ?party-led? transitions and ?center-led? transitions. The paper concludes with case studies of two recent conflicts over subnational democratization: the state of Oaxaca in Mexico, and the province of Santiago del Estero in Argentina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines civil society alliances (coalitions and networks) in Argentina and Chile. By cooperating with one another, non-governmental organizations and other types of civil society groups can create opportunities for participation in policy agenda-setting, formulation, and advocacy in democratizing polities. The paper analyzes the relationship between alliances and civil societal involvement in policy making in two cases of reform in the area of children?s rights. The research upon which the paper is based investigates the strategies CSOs use to engage the political system in re-emergent democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the new institutional architecture of Eastern Europe. It extends Lijphart?s study of democratic institutions to fourteen new democracies in Eastern Europe. In his analysis of advanced democracies, Lijphart found that ten institutional variables cluster on two clearly separate dimensions. This clustering does not occur in the new democracies of Eastern Europe; they do not fall clearly into Lijphart?s consensus and majoritarian camps. On the executives-parties dimension, Eastern European countries are basically consensus except for highly majoritarian forms of interest group representation. On the federal-unity dimension, they are even more divided. While they tend to have unitary, unicameral governments (both majoritarian traits), they have adopted highly consensual modes of constitutional amendment, judicial review, and central banks. While Lijphart suggests that his two types of democracy have a logical coherence, this paper attributes these hybrids to the circumstances prevailing at the time when new institutions were adopted. In particular, communist legacies and international conditions have influenced the choice of new institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1970s and 1980s, legislators argued whether the United States should consider a state?s human rights practices when allocating economic and military aid. The debate resurfaced during the recent discussions regarding Plan Colombia. Supporters in Congress cite the domestic drug problem as the primary reason for the need of foreign assistance; however, they often resort to human rights and democracy rhetoric for support. Opponents of Plan Colombia argue that supply side attacks in the war on drugs are and have been fruitless and funding should be provided for domestic drug treatment programs. In addition, opponents point to the impact of foreign assistance, and in this case military assistance in particular, on human rights. This paper re-examines the US decision to grant military aid to Colombia and the subsequent impact the program has on human rights in Colombia and surrounding states. The empirical analysis indicates that there is a negative relationship between foreign assistance and the realization of security rights. The case study of Plan Colombia highlights these findings. Through the analysis of several key indicators, it is apparent that during the early years of Plan Colombia the security rights situation has deteriorated. This paper emphasizes that U.S. efforts at improving human rights records across the globe have been harmed by their foreign assistance program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper supports the authors in the April 2002 Journal of Democracy issue in their arguments that, in our regime classifications, analysts should carefully assess not only electoral processes but also incumbents’ record of respect or disrespect for democracy and the rule of law. As Larry Diamond declares, "Regime classification must, in part, assess the previous election, but it must also assess the intentions and capabilities of ambiguously democratic ruling elites, something that is very hard to do." Indeed, it is the argument of this chapter that the intentions and capabilities of elites should be assessed not only with respect to their administrations, as Diamond suggests, but also with respect to elections under their auspices. Using Peru’s 2000 presidential election as a case study, the paper points out that, evaluating electoral processes just as they happen, international observers may be unable to secure the evidence necessary for judgment of the election. In the case of Peru’s 2000 election, this paper shows that, not taking into account Alberto Fujimori’s record of disrespect for democracy and the rule of law, international observers almost gave the election a passing grade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers whether constitutionalism presupposes the existence of a ?people.? After reviewing some of the relevant literature, the paper makes three claims. First, there are multiple varieties of constitutionalism. Only those varieties that aim at self-government presuppose the existence of a people, and not all constitutions need have that goal. Second, there are multiple conceptions of self-government which correspond to different conceptions of what a ?people? is. Third, there is a plausible version of constitutional self-government that presupposes only modest conditions for the existence of a people. In particular, it presupposes the right to travel, a common discourse, and a widely (though not unanimously) shared sense of mission, but it does not presuppose shared values, character, ethnicity, or (except in a very thin sense) heritage. These conditions are probably satisfied within the United States. The paper therefore concludes that it is possible to interpret American constitutionalism as an effort to secure a form of self-government that does presuppose the existence of an American people, but that does not presuppose the existence of shared American values, an American character, or an American ethnicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutionalists have both argued that institutions are endogenous, yet also analyzed Brazil?s electoral institutions, including open-list PR, as exogenous variables that inhibit national party unity to the point of precluding national party reputations. In an analysis of the two most recent periods of democracy in Brazil (1945-64, 1989-present), the paper demonstrates that in the current period, party leaders are now acting to mitigate the incentives of open-list PR by distributing valuable perks based on the degree to which rank and file vote with the party leadership. Electoral institutions are constant across the two periods, yet party leaders are now acting to promote party reputations, while they failed to do so in the earlier period. The paper resolves this paradox by developing a general theory of electoral competition based on two dimensions: whether voters choose direct (clientelistic) or indirect (programmatic/personal) exchanges with politicians, and whether electoral institutions are party or candidate-centered. The theory yields a four-fold typology of electoral incentives with distinct and observable implications for internal party delegation and