Democratization

Die zeithistorische Studie beschäftigt sich mit Entwicklung und Wandel des Mitbestimmungsdiskurses in der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (MPG) von 1945 bis 1980. Hierbei stehen insbesondere die Sonderrolle der MPG als außeruniversitäre Forschungseinrichtung, ihre rechtlichen Rahmenbedingungen (Betriebsverfassungsgesetz) sowie gesellschaftspolitische Kontexte wie etwa die westdeutsche Studentenbewegung im Mittelpunkt, die eine Institutionalisierung und Formalisierung von Partizipationsforderungen erzeugten. Ein Spezifikum der MPG in diesem Prozess ist ihre Sonderstellung als Tendenzbetriebund privatrechtlicher Verein sowie die Autonomie der einzelnen Institute und ihrer Direktor*innen, die die Mitbestimmungsforderungen lange Zeit erfolgreich abwehren und dadurch einen gemäßigten Mittelweg im Unterschied zu paritätischen Beteiligungsmodellen an den Hochschulen oder in Wirtschaftsunternehmen einschlagen konnten. Daraus entstanden informelle wissenschaftliche Partizipationskulturen an den Max-Planck-Instituten wie auch eine institutionalisierte Mitberatung, nicht jedoch eine von vielen Wissenschaftler*innen und Betriebsratsmitgliedern geforderte erweiterte formalisierte Mitbestimmung in den zentralen Gremien der MPG.

Este trabajo es el resultado de la sesión que tuvo lugar en la Mesa 14: "Orden público, acción colectiva y violencia política en las democracias de entreguerras", del VI Encuentro Internacional de Jóvenes Investigadores en Historia Contemporánea, que se celebró en Zaragoza del 6 al 8 de septiembre de 2017. La referencia bibliográfica es la siguiente: Sergio Vaquero Martínez y Pilar Mera Costas, "Orden público, acción colectiva y violencia política en las democracias de entreguerras", en Sandra Blasco Lisa, Carlos Adán Gil y Alfonso Bermúdez Mombiela (eds.), Identidades en transición, Zaragoza, Universidad de Zaragoza, 2019, pp. 351-361.

İçinde bulunduğumuz yüzyılda, gerek devletlerin ve uluslararası örgütlerin gerekse sivil toplum örgütlerinin demokrasiye ve demokratik değerlere verdikleri önem tartışılmazdır. Artık vatandaşlar, kendi seslerini daha çok duyurabilmekte, yönetsel ve siyasal hayata daha aktif bir şekilde katılabilmektedir. Çağdaş bir demokratik düzene ulaşmanın yolu şüphesiz ki, siyasi hayata hukukun üstünlüğünün egemen olmasından ve düzenli aralıklarla yapılan seçimlerle, seçmenlerin iradesinin devlet yönetimine yansımasından geçmektedir. Ülkelerin demokratiklik seviyeleri onlar için bir prestij meselesi olmakta, demokrasilerinin kalitelerini dünyaya duyurma uluslararası sistemde o ülkeleri öne çıkarmaktadır. Bu kalitenin ölçümü ve değerlendirilmesinde ise siyaset bilimciler tarafından çeşitli kriterlere göre yapılan puanlamalar ve değerlendirmeler kullanılmaktadır. Bunun sayesinde ülkeler karşılaştırmalı olarak değerlendirilebilir. Yapılan bu karşılaştırmalı analizler arasında dikkat çekenlerden biri de Lijphart'ın yapmış olduğu analizdir. Çalışmada demokrasi konusunda önemli eserlere imza atan siyaset bilimcilerden Arend Lijphart'ın, dünyaca ünlü "Demokrasi Modelleri Otuz Altı Ülkede Yönetim Biçimleri ve Performansları" adlı kitabını yazarken kullandığı kriterler üzerinden hareket edilerek, Türkiye özelinde bir değerlendirme yapılmıştır.
Abstract The importance attached to democracy and democratic values by either the governments and international organizations or the non-governmental organizations is indisputable in this century. The citizens make their voices heard, and they may participate in the governmental and political life more actively. The way to reach a contemporary democratic order is related to the domination of law on political life and the reflection of the will of the voters to the state government. The extent of democratization is a matter of prestige for countries, and the international system of promoting the quality of their democracies to the world highlights these countries. In the measurement and evaluation of this quality, political scientists use certain criteria for the scoring and evaluations, by which countries can be evaluated comparatively.

В последние годы исследователи анализируют влияние интернета и социальных медиа на политический процесс, демократизацию и протестные движения в различных странах. «Арабская весна», протесты в странах Южной Европы, движение Occupy Wall Street, выступления в Турции заставили многих исследователей переосмыслить свои прошлые оценки и прогнозы.

Trent'anni fa sbocciò una vera, autentica "Primavera democratica", più popolare e avanzata nelle sue richieste rispetto a molte che si sono consumate nell'Africa mediterranea di otto anni fa. Accadde in Cina, sotto il regime comunista a partito unico della Repubblica Popolare Cinese.

