Participatory Initiatives and Political Representation: The Case of Local Councillors in Sweden

The health of political parties and the institutions of representative democracy have been extensively questioned during the last decade due to evidence of a widespread decline in voting turnout, political trust, and party membership as well as identification. An often-proposed, but also often-questioned, strategy to strengthen representative democracy is for political institutions to offer alternative forms of political participation through so-called participatory initiatives. The literature suggests that participatory initiatives will have little impact on representative democracy if no adaptation among political representatives is apparent. This paper explores the consistency between participatory initiatives in Swedish municipalities and the attitudes, practices and role-taking of local councillors, comparing pioneer municipalities where extensive numbers of participatory initatives have been executed vis-à-vis hesitator municipalities where few initiatives have been implemented. The study indicates that local participatory initiatives may stimulate political representation by creating new channels for citizen input and communication between citizens and representatives that are supported by local councillors in the pioneer municipalities. However, the core roles of parties and councillors in representative democracy appear not to be challenged by these initiatives, being similar in both groups of municipalities. The article is concluded by a discussion of the implications of these results for the function of participatory initiatives in local democracy.     

Local Public-Services Provision under Public–Private Partnerships: Contractual Design and Contracting Parties Incentives

When deciding to resort to a PPP contract for the provision of a local public service, local governments have to consider the demand risk allocation between the contracting parties. In this article, I investigate the effects of demand risk allocation on the accountability of procuring authorities regarding consumers changing demand, as well as on the cost-reducing effort incentives of the private public-service provider. I show that contracts in which the private provider bears demand risk motivate more the public authority from responding to customer needs. This is due to the fact that consumers are empowered when the private provider bears demand risk, that is, they have the possibility to oust the private provider in case of non-satisfaction with the service provision, which provides procuring authorities with more credibility in side-trading and then more incentives to be responsive. As a consequence, I show that there is a lower matching with consumers’ preferences over time when demand risk is on the public authority rather than on the private provider, and this is corroborated in the light of two famous case studies. However, contracts in which the private provider does not bear demand risk motivate more the private provider from investing in cost-reducing efforts. I highlight then a tradeoff in the allocation of demand risk between productive and allocative efficiency. The striking policy implication of this article for local governments would be that the current trend towards a greater resort to contracts where private providers bear little or no demand risk may not be optimal. Local governments should impose demand risk on private providers within PPP contracts when they expect that consumers’ preferences over the service provision will change over time.     

Resurgent religious terrorism: A study of some of the Lebanese Shi'a contemporary terrorism

Abstract

This study introduces the concept of geocultural immobility. A minority's geocultural immobility is identified as an imposed low geographic mobility within a nation with low cultural pluralism. It establishes the Lebanese Shi'a geocultural immobility, to which it attributes their religious resurgence. This Lebanese Shi'a religious resurgence is proven in this research to produce the zealots needed by religious terrorist organizations. This study also introduces and defines religious terrorism as violent acts performed by elements of religious organizations or sects, growing out of a commitment to communicate a divine message. It makes distinctions among religious terrorism, secular terrorism, and fighters for religious freedom, which are based on the actors' motives, affinities, and consciousness of the maliciousness of their acts. The primary and secondary data and the quasiexperiment in this research support its special hypotheses. They indicate a statistical correlation between eight Lebanese Shi ‘a cultural and religious attributes.     

Terrorism and security in the Caribbean: The 1976 Cubana disaster off Barbados

Abstract

This study is an attempt to examine the Cubana airline crash in the light of political terrorism in the Caribbean. With respect to the selected case, the research endeavor will analyze the activities of the terrorists. In so doing, the writer will determine the category within which the Cubana airline disaster falls within Mickolus’ typology.¹ In addition, the motivation of the terrorists as well as limited aspects of some of the legal issues that arose with regard to the Cubana crash are discussed. Finally, there is some attempt to determine the effects of the Cubana disaster on the Caribbean and on Barbados in particular.     

South African cinema after apartheid: A political-economic exploration

Abstract

When South Africa was emancipated from the oppressive apartheid regime in 1994, it was a severely divided society in need of an inclusive national identity to bind its citizens and maintain peace. Therefore, the state targeted the cultural industries, including film, as a means of promoting symbolic representations of national unity. The film industry was further identified as a priority sector for economic growth and as a potential platform for equitable redress. This article discusses existing and emerging finance, distribution and exhibition structures in the post-apartheid film industry. It considers government interventions in the form of film policies and development strategies with the purpose of examining the influence of globalising forces, in particular neoliberalism, on the apparent market-orientation of such interventions. The results presented indicate that the post-apartheid vision of equality, freedom and diversity does not always sit comfortably with the neoliberal, free-market principles promoted in the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) programme of 1996. Moreover, it suggests that in this commercial environment, the voices of the historically oppressed black majority, rather than enjoying a sense of artistic and creative freedom, can in fact encounter commercial censorship through the commodification of films for an export-orientated market.     

