Canada's views on North‐South negotiations

This article assesses the recent embrace of the concept 'civil society' within development discourses, both conceptually and in the context of the construction of civil society in El Salvador. It challenges the tendency to generalise about civil society, warning against its glorification as a panacea. In a critique of the liberal approach to civil society, commonly used among international agencies, the discussion highlights how civil society organisations in El Salvador are fragmented politically, socially, but also geographically. Furthermore, civil society is not a unified entity with its constituent organisations working towards common goals. Nor may it be created or imposed from above by governments or donors. Instead it comprises a diverse range of competing groups grounded in different historical, political and geographical circumstances. While it is suggested that fostering civil society is a useful aspiration, it is essential that the concept also be recognised as contested.     

Is there universality in the full range model of leadership?

Universality implies that the relations between attributes of the person and performance as a leader are a constant across situations. It also implies that similar concepts and behaviors associated with leadership can be relevant everywhere. It is a difficult position to maintain. Nevertheless, this lead article contends that a model of transformational and transactional leadership has some degree of universality. The article describes the elements of the model and summarizes the support for these elements which derives from research initiated in the United States. Three corollaries are discussed with supportive evidence gathered in studies conducted in India, Italy, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, Sweden and elsewhere to document the universality of transactional and transformational leadership. We conclude that although this model of leadership may require adjustments and fine-tuning as we move across cultures, particularly into non-Western cultures, overall, it holds up as having considerable universal potential.     

Size and Local Democracy: the Case of Czech Municipal Representatives

The municipal structure of the Czech Republic experienced a wave of fragmentation after the fall of the communist regime. As a result, most Czech municipalities today have populations of only a few hundred inhabitants. This situation creates specific conditions for the democratic functioning of local representative bodies. In this paper we focus on two features of Czech local government. First, we deal with electoral competitiveness in Czech municipalities; second, we analyse councillors' accountability to voters, their readiness to stand for re-election and their electoral success in successive elections. Based on an analysis of data on individual candidates and elected councillors in four successive terms, we demonstrate that the willingness to stand for election and re-election does not decrease over time; however, the choice among different candidates is limited in the smallest municipalities. Thus, the data show a reduced willingness to stand for re-election and an extraordinarily high chance of re-election in smaller municipalities. This finding weakens the general assumption about higher accountability of elected officials in small municipalities. On a more general level, we conclude that Czech local government has some features of small political systems with infrequent occurrence of major election conflicts.