Absence Of Democracy Research Articles

Understanding and Addressing Student Radicalization: Lessons from Bangladesh and the World

Globally, student radicalization has become an increasingly common phenomenon. More than any other age group, students and young people are at risk of radicalization with adverse ideologies. This study employs a secondary approach of obtaining data and focuses specifically on the risk factors associated to student radicalization. Religious terrorist groups primarily recruit young people and students into their networks. The ideological viewpoint, misinterpretation of sacred religious narratives, poverty, unemployment, intolerance for western culture, political instability, the absence of democracy, social and economic injustice, etc. are some of main risk factors that contribute to student radicalization. Educated youths are brainwashed and offered membership in terrorist groups in order get benefits such as eternal peace in heaven after death. This results in breakdowns in educational institutions, threats to security, and a decline in social unity. Furthermore, it may be beneficial in such circumstances to prevent students from getting radicalized rather than to punish the radicals. A multi-disciplinary, comprehensive approach with the participation of all stakeholders can be effective in detecting and preventing the root of student radicalization.

Environmental information disclosure and public choice decisions for urban river restoration: A comparative study between Brussels (Belgium) and Guangzhou (China)

Worldwide environmental information disclosure (EID) has been widely promoted as a policy approach to establish transparent governments, enhance public environmental awareness, and foster participatory environmental governance. While information disclosure and transparency are inherently incentivised within democratic regimes, how and through what pathways an increased flow of environmental information in the absence of democracy could lead to favourable public support for environmental/ecological projects remain under-investigated. Particularly, there exists very limited literature which compares how EID is associated with public environmental choices between different sociopolitical contexts. Taking Brussels (Belgium) and Guangzhou (China) as a comparative case, this study examines the association between citizens' perceived trustworthiness of various environmental information sources and their choice decisions regarding urban river restoration initiatives in contrasting socialpolitical contexts. Latent class modelling of two paralleled discrete choice experiments unveils a consistent classification of three distinctive groups for each city and also the combined sample, including Enthusiastic Supporters (Class 1, who are cost-insensitive and supportive of all proposed changes), Pragmatic Supporters (Class 2, who are cost-sensitive, prefer some changes they favour), and Non-Supporters (Class 3, who are unwilling to support the proposed initiatives). Incorporating respondents' trustworthiness in information sources as covariates in class membership likelihood function, respondents' membership is found to be associated solely with the most trusted information source, i.e., social contacts in Guangzhou, third parties in Brussels, and social contacts for the whole sample. Holding trust toward the most-trusted information source can increase the probability of being a member of Class 1, otherwise, more likely being a member of Class 3. Taken together with the insignificance of the variable denoting a respondent's city in explaining class membership, this study reveals that the variations in the EID levels (matured vs. emerging) and sociopolitical contexts (democratic vs. non-democratic) cannot significantly shape citizens' environmental decisions. Instead, it is respondents' perceived trustworthiness of information outlets that plays a positive role in their supportive decisions. These analytical results offer new insights about the role of EID in environmental governance and call for instilling institutional trust in China and relational trust in Belgium for facilitating effective communication and pro-environmental behaviours across the whole community.

Review: Knowledge, Ideology, and Civilization: An Attempt at Understanding History (Arabic Edition), by Ali Jarbawi

Review: <i>Knowledge, Ideology, and Civilization: An Attempt at Understanding History (Arabic Edition)</i>, by Ali Jarbawi

An Early Warning System for Currency Crises in Emerging Countries

In this study we develop an early warning system (EWS) to forecast currency crises in emerging countries in Asia and Latin America, using logit regression on monthly data from 1992 to 2011. We found that macroeconomic and institutional variables are valuable indicators for forecasting crises. Our results show that a low level of export growth, current account surplus/GDP, GDP growth, a high level of real exchange rate growth, import growth, and short-term debt/reserves can explain the advent of a possible currency crisis. We found that a poor law and order scenario and high external conflict can lead to a currency crisis. Additional findings include high government stability and the absence of internal conflict, which contribute to an absence of democracy, ultimately leading to a currency crisis. The policy-makers can consider taking the effective pre-emptive actions to prevent the currency crises occurring in the future.

