Democratic Choice Research Articles

LEGITIMATE AND ILLEGITIMATE POLITICAL SELF-ENTRENCHMENT AND ITS IMPACT ON POLITICAL EQUALITY

Self-serving politicians and self-entrenchment of the political establishment is a diachronic problem tantalizing liberal democracies. Incumbent political actors around the world constantly purport to entrench not only their presence in the political arena, but also their power and as a result, barriers to entry to new political actors are set, the chain of the democratic choice is disrupted and equality of opportunity is distorted. This article focuses on the available means in the constitutional system in order to safeguard a level playing field in the political arena. To this end, this article has three scientific objectives. First, it elaborates on the significance of equality of opportunities in the political system. Second, it identifies how political self-entrenchment creates an uneven playing field. Third, it focuses on the remedies that exist in the constitutional system and examines both legal and quasi legal mechanisms. With an analysis on the current means that are available in the constitutional system, the judicial review, and the alternative political processes based on independent bodies and quasi-judicial mechanisms, this article concludes that self-entrenchment and self-serving politicians are mainly left to be resolved by political means, the so called self-corrective promise of politics.

Venezuela: to be or not to be

The article deals with the most crucial components of the current political and institutional crisis in Venezuela. A brief historical deflection into the events of 1989-2020 was made, which indicate, among other things, deep-seated left-wing political views and feelings amidst the majority of the population. This situation serves as a solid platform for strengthening the role of the ruling PSUV party and the present head of State, N. Maduro, in the country’s domestic politics. The political and institutional crisis in the above-mentioned oil-rich South American country has expanded sharply, after being elected Juan Guaidó, a representative of the opposition party VP («People’s Will») as a Chairman of the National Assembly on January 5, 2019. He challenged the prevailing President, declaring himself as the Acting head of State just on January 23, 2019. In this context, the key social and economic aftermaths of the crisis in present-day Venezuela are revealed, in particular, such as the GDP contraction, hyperinflation, growth of the population living in extreme economic poverty, an increase of Venezuelans forced to leave the country due to, above all, obvious signs of a humanitarian crisis. Deepening of the Venezuelan society in destructive processes, escalating of the political debates at the level of parties’ leaders, a lack of the transparent discussion in the public arena concerning the country’s future, to be a necessary condition for realizing the citizen’s rights to democratic choice, appear as consequences of the failure of Guaidó’s strategy. It was built in particular on the desired, but not achieved cessation the usurpation of power by Maduro. The postures of the main international players (USA, EU, OAS, «Lima Group», International Contact Group) are outlined with regard to the assessments of the domestic situation in Venezuela and suggestions for resolving the political crisis and restoring democracy in this country, in particular via introducing sanctions against Venezuelan officials and legal entities, as well as establishing a constructive dialogue between Maduro and the opposition. The main items of Ukraine’s official position on the «Venezuelan issue» had also been notified. In a nutshell, a conclusion is made that for a certain category of Ukrainian voters and for the majority of Venezuelans, despite the obvious differences, the issue of the public administration model remains rhetorical, authoritative, as an outcome of the improvement of democratization, or authoritarian one.

From the Tree of Knowledge & the Golem of Prague: The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence Through Jewish Eyes

This paper discusses the regulation of artificial intelligence from a Jewish perspective, with an emphasis on the regulation of machine learning and its application to autonomous vehicles and machine learning. Through the Biblical story of Adam and Eve as well as Golem legends from Jewish folklore, we derive several basic principles that underlie a Jewish perspective on the moral and legal person-hood of robots and other artificially intelligent agents. We argue that religious ethics in general, and Jewish ethics in particular, show us that the dangers of granting moral person-hood to robots and in particular to autonomous vehicles lie not in the fact that they lack a soul – or consciousness or feelings or interests – but because to do so weakens our own ability to develop as fully autonomous legal and moral persons. Instead, we argue that existing legal persons should continue to maintain legal control over artificial agents, while natural persons assume ultimate moral responsibility for choices made by artificial agents they employ in their service. In the final section of the paper we discuss the trolley dilemma in the context of governing autonomous vehicles and sketch out an application of Jewish ethics in a case where we are asking Artificial Intelligence to make life and death decisions. Our novel contribution is twofold; first, we bring a religious approach to the discussion of the ethics of Artificial Intelligence which has hitherto been dominated by secular Western philosophies; second, we raise the idea that artificial entities who are trained through machine learning can be ethically trained in much the same way that human are – through reading and reflecting on core religious texts. This is both a way of ensuring the ethical regulation of artificial intelligence, but also promotes other core values of regulation, such as democratic engagement and user choice.

