Exploring Transnational Civil Society: A Comparative Study of Colombian,Dominican and Mexican Immigrant Organizations in the USA

ABSTRACT

European integration has added an extra dimension to the perceived crisis of contemporary democracy. Many observers argue that the allocation of decision-making powers beyond the nation state bears the risk of hollowing out the institutional mechanisms of democratic accountability. In EU governance, the Commission has emerged as a particularly active and imaginative actor promoting EU–society relations, and it has done so with the explicit desire to improve the democratic legitimacy of the EU. However, assumptions concerning the societal prerequisites of a working democracy differ with the normative theory of democracy employed. Therefore, expectations concerning the beneficial effect of institutional reforms such as the European Commission's new governance strategy, which was launched at the beginning of the century, vary according to normative standards set by different theories of democracy on the one hand and to the confidence in the malleability of society on the other. Our contribution seeks to pave a way for the systematic assessment of the democratic potential of the European Commission's consultation regime. To this purpose, two alternative theoretical conceptions that link participation to democracy will be presented. A list of criteria for both conceptions that enable us to empirically assess the democratic potential of the EU Commission's participatory strategy will then be presented.     

Sustaining economic development in South Korea: Lessons from Japan

Abstract

Since the early 1990s, culture has come to be recognized as a significant regional development resource in China. This paper raises the question of whether cultural strategies of development have ameliorated or exacerbated the government's increasing inability to provide for the public's basic needs. Specifically, it asks: what are the implications of China's cultural strategies of regional development for local-level governance? Three case study villages in Guizhou are examined, each revealing different ways that villages have engaged state development strategies, each with different outcomes. I argue that cultural strategies of development in China introduce a capital logic that greatly influences village governance. Cultural strategies create economic value where none before existed and thus initiate new struggles over ownership among villagers, state actors and entrepreneurs. The privatization of cultural resources has presented new challenges to village governance even while it has been promoted as both an answer to the fiscal challenges faced by many rural communities and a key to the establishment of a new kind of rural citizen.     

Exploring the Consequences of Negative Political Advertising for Liberal Democracy

ABSTRACT

This paper explores existing thinking and research on the use of negative advertising strategies in political campaigning, and in particular examines their potential impact on liberal democracy. We ask what impacts negative forms of political communication may have on our system of government and democratic participation. Though political advertising makes up only a part of political discourse, an analysis of it is necessary given the increasing “marketisation” of political communication, coupled with concerns regarding the so called “democratic deficit.” In order to more truly evaluate its impact, the evidence pertaining to both the positive and detrimental consequences of employing negative ad strategies is examined. What emerges are some very real short-term benefits, some very real concerns over its use, and confusion over its “true” impact. Of particular note is the need for researchers and campaign managers to take a longer-term view of the potentially detrimental consequences of employing negative advertising strategies-to look beyond the short-term gains of winning elections and to consider the longer-term societal consequences of consistently employing advertising strategies characterised by the creation of doubt, fear, anxiety, violation and viciousness. We argue that the “winning” mentality of political ad campaigns needs to be balanced by a more “nurturing” orientation if the tenets of liberal democracy are to remain sustainable.     

Why states have no right to privacy,but may be entitled to secrecy: a non-consequentialist defense of state secrecy

ABSTRACT

Despite an increase in initiatives aimed at enhancing political transparency, democratic states claim the right to withhold information from citizens: classified intelligence and military programs, diplomatic discretion, closed-door political bargaining, and bureaucratic opacity are examples. Can the state’s claim to restrict access to information be justified? In the first part of the essay, I focus on the arguments that defend the state’s claim to restrict access in terms of the state’s right to privacy where the state privacy is presented as a species of group privacy. While I concede that group privacy may be defended, I argue that governments and parliaments are not the kind of groups that may exercise privacy against citizens because of the relation of accountability in which they stand to citizens. In the second part of the essay, I propose an alternative argument to the effect that the scope of openness required in democratic governance is less extensive than traditionally assumed. I focus on the concept of democratic authority and argue that we can understand the practices of classification as an exercise of a special right to secrecy that is implied in the democratic state’s right to rule in a content-independent way.     

Commanding and Controlling Protest Crowds

Abstract

Police and authorities have increasingly adopted "command and control" strategies to the policing of intentionally peaceful protest crowds. These strategies work to close down access to a physical space in which a protest is to occur and thus in turn they effectively restrict the capacity of a citizen to engage in the democratic right of peaceful protest.     

