Political and ideological aspects in the measurement of democracy: the Freedom House case

While several studies have dealt with methodological aspects of measuring democracy, little attention has been devoted to the political and ideological issues that affect the construction and structure of these measuring instruments. The aim of this study is twofold: in analysing the cultural and economic dimensions of the Freedom House (FH) organization, it seeks to delineate the political background of FH, thus underlining its neoconservative bias. Secondly, by focusing on the changes over time in the checklists used by FH to measure democracy, this study aims to analyse to what extent these changes are ideologically driven, in particular, to what are they linked to the neoliberal paradigm. Indeed, the hypothesis is that the construction of FH's scales has been affected by the neoliberal climate in which they were conceived. In the first part, the work reconstructs the academic debate about FH's scales and the historical and political context which brought to the affirmation of neoliberal democracy. It also provides a discussion regarding the importance of measurement as a political tool. In the second part, the study provides an analysis of FH through the reconstruction of its political-ideological profile, beginning with the formation of FH to its current internal culture. The third part provides an analysis of the checklists used by FH for measuring democracy. Our findings show that because of the changes in methodology and the strict interconnection between methodological and political aspects, FH data do not offer an unbroken and politically neutral time series, such that their use for cross-time analyses both for research and policy is questionable.     

Religion in the Workplace: Eweida and Others v United Kingdom

The European Court of Human Rights judgment in Eweida and Others v United Kingdom dealt with the increasingly controversial questions of religious symbols at work and the clash between free conscience and anti‐discrimination norms. In a change of approach, it held that the right to resign could no longer be seen as adequate protection for religious freedom and that workplace norms that restrict religious liberty must satisfy a proportionality test. However, it accorded a wide margin of appreciation to States in reconciling freedom of conscience and freedom from discrimination, ruling that the importance of non‐discrimination could justify a failure to exempt a religious individual from complying with a policy forbidding discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.     

Australia's National Broadband Network – A cybersecure critical infrastructure?

In 2009 the Australian National Broadband Network (NBN) began to be rolled out across Australia. The Australian NBN is the largest infrastructure project in Australia's history since the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme from 1949 to 1972 and it has a projected cost of between AU$37 billion and AU$43 billion. Its purposes are to provide high speed broadband connectivity to 93% of Australia's homes and businesses, to enhance productivity, to improve the delivery of education, tele-medicine and regional connectivity and to form the basis of the Australian telecommunications network for the 21st Century. However, the project does not have bi-partisan support and has been affected by high-level management changes and anticipated cost over-runs.     

马克思法律自由观对构建我国和谐社会的启示

马克思认为社会制度的评判标准在于是否实现人的自由,而其中法律作为规范人类行为的主要手段,应该反映当代经济关系并以经济发展作为改革的动力,最终保障人类实现自由。这一观点对于我国在法治前提下构建和谐社会具有重大的指导意义。马克思对法律自由价值的阐释实际上与和谐价值是互相依存、内在统一的。在这两种价值统一的前提下,我们应当建立正确的法律观,认识到法律应具有追求自由的价值,应当符合客观规律并将法治的完善看作一个历史过程,最终通过实现个人的自由以达到整体和谐。