Liberal Democracy Series I, 1972–1988: Definition, measurement, and trajectories

The purpose of this paper is to provide the definitional and empirical background to the Liberal Democracy Series I Index of democracy that is available in Bollen (1998) but whose rationale has not been published. More specifically, the paper (1) gives a definition of liberal democracy that has guided the formation of this index, (2) describes measures that correspond to this definition, (3) provides a measurement model that links the indicators of democracy to the latent variables that represent the concept, (4) explains the construction of the Liberal Democracy Series I Index, and (5) compares the Series I democracy measure to two other widely used democracy measures in a latent curve model. The Liberal Democracy Series I Index provides a simple unweighted measure of liberal democracy that minimizes the bias in expert ratings, is highly reliable and highly correlated with the latent liberal democracy variable. The evidenced reviewed here suggests that its measurement properties are superior to the Polity and Vanhanen democracy indices with the exception that it is available for a more limited period of years than these latter two.     

The limits of analogy: comparing Islamophobia and antisemitism

ABSTRACT

The predicament faced by Muslims today, either in the United Kingdom specifically or in the West more generally, is often compared with the predicament faced by Jews at some point in the past. Muslims, it is suggested, are the new Jews. Klug's article homes in on one element in this view, the claim that Islamophobia is the new antisemitism, and considers the analogy between them. An introductory section sketches the political context, after which Klug focuses on logical or conceptual issues. The two middle sections contain the core of the analysis: consideration of the two terms ‘antisemitism’ and ‘Islamophobia’ in relation to the concepts they denote, followed by an examination of the concepts as such. Certain conclusions are drawn about both their general logic and their specific logics. The final section returns to the political context and, via critique of a thesis put forward by Matti Bunzl, discusses the uses of the analogy. Klug argues that the question we need to ask is not ‘Are Islamophobia and antisemitism analogous?’ but ‘What is the analogy worth?’ The value of the analogy lies in the light it sheds on the social and political realities that confront us in the here and now. Does it illuminate more than it obscures? These things are a matter of judgement. Klug leans towards asserting an analogy between antisemitism in the past and Islamophobia in the present, within limits.     

The Spaces of Democracy and the Democracy of Space: A New Network Exploring the Disciplinary Effects of the Spatial Turn

There is much concern in the social sciences and humanities today about how people are connected with and responsible to those who live in distant places. Recent examples are abundant: from climate change to the cyclone that hit Burma in 2008. At the same time, new forces and personalities in the social sciences and humanities are seeking to ‘open out’ understandings of ‘the spatial’ as a concept. There is a movement to view ‘space’ as something which is more than a pre-defined container of territorial politics; instead, as often the sphere of multiplicity, difference, affect and/or post-territorial interconnections. This brief paper talks about the “Space of Democracy and the Democracy of Space” global network, which seeks to explore how these new forces of interrogation into the spatial, materiality, political and ethical connectivity are having an influence upon how people perceive of and constitute new spaces of politics and democracy today.     

The Classical Trinity and Kant's Aesthetic Formalism

Abstract

I identify two mutually exclusive notions of formalism in Kant's Critique of Aesthetic Judgement: a thin concept of aesthetic formalism and a thick concept of aesthetic formalism. Arguably there is textual support for both concepts in Kant's third critique. I offer interpretations of three key elements in the Critique of Aesthetic Judgement which support a thick formalism. The three key elements are: Harmony of the Faculties, Aesthetic Ideas and Sensus Communis. I interpret these concepts in relation to the conditions for theoretical Reason, the conditions for moral motivation and the conditions for intersubjectivity, respectively. I conclude that there is no support for a thin concept of aesthetic formalism when the key elements of Kant's Critique of Aesthetic Judgement are understood in the context of his broader critical aims.     

The crisis of European socialism: Searching for a (really) big idea

After the Fall: The Failure of Communism and the Future of Socialism. Edited by Robin Blackburn. London: Verso, 1991. Pp. xvi + 327. £39.95 (hardback); £11.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–360 320–1 and 540–9. (Henceforth, Fall).

Social Democracy in Transition: Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe. Edited by L. Karvonen and J. Sundberg. Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1991. Pp. ix + 321. £35 (hardback) ISBN 1–85521–1114. (Henceforth, Transition).