Antidemocratic populism in power: comparing Erdoğan’s Turkey with Modi’s India and Netanyahu’s Israel

ABSTRACT By the end of the second decade of the twenty-first century, populists have taken charge in Turkey, India and Israel, all previously heralded as exceptional democracies in difficult regions. This moment offers a unique opportunity to explore populism in power outside Europe and the Americas, in three states shaped by deep social, ethnic and religious divisions. This article locates Turkey, India and Israel within a global wave of electorally successful populist movements. It explores how populism can jeopardize democratic choice in deeply divided societies and whether Erdoğan’s capture of democracy in Turkey offers a blueprint for the political strategies employed by Modi and Netanyahu. In unravelling parallels between the three administrations, our analysis uncovers a common populist playbook of neoliberal economic policies, the leveraging of ethnoreligious tensions as well as attempts to denigrate independent news media, by portraying it as the “enemy of the people”. Although their position on the spectrum between democracy and authoritarianism differs, our analysis reveals striking continuities in the erosion of democracy in Turkey, India and Israel as a result of these policies, thus highlighting the vulnerability of political systems, particularly those of deeply divided societies, to democratic decay.

Social media as the platform for political mobilization: case study of Kazakhstan

This paper focuses on the role of social media in the rise of the protest movements and political mobilization in Kazakhstan. The country has been seeing an increase in the social networks based civil activists since recently. I argue that the emergence of the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan that operates only within the realm of social media platforms promoted political activism and civil protests in the country. Most importantly, I argue that in contrast to the conclusions of the Kazakhstani court’s decision in March 2018, the movement leader’s Facebook blog reveals no violence either towards the government or some specific political elite. Using text mining methods, I analyzed the texts of his Facebook posts from the announcement date in 2017 till the end of 2019: the rhetoric of the position of the Democratic Choice is informational, first, and protest calling, second. Also, the analysis of seven most popular political Youtube bloggers shows that the people’s discontent with injustices and undemocratic polity manifested in the poignant interest towards the creator of this system, Mr. Nazarbayev and his closest circle. The SMM software allowed to find out the areas of Kazakhstani politics that are of most interest to the audience of Kazakhstani political activists.

Entropic Analysis of Votes Expressed in Italian Elections between 1948 and 2018.

In Italy, the elections occur often, indeed almost every year the citizens are involved in a democratic choice for deciding leaders of different administrative entities. Sometimes the citizens are called to vote for filling more than one office in more than one administrative body. This phenomenon has occurred 35 times after 1948; it creates the peculiar condition of having the same sample of people expressing decisions on political bases at the same time. Therefore, the Italian contemporaneous ballots constitute the occasion to measure coherence and chaos in the way of expressing political opinion. In this paper, we address all the Italian elections that occurred between 1948 and 2018. We collect the number of votes per party at each administrative level and we treat each election as a manifestation of a complex system. Then, we use the Shannon entropy and the Gini Index to study the degree of disorder manifested during different types of elections at the municipality level. A particular focus is devoted to the contemporaneous elections. Such cases implicate different disorder dynamics in the contemporaneous ballots, when different administrative level are involved. Furthermore, some features that characterize different entropic regimes have emerged.

Why vote when you cannot choose? EU intervention and political participation in times of constraint

This article analyses how economic intervention affects individuals’ political behaviour by assessing the impact of intervention on aggregate and individual turnout. The intervention of the European Union in a selection of member states is viewed as having negative consequences for democratic choice, reducing the ability of voters to select between distinct policy alternatives, resulting in the absence of the primary benefit of voting: choice. It is argued that when voters are faced with electoral choices without the ability to shape policy alternatives, they are less likely to vote. Moreover, the negative effect of intervention is found to be conditioned by both individuals’ level of education and ideological identification. Voters on the centre and the left who feel abandoned by left-leaning parties, who have prioritised being responsible to their European paymasters, are significantly more likely to abstain when exposed to intervention. Empirical support for the argument is found via the analysis of aggregate turnout as well as individual level data from the European Social Survey from across fifteen Western European states.

