Aspects Of Democracy Research Articles

AMBIGUOUS JANUS OF MODERN DEMOCRACY

Purpose. The purpose of the research is to analyze ambiguous concept of democracy as a phenomenon of political and social formation based on political and instrumental approach. As a result, some deep fundamentals of human social existence and values as social life basis are blurred. Task. The task of this investigation is to reveal the concept of democracy in its invariative philosophical meaning and find the consequences of global social transformations towards social entropy. Methods of investigation. To implement the task an activity approach has been used with further possibility to single out two approaches - politological and philosophical. The focus on democracy from philosophic point of view makes possible to anticipate negative entropic processes that lead to future ambiguity. Subject matter. Chaotic social processes can result in ruined family, spiritual, legal and moral formations. Regulatory and legal paradigms are becoming less effective and entail disintegration of spiritual and value constituents of worldview causing necessary conditions for social entropy. Originality and Findings. Possible threats for human freedom that hinder the way to targeted prospects of mankind have been considered in the paper. Thus, taking into account all positive aspects of democracy, it is simultaneously becoming the tool of continuous differentiation of society into tiny autonomous communities similar to nomadic atomization of society. The concept based on moral substantial existence basis as in “axis time” by K. Jaspers that can prevent social entropy resulting in world anthropologic catastrophes has been grounded in the present research.

Strategies for Media Reform: International Perspectives

Strategies for Media Reform: International Perspectives

80년대 한국영화의 도시 공간 양식, <바람불어 좋은날>(1980)과 <칠수와 만수>(1988)

80년대 한국사회는 70년대 산업화의 연속과 90년대 민주화의 열기가 혼종된 시기이다. 80년대 한국영화는 산업화와 민주화 속에서 긴장과 갈등 양상을 영화의 공간과 같은 양식에 약호화한다. 이 연구의 목적은 80년대 한국사회의 산업화와 민주화의 양상이 80년대 한국영화에 어떻게 약호화되는가를 고찰하는 것이다. 구체적으로는 80년대 서울 도시경관의 변화를 직접적으로 반영하고 있는 80년대 한국영화의 도시 공간 재현양식에 주목한다. 이 연구는 1980년 개봉작 <바람불어 좋은날>과 1988년 개봉작 <칠수와 만수>의 공간 구성 양식 분석을 통해 1980년대를 관통하는 한국사회의 변화 양상을 살펴본다. 70년대를 마무리하는 <바 불어 좋은날>과 90년대를 맞이하는 <칠수와 만수>는 80년대 한국영화사의 단면과 한국사회상의 혼종 양상을 보여준다. 특히 두 영화의 도시 공간 양식은 한국사회의 정치, 경제, 문화를 총체적으로 약호화한다. Korea society in the 1980s is the timing of the hybrid intermingled with the continuous industrialization in the 1970s and the democratic aspirations of the 1990s. Korean films in the '80s codified a tension and conflict patterns of the industrialization and democratization in the style such as film space. The purpose of this study is to consider how this aspect of industrialization and democratization in the '80s was codified in Korean films of the '80s. Specifically, it focuses on the style representing the urban space in Korean films of the '80s. This study looks at the changing pattern of the Korea Society through the 1980s by analyzing the space configuration form of Good Windy Day(1980) and Chil-su And Man-su(1988). Good Windy Day to finalize the '70s and Chil-su And Man-su to greet the '90s show the hybrid aspect of the '80s. In particular, the urban space style of the two films codified the political, economic and social culture of Korea as a whole.