The Tragic and the Political: A Parallel Reading of Kostas Papaioannou and Cornelius Castoriadis

Abstract

The fundamental difference between Castoriadis' and Papaioannou's accounts of the link between tragedy and the political is that Castoriadis insists on a political form (the democratic regime) whilst Papaioannou insists on a social actor (the masses). The starting point for this essay, then, are two thinkers: one whose main interest was a political and philosophical reflection on the social-historical and one whose main interest was a philosophical reflection on the arts. Surprisingly, however, the end situation is one where Castoriadis gives us a political explanation of the link between tragedy and the political whilst Papaioannou gives us a social explanation of the same phenomenon. How can this difference be accounted for? First, distinguishing their respective conceptualisations of the political allows us to see that where one thinker privileges restlessness and revolution, the other privileges law and regime. Second, looking at their depictions of the essential aspects of tragedy places them on opposing sides of the couple hubris-dike, in a way that leads to two radically different conceptualisations of the relation in question.     

Walking a tightrope: democracy versus sovereignty in ASEAN's illiberal peace

Abstract

Since 1967, ASEAN has established intramural relations that forsake war as a means for resolving conflict. While this is a remarkable achievement for the region, it must be balanced against a concomitant hindrance of democratic reform. I argue in this paper that ASEAN's nascent security community must be seen as an ‘illiberal peace’. Underlying ASEAN's peaceful community are the same principles that support illiberalism in the region, namely sovereignty and non-interference. While sovereignty has historically been a cherished norm for developing countries, ASEAN lags behind other regions, particularly Latin America, in attempting to reconcile tensions between democratic norms and the respect for sovereignty. This tension is most evident in ASEAN's relations with Myanmar. Recent events indicate that ASEAN's non-interference norm may no longer be sacrosanct, but the association is a long way from shunning illiberal politics for the sake of democratic values.     

Combating Domestic Abuse in Jordan from the Top-Down: Liberal and/or Democratic Statebuilding?

ABSTRACT

This article explores how liberal statebuilding can produce unexpected results by examining Jordan's campaign against domestic abuse. Jordan's Family Protection Initiative exemplifies the executive's implementation of externally-supported measures promoting women's empowerment. However, ambiguities over its central mission have resulted in the state pressuring victims to reconcile with abusive family members. I argue that the Initiative reflects regime survival strategies, designed to deflect international calls for democratic reform, co-opt the Jordanian women's movement, and circumvent Islamist and tribal opposition. Critics' accusations that the Initiative is ‘foreign’ are largely veiled criticisms of the executive for politically marginalising them and/or usurping their authority in family matters.     

Epidemiological accountability: philanthropists,global health and the audit of saving lives

Abstract

There have been concerns about the recent private turn and re-emergence of philanthropies in world health, with many worrying about philanthropies’ perceived lack of transparency and accountability. In contrast, I argue that while the private turn might have led to a decline in democratic or public accountability, it did not bring an end to all forms of accountability. Specifically, I suggest that philanthropists’ involvement in global health has led to the spread of another, new form of accountability: epidemiological accountability. The latter is a combination of two regimes of expertise and practices hitherto kept separate: audit and epidemiology. To substantiate this argument, I draw on my research on the Bloomberg Initiative – a global effort to reduce tobacco use spearheaded by the Bloomberg and Gates foundations.     

Sketches for a Democratic Utopia

I want to sketch the general shape of several new structures that would in my view provide stronger support for democracy than is provided by any existing society. I call these sketches for a democratic Utopia not because I would expect these structures to inaugurate a perfect democracy, whatever that might be, nor because they are beyond human reach. On the contrary the institutions I want to suggest are well within human reach. I call them Utopian only because I am not able to point with confidence to the historical forces that are likely to bring them about.
The structures I have in mind are designed to strengthen freedom and equality among citizens of democratic orders.     

Social movements and political opposition in contemporary Thailand

Abstract

There is an underlying optimism in much of the literature that considers the emergence of social movements as being associated with deepening processes of democratization. The expansion of civil society is seen to expand political space. This paper takes a critical lens to this perspective, using recent political events in Thailand as a case study of the political strategies and alliances of social movements. We examine the debates that saw many social movements and their leaderships initially support elected Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai Party only to see this support drain away as these same movements called on their followers to bring down the government. More importantly, we examine how these movements came to ally with conservative forces associated with the palace and military. Based on the Thai case study, we suggest that these seemingly unlikely outcomes result from the very nature of social movements. Leadership by middle-class activists, the need for alliances, the development of networks, and a focus on single issues and identities leads social movements to make substantial political compromises. The consequences can be negative for democratic development.     

Appearing moderate or radical? Radical left party success and the two-dimensional political space

Abstract

Challenger parties’ electoral successes have attracted increasing scholarly attention. Based on the example of West European radical left parties, this article investigates whether and how centripetal and centrifugal positional movements on different conflict dimensions influence the election results of these parties. Depending on parties’ issue-linkages, these strategies will have a different effect for the economic and the non-economic issue dimension. Due to radical left parties’ long-term commitment and a strong party-issue linkage on economic issues, more moderate positions will play to their electoral advantage. In contrast, far-left parties compete with social democratic and green-libertarian parties for party-issue linkages on the non-economic issue dimension. Here, they benefit from promoting centrifugal strategies. Based on time-series cross-section analyses for 25 West European far-left parties between 1990 and 2017, the empirical results show that the success of radical left parties’ positional strategies varies with the conflict dimension in question and that this effect is only partly moderated by the positions of competing mainstream left parties.     

