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American citizens face an epistemic crisis that threatens their liberal-democratic political order: They lack a shared standard of truth for distinguishing facts from falsehoods. Schools have an obvious role to play in solving the problem, for teaching the truth about the world and how to find it are at the heart of their mission. Careful curriculum decision-making is needed to accomplish this aim, and my contribution to this symposium is to suggest that Durkheim and Bernstein’s sociology of education, as articulated by Young and Muller in the two keynote articles and across the past twenty-five years, takes us in a useful direction. I briefly sketch two curricula that are responsive to the crisis and will serve, in substance and method, as specimens of that direction. I then reflect on them and make a civic argument for centring disciplinary content and skills in the curriculum. Next, I join Young, Muller, and their colleagues in suggesting that a popular ‘critical’ discourse limits educators’ ability to accomplish the aim of teaching truth and truth-finding because it turns their attention away from knowledge and curriculum. I conclude with an Arendtian warning of what is at stake in this crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hans Kelsen was one of the most important legal thinkers of the 20th century, and he is known for mounting an elaborate defense of liberal party democracy at a time when the latter was hardly the most popular form of regime. This article examines how Kelsen responded to two major political movements he experienced in his intellectual prime: political Catholicism, which he was confronted with in interwar Austria, and Christian Democracy, which became a hegemonic political force in Western Europe after World War II, when Kelsen was already in exile. The article reconstructs Kelsen's complex critique of these two religious movements and ends by reflecting on what we can learn from his arguments about current attempts to revive Christian political thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A legitimate expectation in a liberal democracy is that public officials enforce the law regardless of its content; when they don't do so, their actions tend to be publicly condemned. This expectation puts street-level bureaucrats in a moral dilemma when they consider that a certain law is unjust: either they don't enforce the law and violate their duties to the citizenry, or they enforce it and become complicit in injustices. This paper argues for the legal permission of public officials to disregard legal mandates for moral reasons. Call it official disobedience. Contrary to common intuitions, I show that official disobedience would foster the principles of and improve governance in liberal democracies: it accommodates public officials' personal autonomy and yields three main democratic benefits. First, information about the outcomes of the law would become available for lawmakers; second, in the aggregate, it would protect citizens from injustices; third, it would improve the moral character of bureaucrats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores reactions to the practice of polygyny in Denmark over the last 30 years. While bigamy was listed in the criminal code, the public approach to marital choices up until the 1990s was generally one of non-interference. In the face of immigration from non-Western countries, the clause on bigamy becomes an instrument to criminalise polygyny and limit access to residence permits. Unpacking this rationale through the study of the political and public discourse surrounding four occurrences of polygyny in Denmark and their legal consequences, we flesh out the underlying values that structure private relations and personal choices in Danish liberal democracy. We demonstrate how the criminalisation of certain non-monogamous unions must be negotiated within a liberal approach to marriage, religious belief, and right to privacy. Here, women’s rights and equality, in an increasingly multicultural Denmark, become a trope activated to problematise this practice. The rejection of divergent cultural practices such as polygyny, we argue, serves both to reaffirm the superiority of Danish values and to produce more restrictive migration laws. The criminalisation of pologyny thus, serves as a case study to examine the scopes and limits for pluralism in Western liberal democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Marmara University Journal of Political Science / Marmara Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilimler Dergisi is the property of Marmara University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Amme Idaresi Dergisi is the property of Public Administration Institute for Turkey & the Middle East (TODAIE) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In recent years, there has been a steady increase in interest in the works of Fr. Sergius Bulgakov, both in the Russian-speaking and in the Western academia. As one would expect, this sometimes leads to Bulgakov being approached by theologians who defend opposing positions and are in polemics among themselves. One example of this state of affairs is, in particular, the polemics between two contemporary theologians working inter alia in the field of political theology — the Anglican theologian and founder of the Radical Orthodoxy movement John Milbank and the American Orthodox theologian Aristotle Papanikolaou. With regard to political theology, Milbank and Papanikolaou take opposite positions, parting ways in their attitude towards liberal democracy. If Milbank believes that Christianity is absolutely incompatible with the liberal state growing out of secular modernity, Papanikolaou in his turn supports a different view, defending the compatibility of Christianity (and Eastern Orthodoxy in particular) with liberal democracy and the rights and freedoms that go along with it. At the same time, what is of interest here, is that when constructing their own arguments, both theologians rely largely on Bulgakov’s works and appeal to his ideas. The purpose of this article is to acquaint the Russian-speaking reader with the polemics among two important contemporary theologians, in which a significant, although often not explicitly expressed place is given to Bulgakov. The article will analyze how both theologians read and interpret Bulgakov. I will show that both of their readings suffer from excessive polarization, since both read Bulgakov selectively, exposing him as a supporter of their respective positions. In fact, although Bulgakov supported the dignity of the individual asserted by liberalism and recognized individual freedom as the highest value, he believed that any political regimes are of relative, and not absolute, nature and serve only as historical means to achieve extra-historical ideals. In a similar ambivalent way Bulgakov also treated the separation of church and state, finding in such a separation both pros and cons.

