Democratic Discourse Research Articles

Variations of Islam and democracy in Muslim countries: From Islamic countries to secular Muslim countries and its relevance to the discourse of Islam and democracy

The phenomenon of Islam and democracy in Muslim countries is practiced differently between Muslim countries with an Islamic state and Muslim countries with a secular pattern. This article wants to examine and reassess the view of Islamic exceptions or “Islamic exceptionalism” on the scarcity of democracy in Muslim countries with case studies of regime variations found in Muslim countries. This article analyzes the variation of Islam and democracy in Muslim countries, with a comparative method using data from the democracy indexing agency. There are four variations of Muslim countries: Islamic countries, semi-Islamic countries, secular countries, and semi-secular countries. This study shows that, from the four variations of the Islamic world, none of the Islamic countries has succeeded in achieving full democracy (full democracy). Three Muslim countries have a flawed democracy (flawed democracy), namely Malaysia, Indonesia, and Tunisia. The rest of the Muslim countries are under a political system controlled by the military (hybrid democracy) and authoritarianism. In addition, this article finds that social, political, cultural, and agency tools and support in supporting democratic values are still the main problems that harm the scarcity of democracy in Muslim societies

Crisis, justice, and managing the appetite for risk

The phrase ‘never let a good crisis go to waste’ is often (mis)attributed to Winston Churchill. It expresses the common perception that the sentiments evoked by crisis can be used to manipulate power relations and strategically reposition influence. Although crises can arise from tangible, objectively catastrophic external events, governmental responses to crises are accompanied by processes of framing—construction, interpretation, and communication to the community subject to governance. The framing and management of crises can contribute to the expansion of regulatory scope. Moreover, the process of scaffolding regulatory legitimacy during times of crisis involves deployment and amplification of techniques of governance such as the use of data and expert knowledge, risk management, responsibilisation, and dispersal (or non-dispersal) of funds. In political systems that have adopted neoliberalist forms, these techniques of governance cascade from state-administered functions, such as policing, health, armed forces, and emergency services, to local communities, employers, and consumers. In this way we find responsibility devolved and detached from political decision-making and, more importantly, from democratic legitimacy. Dispersed governing mechanisms steer individual practices towards certain ends so that, rather than suffering the removal of the capacity for decision-making, individuals willingly abandon it. This article explores the intersection between regulation and justice and the methods of framing crises to legitimise governance actions where those actions constrain human rights and justice claims. Analysing Australian state and federal governmental and non-governmental actions during the COVID pandemic, it will use a case study method to assert that performative compliance activity is amongst the suite of sophisticated techniques to legitimise decisions made in circumstances of crisis, even when those decisions cross traditional normative boundaries, implicitly diminishing claims to legitimacy based on democratic discourse. This article will focus on two events: the decision to ‘lock down’ community housing towers, and the decision to arrest and charge with incitement a pregnant woman for starting a Facebook post to encourage breach of lockdown restrictions. Both decisions prompted expressions of concern by civil rights groups and lawyers that human rights had been breached.

Perspective-Taking to Reduce Affective Polarization on Social Media

The intensification of affective polarization worldwide has raised new questions about how social media platforms might be further fracturing an already-divided public sphere. As opposed to ideological polarization, affective polarization is defined less by divergent policy preferences and more by strong negative emotions towards opposing political groups, and thus arguably poses a formidable threat to rational democratic discourse. We explore if prompting perspective-taking on social media platforms can help enhance empathy between opposing groups as a first step towards reducing affective polarization. Specifically, we deploy a randomized field experiment through a browser extension to 1,611 participants on Twitter, which enables participants to randomly replace their feeds with those belonging to accounts whose political views either agree with or diverge from their own. We find that simply exposing participants to "outgroup" feeds enhances engagement, but not an understanding of why others hold their political views. On the other hand, framing the experience in familiar, empathic terms by prompting participants to recall a disagreement with a friend does not affect engagement, but does increase their ability to understand opposing views. Our findings illustrate how social media platforms might take simple steps that align with business objectives to reduce affective polarization.

