Democracy

Democracy & the Second Amendment

by Karl Rogers

Amazon Digital Services

Arquitectos proyectistas y transición democrática. El concurso ´20 ideas para Buenos Aires´.

by Guillermo Jajamovich

Published in Anales del Instituto de Arte Americano, nro 41, 2012, pp. 203-212.

El artículo analiza la expansión de las redes de arquitectos proyectistas que proponen intervenir en la ciudad a... more El artículo analiza la expansión de las redes de arquitectos proyectistas que proponen intervenir en la ciudad a partir de proyectos puntuales y fragmentarios. En un marco de disputas entre técnicos y proyectistas, se interrogan los factores que favorecen la expansión de estos últimos, como ser: su sintonía con aspectos clave del contexto político y económico, sus conexiones políticas y el uso de intercambios con pares españoles. Así, en un contexto de transición democrática y crisis económica, se analiza el concurso “20 ideas para Buenos Aires” (1986), organizado entre la Municipalidad de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires y la Comunidad de Madrid. Esta iniciativa es abordada en tanto indica la expansión de arquitectos proyectistas que cuentan con trayectorias y un saber hacer vinculado a la práctica profesional privada y a la enseñanza de la arquitectura.

Review - David N. Gellner (ed.), Varieties of Activist Experience: Civil Society in South Asia (New Delhi, 2010) and Ethnic Activism and Civil Society in South Asia (New Delhi, 2009)

by Uday Chandra

Forthcoming in Social Movement Studies 12 (1), 2013

Exploring the Democratic Potential of Online Social Networking: The Scope and Limitations of e-Participation

by Panos Panagiotopoulos

In Communications of the Association for Information Systems 30 (16), 2012

Access to the article is without charge following the link below to aisnet.org

The availability and promise of social networking technologies with their perceived open philosophy has increasingly... more The availability and promise of social networking technologies with their perceived open philosophy has increasingly inspired citizens around the world to participate in political activity on the Web. Recent examples range from opposing public policies, such as government funding cuts, to organizing revolutionary social movements, such as those in the Middle East and North Africa. Although online spaces create remarkable opportunities for various forms of political action, there are concerns over the power of existing institutions to control and even censor such interaction spaces. The objective of this article is to draw together different insights on the online engagement phenomenon, highlighting both its potential and limitations as a mechanism for fostering democratic debate and influencing policy making. We examine recent examples from Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. Finally, we summarize the implications of our work and outline directions for further research.

Review - Paul Brass, An Indian Political Life: Charan Singh and Congress Politics, 1937 to 1961 (New Delhi, 2011)

by Uday Chandra

Forthcoming in Contemporary South Asia 22 (3), 2012

Supranational citizenship and democracy: normative and empirical dimensions

by Carlos Closa

in La Torre, Massimo (ed.) (1998) European citizenship; an institutional challenge(Dordrecht: Kluwer Law) pages 415-433

‘The Spill-over and Displacement Effects of Implementing Election Administration Reforms: Introducing Individual Electoral Registration in Britain'

by Toby James

forthcoming in Parliamentary Affairs

The UK government intends to replace household electoral registration with individual electoral registration. ... more The UK government intends to replace household electoral registration with individual electoral registration.  This article assesses the likely effects of the reform using an innovative methodology.  A thematic analysis of extensive qualitative interviews with local election officials, conceived as ‘street level bureaucrats’ responsible for implementing elections, was undertaken.  Their local knowledge provides evidence that individual electoral registration might improve the security of the registration process.  However, it is likely to lead to a considerable decline in levels of electoral registration
which might be highest amongst the young, elderly and minority populations; is a more resource intensive method of compiling the electoral register; will pose new issues with data and technology for election officials; and, is likely to have a number of further ‘spill over’ effects on other aspects of election administration, such as the cutting of other services.  The article encourages further research using the local knowledge of street-level bureaucrats to examine the ‘back-office’ effects of election administration reforms since they may further our understanding of the complexities and unintended consequences of institutional reforms which might be overlooked in quantitative studies. 

