Democratic Community Research Articles

Must Europe Be Swiss? On the Idea of a Voting Space and the Possibility of a Multilingual Demos

Contrary to the view that linguistic homogeneity is required to create a viable demos, this article argues that linguistic diversity can be a permanent feature of any democratic community, so long as there is aunified and robust voting spacethat provides a common intentional object, around which distinct public spheres can aesthetically organize their political discourse. An attempt to explain how such a voting space operates in Switzerland, the finest existing exemplar of a multilingual demos, is given. Following the Swiss example, the author proposes, would go a long way to constituting the European Union as a democratically legitimate trans-national demos, despite its formidable linguistic diversity.

Democratic Communities and Third-Party Conflict Management

We explore how the domestic political institutions of states in the neighborhood of international disputants affect the incentives for third-party conflict management. Existing scholarship has argued that as the number of democracies in the international system increases, disputants are more likely to want and find third-party conflict management. We propose two alternative explanations for the connection between democratization and changing patterns of conflict management that consider more localized mechanisms. We posit that neighboring democratic leaders, with stronger incentives to deliver public benefits, will be more willing to push for their involvement as third parties, particularly when the disputes are sufficiently salient to affect regional security dynamics yet not so difficult that protracted engagement is likely. We also posit that, since international organizations (IOs) tend to be more engaged in democratic communities, IOs will be more active peacemakers in disputes, especially intractable and violent ones, that occur in heavily democratic regions. Using event history analysis of the Issue Correlates of War (ICOW) data, we find support for these arguments. Disputants with many democratic neighbors are more likely to experience third-party conflict management by democracies—this effect is increasing in the salience and decreasing in the intractability of the dispute—and IOs—this effect is increasing in the intractability of the dispute. Counter to expectations based on a logic of norm diffusion, third-party conflict management is not more likely among democracies that are in dispute with each other nor when the proportion of democracies in the international system increases.

Permanent Friends? Dynamic Difference and the Democratic Peace

Perhaps the simplest explanation for where fault lines lie in a political process involves the presence of an "other." Difference divides and similarity unites. These similarities and differences can in turn orient and propagate conflict. Yet, similarity and difference are also dynamic, evolving in response to changing population characteristics or a new reference point. We offer a simple explanation for interstate conflict in which the salience of similarity or difference varies with the prevalence or capabilities of groups. We apply our argument in the context of the democratic peace. When democracies are scarce or weak, and autocracies plentiful and powerful, democracies face a common threat. As the democratic community strengthens, however, the threat from autocracies declines and differences among democracies appear more salient. Our findings contrast with standard expectations about how democratization shapes world affairs.

GHANA’S EXPERIENCE IN PARTICIPATORY COMMUNITY RADIO

This article documents more than ten years’ experience of community radio (CR)broadcasting in Ghana and the problems and the challenges community radio has encounteredin attempts to apply the key principles and concepts underlying participatory radiobroadcasting. Through a description of some main socio-cultural and political change episodes,the article clearly demonstrates how community radio can positively impact the quality of life ofpeople. The study notes that attempts at creating truly democratic community radio stations canbe fully realized by ensuring that the fundamental principles, which underpin the operation anddemocratic management of community radio stations, are actually implemented to benefitcommunity members.

Liberty through limits: The bill of rights as limited government provisions

Under the modern view, individual autonomy has become the primary if not exclusive focus of the Bill of Rights. But the Bill of Rights came about not because of a desire to preserve individual autonomy, nor to insulate the individual from the democratic community. The impetus for the Bill of Rights arose from the same set of concerns that motivated the original Constitution. These concerns involved creating the appropriate structures so as to keep the new central government in check. The Bill of Rights sought to further ensure that the federal government would have limited power and operate in a limited role. Not only does this limited government model coincide with the original intent underlying the Bill of Rights, but it also provides for a more objective and manageable application. Under an individual autonomy view of the Bill of Rights, courts must define the ingredients necessary for such autonomy. However, this endeavor is fraught with ambiguity, and courts must constantly pit the individual against democratic society. But under the limited government model, the judicial role is more objective. Instead of trying to define an ambiguous individual autonomy, courts simply need to focus on whether a particular right is needed so as to maintain limited government. In addition, the limited government model does not put the Bill of Rights in conflict with democratic society. Instead, it just uses the Bill of Rights to maintain a check on government, just as the original Constitution seeks to do.