The Left Unraveled: Social Democracy and the New Left Challenge in Britain and West Germany. By Thomas A. Koelble. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1991. Pp. xii + 162. $34.95 (hardback) ISBN 0–8223–1108–9. (Henceforth, Unraveled).

The Crisis of Socialism in Europe. Edited by Christiane Lemke and Gary Marks. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1992. Pp. x + 253. £37.95 (hardback); £12.50 (paperback) ISBN 0–8223–1180–1 and 1197–6. (Henceforth, Crisis).

Socialist Parties in Europe. By José Maravall et al. Barcelona: ICPS (Institut de Ciències Politiques i Socials), 1991. Pp. 222. NP, ISBN 84–7794–172–6.(Henceforth, Parties).

A History of Social Democracy in Postwar Europe. By Stephen Padgett and William E. Paterson. London and New York: Longman, 1991. Pp. xii 4 + 290. £24 (hardback); £9.99 (paperback) ISBN 0–582–49173–8 and 49174–6. (Henceforth, History).

Is Socialism Doomed? The Meaning of Mitterrand. By Daniel Singer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp. 295. £19.50 (hardback). ISBN 0–195–04925 x. (Henceforth, Doomed).

Moscow and the Global Left in the Gorbachev Era. Edited by Joan Barth URBAN. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1992. Pp. xii + 204. $32.95 (hardback); $14.25 (paperback). ISBN 0–8014–2726–6 and 8008–6. (Henceforth, Moscow).     

A Forward Strategy for Democracy Promotion in 2008 and Beyond: Regaining the Momentum

Abstract

This is the text of the address by Carl Gershman, President of the National Endowment for Democracy, to the Henry Jackson Society and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy at the House of Commons, Westminster, 21 January 2008.     

‘There is no racism here’: public discourses on racism,immigrants and integration in Denmark

ABSTRACT

Jensen, Weibel and Vitus's article critically discusses contemporary Danish policies aimed at the elimination of ethnoracial discrimination, drawing on policy analyses and qualitative interviews with local and national authorities in Denmark. It illustrates how questions of discrimination and racism are marginalized and de-legitimized within the dominant integration discourse, resulting in the marginalization of anti-racism in policymaking. The side-stepping of racism is being naturalized in public policies through strategies of denial and by addressing discrimination as a product of ignorance and individual prejudice rather than as embedded in social structures. The authors examine how immigration, integration and (anti-)racism as concepts and phenomena are understood and addressed in Danish public policies and discourses. Despite denials of racism in Denmark, Jensen, Weibel and Vitus show that, based on re-definitions of identities and relations, it continues to exist and is evident in public debates and policies on immigration and integration.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this issue. Democratic Flaws
RICHARD BOURKE The Life and Death of Democracy, by John Keane. Flawed democracy
Gianfranco Pasquino Democracy Inc. Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism, by Sheldon Wolin. Democracy in the Land of Good Things (Britain)
Richard Mullender Democracy: 1,000 Years in Pursuit of British Liberty, by Peter Kellner. The soldier's right to kill
Christopher Finlay Killing in War, by Jeff McMahan. Facts from Eastern Europe and elsewhere
Richard Briand Facts are Subversive: Political Writing from a Decade without a Name, by Timothy Garton Ash. The soul of Tony Blair
Ilaria Favretto Losing Labour's Soul? New Labour and the Blair Government, 1997–2007, by Eric Shaw. Greeks and Turks in Europe and Cyprus
Mehmet Ugur Turkey's Accession to the European Union: An Unusual Candidacy, by Constantine Arvanitopoulos. Cyprus: The Post‐Imperial Constitution, by Vassilis K. Fouskas and Alex O. Tackie. Obama's last chance
Tony Klug The Last Chance: The Middle East in the Balance, by David Gardner. Thatcher's grandchildren
Mark Garnett Thatcher's Britain: The Politics and Social Upheaval of the 1980s, by Richard Vinen.     