The Relationship Between Good Governance and Economic Development In Arab Countries: A Cross Country Perspective

The concept of good governance has grown in prominence over the last several years. Reform and good governance projects have proliferated, with the United States spearheading various programs to bring about substantial political change in the Middle East. Due to the absence of democracy, restrictions on civil liberties, and the lack of fair elections, independent institutions, and transparency in many nations, this transformation has become necessary for all Arab countries. The article discusses the notion of good governance and patterns in development in Arab countries from the late twentieth century to the present. Additionally, it seeks to examine the link between good governance and economic development. The findings reveal a clear correlation between the form of government institutions and the potential for growth in Arab states. Improved governance and a move toward democracy broaden such countries' growth prospects

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in the Formation of War-torn Bangladesh

The main consciousness of the Pakistan movement was the economy. At least in the case of Bengal, it was truer. At one stage the religion movement became stronger when it was associated with religion. In the context of which Pakistan was established with the sacrifice and support of the people of Bengal. But the continued absence of democracy and constitutional rule in Pakistan complicates the situation. The people of Bengal joined the movement under the leadership of Bangabandhu to change the situation. Forced to do so, the Pakistani authorities held the first general election in 1970. In the election, the popular political party of Bengalis, Awami League, won a single majority. Even after the Awami League gained a single majority, the Pakistani authorities did not hand over-power. As a result, Bangabandhu declared the independence of Bangladesh. Bangladesh gained independence after a long nine-month war. At the end of the war, Bangabandhu took over the responsibility of the head of state and devoted himself to the formation of the country. In the present article, Bangabandhu's various steps in the formation of war-torn Bangladesh have been explored.

Globalization: A missed opportunity

One of the paradoxical reasons for the 2008 financial crash was that the competition between the Western and Eastern blocs was played out and won not militarily but rather on the grounds of economic efficiency. Because the primacy of the West had been established by economics and not armaments, not only did the West forgo the construction of a new global governance, but it also failed to reinforce the existing one, which might have avoided the risks of unbridled capitalism. The 20-year period between 1989 and 2008 highlighted a radicalization of the capitalist model on which developed Western societies were based, together with a distorted conception of the corporation. The relationship between democracy and free market is asymmetrical: democracy cannot survive without a free market, while the free market functions even in the absence of democracy. In fact, one of the reasons why several Italian banks such as Intesa Sanpaolo were less affected by the 2008 crisis than other institutions around the world was precisely that they relied less on financial risk than on credit. However, the West seems to have now lost the capacity of vision that the United States and the founding fathers of the European Union demonstrated at the end of the Second World War. Must the West, therefore, resign itself to a marginal role in world affairs, or does it still have a chance to regain an influential role in a fairer and more solidarity-orientated global order?

The Unfolding of Belonging, Exclusion and Exile: A Reflection on the History of Rohingya Refugee Crisis in Southeast Asia

The current Rohingya refugee crisis in Southeast Asia, which has become a ubiquitous topic at the global level, requires reflection on the multifaceted history of ethnicity, identity and growing nationalism in Myanmar. This paper looks at the complex interplay of colonial history, ethnic conflicts, absence of democracy and the subsequent political erasure of the Rohingya community from Burmese history, which shaped and aggravated the current crisis. It argues that while the British colonial rule was instrumental in shaping the troubled ethnic history of Myanmar, the political developments in post-colonial Myanmar equally contributed to such debate. In independent Myanmar, the militarisation of the country, economic challenges, the rise of political Buddhism and eventually, the new global post 9/11 order where Muslims have become the fearsome other, all led to a situation where the Rohingya community is engaged in a daily struggle to survive and sustain itself in Myanmar.

