Democratic Arrangements Research Articles

Democratic Imagination in the University

With an eye on the context of the contemporary university, David Hansen attends in this article to the significance and cultivation of a democratic imagination. While the university is under pressure to put its long-standing educational purposes in service of the global economy and the state, faculty across the various disciplines enjoy considerable latitude to create classroom and other settings that can draw out students’ imaginative response to the world. To illuminate this prospect, Hansen engages the American poet Walt Whitman’s magisterial evocation of democracy, Song of Myself (first published in 1855). Whitman enacts three ‘offices’ of the poet which he shows are at the same time constituents of a democratic imagination: (1) to attend to potentially dynamic aspects of everyday life to which people are typically blind, (2) to project democratic arrangements that contrast with present practices, and (3) to provoke people to remember, which is to say make vivid once again, aims and ideals that have served people well but which are easy to let fall into the shadows in the face of pressure. Hansen suggests that university faculty retain the power to help activate in students, and in themselves, these imaginal proclivities. The results may not be overtly dramatic, but they constitute an ongoing ‘quiet’ revolution – a turning or ‘revolving’ toward genuine educational and democratic values.

NIGERIA POLITICAL ARRANGEMENT: THE CHALLENGES OF ETHNO-RELIGION CONSIDERATION

In an ideal political society, what informed democratic process or governmental policies are issues that are germane to improving the fortune of the citizenry. Unlike in Nigeria where decisions and government appointment are influenced by myopic view for ethnic affiliation and religion sentiment. The role of ethnic affiliation and religion alliance in democratic arrangement and party politics in Nigeria cannot be underestimated. Voter's behavior is often determined by ethnic interest and religion sentiment. It sometimes resulted in the best candidate not being elected or picked for a leadership position. Religion and ethnic affiliation indirectly influenced the political dynamics of Nigeria. The effort to balance religion interest is a challenge to the government. The manifestation of the struggle among the ethno-religion groups was glaring during the 2023 presidential election. Sensitivity around religion interest can be attributed to the complexity in the process in governance. This view can be buttressed by the antecedent of the two major religion divides. Evidence from the activities of CAN, MURIC and others is recent. Politicians no longer consider the sacredness of churches and mosque but for political campaign. Nigeria constitution and government structure have over-emphasized the role of religion. The trend is tilting towards a dangerous part of political divides or polarization along religion line. No evidence from the constitution to affirm the religion obligation of the government, but religion affiliation is usually linked to notable political appointments and opportunity to take up leadership position. The work investigated evidence and challenges from the increasing use of religion and ethnic yardstick for choosing political leaders. The research used secondary data, such as books, journals, and other existing literature relevant to the study.

A sub-imperial realm amidst the global parliamentary moment: legislative imaginations of Russian Poland, 1905–18

ABSTRACT This article seeks to explore the ideal of parliament nurtured by various political actors in the Russian-controlled Kingdom of Poland, up to the formation of the Polish nation state after the interim German occupation. Spanned between the legacy of the noble Sejms and radical democratic ideas for future Poland, the cultural imagination of parliamentarism faced its imperfect embodiment in the existing imperial assemblies – above all, the Russian Duma. Drawing from an extensive collection of political leaflets, press of various profiles and Russian administrative sources, I demonstrate the entangled, lived relationship between parliament and revolution, by no means opposite concepts in the global wave of constitutional revolutions. The parliamentary ideal served to renegotiate the arrangements of imperial social space in the direction of national self-assertion and perpetuated social practices conductive to future democratic arrangements. The actors involved demonstrated ambiguous potentials of various forms of national representation. These experiences and considerations had grave consequences in the critical juncture of the revolutionary sequence leading to the emergence of the Polish nation state – for the time being, in a majoritarian parliamentary form.