behavior. The theory endogenizes electoral institutions to a more general theory of electoral competition, and provides an electorally-based explanation for why politicians chose unmitigated open-list PR in the earlier period, but now opt to modify its anti-party incentives in the current period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oil exports account for a major increase in GDP in many African states. Modernization theory would suggest that such increases in wealth should result in shifts toward more equitable distribution of resources and republican democracy. Empirical literature shows a correlation between increased wealth and democracy. Yet, oil exporters fail to acheive economic growth and democracy. This paper questions the premise that oil blcks democracy and argues that longevity of an authoritarian ruler has an influence on a willingness and capacity to mediate interests in society. The paper argues that longer an autocrat is in power, the greater his incentives to liberalize his political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most pressing problems confronting political scientists today is: can global governance have a democratic basis? Picking up one potentially important response, and drawing on original analysis of the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg (WSSD) in 2002, this paper constructs and defends an ideal-typical model of a new approach to democracy - ?stakeholder democracy?. In this way, it explores and theorizes stakeholder governance practices and speculates on their uses and the extent of their democratic character. This work is located in the context of the changing vocabulary and practice of global governance, in which concerns about legitimacy, accountability, transparency and participation have loomed increasingly large in recent years. Sustainability and environmental protection is an arena in which innovative experiments with new hybrid, pluri-lateral forms of governance, along with the incorporation of a transnational civil society spanning the public-private divide, are taking place. The paper highlights certain dilemmas confronting efforts to democratize global environmental governance in light of innovative practices at the WSSD. Our central argument is that the WSSD, with all its caveats and limitations, can rightly be seen as exemplifying new deliberative stakeholder practices with general democratic potential at the global level. In examining these arrangements, we draw together the nascent elements of this new ?model?, such as its distinctive takes on principles of inclusion and deliberation of so-called major groups (NGOs, business, youth, women, unions, farmers, science, indigenous peoples, and local government). We take stock of interactive stakeholder forums/dialogues and partnership agreements, which institutionalized relationships between state and non-state actors before and after the Summit. Potential objections to the stakeholder model arising from liberal-reformist, cosmopolitan and critical perspectives on democratizing global environmental governance are pinpointed, and responses are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a multivariate multinomial logit model of changes to countries’ level of democracy, taking into account growth, development, diffusion through neighborhoods, and the instability of new and inconsistent institutions. To allow interpreting the aggregate effect of these factors, the paper develops a simulation model where the political systems of a set of simulated countries evolve in accordance with the results of the multinomial logit model.The results show a strong tendency for political systems to move toward either full democracy or full autocracy, but find the diffusion effect to be relatively less strong. The simulations tend to produce less dramatic changes in the global average democracy score found in the real world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is the theory chapter for a book exploring when the poor count in Latin American politics. The book looks at when formal and informal institutions (e.g., electoral rules, party nomination procedures, clientelism, powers of the executive and legislature) give members of the legislature an incentive to represent poor people. Given that poor people constitute a majority, or near majority, of the population in many Latin American democracies, their support would seem to be essential for winning elections. However, lack of attention from government is a common complaint of Latin America’s poor. This book explores representation of the poor from the perspective of whether elected officials have an incentive to represent poor people. This paper builds on principal-agent models of democratic accountability developed to study the relationship between elected officials and voters in industrialized, advanced democracies. It explores how the existence of competing principals, one poor and one rich, affects the agent’s strategy for pursuing a political career. It presents a theoretical assessment of when institutions can create incentives for members of the legislature to represent poor people. Successive chapters explore these predictions in the case of Honduras and with comparative data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1990s the Liberal Democratic Party has become unable to maintain a stable majority in the Japanese Diet. Although there is an extensive literature on the recent party realignment, little attention has been paid to the consequence in terms of the legislative interaction that profoundly affected the way in which representative democracy works under the Japan?s parliamentary cabinet system. This paper fills the gap in the literature by exploring the institutional and political conditions that have determined the degree of power dispersion in the Diet, focusing on its legislative consequence in the 1990s. In an attempt to account for the interparty interaction that may or may not have an impact on the likelihood of a party to support government legislation, we apply a heteroskedastic probit model to the data set of government legislation from major postwar Diet sessions. The evidence presented in this paper suggests that, with the exception of the Communists, the opposition parties became fully supportive of government legislation once after the LDP lost its majority in the House of Councilors in 1989. Negotiations between political parties became an essential element of the lawmaking process, and the parties of centrists and social democrats came to play a pivotal role in coalition building, shifting the range of government legislation in their favor. This implies that the diffusion of parliamentary power since the 1990s has significantly eroded the ability of citizens to know who is responsible for lawmaking and to use elections as instruments of government accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If it did not introduce some scope for policy divergence, what was the point of devolution to Scotland and Wales? Yet public debate around policy divergence in the UK often borders on the hysterical. Any instance of divergence is widely greeted as an intimation of crisis, perhaps for the UK state as a whole and certainly where