Making User‐boards a School in Democracy? Studying Swedish Local Governments

In its final report, a Swedish Government Commission has argued that representative democracy should be complemented by a high degree of local participation. The Commission argues that user‐boards and citizen panels, for instance, are tools for vitalising democracy by educating people about democratic principles. This argument rests on two assumptions: (a) about the effects of participation in terms of a learning process at the individual level, and (b) about certain specific organisational circumstances that facilitate the learning processes. However, despite having long been evident in democratic theory, the assumptions lack empirical support. Thus, each of the Commission's assumptions poses an interesting empirical challenge: First, does local participation give rise to an individual democratic learning process? Second, does the link between local participation and representative democracy co‐vary with the individual learning process? This article presents results from a process‐oriented comparative study of two Swedish municipalities that introduced user‐boards in the school sector. The article shows that participation in user‐boards gives rise to various degrees of learning processes about democracy for individuals. It also shows that a relation between local governments and user‐boards, characterised by dialogue and cooperation, increases the possibility that participation in user‐boards will give rise to these learning processes.     

Responsibility and the Deliberative Citizen: Theorizing the Acceptance of Individual and Citizenship Responsibilities

The responsibilities of citizenship have, in recent years, become a central concern in political and policy debates. Nevertheless, the practical meanings of such responsibilities have remained opaque. This article examines these meanings by asking what theories of citizenship have to say about how people engage with, and accept, their responsibilities. An examination of how the liberal, communitarian, republican and deliberative democratic theories explain the way citizens engage with their responsibilities shows that only deliberative democratic theory provides a nuanced range of concepts that may explain the acceptance of responsibility. In specific, Habermas's deliberative democratic theory is underpinned by a model of how the individual may develop a range of mental capacities to accept the extensive responsibilities associated with the deliberative citizen. By explaining how the individual grapples with her personal responsibilities, this approach also explains how she can deal with her responsibilities as a citizen. Four discourses through which people accept their responsibilities are thereby identified. These include egotistical, conformist, reformist and reflexive discourses. These discourses are explored by drawing on interviews with groups for whom the privatization of responsibility may have particular meanings. Using these interviews, this paper explores how people accept their personal responsibilities, thereby unfolding the discourses people use to deal with their citizenship responsibilities. In particular, by accepting the deliberative democratic contention that the individual already has the capacities to act as the deliberative citizen, it is possible to come to a view of just how people accept both their personal and citizenship responsibilities.     

The cost of belonging: exploring class and citizenship in Soweto's water war

More than a decade since the dawn of democracy, South Africa remains one of the most unequal societies in the world. Civil and political citizenship may have – rhetorically at least – reduced the stark racial inequality in the relationship between citizen and state evident under apartheid. Some authors suggest a positive correlation between social citizenship and social equality. However, in post-apartheid South Africa, deep socio-economic inequalities continue to mar the democratic content of society. Although rights to welfare and social services are nominally in place and are enshrined in the constitution, scores of poor, black South Africans are unable to claim social citizenship, precisely as a result of their class position. Using, as a lens, community struggles in Soweto against the commodification of water, this article seeks to explore the relationship between citizenship and class. It does this by addressing the relationship between the state and its citizens within the context of service delivery, paying particular attention to the impact of prepaid water meters and to the strategies that were employed by community movements in Soweto's ‘water war’. The key argument is that under the system of capitalism, class inequality will persist regardless of the extent of citizenship.     

The Measurement of Democracy: Towards a New Paradigm

Mainstream political science on democracy has been criticised for ‘regime bias’. This has led political scientists to draw on a narrow range of democratic theory that considers democratic potential only at the cost of ignoring democratic purpose, to ignore other units of observation than the regime, notably the individual citizen, and to overlook advances in measurement theory. A robust normative account of democratic quality, it is argued, should rest on three foundations. First, measurement should start with observations of the regime. No account of democratic quality should be considered valid without an account of the degree of democracy in the regime. This analysis should be grounded in standard democratic theory. Secondly, the measurement effort should follow through to observations of how the potential in the regime is manifested in the lives of citizens. No account of democratic quality should be considered valid without an account of how well the system delivers for citizens. This analysis should be grounded in a theory of the purpose of democracy. Thirdly, pronouncements on democratic quality should finally be made only from some combination or index of information from both systems analysis and individual analysis. That combined analysis should be grounded in measurement theory, specifically the law of methodological individualism and the principle of double book-keeping.     