Kewenangan Mahkamah Konstitusi Mengadili Perselisihan Hasil Pemilukada

This letters have a purpose to know and analyze authority basic of Constitution Lawcourt of Republic of Indonesia to judging the dispute from the results of district leader and district proxy leader election, and then transferring background about the authority to judging the dispute from the Results of District Leader and District Proxy Leader Election from Appellate Court to Constitution Lawcourt of Republic of Indonesia. So, to analyze basic of Constitution Lawcourt consideration that dispute objects of results of district leader and district proxy leader election don’t have the quantitative character only based on calculation voice results, but the qualitative character too, namely breaking the rules to general election principles, with the character likes ahead, general, free, secret, then downright and fairly that’s to influence the results of district leader and district proxy leader election. Analyze the election law is used by Constitution Lawcourt of Republic of Indonesia to judging the dispute in Undang-Undang Republik Indonesia No 24 Tahun 2003 about Constitution Lawcourt of Republic of Indonesia or Undang-Undang Republik Indonesia No 12 Tahun 2008 about Undang-Undang Republik Indonesia No 32 Tahun 2008 about District Governance, do not regulate punish the dispute event of district leader and district proxy leader election results.Result of letters indicate that massive and sistematic breaking is apart of the dispute from the results of district leader and district proxy leader election become legal consideration to sufficient the sense of public justice progressively cause from quantitative breaking aspect after candidate of district leader and district proxy leader has been elected based on recapitulation and calculation voice where their quantitative just with assessed breaking collision towards procedural and substantive justice both as siniquanom. Though attempt to accommodate overall of democracy aspects from sections and process district leader and district proxy leader election must be main essential to determine and set the results of recapitulation and calculation voice in district leader and district proxy leader election.As letters recommendation, needed regulation product ownself to regulate about mechanism of district leader and district proxy leader election where has been regulated in Undang-Undang Pemerintahan Daerah for all this time, so that affirmation that the district leader and district proxy leader election into the general election become less be clear. By conducting the ownself regulation, hence mechanism of district leader and district proxy leader election will be more clear, especially to overcome and solution the dispute from the results of district leader and district proxy leader election.

KORUPSI DAN DEMOKRASI

Democracy is often seen as a political system which is capable of lessening or preventing corruption. Countries with a democratic system are regarded as relatively free of corrupt practices. Meanwhile, authoritarian political systems are seen as riddled through with corrupt practices because they are not capable of protecting political officials from such practices. However it is apparent that corruption scandals are frequently encountered in democratic systems. Various corruption scandals that befall politicians in Western Europe, the USA and Japan indicate the reality that democratic procedures are not, on their own, capable of protecting officials from corruption. What calls for debate among academics is: Which aspect of democracy can prevent, and which aspect can permit corrupt practices? How can the relationship between corruption and democracy be explained? This essay is presented as a small contribution to this debate.

Writing about Islam for Youth: A Study of Two Authors and Two World Views

ABSTRACTThis is a study of two authors who wrote about Islam for youth: Florence Mary Fitch and Reza Aslan. Fitch's book, Allah, the God of Islam: Moslem Life and Worship (1950), and Aslan's No God but God: The Origins, Evolution of Islam (2011b) offer both historical and current views of Islam and the Prophet Mohammad. Although they wrote some 61 years apart, a review of their works reveals similar views, especially concerning the need for reform in Islam. This study reveals two different worldviews about the development of Islam. Fitch's views, although generally supportive of Islam, reflect Western society's view of Islam and Mohammad over half a century ago, while Aslan, a Muslim-reformist, emphasizes current democratic and humanitarian aspects of Islam that are well-suited for the modern world. Subjects discussed include Mohammad's revelations from Allah, the conquering of Mecca by Mohammad and the ending of idolatry, the beginning of Islam as a dominant religion, the role of women in Islam, the hijab and its origins and use, the jihad and its various meanings and applications, the Quran and its conflicting interpretations, the development and decline of the Caliphate, and the decentralization of Islam. The discussion ends with this quote from Aslan: “The Islamic Reformation is already here.”

Can There Be a Human Right to an Essentially Contested Concept? The Case of Democracy

The idea of a human right to democracy has received substantial attention from political theorists, philosophers, and international lawyers. Arguments for its existence ignore the fact that democracy is the paradigm essentially contested concept, so cannot establish what a right to democracy would be a right to. I survey three responses to essential contestability. The first holds that history has decided upon liberal democracy, so essential contestation is a philosophical worry with few practical implications. The second seeks a broadly acceptable minimal definition of democracy. The third would deploy sophisticated empirical analysis to determine which aspects of democracy have desired positive effects. All three prove inadequate. The right to democracy must instead be understood as the right to engage the contestation at the core of the concept, through formative agency that determines what democracy should mean in practice in particular contexts.

