Democratic Culture Research Articles

Role of Local Authorities and Public Officials in Encouraging Citizen Participation in Development Planning in Murewa District

This study unpacks the role played by government authorities in stimulating citizen participation in local development. Citizen participation, being the core to sustainable development, has been of interest among development practitioners and scholars alike, with varying degrees of attention in its scope and how participation can actually occur. One of the observed trends is the critical role played by both local and national government authorities. Development planning is closely tied to citizen participation under clearly defined roles of the officials involved. The participation of citizens in local activities is not a voluntary process but a deliberate action of the authorities through various measures such as creating an environment in which everyone is equally important in contributing to change in the communities they live. The role of local and national officials has been on spotlight in developing countries, including Zimbabwe and in marginalised areas such as Murewa District of Zimbabwe. The Murewa District of Mashonaland East Province has been cited as an area in which citizen participation has remained low. The objective of this paper is to therefore examine the extent to which local authorities in Murewa District encourage citizen participation and the bottlenecks that undermine this process. Data were collected through primary data sources, including questionnaire surveys and interviews with selected local authority officials. The results of the study indicate that in Murewa District most citizens have never had the opportunity to propose policies to the council, individually or collectively as part of the local community due to the prohibitive role played by the local authorities. The study also established that citizen participation cannot be separated from the role of local and national public officials who should provide leadership and guidance to the development process and create the required democratic culture by implementing the decentralisation agenda, as stipulated in the Zimbabwe 2013 Constitution and through the adoption of participatory policy at all levels of government.

Pakistani military’s rhetorical construction of an Indigenous civil rights movement

For the last four decades, Pakistan’s northwestern Pashtun tribal areas have been in a constant state of imperialist wars. In reaction to this organized violence, a local civil rights movement, the PTM, emerged in 2014 which powerfully challenged the military’s discursive regime that legitimates these US-led wars. However, the military challenged the movement’s call for justice by launching a concerted discursive drive to construct an enemy image of the PTM. This study aims to discover how the military constructs the identity, as well as the cultural and political meanings of the movement. The authors found that the military strategically organizes its discourse to first build a symbolic order in which an enemy other, less than human, is created, and then its oppression is normalized and made invisible. They hope that the article contributes to the current critical scholarship on the increasing militarization of contemporary public spaces and democratic cultures, particularly in the context of South Asia.

Competing Historical Narratives: Memory Politics, Identity, and Democracy in Germany and Poland

This article considers the growing rift between Western and Eastern Europe regarding the commemoration of Europe’s recent past and related historical narratives of nationhood that shape contemporary political preferences. More specifically, it investigates the connections between collective memory, national identities, and democratic cultures as they manifest themselves in Germany and Poland. With the help of an interpretative analysis focused on the discourse of political elites in both countries, the article identifies competing ways of interpreting 20th-century history and providing it with meaning for contemporary audiences. The national case studies of Germany and Poland present a contrasting logic in this respect: the promise of freedom and democracy in Poland is primarily narrated as the liberation from foreign rule and the desire for national independence. This narration is significantly built around a notion of popular sovereignty in which dissenting views of the heroic national past tend to be discredited and largely banned from public debate. In contrast, in Germany, the memory of fascism and the Holocaust has established a stronger rights-based approach to democracy in the liberal tradition and an openness to contesting historical narratives in the public domain.

Public Theology and Democratic Consolidation in Ghana: Challenges and Responses

This study is a review of the challenges of democratic consolidation in Ghana and how Public Theology provides theological insights for the church in its responses to the democratic consolidation challenges. Democratic consolidation in Ghana has been considered relatively successful. However, it has been noted that democratic consolidation in Ghana is being undermined by challenges like dictatorship of the majority, the culture of silence, disregard of democratic institutions, and neglect of bread and butter issues among others. The church has played a significant role in democratic consolidation in Ghana through advocacy, civic education, election observation, social services, and interfaith dialogue. By promoting democratic values and good governance, the church has contributed to the growth and stability of Ghana’s democracy. According to this study, the challenges that threatened democratic consolidation in Ghana persist. It is important for the church therefore to continue to build on its successes and address these challenges in order to further contribute to the strengthening of the nation’s democratic culture. The study used a qualitative approach to gather data. The study concluded with the recommendation that theological insights from Public Theology like human value, dignity, the sovereignty of God, fallibility of human nature, and democracy as a way of life must be concentrated on in the church’s search for responses to the challenges of democratic consolidation and culture in Ghana. Keywords: African Christianity, Public Theology, Democratic Consolidation, Ghana

