The Search for Citizenship in Bin Ali's Tunisia: Democracy versus Unity

Commitment to unity can hinder democracy, rendering the search for pluralism into an exercise in political singularity. I contest the thesis within the theory of democratic transition that national cohesion and ethnic homogeneity are essential preconditions for democracy. Tunisia is an ethnically homogeneous society, but seems to be unable to seize on the opportunity to transcend the threshold of democracy. The Tunisian example suggests that democracy (that is, an ethos of toleration of difference), should be rethought as one essential precondition for cohesion within democratising polities. The analysis unpacks how 'fragmented' politics works in the North African country. Politics becomes 'fragmented' when 'loyalty' to the state's discourse of 'citizenship' and 'identity', becomes the one distinguishing feature by which political community is defined and membership within it is determined. National unity is another word for political uniformity. Thus understood the state's imperative of unity and uniformity contradicts political pluralism and demotes rather than promotes democratic development.     

Sustainable local democracy

To identify what is needed to sustain local democracy we need a model of democratic government and an idea of the kind of social and economic context that is supportive of democracy. Local democracy requires a combination of a liberal democratic model of local government and the prerequisites of democratic stability: economic development, equality, political culture and the development of civil society. However, a number of factors, non-local as well as local, may undermine local government and local democracy, especially centralization, economic decisions, external conflicts, dependency on civil servants, the dilution of elected representation, formalistic participation, skewed representation, class conflict and official attitudes. However, democratic local government can contribute to economic development, the reduction of inequality, a democratic political culture and the development of civil society, thereby strengthening local democracy.     

The Citizen Soldier and Democratic Societies: A Comparative Analysis of America's Revolutionary and Civil Wars

This paper reviews and criticizes the argument that citizens should take active responsibility for and be willing to sacrifice their life to establish and protect a liberal democratic social order. The argument is faulted for assuming that the key for good democracy is to get people to accept their responsibilities, in particular, their responsibility to be citizen soldiers. It is at least as important to ask how the service of citizen soldiers is connected with the constitution of democratic society. The argument is also faulted for ignoring that democratic societies vary in form and virtue and that it is necessary to explain when citizen soldiers will promote the establishment of one kind of democracy or another. To correct these deficiencies, a theory is offered that ties the service of citizen soldiers during war to the quality of democratic society through the allocation and routinization of charisma. The theory is illustrated by a comparative historical analysis of American experience during its Revolutionary and Civil Wars.     

Democracy and local political participation in Sumedang,Indonesia

Indonesia is a country that implements a democratic political system. As such, the involvement of society in the political process becomes very important. The purpose of this article is to research the democracy and local political participation in Sumedang. The study uses qualitative methods with primary data obtained from field observations and direct interviews of several informants. Additionally, the researchers use secondary data as a complement to the analysis. The results of this study indicate that the community at the local level truly understands the importance of political participation. However, due to disappointment in government performance, a part of the community has become discouraged from participating in the political process conducted by local governments. Several factors hinder efforts to encourage political participation. These include limited access to political aspirations that are still rare and the process of political education that is still low.     

Policy design without democracy? Making democratic sense of transition management

This article explores the complex relationship between democracy and long-term policy design for sustainability. At one extreme, democracy can be framed as problematic for policy planning because of the myopia fostered by some democratic institutions, such as regular elections. Alternatively, democracy can be seen as an ally of long-term policy design to the extent that it can generate public legitimacy and accountability, and potentially foster more equitable and just outcomes. Recent debates on how to ‘manage’ policy transitions to sustainability have been curiously silent on democratic matters, despite their potential implications for democracy. To explore what democracy might mean for transition management this article considers empirically how actors engaged in the Dutch Energy Transition Program make democratic sense of their activities. The analysis finds that in practice transition policies promote implicit narratives or democratic storylines on how reforms should be developed, who should participate in these, and how they should be legitimised and accountable to the public. The dominant narrative, which espouses elite theory and technocracy, privileges epistemic matters over democratic considerations. Other democratic storylines draw on representative democracy and interest group pluralism. The paper considers some possible ways to foster more productive interfaces between the governance structures of transition management, and the polycentric context of contemporary democratic systems.     