الأدب المهجري الجديد_ تجلياته ومقوماته عند الكاتبين الكورديين سليم بركات وزهدي الداوودي

New Moral Literature Its manifestations and elements of the Kurdish writers Salim Barakat and ZuhdiDaoudi If the Diaspora and discredited literature in the early 20th century are American, and essentially Lebanese, the new diaspora is European and Iraqi - Syrian. The tyranny and the absence of democracy and freedoms in the Arab countries, especially in these two countries (Iraq and Syria), have led to the emigration of many active thinkers, writers and pens abroad, especially to the countries of Western Europe since the 1980s. The Arab Spring to the displacement of a large number of Iraqi and Syrian intellectuals, including the Kurdish writers to the country of alienation, resulted in this new displacement, a new literary phenomenon can be called the literature of the new Diaspora, a literature is gradually becoming apparent, despite the short experience and short life of this Diaspora New. There were radical differences between the old and the new Diaspora, as the literature of the new Diaspora was largely limited to poetry, and the subjects related to feelings and feelings of humanity towards the bitterness of alienation, and the pain of alienation predominates on the products of the poets of the League and the Andalusian League in Latin America and South, , Is characterized by a great focus on the novel, and became the political issues relating to the reality of societies and tyranny and the search for a window to restore the citizen and human existence and status of the most prominent in the output of the writers of the new Diaspora, as well as dealing with ongoing wars, And the defense of peoples in their revolution against tyranny, and the question of terrorism, and most importantly, the researcher finds that the Kurdish issue has been strongly present in this literature, and became the geography of Kurdistan and its history, a pivot of the heads of their creative narratives.Salim Barakat is the author of many successful novels, including the Jurists of Darkness, the camps of eternity, feathers and delchad, and Zahedi al-Daoudi, who left us narrations such as: Paradise of the ghost village, time of escape, , (The longest year), (goodbye Nineveh), (a man everywhere), (the memory of an extinct city), and (wailing wolves). Jan Dost, who has been living in Germany for years, writes in Kurdish and Arabic, translates Kurdish texts into Arabic and translates Arabic into Kurdish. The most famous of his novels (Nukes of Rome), Mirenama, Mahabad and the homeland of fog, Martin Al-Saeed, and the blood of the minaret, he is like many Kurdish intellectuals who cast their fate to live in the diaspora . The most important Kurdish writers who wrote their works in Arabic, through which they expressed this new immigrant experience, and embodied the struggle of the Kurdish people. For the sake of freedom and justice in the Greater Kurdistan, as the products of these writers, the Kurds place a great place in contemporary Arabic literature. The nature of the texts and the perspective of the artistic research; the research is made up of two major topics: the manifestations of the new literature of the Diaspora and the foundations of the new abstract literature.

Effective? Locally owned? Beyond the technocratic perspective on the European Union Police Mission for the Palestinian Territories

ABSTRACTThe European Union Police Mission for the Palestinian Territories (EUPOL COPPS) was established in 2006 to contribute to the establishment of effective policing in support of an independent and democratic Palestinian state. EUPOL COPPS is often commended for its contribution to the professionalization of the Palestinian security sector under local ownership. Drawing on 40 interviews, we argue that the mission can be considered effective and locally owned only from a narrow technocratic perspective, which denies the political reality of continued occupation and absence of democracy. A broader analysis, which includes the voices of ordinary Palestinians, reveals that EUPOL COPPS contributed to the professionalization of authoritarian policing under continued Israeli occupation. Our findings show the limits of technocratic approaches to peacebuilding interventions and call for a stronger engagement with the ultimate beneficiaries of peacebuilding missions.

The Empirical Determinants of Corruption in Developing Countries

This paper investigates the main factors determining corruption in developing countries. It employs the fixed-effects estimation technique to data for several developing countries, pooled for the period 2004 to 2010. The empirical results revealed that the level of economic development, country size, natural resource exports, foreign direct investment, absence of democracy, and colonial legacy as the main correlates of corruption in the developing economies. Some policy implications are drawn.