Everett Tilson: Pioneer in the Condemnation of White Privilege

Everett TilsonPioneer in the Condemnation of White Privilege Paul Burnam (bio) In 1986, Dr. Peggy McIntosh of Wellesley College delivered a paper at the Virginia Women’s Association conference in which she explained at length the phrase “white privilege.” McIntosh began her presentation by explaining how she became deeply aware of what she called “male privilege”—that is, how most men unconsciously accept many advantages in higher education curricula that women cannot access. At that time, McIntosh taught women’s studies at Wellesley. She offered examples of male privilege in higher education beginning with the claim that men figure most importantly in the curriculum because they are the principal actors in life and civilization. McIntosh proceeded to explain that in discussions about curricular development when the reduction of the prominence of men’s contributions gets proposed, then male academics fall back on the inevitability of present gender relations and the distribution of power. She continued by pointing out how precedent, socio-biology, and psychobiology served as justifications whereby male domination functioned as a norm and resulted unavoidably from evolution. Other defenses of male privilege show in arguments putting forth human experience, religious doctrines, and social responsibility.1 After that acknowledgement of male privilege, McIntosh raised the bar by identifying white privilege. She [End Page 87] explained white privilege as a bundle of many advantages white people invoke without awareness every waking hour using terms such as “codebooks,” “emergency gear,” and “passports” that people of color can seldom, if ever, employ.2 In a later essay, McIntosh pointed out how oblivious whites are to the advantages and dominance they enjoy in society. She stated how strongly enculturated this attitude is in the United States to perpetuate the myth of meritocracy and the myth that democratic choice is available to all.3 With McIntosh’s juxtaposition of those two words, “white” and “privilege,” one encounters the phrase “white privilege” daily thanks to the explosion of multiple forms of media that swirl around and throughout contemporary American society. The phrase accelerated in its use and public awareness with the election of Barack Obama as president in 2008. Then white privilege became even more frequently mentioned with the 2016 election in which the Republican presidential nominee laced his rhetoric with frequent derogatory remarks about people of color, women, Muslims, LGBTQ persons, and anyone else outside the white male power structure. The concept of white privilege certainly existed long before McIntosh delivered her presentation in Richmond. She invested the most effort to construct and define the notion that makes white privilege a very important element in any discussion of economic, political, and social conditions in the United States today. Many others besides McIntosh wrote about and discussed the concept of white privilege years before she did. A late member of the faculty at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio (MTSO) railed against the concept of white privilege at least 30 years before Peggy McIntosh. Charles Everett Tilson (1923–2006) taught theological students about the Old Testament at Vanderbilt University Divinity School before he joined the faculty of the newly created MTSO (located in Delaware, Ohio) in 1960. Therefore, the purpose of this essay will be to highlight how Everett Tilson recognized and condemned the phenomenon now commonly called white privilege starting in the 1950s and on through his life. This essay will commence with explaining the significance of Everett Tilson in relation to the civil rights movement and his involvement in that historic turn in American history. The essay will point out where Tilson [End Page 88] identifies white privilege during the momentous events in which he participated. The two most well-known civil rights events in which Tilson played a part—the efforts to overcome lunch counter segregation in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1960 and the integration of white churches in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1964—serve as examples of Tilson’s opposition to racial segregation. In addition, those events offer evidence of Tilson’s early criticism of how whites acted without understanding or sensitivity in their relations to people of color. Everett Tilson, in an oral history he recorded for the Nashville Public Library, told how his life started in a part of the...