Using the personal influence model to guide theory building for participatory communication in Africa

Abstract

This article argues that the personal influence model (PIM) be used strategically to resolve conflicts and social crises in Africa. It presents PIM as a complementary, analytic discourse to participatory communication, a development paradigm commonly used globally in a variety of social programs. That discourse, as a framework for theory building, is grounded in Africa's emerging and enduring realities: (a) the growing interest of the international community to assist Africa to meet the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, whose focus is to reduce extreme poverty by 2015; (b) the ephemeral nature of Africa's political and social stability that necessitates reducing fear, improving community security, nurturing public trust, and building inter-group relationships, all as preconditions for attaining social development, and for using a community-agency- contracts-partnerships approach to deliver development services; and (c) the palpable congruence of PIM with Africa's extensive social networks, which are typically used as communication tools for social development. Those realities guide four propositions that serve as a heuristic template for testing and refining the participatory approach, thereby guiding theory building in participatory communication in African communities. That template identifies an expansive three-concept research agenda – culture, community governance and rule of law, and economic freedom – that raises questions, defines concepts, measures key variables, and assesses outcomes.     

Media-usage patterns and political knowledge of NWU students: The 2009 election

Abstract

One of the central elements in a sustainable democracy is an informed and independent voters’ corps who is knowledgeable regarding democratic values and the policies of different parties, and who participates in democracy. The literature suggests that voters who are more heavy media users are also more politically knowledgeable. It follows that the media have an important informational role in a democracy. Against this background, the media usage patterns, media usage perceptions and political knowledge of the students of the North-West University on the Potchefstroom, Mafikeng and Vaal Triangle campuses were investigated during May 2009. This was done in the form of a quantitative survey that allowed students to report their real perceptions, experiences and knowledge levels. Questionnaires were administered in a self-administered style to avoid interviewer bias and to increase truthful self-reporting. Trained field workers used certain guidelines to ensure that the sample was representative of NWU students. The study found that students on all three campuses had poor levels of political knowledge. It was furthermore established that they were light users of media and did not often engage in political discussions with peers. On all three campuses, for political information television was the preferred medium, followed by radio. Although there were only weak correlations, it would seem that the students who were heavier users of media, were also more politically knowledgeable.     

Democracy promotion: the relationship of political parties and civil society

Organizations involved in the growing field of democracy promotion need to find effective ways to aid both political parties and civil organizations and, where necessary, to foster close collaboration between them. But they also must respect their autonomy and help them realize their own democratic objectives. It is important to recognize the differences between the two sectors: civil society should not be subordinate to parties, and it would be a mistake to wrap the party sector into an undifferentiated concept of civil society. Strategies to assist democracy should, then, distinguish between four main political contexts: authoritarian; emerging democracy; post-dictatorial situations where government is not committed to democracy; and war-torn or post-conflict countries.     

Party research: Western European bias and the ‘African labyrinth’

For a long time Africa's political parties have been neglected in political science research, although they have mushroomed during the last decade and are being seen as crucial for the democratic development of the continent. Part of the neglect was due to the very specific western European bias of political science party research, while Africanists claimed the uniqueness of the subject. Despite this bias, the article argues that the framework of established party research can be applied to African parties as well – provided that some modifications are considered. These necessary modifications are explained for four ‘fields’, namely the functionalist approach, the cleavage model, the inclusion of informal politics, and finally whether a distinctively ‘African’ or a universal party typology approach should be applied.     

Predatory versus developmental rule in Africa

Political economy predicts that national leaders opt for economic development when institutions encourage them to extend their time horizons. By contrast, leaders turn predatory if they feel at risk. Leaders are most able to bear risk right upon taking office, but this can be offset by a perception of high volatility in office holding or by concern about catastrophic losses. Political institutions can therefore discourage predation by fostering recurrent, predictable replacement of leaders without harsh payback for ex-leaders who acted developmentally. Cataloguing all national leadership transitions in Africa since 1960, the article demonstrates that electoral cycles, term limits and the prospect of judgement before international tribunals have lately led to declines in the volatility of top office holding and in the risk of catastrophic loss to the occupants. These new institutions have yet to establish full credibility, but they show promise of altering African leaders' risk assessments to encourage more developmental rule.