matters of social citizenship are at issue (as is typically the case) for the UK’s Labour government. On the other hand, many groups in Scotland and Wales regard the scope for divergence as too strictly limited. Equally, the recently created office of the London Mayor has been used to highlight problems of poverty and deprivation in the midst of the UK?s wealthiest city. This paper complements the more detailed case studies of the other papers on the panel with a policy-theoretic approach to understanding the scope and limits of divergence in social policies. Lowi’s classical claim that different policy-types generate distinctive politics, suggests that this policy-focus will be highly relevant to discussion of the political prospects under devolution, regionalisation and decentralisation in the UK. We critically review categorisations of ‘policy types’ and tentatively suggest a new application of this form of analysis to the devolution settlement to evaluate it in terms of the record of and prospects for the development of distinctive (social) policy profiles. Our paper connects with wider panel themes Lowi linked the now widespread claim that ‘policy (re)creates politics’ to variation in policy types. Building on Lowi and Majone, James Mitchell has noted that many ‘distributive’ and some ‘regulatory’ policies have been devolved, while ‘redistributive’ instruments are largely retained at the centre. The powers of the London Mayor also follow broad pattern, albeit with less authority and resources. Mitchell notes that ‘distributive’ programmes (in health, education etc) involve long-standing spending commitments, which conventional scholarly wisdom suggests are notoriously difficult to change (Lindblom, Pierson). Thus, Mitchell sees the scope for innovation by the devolved authorities being mainly in regulatory policies. We develop a variation on this theme which points in a subtly but significantly different direction. Drawing on Paul Peterson’s work on US Federalism, we suggest that policy ‘types’ should be analysed in not a one-dimensional, but two dimensional conceptual space, defined by policy purposes and instruments respectively. Peterson sees taxing/spending and regulation as policy instruments that can be used to pursue aims of redistribution and economic development (and perhaps also ‘allocation’). Of course, each instrument will have its own strengths and weaknesses for each purpose. Our hypothesis is that the greatest scope for innovation uses regulatory instruments in the pursuit of Peterson’s category of developmental policies. Developmental policies take two principle forms concerning planning and incentives for business (often locational policies) and major spending programmes such as health and education (allocational policies). Contrary to Mitchell, we see considerable scope for - and indeed evidence of - innovative (revisions of) regulation of these policies in Scotland, Wales, and even to a degree in London. Perhaps particularly in the context of on-going welfare reform across the UK, the scope for divergence in the regulation of distributive policies is considerable. We analyse instances of divergence childcare and preschool education, health care, fees in higher education and residential care. Of course, the analytical distinctions developed here are not hard and fast in political practice. Thus initial divergences in regulation are likely to have fiscal implications, and sometimes sooner rather than later - a potential source of instability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about the foreign policy thinking of neoconservatives, a group that distinguishes itself from others with its pessimistic outlook about world affairs and its belief that the U.S. should spread its values and ideals to the rest of the world, by unilateral force if necessary. This paper argues that the neocons? imperial project of imposing American values (especially democracy) on the world in general, and the Middle East in particular, has certain limits. The most important limits are related to the nature and character of American society, politics, and government. Moreover, people on the receiving end of U.S. power may be ambivalent towards American values and ideals. In order to illustrate these points, I draw on the example of post-war Iraq. It has become clear in Iraq that the neocons overestimated the capacity of the U.S. for nation-building which is a necessary condition for building an empire and establishing a decent democracy. Neocons also underestimated the cultural difficulties involved in transforming the political landscape of Iraq and the Middle East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that, in conjunction with relative power, ideational changes in US nationalism explain long-term variation in American democracy promotion strategy, including its most recent iteration in the Bush administration. The paper concludes by using this perspective to critique the neoconservative approach to extending liberal values and instituions in the international system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The judiciary, as guardian of all established laws has a fundamental role in the establishment and preservation or the rule of law and hence on the process of democratization, which it can only honor if free from manipulation by state and other powerful actors. Scholars and politicians have hence claimed for judicial independence as an important safeguard for newly democratizing nations. This paper studies the implications on state accountability of recent judicial reform efforts made by Latin American countries to grant their judicial branches increased independence. The aim of this paper is to further understanding of the extent to which judicial reforms influence the submission of the state to the law and democratic consolidation. It offers a regression analysis of the effects of reforms in thirteen reforming and ten non-reforming countries on horizontal and vertical accountability over a 29-year period (1973-2001) using indicators by the Polity Project. Drawing on its results, this paper argues that despite the still too long and embarrassing list of abuses documented in the literature as impeding the achievement of the rule of law, the introduction of constitutional safeguards for judicial independence has had a positive effect in enhancing state accountability. While not perhaps a sufficient condition for the rule of law, judicial reforms may be a necessary and important one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores presidential power in the post cold war environment and its impact on democracy. The paper explores the impact of globalization from an economic, political and social perspective. It suggests that the world is more inter-dependent and more vulnerable to terrorism from non state actors operating inre semi-colapsed states. The consequences are that the Presidency must successively combat a serious threat while being constructed to dealing with threats from other soverign states. The problems are how to effectively dealing with the threat, and of being democratically accountable when the resources may not be sufficient. This raises the question of the relevance of democracy in this