Aproximaciones y reintegros: La democracia tensionada

Based on the conception of democratic aspiration as hegemonic, the author argues that democracy and its reproduction are doomed to exist in a constant tension. Anchored on a critical review of the ideas of Pierre Rosanvallon, Colin Crouch, Klaus Von Andreas Schedler and Klaus Von Beyme, the author analyzes the particular configuration of this form of government and the challenges it must confront, both those that are inherent to its design and those that are derived from its development in contemporary societies and political systems. Thus, democracy is approached from different conceptual perspectives, although favoring the one that views it as a political-institutional arrangement enabling coexistence and competition of/within political diversity. In turn, and taking as referents the undp and eclac diagnoses, the author analyzes the specificity of democracy in Latin America, its structural weaknesses and the possibility of building a new social pact in order to provide an answer to the prevailing breakdown of social cohesion and exclusion.     

Foreign aid,debt relief and Africa's development: problems and prospects

In recent years, the Paris club granted a number of African countries, including Nigeria, debt relief. This elicited widespread celebration in the capital cities of affected countries, where it was portrayed as a veritable launch-pad to Africa's development. This paper takes a critical look at the debt relief, with emphasis on its problems and prospects for Africa's development. It is argued that while debt relief does offer some prospects for development, there is little or no evidence to suggest that such an outcome is automatic. The conditions that precipitated the debt crisis in the first instance, including an inequitable international economic order and political conditions tied to aid, are still very present in the debt relief regime. Corruption of the foreign aid regime by both internal and external actors has been compounded by the recent global economic crisis, posing further constraints on the effectiveness of foreign aid in Africa. If debt relief must yield the desired result, it has to be accompanied by a sustainable campaign to fundamentally reform the world order to make it more equitable, together with a drive for good governance that is not only democratic, but also efficient and development-oriented in Africa.     

Seeking the Soul of Democracy: A Review of Recent Research into Citizens' Political Talk Culture

This article provides a review of extant empirical research on ordinary citizens' everyday political communication, its phenomenology, determinants, consequences, and relevance for democratic politics. It highlights the recent upsurge in interest in the study of political conversations against the background of both classic and more recent developments in democratic theory and empirical research that served as intellectual inspirations. The article discusses conceptual and methodological issues of research into interpersonal political communication and presents key findings with regard to the background and consequences of political talk, tapping into fundamental aspects of democratic citizenship such as political preferences, participation, cognitive involvement with politics as well as orientations towards fellow citizens and towards the democratic political system. It concludes with an assessment of the state of the art in this field of study, highlighting desirable avenues for future empirical research.     

Dual citizenship and sovereignty

Multiple and dual citizenship in the past decades have become widely accepted worldwide. Leading scholars in citizenship studies claim that the growing tolerance of dual citizenship signals the weakening of state sovereignty and the emergence of transnational, post-national or cosmopolitan norms. This paper argues that multiple citizenship standards are neither universally accepted, nor normatively compelling. The cases referred to are intended to demonstrate that contrary to the above assessments, dual citizenship is also used by states to increase their sovereignty, for example promoting national interest abroad through expatriates and trans-border minorities. It is also argued that, in addition to the classical territorial sovereignty- and security-related dilemmas, dual-citizenship policies may violate the norms of democratic equality and popular sovereignty. The paper concludes that the inevitably growing toleration of non-monogamous state-citizen relationships should not be interpreted as a normative justification of promiscuous citizenship policies.     

Forced migrant “compatriots” from Ukraine: Accessing legal residency and citizenship in the Russian Federation

This paper examines the Russian migration and citizenship regime as encountered by forced migrants from Ukraine who fled to Russia during the period of 2014–2016. Based on legal and other official documents, media articles, and interviews, it gives an account of these migrants’ reception in Russia in theory and practice. Russia made great efforts to accommodate them, and in Russian media they were often spoken of as an easily integrated labor resource and as potential citizens. In 2015–2016, around 165,000 Ukrainians acquired Russian citizenship. While ethno-cultural similarity does privilege Ukrainian migrants in Russia, full asylum has been granted sparingly, and citizenship is not unconditionally granted. As this paper shows, Russian authorities have rather tried to control and distribute these forced migrants for the benefit of the state, according to principles of selectivity and economic interests – giving privileged access to permanent residency and citizenship to working-age people willing to settle in regions where population growth and more workers are deemed necessary. However, permanent residency and citizenship are also available to those able to circumvent or pay their way through the obstacles encountered – taking advantage of the flexibility inherent in a system that is not totally consistent.     

