Active resistance to democratic diffusion

Recent research on the international diffusion of democracy has focused on demonstrating how diffusion can change regime outcomes. Although there is still debate within the field of democratization over how important democratic diffusion is relative to domestic factors, autocratic leaders believe that democratic diffusion can be a threat to their rule. It is clear that some countries, such as North Korea, prevent diffusion by severely restricting interactions with foreigners and forbidding access to external sources of information. The more intriguing question is how the states that have economic, diplomatic, and social linkages with democratic states prevent democratic diffusion. In other words, what methods do globally-engaged, autocratic governments use to limit exposure to and reduce receptivity to democratic diffusion?In addition to using coercion and economic patronage, autocratic states utilize two non-material mechanisms to prevent democratic diffusion: 1) restricting exposure to democratic ideas and 2) developing alternative narratives about democracy to reduce local receptivity to democratic diffusion. Sophisticated autocratic leaders can limit receptivity to democratic diffusion if they convince citizens that those ideas are “foreign,” will cause “chaos,” or if they believe they already have their own form of democracy. I explore these methods of establishing firewalls to prevent diffusion by examining the cases of China and Kazakhstan, two countries where a high level of economic linkage coincides with a successful continuation of autocratic rule, despite the global spread of democratic norms. China has developed extensive methods to restrict access to foreign ideas about democracy while Kazakhstan has mainly focused on developing an alternative narrative about democracy. This article contributes to the literature on authoritarian persistence and democratic diffusion by investigating the internal methods autocratic leaders adopt to ensure that democratic diffusion does not threaten their rule.     

Learning to live together: a challenge for schools located in contexts of social vulnerability

Currently, there are many educational centres that demonstrate the need to promote initiatives to improve coexistence at school at the international level, especially in those located in contexts of social vulnerability. A socio-educational programme has been developed, applied and evaluated at a Singular Education Action Centre (Centro de Acción Educativa Singular – C.A.E.S) in the city of Valencia (Spain). To ascertain the programme’s impact and possible generalization to other contexts, a quasi-experimental pretest–posttest design with a control group was used. Information was collected from 297 students and 54 teachers based on questionnaires assessing coexistence at school. The results obtained demonstrate the satisfactory functioning of the programme. The faculty and students from the experimental group affirm the importance of continuing to work in this direction to invest in creating a democratic school that firmly believes in coexistence and participation. Areas for improvement include the need to incorporate actions to increase family participation and develop strategies to facilitate the implementation of a more comprehensive programme.     

What tips the scales? Disentangling the mechanisms underlying post-electoral gains and losses in democratic support

Prior research has shown that winning or losing elections matters. To account for this pattern, it is argued that winners can expect their preferred policies to be implemented and experience the psychological gratification of winning, whereas losers have to accept disliked policies in addition to the psychological distress of losing. In an attempt to better understand the mechanisms underlying the dynamics of winners' and losers' democratic support after elections, this study aims to separate the influence of policy performance and psychological gratification. Using panel data from the 2017 German federal election, we show that policy congruence with the government increases voters' democratic support whether they voted for the government or not, suggesting that policy congruence is more important than winning the government in securing losers' democratic support. We find no independent effect of psychological gratification; however, the evidence suggests that winning the government affected voters’ democratic support independent of the two tested mechanisms.     

大国民主发展之道——加强中国式民主操作机制建设的思考

加强中国式民主操作机制建设既是中国政治刻不容缓的形势需要,也是实现民主价值和发挥民主功能的内在要求。发展中国式民主既应该“在价值层次上做出确定论证”,也需要“在操作层次上做出系统规定”。加强操作机制建设是中国探索超大社会发展大国民主的重大课题和必由之路。通过健全制度体系、加强操作机制建设已成为中国民主发展的战略选择和生动实践。虽然中国共产党人领导中国人民为坚持和完善中国特色社会主义民主政治制度体系做出了不懈努力并取得了巨大成就,但加强中国式民主操作机制建设任务依然十分艰巨,探索仍应继续。既要搞好顶层设计往下推,也要总结基层经验往上提;必须考虑民主多重价值之间及其与民主多样手段之间的相容度和兼容性,避免各种要素结构功能之间的矛盾与冲突;操作理论简洁明了,操作要领简单易行,操作结果廉价高效,应成为加强中国式民主操作机制建设努力的重要方向。     

Liberal internationalism meets third worldism: the politics of international election observation in the DRC’s post-war elections

In this article, we draw on the contradictions in, and the geopolitics of, international election observation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s 2006 and 2011 elections to identify and analyse the emergence of a neo-third world behaviour among African states intended to counter the excesses of Western liberal democracy promotion on the continent. We argue that the decision by African states to quickly endorse the 2011 elections and close ranks around Joseph Kabila’s government, amidst mounting international criticisms of the electoral process, should be understood in the context of a new form of third worldism that is emerging in the global South in response to the unrestrained exercise of US power.     