This article aims to outline a theory of political boredom based on the concept of the liberal temporal dispositive. According to this concept, modern politics is characterized by the reduction of political time consumption to enable the growing temporal autonomy of the individual. However, individuals may experience considerable stress in their pursuit to utilize this free time effectively. Boredom arises when individuals fail to “fill” their available time with meaningful actions. Political crises of boredom occur as attempts by individuals to relieve the pressures accompanying temporal autonomy, sometimes restarting political temporality on a new, massive scale. Furthermore, the article examines modern political philosophy as inherently rooted in the liberal temporal dispositive. Through several historical examples, it is discussed how political philosophy may either contribute to imbuing politics with a desire for meaning or abstain from it in an attitude of serene resignation. It is proposed that liberal democracy requires a temporal ethics based on the latter.

A vague and loosely defined concept, 'populism' allows understanding the nature of present day's challenges encountered by liberal democracy better than any of the finely defined concepts that have currently gained widespread currency would allow. Bulgaria is no exception. There are several key moments that have effectively led to transforming populism into a norm. One has connection with the formation of the party system, the exhaustion of the transition cleavages, and the transformation of party politics into symbolic politics. The second concerns the way the market economy was built in the country, with the merging of economy and state, the disintegration of social systems and the distancing of citizenry from institutions and the political overall. The third is associated with the role of the media and the digital turn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The commentary looks at the two landmark judgements delivered by the Supreme Court in recent months on the electoral process in India which is the lifelines of liberal democracy. The judgements deal with the appointment of CEC and other election commissioners along with the funding of elections. In the Anoop Baranwal case, The Supreme Court has tried to insulate the election commission from control of the government of the day in order to make it a neutral institution. In the Electoral Bond case, the court has tried to create a level playing field among political contestants during the election. But the judgements have not been able to plug all holes in the electoral process as many lacunae remains. The judgements of the Supreme Court will go a long way in ensuring free and fair election in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A liberal-democratic society (from a political theory perspective) is self-governing in the sense that people, through their directly elected representatives, exercise sovereignty and decision-making authority. Through this process, elected officials should have the power and the responsibility to decide all policy matters. In the real world, however, this is not so easy since public policy is made by bureaucrats and not by elected officials. With the birth of the Welfare State, in fact, the question of how much control representatives elected by citizens should exercise over the Public Administration (PA) has become a topic of relevance. The presence of permanent officials in relevant administrative roles corrects some of the major shortcomings of democratic governance and contributes significantly to the success and stability of liberal democratic States. It is therefore necessary to begin a reflection that can give relevance to the normative dimension of the executive power with a deontological analysis on the role of the civil servant/public official. This paper aims to underline the importance of PA in a liberal-democratic political system and explain which are the limits of democratic legitimacy for public officials fulfilling their functions. In addition to this, an alternative approach will be proposed. A vocational model of accountability based on the neutrality of the public function and on a set of liberal values (efficiency, liberty and equality) as a healthy corrective to populism and illiberal democracies and an alternative to the democratic legitimacy.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with Workers' Party supporters in Northeast Brazil, and analysis of electoral campaign materials, I show that left-wing populist discourse can activate aspects of a traditional and apparently illiberal political culture that are compatible with liberal democracy, particularly the principles and ideals of representation, accountability and redistribution of economic growth. By political culture, I refer to the intersection between, on the one hand, cultural aspects such as religion, power relations rooted in history and life trajectories dictated by political and economic constraints, and, on the other hand, political discourses, leaders and policies. Moreover, I show that Workers' Party voters are not irrational actors, as some scholars of populism argue, but vote for politicians and parties that radically transformed their lives. Using Northeast Brazil as a case study, the paper contributes to debates about the relationship between populism and liberal democracy, showing how the two are not incompatible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the progress and challenges in the democratic landscape of Africa within the framework of the Africa Agenda 2063 (hereafter AA2063). Initiated in 2013, the Agenda signifies Africa's commitment to an integrated, prosperous, and peaceful continent. Despite these aspirations, Africa faces persistent challenges, including political instability, socio-economic inequalities, and health crises. This study triangulates data from Afrobarometer public perception surveys, Varieties of Democracies expert insights, and the Ibrahim Index of African Governance to provide a broad understanding of the ten-year trend in democratic governance in Africa. The study found an increased demand for democracy, contrasted with a continuous decline in the supply of democracy. The study observed that, based on the