Local Autonomy, Local Democracy and the 'New Localism'

Most studies of local autonomy and local democracy fail to distinguish adequately between the two terms. As a consequence, there is an assumed bilateral relationship between them in which changes in one are always deemed to affect the other – particularly in policy formulations. This article develops a stronger analytical distinction between them by considering local autonomy in three separate ways: as freedom from central interference; as freedom to effect particular outcomes; and as the reflection of local identity . Each of these conceptualisations raises different challenges for local democracy and its relationship to broader forms of democratic practice. When used to analyse the recent emergence of the 'new localism' as a policy approach within Britain, this separation also shows significant limitations in current policies towards democratic renewal and central policies that are supposedly focused on outcomes rather than processes. Although localities are being afforded some autonomy, most initiatives are not supporting the enhancement of local democracy.     

Democratic Accountability in Decentralised Governance1

This article develops a conceptual framework for studying democratic accountability in decentralised governance, and discusses critical issues about democratic accountability from a citizen's perspective. First, the concept is discussed and adapted to make it useful for studying democratic accountability in different governance structures. Second, the article scrutinises conditions for democratic accountability in decentralised governance based on three models. Third, democratic accountability is discussed with reference to a case study of public reviewers operating in four municipalities in Sweden. The study indicates that municipal auditors and the local media have the greatest impact on municipal policy. On the whole, auditors improve local governments’ internal control and systems for steering and monitoring municipal policy, whereas the media sometimes alter the policy agenda without changing the policy. Auditors maintain and support an elitist democratic orientation of democratic accountability, and the media maintain this democratic orientation and in addition promote democratic dialogue. Viewed from a citizen's perspective, the traditional accountability system does not work satisfactorily. State inspectors and municipal auditors – two important public reviewers in the current system – could improve their work to make it more useful to citizens’ democratic control. Another way discussed to develop democratic accountability is to promote participatory policy and concrete means of accountability (e.g. on‐site visits, conducted tours and different forms of democratic dialogue). The formal way to improve democratic accountability implies more transparency, monitoring and control, which may also lead to distrust and scapegoat thinking (i.e. a surveillance society), whereas concrete modes of accountability, more associated with participatory and deliberative democracy, imply mutual responsibility and trust building. Strengthening participatory policy, active citizens, collective responsibility and democratic dialogue could be an alternative to the emerging audit society.     

Towards Robust Hybrid Democracy in Scandinavian Municipalities?

This article calls for the development of democratic hybrids that combine elements of representative democracy with elements of participatory and deliberative democracy. It presents and evaluates an empirical model of hybrid democracy from a Danish municipality and tests whether the positive Danish experiences can be transferred to a Norwegian municipality with less favorable local conditions. The finding is that the hybrid model of democracy is relatively robust in the face of context variation, not least due to conducive local dynamics in the Norwegian case. The relative robustness of the so‐called ‘Gentofte model’ may stimulate its diffusion in countries sharing key elements of the Scandinavian model and inspire municipalities in other countries to experiment with the development of hybrid democracy. The diffusion of hybrid democracy helps to enhance the overall performance of local democracy and reduce the inherent tension between democratic leadership and democratic equality.     

Representation,Participation or Deliberation? Democratic Responses to the Environmental Challenge

The environmental question poses four challenges to democracy: global justice, intergenerational justice, the value of non-human species and technocratic decision-making. This article discusses these challenges in the light of three values or dimensions of democratic theory: representativity, participation and deliberation. It is found that even, if participation and deliberation by a broad set of actors are crucial to integrate democratic decision-making and environmental concern, there is also a need for representative institutions at all levels of society. The democracy–environment relation is not just about values and ideas. It also requires global, international, regional, national and local institutions armed with power resources.     

The Democratic Domino Theory: An Empirical Investigation

According to the democratic domino theory, increases or decreases in democracy in one country spread and "infect" neighboring countries, increasing or decreasing their democracy in turn. Using spatial econometrics and panel data that cover over 130 countries between 1850 and 2000, this article empirically investigates the democratic domino theory. We find that democratic dominoes do in fact fall as the theory contends. However, these dominoes fall significantly "lighter" than the importance of this model suggests. Countries "catch" only about 11% of the increases or decreases in their average geographic neighbors' increases or decreases in democracy. This finding has potentially important foreign policy implications. The "lightness" with which democratic dominoes fall suggests that even if foreign military intervention aimed at promoting democracy in undemocratic countries succeeds in democratizing these nations, intervention is likely to have only a small effect on democracy in their broader regions.     

