Challenge Of Democracy Research Articles

Mexico's Democratic Challenges

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Juan Arvizu, “En el PRI ‘ibamos hacia la fractura’; lo peor fue en 2001,” www.ElUniversal.com.mx, July 15, 2012, http://www.redpolitica.mx/nacion/pri-su-peor-momento-fue-en-2001-ibamos-hacia-la-fractura. 2. Joy Langston, “The Dinosaur that did not die: Mexico's PRI,” CIDE Working Paper, November 19, 2008, http://democraciaenamericalatina.org/articulos/seminarios/sem_partidos/langston.pdf. 3. Joy Langston, “Governors and “Their” Deputies: New Legislative Principles in Mexico,” Legislative Studies Quarterly 35, Issue 2 (May 2010): pp. 235–258. 4. Jo Tuckman, “Computer files link TV dirty tricks to favourite for Mexican presidency,” The Guardian, June 7, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/07/mexico-presidency-tv-dirty-tricks?intcmp=239; Jo Tuckman, “Mexican media scandal: secretive Televisa unit promoted PRI candidate,” The Guardian, June 26, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/26/mexican-media-scandal-televisa-pri-nieto. 5. Damien Cave, “Mexico Updates Drug War Toll to 47,515, but Critics Dispute the Data,” New York Times, January 11, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/world/americas/mexico-updates-drug-war-death-toll-but-critics-dispute-data.html. 6. “Mexico: Evaluación de Gobierno: Trimestre 21 de Felipe Calderón” [Mexico: Government Evaluation: Quarter 21 of Felipe Calderon], Consulta Mitofsky, February 2012, http://consulta.mx/web/images/evalgobpdf/Ev_Gob.pdf. 7. Daniel Casillas, “Se triplica numero de homicidios en Mexico en los últimos 6 años” [Number of homicides triples in Mexico in the last 6 years], Animal Politico, August 20, 2012, http://www.animalpolitico.com/2012/08/se-triplica-numero-de-homicidios-en-mexico-en-los-ultimos-6-anos/. 8. Duncan Wood, “Mexico's election and the economy—voters face a tough decision,” Mexico 2012: Tracking Democracy in a Time of Uncertainty, Center for Strategic and International Studies, May 2012, http://csis.org/files/publication/120517_Wood_MexicanEconomy.pdf. 9. Isabel Mayoral Jimenez, “La pobreza en México sube a 52 millones,” CNNExpansion, July 29, 2011, http://www.cnnexpansion.com/economia/2011/07/29/pobreza-mexico-2010. 10. Ivan Moreno, “Calderon: Most Mexico drug war dead are criminals,” San Diego Union-Tribune, April 16, 2010, http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2010/apr/16/calderon-most-mexico-drug-war-dead-are-criminals/ 11. Consulta Mitofsky. 12. Steve Hargreaves, “Mexico's big oil problem”, CNNMoney, August 17, 2012, http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/17/news/economy/mexico-oil/index.html. 13. Duncan Wood, “Viewpoint: Post-election Mexico faces key reforms,” BBC News, July 12, 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-18781643. 14. See, for example, Santiago Levy, Good Intentions, Bad Outcomes (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008), http://www.brookings.edu/research/books/2008/goodintentionsbadoutcomes. 15. “Propuestas para la seguridad y la justicia en Mexico: Conclusiones del foro Violencia e Impunidad,” Fundacion Colosio, (Mexico City: Fundacion Colosio, December 2010). 16. Emilio Lozaya and Jorge Montaño, “Una vision de Mexico para el futuro,” Foreign Affairs Latinoamerica, May 2012, http://www.revistafal.com/portada/1336-una-vision-de-mexico-para-el-futuro.html. Additional informationNotes on contributorsDuncan WoodDuncan Wood is Professor of International Relations at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) in Mexico City. He is also a Senior Associate (Non-Resident) with the Americas Program at CSIS and a Senior Energy Consultant for the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C

Open government and e-government: Democratic challenges from a public value perspective

We argue that the Obama Administration's Open Government Initiative blurs distinctions between e-democracy and e-government by incorporating historically democratic practices. now enabled by emerging technology. within administrative agencies. We consider the nature of transparency, participation. and collaboration. suggesting that these processes should be viewed as means toward desirable ends, rather than administrative ends in themselves, as they appear to be currently treated. We propose alternatively that planning OG initiatives be addressed within a framework. The creation of public value is the goal of public organizations; through public value. public organizations meet public goals with respect to substantive benefits as well as the intrinsic value of better government. We extend this view to OG by using the framework as a way to describe the value produced when interaction between government and citizens becomes more transparent. participative. and collaborative. i.e., more democratic.