The Speed of Global Flows and the Pace of Democratic Politics

The claim I want to make in this article is, in short, first, that democratic theory for the most part has seriously neglected the temporal preconditions of liberal democracy and, second, that it therefore fails to adequately grasp some fundamental aspects of the crisis of democratic self-determination in the contemporary global age. In its first part, the article seeks to demonstrate that the history of modernity is an ongoing process of social acceleration and that most of the phenomena we currently grasp under the concept of “globalization” can in fact best be understood as instances or consequences of the latest wave of social acceleration. In the second and main part of this article, the consequences of this acceleratory character of modernity for the plausibility, legitimacy and possibility of political democracy are systematically explored. The main argument is that the speed-up of society at first enabled and supported democratization, but beyond a certain critical threshold, the reverse effect occurs: the speed of social change and the dynamics of socioeconomic development threaten to undermine the proper functioning of democracy. Thus, it is my claim that democracy only works properly within a certain time- or “speed-frame” of social change. From this, I conclude that what is called for in the Age of Globalization is a new critical theory of acceleration, the contours of which I briefly sketch out in the third and last part of this essay.     

Rethinking Democratic Procedures: Democracy and Deliberative Experiences in Turkey's LA21 Process

This paper attempts to describe the conditions necessary for the furthering of democracy in Turkey by focusing on a certain conception of democratic legitimacy that goes beyond formal arrangements. It argues that the effective participation of citizens in democratic procedures is necessary for the consolidation of democracy in public life. To defend this argument, the theoretical background developed in deliberative models of democracy is followed. The quality of 'talk', as a constitutive feature of democracy, is explored by following the critical perspectives in deliberative theory that focus on the discursive mechanisms of exclusion and on power relations intrinsic to deliberative procedures. For this purpose, the deliberative processes in a series of 'working group meetings', carried out as a part of the Local Agenda 21 project, are analysed. The democratic capacity of deliberative experiences and public dialogue is analysed by examining the inclusion/exclusion of opposing ideas, different identities and discourse styles during these working groups meetings.     

Defending What From Whom? Debating Citizen Disengagement

This article constitutes a pointed theoretical intervention in the debate opposing Richards and Smith to Flinders on the question of citizen disengagement. Its main contention is that Richards and Smith offer a straw‐man argument against Flinders by identifying him with positions he does not hold. It thus shows that Richards and Smith falsely identify Flinders with the following positions: (a) there is no need for a major overhaul in the UK's existing democratic and governance arrangements; (b) the problem of citizen disengagement is caused by the public's insatiable demand for democratic participation; and (c) the problem with British politics is that there is too much democracy and accountability. Finally, the article closes by identifying points of genuine tension between the Richards/Smith position and that defended by Flinders.     

公众参与的协商民主价值与发展趋势

公众参与是衡量现代社会民主程度和发展水平的一项重要指标。实践中我国公民参与的形式丰富多彩,其中蕴含了中国特色的协商民主价值。我国公众参与实践还存在一些问题,公众参与在公共决策中的应用应当实现效率与民主价值的恰当平衡。在执政党、政府与公民社会的推动下,公众参与在我国公共管理实践中将得到日益广泛的应用,成为社会主义民主政治的重要实现形式。     

The Implications of Parekh's Cultural Pluralism

This paper assesses the special difficulties faced by a liberal democratic system which seeks to maintain its democratic credentials when governing a culturally diverse society. The argument focuses upon the analysis of cultural pluralism developed in two recent pieces of Bhikhu Parekh. After clarifying the nature of Parekh's culturally pluralistic society, the cultural specificity of liberal democracy is examined Finally, Parekh's attempt to reconcile the two through 'operative public values' is shown to be inadequate in such a manner that the ability of a liberal democratic system to ever bring lasting well-being in a situation of cultural diversity is thrown into doubt.     