Pozniak, Kinga Nowa Huta: Generations of Change in a Model Socialist Town (review)

SEER, 94, 2, APRIL 2016 374 revealing fascinating new dimensions to these individuals, whose opinions on other matters are well known. Nevertheless, the increasing number of rogue or wild settlements, along with both local and international criticism of functionalist urbanism by architects and social scientists, signalled the shift towards Belgrade’s second socialist master plan that took place between 1968– 1972 and which draws Le Normand’s study to a close. By looking at its urban planning, building and housing, by illuminating the housing element of mid-1960s economic reforms and by showing the influence and responses of ordinary citizens to elite decisions, this study makes an important contribution to the social history of Yugoslavia. Anyone questioning Yugoslavia’s different socialist path and its democratic aspects will easily find a many counterarguments here. Unfortunately, Le Normand stops short of delving deeper into major political or economic issues. Rather, they feature in the background or as the side effects of urban planning, such as (the ethnic impact of) migration to Yugoslavia’s urban centres, the tension between rural and urban society, and most of all the protracted inability of the system to provide housing to Yugoslavia’s working people. UCL SSEES Bojan Aleksov Pozniak, Kinga. Nowa Huta: Generations of Change in a Model Socialist Town. Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA, 2014. x + 227 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $27.95 (paperback). Nowa Huta is a fascinating study of ‘how people’s memory, identity, and sense of place are shaped and articulated with relation to events that have taken place in a concrete locality’ (p. 180). The locality is the town of Nowa Huta, built in the Stalinist era as a suburb of Kraków, together with the vast Lenin Steelworks. Pozniak lived in Nowa Huta in 2009–10 and engaged in extensive participant observation, for example by working as a volunteer in local museums and a cultural centre, as well as conducting numerous interviews with residents of different ages. Pozniak writes modestly (p. 19) that ‘I cannot pretend that this work reflects all the voices and experiences that exist in Nowa Huta; however, I hope that it captures some of that polyphony’. This hope is fulfilled, and one of the many strengths of the book is the great variety both of apt quotations to illustrate specific points, and life stories of individuals. The book consists of five chapters, discussing in turn the cityscape, with its iconic buildings, street names and monuments; the steelworks; museums and commemorations; memories of the Communist period among middle-aged and older interviewees; and the identities and attitudes of younger residents. REVIEWS 375 Pozniak argues that in Nowa Huta, as in Poland generally, ‘the socialist past tends to be depicted and perceived through the keywords of repression, resistance and inefficiency’ (p. 8). Nowa Huta’s history lends itself to such interpretation since, although built as a model socialist town and showcase social experiment, it turned out to be a bastion of resistance to secularization and the Communist regime. However, like Ewa Ochman in her recent volume, Postcommunist Poland: Contested Pasts and Future Identities (Abingdon, 2013), Pozniak emphasizes that local discourses can be different. Schools and museums in Nowa Huta have to accommodatethoselocalpeoplewhosememoriesareatoddswiththedominant narrative. They do this in particular by organizing events which celebrate the achievements of the builders of Nowa Huta, rather than stigmatizing them as constructors of Stalinism. As Pozniak demonstrates, individual narratives challenge the prevailing national discourse about the Polish past, although she also explores the inconsistency of that challenge, showing how in other contexts those same individuals reproduce the narrative of ‘repression, resistance and inefficiency’. Moreover, fond personal memories of the period before 1989 and regrets about the passing of full employment and de-industrialization in the 1990s can co-exist with the acceptance, on a more abstract level, of the need for capitalism. This is partly because nostalgia for the Communist period is not political, but — as illustrated by other anthropologists of post-socialist Europe — often focuses on memories of everyday life. Reminiscing about a summer camp in the 1980s, one of Pozniak’s interviewees comments: ‘When people talk about PRL they always talk...

The Explanation of Principles and Elements of Religious Democracy with Emphasis on Constitution of Islamic Republic of Iran

After the victory of Islamic Revolution in 1979 in Iran, a new type of government was established which emphasized religious authority along with democratic aspects which is now known as “religious democracy”. Therefore, to explain the essence of this type of government one could state that religious democracy is a new interpretation of Islam in which the political aspects of Islam as a complete and comprehensive religion are considered, emphasis is on political affairs of a religious society and social and political authority of Islam is included so that it simultaneously has political and religious legitimacy in it. The primary question in the present paper revolves around explanation of principles and elements of religious democracy and better and more precise examination of its indicators in constitution of Islamic Republic of Iran. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2016.v7n2s1p79

Representation, equality, and inclusion in deliberative systems: desiderata for a good account

What has become known as ‘the systemic turn’ in the recent literature on deliberative democracy looks like a promising development. However, while much theorizing has been devoted to the question of what a deliberative system may look like, very little has been offered in terms of criteria for what is required for a system to be deliberative democratic. This paper aims to contribute to the systemic approach by setting out a number of desiderata that a satisfactory account of deliberative systems should consider when developing such criteria. This is done by analyzing the main properties of a deliberative system in relation to three essential aspects of democracy: representation, equality, and inclusion. Among other things, it is argued that when theorizing criteria for what a deliberative system requires, a systemic account should carefully distinguish between political and epistemic representation, between political and epistemic equality, and between political and epistemic inclusion.