Формування макрополітичної ідентичності як фактор сталості демократичного розвитку в Україні

The democratic choice of Ukraine was enshrined in most documents that determined the strategic directions of development of the state and society from the moment of gaining independence of the state. Nevertheless, the real progress of Ukraine on the way remains the subject of discussion. The real state of development of the institutions of a democratic society makes it doubtful that the country has passed the stage of consolidation in its democratic transit. The observed trends allow many international organizations to characterize the current state of development of the country's political system as hybrid. At the same time, experts observe the demodernization of the country and the ongoing degradation of the main political, civilian institutions. The article analyzes the features of the hybrid regime in Ukraine. An attempt is being made to determine how the real state of development of democracy corresponds to the state of public sentiment, expectations and political values. Using the provisions of the congruence theory, the author makes assumptions about the political consequences of the ongoing disagreement between the interests of society and political elites. The author concludes that the current state of development requires focused efforts of the state and political elites aimed at stimulating political convictions, emancipatory values that will dominate the mass consciousness, contributing to the progress of political modernization and overcoming the “rollbacks” in democratization. The implementation of a policy of macro-political identity, in which emancipation values will be reflected, can help to overcome demodernization tendencies and further advance Ukraine on the path of democratic transit.

Elections and the chain of democratic choice

This special issue of The Journal of Pacific Studies covers the 2018 general elections in the Republic of Fiji Islands and the 2019 general elections in Solomon Islands. In 2000, the two countries experienced the overthrow of democratically elected governments. On 19th May 2000, nine armed soldiers of the Counter Revolutionary Warfare Unit of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces led by failed business executive George Speight entered the Fiji parliament and held the Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and his government hostage. A little over two weeks later on 5th June, Andrew Nori and the Malaita Eagle Force, a faction in the armed conflict in the Solomon Islands held elected Prime Minister Bartholomew Ulufa’alo hostage at gunpoint, and forced him to resign. These martial acts ruptured the constitutional rule of law and impaired democratic institutions and mechanisms in both countries.

Fake News, Voter Overconfidence, and the Quality of Democratic Choice

This paper studies, theoretically and experimentally, the effects of overconfidence and fake news on information aggregation and the quality of democratic choice in a common interest setting. We theoretically show that overconfidence exacerbates the adverse effects of widespread misinformation (i.e., fake news). We study extensions that allow for partisan biases, targeted misinformation intended to move public opinion in a specific direction, and correlated news signals (due to for example media ownership concentration). In our experiment, voters are exposed to correct news or misinformation. The extent to which a subject is likely to observe correct news depends on their cognitive ability. Absent overconfidence, more cognitively able subjects are predicted to vote while less able subjects are predicted to abstain, and information is predicted to aggregate well. We provide evidence that overconfidence induces misinformed subjects to vote excessively, thereby severly undermining information aggregation.

“Our Home - Russia” as the Movement of Bright Centrism (1995-1999)

The article deals with the political movement “Our Home - Russia” (NDR) as the first attempt of the creation of the “party of power” in post-soviet period. The aim of this work is to analyze the experience of the NDR and the reasons of the failure of this project. In the course of the study, the historical genetic method, M. Duverger’s partological analysis, and A. Gramsci’s theory were used. The author turned to the political science literature on parties and elections in the Russian Federation and used NDR’s materials and publications of federal mass media as primary sources. In 1995 the movement was created with the experience and the basis of the preceding pro-Kremlin project the “Democratic Choice of Russia” (DVR). Unlike the DVR, it was built on the B. Eltsin’s initiative who needed the support in the State Duma all the time. The prime minister V. Chernomyrdin headed this union and members of political and financial elite of federal and regional levels became its leaders. Despite their strength the movement did not become full-fledged «party of power» because of the communists` domination in the Duma and the lack of large electoral support. The «Our Home - Russia» like DVR could not make effective regional divisions and spread its influence among people masses. The inner split, weakness of Chernomyrdin’s figure and the absence of due president’s support were the causes of its fail in the parlamentary elections of 1999. Nevertheless, the NDR became the first centrist movement in post-Soviet Russia, which retained loyalty to the Kremlin to the end. The union worked out new forms, for example, drew public organizations to its side and for the first time used «name tactics» in the 1995 elections. These developments were useful in the creation of the next, much more successful pro-regional project - the «United Russia».

