Institutional confidence and democratic consolidation in Latin America

Citizen confidence in the institutions of their nations is critical to democratic consolidation in Latin America. The data provided by the Latinobarómetro survey in 1995 mark the beginning of significant empirical investigation in this realm. While longitudinal comparisons are not yet possible, institutional confidence for the major countries as of 1995 can be probed. This study considers three levels of generality: the comparative study of institutions in the region; patterns of confidence related to political culture; and the degree of political learning derived from the repressive dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s. John D. Martz is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the Pennsylvania State University. He is also the editor of this journal.     

Problems of political transition in Ukraine: leadership failure and democratic consolidation

Democratisation and consolidation of a political system encompass a range of complex challenges, for which effective leadership is pivotal. However, the skills that a leader requires to break through and introduce change are not necessarily the same as those needed to maintain stability. This article examines the case of Viktor Yushchenko as president of Ukraine following the Orange Revolution. The negotiated transfer of power from the previous semi-authoritarian regime rendered consolidation difficult by limiting opportunities for a complete break. Within the residual ‘grey area’, a number of actors continued to participate and create tension. The regime that emerged was characterised by political infighting and instability, leading to the defeat of candidates associated with the Orange Revolution in the 2010 presidential elections. This article argues that the inability to move towards a consolidated democratic political system was due to the failure of the transitional leader, rather than the political and institutional configuration.     

Grassroots democracy and local government in Northern Syria: the case of democratic confederalism

This paper provides a case study regarding an innovative model of grass-roots democracy, called democratic confederalism, which is currently being implemented in Northern Syria. The difference between democratic confederalism and previous experiments with grass-roots democracy is that its evolutionary pattern aims to include heterogeneous local communities living in the same territories, with the objective of becoming an administrative model for the whole Syrian country, without shattering its national constitution. In fact, the evolution of the political and administrative system and the introduction of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria were specifically aimed at including all ethnicities and not focusing on the Kurdish population only. Following a literature review aimed at defining the theoretical background of democratic confederalism, the case study is presented. Data collection occurred through semi-structured interviews and informal talks with key stakeholders in the Kurdish movement; the findings and main implications of the model are described and analysed.     

Neoliberal restructuring and scenarios of democratic consolidation in Latin America

The “free-market” policies and neoliberal restructuring widely experienced by Latin American in recent years have contended with a wide array of economic problems, and the results have been somewhat problematic. The consequences for the process of democratic consolidation have become the subject of increasing theorizing. At the same time, certain generalizations can be advanced. These are enriched by examination of the diverse paths to neoliberal restructuring followed by different countries. This leads to elaboration of several alternative scenarios that may eventually prevail, including consideration of variations in posttransition democratic regimes in the 1990s. The policies and developments schematically discussed here support the contention that Latin America is following a developmental trajectory distinct from anything known in its past.     

Poland and the international system: external influences on democratic consolidation

Democratization in Poland has been heavily influenced by agents and structures external to the Polish state. However, the influence of these external agencies is mediated through domestic social and political institutions, the state foremost among them. The Polish state's response to and interaction with external agencies is heavily conditioned by the very process of democratization which these agencies seek to influence. Thus, the impact of external agencies on the democratic consolidation process cannot be understood without reference to the influence that democratization has played in reshaping Poland's foreign relations. This paper explains the interaction between systemic and domestic factors in shaping the democratic consolidation process in Poland.     

社会民主主义和民主社会主义(上)--概念的起源和历史演变

社会民主主义和民主社会主义是近现代政治思想特别是社会主义思想中的两个重要概念.这两者之间存在继承和发展的关系,而两者的内涵本身又各自有其发展变化的过程.本文拟按历史顺序论述这一过程,希望能对比较精确地理解和使用这两个概念有所帮助.     

International democracy promotion: a role for public goods theory?

The state of international democracy promotion is in flux. After more than fifteen years of increasing activity and with more organisations and resources devoted to promoting democracy than ever before, a mood of uncertainty surrounds democracy support's current performance and future prospects. The last decade has also seen the emergence of a new literature on global public goods theory, offering fresh analytical perspectives on pressing issues in international affairs like peace, security, development, and environmental sustainability. The future of democracy promotion will be determined chiefly by the realities of the political market place, in societies on both sides of the relationship. But could recent theorising about the market for global public goods offer some analytical support for making sense of its current condition and, by identifying the democratic peace as a global public good strengthen the case for greater international cooperation in promoting democracy as means to achieve that end?     

Public Administration Research in Norway: Organization theory, institutionalism and empirical studies in a democratic context

This article gives a broad overview of Norwegian research on public administration over the past 40 years. The main picture that emerges is that a Norwegian public administration built primarily on Webernian principles has lost some but not all these original properties. It describes a research tradition based on organizational theory and democratic theory. It also paints a picture of public administration as integrated into a complex network of domestic political institutions, public agencies, organized interests and clients, as well as extensive European and international networks. It shows how a strong theoretical tradition, based on bounded rationality, is supplemented by different types of institutional theories and increased theoretical pluralism. Finally, the paper underlines the importance of considering public administration not simply from an internal technical viewpoint, but of placing the discipline in a wider political and democratic context.     