Attitudes towards Minorities in Post‐communist and Democratic Poland

AbstractThe political transformation of Eastern European countries heralded many fundamental economic, social, and cultural changes. One aspect of democracy – cultural democracy – focuses on the situation of minority groups. The treatment of minorities, while largely determined by law and actions of the government, is also influenced by the attitudes and opinions held by the citizens. This article analyses opinion polls conducted between 1994 and 2014 on attitudes towards ethnic and national minorities in Poland. The data comes from the Public Opinion Research Center (Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej – CBOS) and was published solely in the Polish language. This analysis is situated within Poland's shifting political, social, and cultural contexts, and emphasizes current legislation concerning minorities in Poland.

Using the Internet in New Zealand elections and support for e-voting

The use of the Internet for voting and other related purposes is a key area of discussion worldwide, although only touched on in a few New Zealand publications. It is seen by many as something of a panacea – a ‘technical fix’ – that might repair the falling rates of participation in democratic elections, while others are horrified that it might subvert important aspects of democracy. In order to ascertain interest in e-voting in particular and also the broad pattern of the use of the Internet around elections, this article analyses portions of the data collected by the 2014 and earlier rounds of the New Zealand Election Study, together with data from other studies. As well as a considerable battery of questions relating to e-voting in the last two rounds, the New Zealand Election Study has had a measure of Internet access embedded within a question of Internet use in relation to the preceding election. This goes back to the 1999 survey round and so long-term trends can be documented.

The Logic of Abandoning the Two-States Campaign

Bringing about the conditions needed for a durable two­state deal would necessitate currently unthinkable shifts in some long­standing assumptions held by Israeli Jews. A deal sufficiently durable to withstand post­agreement pressure from Palestinian dissidents would need to include three components:If a change in Israeli political consciousness great enough to accept such a deal is a necessary but unachievable prerequisite of a two­state solution, what can we hope and act to achieve? The reluctant conclusion offered by Michael Lerner in this issue of Tikkun — that we ought to replace policies guided by domination with strategies inspired by generosity — nosedives into the pool of well­meaning and impractical approaches to the Palestinian­Israeli dilemma.A “one person, one vote” campaign could, as Lerner suggests, have as its goal pressuring Israel to negotiate a two­state deal, but that may be no easier than a campaign whose goal truly is one person, one vote. Israel is already a single sovereign state with millions of disenfranchised adults.The Palestinian­led rights­for­peace campaign, as described by Yousef Munayyer in the New York Times on March 19, 2015, pressures Israel to grant political rights to Palestinians living in the occupied territories. This is the movement that brings us boycott, divestment, and sanctions, the campaign launched in 2005 by Palestinian civil society groups rejecting the official negotiations that failed to produce freedom and equality.In the Huffington Post of May 17, 2015, Jeff Faux of the Economic Policy Institute argues that Israel will not accept a one­state or a two­state solution unless the alternative is becoming an international pariah state like apartheid South Africa. Thinking along the same lines, the U.S. branch of the Palestinian equality movement is prioritizing campaigns to compel Israel to fully include all Palestinians under its control in all aspects of democracy. Tens of thousands of campus activists are building pressure on Israel through university­based divestment campaigns. Meanwhile, the hundreds of grassroots groups that make up the umbrella group U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation are pressuring the Israeli and U.S. governments to support Palestinian equality. Thousands of Presbyterian, Methodist, and Episcopal activists have mobilized to pressure Israel.If the tens of millions of dollars invested by its opponents are any measure, the growing pressure of the Palestinian equality movement in the Palestinian territories, the United States, and beyond will be the game changer that coaxes Israel into resolving Palestinian inequality. Growing campus activism frightens pro­Israel groups, because their calls for equality in diversity, political liberties, and suffrage for all under Israeli rule reflect the most fundamental American values.This equality campaign will push the Israeli public deeper into a debate about the necessity of having a particularly Jewish state apparatus in order to provide safety and security for Israeli Jews.Whereas historically, any pressure on Israel to negotiate a two­state deal was a call for Israeli initiative, nonviolent pressure to transform the current two­tiered, single­state arrangement will require Israel to justify the status quo. Israel can claim that the status quo is better than an unviable deal, but the viability of defending the status quo against the claim of disenfranchisement will continue to dwindle.It is no easier, then, to imagine the shifts in political opinion required for Israel to agree to a two­state solution than to consider those required to transform the current arrangement into a government for all its people. In response to the Palestinian equality campaign, Israel will need to choose among four options:It is not obvious which is most achievable in the shortest time frame. Unpredictable domestic, geopolitical, and natural events may shift the viability of each option. In any case, for Israeli Jews, the first option is inviable. But the second, a two­state deal, is not necessarily the easiest.Enfranchisement of Palestinian residents of Palestine/Israel could replace the political and military conflict with a principled platform for granting Jews and Palestinians security, economic viability, and individual freedoms, along with free expression and self­ determination as peoples.An enfranchisement campaign needn’t insist on any particular political arrangement, and it certainly should not insist on two states or assume that such an outcome is possible. The aim of this movement should be equal to its claim: political equality for all. Any political arrangement would need to ensure equality, and there is more than one imaginable equalizing political arrangement.What matters is action to pressure Israel to shift its policy, which it can do in any way that accommodates the needs of two sets of people seeking security, freedom, and self­determination.