Democratic 'Misfit'? Conceptions of Civil Society Participation in France and the European Union

The European Union's attempts to improve its democratic character increasingly often lead to debates about how to include civil society organizations in its decision-making processes. However, this interpretation of participatory democracy seems at odds with democratic traditions in a number of member states. Among those, France is said to be at the diametrically opposite end of the EU democratization debate spectrum. French democratic thought is based on government through electoral representation. The aim of this article is to analyze both theoretically and empirically the discourse and participatory processes in both the EU and France. While normative approaches to democratic patterns in the EU and French political debate show important differences, empirical evidence suggests that the misfit between the European and French conception of democracy is less developed than one might believe.     

Local Governance Arrangements and Democratic Outcomes (with Some Evidence from the Italian Case)

This article carries a broad definition of public–private concertation as a flexible form of governance that is able to overcome the distinction between network governance and participatory governance. It creates a unified framework relying on a process‐related democratic approach in order to properly assess these practices in their democratic outcomes. This allows the article to fully depict how local governance arrangements affect local democracy, both positively and negatively. Drawing on four exemplary cases of urban policies developed in the Province of Milan, it highlights two variables that give account of the democratic implication of these practices: the role of the political leadership and the inclusive strategy that they adopt. Moreover, it underlines four additional factors that help more democratic outcomes: presence of cognitive justification, quality of participation, active opposition, and an outward communication.     

The role of public relations in non‐electoral participative democracy: a case study examining the effectiveness of district assemblies within Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council

This paper is concerned with how local councils might bring about the renewal of local democracy, and in particular, to the extent to which public relations might contribute to the process of renewal. To begin, the public policy literature is reviewed to investigate the concept of participatory democracy and its application in the UK. The role of local government public relations is then discussed and to the extent to which the concepts of public relations and local public participation are linked. The paper then goes on to describe and critically evaluate one particular case where a public relations strategy was used to effect participatory democracy through local forums or ‘district assemblies’. In the case of Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council, district assemblies were found to be successful examples of deliberative forums in achieving participatory democracy. They were well publicised and encouraged participation, and people thought that they made a difference to their community. However, the research raised questions surrounding the extent of community representation at district assemblies (including the publics targeted); and inclusivity in the structure and organisation of the meetings. The case raised the issue of power inequalities which public relations efforts alone cannot resolve in the democratic renewal project. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

Public Spheres on the Internet: Anarchic or Government-Sponsored – A Comparison

This article discusses whether the internet can contribute to strengthening democracy by creating new public spheres online. The focus is whether government-sponsored initiatives are more successful than private 'anarchic' ones in shaping conditions for democratic dialogue. Two cases are examined and it is concluded that the government-sponsored case in general is most successful in achieving democratic ideals of openness, respect, argumentation, enlightenment and deliberation. Three factors are crucial for the success of the former case: rules and moderation, a geographical affiliation and the presence of politicians. On the other hand, it is clear that political debate online is still an exclusive activity reserved mainly for the well educated and politically active. The internet's often-claimed potential for mobilising new groups cannot be confirmed. Rather, the chosen few have got yet another opportunity to discuss and influence the political process.     

Civil Society and Political Action in Democratized Korea: Revamping Democratic Consolidation from a Participatory Perspective*

This essay aims to re-evaluate the quality of democratic consolidation in South Korea from a participatory democracy perspective. In order to do so, I, drawing on Barber's theory of strong democracy, redefine democratic consolidation in terms of the active citizenship and political dynamism that it breeds rather than in terms of stability, which overly prefers a liberal-pluralist, yet inherently conservative, civil society to a more vibrant and sometimes intractable form of civil society. Understanding democratic consolidation as an open-ended, non-teleological, and perennial struggle for citizenship, I then focus on the Koreans' collective response to the deaths of two teenage girls struck by a US military vehicle in 2002 to explore how Koreans critically re-evaluate their collective identity and actively repossess citizenship in civil society through the inculcation and practice of ch?ng, the Koreans' familial affectionate sentiment. I conclude by presenting “affectionate citizenship” as the most practicable model for Korean democracy.     