Democracy in Northern Ireland Since the Good Friday Agreement: A Post-Brexit Reappraisal

The aim of this paper is to identify and analyse the reasons why the Brexit referendum and its results have led to a profound and lasting destabilisation of post-Good Friday Agreement Northern Irish democracy. The main thesis developed in this paper is that the post-Brexit referendum crisis prevailing in Northern Ireland should lead us to reappraise critically the democratic institutions and processes established after the GFA as they were vulnerable and perfectible. It is argued that three kinds of deficits can be found in the democratic arrangements in place since 1998 which can account for the destabilising impacts of Brexit. These deficits are: first, the lure of a new European post-national and post-sovereign democratic transformation of the Northern Irish conflict, second, the limitations of consociational democracy and, thirdly, the problems raised by referendum democracy.

The ‘Eyes and Ears of Parliament’: devolved public accounts committees in the UK

ABSTRACT Devolution in the United Kingdom heralded a significant change in democratic arrangements including associated accountability mechanisms in the form of public accounts committees (PACs) in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This paper investigates whether devolved arrangements have resulted in enhanced accountability. Based on documentary sources, survey data, and interviews with key stakeholders, this study finds that all three jurisdictions have a high level of public accountability, with Wales being the most effective PAC. While there are significant differences in the information and discussion phases of the committees’ work, all three regions have comparable outcomes as a result of their deliberations.

The politics of co-implementation and their potential in shaping egalitarian cities

This paper contributes to the debate on co-production in planning theory and practice by examining the political agency of non-profit housing actors—here termed “alternative co-producers”—in building an egalitarian city. Drawing from theories of co-production, planning politics, democracy and governance, the paper introduces, theorizes and operationalizes the concept of “co-implementation” as the political moment in which egalitarian cities can be jointly shaped by public authorities, co-producers and the civil society. By egalitarian cities, we mean cities governed by a reinvented democratic arrangement that can better realize policy and planning goals in the direction of “housing for all.” To test the political agency of alternative co-producers in their role as plan co-implementers, the paper relies on empirical evidence from HousingNOLA; a 10-year strategy and implementation plan in post-Katrina New Orleans. By critically examining the politics of HousingNOLA during the first 3 years of its implementation (2015–2018), the paper reveals the political conditions and practices that have favored or hampered co-implementation in New Orleans and that have determined progress in realizing an egalitarian city.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Law and Development

This article describes how the authors understand Law and Development (L&D), and L&D teaching, based on their conceptual views, as well as on their practical experiences in the classroom. In light of Miola’s experience, it describes a possible purpose for L&D: that of influencing the minds of future development policymakers. This idea is presented in the description of a practical experience of teaching an L&D undergraduate class for nonlaw students. In such an environment L&D’s well-established emphasis on the imbrication of law and economic performance can help nonlaw students perceive and discuss the roles of law in the economy and development policies - the domains in which many of them will likely act as professionals. Based on Coutinho’s experience in teaching at a law school, it describes how researching and teaching L&D involves developing a lens (or a “technology”) through which the law can be seen (and eventually changed, in an institutional design exercise) as a tool to shape democratic arrangements devised to structure and implement development policies. The authors also highlight what they perceive to be common between these two relatively distinct research and teaching experiences, and discuss what they mean regarding their views about what constitutes L&D (and, once more, how to teach) it: Miola’s course seeks to shape a different “legal consciousness” of future development professionals who are not lawyers, so they can devise or deal with development policies without ignoring legal institutions, whereas Coutinho’s class, in turn, aims to enable law students to visualise their field of practice as a powerful “technology” to development to critically analyse and improve institutional arrangements, and hence of themselves as agents with a privileged position to operate it.