Intergovernmental relations on immigrant integration in multi-level states. A comparative assessment

ABSTRACT

The study of intergovernmental relations (IGR) is a classical research area in scholarship on federalism and territorial politics. However, it has largely ignored the relatively new, and recently decentralized area of immigrant integration. The aim of this Special Issue is twofold. First, it aims to analyse how governments in multi-level states coordinate on immigrant integration. Second, it wishes to explain the dynamics that shape the features of intergovernmental relations. In doing so, we focus on four multi-level states; two of which are federal (Belgium and Canada) and two that are decentralized (Italy and Spain). Whilst we engage with the established literature on intergovernmental relations to formulate hypotheses about the nature and dynamics of intergovernmental relations, we also formulate less explored hypotheses. Our overarching argument is that the scholarship on IGR benefits from in-depth comparative case studies comparing IGR not just across countries, but also across policy areas and over time.     

Bottom-up renewal of the Swiss party system

ABSTRACT

The Swiss party system and the institutional rules guiding elections are an anchor of stability in Swiss politics. This article investigates recent change in cantonal elections, and analyses how electoral swings in cantonal elections diffuse to other cantons, and whether they predict future electoral swings in the national electoral arena. Empirically, the article combines a statistical analysis of electoral results from the period 1990–2017 in cantonal and national elections with a qualitative discussion of the period from 2014 to 2017.     

Comparisons among electoral systems: Distinguishing between localism and candidate-centered politics

Carey and Shugart (1995) offer a four component composite index of “incentives to cultivate a personal vote.” We argue that this index, while tapping important aspects of electoral system choice, is best regarded as encompassing two distinct dimensions: degree of party-centeredness of the electoral system, on the one hand, and incentives for “parochial” behavior on the part of legislators, on the other. Also, while we have no problem with the three indicators used by Carey and Shugart to measure party-centeredness; to measure parochial incentives we prefer to use a new measure, E (Grofman, 1999a) of the size of a legislator's electoral constituency, rather than using district magnitude, m, as a proxy for a the size of a legislator's geographic constituency, as Carey and Shugart do. In the conclusion to the paper we argue that the degree of similarity between any two electoral systems will depend upon the research question at issue, and that the expected degree of proportionality of election results is only one of the many political consequences of electoral laws to which we ought to be paying attention.     

Retrospective ideological representation and its impact on democratic satisfaction*

Congruence between government policies and citizen preferences is a key element that increases the quality of democracy. While scholars have shown that governments generally adopt ideological positions and propose policies close to citizen preferences, they have neglected to consider whether citizens respond to promises or to actual enactments. The paper addresses this gap in two ways. First, we propose a new measure that captures how close a citizen is on average to the policies enacted by the incumbent government, namely retrospective ideological representation – the ideological distance between the position of a respondent and the incumbent government at the end of its term in office. We show that this measure captures retrospective information associated with governments’ actions and in particular whether the government increases or decreases social spending during its mandate period. Second, we show that retrospective ideological representation has a substantial impact on citizens’ democratic satisfaction and greater than prospective ideological representation – an established measure of congruence – which is the ideological distance between the positions of a respondent and the elected government after an election.     

Corruption,Trust and their Public Sector Consequences: Introduction to the Special Edition

Abstract

Corruption and trust are two important determinants of the quality of public sectors. Empirical studies in different literatures suggest that corruption and trust have effects on factors such as economic growth, the quality of democratic institutions, life quality, the size and effectiveness of the public sector and much more. The purpose of this special issue – one that goes to the heart of the comparative policy ethos which is central to the journal's mission – is to draw on a number of country examples to shed light on the state of the literature on the connection between corruption and trust. The aim is to show that these two concepts are highly relevant to each other, and that their interconnections are important to understand the public sector consequences of corruption and trust. By focusing on these concepts, we hope that this special issue can pave the road for further comparative research.     

On Democracy1

This paper attempts to provide a modern, universal, conceptualisation of democracy. J. D. May's ‘responsive rule’ approach is analysed. It is argued that his approach, although on the right lines, is not satisfactory as it stands. Democracy should be seen as referring to the principles which underlie the political process for a given regime, and is logically independent of the detailed institutional practices. Following Easton's analysis of a regime in terms of authority structure, values, and norms, democracy is analysed in terms of three principles of upward control, political equality, and norms defining acceptable polices. procedures, and behaviour. Democracy is not a dichotomous concept: given regimes differ in the extent to which they embody the principles of democracy in the operation of their institutions. In practice it will be hard, perhaps impossible, to find any regime anywhere which does not embody some elements of democracy to some degree. This vitiates the almost universal practice of using democracy and non-democracy as underlying concepts in a system of categorisation of regimes. Such categories become wholly arbitrary. Because of the subtle ways in which the democratic principles may work in different contexts. and because measures of these various manifestations of democracy can only be combined on a purely arbitrary basis, statistical measures of ‘democracy’ also become arbitrary. It is concluded that, although facets of the political process may be investigated using statistical techniques. ultimately the main thrust of empirical studies of democracy must be qualitative rather than quantitative. Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. (H. L. Mencken. Sententiae. A Book of Burlesquer, 1920)     