This article revisits prevailing ideas about the legitimation of monarchical rule through the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) by emphasizing the neo-traditional rule of the GCC regimes. It assumes that legitimacy claims often cross the local, national and (sub-)regional level and analyzes them from a critical historical perspective and against the background of a global capitalist order. I show that the history of the sub-regional organization is wedded to legitimacy claims, referring to a common Gulf identity and good economic performance for the benefit of the members’ citizens. However, I focus on what  often is marginalized in scholarly analyses: The common normalization of highly segregated labor markets on which the neo-traditional regimes depend. In effect, I criticize not only the international failures to oppose the GCC’s common repression of democratic revolt (2011). I also depict a bias in many scholarly analyses of autocratic legitimacy, as they neglect citizen-foreigner gaps. Finally, I argue that geo-political and elite competition, as evident in the tensions between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, does not prepare the unrevisable end of the GCC as we know it. Only substantive democratization could do so.

This article historicises the nature of political transition in Myanmar to better appreciate the challenges faced by civil society. After Myanmar’s political reforms in 2011, Western donors rushed into the country in support of what they misunderstood as a remarkable instance of democratisation. In 2019, escalating civil war, ethnic cleansing, and contracting civil liberties urge a rethink. This article argues that viewing transition in Myanmar through the lens of democratisation has always been misleading and problematic. Partial liberalisation was orchestrated by the military to safeguard its own power. Reforms have not only benefited civil society but also enabled the growth of uncivil society, fuelling sectarian violence and bolstering military rule. Operating on the assumption of democratisation, Western donors shifted funds from grass-roots networks to militarised state bureaucracies that seek to co-opt peace-building and development projects for the purposes of ethnocratic state-building and counterinsurgency. Rethinking the nature of transition is pivotal for preventing inadvertently aiding authoritarianism and conflict.

Call for Papers
7th Euroacademia International Conference
Re-Inventing Eastern Europe
30 Years from the Revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe

13 – 14 December 2019
School of International Relations and Diplomacy, Anglo-American University, Prague, Czech Republic

Deadline for Paper Proposals: 1 November 2019

Conference Description:

The 7th Euroacademia International Conference ‘Re-Inventing Eastern Europe’ aims to make a case and to provide alternative views on the dynamics, persistence and manifestations of practices of alterity making that take place in Europe and broadly in the mental mappings of the world. It offers an opportunity for scholars, activists and practitioners to identify, discuss, and debate the multiple dimensions in which specific narratives of alterity making towards Eastern Europe preserve their salience today in re-furbished and re-fashioned manners. The conference aims to look at the processes of alterity making as puzzles and to address the persistence of the East-West dichotomies.

Not a long time ago, in 2010, a British lady was considered bigoted by Gordon Brown upon asking ‘Where do all these Eastern Europeans come from?’. Maybe, despite her concern with the dangers of immigration for Britain, the lady was right in showing that such a question still awaits for answers in Europe. The ironic thing however is that a first answer to such a question would point to the fact that the Eastern Europeans come from the Western European imaginary. As Iver Neumann puts it, ‘regions are invented by political actors as a political programme, they are not simply waiting to be discovered’. And, as Larry Wolff skillfully showed, Eastern Europe is an invention emanated initially from the intellectual agendas of the elites of the Enlightenment that later found its peak of imaginary separation during the Cold War.
The Economist, explicitly considered Eastern Europe to be wrongly labeled and elaborated that ‘it was never a very coherent idea and it is becoming a damaging one’. The EU enlargement however, was expected to make the East – West division obsolete under the veil of a prophesied convergence. That would have finally proven the non-ontologic, historically contingent and unhappy nature of the division of Europe and remind Europeans of the wider size of their continent and the inclusive and empowering nature of their values. Yet still, 30 years after the revolutions in the Central and Eastern European countries, Leon Mark, while arguing that the category of Eastern Europe is outdated and misleading, bitterly asks a still relevant question: ‘will Europe ever give up the need to have an East?’
Eastern Europe was invented as a region and continues to be re-invented from outside and inside. From outside its invention was connected with alterity making processes, and, from inside the region, the Central and Eastern European countries got into a civilizational beauty contest themselves in search of drawing the most western profile: what’s Central Europe, what’s more Eastern, what’s more Ottoman, Balkan, Byzantine, who is the actual kidnapped kid of the West, who can build better credentials by pushing the Easterness to the next border. A wide variety of scholars addressed the western narratives of making the Eastern European other as an outcome of cultural politics of enlightenment, as an effect of EU’s need to delineate its borders, as an outcome of its views on security , or as a type of ‘orientalism’ or post-colonialism. Most of these types of approaches are still useful in analyzing the persistence of an East-West slope. The region is understood now under a process of convergence, socialization and Europeanization that will have as outcomes an ‘ever closer union’ where the East and the West will fade away as categories. Yet the reality is far from such an outcome while the persistence of categories of alterity making towards the ‘East’ is not always dismantled. The discourse on core-periphery, new Europe/old Europe is rather gaining increasing ground in the arena of European identity narratives often voiced by the EU. The conference aims to address globally or through case studies the diversity and change within the CEE region 30 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