The Politics of Civic Agency

Harry C. Boyte argues that both the Occupy movement and the Tea Party movement, despite their obvious differences, express aspirations for civic agency, which are widespread around the world, and which confound conventional political categories. Both are animated by the conviction that citizens must be at the centre of democracy. Yet both also have limits, defining the world as a Manichean struggle between good and evil in ways that vastly oversimplify the challenge of democratization and that ignore insights of the other camp. The author advocates for a civic agency politics, which teaches skills of work across partisan and other divisions, incorporates insights of both camps, and aims at democratizing the cultural and institutional life of modern societies.

The Dole “Godless Americans” advert: representations of the unfaithful, disloyal villains

Using a rhetorical analytic methodology, this study examines the representations constructed in the “Godless Americans” advert from the North Carolina 2008 US Senate race between incumbent Republican Elizabeth Dole and Democratic challenger Kay Hagan. Bringing to consciousness ideologies that influence messages is important because they are often taken at face value without understanding of their underlying meaning. Religious faith, morality and trustworthiness are values conveyed in this advert through the devices of framing, coded language and propaganda techniques. Non-linguistic elements are effectively coordinated to perpetuate the code of disloyal villains, activating cognitive networks of fear and anger toward atheists. By marginalizing atheists, an ideology that runs counter to the US Constitution is exposed coming from a lawmaker entrusted to uphold it.

Discourses of positionality and the challenges of democratization in the global south: The case of Nepal and Cameroon

In this article, we argue that to conceptually and empirically grasp the dynamics and challenges of processes of civic participation, i.e., the deliberation and empowerment of disenfranchised and marginalized populations in the Global South, communication for social change scholars need to pay more attention to three issues: the quality of citizens’ self-perceptions in relation to their local milieu, inter-citizen perceptions and relations at the local level and lastly, the attendant consequences of these on citizens’ sense of efficacy. To grasp and comprehend the interplay of these three issues, we propose the adoption of Floya Anthias’ concept of narratives of location and positionality and demonstrate the heuristic vitality of this notion through a discussion of some local discourses of positionality in Nepal and Cameroon.

The Democratic Challenge Designed for the Spanish Intellectuals in the Political Thought of José Ortega y Gasset

Summary The article deals with the political thought of the young Spanish philosopher and intellectual, José Ortega y Gasset (1883–1955). The main aim is to examine to what extent his political thought was articulated in a systematic manner, and to understand if it was meant to be practically implemented. Ortega's political thought has been described as liberal on the one hand, and anti-democratic and conservative on the other. The disparities regarding Ortega's politics usually arise from his declarations, which aimed to confront the changing social and political situation in Spain. To many researchers, these declarations seem incoherent, evolutionary, or ideas that can be directly deduced from the evolution of his philosophical theory. The extent to which Ortega's political theory was systematic will be understood through focusing on the role designed for the Spanish intellectuals in Ortega's declarations and works. Instead of considering his political thought in relation to either his philosophy or the political events and changing circumstances in Spain, I will attempt to examine how, during the years of his youth, his political declarations were always guided by a consistent feature with a practical political purpose: to challenge the Spanish intellectuals to promote social awareness of and reflection on the country's problems, and to consider potential solutions to these problems.

Beyond Lies the Wub: The Challenges of (Post)Democratization

This article examines current proposals for ‘post-democratization’ scholarship, providing support for the need of an epistemic shift in democratization studies both in a regional Middle Eastern set...