average democratic performance over the decade, measured at 45% using V-Dem indices and 44% using IIAG percentage, Africa needs to score more than twice the current performance every year to align with the democratic aspirations of AA2063. This study underscores the need for targeted reforms to bridge the gap between current democratic performance and the envisioned goals of AA2063. It identifies key areas for improvement, including the separation of powers and checks and balances, citizens' active participation, accessibility to state-owned media, and the independence of election monitoring bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely feared that the onset of populism poses a threat to democracy, as citizens' support for democracy is essential for its legitimacy and stability. Yet, the relationship between populism and democratic support at the citizen level remains poorly understood, particularly with respect to support for liberal democracy. Data measuring citizens' populist attitudes in conjunction with a comprehensive range of measures of democratic support have been lacking. Using unique data from the Netherlands, we study the relationship between individuals' populist attitudes and their attitudes towards democracy in three studies. We examine the association between populism and support for democracy and satisfaction with democracy (Study 1), populism and support for liberal democracy (Study 2), and populism and support for majoritarian conceptions of democracy (Study 3). We find that while citizens with stronger populist attitudes are dissatisfied with how democracy works, they are no less supportive of the principle of democracy. Contrary to most theorizing, we find that citizens with higher populist attitudes not less supportive of key institutions of liberal democracy, but reject mediated representation through political parties. At the same time, individuals with stronger populist attitudes are highly supportive of forms of unconstrained majoritarian rule. These findings suggest that the relationship between populism and support for (liberal) democracy is more complicated than commonly assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Treating counter-disinformation activities as a discursive practice producing knowledge in specific cultural and historical contexts, this article brings a vital cultural studies perspective to an incipient Critical Disinformation Studies agenda. At the same time, it cautions against inadvertently aligning that agenda with the ‘bad faith’, right-wing populist critique of counter-disinformation practices, acknowledging their genuine potential to enhance democratic culture. It proceeds by interrogating the communicative strategies informing the proliferating Western counter-disinformation initiatives which have mushroomed in response to what is widely perceived to be one of democracy’s most potent threats, and which border on a ‘moral panic’ serving to conceal key ideological tensions. Grounded in Critical Discourse Analysis methods, a close reading of mission statements and related materials from the websites of four leading counter-disinformation units demonstrates how these texts interweave three functions – identity construction, performativity, and representation – to generate the overarching ‘discursive formation’ or ‘articulation’ constituting counter-disinformation as modern liberal democracy’s core, but also exposing its fault lines. Specifically, it shows that a failure to reconcile competing accounts of truth (as scientific rationality and normative value) indexes deeper contradictions pitting the liberal emphasis on individual freedom and capitalist efficiency against the democratic prioritizing of popular power, dispassionate observation against civic participation, and the promotion of transparency against the creeping power of surveillance. It concludes that the absolutist epistemology – a vestige of disinformation’s Cold War conceptual origins – designed to cover over these paradoxes masks the complex roles played by truth and deception in politics, thereby hindering the emergence of alternative, oppositional forms of knowledge capable of embracing truth in its radical contingency and plurality and facilitating democratic renewal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous concerns about new democracies, as in the wake of the Arab Spring, have now been turned inside Western liberal democracies. These appear under siege because of populist movements which give vent to harsh economic and national identity claims. Among all liberal democracies the EU needs a re-elaboration of its core principles to gain more support from its peoples. I propose to examine a conservative view that preserves the core of liberal-democratic principles, while relying on an idea of 'Transnational European Civic Ethos' (TECE) that crosses national boundaries. TECE can overcome the lack of a common European demos, limiting its claims to segments of the European population that have something in common and can fruitfully deliberate together. TECE can defuse part of the populist threats that I take as expressing conservative attitudes without a response in contemporary liberal democracy. Final normative considerations from the model of the 'reasonable citizen' come to support the TECE proposal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Friedrich Hayek presents a demarchic conception of democracy as a solution for what he takes to be the inherently corrupt and totalitarian nature of liberal democracy. While still preserving the label 'liberal representative democracy', this Hayekian demarchy precludes parliamentary and governmental institutions from providing positive laws and policies on behalf of their constituents where this would require the transfer of the private property of individuals. Such laws and policies would, on this demarchic conception of liberal democracy, undermine individuals' free usufruct. I argue that demarchy's detachment from any concern with the well-being of many of its citizens is an illiberal and anti-democratic (sub)version of liberal democracy that increases populism and risks crushing liberal democracy between the pseudo- and anti-liberal support of a totalitarian majoritarian people's sovereign power and a minoritarian