Reconciliation Arguments in John Rawls’s Political Philosophy

Abstract

Recently debates about the worth of “ideal theory” have directed attention to the functions that an account of a perfectly just society can serve. One function is that of “reconciliation”: learning that a seemingly undesirable feature of the social world would exist even in the perfectly just society can show us the value that it has in the present as well. John Rawls has emphasized reconciliation as among the roles of political philosophy. For instance, Rawls claims that his theory of justice can reconcile us to the pluralism of liberal democracies. In this essay, I argue that Rawls’s political theory also can reconcile the inhabitants of liberal democratic societies to the fact that such societies may be cognitively confusing on account of their complexity. Then I contend that Rawls’s work offers valuable theoretical resources for analysing a society’s transparency or lack thereof.     

Higher Education and Democratic Public Life

ABSTRACT

It is time to reclaim the egalitarian democratic purposes of public universities. Public universities and colleges play a crucial political and public role in a democratic society. Yet much of the higher education literature looks at higher education through an economic framework. This paper argues that a healthy and broadly accessible higher education system serves the democratic public interest in a democratic polity such as the United States. It concludes by arguing that public universities could serve the public interest more effectively with an expansive view of who the “public” is and of their role as anchor institutions for democracy.     

Governance in the European Union: A Policy Analysis of the Attempts to Raise Legitimacy through Civil Society Participation

Abstract

The article focuses on two flagship initiatives – the open method of co-ordination and online consultations – in which the European Union aimed to improve democratic legitimacy through collaborative governance. Offering an analytical framework to scrutinize the large body of existing theoretical and empirical research, the article concludes that not only were the high expectations on the effects of applied governance disappointed, the results also hint at larger, more general implications for the governance concept that, in contrast to the high expectations, appears to be indeed strongly dependent on government-like conditions to operate successfully.     

Development of a Public Service Motivation Measurement Scale: Corroborating and Extending Perry's Measurement Instrument

ABSTRACT

Despite the existence of multiple measurement instruments, measuring public service motivation still generates controversy. The most common cited measurement issues are the application of the measurement scale outside the United States, the dimensionality of public service motivation and the length of the original measurement scale. This article discusses these issues and evaluates a measurement instrument developed in a non-US environment, based upon empirical data. Although differences in items are noted, the factorial structure of the original measurement instrument remains in place. Nevertheless, there is some evidence that an additional dimension, “democratic governance” could supplement the other existing measurement instruments.     

Civil Society and the Legitimation of Global Governance

Abstract

This article assesses in what ways and to what degrees civil society activities have advanced the legitimacy of global governance institutions. It is argued that these citizen initiatives have often enhanced the democratic, legal, moral and technical standing of regulatory agencies with planetary constituencies and jurisdictions. However, these benefits do not flow automatically from civil society mobilizations and on the whole are much less extensive than they could be. With a view to greater realization of the potential contributions to legitimacy, the article elaborates recommendations for more, more inclusive, more competent, more coordinated, and more accountable engagement of global governance by civil society organizations.     

Václav Havel's Absurd Route to Democracy

Abstract

This article examines Václav Havel's unconventional route to democracy. At the core of the enquiry is an analysis of the role his Absurdism played in the development of his thought and activism. The essay illustrates how a typically literary, non-democratic intellectual orientation sustained Havel in his struggle for democratic political change against the abuses of really existing socialism. Yet, Havel's thought did not stop there; he eyed Western liberal ism critically as well. Springing from his Absurdist sensibility was a vision of democracy that was neither wholly liberal nor socialist, yet quite practical. By making a case for reconsidering ideas that typically fall outside the purview of democratic theory, this article also suggests the possibility of critically rethinking democracy itself.     

Sustaining democracy: folk epistemology and social conflict

When political philosophers ask whether there is a philosophical justification for democracy, they are most frequently concerned with one of two queries. The first has to do with the relative merits of democracy as compared with other regimes. The second query has to do with the moral bindingness of democratic outcomes. But there is a third query we may be engaging when we are looking for a philosophical justification of democracy: what reason can be given to democratic citizens to pursue democratic means of social change when they are confronted with a democratic result that seems to them seriously objectionable or morally intolerable? In this paper I develop an epistemological response to the third query. The thesis is that we have sufficient epistemological reasons to be democrats. The epistemological norms that we take ourselves to be governed by can be satisfied only under certain social conditions, and these social conditions are best secured under democracy.