Maridhiano: Zanzibar's remarkable reconciliation and Government of National Unity

Within the last three years the political situation in Zanzibar has undergone a staggering transformation, from the enduring division which has beset the islands since independence in 1963, to a harmonious Government of National Unity (GNU) formed by two previously antagonistic parties. This change, however, has been overlooked by both academia and the international media. In light of persisting historiographical disagreements and the lack of evidence and analysis referring to the past decade, this paper takes considerable care to set the previous political environment in context. Having done so, the paper draws from interviews with inhabitants of the long-marginalised island of Pemba and senior political figures in order to document the development and effect of the reconciliation process, known as Maridhiano, at both parliamentary and local levels. It shows the GNU to have improved both democratic practices and community relations.

A Failure of Convivencia

Early utopian notions of Internet-based community as enabling transcendence of earthly governments and cultural divides manifested in the massively multiplayer online nongame platform, Second Life. However, while platform users nearly unanimously chose governance regimes based on professional management rather than democratic self-governance, one of the few democratic experiments experienced deep conflict over precisely the utopian notions it held in common. This article examines a failed merger between two experimental democratic communities in the virtual world of Second Life as an example of the general failure of internet utopianism and a specific failure to transcend distinctions in cultures of origin (the “failure of convivencia,” of the title, a term reflecting a historical model chosen by one of the communities) in a common online space. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this article will analyze a distinction between radically different, and ultimately incommensurable, discourses around governance in the merged community amid the failure of participatory, democratic models of online governance.

Democratic/Utopian Education

Abstract This article offers a conception of democratic education and an account of how that conception should inform our understanding of formal education for public schools. The goals of a democratic education are best secured by participating in self-government, as advocates of participatory democracy have always claimed. Broadly stated, those goals include encouraging and equipping individuals to become committed, self-governing, democratic citizens. More specifically, individuals gain through democratic participation political information and knowledge and, arguably, the skills, virtues, and normative commitments of democratic citizens. This conception of democratic education suggests in turn the desirability of what is here termed the democratic community school, in which students participate in the governance and pedagogy of their schools, the school and the local community it most directly serves become in various ways integrated, and the curriculum is politicized so as to advance democratic values and aspirations. The article concludes by identifying some of the key difficulties and obstacles that make the democratic school so difficult to achieve but also provides reasons for believing that working toward the utopian ideal of democratic schools is practically as well as normatively worthwhile.

A checklist of standards for democratic therapeutic communities

PurposeThis paper seeks to grasp the nettle of developing a “checklist” of standards that can be used to accredit a therapeutic community, which are concrete enough to be objectively assessed as present to a greater or lesser degree, but at the same time reflect the daily living learning experience of a therapeutic community in a way that practitioners will recognise as a true picture of what they do or try to do.Design/methodology/approachThe paper describes the development of a set of auditable standards for democratic therapeutic communities, and the results of an initial pilot study. The original 60‐item checklist is attached.FindingsThe Kennard‐Lees Audit Checklist (KLAC) was developed out of an accreditation structure proposed to the ATC by Morris in 1998. This was developed by the present authors into 42 specific items which were posted for comment and suggestions on the ATC website in October 1999. A modified version was then discussed with the Prison Service, as a result of which a number of further items were added, resulting in the 60 items versions that was published on the ATC website in October 2000.Originality/valueThe checklist provides a set of auditable standards acceptable to managers, practitioners and residents of TCs. This early work acts as a measure for how things have changed since 2001.