Purposeful and Ethical Early Childhood Teacher: The Underlying Values Guiding Finnish Early Childhood Education

Purpose The new Finnish National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education and Care (2018) strongly highlights pedagogical knowledge and practice, demanding teachers to develop their pedagogical thinking, evaluation, judgment, and operating culture. Since ethics is viewed as vital characteristics of the teaching profession, our objective is to make these complex ethical issues more visible to be subject to democratic discussion and change. Design/Approach/Methods The framework comprises a broad theory base of codes of ethics and professional codes of ethics of teaching. The research materials were national curricula of early childhood education and care (ECEC)- and pre-primary education. The eight-step qualitative analysis process was applied to identify and shed light on the codes of ethics laying the foundations for purposeful and ethical early childhood education (ECE) teacher. Findings The results indicate that through both theoretical lenses, the Finnish ECEC curricula comprise several ethical codes. For the future purposeful ECE teachers as ethical professionals, the results raise questions for further discussion. Particularly, issues related to the ethics of care, intellectual freedom, inquiry stance, and professional competence, and diversity may further enhance our ECEC curricula. Originality/Value During recent decades, the ethics concerning ECEC have gained increasing global attention. Particularly, there is a large international consensus considering ECEC as a prominent policy equalizing opportunities.

‘Defending Religious Rights’: The Critical Analysis of Religious Minority Discourse in Indonesia

Freedom of religion, as the main part of human rights, has been one of the main discourses in traditional and modern Indonesia. However, its current development reveals that such a freedom is still far from its final agreement, especially in guaranteeing the religious right of minority. By using the approach of Critical Discourse Analysis (henceforth CDA), this article investigates the religious freedom discourse as defended and disseminated by one of the NGOs in Indonesia, namely the Setara Institute, to identify how the Indonesia Ahmadiyya sect is discursively discriminated against. The study is carried out by analysing multiple texts in various genres produced and disseminated by this NGO when defending the Ahmadiyya minority sect. The sect has been the target of religious discrimination and violent attacks perpetrated by Islamic majority groups in the country. The data used in this study are annual reports, books, interviews, and public debates. The analysis reveals that freedom of religion is still not properly established and Ahhamdiyya followers are not treated equally both in religious or political matters. This can be seen in four discourse constructions, namely discourses of democracy, unrestricted freedom of religion, impartiality and the weakness of leadership.

A Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of the strategic plans of Istanbul under different political administrations

ABSTRACT Strategic plans are sophisticated public administration tools of local governments, which are not limited to the simple expression of priorities of a city or plans and projects to be conducted in the future. They are more than the sum of some words and expressions, and they are shaped primarily by the political approach or ideology of the administration releasing them. In this article, a comparative Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of the last two strategic plans of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) (2015–2019/2020-2024), which were prepared by mayors with different party affiliations, was conducted. It is observed that a participatory democracy discourse has been adopted in the new strategic plan with the predominant use of words such as participation, participatory, transparency, cooperation, inclusive, fair, equal, accountability etc. The rigid shift from government to governance discourse in the strategic plans of IMM is also visible in the non-linguistic practice of the municipality.

Changing Dynamics of Constitutionalism: South Asia's Tryst with Constitution

The prevailing view of the constitutional framework in South Asia is seen as secondary and subsidiary to developed constitutional systems worldwide. Meanwhile, South Asian countries have merely re-produced the constitutional framework of developed nations. The emergence and development of South Asian constitutionalism present a range of perspectives and methodological approaches that contribute to comparative constitutional law scholarship in South Asia. The overt attention toward the Western notion of liberalism has often led to an incomplete and unclear approach to South Asian constitutionalism. The paper aimed to explore the elements of South Asian constitutionalism alongside underlying socio-economic and political discourse surrounding its contemporary understanding. It also analyzed the role of courts in affirming and transforming South Asian constitutionalism. Instead of reviving interest in South Asia and Third World Approach to International Law, this paper showed that it is only practical and pragmatic to study constitutionalism with specific reference to the modern discourse of democracy, judicial review, separation of power, and human rights enshrined in their respective constitutions. In terms of its emergence from the colonial history and other prevalent forms of distinct cultural, social, and political practices, South Asia presented a heterogeneous experience in the light of recognition and enforcement of socio-economic rights and transformations and deviations from its past experiences.
 KEYWORDS: Comparative Constitutional Law, Constitutionalism, South Asia.