Confucian Democracy in East Asia: A Discussion of Sungmoon Kim’s Democracy After Virtue: Toward Pragmatic Confucian Democracy

Confucian Democracy in East Asia: A Discussion of Sungmoon Kim’s <i>Democracy After Virtue: Toward Pragmatic Confucian Democracy</i>

COVID-19 Crisis: Government's (Dis)Trust in the People and Pitfalls of Liberal Democracies

The COVID-19 crisis highlighted the issue of trust in European democracies. Governments had to both undertake (unprecedented) restrictive measures to manage the spread of COVID-19 and to rely on citizens' willingness to adhere to these measures. Scientific works on political trust generally focus on people's trust in government and stress its centrality during the crisis. Public opinion surveys, conducted during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, reported fluctuating levels of people's trust in national governments. However, it is as important to ask how government constructs trust, including in its own people. In the article, we aim to focus on the latter aspect of political trust in order to highlight the role of trust in such crises as pandemic, and draw evaluative implications for democratic arrangements. Using discourse analysis, we look at how the Prime Ministers (PMs) of three European countries (Hungary, Lithuania, and the Netherlands) articulated (dis)trust as well as constructed images of Us in their public speeches informing respective societies about the COVID-19 situation. In PMs' speeches (dis)trust is articulated along a trust-control continuum, and we identified distinctive patterns of the Us vs. Them construction.

Governmentality and South Africa’s Edifice of Gender and Sexual Rights

Leading feminist scholars and activists have critiqued the current impact of South Africa’s provisions for gender equality and sexual rights. The country boasts one of the most progressive constitutions in the world, and its formal mechanisms for gender transformation and sexual citizenship are – at a global level – pathbreaking. At the same time, however, violence against women, gender non-conforming people and gays and lesbians or ongoing gender-based injustices in workplaces, educational institutions and many homes testify to the fact that such measures have not transformed ideological beliefs, institutional cultures and power relations in many public and domestic contexts. This article confronts the disjuncture between the formal provision of rights and actual practice, by analysing the effects of provisions devoid of transformative impact. It is argued that the country’s seemingly democratic arrangements for gender justice and sexual citizenship reproduce new forms of governmentality, biopolitics and biopower. By drawing on the work of Jasbir Puar, the article argues that South Africa’s imagining as a democratic state is based largely on its provision of rights around sexuality and gender, and in relation to peripheries that are ‘measured’ by the absence of these. In the global imagining, gender equality and sexual citizenship currently serve as tropes for definitive freedoms and democracy. The recognition of gender equality and sexual citizenship ratifies a particular international understanding of ‘democracy’, one that is congruent with global neoliberal standards, and that actively reproduces the gendered, heteronormative, classist and racist status quo.

Franchise for All: The Constituent Assembly Debates on Universal Adult Suffrage

The recent 2019 general elections in India elected more than 500 representatives to the Parliament: one did not have to belong to a particular gender, race, class or caste to vote. All Indian citizens who are otherwise not disqualified can elect their representatives. With the Constitution coming into force in 1950, unlike other countries, at one stroke India provided for a universal adult franchise. Its instant arrival, according to Khosla was ‘arresting given democracy’s troubled history in the decades preceding the end of British rule’. Many observers of that time argued against throwing open voting rights to all. The British Prime Minister Clement Atlee was sceptical of the democratic arrangements that India was heading towards. He wrote to Nehru: “The Asiatic republics are few and of recent establishment. Their record is not very encouraging. They tend to degenerate into dictatorships or oligarchies. They offer a prize for the ambitious authoritarian individual”. Ivor Jennings, English lawyer and academic, noted: ‘it may be possible to minimize the risks by creating a limited franchise or by balancing representation…narrow franchise, indirect elections, tribal representation may all be colonial conditions…merely because they are regarded as primitive in the Conservation Party Headquarters or Transport House’. Jennings conception of independent, democratic India was not rooted in the universal adult franchise. Forceful voices against the universal adult franchise did not deter India’s will to enfranchise all. This essay revisits how universal adult franchise appeared and was finally adopted in Indian political and constitutional history: a measure that forged a new political and democratic path for an independent India. The first part focusses on a franchise under British rule and the demand for the universal adult franchise within the freedom movement. The second part examines the Constituent Assembly debates around the adult franchise. This essay does not look at the operationalisation of the universal adult franchise: an exercise that began even before the Constitution came into force. Ornit Shani’s work in How India Became Democratic gives an illustrative account of how democracy was institutionalised through universal adult franchise. She examines the practical measures undertaken by the Constituent Assembly Secretariat (CAS), between 1947 to 1950, to make the universal adult franchise a reality. After the Constituent Assembly, in 1947, signalled the adoption of universal adult franchise, the CAS began preparation of the electoral roll: 173 million citizens were enfranchised. Shani claims that ‘the first draft electoral roll on the basis of the universal franchise was ready just before the enactment of the constitution. Indians became voters before they were citizens’.