Revisiting the human right to democracy: a positivist analysis

ABSTRACTIn this article I investigate from the perspective of legal positivism whether a human right to democracy exists. Based on the analysis of various universal and regional human rights treaties, I argue that such a right is indeed recognised under international law. The human right to democracy obliges states to let citizens take part in political decision-making and to conduct free elections, while it allows for a diversity of political systems executing these obligations. In response to the argument that the human right to democracy is far distant from political reality, I argue that while many states are governed by non-democratic regimes, they do not contest the validity of the democratic norm. Moreover, the human right to democracy can be instrumental in addressing flaws in democratic systems or the absence of democracy altogether. The article provides examples of how this works in practice by discussing the case law of various judicial and quasi-judicial human rights review bodies. I conclude by arguing that the human right to democracy as recognised by international law fits well within Benjamin Gregg’s normative framework of The Human Rights State (2016).

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and the South Sudan question: reconsidering moderation

This article examines the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (MB) movement's stand on the South Sudan question. The aim here is to contribute to the ongoing debate over the MB's moderation. Throughout the civil war in Sudan, the MB consistently objected to South Sudanese secession. Yet, while it had traditionally framed its objection in religious terms, describing the South Sudanese struggle as a Christian conspiracy against Islam, in the decade preceding South Sudan's declaration of independence it moved to base its opposition on more practical grounds, revolving around issues such the absence of democracy, stability and infrastructure in South Sudan. This correlated with wider shifts in the MB. Since the 1990s, the movement has claimed to have undergone a transformation, adopting a moderate, pro-democratic stance. These statements persuaded many scholars that the MB has come to represent political moderation in both its domestic and international agenda. More recent works on the movement, however, have come to question the MB's moderation hypothesis, suggesting that even though the movement has changed its discourse and some aspects of its activism, this could not be seen as a linear process of moderation. This article uses the South Sudan case to further support this critique from a foreign policy perspective. It demonstrates that even though the MB changed its tactics and discourse, its goals remained unchanged— even when the circumstances and the normative environment changed dramatically. Moreover, it shows that at times of crisis, the liberal discourse gave way to the old-fashioned radical discourse of previous decades.

Melville in the Dark Ages of Democracy

This essay argues that Melville’s late writings mark a turn in his thinking about democracy, but not in the direction that critics have often claimed. Rather than a deepening cynicism about revolutionary transformation or democratic political possibilities, Melville’s work, from Battle-Pieces and Clarel through Billy Budd , is instead animated by the paradox of democracy’s groundlessness. Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt and Jacques Ranciere, this essay tracks Melville’s engagement with the absence of a constituted people or polis through the aesthetic motifs of floods, storms, landslides, and earthquakes that appear throughout his late poetry and prose. Ultimately, it argues, one of the great achievements of Melville’s later work is the gravity with which he contends with the absence of democracy’s foundation in a presupposed territory, subject, or institution.

The Second Arab Awakening: Revolution, Democracy, and the Islamist Challenge from Tunis to Damascus

The Second Arab Awakening: Revolution, Democracy, and the Islamist Challenge from Tunis to Damascus

Exploring the relationship between infrastructural and coercive state capacity

State power is usually defined as a concept encompassing two components: one is the infrastructural and administrative aspect of power; the other is the despotic or coercive power of the state. Hence, states can be strong in two different ways. Several scholars have emphasized the importance of infrastructural state capacity for democratization, and some even go so far as to suggest that infrastructural state capacity is a necessary condition for democracy. A different branch of literature has argued that coercive state capacity has been effective in sustaining autocracy and thwarting democratization. Despite mounting evidence supporting the roles of infrastructural and coercive state capacity to explain the emergence or the absence of democracy in various countries, no study to date has systematically considered the connection between these two types of state capacity. This article proposes to fill this gap by examining the relationship between infrastructural and coercive state capacity drawing on various measurements used in the literature. The findings presented in this article lend support to the claim that the two aspects of state capacity, infrastructural and coercive, can be both positively and negatively related, depending on which aspect of coercive power is considered.