anti-democratic elite. As such, liberal democracy conceived of in Hayekian demarchic terms is itself an oppressive totalitarian political theory incapable of preventing an increase in illiberal and anti-liberal political forces. Moreover, I argue that it is imperative that we acknowledge and appreciate the extent to which demarchy undermines, rather than strengthens, liberal democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on everyday life, where people feel affected both economically and health-wise by the spread of the novel virus, regardless of whether they have contracted it or not. At the same time, we know that populist attitudes influence how people perceive their individual situation, the political environment, and available policy solutions. Are these two factors interrelated? This article examines the role that populist attitudes play (a) in subjective feelings of being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and (b) in choosing policies to counteract its spread. Populist attitudes may lead people to reject the policy-making process during the COVID-19 pandemic, shaped primarily by experts. The article argues that this should increase the sense of concern among people with populist orientations and lead to a rejection of commonly discussed policies to contain the virus. To test this connection empirically, we conducted a representative survey in Austria in September 2020. Our analysis shows a significant and substantive correlation between populist attitudes and the subjective feeling of being affected by the crisis in the areas of health and the economy. Similarly, we find evidence that populist attitudes affect the acceptability of policies to combat the spread of COVID-19. These findings indicate that populist attitudes have such strong effects on individuals' perception of the world that they even influence the perception of the globally shared challenge of a pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Politiikka is the property of Finnish Political Science Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of International Journal of Canadian Studies is the property of University of Toronto Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Many thinkers lament the decline of liberal democracy. Some argue that, to rejuvenate it, we must think big. Thinking big involves generating new ideas about how to achieve an unprecedented level of social transformation aimed at cultivating solidarity, empowering citizen efficacy, and promoting the common good. We propose that fundamental to such a transformation must be a radical change in how people speak to one another. To this end, the primary objective of this paper is to offer a framework for understanding how speech currently erodes democratic engagement. The central idea is that much of speech today both reflects and perpetuates a culture of wilful incommensurability. The core features of this culture are totalizing safetyism, expressive safetyism, dismissive intransigence, and polarized alienation, all of which have been worsened by the current trajectory of social media. The result is that people are increasingly prone to engage in degraded free speech, which is characterized by a pervasive aversion to reach out, identify points of unity, benefit from diverse perspectives, and discover truth in all its potential complexity. In view of this diagnosis and the response of those who advocate for freedom of speech, a second objective of this paper is to introduce the concept of attentive free speech. Attentive free speech has similarities with civil discourse but is specifically characterized by discernment and thoughtfulness and is imbued with key dispositions such as courage, reverence, and love. We end by inviting future research into how such speech can promote the social and spiritual health of the public sphere and freedom itself at a practical level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This symposium essay offers some generalized theoretical propositions on the connection between authoritarianism and legality. It suggests that there are least some sociopolitical contexts in which authoritarian regimes may be even more strongly motivated to pursue legality than their democratic peers. This conjecture comes in three steps: first, authoritarian regimes fear organic social mobilization significantly more than their democratic peers. This incentivizes them, especially in larger, more diverse societies with less predictable sociopolitical landscapes, to pursue the atomized governance of society. Second, legality is, at its core, an institutional design that both responds to and produces social atomization. Not only is law a necessary ordering device in stranger-oriented societies where communal self-governance and self-regulation is unlikely to be effective, but it also produces reliance effects that render social relations more distant. Third, combining these two arguments, in very large, very diverse societies, authoritarian regimes may have even stronger incentives to pursue law-centric modes of sociopolitical ordering than do democratic ones. This does not necessarily mean that they will always act upon such incentives, but it does offer a deeper explanation for why the Chinese regime in particular is very unlikely to decisively abandon its current legalistic trajectory at any point in the foreseeable future. This is very much a thought experiment, but hopefully, one that offers useful ideas for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Security is one of the most important human needs, which can only be satisfied by other people, and only from the outside. It lacks leads to human frustration and resistance (A. Maslow). Before the war in Ukraine, the development of European societies took place in peaceful conditions. Therefore, the war in Ukraine caused by the Russian Federation actualized the problems of meeting the security of liberal democratic societies. The subject of this study is the internal tensions inherent in liberal democracy, which can intensify when insecurity spreads in society. The purpose of the research is to reveal the socio-cultural vulnerability of the security of liberal democracy. The satisfaction of security is explained based on the closely parallel evolution of the human mind and