‘Consequences of Freedom: The Case of Nicias and Socrates’

by Bogdan Burliga

[in:] Freedom and Its Limits in the Ancient World [Electrum 9], eds. D. Brodka, J. Janik and S. Sprawski, Cracow 2003, pp. 21-36

Horizontal Democracy Now: From Alterglobalization to Occupation

by Marianne Maeckelbergh

Interface: a journal for and about social movements 4(1)

This article examines the 15 May movement in Barcelona to explore some continuities and discontinuities between social... more This article examines the 15 May movement in Barcelona to explore some continuities and discontinuities between social movement responses to the economic crisis and previous experiments with horizontal democracy within global social movement networks. Specifically, this article examines two meeting structures embodied in the occupied square in Barcelona to explore the mechanisms through which decision making within the 15 May movement foster diversity and embrace conflict. Based on a decade of involvement in the alterglobalization movement, attendance at meetings in the acampada in Barcelona at the height of the 15 May uprising, as well as follow up interviews and discussions with long-time activists in Barcelona, this article shows how the decision making practices used in the squares in Barcelona mimic, build on and expand on horizontal decision-making methods practiced within the alterglobalization movement. Some of the dilemmas created by the grounding of horizontal decision- making within local squares and the much larger scale of these meetings are explored.

Demotic Democracy and Its Depravities in North India, in the Ethnographic Longue Durée

by Anastasia Piliavsky

Submitted to American Ethnologist for review. WORK IN PROGRESS: PLEASE DO NOT CITE WITHOUT PERMISSION, BUT PLEASE COMMENT! (an379@cam.ac.uk)

This paper is concerned with the paradoxical symbiosis of patronage and democracy in North India. Drawing on an... more This paper is concerned with the paradoxical symbiosis of patronage and democracy in North India. Drawing on an ethnographic account of State Assembly elections in a town in rural Rajasthan (North India) and on older ethnographic accounts, I argue that democratic governance in North India today is substantially articulated in the demotic idiom of donor-servant relatedness, conventionally known as “patronage.” This old and widespread relational formula has a moral logic of its own, which shapes politicians’ styles, political preferences and participation and, overall, gives vernacular form to the relationship between the government and “the people”

Port Huron at Fifty: The New Left and Labor: An Interview with Kim Moody

by Christopher Phelps

Published in Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas, Volume 9, Issue 2 (summer 2012): 25-46.

This interview with Kim Moody, who was present at the Port Huron convention of 1962 as a twenty-two-year-old Johns... more This interview with Kim Moody, who was present at the Port Huron convention of 1962 as a twenty-two-year-old Johns Hopkins University student, illuminates the early history of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), especially the neglected labor-related portions of The Port Huron Statement, one of the most influential manifestos of the sixties radicalization. In a wide-ranging discussion on labor and the New Left, Moody explains the different views of labor represented at Port Huron, appraises individual thinkers such as Tom Hayden and C. Wright Mills, and explores topics such as the meaning of participatory democracy, the politics of labor in the 1960s, class relations in the civil rights movement, the SDS economic and research action projects, and the general relationship between organized labor and the New Left.

Territorial Democracy: Caste, Dominance and Electoral Practice in Postcolonial India

by Jeffrey Witsoe

Individualization and Political Trust in The Netherlands What role do value orientations play?

by Bengü Hosch-Dayican

Chapter prepared for the book project “Democratic Audit in The Netherlands”

Published in Dutch in “De democratie doorgelicht: evaluatie van het Nederlandse democratische bestel“ (The Democratic Audit: Evaluation of the democratic system of The Netherlands), edited by Rudy Andeweg and Jacques Thomassen, Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2011, pp. 45-63

Iglesia y comunidad nacional: Estrategias institucionales entre la dictadura y la democracia

by Juan Eduardo Bonnin

Sociedad y Religión, XVIII (24-25), 77-92, 2005.