The next therapeutic community: autocracy, and other notes toward integrating old and new therapeutic communities

PurposeThis paper aims to provide a comparison of “old” democratic therapeutic communities, and “new” therapeutic communities for drug abuse.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is a review of historical and cultural influences on therapeutic community development, with particular reference to leadership.FindingsFree from bias, cultural, psychological or ideological, the next therapeutic communities should integrate elements of both old and new therapeutic communities, in a development strategy which assimilates, socializes and finally prepares the individual for full participation in the larger community. Within this strategy, a rational authority model is not inherently flawed but can provide a structured stage for corrective experience leading toward personal autonomy. Regardless of its particular form, however, the efficacy of the next therapeutic community will relate directly to the extent to which they incorporate the essential of its modern and ancient prototypes, that of community and healer and teacher.Originality/valueThe two main types of therapeutic community have tended to operate and develop separately. The author calls the rigid separation into question and identifies key shared elements.

Punishment, Socially Deprived Offenders, and Democratic Community

The idea that victims of social injustice who commit crimes ought not to be subject to punishment has attracted serious attention in recent legal and political philosophy. R. A. Duff has argued, for example, a states that perpetrates social injustice lacks the standing to punish victims of such injustice who commit crimes. A crucial premiss in his argument concerns the fact that when courts in liberal society mete out legitimate criminal punishments, they are conceived as acting in the name of all citizens—on behalf of the whole political community. Resisting this premiss, Peter Chau has suggested that courts ought to be conceived as acting only in the name of “just citizens”: citizens who cannot be plausibly seen as having contributed to distributive injustice. When conceived in this way, Chau argues, courts can no longer plausibly be regarded as lacking standing to punish. This article uses the debate between Duff and Chau to explain why the question of whether to punish socially deprived offenders can only be answered adequately when connected to broader concerns of democratic theory. Specifically, it argues that Chau’s proposal is not available within the context of the kind of political community upon which (Duff rightly believes) a system of liberal criminal law depends for its justification and maintenance: a community in which citizens see the law as embodying shared norms whose specific demands they disagree about. State officials are morally permitted to see themselves as acting on behalf of a subset of the citizenry, I argue, only in circumstances of democratic crisis: circumstances in which a moral community can no longer be plausibly said to exist.

Five Lessons from European Democracy

Outside of some states still struggling with post-communist transitions, Europe itself may be the first European democracy to collapse in decades. Though never a bastion of participatory democracy and even subject to continuous criticism due to its democratic deficit, the European Union (EU) has provided hope to those who envision a post-national democratic political community. As such, whether the EU survives its present crisis or not, cosmopolitan democrats will look to the EU as a vindication of their ideals. Though perhaps surprising given their track record, this paper will argue that political scientists, especially those concerned with democratization, can also be optimistic about what the EU has brought to the table in terms of how we conceive processes of democratic development. Throughout the paper it will be demonstrated that the creation and maintenance of the European democracy has challenged much of the literature's fundamental assumptions of what makes democracy work. Five key lessons from the European democratic experience will be presented in an attempt to disrupt some of these assumptions including lessons regarding the diversity of the demos, the contingency of democratic upkeep, the challenges of the state, the role of elites in political transformation, and the necessity of exclusion within inclusive spaces. Though a general theory of democracy will not be presented, suggestions will be made as to how we can incorporate some of these lessons into the dominant approaches to democracy found in the literature.
 
 Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v7i1.214

Pragmatic Knowledge Codes

The article explains a research program that stems from the author's recent book, How to think about social problems (1994), where she argues for a reorganization of the domains of knowledge in public policy and planning into explicit, pragmatic knowledge codes. The author argues that knowledge in the public policy and planning fields is the common knowledge necessary for informed and responsible participation in public affairs, and thus a necessary condition for creating participatory, democratic communities in modern society.The research project Thalia, outlined here, aims to show how expert knowledge in a relatively simple urban planning knowledge domain, urban forestry, can be made explicit and simulated. Thalia involves the appkation of an artificial intelligence cognitive architecture, FORR (FOr the Right Reasons), developed by computer scientist Susan Epstein. FORR is an architecture particularly promising for public policy and planning because of its ability to incorporate pluralism and pragmatism.