Poverty, competition, democracy, and ownership: A general equilibrium model with vertical preferences

AbstractWe consider a general equilibrium model where individuals are simultaneously workers, consumers, and shareholders, with two possible market structures: Monopoly and Duopoly, and two extreme ownership structures: egalitarian and concentrated. Considering three standard poverty indicators, the questions are, whether more competition generates more or less poverty for a given ownership structure; and whether a democratic choice between Monopoly and Duopoly leads to the alternative with less poverty. When the ownership is concentrated, we show that Duopoly generates less poverty than Monopoly and the majority votes for the alternative with less poverty. When the ownership is egalitarian, Duopoly may generate more or less poverty and democratic choice alleviates poverty regarding at least one poverty indicator and worsens poverty regarding at least another one, the three poverty indicators never converging. An empirical study on the effect of competition on poverty supports to some extent our theoretical findings.

Does Food Public Procurement boost Food Democracy? Theories and evidences from some case studies

The article offers an analysis of the contribution of the FPP to food democracy, through a theoretical model and the analysis of four Italian case studies. A paradox afflicts food systems: although they can and must succeed in feeding a growing world population and support environmental sustainability, the current global food model, dominated by diets strongly impacting on ecosystems and human health, cannot guarantee these two paramount functions. At the same time, it is evident that food patterns in many areas of the world are not the object of a democratic choice by the consumers, but rather the result of constrained or limited food systems that, for various reasons, prevent the population to have access to diversified diets and decide what to eat. The article offers a theoretical framework where Food Democracy is the result of two intertwined factors: access to food and participation to the construction of food systems. In this context, public procurement has an enormous potential for directing the food system towards more sustainable models and respecting the public mandate to guarantee the well-being of the population: because of the sheer value and volume of Food Public Procurement (FPP), public institutions have the potential to drive the market and prompt innovation towards the provision of more nutritionally balanced foods and healthier diets in a fair and transparent way. Thanks to the databased of the project FoodInsider, a digital platform devoted to food education with a focus on school canteen menus, it has been possible to highlight the points of contact between FPP, sustainability and food democracy. The results show that FPP, in addition to its main task, which consists in offering nutritious and healthy meals to end users, is able to activate numerous social networks, to strengthen the relationship between producers, institutions and consumers and to contribute to development local economy. However, a series of conditions, have allowed the development of innovative FPP models: the presence of a group of parents active and interested in steering canteens’ choices; the existence of existing – or created ad hoc - networks of producers; the access public funding to support projects in canteens is a considerable advantage. Finally, the article proposes a reflection about connections between FPP and local food policies, showing that a systemic approach is needed to face challenges related to food system, and FPP is demonstrating to be one of the key elements.

Відповідальність педагога і свобода вибору змісту й технологій освіти

The present article deals with the questions of teacher's responsibility and freedom to choose the content and technologies of education. The author notes that the modern teacher is responsible not only for ensuring the proper level of professional training of students and their competence, but also for the state of their spirituality and morality, social and civic activity, etc. The emphasis is placed on the fact that the teacher's responsibility increases significantly for quality and timeliness knowledge, which he gives to pupils and students, the disclosure of their scientific content and practical orientation in today's conditions of the information society development, rapid scientific and technological progress. The author argues that there is a dialectical unity between the professional responsibility and the professional competence of a teacher, who, having profound knowledge and skills, will be able to make professional use of the freedom to choose the content and technologies of education. From our point of view, the teacher is not only the bearer of certain knowledge, he is an example for students about self-realization in other social spheres. That is why the teacher's responsibility is not limited only to the intellectual component of the student's life, it is much larger and encompasses the spiritual, ideological and value spheres. At the same time, the teacher's responsibility increases significantly for quality and timeliness knowledge, given to pupils and students, the disclosure of their scientific content and practical orientation in the conditions of the information society development, rapid scientific and technological progress. However, the teacher is not only the bearer of certain knowledge, but also an example for students about self-realization in various spheres of society. Therefore, in the condition of the freedom of democratic choice of educational content and technologies, it is necessary to care about the formation of a responsible teacher who must clearly understand that not only the future of a concrete person, but also the nation as a whole depends on his activity. Key words: person, education, culture, teacher's responsibility, freedom of choice, freedom to choose the content of education, freedom to choose technologies of education.

