Special Issue: Deliberately Democratizing Multilateral Organization

In Economy and Society , Max Weber posits that bureaucracies that are not reined in by either democratic controls or market discipline will eventually start to pursue public policies that are detrimental to those whose lives these policies should enable or improve. During the last ten years, a number of scholars, activists, parliamentarians, journalists and whistleblowers have come to argue that Weber's hypothesis has often held up for the functioning of multilateral organizations, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization. At least, it appears that little democratic control or market discipline has been imposed on multilateral organizations. Moreover, critics from both the left and the right have severely criticized such multilateral policies as development lending, deregulation of financial markets, and structural adjustment programs. Yet it remains difficult to agree upon appropriate remedies. Many proposals—ranging from outright abolishment of large international organizations to the establishment of global parliaments at the United Nations—have been tabled, but little consensus reigns and various disadvantages (as well as advantages) cling to each of these proposals. This special issue of Governance considers yet another way in which to make multilateral organizations more democratic and pluralistic: by making these organizations more deliberatively democratic. This introduction clarifies what is meant by deliberative decision–making and why it is worthwhile to consider making multilateral organizations more deliberative. It also sets out the other contributions to the issue, which offer different justifications for increased deliberation and discuss alternative forms in which multilateral organizations can be made more deliberatively democratic.     

Voters without a Party: The ‘Long Decade’ of the Italian Centre-Right and its Uncertain Future

Abstract

Following the corruption scandals of the early 1990s, the birth of the electoral coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi, and its occupation of government in 1994, 2001 and 2008, was interpreted by many as a sign of a new era of success for the Italian centre-right. Yet, after narrowly losing the 2013 national elections, the centre-right appears to have fallen into a political abyss. While opinion polls suggest that its potential electorate is still wide, the former allies that made up the coalition have been fragmented and weakened by a series of splits, leaving the centre-right divided into a more moderate component and an openly populist one. The centre-right’s old ruling elites have lost credibility, but the new younger leaders, like Matteo Salvini and Giorgia Meloni, are not able to re-unify the former coalition. The centre-right has been riven by several factors that explain its difficulties during the decade of the economic crisis: the personalisation of its leadership, factionalism, a divergence of programmes, a failure of institutionalisation and ongoing corruption and legal problems. These factors also look set to condition its political future.     

The Involvement Process Through the Internet in the 2010 Italian Regional Elections

This paper explores Internet tools used for consensus building during the 2010 Italian regional elections, especially focusing on the use of the Internet to involve the electorate in a background of political disaffection. Previous experience from the United States and European countries suggests that the Internet is an interesting tool for the creation and development of consensus and shows an increasing use of Internet-based communication for elections. In this context, the research has two objectives. The first is to measure the degree of use of Internet tools by the main candidates to develop participation in several local areas, more limited than those traditionally investigated in the literature. To this end, we used the technique of analysis of site functionality, properly integrated to make it suitable for measuring the use of tools for participation, to compute for each candidate a reliable index of participation. Second, the work aims to understand how different contexts of electoral competition may encourage or lessen the inclination to use Internet communication tools in a participative sense. The analysis reveals a positive correlation between the affiliation of the candidate for the ruling party and the tendency for this candidate to use tools of participation more than the competitor.     

Improving state legitimacy? The role of anti-corruption agencies in fragile and conflict-affected states

Anti-corruption reforms in fragile and conflict-affected states are considered as a policy imperative by international actors engaged in statebuilding. The establishment of anti-corruption agencies is often the preferred implementation strategy. The main rationale is that anti-corruption agencies demonstrate a government’s commitment to fight corruption, and should thus improve state legitimacy within a context of weak governance. In practice, several intervening factors condition the legitimacy effect of anti-corruption agencies, including the types and systems of corruption prevalent in a specific context, the perceptions of corruption towards specific parts of government, and how citizens attribute the successes or failures of these agencies to the state. More broadly, these intervening factors also challenge the predominant assumption of a positive linear relationship between anti-corruption reforms, increased state legitimacy, and greater stability in fragile and conflict-affected states.     

The Material Constitution

What is the material context of constitutional order? The purpose of this paper is to offer an answer to that question by sketching a theory of the material constitution. Moving beyond the interwar constitutional theories of Heller and Mortati, the paper outlines the four ordering forces of the material constitution: political unity; a set of institutions; social relations, and fundamental political objectives. These forces constitute the substance and dynamic of constitutional ordering, in internal relation with the formal constitution. Because these ordering forces are multiple, and in tension with one another, there is no single determining factor of constitutional development. Neither is order as such guaranteed. The conflict that characterises the modern human condition might but need not be internalised by the process of constitutional ordering. The theory of the material constitution offers an account of the basic elements of this process as well as its internal dynamic.     

How “institutionalization” can work. Structuring governance for digital transformation in Italy

Public policy scholars have recently focused on the mechanisms accounting for the sustainability of major policy changes. Among the strategies by which policy entrepreneurs may try to avoid future backlash institutionalization is certainly one of the most used. Yet, it can foster ossification and eventually jeopardize policy effectiveness. Such a potential trade-off between institutionalization and long-term effectiveness is particularly intense in policies concerning technological innovation because the necessity to create winning coalitions can undermine the required absorption capacity needed by government to engage the innovation ecosystems. This paper explores such a trade-off with a case study on the Italian policy for public sector's digital transformation. The case is theoretically promising because over three decades institutionalization has always represented the main overall strategy adopted by policymaker, but only the 2016 initiative emerged as a “success.” In this sense, the case study can focus on the mechanisms activated by policy entrepreneurs to trigger and entrench change.     

Macroscopic,Microscopic, and Chemical Assessment of Gunshot Lesions on Decomposed Pig Skin

Abstract: Very little literature exists on gunshot wounds on decomposed material. In this study, seven pig heads underwent a shooting test. Entrance wounds from the first head underwent neutron activation analysis (NAA) and histological testing immediately after the firing test; the other six heads were exposed to two different environments (open air and soil) and analyzed by radiochemical and histological tests every 15 days. Gunshot wounds in air maintained their morphological characteristics, and those in soil showed severe alteration after 5 weeks. Microscopic testing verified positive results for lead in all gunshot wounds in open air, whereas in most of those in soil lead could not be detected. Radiochemical analysis performed by NAA yielded for all gunshot wounds but one antimony quantities in the range of 0.07–13.89 μg. In conclusion, it may be possible to detect residues of antimony even in degraded tissues.     

Foreign Fighters and the Radicalization of Local Jihad: Interview Evidence from Swedish Jihadists

Modern jihadism has experienced two distinct crises. The present study analyzes recent developments in jihadism, which can be seen in connection with efforts to solve the latest recruitment crisis of global jihad, and is based on comparative interviews with eight Swedish jihadists defined as foreign fighters. The study identifies three new trends evident in the interviews comparing jihadists active in Syria with those who fought in Afghanistan and Bosnia: socialization to global jihad, normalization of jihad, and an increasing use of the doctrine of takfir (i.e., ex-communication). This can be described as indicating the radicalization of local jihad, as the territorially based jihad, championed by Abdullah Azzam, and the global jihad of Osama bin Laden meet in the territorial realities of Syria and Iraq.