community (F. Hayek), in which the culture of being of human groups was formed - common rules of behavior and groups turned into communities. This sociocultural evolution has weakened in liberal democratic societies. The socio-cultural vulnerability of the security of liberal democracy is caused by the formation of "new individualism" and consumer society. In the process of formation of a new individualism and consumer society, the concept of security is transforming from general security to individual security. In this process, the socio-cultural nature of common security inevitably weakens. When the development of society takes place in a state of peace and there is no external threat to national security, we hardly notice the transformation of general security towards individual security. However, the growth of external threats to the nation forces us to turn to common security, which is developed by fostering the sociocultural ties of society members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Afghanistan is a country with diverse ethnic minorities that have been in conflict with each other, without much emphasis on nationalism. Lack of social cohesion has led to the dominance of tribal leaders in the country. On the other hand, modern nation-state building has been introduced through the French Revolution and colonization in India. These two ideologies have resulted in a cultural shock, tug of war between tradition and modernity, and violence in Afghanistan. Nationalism, which introduces traditional values into modern clothing, is in conflict with liberalism, which emphasizes postenlightenment ideology and development in Europe, but has not been able to bring development to Afghanistan. Nationalism has led to division and animosity between the various cultures and ethnic groups in Afghanistan, resulting in social conflicts, weak nationalism, and underdevelopment. Armed uprisings, the emergence of terrorist groups, foreign intervention, the destruction of infrastructure, and the collapse of the developmental mindset are some of the consequences of this underdevelopment. This sociologicalhistorical research aims to answer the question of how the delay in the formation of nationalism affected the development and led to the collapse of the developmental mindset in Afghanistan. The hypothesis is that the delay in the formation of civic nationalism, weak separation of private and public spheres in the eighth constitutional law, lack of historical background to liberal teachings, the non-sociological function of global society, and continuous ethnic nationalism without regard to the past have contributed to this collapse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the future of the Western-led liberal international order? This paper makes four arguments. First, over the last two centuries, liberal democracies have pioneered a tradition of international order building, the essential impulse of which has been to create an environment—a sort of cooperative ecosystem—in which liberal states can manage interdependence, protect their values and interests, and aggregate capabilities to defend against threats and challenges to their global position and way of life. Second, liberal democracies have used institutions as tools and mechanisms to respond to dangers and opportunities in the global system, focused on the problems of anarchy, hierarchy, interdependence, liberal openness, and geopolitical vulnerability. Third, the most dramatic forms of liberal order building have occurred after major wars, when liberal democracies found themselves in war and geopolitical competition with rival and threatening illiberal great powers. Finally, liberal internationalism and the liberal project still have a future in that they offer cooperative solutions the core problems of twenty-first century world order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions about the future of US supremacy, the global spread of liberal democracy, and liberal international economic institutions create what we call 'international regime uncertainty': doubts about the fundamental principles, rules, norms, and decision-making procedures that govern areas of international affairs. This includes both probabilistic assessments of the risk that prevailing principles and institutions cease to function but also fundamental uncertainty over what alternative institutional arrangements and governing principles may emerge. Irrespective of actual systemic change, international regime uncertainty can affect transnational economic and political activities by increasing structural policy uncertainty and the probability of bargaining failures. The political uproar over energy transition policies that seemingly violate core principles of the international trade regime illustrates these points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elected leaders increasingly undermine liberal democratic institutions with the support of their voters, openly challenging liberal democratic institutions in election campaigns. However, political scientists thus far have lacked the theoretical and empirical tools to study the role of elections in democratic backsliding. This article theorizes the degree to which democracy in general and liberal democracy more specifically can and should be conceptualized as valence and positional issues in multiparty electoral competitions of established liberal democracies. By investigating how German citizens and parties of the postwar period spoke about democracy per se and liberal democracy in their regional and national election manifestos, this article shows that democracy per se and liberal democracy, in particular, have been issues of different qualities in German postwar elections. While parties have used references to democracy in general as a mixed issue, showing both signs of valence and positional issues, parties’ emphasis on liberal democracy is shaped by a positional logic. Social and direct democracy have also been positional issues. Studying democracy and its various conceptions as electoral issues will help us address many important questions concerning the stability of democracies, shifting researchers’ focus to the competition of parties over citizens’ support for reforms that undermine or stabilize liberal democracy.

