Democratic Content Research Articles

Regionale Energiestrategieën vergen meer democratie

In the Paris Agreement of 2015, a reduction of 49% CO2 emissions compared to 1990 was agreed. To implement this, the Netherlands has concluded a Climate Agreement, part of which will include the drawing up of Regional Energy Strategies (RES). As a ‘RES region’, provinces, municipalities and water authorities must work together to make broadly supported regional choices for the sustainable generation of electricity. In this study we examine the extent to which the RES in Groningen, Fryslân and Drenthe are democratically legitimized. A broad understanding of democracy is central to this: on the basis of a scorecard with a large number of criteria, we sketch a picture of the ‘democratic content’ of the decision-making on the RES. We look at representative democracy, stakeholder participation and citizen involvement. For each category, we look at input, throughput and output legitimacy. The research shows that there is still a lot to be gained in all these areas. Legitimacy through represen­tative democracy is on the thin side. Furthermore, although stakeholders can participate in the discussion, it is often unclear how their input will affect the plans. Citizens hardly participate at the regional level. Decision-making regarding RES 2.0 will have to be strengthened in all these areas.

A didactic toolkit for climate change educators: lessons from constructive journalism for emotionally sensitive and democratic content design

Climate change education is seen as an important contributor to climate change mitigation. Yet, its predominant focus on cognitive learning tends to omit the emotional effects of learning about climate change, which often entails learners feeling anxious and overwhelmed and therefore struggling to engage with and enact ‘solutions’. This paper addresses a gap in current environmental education research relating to the role that the design of educational content might play in engaging with the emotional dimension of learning in environmental and sustainability education. In this effort, the paper draws on constructive journalism to provide an account of how the design of content influences the appropriation of content on both a cognitive and emotional level by the learner. The paper outlines three content design tools (solutions orientation, future orientation, community orientation) that aim to reconcile the emotional and cognitive dimensions of learning while supporting the agency of learners and a democratic conception of climate change education.

GOOD GOVERNANCE INITIATIVE IN THE LESS DEVELOPMENT COUNTRIES

For the European Union and UNDP (2006), the quality of governance is ultimately attributed to its democratic content. Thereby the promotion of ‘democratic governance’ is a core element in their development assistance strategy. UNDP argues that human development and governance are inseparable. From the human development perspective UNDP has stated that ‘good governance’ is ‘democratic governance. According to Brandi (2008), Democratic Governance is the glue that holds all the other development priorities set out across the MDG’s together. In post-conflict societies it is much advocated by the international community that democratic systems provides the best mechanisms for reconciliation and are the best guarantors of lasting peace (Brandi &Clara, 2008).
 According to Boex, Kimble and Pigey (2010), a government is essential to providing security, justice, economic, and social functions and to channeling the will, energies, and resources of both the indigenous population and the international community. According to Shah (2006), governments support peace building through encouraging institutional participation in peace building and democratic process of their countries.

Health Inequalities and Cognate Inequities in American Society; Racism, Neoliberalism, and Freedom from Indignity

The paper re-examines neoliberal societies' essential characteristics and dignity exposition, arguing that racial injustice represents and inaugurates a systemic culmination. By proceeding with the theoretical framework of neoliberalism's impact on inequality, the study presents racism and its relevance in health and cognate inequalities and association to human security- freedom from indignity. Racial inequality in health and cognate inequities can not be transformed unless the power of neoliberalism is simultaneously contested. The COVID-19 has exposed the adverse effects of a system that has dominated and disproportionately impacted racialized US communities. It has refined confirmation of long-standing structural variations pointing out inadequate policies, budget discrepancies, jeopardizing human security conceptualization. Thus, opening ground for a neoliberalism reversal within the alternative hybrid order. The phenomenon's roots and current issues lie in the realization of capitalism, the morphology of the nation-state, and the generative order of colonialism. The unequal access and comprehensive discrimination make a paradoxical paradigm that the affluent US society is less prosperous. With an ideal approach to skepticism and confusion regarding critical race theory, the legal history, doctrinal race development, and the International Convention on Racial Discrimination, a contemporary racial foundation needs to be developed, reaffirmed, improved, and protected to incorporate the democratic content of the US's principles of legal equality. A rational approach to assess the social welfare system is to examine its significant impact on poverty and racial discrimination. The moral criterion and compulsory economic logic of direct financial benefits associated with poverty policies require considerable determination. The right to health is a fundamental precondition for achieving freedom from indignity contributing to non-violent behavior, legalism, and community improvement. The consolidation of wealth and power in one society could be ground for racial and other exclusivist discourses, and the improper system of governance and, ultimately, society become. Institutional racism, whether implicit or explicit, is often unnoticed or disregarded. Ethnic sensitivity, empowerment, and cultural competence should constitute anti-racism tools of liberation policies to constitute a dignified culture of equality and equity.