The Key Role of Selbstgefühl in Philosophy's Aesthetic and Historical Turns

Abstract

In Selbstgefühl, Manfred Frank provides a detailed study of the eighteenth century origins and contemporary philosophical implications of a unique kind of direct self-awareness. The growing significance of this phenomenon is closely related to three interconnected developments in modern philosophy, which I describe as the ‘subjective turn’, the ‘aesthetic turn’, and the ‘historical turn’. While following Frank in emphasising key concepts in the first of these two turns, I add a stress on the historical turn in post-Kantian philosophical writing.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: Andrei Shleifer and Daniel Treisman, Without a Map: Political Tactics and Economic Reform in Russia Graeme Gill and Roger D. Marwick, Russia's Stillborn Democracy: From Gorbachev to Yeltsin Vladimir Mau, Russian Economic Reforms as Seen by an Insider Kate Hudson, European Communism since 1989: Towards a New European Left? Andrew Chadwick, Augmenting Democracy: Political Movements and Constitutional Reform during the Rise of Labour, 1900–1924 Norman Fairclough, New Labour, New Language? David Coates, Models of Capitalism Alexander de Conde, Presidential Machismo: Executive Authority, Military Intervention, and Foreign Relations Bernard Crick, Essays on Citizenship Nick Pearce and Joe Hallgarten, (eds) Tomorrow's Citizens: Critical Debates in Citizenship and Education Christian Joppke, Immigration and the Nation State: The United States, Germany and Great Britain Robert Geyer, Christine Ingebritsen and Jonathon W. Moses, (eds) Globalization, Europeanization and the End of Scandinavian Social Democracy? John Campbell, Margaret Thatcher, vol. 1: The Grocer's Daughter     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this issue. The Dogs of Journalism. STEVEN BARNETT. Flat Earth News, by Nick Davies. Public intellectual: The art of making oneself up. Richard Mullender. Philosophy as Cultural Politics: Philosophical Papers, Volume 4, by Richard Rorty. The Second Plane: September 11: 2001–2007, by Martin Amis. Planning and all that. Matthew Grant. From Dreams to Disillusionment: Economic and Social Planning in 1960s Britain, by Glen O'Hara. Let a hundred flowers bloom. Munira Mirza Provoking Democracy: Why We Need the Arts, by Caroline Levine. How to change your brains. Dick Pountain On Deep History and the Brain, by Daniel Lord Smail. ‘Clean’ torture. Caroline Fournet Torture and Democracy, by Darius Rejali. Reforming Italy. Gianfranco Pasquino Political Institutions in Italy, by Maurizio Cotta and Luca Verzichelli. Choice and competition in health care. Jennifer Dixon The Other Invisible Hand: Delivering Public Services through Competition and Choice, by Julian Le Grand, Afterword by Alain Enthoven. Who is afraid of politics?. Meg Russell Politics and the People: A History of British Democracy since 1918, by Kevin Jefferys. Why Politics Matters: Making Democracy Work, by Gerry Stoker, Palgrave Macmillan. Why We Hate Politics, by Colin Hay.     

Extractive industries and regional development: Lessons from Peru on the limitations of revenue devolution to producing regions

ABSTRACT

The transfer of oil and mining revenues to the subnational governments of resource-rich jurisdictions is a common policy aimed at promoting development and reducing local opposition to extraction. In the early 2000s, Peru implemented a radical version of that policy. Peruvian mining regions received fiscal transfers many times greater than the national average during the last commodity boom. The strategy had mixed effects on well-being indicators. These transfers had statistically significant positive effects on economic growth and the rate of school attendance at different ages. In contrast, they did not have a significant impact on poverty reduction or the coverage of other basic services, while being positively correlated with an increase in the income gap between women and men. Overall, the results are not as positive as the promoters had expected. The transfers generated political incentives for local authorities to pursue short-term, clientelistic spending that has reduced their potential benefits.