era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the problems of re-legitimating the state in the aftermath of its politicization by communism - assuming that the state and democracy in a modern economy are inextricably linked. The paper argues that the anti-state, neo-liberal economics of transition reinforced rather than converted the inherited understanding of the state as a monolithic and venal actor, and this transition strategy is contrasted with those of western and southern Europe where the state was activated to redeem the political system as a whole. The paper illustrates why serious problems emerge for would-be democrats when the state as such remains ideologically persona non grata, and why the difficulties of implementing the neo-liberal strategy as a new social contract in the majority of post-communist states induces, instead, a ‘re-traditionalisation’ of the state’s position in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do past political violence, and the way that societies respond to the effects of deadly conflict, affect the quality of democracy? The transitional justice literature, which has grown along with changing approaches to the problem of accountability after the demise of authoritarian regimes and civil wars worldwide, examines the role of truth and reconciliation processes in post-conflict reconstruction. However, this literature has largely neglected the ways in which politics set boundaries for memory and justice processes. This paper moves politics to the forefront and shows that truth processes are in themselves political and that they interact with other, sometimes simultaneously occurring and potentially conflicting, processes of political change. However, when one takes the perfect abstraction of truth and subjects it to the forces of politics that willfully construct narratives, contest facts and shape beliefs, what results? Where are the boundaries of accountability, justice and truth? What is the source of these limits and how do they assert themselves? The empirical point of departure for this paper is the observation that despite the acclaim with which the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is regarded, close examination of the regional and local implementation of that nationally established process, reveals that the extent to which the TRC was able to accomplish its aims varied widely. In KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), the province having had the highest levels of political violence relative to other regions, the TRC was most severely constrained in pursuing its mandate. The central argument of this paper is that the logic of the truth process, predicated upon concretely apportioning responsibility for human rights violations, conflicted with the logic of the contemporaneously occurring regional peace process, which was based upon a mutual understanding among key political actors that finger-pointing would be counterproductive and carefully circumscribed issues of responsibility for political violence and therefore accountability, as well. The demands of peace at the national level, which included some form of accountability for the crimes of the apartheid regime, were substantively different than the demands of peace at the regional and local level in KwaZulu-Natal. The political and conflict conditions that gave rise to a contrary set of provincial peace needs included the intensity and internecine nature of the conflict, as well as the stalemate between primary political protagonists, the ANC and the IFP, which induced a set of pact-like agreements to halt violence and share power in the region. This paper treats South Africa and the province of KZN as theory generating cases. The analysis looks at the interaction of the truth and peace process across national, regional and local levels. The sub-national case study suggests that specific features of the conflict and political conditions in KZN not only inhibited implementation of the truth process, but also set important constraints upon individual engagement with this process, as well as political expression related to past violence and issues of justice and accountability in its aftermath. While these implications are only briefly discussed here, they have been developed more fully by the author in other work. The field research upon which this paper is based was conducted in South Africa periodically from 1999 to 2002. This paper is derived from a larger work-in-progress that examines the lingering impact of large-scale human rights violations and deadly conflict on the development of new democracies and theorizes the role of memory and justice processes in cultivating citizenship after extreme violence, titled: Demons and Demos: Violence, Memory and Citizenship in Post-Conflict States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does a panel exploring the popular writings of J.R.R. Tolkien, literary works that the author himself often termed fairy-tales or fairy-stories, make any sense as part of America’s largest annual meeting of political scientists? Even in the "Politics and Literature" section, would we not use our time and intellects better by focusing on non-fiction, or at least on less self-consciously fantastic works of fiction? What can we, as students and teachers of political science generally, and for some of us of political philosophy more specifically, hope to gain from reading and discussing Tolkien’s texts amongst ourselves and with other scholars in the humanities? In brief, what has Faërie to do with Political Philosophy? My paper addresses these questions through a three-part exploration. First I venture an account of how Tolkien himself might have responded. I base my interpretation primarily on Tolkien’s essay "On Fairy-Stories," in which the master craftsman explains how he understands his literary art; its relation to reason, nature, and truth; and its value for human life. I argue that among the functions Tolkien considers fairy-story (or "myth") to fulfill particularly well, the one he terms "recovery" is of special importance to students of humanistic social science. Then, in the second part of the paper, I propose the portrayal of property, justice, and friendship in the narrative of The Hobbit as one important opportunity for such recovery. If this "child’s story" can spur adult readers to wonder at the real world and provide them with solid food for social thought, as I argue that it can, what might we expect from, in its author’s own estimation, the more mature and serious masterwork The Lord of the Rings? Finally, in the paper’s brief conclusion, I consider what relevance the recovery that Tolkien’s fantasy facilitates might have for denizens of contemporary liberal democracies. Here I build on Tocqueville’s classic treatment of literature in the modern democratic age. I suggest that Tolkien’s work constitutes an example the fruitful combination of aristocratic and democratic spirits described by Tocqueville. Tolkien’s fairy-stories both challenge and reassure us, supporting some of our better instincts while simultaneously "prop[ping] us up on the side where we lean" (see Democracy in America, vol. II, pt. 1, ch. 15). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the political implications of communitarian theories, using the Israeli Settlers as a case study. Focusing on the thought of Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre it strives to show that there are distinct similarities between these philosophers’ ontological premises and those of the Israeli Settlers, concluding that the communitarian political model is not necessarily congruent with the modern democratic order. The paper begins by presenting Taylor’s and MacIntyre’s ontological premises. It argues that the two philosophers base their critique of liberal thought on similar perceptions of the modern subject, which consist of two competing manifestations: firstly, the atomist subject, who defies ideals that exceeds her own self-interests, and as a result lacks commitment to any moral idea as such, her life rendered shallow and meaningless. Secondly, the communitarian subject, who shapes her identity through a dialogue with the social communities she is embedded in, and, being committed to her community’s set of values and virtues, achieves authentic moral self-realization. Both Taylor and MacIntyre conclude that a better political order should strive to reflect the particular ‘shared understandings’ of its community members. Hence they defy the moral neutrality of the liberal political sphere, arguing that modern politics ought to reintroduce fundamental moral questions to the life of the modern individual, and thus reawaken her communitarian qualities. Both claim that the political remedies they offer will solve the malaises of modern political order, mainly its alienated nature and lack of democratic participation. However, I would argue that their ontological premises could also lead to highly anti-democratic conclusions, especially in light of their originators’ rather obscure definitions of the community. In order to demonstrate this claim, the paper proceeds to compare between Taylor’s and MacIntyre’s thought and the Israeli Settlers’ worldview. This comparison is conducted through a text analysis of the Settlers’ periodical Nekudah, focusing on the year 1995, prior to the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Exploring the Settlers’ stands in regards to personal autonomy, community and democratic procedures, it reaches the conclusion that the Settlers too present a stratified perception of the self, which echoes that of Taylor and MacIntyre: thus, parallel to the ‘atomist subject’ they portray the secular modern Israeli, and blame her for the deterioration of modern Israeli society; and in contrast they extol the ‘faithful self’, the Pioneer Settler, who is committed to the Jewish nation’s common good, thus alluding to Taylor and MacIntyre’s ‘communitarian self’. Nevertheless, as the third part of the paper demonstrates, contrary to MacIntyre’s and Taylor’s predictions, the Settlers’ ontological premises lead to a clearly anti-democratic critique of Israeli politics: in the name of ‘the Jewish conceptions of the common good’ they demand the exclusion of Israeli-Palestinians from the political sphere. Moreover, the Settlers’ version of the ‘faithful self’, by being so committed to her own set of values, justifies a defiance of the democratic vote once it repudiates the Settlers’ shared set of values. I therefore conclude that the Settlers’ political vision serves as a concrete manifestation of an anti-democratic potential embedded in the communitarian image of the self, a conclusion which calls for a more careful definition of the communitarian philosophers’ liberal commitments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States are usually described, in general discussions of American as well as comparative politics, as the most constitutionally stable democracy, and as a model of presidential system ‘engineered’ by the creative minds of framers dedicated to establish a democracy based on separated institutions checking their respective use of delegated power. This paper challenges this mechanic approach to constitutional design and evolution. It argues, through historical and theoretical evidence, that the American constitution (much like most constitutions generally, and like the French Fifth republic constitution specifically) could have lead, in the early phase of its implementation, to either a presidential system or a ministerial government, given the combined influences of historical forces and the political sensibilities and strategic actions of the nation’s first leaders. The American constitutional construction has been the product of unstable and temporary coalitions, not the straightforward design of a coherent and cohesive majority. The process is full of doors left open, interpretative disputes, and turning points in the implementation phase, and this project first reviews the different ‘constitutional moments’ of the American constitutive process, and replaces these turning points in a larger political and historical context, as products of historical struggles and legacies of competing visions of governance. The key element of our analysis is to make better substantive use of observations made by different scholars: namely that American revolutionaries, in their efforts to construct a republic, sought not to get rid of the architecture of institutions of Great Britain, but to improve them by setting up mechanisms that would prevent the corruption that had perverted British politics. The British institutions were for the new American political leaders, both their main source of inspiration and the very system they had built so much resentment against. After the frustrating experience of the Articles of the Confederation, the United States Constitution was to be the perfected synthesis of two extremes, executive corruption and legislative tyranny. The two institutions newly constructed had different historical roots: while the presidency was essentially a transformation of the British Crown and Cabinet, Congress was the refinement of much more recent and radical idea of democratic governance. The challenge was to make democratic, efficient and stable not only the institutions themselves, but their interaction as well. This paper indicates that the early United States went, from 1789 to 1800, through a much more floating and unstable implementation phase than what is generally believed: an uneasy struggle of each institution to test and practice its potential for subordination, to assert its prerogatives, and to find its place in the constitutional order. Next, the paper traces the evolution of clauses, statutes, and behaviors that could have led the United States on the evolutionary path towards ministerial government, or a close version of it. We will first look at the design of the constitution and look for clauses that signaled the erection of a presidential system, but left the door open for different ulterior developments: selection process, presence of Cabinet members in the House, senatorial power of appointment, presidential power of removal, … We will then examine the early implementation phase to identify when and how the original model could have taken different equilibration paths. Much attention is given to historical evidence regarding Alexander Hamilton’s political