Shrinking democratic space? Crisis of consensus and contentious politics in Uganda

Previously considered a reforming and promising African country, economically and politically, Uganda has in recent years suffered substantial shrinkage of democratic space. This article argues that two factors have been crucial: the gradual breakdown of minimum political consensus forged under a ‘broad-based’ government which climaxed in a relatively progressive constitution in 1995 and, second, the security imperative accentuated by the war on terror. These two are compounded by the exigencies of incumbent president Museveni’s determination to rule for life, the result being erosion of basic democratic institutions, securitisation of politics, criminalisation of political competition and upsurge in contentious politics.     

Hydro-politics and hydro-power: the century-long saga of the Inga project

The proposal to build the world’s largest hydro-power project on the Congo River is a century old. This article argues that the Grand Inga project could become the political, diplomatic, and economic driver to deepening integration between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other African countries. The Inga delays were not without benefits. Twenty-first century sensibilities ensure revision of the proposed mega-project to minimize both ecological and social harm. While colonial-era projects were configured to maximize benefits to imperialist, settler, and corporate interests, independence and democratization are the prerequisites to facilitate the broadest possible distribution of the benefits of electrification. Since some of the countries involved have hybrid regimes, further democratization, and civil society lobbying, will be necessary to mitigate the downside of its ecological and social impacts.     

社会论证——越南公民参与政府政策制定的重要形式

制定周延而明智的公共政策的能力和发展不同方案以执行政策的能力是构成当代政府治理能力的两大要素。目前,对越南而言,实行社会论证既是公民有效地参与政府政策制定的重要途径,也是推进民主治理的重要方式。本文旨在分析当前越南实行社会论证的机制、特点与实践价值。     

The substance of EU democratic governance promotion via transgovernmental cooperation with the Eastern neighbourhood

Existing studies of the European Union’s (EU) democratic governance promotion via transgovernmental cooperation in the EU’s neighbourhood seem to take the substance of what is being promoted by the EU for granted. In filling this gap, this article examines the substance of EU democratic governance promotion by assessing (1) to what extent norms of democratic governance appear in EU Twinning projects implemented in the Eastern neighbourhood, and (2) what factors account for differences in the presence of democratic governance norms across those projects. To explain possible variation, the article hypothesizes that the democratic governance substance of Twinning projects will vary with the country’s political liberalization, sector politicization, sector technical complexity, and EU conditionality attached to reform progress in a given policy sector. Data are retrieved from a content analysis of 117 Twinning project fiches from the Eastern neighbourhood and analysed via standard multiple regression. The article finds that the EU mostly promotes moderate, mixed democratic governance substance, which varies across different projects. This variation may be best explained by the level of political liberalization of the beneficiary country and the politicization and technical complexity of the policy sectors and institutions involved in respective Twinning projects.     

Being reformed: Subjectification and security sector reform in the Congolese armed forces

In contrast to most studies addressing security sector reform (SSR) in Africa, this article queries defence reform efforts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) from a governmentality perspective and hones in on processes of subjectification and modes of agency among members of the Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC). Based on extensive field research in the DRC, it explores how army staff produce themselves through (and outside of) the ways in which they are ‘hailed’ into subject positions in donors’ efforts to govern. In asking how FARDC staff respond, position, and produce themselves in relation to external reform efforts and the attending governing technologies and techniques, the article contributes to the increasing – yet limited – scholarly attention to those being ‘reformed’ through SSR efforts. Ultimately, attending to the specificities of how processes of subjectification are experienced from the perspective of those who are to be reformed problematizes the simplified notions of lack of political will and commitment, obstruction and ‘spoilers’ that are so prevalent in the SSR literature, suggesting that these processes are heavily shaped by memories of colonialism and exploitation.