This article discusses various conceptualizations of illiberalism and adopts a definition that equates the concept with the negation of three liberal democratic principles: limited power, a neutral state, and an open society. The second part of the article explores the implications of this definitional strategy for empirical research, describes the relationship between populism, authoritarianism, and illiberalism, and identifies nine distinct routes to illiberalism: authoritarian, traditionalist, religious, libertarian, nativist-nationalist, populist, paternalist, materialist-technocratic, and left-wing.

This article engages with the particular fragility of liberal democracy in current times. The particularity at stake here concerns the two major challenges that liberal democracy faces today, notably the rising allure of fascism (mostly AF hereafter) and the rise of climate politics (mostly CP hereafter). The article is not concerned with the external threats that fascism and climate politics pose for liberal democratic law. It engages with the way that any endeavour to deal with these threats threatens liberal democracy with the internal self-destruction of its essential ideals and principles.

This paper contributes to the current literature on the relationship between populist rule and liberal democracy by conducting quantitative research with a time-series cross-sectional dataset covering 18 Latin American countries from 1991 to 2017. The findings reveal an overall negative correlation between populist rule and the quality of liberal democratic institutions, highlighting their inherent incompatibility. Nevertheless, this paper argues that several factors influence the governing populists' ability to erode liberal democracy. Specifically, it is observed that the negative impact of populist rule on the quality of liberal democratic institutions is amplified in the presence of higher levels of natural resource rents and lower levels of industrial employment and financial development. Moreover, it is found that the impact of these moderating variables on the relationship between populist rule and liberal democracy is contingent upon the ideological orientation of governing populists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is the largest foreign information and communications technology (ICT) investor in Africa, and Chinese telecommunication companies including Huawei, CloudWalk, and Transsion have brought a range of artificial intelligence (AI) technology to Africa, from face recognition to smart cities. Existing analysis of China's AI impact in Africa, however, habitually falls into a Cold War-style narrative of 'authoritarianism' against the backdrop of 'liberal democracy.' This article calls for going beyond the oversimplified paradigm and proposes to examine the new phenomenon through a more sophisticated and critical lens. First, I show how (English language) media's investigations and academia's analysis of China's AI policy and its global impact (particularly in Africa) usually concentrate on a deep concern about the exportation of authoritarianism from Beijing. The article then demonstrates that the 'authoritarianism vs liberal democracy' model is problematic, if not outdated, and particularly insufficient to capture the multi-layered and overlapping realities of authoritarian and democratic moves by states around the world and the distinguishing properties of AI technologies. Based on a critical appraisal of the notions of surveillance capitalism and data colonialism and the recent empirical evidence from Africa in the third and fourth sections, I propose that these two concepts are more productive analytical frameworks for understanding what is going on in Africa related to the presence of China's AI, as well as for updating and moving forward the debates about whether China is colonizing Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The continuing power of racist ideology threatens liberal democracy, for racism is more than a personal bias or a social construction. It is an ideological framework that reduces human beings to an existence along a color-coded spectrum, with people designated as "white" at the top of the hierarchy and people designated as "black" at the bottom. One has to see this ideology clearly in order to choose a proper response and then act accordingly. First, the reality of "race" has been exposed as unscientific and illusory, and as based not on biology or genetics, but on a legacy of empowerment for some and enslavement for others. Second, this racist ideology, part of our disenchanted, secular age, is exposed as a continuing form of enchantment in its manner of seeing the world, opening the possibility for a spiritual response. Third, dismantling this racist ideology requires a reimagining of "blackness" as a source of life and spirituality, as a way of countering and rewriting the dominant racist narrative. Fourth, a postsecular spiritualty, based on the work of Pope Francis—that emphasizes the importance of protecting our common human dignity, of caring for each other, and of "walking together"—can be engaged as a path for action in the battle against racism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sociologia, Problemas e Práticas is the property of Centro de Investigacao e Estudos de Sociologia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In sustainability debates, the concept of consumption corridors (CCs) has gained prominence. CCs are understood to achieve a good life for all within planetary boundaries. This concept operates on the premise that setting upper limits to consumption is in principle feasible within liberal