A Nested View of Democratic Leadership and Community

A Nested View of Democratic Leadership and Community

Seeking new ways of living community in the classroom and the world: an action research study

Action research is a method of examining one’s own practice through reflection and critical self-study. In this paper, the author considers her experience teaching a two-day lesson on connections and relationships in William Forsythe’s dance One Flat Thing, reproduced (2000) and the accompanying website, Synchronous Objects. The author reviews student data collected during the lesson and links it to literature about feminist and critical pedagogy. She discusses the kinds of relationships she fostered in the context of her lesson and considers strategies for creating a democratic community in the classroom. The paper concludes that encouraging students to interact with each other as subjects, to engage with the world, and to uphold the community-based values of dialog and participation are primary goals in her philosophy of education. Moreover, the author suggests that dance as a discipline holds great potential for supporting student engagement with others and the world.

Border Crossing: A Black Woman Superintendent Builds Democratic Community in Unfamiliar Territory

Much of the earlier research on women in leadership has told the stories of White women. Since there are very low numbers of superintendents of color both male and female nationwide, there have been very few stories reported of women leaders of color (Brunner & Grogan, 2007). This article describes the leadership issues involved when one Black woman crossed a border (geographically and culturally) to lead a school district. Delia (pseudonym) became the first woman and the first person of color to lead a small suburban school district whose population was very different from what she was and what she knew. Delia was a participant in a study designed to investigate how women school superintendents promote and support social justice and democratic community building in their school districts. Six women participated in that study: three were African American, one was American Indian, and two were White. This article briefly describes that study and then focuses on Delia, one participant in it who took a risk to apply for her first superintendency in a district not far from her old district in miles but miles apart in population, ideology, and community values.

Bordering Populism in Immigration Activism: Outlaw–Civic Discourse in a (Counter)Public

This study involved a rhetorical ethnography and textual analyses of an anti-immigration group over a six month period. I argue the collective engaged in a deleterious form of bordering populism, in which communicators continually attack and praise the same targets. This populism was generated by outlaw–civic shifts between marginalized, outsider stances, and more official, general cultural logics. The group demonstrated a fragile, fracturing approach to a public issue, and local, vernacular practices that are employed to bridge pressures for agitative and integrative movement communication in a pluralistic, globalizing environment. Overall, each of the group's stark rhetorical shifts for and against the government, businesses, and immigrants concurrently crafted and dismantled rhetorical borders, creating an unstable (counter)public forgoing the possibility of democratic communication and community.

Constructing a Tibetan demos in exile

This article explores how displaced Tibetans demarcate and characterize the Tibetan demos in the process of building a democratic community and a government-in-exile. In this democracy-in-exile, defining the demos is not only a means of representing a people, but also a means of regaining a lost homeland. Two specific instances of the construction of a transnational exile demos are investigated: citizenship and political representation. The Tibetan Government-in-Exile's formalized idea of citizenship builds upon ideals of equal and loyal members who form a single unit bounded by a common cause. This also constitutes the foundation for Tibetan citizens' political representation in the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile. The parliament's definition of the demos enhances regional and religious adherence as essentials for determining who the Tibetan people are. The article refers to problems regarding how this construct, which defines who is included into the demos, inevitably means that some are excluded as well.