Critiquing the critical: Bilingual education for all

ABSTRACT This article argues for the extension of the three goals of two-way dual language education to move beyond bilingualism and biliteracy, academic achievement, and cross-cultural understanding for all students and include critical consciousness. After a short history of the colonial aspects of the history of bilingual education in the United States, connections among bilingual education, critical pedagogy, and critical literacy are presented. The combining of critical pedagogy and critical literacy leaves space for bilingual education to promote critical consciousness in the classroom, give space for producing counter-narratives, and strengthen and liberate the lives of people. Practical classroom implications such as adopting a cultural democracy, including classroom dialectics, and advocating for the liberation of all people are given, especially in an arts-based context that embraces a culturally sustaining pedagogy.

CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION IN EUROPEAN SCHOOL SYSTEMS

This paper aims to open a reflective framework, that should be useful to the Romanian education system and encompass ways in which citizenship education is studied in other European countries, at primary and secondary levels. In this regard, the article presents the characteristics of the school systems which are based on maximalist and minimalistic approaches to citizenship education, the critical approaches to citizenship education and, consequently, the concept of “critical citizenship”. The article also includes a brief timeline of legislative and public policy efforts at European level to support education for democratic citizenship, starting from the Maastricht Treaty and reaching the “Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture”. Last but not least, the paper will highlight a series of reforms and approaches to citizenship education at European level (as a separate or integrated school subject, or in a crosscurricular perspective), that references the latest Eurydice study on citizenship education in European schools.

DEMOCRATIC GUIDELINES FOR PUBLIC POLICY ACTORS IN THE CONTEXT OF TRANSFORMATIONS OF SOCIETY

The article studies the issue of improving the democratic guidelines for public policy actors in the context of social transformations, taking into account the risks of wartime. While investigating the theoretical approaches to the analysis of the "public policy" concept, it has been found that public policy is a conscious and purposeful regulation of state affairs and common resources by the state and society. A public policy, the essence of which is public activity, has been also considered. The latter is understood to mean the activity of political and non-political actors represented in the public sphere, who through interaction seek to see their own interest fulfilled. It has been substantiated that the problem of shaping the democratic guidelines for the public policy actors is solved due to the identification of the subjective status of persons who are active participants in the democratic development of society, as well as due to the identification of the form of implementation of democratic principles and views in the political and legal activities of a person, satisfaction of the need to exercise political rights and the need to fulfil political obligations. The phenomenon of modern democracies and the reasons for its vulnerability have been considered. The ways to support a sustainable political and democratic process have been substantiated, in particular, legal confirmation and legislative provision of political rights of citizens. Two institutional dimensions of the political and legal phenomenon of responsibility have been considered: the responsibility of the state and its bodies to a person (an individual and a citizen) when its rights and freedoms are violated and in compensation for the damage caused to it; the responsibility of an individual to the state, arising both in the case of an offense committed and when being implicit in each socially significant act of the person. It has been proved that representative democracy and participatory politics involve not only drastic changes in the political consciousness of the masses, but also the development of a new type of political actors who perceive their own political rights combined with responsibilities, who need to be responsible citizens, who recognize the power of their voices in decision-making by the authorities. Involvement in public affairs should become an imperative of a democratic culture of political behaviour of Ukrainians, built on the foundation of democratic guidelines.

Is Legal Knowledge Regressing (Thanks to AI)?

This review article focuses on a recent book that poses the following question. Is law computable? In examining some of the contributions in this edited collection the article poses a second question. Is, as a result of artificial intelligence (AI) and law research, legal knowledge regressing? In its analysis of the book, the article examines several of the major epistemological problems facing the creators of a legal reasoning AI programme; and it concludes that some of the epistemological assumptions upon which AI research is based are assumptions rooted in old and discredited legal knowledge. Nevertheless, the article has few illusions that judging will one day be dispensed by robot judges, especially if liberal democratic cultures slide slowly into authoritarian societies.
 Keywords: artificial intelligence; computer; Deakin (Simon); epistemology; Markou (Christopher); mos mathematicus; reasoning (legal); rule-model.