The conference is organized yet by no means restricted to the following topics:
- The Agenda of the Enlightenment: Inventing Eastern Europe
- Thinking Eastern Europe: Contributions to Understanding an Invented Region
- Europe East and West: On the Persistence of the Division
- Reviewing Alternative Modernities: East and West
- Europe and the Inclusive/Exclusive Nexus
- Mental Mappings on Eastern Europe
- People-ing the Eastern Europeans
- Geopolitical Views on the East-West Division
- Post-colonial readings of Eastern Europe
- Making Borders to the East: Genealogies of Othering
- Europe as Seen from its East
- Myths and Misconceptions on Eastern Europe
- Social Causes and the Pursuit of Social Beliefs in Central and Eastern Europe
- Protest and Social Change in Central and Eastern Europe
- Central Europe vs. Eastern Europe
- Reading the Past: On Memory and Memorialization
- The Eastern European ‘Other’ Inside the European Union
- Core Europe/Non-Core Europe
- European Values and the Process of Europeanization of Eastern Europe as Pedagogy
- Assessing Convergence in Eastern Europe
- Explaining Divergence and Diversity in Eastern Europe
- Central and Eastern Europe and the EU
- Scenarios for the Future of Eastern Europe
- Debating the End of European Solidarity
- Eastern Europe and Asymmetries of Europeanization
- Re-making Eastern Europe: Pushing the Easterness to the Next Border
- From the Ottoman Empire to Russia: Cultural Categories in the Making of Eastern Europe
- Go West! Migration from Eastern Europe and Experiences of ‘Othering’
- Explaining the Growth of Far Right Movements and Populist Parties in Eastern Europe
- Lifestyles and the Quotidian Peculiarities of the Invented East
- Europe and the Logic of Growth through Austerity: The Impact on Eastern Europe of the Crises
- Visual Representation of Eastern Europe in Film: From Dracula to Barbarian Kings
- Guidebooks for the Savage Lands: Representations of Eastern Europe in Travel Guides
- Urban Landscapes in Eastern Europe
- Religion and Politics in Eastern Europe
- European Narratives of the Past: The Mnemonic/Amnesic Nexuses
- Eastern European Literature and Authors
- Changing Politics and the Transformation of Cities in Eastern Europe
- Eastern Europe and Artistic Movements
- Writing about the East in West
- Writing about the West in East
- The Eastern European ‘Other’ Inside the European Union
- The Formation of European Subaltern Identities
- Europe and Russia
- European Diplomacy and Consensus in Foreign Policy: What Role for Eastern Europe?
- Feminist & Queer Readings of Contemporary Eastern Europe
- Gender Politics in CEE
- Illiberal States – From Negative Determinants to a Self-Affirming Ideology and State Positioning
- Anti-Immigration, Nationalism and Far Right Parties in Central and Eastern Europe
- Migration Routes and New Walls in CEE
- Assessing the Quality of Democracy and Convergence in the Region

DEADLINE FOR 300 WORDS ABSTRACTS SUBMISSION IS 1ST OF NOVEMBER 2019

For on-line application and complete information on the event, please see:
http://euroacademia.eu/conference/7th-reinventing-eastern-europe/

The 300 words titled abstract and details of affiliation can also be sent to application@euroacademia.org with the name of the conference specified in the subject line. We will acknowledge the receipt of all proposals. In case you received no confirmation in one day after applying on-line, please re-send your abstract by e-mail as well.

This event aims to innovatively question how musical practices formed ways of imagining democracy in the democratic transitions that took place after Portugal's 'Carnation Revolution' in 1974-what Huntington (1991) called the 'third wave' of democratisation, which involves more than 60 countries throughout Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Rather than studying music's diverse deployments within these political contexts (music 'in' transitions to democracy), these study days place the emphasis upon ways in which music embodies democratisation processes and participates in the wider social struggle to define freedom and equality for the post-authoritarian era (hence the 'and' in the title of the event).

In the investigation, the domestic sources of foreign policy analytical framework were used to analyze the dynamics of elites in foreign policy making. After analyses of the results of mostly personal interviews and historical materials, it was determined that political elites do matter in foreign policy making. However, the elite group that mattered most was still the bureaucratic elite. The non-governing political elites were influential in foreign policy making during the formulation stage but not in the implementation stage. This finding was surprising and was contrary to what has been at the onset embraced by conventional wisdom among policy analysts and policy makers in the analysis of foreign policy in democratizing countries. With democratization, it was thought at the outset that the non-governmental political elites such as Parliament, members of the civil society such as religious, academia, and media, and the military both each as a group and collectively as being not in executive power play a significant role in influencing foreign policy. Moreover, it was found that nationalist ideology, though adapted to the contemporary situation, is embraced by everyone else except by the decision makers when making foreign policy decisions. Decision makers continue to embrace 'realpolitik' as the basis upon which to decide on foreign policy. However, ideology was instrumental during the formulation phase of foreign policy making for the four political elite groups under study.