democracies. But to what extent, if at all, are upper limits to consumption compatible with liberal democracy? In this article, we argue that the tensions between CCs and liberal democracy may run deeper than proponents of CCs suggest. Because consumption plays a constitutive role in social reconciliation, the formation and exercise of autonomy, and democratic legitimacy in liberal democracies, introducing upper limits may indeed hit harder boundaries - boundaries that sufficiency approaches to reducing consumption (and production) levels increasingly face in the current political landscape. Sharing the normative horizon of a good life for all, we propose that for CCs to become a viable lever for transformative change, a deeper analysis of existing barriers may be in order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: It is now commonplace to say that democracy is in crisis. What exactly does that diagnosis mean? Analysis: Examining an archive of Google Alerts over the past three years, this commentary addresses themes and contradictions in the public debate about the so-called crisis of democracy. Conclusions and implications: The analysis shows that debate is characterized by significant disagreement on the nature of the crisis--how it started, its main symptoms, and its potential resolution. While this commentary rejects the assumption that liberal democracy is in crisis, it argues that there is radical insight and potential in this misguided view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the 2023 controversy over Israel’s judicial overhaul as a case, this article analyzes the broader, decades-long debate about the nature of the Israeli regime. It demonstrates how conflicting assumptions about democracy and the Israeli regime underpin different interpretations of the proposed judicial overhaul. The 2023 debate contraposed majoritarian and liberal orientations, echoing previous understandings of Israel as either a liberal democracy or a diminished type of democracy like ethnic democracy. Despite their differences, both positions in this debate regard Israel as a democracy equivalent to other liberal democracies in the West and neglect the question of the regime’s borders and its implication for the regime’s classification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of populism in Western democracies creates presumed threats on liberal international order. Although a number of scholarly works are dedicated to the populist challenge on liberal democracy, the analysis of populism's implications on the liberal order is limited. This paper deliberates on a concise review of the consequences of populism on the Western liberal order. In order to delineate the study, the article is devoted to the Western populism and its implications on liberal order. The paper, while analyzing the components of liberal international order by drawing on the analytical framework of structural liberalism, intends to claim that populism has adverse consequences on certain elements of the order than others. However, the implication is not an inflection point for the Western liberal order. Furthermore, this paper also provides some explanations behind the limitations of the populist threats to the Western liberal order. The main argument to highlight is that populism is detrimental more to liberal democracy than to the liberal order itself, and the Western liberal order has the capacity to withstand the tide of populism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid-19 pandemic sparked unprecedented political responses dramatically affecting societies, markets, and the lives of individuals. Under great uncertainty and turbulent conditions, governments adopted far-reaching political interventions to curb the pandemic. These interventions might therefore be expected to challenge key ideas underpinning liberal democracy. We analyze and compare how the political interventions seeking to curb the spread of the coronavirus in Denmark and Sweden challenged and possibly adapted three key ideas underpinning liberal democracy, namely, constitutionality, parliamentarism, and public responsiveness. When ideas are adapted in ways that advance their ability to stay relevant when faced with turbulence, we understand them as robust. Our study found both similarities and differences between the two countries. The idea of constitutionality was challenged in Denmark but remained robust in Sweden. The idea of parliamentarism appeared robust in both countries, whereas the idea of public responsiveness was adapted in neither country but challenged further in Sweden than in Denmark. Paradoxically, Denmark saw fewer adaptations to the liberal democratic ideas than Sweden yet appeared better prepared to protect lives during turbulent times. Our study suggests that liberal democracies must very carefully balance trade-offs between individual liberties and the protection of public health to preserve the core public ideas of constitutionality, parliamentarism, and public responsiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IntroductionThe rise of the populist radical-right parties (PRRP) stands out as one of the most significant developments in Western democracies over the past two decades. This trend, seen as a challenging sign within democracy but against liberal democracy, highlights the mounting pressure faced by Western political regimes from forces and groups that diverge from the dominant political currents of the last two decades. More specifically, one of the trends in various regions of the EU is the fact that voters, disillusioned by traditional (EU) politics, are turning towards populist and extreme