Reconciling public administration and democracy: the role of the responsible administrator

This article considers whether the individual responsibilities of bureaucratic officials provide a useful means for reconciling the tension between democracy and bureaucracy. Three questions central to the proper definition of bureaucratic responsibility are examined: (1) What is the relation of bureaucratic responsibility to the view that proper bureaucratic conduct is essentially a matter of ethics and morality? (2) If the appeal to moral values does not ordinarily offer an acceptable guide to proper bureaucratic conduct, upon what principles does a theory of bureaucratic responsibility rest? (3) What issues arise in putting responsibility into practice within a complex organizational setting? The article concludes that a democratic, process-based conception offers the most useful way of thinking about the responsibilities of bureaucratic officials.

The tension between democracy and bureaucracy has bedeviled public administration. However one defines democracy, its core demand for responsiveness (to higher political authorities, the public, client groups, or whatever the presumed agent of democratic rule) does not neatly square with notions of effective organization of the policy process and efficient delivery of goods and services, which are central to the definition of bureaucracy. Responsiveness need not guarantee efficiency, while bureaucratic effectiveness and efficiency often belie democratic control.

This tension between democracy and bureaucracy persists, but that it is the individual administrator who directly experiences the tension is especially important as a guide toward a resolution of this conflict. Since divergence is central to this tension between democracy and bureaucracy, speculation about the responsibilities of bureaucratic officials—their individual places within the bureaucracy, particularly the administrator's thoughts, choices, and actions—provides fruitful terrain for resolving the question of bureaucracy's place within a democratic system of rule.

Three questions need to be addressed if one accepts the premise that individual responsibility is central to locating the place of bureaucracy in a democratic order. First, what is unique about bureaucratic responsibility, especially in contrast to the view that these are largely ethical problems that can be resolved by appeal to moral values? Second, if dilemmas of bureaucratic conduct are by and large not resolvable through appeal to moral values, upon what other principles does a theory of bureaucratic responsibility rest? Third, what issues arise in putting responsibility into practice, especially within a complex organizational setting? This list of questions is not meant to be exhaustive but only a starting point for discussion.     

The Mexican State and democracy: The ambiguities of corporatism

The Author thanks Arnaldo Córdova, Guillermo O'Donnell, Ray Morrow, Arturo Sáenz Ferral, Daniel Schugurensky and Arthur Vidich for their valuable comments to previous versions of this article.     

The control of professionals in a democracy

The term professional is used in a variety of ways as people discuss issues of professionalism in the public service. There are a1so some particular concerns regarding potential conflicts between ideas of democratic control over people who have expert knowledge and skills. These various ideas of professionalism are examined, and a series of more precise defintione are offered. Time-stratified systems theory is used to clarify the concepts and to indicate how control can be exercised over various types of public employees depending upon the concept of professional being used.     

The post-cold war political topography of the Middle East: prospects for democracy

The debate on democracy in the Middle East has generated many important questions but has, so far, answered few of them satisfactorily. This paper endeavours to understand the prospects and problems for democracy in the region by making visible the connections between this issue and one of the least explored and understood aspects of the contemporary Middle East: how the suppression of communist, socialist, and other leftist and reformist political movements in the region after World War II affected and continues to affect the region's economic and political development. It details the campaign in the 1950s and 1960s to eradicate not only communists and socialists but any element in the region calling for democratic government or land reform. The result of this campaign was to suppress liberal, reformist and progressive elements in the region that, in Europe and elsewhere, supported and encouraged the democratisation of national politics.     

The virtue of vice: a defence of hypocrisy in democratic politics

This essay suggests that Machiavelli's claim that the moral vice of hypocrisy is inescapable in politics constitutes a real issue for democratic politics today. Indeed, it concludes that democratic societies are implicated in creating the impetus to hypocritical behaviour. The essay questions the prevalent conviction that a liberal democratic polity should be premised on transparency and candour, not on hypocritical manipulation – a conviction which is paradoxically shared by the dirty hands thesis which is mostly owed to Michael Walzer and which purportedly takes Machiavelli's insights on the moral messiness of politics seriously. Attempts to deny the necessity of political hypocrisy misconstrue the realities of democratic politics – the messy context in which politicians operate and what is distinctive of political friendships. Democratic politicians operate in a context ridden with conflict and dependence which renders hypocrisy a necessary political virtue and one of the strings that hold together a virtuous political life.     

The democratic polity's search for the knowledgeable public administrator: an argumentative essay

Today public administrators, as many others, desire to be known as professionals or those knowledgeable enough to carry out their tasks without outside interference. By examining their claims to have expertise to carry out their public tasks, we provide a critical evaluation of the professionalism of public administrators. Our argument is that public administrators may not have sufficient knowledge to carry out their public tasks without the knowledge (help) of others. Suggesting that public administrators need to have more “public” knowledge of the public interest, we suggest ways that they can become more knowledgeable and more compatible with the tenets of political democracy.     

Forming government elites in a new democracy: The case of Poland

In this article we describe a study of the construction of governments in Poland by concentrating on the recruitment of individuals to government positions. (1) We therefore consider social, political, and institutional factors in the construction of the government's cabinets. (2) We examine the question of the path to the highest government positions—where did the people exercising power come from and what qualifications do they have? Finally, we discuss the results in the context of institutionalization of political life in Poland.