No more colour! Authoritarian regimes and colour revolutions in Eurasia

Between 2000 and 2005, colour revolutions swept away authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes in Serbia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine. Yet, after these initial successes, attempts to replicate strategies failed to produce regime change elsewhere in the region. This introductory article argues that students of democratization and democracy promotion should study not only the successful colour revolutions, but also the colour revolution prevention strategies adopted by authoritarian elites. The article proposes a new typology of authoritarian reactions to the challenge of democratization and presents the main findings of the special issue, devoted to the analysis of authoritarian reactions to colour revolution in the post-communist region and in Iran.

Electoral Majorities, Political Parties, and Collective Representation

In practice, democracies privilege plurality parties. Theories of the democratic process challenge the democratic credentials of this practice. Abstract social choice theory wonders whether an electoral majority even exists. A more optimistic line of argument, prominent in research on collective representation, assumes that the policy position of the median voter embodies the majority electoral preference. The conflict between what democracies actually do and what two leading theories of the democratic process say calls for a comparative inquiry into electoral majoritarianism. For each of a dozen countries, the authors ask whether any political party commands a predominant majoritarian position among voters—that is, is a Condorcet winner—and, if so, which party it is. They find that a Condorcet winning party exists in all 12 countries and that the plurality party can lay more claim to representing the popular majority than the left—right median party. These findings have important implications for the study of democratic representation, which the authors consider in their conclusions.

Regional Security and the Challenges of Democratisation in Africa: The Case of ECOWAS and SADC

In recent years, African leaders have aggressively sought to strengthen their regional security structures while simultaneously attempting to democratise. Although they recognise that African regional organisations will need to assume a greater role in tackling Africa's security problems, the challenges posed by on‐going democratisation efforts have had a visible impact on the effectiveness of some regional organisations. This article examines the challenges that democratisation poses to regional collective security arrangements in Africa, with specific reference to ECOWAS and SADC. It argues that whilst the inclination to democratise has influenced the establishment of new collective security structures, the superficial nature of the changes have prevented the gains at the structural level to be translated to meaningful practice on the ground. Nevertheless, some progress has been made.

Challenges for Lifelong Learning

To develop a new learning culture, it is essential to help people meet challenges they now face in the twenty-first century. This review article attempts to present a clear concept of lifelong learning, while describing major challenges toward establishing it in a society. Lifelong learning is viewed as involving all strategies that are put in place to created opportunities for people to learn throughout life. It is about learning of what, how, when and where one wants to learn. Various challenges are to be found to many spheres of life including: financial, demographic, technological, social, environmental and democratic challenges.

Mexico's Economic Dilemmas and Democratic Challenges in an Era of Reform

Mexico's Economic Dilemmas and Democratic Challenges in an Era of Reform

Policy implications of uncertainty

I want to begin by discussing three uncertainties: the first uncertainty is about what science says and means, and how conclusive we can all be about it. This is, of course, especially the case in relation to climate change, and the frustrating thing, I suspect, for most people engaged directly in

The Values of Democratic Proceduralism

A standard justification of democratic voting is that it is a fair procedure, providing for the equal treatment of voters. Democratic theorist David Estlund challenges the adequacy of that justification: flipping a coin between alternatives is also a fair procedure, but no one would propose substituting random draw for voting. Estlund provides several arguments that fair proceduralism is an untenable view, and this article counters those arguments. He concludes that what distinguishes democratic voting from random choice is its better epistemic value in approximating a standard of justice independent of the procedure. The author replies that a less controversial distinction between voting and coin flip is that voting tends to select what is thought best by the most people.

Global Civil Society and International Summits: New Labels for Different Types of Activism at the COP15

Research in the field of citizenship, civil society, and social movements in relation to larger democratic summits has either focused on radical confrontational elements of activism, broad public demonstrations, or the professional non-governmental organizations. In this article, I label the types of activist groups involved in and around the COP15 climate summit in Copenhagen (2009). My proposition is that such a categorization may help to refine the general debate through more nuanced distinctions and accurate definitions and provide a better understanding of why the creative elements seem to take a central role in today's activist landscape. I develop these typological conceptual representations based on an understanding of civil society as a mediating catalyst. By presenting six versions of citizenship participation based on an analysis of diverse ends and means, I identify how each of them has their own specific logic about the democratic challenges surrounding the summit. This analysis leads me to address the question of whether an attempt to bridge the gap between the official system and the active citizen through a distinction between antagonistic and negotiation-friendly forms of activism is fruitful. In conclusion, the creative activist is revealed as a mediating figure in civil society pointing towards a new definition of ‘facilitating citizenship’.