UNITED STATES, BRAZIL, POLITICAL POLARIZATION AND DEMOCRATIC PUSHBACK. ASSAULT ON DEMOCRACY?

This article, starting with the attacks on U.S. and Brazilian democratic institutions in January 2021 and 2023, aims to understand whether and how the phenomenon of political polarization may be related to an increase in political violence in democracies and a possible democratic retreat. Likewise, the concept of democratic resilience and how democracies can resist the dangers of political polarization will be investigated. The phenomenon of political polarization can be detrimental to democracies in that, if extreme, it can bring politics to the essential categories of "friend and foe," the politics of "us versus them," which can result in the acceptance of undemocratic actions such as the aforementioned assaults on institutions. However, democracies can find in the consolidation of civic and democratic culture, and strict separation of powers, the means to resist challenges to democracy itself, including the phenomenon of political polarization.

Nyerere and the African Theory of Democracy

Abstract Statecraft, under democratic principles in Tanzania in particular, is often considered as a total heritage from former colonial masters. Julius Kambarage Nyerere (1922–1999) disputed this by advancing an African theory of democracy, articulated to inform modern statecraft in Tanzania. His theory advances a form of democracy characterized by a merger of some practices from the African past and others from the western world. In this way, he articulated the centrality of democracy in organizing public affairs without compromising its African origin but also acknowledging the influence of other democratic cultures in the modern organization of a polity. This article articulates Nyerere's contribution to African democratic discourse and the extent to which his theory of democracy is relevant in the organization of contemporary politics and democratic trajectories in Tanzania and Africa in particular.

Pentecostalism and the Dynamics of Democratic Governance in Nigeria since 1999

The phenomenon of religious politics in Nigeria is an obvious one. In political aspects such as the style of governance, policy formulations and the electoral process in Nigeria, religion has been a decisive determining factor. However, the influence of Christian religion on politics in Nigeria could be both positive and negative. In other words, as religion enhances national development, it could also be counterproductive. This paper critically discusses the influence of Pentecostalism and the dynamics of the Democratic Government in Nigeria since 1999, emphasizing the roles of the church in political leadership in the country. In practicing politics in Nigeria, adherence to religious and moral values and observance of the Nigerian constitution, which provides freedom of religion, is necessary for national development. The study discovered that the uncertainty concerning the future of Nigeria is unfortunately connected to a poor democratic culture, which is an essential factor in the political life of every nation. The paper concludes that, despite the abundant economic resources and several attempts by different governments over the years to reduce poverty and unemployment and promote sustainable development, Nigeria is still struggling in many fronts due to lack of political will, corruption, and no proper coordination for sustainable growth and development programs, In addition, the church, even though a strong voice in the political system of the nation, has not played her roles well. It is argued that Christians need to get more actively involved in politics, and that the Christian religion can and should be an agent of change and progressive national development in Nigeria.

Current Fundamental Competences - The Specifics of the Teaching Profession

Abstract The design, implementation and evaluation of the initial and continuous training programs for teaching staff are based on the competence approach model, as a way of defining and recognizing training results. Competences are defined as integrative sets of knowledge, skills, motivations and attitudes that mediate professional behaviour and guarantee expert action in specific fields and contexts of activity for the teaching profession. The main fields in which the competences corresponding to the teaching profession are defined and according to which the continuous training programs are designed, realized and evaluated, are: the specialty field, corresponding to the educational disciplines and the teaching position held by the teaching staff; the field of pedagogy and educational psychology; the field of didactics/specialized didactics; the field of educational management and school legislation; the field of information and communication techniques applied in teaching and learning processes, in institutional management and data management. The competence system on which this methodology is based takes over and adapts to the specifics of the teaching profession and to the requirements of Romanian pre-university education the categories and levels of competence with which the European Qualifications Framework and the National Qualifications Framework in higher education operate. The system operates with two fundamental categories of competences: professional competences: cognitive competences; functional-action skills; and transversal skills: role skills; to which the intercultural and interrelationship competence is added, the competence meant to ensure well-being and the competence to support the environment, according to what is stated by the OECD in the PISA Global Competence Framework, The European Sustainability Competence Framework, The Council of Europe Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Cultures. The pedagogic practice internship involves a set of activities of observation, analysis and support of lessons, all under the guidance of a pedagogic practice mentor. The research method used was the survey, the questionnaire instrument being used in order to interview the students of the “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu, Faculty of Letters and Arts and Faculty of Social and Human Sciences.