Democracy and Sustainable Development

The democratic discourse on climate change and sustainable development is becoming increasingly polarized. While some voters are pushing back against the movement to wean the world economy away from fossil fuels, others are questioning the huge costs that the transition to a green economy will impose and whether such attempts will have the required impact. This essay discusses the relationship between democracy and sustainable development by comparing the records of China and India in relation to the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It argues that the politics of sustainable development has not received the attention it deserves. With a growing number of actors involved at various levels of society, the sustainable development narrative has often focused on a win–win narrative while glossing over areas where political agreement is more difficult to reach. While autocracies can achieve good results, democracy provides the best platform and guarantees for difficult negotiations and deliberations that are required for the achievement of sustainable development.

The Decentralization and Religious Management Policy in Radical-Democratic Discourse

This article discusses the authority to carry out autonomous management of religious administrative policies that are denied by the central government of Indonesia where the regional government has no right to give recognition of a religion or belief embraced by the local community. The government only recognizes six administratively registered religions based on the population records. Those are Islam, Catholicism, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism. The method used in this paper is normative juridical legal researhc. Whereas in the anthropological tradition of the local communities’ spiritual beliefs, Indonesia has 187 local beliefs with its unofficial number of trustees of 20 million people. Therefore, the religious beliefs embraced by the residents are ignored in public services and bureaucratic practices. Hence, the logical consequences that have implications for the adherents of local religious beliefs are the exclusion of basic rights as citizens, inequality before the law and government, discrimination in public services, restrictions on freedom of worship and tradition, being the recipients of racism, and forms of intolerance in society. This article will focus on conducting empirical-theoretical analysis of decentralization, religious administration policies, and relation to pluralist democratic discourse.

Que les règles de l’art ne sont pas forcément une si mauvaise chose : l’esthétique normative selon Alexander Pope et Philip Pullman.

The concept of “rules of art” feels, in the context of 21st-century aesthetics and critical discourse, like an antiquated idea with unsound theoretical bases (it is by definition at odds with Kantian aesthetic subjectivism) and authoritarian undertones (regulating art being often seen as political censorship). The purpose of this article is to play Devil’s advocate and make the case for rules of arts, in defense of what could be called aesthetic normativity, through a commentary of critical writings by Augustan age poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744) and contemporary novelist Philip Pullman (*1946). The introduction presents this project from an historical and critical perspective; Pope’s and Pullman’s views of aesthetic normativity are then discussed in succession, on the basis of which the conclusion offers answers to anti-normativism, and a definition of aesthetic normativity as a beneficial framework for the democratic discussion of artistic works and processes.

Shelving Issues: Patrolling the Boundaries of Democratic Discussion in Public Meetings

Democratic participation is widely viewed as a crucial underpinning of legitimate governance; however, little is known about how this participation is practically accomplished. This study contributes to a better understanding of what democratic citizenship encompasses in actual practices of public engagement. Using conversation analysis and discursive psychology, we analyze interactions between government officials and citizens in Dutch public meetings on the effects of livestock farming. We examine situations where citizens treat officials’ closing-implicative moves as “wanting to shelve” issues. We demonstrate how this uptake is preceded by officials treating citizens as not understanding what is within the scope of discussion, thereby challenging their democratic competence. Citizens subsequently turn the tables on the officials, treating them as not wanting to fulfill their democratic duties. We argue that these practices point to broader relational issues between government and citizens, transforming what seem mere agenda issues into negotiations about what constitutes good democracy.