Does the Digital Age Require New Models of Democracy? – Lasswell’s Policy Scientist of Democracy vs. Liquid Democracy

This essay provides a debate about Lasswell’s policy scientist of democracy (PSOD, 1948) in comparison to the model of liquid democracy (21 st century) based on the question if the digital age requires new models of democracy. The PSOD of Lasswell, a disciplinary persona, is in favour of an elitist approach to democracy including elite decision-making, as well as the values of wealth and power. Liquid democracy, on the other hand, emerged from the notion that the Internet provides a vast amount of possibilities for a mix between direct and representative democratic aspects. The term liquid democracy describes a more “fluid and responsive participation of citizens in the democratic process through the use of both online and offline networks” (david, 2013). In general, one can say that both models have their drawbacks and benefits. Since there are new technologies available in the digital age, we should make use of them for the public good, but in order to not exclude anyone, there should be a mix between traditional and technology-based methods with regard to democracy.

Electoral Democracy and Human Development

This study attempts to reconcile competing positions in the debate over whether democracy improves human development by showing that some aspects of democracy – but not others – affect human development. Specifically, we argue that the “electoral” aspect of democracy improves human development while aspects related to citizen empowerment do not (or scarcely so). Likewise, composite indices of democracy bear only a weak relationship to human development, especially if they do not take the mutual dependence between electoral components into account in their aggregation procedures. We argue, finally, that public policies serve as a key causal mechanism in this relationship. Electoral competition incentivizes politicians to provide public goods and services, and these, in turn, save lives. This set of hypotheses is tested in a more rigorous fashion than has hitherto been possible. First, we enlist a new dataset compiled by the CLIO Infra project that measures mortality – infant mortality, child mortality, and life expectancy – for most sovereign countries over the course of the twentieth century. Second, we draw on a new political institutions dataset – Varieties of Democracy (V- Dem) – that provides highly differentiated measures of democracy, measured annually for most sovereign countries from 1900 to the present. Third, we apply a diverse set of empirical tests including fixed effects, lagged dependent variables, first-difference, system GMM, and instrumental variables. Considered together, these tests mitigate concerns about causal identification.

Knowing the law and deciding justice: lay expertise in the democratic Athenian courts

In the rhetorically charged law courts in which ancient Athenian lay judges exercised their knowledge of the laws and so decided questions of justice, particularly where the quaestio iuris was most at issue, they exercised some quite sophisticated thinking. The judges abided by their oath to vote ‘according to the laws’, but did so with a comprehensive understanding both of the multiplicity of laws that might apply to particular cases and of the even greater number of legal principles implicit in them. After sketching the democratic aspects of Athens’ legal system, the paper begins with Plato’s Apology of Socrates before going on to detail legal reasoning advanced in Lysias’ On the Murder of Eratosthenes and Hyperides’ Against Athenogenes.