Democracy and Islamist Violence: Lessons from Post-Mubarak Egypt

This article explores the contentious relation between the absence of democracy in the Middle East and the use of armed violence by Islamist groups in light of the Arab Spring. Its main objective is to decipher the evolving positions of former and current groups who used or promoted violence and to relate them to broader academic debates on violence and democracy on the one hand, and deradicalization on the other. This research demonstrates that the large majority of former Islamist militants in Egypt reject any sort of violence in post-Mubarak Egypt, even if they have not all renounced their religious legitimization of violence in the past. Second, it reveals that even if they maintain a religious opposition to democracy in Egypt, the opening of political opportunities and their progressive joining of the political process has favorably led most of them to accept democratic practices in reality. Third, it adds that the voice of those currently promoting violence in Egypt has been marginalized and that their main alternative has been the promotion of armed violence in Syria; and last, it stresses two potential security threats unrelated to the opening of political opportunities in post-Mubarak Egypt and to the general debate on democracy and violence. First, local grievances in Sinai have led to violence in the past and are still to be dealt with. Second, the current political deadlock can potentially lead to localized and specific armed activities that could start a cycle of violence. This research is based on field research in Egypt and uses repeated interviews of leaders and members of the two main former militant groups, al-Jama῾ah al-Islamiyya (the Islamic Group) and Jama῾ al-Jihad (the Jihad Group) as well as interviews with militants of the salafi jihadi trend and their supporters in Cairo.

Governing religion: the long-term effects of sacred financing

Abstract:The absence of democracy in the Arab–Muslim world is a ‘striking anomaly’ for democratization scholars. This cannot be seen as caused by religion as such, as there are now several democratic Muslim-majority states. Popular explanations such as values, culture, economic development, natural resources, or colonial legacy have been refuted. Based on Ostrom's approach regarding local groups’ ability to establish institutions for ‘governing the commons’, we present a novel explanation for this puzzle, based on historical variations in institutions for financing religion. In Northwestern Europe, religion and secular services managed by local religious institutions have been financed ‘from below’, creating local systems for semi-democratic representation, transparency, and accountability. In the Arab–Muslim region, religion and local secular services have been financed ‘from above’, by private foundations lacking systems for representation and accountability. It is thus not religion, but how religion has been financed, that explains lacking successful democratization in the Arab–Muslim world.

Indicators of business environment, institutional quality and foreign direct investment in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries

This paper empirically investigates the effect of five business environment indicators and four measures of institutional quality on FDI inflows in GCC countries. The empirical results reveal that the time required to start a business, the time required to enforce a contract, the time required to register a property and the time required to resolve insolvency are negatively and statistically significantly correlated with FDI inflows. Our findings also confirm that political instability and absence of democracy, in fact, encourages FDI inflows. We conclude that the business environment strongly matters for FDI inflows into the GCC countries.

Examining Critical Junctures in Macroeconomic Policy in Nondemocratic States:Algeria andJordan in Comparative Perspective

AbstractThe article uses the critical junctures framework in examining changes in macroeconomic policy inAlgeria andJordan during the late 1980s to determine if these policy changes constituted critical junctures. Both cases are significantly different from those studied previously using the framework, as neither state was a liberal democracy. The absence of democracy, and as a consequence of accountability, is a factor with which the critical junctures framework has not previously had to contend. This study will also enable us determine if the framework is sufficiently robust to be applied to the examination of macroeconomic policy changes in nondemocratic states. The findings show that in both countries political liberalization did not follow upon economic liberalization, giving lie to the often expressed assumption that economic liberalization and democratization go hand in hand. Instead, as the ruling elites in both countries sought to revive their economies, while maintaining their own positions in society, economic policy reforms required a gesture toward democratization but little else.