ACTING OUT REFORM: THEATER AND VILLAGE IN THE REPUBLICAN RURAL RECONSTRUCTION MOVEMENT

Abstract

Rural theater reform was a component of the Republican Rural Reconstruction Movement from its mid-1920s beginnings in mass literacy efforts. Amid the economic and political upheaval of the 1920s and 1930s, reformers argued that national salvation depended on the unity and continued relevance of village communities, and they believed that rural theater could contribute to bringing village communities together. One important example, the Mass Education Movement project in Dingxian, illustrates how reformers used the theater to reinforce the village as the unit of reform and national reconstruction. Reformers hoped rural theater would transmit to villagers ideas about citizenship and the new responsibilities this political role entailed. However, it was equally important that the reform theater — a group activity performed for a village audience — enable and sustain a reconstitution of the village community. In this way, the Rural Reconstruction Movement demonstrates an alternative to the top-down rule that characterized most Guomindang state-making efforts.     

Enhancing Participation in Disadvantaged Urban Neighbourhoods

Participation in neighbourhoods is a highly valued phenomenon. Participation is the basis of a shared social life, but it also makes everyday life, and the lived experience of people participating in it, political. From a public administration perspective, governance and formal policy-making are increasingly reaching out to citizens, instead of drawing solely on representative mechanisms of local government. This paper investigates how practitioners working in disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Dutch cities enhance participation. Using empirical data from research in disadvantaged neighbourhoods in The Netherlands, the paper shows that these practitioners either start projects that connect people in their own life world or connect policy-makers and policy to initiatives on the ground. As a result, they create the opportunity for many to develop their citizenship and become a more active participant in their local communities.     

Citizens of sound: negotiations of race and diaspora in the anthems of the UNIA and NAACP

Abstract

The development of large-scale black protest organizations in the early decades of the twentieth century precipitated an unparalleled amount of communication and exchange between African descended populations. This paper argues the centrality of black organization anthems to the enterprise of black diaspora formation and solidarity. Through the composition and ritualization of their anthems, black organizations defined and announced an agenda for their membership, who similarly constructed their identities through the performance of the song. Anthems were central to the efforts to solidify and mobilize these organizations yet they also contained important contests that highlighted the differences in access and experience amongst the membership. The anthems of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) are central to an examination of these complicated processes. The organizations’ sonic histories are highlighted here in order to trace the creations of modern, black citizenship.     

Media,citizenship and the politics of belonging in contemporary South Africa

Abstract

Drawing on a wide range of theoretical and empirical studies, the articles in this special issue examine issues of citizenship and belonging in South Africa. Questions of belonging and citizenship are neither novel, nor particular to South Africa – they have been high on the intellectual (and popular) agenda internationally since at least the early 1990s. Yet South Africa's history of artificially separating and defining its citizens in the racial regimes of colonialism and apartheid still reverberates today, as is reflected in the continued inequalities marring South African society. Post-apartheid governance of redress still requires the use of apartheid categories of ‘race’, but the terms under which we understand what it means to be South African are much wider, and require continued critical reflection. Using South Africa (and not the global North, as is so often the case) as the focal point for rethinking notions of citizenship and belonging, may urge us to rethink these notions and their meanings within fledgling democracies and societies in transition.     

The liberal character of ethological governance

This paper examines the liberal government of ‘character’ from the perspective offered by those practices, strategies and techniques I term ‘ethological governance’. Ethological governance is neither an ideology nor a tradition of thought, but denotes an orientation to human conduct that is organized by an explicit concern with character and its formation. The paper argues that ethological governance, especially in its Anglo-American strain, subscribes to a developmental notion of human conduct (i.e. character) and serves as a standard for liberal government by judging the responsible exercise of freedom. To this end, the paper examines how ethological governance establishes a context of government that harnesses character as a tool for social and political transformation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by (1) explaining how character establishes a normative scale against which the capacity for individuals to practise their freedom is measured and (2) offering a symptomatic reading of those aspects of John Stuart Mill's work that deal with ethology in order to show how character indexes the judicious limits of government and serves as a basic test of citizenly competence.