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar las representaciones construidas por el documento Iglesia y comunidad nacional... more El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar las representaciones construidas por el documento Iglesia y comunidad nacional (1981) respecto de la represión ilegal protagonizada por el gobierno de facto entre 1976 y 1981 y la función que estas representaciones tuvieron para el diseño de una estrategia institucional durante la década de 1980. Para esto hemos dividido el trabajo en tres secciones: la primera contiene una serie de definiciones y problemas propios del análisis del discurso que resultan metodológicamente necesarios para sostener nuestra hipótesis; la segunda sección consiste en un análisis histórico y discursivo del magisterio de la Iglesia argentina respecto del problema de los derechos humanos antes de la publicación de Iglesia y comunidad nacional y el análisis de este documento; finalmente, presentamos las conclusiones de nuestro análisis.

Petkovska, S. "Democracy and politics of difference: Through the prism of current situation" (2011)

by Sanja Petkovska

Philosophy and Society, 22 (3), 95–119, 2011. Language: Serbian. Abstract: English.

"Democracia y representación"

by Ana Marta González

Persona y Derecho: Revista de fundamentación de las Instituciones Jurídicas y de Derechos Humanos, vol. 52, pp. 237-265, 2005. ISSN 0211-4526

"Democracia y representación"

by Ana Marta González

Persona y Derecho: Revista de fundamentación de las Instituciones Jurídicas y de Derechos Humanos, vol. 52, pp. 237-265, 2005. ISSN 0211-4526

Discurso y praxis contra el fraude: consideraciones sobre la política reformista de Roberto M. Ortiz (1938-1940)

by Ignacio López

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la estrategia política del presidente Roberto M. Ortiz durante el período en... more El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la estrategia política del presidente Roberto M. Ortiz durante el período en actividad (1938-1940) para combatir el fraude electoral y normalizar las prácticas electorales e institucionalidad democrática de la Argentina de fines de los años treinta.
Se presume que el presidente orientó su proyecto político de una manera aperturista y de diálogo sincero con la Unión Cívica Radical (UCR). Para ello promovió dos estrategias claras: lograr el apoyo de los sectores liberales del Ejército, e intervenir las provincias con prácticas fraudulentas.
Su política contra el fraude provocó una situación inédita de erosión de la coalición de partidos oficialistas, base de sustentación del Poder Ejecutivo. Sin apoyo partidario, Ortiz quedó aislado y en clara confrontación con el Senado, dominado por grupos conservadores.

Equality and the Rule of Law in Classical Athens

by Paul Gowder

In this paper, I defend three claims.

First, contra some classicists and legal historians, classical... more In this paper, I defend three claims.

First, contra some classicists and legal historians, classical Athens during the democratic period substantially satisfied the demands of the rule of law (excepting its treatment of women, noncitizens, and slaves). I show that arguments to the contrary mostly represent an unduly narrow conception of what might count as law in Athens, one that inappropriately excludes common-knowledge social customs.

Second, Athenians saw the rule of law as serving the equality of mass and elite, oligarchs and democrats: there was no contradiction (again contra some classicists) between the democratic power of the masses and the rule of law. This equality consisted in two topoi frequently deployed in the Athenian legal and social discourse. First is the respect topos, according to which the laws represent respect for the democratic polis. To disregard them is to reveal one's lack of respect for the polis and one’s oligarchic character. Second is the strength topos, according to which the laws are the way that the democratic polis exercises its power: weak members of the masses cannot stand up to strong members of the elite alone, they need the backing of the whole community, and that backing is coordinated through the law; to undermine the law is thereby to undermine the political power of the masses.

Third, this connection between equality and the rule of law explains the most striking fact about Athenian legality, to wit, the otherwise puzzling effectiveness of the amnesty enacted for crimes committed under the Thirty Tyrants. The strength topos explains why the democrats in Athens refrained from avenging themselves against the Thirty despite their opportunity to do so: by doing so, they would have undermined the law, and thereby their own equality. The strength topos led the Athenians to take the internal point of view on the law.

The account of the rule of law deployed in this paper is that developed in my Equality Under the (Rule of) Law, also available here. This paper serves the function, in part, of demonstrating the cross-cultural applicability of the conception of the rule of law developed in that paper.

Educating for human rights and global citizenship

by Lynette Shultz