parties both on the left and the right. In this respect, the current research aims to address the question: What were the causes and underlying factors contributing to the rise of radical right parties to power in Europe over the last two decades?Literature ReviewIn Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe, Cas Mudde (2007) delved into the ideology of PRRPs. He identifies three core tenets, namely nationalism, authoritarianism, and populism, contending that PRRPs are not passive entities; rather, they are engaged in actively shaping their destiny within contemporary Western societies. In the article “Economic Insecurity and Demand of Populism in Europe,” Guiso et al. (2022) relied on the approach based on demand of populism to argue that market as well as government inefficiencies in providing security have eroded citizen trust in traditional political parties and institutions. The escalating threats of immigration and globalization have further heightened desperation and fear, contributing to the intensified demand for populist policies. Guiso et al. (2022) explain how this dual crisis, reflected in economic insecurity, systematically influences the demand for populism. In “Conditions Favouring Parties of the Extreme Right in Western Europe,” Jackman and Volpert (2017) conducted a comprehensive examination of systemic conditions influencing the electoral success of extreme right-wing parties in 16 Western European countries between 1970 and 1990. They concluded that factors such as the electoral system, party structure, and higher unemployment rates created a conducive environment for the emergence of such political movements. In addition, Dehshiri and Ghasemi (2015), in their article titled “Fourfold Crises and the Rise of the Radical Right in Europe,” posit that the four crises (i.e., resource distribution, representation, identity, and immigration) played an undeniable role in shaping the radical right movement in Europe.The review of the literature shows different vantage points used to examine the causes, contexts, and consequences of the rise of radical right parties to power. There is a focus on particular aspects such as the electoral system, party structure, identity, and immigration. The novelty of the present research lies in its comprehensive approach based on supply and demand of populism, which explores a combination of socio-economic and political motivations and variables that impact the rise of radical right parties in European countries.Materials and MethodsThe present research used the supply and demand of populism as the framework to conduct a bottom-up and top-down analysis of the rise of radical right parties in Europe during 2008–2018.Results and DiscussionUsing the supply and demand of populism, the research can shed light on different dimensions of the rise of PRRPs in Europe during 2008–2018. On the demand side of populism, the ineffectiveness of governments in managing the financial crisis—often marked by cost reduction, tax increases, and rising unemployment—created the fertile ground for populist tendencies, including anti-immigrant sentiment, xenophobia, Euroscepticism, and nationalism. Meanwhile, the influx of immigrants into Europe, coupled with the adoption of multiculturalism in sociocultural spheres and globalization in the economic realm, could have contributed to the emergence and resurgence of radical right parties. On the supply side of populism, institutional mechanisms and political strategies (e.g., the nature of the electoral system, party ideologies, organizational structures of parties, and party leadership), alongside the influence of messages, rhetoric, and media propaganda, further laid the ground for the rise of radical right parties to power.ConclusionRelying on the supply and demand of populism as the framework, the present research demonstrated that economic and sociocultural demands and dissatisfactions on the demand side (bottom-up approach), coupled with the political and institutional strategies and mechanisms employed by populist statesmen and parties on the supply side of populism (top-down approach), prompted European voters to turn towards radical right leaders and parties. These conditions could foster the political mobilization of citizens by these parties, ultimately resulting in their rise to power, particularly between 2008 and 2018. Following the disorders such as the 2008 economic crisis, the 2014 terrorist crisis, the immigration crisis after 2015, and the ensuing sociocultural dissatisfaction, populist parties and leaders capitalized on the political opportunities available in the populism market, emerging as key players in the political arena. Concerning the supply of populism, radical right parties successfully provided the narratives necessary for political mobilization around shared concerns. They attracted the majority of votes by leveraging legal and institutional mechanisms (such as elections, media, and the unique leadership capabilities), ultimately securing political power.

It is argued that the state of war that permeates Brazilian urban sociability is not a mere analogy, but a movement proper to the bourgeois democratic system. Based on Agamben’s theoretical proposal, it seeks to reveal the violent model of maintaining the friend-enemy dichotomy, and how this is shown in Brazilian urban conflicts, especially in the case of Rio de Janeiro. Finally, the resurgence of violence through social and open fascism is presented, which tends to intensify urban warfare. From this, a critique of the Brazilian left is established, which has shown itself to be incapable of giving answers to this typical phenomenon.