Making an American Opera Career: Conductor May Valentine (1890–1974) and a Woman's Role(s) in the Business of Opera

Making an American Opera Career: Conductor May Valentine (1890–1974) and a Woman's Role(s) in the Business of Opera

Digging at the Roots: A Reply to Naoko Saito's American Philosophy in Translation

Digging at the Roots: A Reply to Naoko Saito's <i>American Philosophy in Translation</i>

Searching for Democracy, Finding Nationalism

Abstract In May 2018 a democratic breakthrough occurred in Armenia known as the Velvet Revolution. The leader of the protests was Nikol Pashinyan, who after the resignation of Serzh Sargsyan became the prime minister of Armenia. Pashinyan’s coming to power coincidentally overlapped with the celebrations of the centennial of the First Republic of Armenia, which, particularly in the post-Soviet era, is largely considered to be the point marking the revival of Armenian statehood. Based on the congratulatory remarks and speeches by Pashinyan, this article argues that the leader of the Velvet Revolution used a language that united the principles of the First Republic with the ‘Velvet’ ideas. By drawing links between 1918 and 2018, Pashinyan claimed that the post-Velvet Armenia was regenerating the democratic values inherent to the pre-Soviet spirit of the Armenian people. This was a convenient strategy for Pashinyan for avoiding the image of the Revolution as an anti-Russian step supported by the West. Thus, during the celebrations of the First Republic, Pashinyan linked the idea of democracy to the First Republic of Armenia and represented the Velvet Revolution as a revival of the values that were suppressed during the Soviet era and the first decades of post-Soviet Armenia. However, by giving a narrow focus to the discourse of democracy which dominated the whole Caucasus region after the collapse of the Russian Empire, by representing Armenians as an elemental source of democracy and by linking their democratic breakthroughs with the notion of survival, Pashinyan elaborated a nationalist narrative rather than a democratic one.

“You are a disgrace and traitor to our country”: incivility against “The Squad” on Twitter

PurposeFor many, the sole source for news content is social media, where passionate opinions are posted at an alarming speed. These opinions can cross the line from differing opinions shared in a public forum onto uncivil dialogue and even hate speech. Such online discourse threatens democratic values and creates a hostile environment. The purpose of this paper is to examine such incivility using the case of four congresswomen known as “The Squad”.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a content analysis examining 20,563 replies to tweets sent by the four congresswomen. The social media data analysis and library, Brandwatch, was used to aggregate tweets posted by the four representatives, as well as all the replies posted to these tweets. The replies were coded to understand the types of incivility against each of the four congresswomen, whether the topics of a tweet can predict the types of incivility received in response, and the impact of Trump's tweet against the congresswomen.FindingsThe study findings show that the majority of replies contained uncivil language. The most common types of incivility are related to name-calling, stereotypes, threats to individual rights and vulgarity. Tweets about immigration and the Muslim ban, as well as tweets with negative tones received more replies. Following Donald Trump's Twitter attack on the representatives, replies to the congresswomen's tweets almost doubled. Mainly two types of incivility were observed to have increased significantly – the use of stereotypes and threats to individual rights.Originality/valueThe study examines incivility on Twitter against four black, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) congresswomen as an exploratory case to observe and understand the growing phenomenon of uncivil language which feeds a polarized society and threatens democratic values. “The Squad” is more than an isosteric case study. It captures key changes in American politics. In the context of democratic discourse, the attack by the former president on these congresswomen and the response on social media address key issues of gender, religion and race in the United States.

Dialogue and speech centricity in the public sphere

Abstract This article examines how speech centric legal and public policy interpretations of the U.S. First Amendment – which guarantees constitutional protection for the freedoms of speech, press, religion, and assembly, from government constraint – tend to significantly impede democratic political discourse in the public sphere. Among other problems, speech centricity diminishes the importance of listening, adding to the crises of polarization and demonization now fracturing public political discourse. By drawing upon dialogical theory, speech act theory, and theories of listening, the essay explores how a listening-based perspective on legal and policy conceptions of free expression could perhaps reinvigorate political discourse.