Educator Assessment

This analysis examines Arizona’s English fluency evaluation initiative, which aims to address the fluency standards for teachers of English Language Learners (ELLs) set forth in the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act. The authors deploy a sociolinguistic framework to consider what components of teachers’ language are being evaluated by the policy, illuminating how the policy conflates fluency, accent, and pronunciation. After determining that the initiative does in fact evaluate teachers based on accent, the authors argue that Arizona’s unique interpretation of NCLB’s fluency standard exceeds Congressional intent and has no foundation in the professional standards for teachers of ELLs as established by either the National Council of Teacher Accreditation (NCATE) or the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages organization (TESOL). The authors then interrogate the initiative and the evaluation protocol, discussing implications on the development of democratic school communities, language-based discrimination, and the academic experiences of ELLs. Concluding that the initiative and protocol fail to evaluate fluency, threaten democratic school communities, and risk discriminatory practices, the authors recommend that Arizona revoke the initiative and return teachers affected by the policy to the ELL classrooms for which they were initially hired.

Environmental Pragmatism and Bioregionalism

Bioregionalism can strengthen environmental pragmatism by making it more critical of the status quo and even more environmental, without abandoning pragmatism's democratic aims. It thus answers important objections to pragmatism raised by Robyn Eckersley. Despite some apparent differences, bioregionalism is a form of environmental pragmatism, as it incorporates practical ethics and is committed to pluralism and democratic community. Bryan Norton's environmental pragmatism is already close to a bioregional view. After answering Eckersley, the paper concludes by raising the question of whether environmental pragmatists should be bioregionalists.Robin Eckersley criticizes environmental pragmatism for not being sufficiently radical or even sufficiently environmental.1 This is due, she says, to its role as a mediator rather than an advocate in environmental issues, a role that weakens environmental pragmatism's democratic credentials because it is fails to empower marginalized groups and interests. Eckersley' s criticisms should not be ignored. On the other hand, bioregionalism, or a bioregional environmental pragmatism, is not limited in the ways that Eckersley identifies. It can take a stronger environmentalist position while maintaining a commitment to pragmatism's mediator role. Despite bioregionalism' s and environmental pragmatism's different histories - one a grass roots movement, the other a more academic movement - they have several important things in common. Both emphasize practical rather than theoretical concerns, and see theory as a tool for accomplishing concrete ends; both focus on local action by local communities; both value pluralism. Admittedly, bioregionalists do not usually refer to themselves as pragmatists, and many hold some non-naturalist views at odds with pragmatic naturalism. Nonetheless, I will argue that in terms of its core values, bioregionalism is actually a form of environmental pragmatism. More to the point, I will argue that bioregionalism can address Eckersley' s criticisms while advancing pragmatism's goal of enhancing public participation.The present paper first outlines the main ideas of bioregionalism. It then argues that bioregionalism - especially its ethics of reinhabition - is fundamentally a kind of practical ethics, which makes it a form of pragmatism. Next, discussion turns to two central commitments of environmental pragmatism - pluralism and democratic community. Bioregionalism grounds these commitments in local life -places. We will see that Bryan Norton's pragmatism, which emphasizes place-based community, is already close to a bioregional view. Finally, we will see how bioregionalism can overcome Eckersley's objections that environmental pragmatism is insufficiently radical or environmental. The paper concludes by asking whether environmental pragmatists should, then, be bioregionalists.1. Bioregionalism and the Ethics of ReinhabitationBecause it is highly decentralized, both as a movement and a body of thought, a precise definition of bioregionalism is hard to come by. This may be for the best in a practiced-based and constantly evolving cultural movement. Better, says bioregionalist writer Jim Dodge, that definitions emerge from practice than be imposed dogmatically on the movement. This is an admirable pragmatist sentiment. Despite lacking a clear definition, it is clear that bioregionalism is primarily concerned with the ecological health of local life -places and with sustainable ways of living that are adapted to those places. Bioregionalists may take on wider problems that affect other regions and the planet as a whole, but the starting place of concern is local.A bioregion, etymologically, is a life -place. Normally we might define a region politically, economically, ethnically, or some other exclusively human activity. In contrast, a ?ioregion is marked out in terms of biotic communities, watersheds and terrain. Or it may be defined by a few dominant species, by a mountain range, a drainage system, or any number of natural features. …