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.     

The Politics of Inclusive Agreements: towards a Critical Discourse Theory of Democracy

This article offers a critical assessment of Jürgen Habermas's discourse theory of democracy. It suggests that the main thrust of a discursive account of legitimacy is the attempt to show how the demands of maximal democratic inclusion might be reconciled with a politics of reasoned agreements. While this aim is endorsed, the thrust of the argument is that a critical theory of democracy requires that normative frameworks that bring certain substantive features of democratic life into focus should supplement Habermas's procedural approach. First, the account of maximal inclusion has to be developed in a way that clarifies the egalitarian demands of distributive justice. Secondly, the account of a politics of reasoned agreements has to be connected to a theoretical analysis of the bonds of solidarity that could underpin such a form of political engagement. These developments contribute to a critical theory that gives a more adequate account of the motivational basis of discursive democracy.     

Commune Democracy and Gorbachev's Reforms

The process of democratic restructuring in the Soviet Union since 1986 can be understood in terms of a revival of the democratic ideal of a participatory and self-managing society. The concept of commune democracy espoused by Marx and Lenin, however, is problematical, not least because of ambiguities in its relationship to the state, the role of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the dirigisme of the party. Gorbachev's reforms are developing within the context of an attempt to regenerate commune democracy, and some of the hesitancies of the reform process can be attributed to the contradictions in the theory. The scope for a reconstituted civil society is limited by the inclusive tendencies of traditional commune democracy. The reform process may ultimately be able to exploit the ambiguities in commune democracy sufficiently to allow the development of a law-governed state.     

Enacting Democracy

We do not need more 'models of democracy', but we do need a fresh view of democratic theory to take full advantage of deliberative, ecological, cosmopolitan and other innovations of recent years. Approaches such as these can be understood in terms of the devices they deploy – deliberative forums and cross-border referendums, for example, as well as more familiar elections and legislatures. Devices enact democratic principles; indeed, it is argued that principles gain their meaning and force through enactment. Devices can also be reordered in different ways; democrats can construct sequences which enact democracy in particular, desired ways. Pursuing this argument involves adopting a reflexive and procedural perspective, which puts a premium on democracy as sensitive to context, open-ended, productive and adaptable.     

Reframing Democracy: Governance, Civic Agency, and Politics

Developments in public affairs that stress governance— not simply government—hold possibilities for reframing democracy. Governance intimates a paradigm shift in the meaning of democracy and civic agency—that is, who is to address public problems and promote the general welfare? The shift involves a move from citizens as simply voters, volunteers, and consumers to citizens as problem solvers and cocreators of public goods; from public leaders, such as public affairs professionals and politicians, as providers of services and solutions to partners, educators, and organizers of citizen action; and from democracy as elections to democratic society. Such a shift has the potential to address public problems that cannot be solved without governments, but that governments alone cannot solve, and to cultivate an appreciation for the commonwealth. Effecting this shift requires politicizing governance in nonpartisan, democratizing ways and deepening the civic, horizontal, pluralist, and productive dimensions of politics.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

The Virtuous,the Critical and the Trustworthy: Citizen Ideals and Forms of Democratic Participation

A vibrant democratic society requires continuous innovation to actualize and encourage democratic ideals through participation, but no universal answers exist as to which kinds of participation are best suited to achieve this. This article demonstrates that different types of participation correlate with different citizen ideals, implying that the remedies to democratic deficits depend on which ideals need to be strengthened. Citizen survey data is used to examine the relationships between two types of citizen participation – in voluntary associations and workplaces – and three empirical citizen ideals: the virtuous citizen, the critical citizen and the trustworthy citizen. The results suggest that voluntary associations make space for all three ideals, while workplace participation tends to be characterized specifically by the critical citizen's ideal of reason‐giving and critical reflection. The article ends by discussing the implications of these results: new democratic designs should be more effective if tailored to address context‐dependent weaknesses in democratic practices.