E-democracy: the fruit of e-government

E-democracy is becoming an important topic for research after the global boom in the internet and the social media influence on societies. Using electronic channels for different aspects of democracy is becoming a necessity more than a luxury. This research tries to investigate the influence of e-government on the democratic process. E-democracy is conceptually linked to e-government, where previous research indicated such inclusion. This research proposed a framework that depicts the dimensions of e-government as a research domain. Also, utilising secondary data from two distinct sources of archival reports, this research tried to build a model for predicting the democratic level in a country (represented by the Economist Intelligence Unit democracy index) using the e-government readiness index (represented by United Nations e-government readiness index). Results indicated that a significant relationship exists between UN-EGRI and EIU-DI for 163 countries of the world. Conclusions and future work are stated at the end.

It’s My Party (And I’ll Do What I Want To)?: Internal Party Democracy and Section 19 of The South African Constitution

South Africa’s democracy has both representative and participatory elements. The participatory aspect of democracy enhances the civic dignity of citizens by empowering them to take part in decisions that affect their lives. However, the overbearing role that political parties play in the South African democracy runs the risk of limiting the ability of citizens to participate effectively in decisions that impact on their lives. This is because the leaders of political parties (especially of governing parties) may wield enormous power and influence inside their respective parties and in the legislature and executive. Where the ordinary members of parties have little or no direct say about the formulation of the policies of the party they belong to or the election of its leaders or those who will stand for election as public representatives at national and provincial level, the ability of such members to participate in democratic processes and decisions are limited. To facilitate the participation of party members in the activities of a political party to ensure the enhancement of their civic dignity s 19(1)(b) of the Constitution guarantees the right of every citizen freely to make political choices, including the right to participate in the activities of, or recruit members for, a political party. In Ramakatsa v Magashule the majority of the Constitutional Court affirmed the importance of the right of party members to participate freely in the activities of the political party they belong to and also found that the constitutions of political parties have to ensure this happens. Provisions of a political party’s constitution can be declared invalid if it fails to comply with the provisions of the Bill of Rights (including s 19(1) (b)). This article contends that Ramakatsa can be interpreted to place a positive duty on the legislature to pass a ‘party law’ that sets minimum requirements to protect the democratic participation of party members in the activities of the party – including about the formulation of party policies, the election of party office bearers and the selection of the party’s candidates for election as public representatives.

Determinants of citizens’ electronic participation: insights from India

Purpose– The purpose of the present paper is to attempt to examine the determinants of citizens’ electronic participation with respect to the communication aspects. To accomplish this objective, using the extant literature, the paper delineated factors that determine and the theories that can explain citizens’ e-participation. An analysis of citizens’ democratic communication through multiple e-participation forums is carried out, and the determinants of electronic participation are described in the paper.Design/methodology/approach– In light of the literature, e-participation services were classified on the basis of characteristics of democratic communications. The factors that determine citizens’ online democratic participation were also identified and validated. Indian citizens who often e-participate were surveyed through online and offline questionnaires. A regression analysis of the 407 responses was carried out to predict the influence of individual, governance and technology components on various e-participation initiatives.Findings– Citizens’ participation efficacy, value system and participation freedom were found to determine different e-participation initiatives. Further, e-participation is also found to be varyingly determined by the governance and technology components.Research limitations/implications– The theoretical contribution of this study includes the classification of determining factors and the illustrative labeling (I, G and T) for an e-participation framework. The delineation of e-participation from democratic communication aspects also contributes to the e-participation literature. However, this research had considered only one set of e-participation services and had incorporated only select forms of e-participation that are in coherence with the services selected.Originality/value– Past studies often consider separate e-participation forums and infrequently report a simultaneous analysis of multiple e-participation forums. The factors that determine citizens’ e-participation from a democratic communication aspect are also inadequately discussed. The significant contribution of this study includes policy recommendations to improve e-participation in different information and communication technologies initiatives.

Conditions for successful public policies of sustainable development: institutional capacity, democracy, and free trade

Although several studies have identified factors for successful sustainable development policies, little effort has been made to comprehensively analyze the relationship between those variables and to generalize the findings at a global level. This study, therefore, attempts to explore conditions for successful sustainable development policies using cross-national-level analysis. Through the literature review, this study identifies arguments that institutional capacity, democracy and free trade are critical conditions for successful sustainable development policies. This study tests these arguments using cross-national time-series analyses for 118–119 countries during 2000–2010. The findings suggest that the democratic aspect of political systems and government administration and the vitality of trade, rather than free trade, are critical conditions for successful sustainable development policies.