Democrats with adjectives: Linking direct and indirect measures of democratic support

Abstract.  Major cross-national surveys measure popular support for democracy through direct questions about democracy in the abstract. Since people may entertain competing democratic ideas and ideals, however, the academic community ignores the extent to which standard questions capture citizen support for liberal democracy. To solve the validity problems associated with direct measures of democratic support, this article proposes linking them to more concrete, indirect measures of support for democratic principles and institutions. It employs the statistical technique of cluster analysis to establish this linkage. Cluster analysis permits grouping respondents in a way that is open to complex and inconsistent attitudinal profiles. It permits the identification of 'democrats with adjectives' who support democracy in the abstract, while rejecting core principles of liberal democracy. The article demonstrates the fruitfulness of this approach by drawing a map of 'illiberal democrats' in Mexico on the basis of the country's 2003 National Survey on Political Culture.     

Norwegian Local Councils as Democratic Meta‐governors? A Study of Networks Established to Manage Cross‐border Natural Resources

Focusing on democracy, the question raised in this article is whether it is possible for local councils to play a role as democratic meta-governors in situations with cross-border conflicts over interests. According to the authors' definition, democratic meta-governance implies that the local councils assure that all interests are taken into account in governing networks. The analysis is based on data from extensive studies of two Norwegian networks dealing with cross-border natural resources. Not surprisingly, the authors' answer is rather negative. Based on analysis of who actually participates in the networks and the way the involved local councils deal with the question of democracy, this may be explained by the fact that each local council represents a specific defend interest held by the majority in their constituency. Instead of opening up and allowing the required participation, which may give the networks the legitimacy they need, the local councils are closing the networks in order to better get their interests heard. It should therefore be considered whether responsibility for securing democracy in the management of cross-border natural resources should be given to a regional or national authority, above the level of local government.     

The End of Traditional Anti-systemic Movements and the Need for a New Type of Anti-systemic Movement Today

The aim of this article is to examine the systemic parameters that gave rise to the flourishing of anti-systemic movements in the 19th and 20th centuries and their subsequent decline in the era of neoliberal modernity. It is shown that their recent decline is not irrelevant to the nature of the traditional anti-systemic movement that challenged a particular form of power rather than power itself, as a result of the one-dimensional conception about the 'system' adopted by these movements which typically saw one form of power as the basis of all other forms of power. Today, the issue is not anymore to challenge one form of power or another but to challenge power itself, which constitutes the basis of heteronomy. In other words, what is needed today is a new type of anti-systemic movement that should challenge heteronomy itself, rather than simply various forms of heteronomy. The anti-globalisation 'movement', which is seen as a continuation of the democratic movement that began in the 1960s, has the potential to develop into such a movement provided that it starts building bases at the local level with the aim to create a new democratic globalisation based on local inclusive democracies that would reintegrate society with the economy, polity and Nature, in an institutional framework of equal distribution of power in all its forms.     

Democratic Representation and the Property Franchise in Australian Local Government

Australia remains one of the last liberal democracies to retain a property franchise at the local government level. This particular feature is both the result of historical particularities and contemporary political arrangements. This article analyses the property franchise in the City of Melbourne, the capital of the Australian State of Victoria, based on democratic theory and an empirical study. It illustrates the tensions between the democratic principles of representation and political equality in defining structures for representation at the local government level. The authors suggest that a more nuanced interpretation of representation can be adopted at a local level based on territorial residency rather than legal citizenship. Despite this, based on analysis of both electoral and non‐electoral mechanisms, the property franchises are found to be anachronistic and indefensible from a democratic perspective and unrelated to the status of capital city. The article concludes that, at a local level, deliberative democracy holds the promise to better represent various interests, including property interests.     

The inventory of differences

The new democratic left interprets socialism as involving the radical democratization of civil society and the state. Both conceptions of democracy and conceptions of socialism are variations on the theme of a self-govering community. The first part of this paper explores the diversity of accounts of democracy and of the issues in dispute between them. Part 2 then proceeds to identify conceptual difficulties with these ideas, and to examine some of their consequences for political analysis. While the theme of a self-governing community has always been somewhat problematic there are significant features of the modern world that further undermine any plausibility it may once have had. These conceptual weaknesses inherent in ideas of democracy and of socialism limit their untility as tools of political argument, and help to account for some of the difficulties socialists have in coming to terms with the world in which they now find themselves. The argument is not that the idea of socialism as enhanced democratization should be abandoned, but rather that such an idea is radically incomplete. A socialism that is worthy of support must address the substantive social and political problems of the societies in which it operates. The slogan of democratization is of limited value in identifying those problems or in establishing solutions to them.