Ideas and Approaches of N.I. Tolstoy in the Context of Modern Studies of Folk Bible

Works of N.I. Tolstoy on Slavic culture, medieval literature and folklore formed Russian ethnolinguistics as well as a common interdisciplinary field for modern research of the “third culture” – an urban, democratic culture that inherits traditional forms of life and worldview and at the same time using all the advantages of writing (and nowadays – digital literacy). The article on the material of the Old Believer verses and handwritten soldier’s notebooks of the second half of the 20th century discusses the question of the relevance of the ideas and approaches of N.I. Tolstoy to analyze of these late remakes of the “archaic ritual-dialogue”.

Mutations of Barcelona’s cultural policy model: Political change, local planning and political instrumentalization of culture in Barcelona

ABSTRACT Barcelona has been a poster child for the entrepreneurial turn in cultural policy, with an approach based on seizing opportunities for promoting the city in the global arena. This model has been successful in terms of urban branding but has driven growing urban inequalities that have drawn criticism from social and academic spheres. Hence, after the 2008 crisis and the ensuing public budget cuts, growing opposition to the model emerged. Criticism of the city’s cultural model crystallized in the leftist, activist candidacy of Barcelona en Comú, a new party that took power in 2015. Since then, pro-commons discourses on cultural policy have emerged that criticize the past model. The new pro-commons approach proposes a radical turn advocating policy as a tool for cultural democratization. Yet this left-wing populist orientation has encountered great hurdles to changing the Barcelona Cultural Policy model (which is based on artistic institutions, creative factories and the instrumentalization of culture for urban branding). Indeed, analysis of the structural cultural expenses of the city council and the innovative local Cultural Rights Plan paradoxically reveals a continuation of the idea of the creative, entrepreneurial city, focusing once again on developing cultural facilities and fostering new urban and cultural clustering. Thus, rather than a radical change in cultural policy, we see great continuities with the previous Creative City model.

Near and far: Tracing memory and reframing presence in pandemic-era Argentina.

Memory has been a central foundation of democracy and civil society in Argentina since the first years of the military dictatorship (1976-1983) when groups occupied public spaces to protest systematic disappearances and state repression that left 30,000 victims. It has taken decades to achieve some form of justice for state terror and repression, much of that shaped by the culture of memory and accountability that hinged on embodied forms of public protest. But what happens to cultural memory when a pandemic precludes traditional forms of gathering? And what does this reveal about how Argentines renegotiate the significance of shared remembering and presence? Building on ethnographic fieldwork in Buenos Aires, this visual essay examines the significance of shared embodied practices of remembering through the lens of pandemic restrictions that invite new insights into the relationship between presence and political belonging. Rather than simply reacting to specific instances of injustice, this essay argues for the significance of cultural memory practices as fundamentally constitutive of democratic culture and civil society in Argentina as it faces new challenges.

Neglected burden of injuries in Ethiopia, from 1990 to 2019: a systematic analysis of the global burden of diseases study 2019.

The 2030 agenda for sustainable development goals has given injury prevention new attention, including halving road traffic injuries. This study compiled the best available evidence on injury from the global burden of diseases study for Ethiopia from 1990 to 2019. Injury data on incidence, prevalence, mortality, disability-adjusted life years lost, years lived with disability, and years of life lost were extracted from the 2019 global burden of diseases study for regions and chartered cities in Ethiopia from 1990 to 2019. Rates were estimated per 100,000 population. In 2019, the age-standardized rate of incidence was 7,118 (95% UI: 6,621-7,678), prevalence was 21,735 (95% UI: 19,251-26,302), death was 72 (95% UI: 61-83), disability-adjusted life years lost was 3,265 (95% UI: 2,826-3,783), years of live lost was 2,417 (95% UI: 2,043-2,860), and years lived with disability was 848 [95% UI: (620-1,153)]. Since 1990, there has been a reduction in the age-standardized rate of incidence by 76% (95% UI: 74-78), death by 70% (95% UI: 65-75), and prevalence by 13% (95% UI: 3-18), with noticeable inter-regional variations. Transport injuries, conflict and terrorism, interpersonal violence, self-harm, falls, poisoning, and exposure to mechanical forces were the leading causes of injury-related deaths and long-term disabilities. Since 1990, there has been a decline in the prevalence of transport injuries by 32% (95% UI: 31-33), exposure to mechanical forces by 12% (95% UI: 10-14), and interpersonal violence by 7.4% (95% UI: 5-10). However, there was an increment in falls by 8.4% (95% UI: 7-11) and conflict and terrorism by 1.5% (95% UI: 38-27). Even though the burden of injuries has steadily decreased at national and sub-national levels in Ethiopia over the past 30 years, it still remains to be an area of public health priority. Therefore, injury prevention and control strategies should consider regional disparities in the burden of injuries, promoting transportation safety, developing democratic culture and negotiation skills to solve disputes, using early security-interventions when conflict arises, ensuring workplace safety and improving psychological wellbeing of citizens.