Tinker, Tailor, Twitter, Lie: Government Disinformation and Freedom of Expression in a Post-Truth Era

Abstract The spread of disinformation has received significant attention in recent years, yet little has been paid to government disinformation, and whether governments may violate freedom of expression not only in how they regulate disinformation, but also in how they facilitate, sow and spread it. This article analyses whether and to what extent Article 10 of the ECHR is engaged by government disinformation. It extends the analysis from well-established violations of freedom of expression—overt censorship and withholding information—into novel forms of government interference in the ‘post-truth’ age: false claims of ‘fake news’ levelled at the press and intentional lies about matters of public importance. These latter categories warrant further attention, as governments can cause just as much harm to public discourse and debate by intentionally injecting falsehoods as by censoring truth. A purposive approach to freedom of expression is needed to protect not only the means of expression, but also the ends—vibrant democratic discourse and meaningful public debate.

Museums in the age of platform giants: Disconnected policies and practices

This article explores how the British Museum and the National Museum of Australia tailor their digital cultural politics, and how this corresponds to their management of online collections and presence on social media. The article applies textual analysis to examine how the two museums discursively frame their policies; interface analysis to demonstrate how they organise their online collections; and platform analysis to scrutinise their communication on Instagram. Findings indicate that the museums’ policies align with writings on democratic, participative, and user-generated digital museum communication. In practice, however, their design of digital collections and use of Instagram does not reflect their digital cultural politics as policy. There is therefore a disconnect between their policies and practices. This disconnect does not indicate that their digital collections and presence on social media are poorly designed and executed, but rather that the democratic, engaging, user-driven and participatory discourses of new museology are overstated.

Democracy as Fetish, by Ralph Cintron, University Park: Penn State University Press

Democracy as Fetish, by Ralph Cintron, University Park: Penn State University Press

Examining Teacher Candidates’ Backgrounds, Experiences, and Beliefs as Precursors for Developing Dispositions for Democracy

Background/Context: In this article, we draw on Villegas’s explanations of beliefs as precursors to social justice dispositions and Mills et al.’s Australian research about social justice dispositions as either affirmative or transformative. These conceptual positions assist us in understanding the beliefs that are derived from applicants’ schooling and life experiences. Purpose of Study: The article reports on how 46 candidates applying for an Australian equity-oriented initial teacher education (ITE) program described their backgrounds and beliefs around social justice. The purpose of the research is to understand starting point beliefs in order to design a strongly democratic teacher education program for historically hard-to-staff schools. Setting: Expressions of interest were analyzed from applications to an Australian ITE program designed to prepare teachers for hard-to-staff urban and rural secondary schools in Victoria, Australia. Research Design: This research is a qualitative critical discourse analysis. Our initial activity involved grouping statements using the following five codes: their firsthand, personal backgrounds of disadvantage; their secondhand experience with disadvantage, such as seeing racism from afar or volunteering; their belief statements about equity or social justice; their deficit positions or stereotypes; and their overtly activist statements. Findings/Results: Finding that some of these discourses were much more common than others, we were able to examine applicants’ social justice discourses more deeply. We contend that democratic discourses can be seen on a kind of continuum, with weaker (or thinner) and stronger versions. In general, a weaker version of equity includes generic inclusive beliefs about everyone being equal, whereas a stronger version demonstrates a more complex understanding of social inequities and a commitment to changing systems rather than individuals. Within each category, there were glimpses of weaker and stronger activist experiences and beliefs that we consider precursors to strong social justice or democratic teacher dispositions. Conclusions/Recommendations: Rather than determining selection into the program, the candidates’ social justice statements made in their expressions of interest (EOIs) became starting points to design a program that prepares teachers who are knowledgeable agents of social change. Their statements guided us to understand these starting points in relation to how the candidates narrated their backgrounds, experiences, and beliefs, and enabled us to better explore how social justice is interpreted.