Democratising Smart Cities? Penta-Helix Multistakeholder Social Innovation Framework

The smart cities policy approach has been intensively implemented in European cities under the Horizon 2020 programme. However, these implementations not only reduce the interdependencies among stakeholders to technocratic Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) models, but also fail to question the identities of strategic stakeholders and how they prioritise their business/social models. These aspects are putting democracy at stake in smart cities. Therefore, this article aims to unfold and operationalise multistakeholders’ policy frameworks from the social innovation perspective by suggesting the ex-novo penta-helix framework—including public, private, academia, civic society, and social entrepreneurs/activists—to extend the triple and quadruple-helix frameworks. Based on fieldwork action research conducted from February 2017 to December 2018—triangulating desk research, 75 interviews, and three validation workshops—this article applies the penta-helix framework to map out five strategic dimensions related to (i) multistakeholder helix framework and (ii) the resulting business/social models comparatively in three follower cities of the H2020-Replicate project: Essen (Germany), Lausanne (Switzerland), and Nilüfer (Turkey). For each case study, the findings reveal: (i) a unique multistakeholder composition, (ii) diverse preferences on business/social models, (iii) a regular presence of the fifth helix as intermediaries, and (iv) the willingness to experiment with democratic arrangements beyond the hegemonic PPP.

Climate change and the unsustainable urbanism in the municipality of João Pessoa, PB, Brazil

In the scope of urban space production, Brazilian urban policy, despite pointing out in its guidelines the struggle for the right to the city, seems indifferent to the impacts of real estate speculation on ecosystems. Given the context of the climate emergency, there is an urgent need to align urban and environmental policy for planning cities adapted to climate change. This work presents, based on spatial data from the recent deforestation of the city of João Pessoa, the legal and socioenvironmental characteristics of the urban expansion of the city and how the municipal urban and environmental policy has catalyzed processes of socioenvironmental injustice. It appears that planning and management are limited to following the trends signaled by the real estate market and that pressure ecosystems, especially in the southern portion of the municipality, and also that democratic arrangements are forged to make society's role in defending ecosystems unfeasible.

Data Civics: A Response to the “Ethical Turn”

In addition to the recent proliferation of approaches, programs, and research centers devoted to ethical data and Artifiical Intelligence, it is becoming increasingly clear that we need to directly address the political question. Ethics, while crucial, comprise only an indirect response to recent concerns about the political uses and misuses of data mining, AI, and automated processes. If we are concerned about the impact of digital media on democracy, it will be important to consider what it might mean to foster democratic arrangements for the collection and use of data, and for the institutions that perform these tasks. This essay considers what it might mean to supplement ethical concerns with political ones. It argues for the importance of considering the tensions between civic life and the wholesale commercialization of news, information, and entertainment platforms—and how these are exacerbated by the dominant economic model of data-driven hyper-customization.