Cultural Democracy, Cultural Equity, and Cultural Policy: Perspectives from the UK and USA

This article offers an exploratory discussion of two cultural policy concepts and traditions: cultural democracy in the UK and cultural equity in the US. We explore what the concepts share, how they have been shaped by their cultural policy traditions, and how they yield value for cultural policy makers, scholars, and activists. As scholars from divergent yet mutually Anglo-centric traditions, we articulate how these concepts inform one another with a view to enacting a more democratic form of cultural policy. Though the terms are used imprecisely or interchangeably, differences between concepts speak to the intersectional character of cultural inequality.

Continental Constitutionalism, Systemic Legitimacy, and Judicial Review

Abstract This article elaborates on the justification and legitimacy of judicial review in continental constitutionalism. After the Second World War, continental constitutionalism shifted from a Kelsenian conception of constitutional courts to a strong model of judicial review whose legitimacy requires maintaining distance both from the U.S. model built around checks and balances and from the model embodied by the New Commonwealth constitutionalism. I suggest that the legitimacy of continental judicial review should not depend on the degree to which it resists the countermajoritarian objection, but rather that it should follow a logic of protective efficacy that takes a systemic perspective. On this basis, I propose coordinating judicial review in terms of a weak form of constitutionalism that I call “cooperative constitutionalism”, whose three main axes are: a democratic culture of justification, a conception of fundamental rights as qualified mandatory goals and a systemic approach to the proportionality test.

Religion and Democracy in Argentina Religious Opposition to the Legalization of Abortion

This article analyzes the ways in which religious actors opposing the legalization of abortion adjusted their arguments and public actions to the Argentine democratic culture between 2018 and 2020. Data were collected through a qualitative research approach by conducting in-depth interviews with activists, studying public position statements in secondary sources, and analyzing pronouncements and interactions on social media platforms. Religious agents conceived of democracy as the rule of the majority that they intended to promote by means of secular arguments, demonstrations in public spaces, and the construction of electoral alternatives. Marginally, the categorization of feminism through conspiracy theories and the use of dilatory legal maneuvers ran counter to the logic of the expansion of rights. According to the empirical evidence gathered, the religious agents showed increasing adjustments to the language and criteria inherent to democratic life.

Visual arts and institutions in post-revolutionary Portugal: artistic interventions and the creation of a new museum of modern art

ABSTRACT This article explores the field of visual arts and artistic experimentation as important elements of civic agency in the Portuguese revolutionary process. It argues that Portuguese visual artists, who had been exploring new media and forms of expression since the late 1960s, anticipated and championed the Portuguese revolution as a democratic project. In doing so, they also proposed new forms of civic action, which intersected artistic practice with political engagement. I will specifically address the mobilization of the artistic and cultural community in Oporto for the creation of a “living” museum of modern art in this city. This project caused a rupture with the institutional apparatus of the dictatorship and effectively promoted a debate about cultural democratization and decentralization. This article conceives visual arts and action as a force for a more plural and progressive regime. It explores collective interventions in the public and institutional space; the configuration of democratic participation in the transformation of former dictatorial structures; and the envisioning of continuing change in order to consolidate democracy. The article thus advances a critical redefinition of the relationship between artistic practice and political mobilization and contributes to the dynamic dialogue between creativity and democratization in Portugal.