entrepreneurship, his critical attempt to shape executive-legislative relations, and his underlying desire to morph his executive function into prime ministership -in a tellingly similar fashion as the British Lord Treasurer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on democratic consolidation after the fall of communist regimes in Eastern Europe. Contrary to those approaches that stress the importance of political culture and socioeconomic requisites, and assume that the Leninist or even pre-communist authoritarian legacies are the determining factors in the region, the paper takes an institutionalist approach. I argue that political institutions played a fundamental role in the consolidation process, not only as constrains on politicians, but also as actors themselves. One of the most significant institutions of the consolidation process was the newly established constitutional courts. While judicial review can boast of a long past in North America, it is a relatively new (post WWII) introduction in Western Europe and even more recent in the former Soviet-dominated countries. In the region, just as in Western Europe following WWII, judicial review was introduced first and foremost as a safeguard against authoritarian political efforts (Alec Stone) and also to underline the importance of separation of powers as opposed to unqualified majority democracy. Once in place, the courts became one of the most important actors in the consolidation process. The paper argues that there are three main (though often overlapping) areas where the courts’ activity is particularly noteworthy. 1) ‘Stabilizing’ role: political actors turn to the courts to resolve issues they cannot resolve within the framework of ‘normal politics’ due to deep ideological divisions, rather than employ extra-institutional methods to find solution to their grievances. 2) ‘Corrective/safeguarding/balancing’ role: they serve as an arbiter in many institutional conflicts and thus safeguard against power-seeking institutions, overly strong governments/presidents/parliaments, often defending the principles of liberal democracy. 3)’Constituent’ role: through their decisions they do not only settle the particular case in question, but also act as a constituent power, by determining or modifying the path of consolidation, defining basic institutional relations or such fundamental concepts as the rule of law. While also mentioning their other functions, the paper first and foremost analyzes the constituent role of the constitutional courts in post-communist Hungary and Poland, through examining the problem of transitional justice/decommunization. This issue in both countries illustrated the far-reaching consequences of the courts’ decisions regarding basic constitutional issues, especially that of the rule of law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the prospect of cosmopolitanism contributing to the project of democratic theory construction in a global context. Toward this end, I identify two tensions in cosmopolitan theory. The first is the tension between a personal/moral cosmopolitan and an instituional cosmopolitan position. The second is the tension between cosmopolitanism with universal foundations and cosmopolitanism with particular, or "rooted" sources. These two schisms lead to four potential configurations of cosmopolitanism, which are discussed in turn, with particular attention to their possible contribution to (and potential imcompatibility with) a global democratic theory. The paper concludes that the most promising site of cosmopolitan theory is the institutional/particular one, although that is the least theorized of all the approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the recent years, the compatibility of Islam with liberal-democracy is widely debated in the scholarly, journalistic and policy-making circles. In fact in many analyses and arguments, in the societies with predominantly Muslim population, prospects for sustainable transition to democracy are thought in terms of whether Islamic way of living permits the emergence and sustainability of liberal-democratic regimes. In this context, the recent rise of Justice and Development Party (JDP; AKP) in Turkey to zenith of political governance can be interpreted as the first example of an Islamic democratic political model. Taking a different perspective, this paper that relies on extensive first hand ethnographic study of the party, argues that the triumph of AKP signifies the death of Islamism in Turkey and the consolidation of political and social secularism in Turkey. In the light of ample evidence, it shows how AKP quite deliberately dissevered itself from the Islamist ideology as a result of the dynamics of electoral competition and process of secular metamorphosis of ex-Islamist party elite. Consequently, the dominant cleavage in Turkish politics is not between secular authoritarianism and a kind of Islamic totalitarianism but between competing versions of secularism. The paper is organized in four parts. The first part argues how politics of this-worldliness replaced politics of otherworldliness in AKP in contrast to Islamist parties. The conduct of politics for worldly ends also stripped the political authority within the party from its religious sources of legitimacy and its quest for unquestioned obedience. Next, party’s electoral campaigning in November 2003 elections, the values of its cadres and governmental policies are discussed. They exhibit a clear pattern of rupture with the politics of Islamism. AKP is increasingly becoming a mass party that aims to maximize its popular support by addressing to popular demands for prosperity. Third, a brief analysis of AKP’s voting support in the elections of November 2002 reveals how it managed to extend its support base in the provinces that historically refrained from voting for parties of Islamism. Still, AKP mainly failed to crosscut sociological cleavages of Turkish politics. In the last section, the factors that shape the AKP’s organizational composition, political stance and policies are specified: dynamics of electoral competition in 1990s and the transformation of the mindset of party leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To compare how differently people vote in Single Non-transferable Vote (SNTV) and in the single-member plurality, this paper utilizes the index of SF Ratio (ratio of the second to the first loser’s vote total), a district level data proposed by Gary Cox (1997), to measure the extent to which the strategic voting is exhibited. Based on the Taiwan magistrates and legislative elections in 2001, the empirical result shows that SNTV does have different impact on people’s voting response. The paper concludes with the findings that, first, people do not converge their votes to the potential candidates in SNTV as obviously as in the single plurality. Second, the competition in the SNTV system does not help improving this phenomenon either. Third, the larger the SNTV district magnitude is, the vote dispersion becomes more apparent. Four, even if there is some degree of vote convergence in SNTV, it has no substantial assistance to the seat bonus for either party. Finally, the most important factor for the party to improve the winnable seats in SNTV is basically from the nomination. So long as the party nominates appropriate numbers of candidates in SNTV, strategic voting does not influence the electoral result that much. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students of political thought traditionally read Tocqueville’s writings as a strong endorsement of the institutions and political culture he encountered during his travels through America. Indeed, Democracy in America is undoubtedly the text most frequently cited by modern scholars seeking to glorify the American democratic experiment. This paper joins a burgeoning literature in the field that seeks to take seriously the very important criticisms he leveled against America’s political institutions and cultural traditions in the text of Democracy in America. The central argument of this paper is that Tocqueville believed America’s long-term potential as the primary vessel for the expansion of equality in the modern world was significantly circumscribed by what he saw in relations between the races. Unlike previous studies that have taken up Tocqueville’s commentary on race relations, this paper argues that the Frenchman’s examination of the status of free blacks represents was his most important contribution to the subject. This is so because it bridges to the concerns about democratic despotism (or majority tyranny) that Tocqueville expresses in the first book of Democracy in America. Paying careful attention to this linkage not only reveals Tocqueville as a critic of America’s democratic political institutions and culture, but it also shows that his insights are far more applicable to modern race relations than those made by the celebrated twentieth century critics Gunnar Myrdal and W.E.B. Du Bois. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role played by demands for apology and restitution for past injustices visited upon minorities, in the deliberative process, and the political and theoretical consequences of these demands. Deliberative democratic theory arose in the 1990s in large part as a response to frustration with identity politics - which, critics contended, trapped people within their increasingly splintered groups, and made any politics of solidarity based around commitment to a civic project impossible. Deliberative democratic theory aimed to sidestep divisive questions of identity by emphasizing shared commitment to a code of rational discourse. Like greeting and testimony, however, apology forces us to reconsider the questions of recognition and status. In any speaking situation, participants must first recognize each other as interlocutors before conversation may proceed. Apology is the acknowledgment of a wrong and the expression of regret which aims to repair the relationship between the parties. It acknowledges the interlocutor’s suffering, and the self-understanding of the interlocutor as one who has, crucially, experienced that suffering. Power relations are transformed, so that parties are now acknowledged as equals in the speech situation about to proceed. The paper argues that attempts to restore and make restitution for past injustices which do not admit apology - deliberation without acknowledgment - are doomed to failure. It examines in detail two cases: the demands for apology for slavery made by African Americans and the impact of these for the ‘conversations on race’ which the Clinton Administration sponsored in the 1990s, and the demands for apologies to Australia’s indigenous peoples for the practice of forced child removal, and their impact on national reconciliation. The demands for apology which periodically resurfaced in these conversations expressed the claims of status and recognition on the part of minorities which could not be addressed in the deliberative terms of these conversations. I conclude that rational deliberation must in these cases be preceded by communicative exchange which acknowledges the status of parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Judicial review of executive action is a corner stone of limited democratic government. During states of exception already powerful executives are vested with even greater authority for which there are few checks outside of the judicial branch. When and why do justices check the Executive’s use of exceptional powers? This paper seeks to address these questions through an exploration of high court decisions on challenges to the presidential use of exceptional or emergency powers in two country cases with markedly different Supreme Court-executive branch histories: Chile and Argentina. I argue variation in the way justices rule on cases of executive authority may best be understood as a strategic response by individual justices to the political and institutional environment in which judicial decision-making takes place. This paper uses primary research conducted in Chile and Argentina to assess the salience of a strategic explanation for understanding judicial decision-making. The results of a quantitative analysis indicate that a more comprehensive understanding of when justices may defer to executives and when they may defy them requires greater consideration be given to the institutional and political context in which judicial decision-making takes place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drug policy poses a fundamental challenge to American democracy. Nowhere is this more evident than in its impact on marginalized communities. To be sure, scholars have noted the social problems associated with the implementation of drug laws of the 1980’s, including: continued drug use and addiction; increased incarceration; and spread of drug-related illnesses. Additionally, civil rights activists attack the individual rights’ restrictions central to drug policy. Still, less attention has been paid to other ways in which drug policy harms citizens’ democratic experiences, particularly those of marginalized community members. The focus of this paper will be to examine the effects of contemporary drug policy on the political expressions and experiences of African Americans. Using Harlem as a case study, this paper confirms the argument that a racial gap exists across Americans’ perceptions of the drug problem. Factors influencing this cognitive divide include: 1) the disparate impact of drug legislation; 2) the symbolic messages communicated by political leaders about drug victims and culprits; and 3) the distrust and suspicion of the political motives of the government by African Americans. This study uses interviews, contextual and survey data to explore the democratic implications of these racial disparities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues against certain features of one prominent account (by John Rawls) of democratic legitimacy, justice, and rights. The paper also argues for an alternative account. Rawls argues in his later writings (well after A Theory of Justice) that to set out some basic conditions for constitutional democratic legitimacy, we need an account of justice appropriate for the "domain of the political", we need "an overlapping consensus" of "reasonable comprehensive doctrines" about what is just, we need need citizen endorsement of "constitutional essentials" as described in the account of justice. On a Rawlsian view, religious, philosophical, or moral comprehensive doctrines that try to say what is generally valuable in human life cannot be enforced without the oppressive exercise of state power. I argue that a better philosophy would be more qualified about comprehensive doctrines, more empirical and disconfirmable, not so Kantian. Rawls is right that the legal enforcement of religion is likely to require the oppressive exercise of state power but wrong to say that enforcing philosophical and moral comprehensive doctrines can be ruled out across the board as involving the oppressive exercise of state power. This depends on the "comprehensive doctrine". I question Rawls’s rejection of what he calls "comprehensive doctrines’ that would enforce the ideal of autonomy (e.g., some of Joseph Raz’s views). Only if we defend the possibility of some philosophical and moral doctrines being used in correcting the societal consensus on "constitutional essentials", and effectively advocating constitutional reform, can we avoid political dogmatism about the nature of democratic legitimacy, justice, and rights. I offer some empirical and political confirmation of my view by drawing on what Cass Sunstein argues about socioeconomic rights embedded in the South African Constitution among many others, an arrangement that could be drawn on to criticize the American Constitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the publication of Isaiah Berlin’s seminal essay, Two Concepts of Liberty,’ liberal democratic political theorists have struggled to reconcile liberalism with what might be called value pluralism; of how liberalism can and cannot accommodate not-so-liberal constituencies. This paper explores a different challenge - that liberalism’s secularist foundations are themselves an unduly restrictive basis upon which to develop a common public morality. This is the challenge that the recent work of William Connolly and Charles Taylor present. Both theorists are in agreement that "secularism is not an optional extra for a modern democracy " but a functional necessity if that democracy is to provide for a "civilized coexistence of diverse groups" within it (Taylor, 1998a: 48). Yet both also assert that today to appeal to one universal moral source, like liberalism, ‘to justify governance over a plurality of people is to ensure that a whole series of constituencies will be assaulted, suppressed, or excluded; the ‘we’ of governance emerges, then, out of a series of promises across plurality that enable action in concert to occur and stable arrangements to persist.’ But how is such a series of promises to emerge? What strategies are conducive to building of an inclusive public morality among theists and non-theists? These are the questions that will guide this paper’s analysis of Connolly’s and Taylor’s respective attempts to refashion the secularist basis of liberal democratic political culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electoral constituencies define a group of voters who vote (or are eligible to vote) for a candidate(s) for a seat in a legislature. They may usefully be described as being more or less homogeneous, more or less stable, and more or less voluntarily defined. In this paper, I argue that any plausible theory of legitimate political representation will generate a default assumption in favor of heterogeneous, permanent and involuntary electoral constituencies (i.e., constituencies that are defined by the state rather than by individual voters). These defaults follow from rather uncontroversial (almost trivial) assumptions of what a theory of legitimate political representation will entail, assumptions like, ‘majority rule’ or ‘representatives should act properly in office.’ In the process I argue that the ‘one-person-one-vote’ standard of equality is unimportant as the value it is purported to be; that the plea to ‘make votes count’ ignores the fact that they won’t count for much no matter what electoral arrangements one uses; and that the very meaning of ‘democratic self-rule’ entails that citizens be assigned to electoral constituencies for the duration of their lives. The paper concludes with a consideration of some important problems for deliberative democrats by making constituencies homogeneous, problems that may best be solved by an appeal to qualifications for political office, rather than through other electoral reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1980s and 1990s, Mexico, was able to institute a stabilization and adjustment program in the form of a series of tripartite agreement known as the Pactos. The pacts managed to set the context for the reform of the Mexican economy. The central objectives of this paper are to understand, first, how tripartite agreements between 1987 and 1997 came about and helped reform the economy, and second, put forward some of the factors that are impeding mechanisms of social partnership in the context of democratic politics in 2000. This paper argues that the Pactos were the result of a free trade governing coalition interests for economic reform, and a set of institutional factors (State capacities (ideas, knowledge and expertise), corporatism, and the Pacto institutions) that helped create a policy mechanism that minimized uncertainty and free-riding through an system of rules that monitored, coordinated, and sanctioned political actors. This study suggests that social partnership mechanisms can help reduce uncertainty and foster cooperation in the context of economic reform and increasing competition, yet, that the institutional arrangements of Mexican presidential regime can be an obstacle for the development of tripartite accords in todays Mexican democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Popular participation in the electoral process plays a very important role in enhancing the legitimacy of democratic regimes. However, democracies differ widely in the degree to which voters exercise their franchise. This paper examines the effect of political institutions on electoral turnout in the new democracies of East Central Europe (Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia). The paper considers a number of hypotheses. First, electoral turnout should increase with the proportionality of the electoral system (Blais and Carty 1990, Cox 1999). Second, electoral turnout should be greater where concurrent elections are held to multiple political offices, such as a strong presidency or a second chamber. Conversely, nonconcurring elections should reduce voter turnout. Finally, the party system may also have an impact both on electoral turnout as well as the magnitude of the effect of political institutions: the more competitive the party system, the higher the turnout and the stronger the impact of the political institutions are expected to be. The selection of the four cases from a well defined geo-political region allows to control the comparison for a number of sociological and historical variables. At the same time, the institutional diversity among the four new democracies provides for an excellent laboratory to test the above hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]