ФОРМУВАННЯ БРЕНД-КАПІТАЛУ КЛАСТЕРНОГО ПІДПРИЄМНИЦТВА НА ЗАСАДАХ ЕКОНОМІКИ СПІЛЬНОЇ УЧАСТІ

The article seeks to explore the issues of building brand capital in cluster entrepreneurship on the principles of sharing economy. To gain better awareness and clarity, the study offers insights on major characteristics and contradictions embedded in the definition of a "sharing economy" which made possible to view it as a new socioeconomic model of doing business, according to which access to goods and services with excess opportunities is provided through online platforms. It is argued that the process of business activity in the frameworks of sharing economy triggers a new pattern of consolidation of individuals, consumers, entrepreneurs and companies (which is an integration association in nature) and therefore, the brand of an individual, consumer, entrepreneur, company or the state as a whole acts as an integrative element in the transition toward the concept of a new, sharing economy. The synergistic combination of structural and consumer capital formation models, substantiation of the main tenets of the modern concept of sharing economy and the projection of specific features of brand capital onto a three-level plane of macro-, mezo- and microeconomic levels offers a new cluster-based entrepreneurship model of building brand capital. Thus, the study of essential trends in brand capital formation within cluster entrepreneurship based on the principles of sharing economy has revealed that the core of this model is the virtual business environment of cognitive interaction of the sharing economy participants. The authors suggest that such simulated organizational structure with a tiered peer-to-peer network architecture will facilitate the effect of integrity in the process of building the national brand capital (empowering ordinary people and entrepreneurs; utilizing resources effectively; enhancing the degree of corporate social responsibility; realizing the principles of fair distribution of value; more democratic arrangement of entrepreneurship and raising environmental awareness, as well as offering a new pattern of bringing people together) that fits modern global technology development trends.

JURISPRUDENTIAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE FOUNTAIN OF NIGERIA LEGAL SYSTEM

The basis of the Nigerian legal system appears multi-faceted, the fact that the country had contact with colonialism and the intervening military rule as against a truly democratic arrangement bequeathed at the independence of the country are source of concern. The paper adopts the doctrinal research method to attempt a critique of perspectives of the actual basis of the Nigeria legal system. The paper looks at some relevant concepts, the fountain in term of the grundnorm, customary law together with brief historical facts, and characteristic nature of Nigeria legal system to interrogate some perspectives. The paper founds that the fountain of the legal system is more of being jurisprudential in nature and concludes that the basis of Nigerian legal system is multi-faceted but ultimately founded on the constitution.

QUALITY OF POLITICAL ELITE OF UKRAINE IN THE CONTEX OF DEMOCRATIC CHANGES

During the period of complexity of systemic reforms in modern Ukraine, the big importance of the qualities and actions of the political elite become on the first hand. Еhe ability to fulfill urgent tasks of democratic arrangement of different spheres of social life depends on these qualities and actions of the political elite.&#x0D; The article analyzes the problem of the quality of the political elite in Ukraine. The article proves the importance of forming a professional, effective, active, qualitative elite in the conditions of state building. The basic ideas of the founders of elitology are described, the content of the concepts "elite", "establishment", "political class" is revealed. The conclusions about the main stages of formation of political elites in Ukraine are made. It is proved that the process of forming a truly leading elite group is underway, which can unite the political, economic and cultural revival of our state.

Social Movement Unionism as Union-Civil Alliances: A Democratizing Force? The New Zealand Case

This exploratory study examines union-civil alliances in New Zealand (NZ). It focuses on the involvement of NZ’s peak union body, the Council of Trade Unions, in three civil group coalitions around the Living Wage Campaign, Decent Work Agenda and Environmental Agenda. It assesses how the CTU and its affiliates’ coalition involvement are informed by and seek to progress liberal (representative), participatory and/or more radical democratic principles, and what this means for organizational practice; the relations between the coalition parties; workplaces; and beyond. Through case discussions, the study finds that civil alliances involving the CTU and its affiliates do not reflect a core trait of union activity in NZ. Among the union-civil alliances that do exist, there is a prevailing sense of their utility to progress shared interests alongside, and on the union side, a more instrumental aim to encourage union revival. However, the alliances under examination reflect an engagement with various liberal and participatory democratic arrangements at different organizational levels. More radical democratic tendencies emerge in relation to ad hoc elements of activity and the aspirational goals of such coalitions as opposed to their usual processes and institutional configurations. In essence, what emerges is a labour centre and movement which, on the one hand, is in a survivalist mode primarily concerned with economistic matters, and on the other, in a position of relative political and bargaining weakness, reaching out to other civil groups where it can so as to challenge the neo-liberal hegemony. Based on our findings, we conclude that Laclau and Mouffe’s (2001) view of radical democracy holds promise for subsequent coalitions involving the CTU, particularly in the context of NZ workers’ diverse interests and the plurality of other civil groups and social movements’ interests. This view concerns on-going agency, change, organizing and strategy by coalitions to build inclusive (counter-) hegemony, arguing for a politic from below that challenges existing dominant neo-liberal assumptions in work and other spheres of life.