Rentierism effect on the democratic choice of the state In Iraq after 2003

The linguistic meaning of the verse in the Arabic dictionaries applies very much to the reality of rent and its effect. This is true of economic growth as a continuous increase in real per capita income in addition to the same thing. Therefore, development does not necessarily achieve a comprehensive and structural increase of the various economic sectors. As the rent came in the sense of a terrible land open Maim any fertilized. And the camel is a ma'aya and a ra'i: that is, it goes in the pasture and returns itself. This is similar to the extraction of oil after it is ready for investment and earn its revenue as soon as it exists or is extracted by external parties. If the rent is first linked to agriculture, especially the fertile land that produces the most, and the animal wealth is also a source of the increase, ie the increase resulting from the fertility of animals, especially camels. Hence, several concepts are crystallized, first of which is the multiplication that is not linked to an effort. Fertility of land or camels is not the result of human effort, but of divine power beyond the will of man, crystallizing the divine credit. The rent is also in the sense of the way () in the verse

Voter motivation and the quality of democratic choice

The efficiency of committee voting and referenda with common-interest issues critically depends on voter motivation, i.e., on voters' willingness to cast an informed vote. If voters are motivated, voting may result in smart choices because of information aggregation but if voters remain ignorant, delegating decision making to an expert may yield better outcomes. We experimentally study a common-interest situation in which we vary voters' information cost and the competence of the expert. We find that voters are more motivated to collect information than predicted by standard theory and that voter motivation is higher when subjects demand to make choices by voting than when voting is imposed on subjects.

Rejection of Radical Nationalism in Wartime Yugoslavia: The Case of Tuzla (1990–1995)

The article identifies causal mechanisms that help explain why the city of Tuzla managed to reject and avoid inter-ethnic conflict and radical nationalism during the wars of the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia. Despite the overwhelming odds of being surrounded by vicious ethnic fighting and relentless nationalist attacks, the city of Tuzla protected and sustained peace in its borders. This research provides some explanations as to why Tuzla managed to survive radical nationalism and fragmentation during the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. The article concludes that Tuzla's success was path dependent and its ability to reject violent nationalism revolved around Tuzla's identity of traditionally working class, anti-nationalist, anti-fascist forces around which Tuzla's citizens rallied. This helped elect the only non-ethnic political leadership in the country during the first multiparty municipal elections, and also actively protected citizens’ democratic choice against nationalist attempts to foster ethnic mobilisation and ethnic violence.

Jokowi’s Authoritarian Turn and Indonesia’s Democratic Decline

This article examines the decline of Indonesia’s democratic institutions under President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) ahead of his 2019 re-election bid. It argues that the latter part of Jokowi’s first term has seen a downturn in the quality of Indonesian democracy, associated with the continued mainstreaming and legitimation of a conservative and anti-pluralistic brand of political Islam; the partisan manipulation of key institutions of state; and the increasingly open repression and disempowerment of political opposition. These trends have served to unbalance the democratic playing field, limit democratic choice, and reduce government accountability. This article first discusses the medium-term ramifications of the polarised 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election and their implications for 2018’s marquee political events: a major round of sub-national elections and the presidential nomination process. It then argues that the Jokowi government has taken an ‘authoritarian turn’ ahead of the 2019 elections, highlighting its manipulation of powerful law enforcement and security institutions for narrow, partisan purposes, as well as the administration’s concerted efforts to undermine and repress democratic opposition. Finally, it frames the 2019 election as a contest between two candidates—Jokowi and Prabowo Subianto–who display little regard for the democratic status quo. The declining quality of Indonesian democracy is particularly troubling in a global context of democratic recession.

Majority Vote on Educational Standards

The direct democratic choice of an examination standard, i.e., a performance level required to graduate, is evaluated against a utilitarian welfare function. It is shown that the median preferred standard is inefficiently low if the marginal cost of reaching a higher performance reacts more sensitively to ability for high than for low abilities, and if the right tail of the ability distribution is longer than the left tail. Moreover, a high number of agents who choose not to graduate may imply that the median preferred standard is inefficiently low even if these conditions fail.