The (un)making of opposition coalitions and the challenge of democratization in Ethiopia, 1991–2011

A key challenge in the consolidation of a democratic system in transitional countries is the lack of effective opposition political parties to counter the dominance of incumbent regimes. In the case of Ethiopia, to be described in this article, opposition parties are weak, fragmented, and mutually antagonistic. Hence, in order to counter the dominance of the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), coalitions and alliances have been used by the opposition parties. But opposition coalitions remain unstable and prone to fragmentation due to both internal and external factors. This study analyses the factors responsible to the often repeated fragmentation of opposition coalitions in Ethiopia.

Dragon Rising: Chinese Policy in Central Asia

ABSTRACT Commentators around the world have focused on China's rise but rarely have done so in regard to China's policies in Central Asia. Much of that rise appears to have been at Russia's expense, and China is increasingly able to deploy potent economic and political instruments of power (with the military one always being in reserve) to advance its position in Central Asia. At the same time, China's policy here is in many respects driven by the need to maintain its hold on its rebellious Xinjiang province that borders Central Asia as well as to enhance its energy security and suppress liberal or democratic challenges on its periphery. While one article can only illuminate a small part of the overall dimensions of China's growing impact on Central Asia, it is clear that China will be a force to be reckoned with here in the future and already is one at present.

The Polarizing Influence of Fragmented Media: Lessons From Howard Dean

This article argues that digital media, by fragmenting people into ideologically homogeneous interest groups, polarizes society. Further, this polarization risks the transformation of agonistic political engagement into antagonistic ideological combat. As evidence of this danger, the authors examine the case of Howard Dean's 2004 presidential primary blogs. In these blogs, a rhetorical vision emerges of a dramatic fight between Dean's heroic supporters and the villainous Republicans, media elite, and Democratic challengers. Examples from Barack Obama's 2008 campaign blogs are offered as a counterpoint to the antagonism found in Dean's blogs. The authors argue that the type of political drama evident in the Dean blogs invite antagonism that undermines cross-group cooperation and thus weakens democratic culture.

Clans, Electoral Procedures and Voter Turnout: Evidence from Villagers' Committee Elections in Transitional China

Villagers' committee elections in Chinese rural areas highlight the promise as well as the challenge of democratization in a one-party state. Why are there huge regional variations in terms of voter turnout rate? Based on a large survey conducted in 2005, we argue that electoral procedures have played a crucial role in signaling the democratic intent of local governments. Villagers were more responsive to more meaningful elections with higher-quality electoral procedures. In addition, competitive politics has reactivated traditional social ties and networks in village lives, which have mobilized villagers to voting stations. The results are robust to endogeneity tests and other model specifications. These empirical findings highlight electoral dynamics that are common in many transitional democracies. They also imply some major challenges facing China's rural democracy.

The Politics of Science and the Science of Politics: Feyerabend, Pluralism, and Democratic Challenges

What might be called the new political science provided a strong challenge to older traditions centering on political philosophy, law, history, and institution-giving. Beyond their being seen as inherently normative and thus flawed, one could argue that these glossed over important aspects of the empirical world at the behest of those commitments. The scientific study of politics, by contrast, offered a way to acquire valid knowledge: the way forward. Decades and successive crises of identity later, however, it has become apparent just how much questions of value bleed into this progress. The rages and repudiations of the discipline time and again highlight the tension between shared standards and good work. Concerning the relationship between these, no easy agreement exists. Strikingly, one finds as little agreement concerning our disciplinary canons as there is in politics or even about what constitutes the political. Pluralism is therefore not only an empirical fact in science as in politics but also a fact that science might embrace. I apply Feyerabend’s philosophy of science to political science and explore what political scientist might embrace in such an account. As opposed to efforts to discipline or demarcate our peculiar practice, an account of science and of the science of politics that offers a strong rather than merely tolerant commitment to pluralism better mirrors the diversity and contested nature of political phenomena and is better suited to fruitful pursuit of the study of politics.