Understanding State Agency Independence

Conflicts about the independence of executive branch officials are brewing across the states. Governors vie with separately elected executive officials for policy control; attorneys general and governors spar over who speaks for the state in litigation, and legislatures seek to alter governors’ influence over independent state commissions. These disputes over intrastate authority have weighty policy implications both within states and beyond them, on topics from election administration and energy markets to healthcare and welfare. The disputes also reveal a blind spot. At the federal level, scholars have long analyzed the meaning and effects of agency independence—a dialogue that has deepened under the Trump Administration. In contrast, there is virtually no systematic scholarly attention to the theory or practice of agency independence in the states. This Article begins that study. Surveying historical developments, judicial decisions, and legislative enactments across the country, it shows that state agency independence is an inexact, unstable, and variegated concept. Whereas federal courts treat independent agencies as a distinct legal category, state courts tend to eschew categorization in favor of contextual holdings. Moreover, despite the common notion that states’ plural-executive structure cements independence, these rulings just as frequently undermine it. State legislatures, for their part, revisit independence frequently, often in the wake of partisan realignments. And their creations are diverse, combining a range of vectors of insulation in different arrangements. The result is that there is no single meaning of state agency independence even within a state, and rarely a strong norm surrounding it. States’ legislatively driven, bespoke approach to independence offers insights for scholars of both state and federal institutional design. The state approach may yield better-tailored and more democratic arrangements. But it also displays raw partisanship, and the combination of weak norms with strong governors may stack the deck against independence. The state approach also raises deeper questions for public law: What are the costs and benefits of allowing the rules of the game to be consistently up for grabs? There is no formula for weighing these considerations beyond the context of any individual dispute, but this Article provides a launching pad for their sustained exploration.

Understanding State Agency Independence

Conflicts about the independence of executive-branch officials are brewing across the states. Governors vie with separately elected executive officials for policy control; attorneys general and governors spar over who speaks for the state in litigation; and legislatures seek to alter governors’ influence over independent state commissions. These disputes over intra-state authority have weighty policy implications both within states and beyond them, on topics from election administration and energy markets to healthcare and welfare. The disputes also reveal a blind spot. At the federal level, scholars have long analyzed the meaning and effects of agency independence—a dialogue that has deepened under the Trump Administration. In contrast, there is virtually no systematic scholarly attention to the theory or practice of agency independence in the states. This Article begins that study. Surveying historical developments, judicial decisions, and legislative enactments across the country, it shows that state agency independence is an inexact, unstable, and variegated concept. Whereas federal courts treat independent agencies as a distinct legal category, state courts eschew categorization in favor of contextual holdings. Moreover, despite the common notion that states’ plural-executive structure cements independence, these rulings just as frequently undermine it. State legislatures, for their part, revisit independence frequently, often in the wake of partisan realignments. And their creations are diverse, combining a range of vectors of insulation in different arrangements. The result is that there is no single meaning of state agency independence even within a state, and rarely a strong norm surrounding it. States’ legislatively driven, bespoke approach to independence offers insights for scholars of both state and federal institutional design. The state approach may yield better-tailored and more democratic arrangements. But it also displays raw partisanship, and the combination of weak norms with strong governors may stack the deck against independence. The state approach also raises deeper questions for public law: What are the costs and benefits of allowing the rules of the game to be consistently up for grabs? There is no formula for weighing these considerations beyond the context of any individual dispute, but this Article provides a launching pad for their sustained exploration.