Социал-реформистские эксперименты в Латинской Америке в эпоху «холодной войны»

The article is devoted to the consideration and analysis of the practical policy of Latin American national reformism and social reformism during the Cold War. The author shows that the political and ideological gamut of the non-communist left movement in Latin America in the bipolar period was very wide. Specifically in this scientific article, the author refers to examples of the exercise of power by different directions of the socialist movement in the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Peru, Chile. The author shows the existing connections between Latin American national reformism and the Socialist International and at that time comes to the conclusion that the ideology and practice of Latin American social democracy during the Cold War had a special, specific character. The common features characteristics of both the ideological project and the practical policy of the social reformist forces in the period under review were a commitment to political transformations, the expansion of social and political rights of citizens, the strengthening of the state and public sector in the economy, the priority of social policy, an anti-oligarchic strategy, a focus on a fair agrarian reform, anti-imperialism and the desire to defend national independence in foreign policy. In some cases (Nicaragua, Panama, Chile), the nature of social-economic transformations went beyond the framework of classical social reformism and had a revolutionary democratic content. The results of the center-left experiments in Latin American countries during the Cold War have varied, but by the 1990s most of them had failed. This is largely due to the fact that in the specific historical conditions of Latin American countries, national reformism in power led to the development of authoritarian and personalist tendencies, an increase in corruption and bureaucracy, attempts to merge the party and state apparatus.

Democratic Institutions Without Democratic Content?-New Regionalism and Democratic Backsliding in Regional Reforms in Sweden

The aim of this article is to examine trends of democratic backsliding associated with the long standing reform work on regional institutions and policies in Sweden. To this end, democratic backsliding is conceptualized in a different manner compared to conventional understandings. By doing so, the article highlights a missing aspect in the research on democratic backsliding that concerns how well-intended reforms designed to strengthen democratic institutions can also harbor non-democratic consequences. In Sweden, a new political arena was created when the former county councils were transformed into so-called called regions in 2019. As part of this, the regions have been assigned responsibility for both health care and regional development planning. The overall research problem to be analyzed in this article focuses on the relations between the policy objectives for democracy and regionalist ideas of economic growth that both were central concerns in the reform processes. The results highlight how the governing rationalities in the regional reform processes have changed during the period between 1990 and 2020. The original conception of creating a mini-version of a liberal and representative democracy have turned into a form of democratic backsliding privileging economic goals. The economic rationalities that permeate the political sphere today close the space for articulated different interests and opinions-a dimension that we argue is crucial for any democratic society. We draw two main conclusions: First that the neoliberal aspect of governing is missing in the analysis of democracy at the regional level, resulting in a descriptive discussion of democracy that tend to ignore the effects of the particularly strong emphasis on economic growth. Secondly, that there is a lack of a discussion on democracy that takes the regional level into account, i.e., that the sub-national level should be regarded and thus discussed as a distinctive level of democracy.

Effective legislation as a prerequisite for the democratic development of society

The development and improvement of legislation and, in fact, the formation of a new legal system should be considered as oneof the most important tasks related to the formation of the rule of law and civil society. Recently, many legislative acts, creating thebasis for the further development of our state as a democratic one with the rule of law, have been adopted. The Constitution of Ukrainehas enshrined the most important principles of the constitutional order of Ukraine. Some steps have been taken towards the rule of lawand separation of powers, ensuring natural human rights.The purpose of this article is to analyze the need, relevance or requirement to study the principles of legislative activity, whichwould reflect the legal and democratic values of today.The article covers the analysis of the legislation effectiveness in the modern world as a prerequisite for the democratic developmentof society. In writing the article, the tasks directly related to the formation of the rule of law, civil society and legal system havebeen analyzed. The effectiveness of legal norms as a component of the formation of civil society and the rule of law has been analyzed.The principles that reflect democratic foundations, indicating that democratic law-making will accordingly generate democratic legislation,have also been studied.The democratic content of legislation affects the level of its effectiveness and is aimed at protecting fundamental human rightsand freedoms; ensuring the development of civil society; taking into account the objective laws of the development of society and thestate, where a human being is recognized as the highest social value.The above indicates the urgent need to develop the principles of legislative activities that would reflect the legal and democraticvalues. Among them, the main ones are the following: the determining role of human and civil rights and freedoms and their ensuringby the state; democracy and social orientation of legislative activities; taking into account public opinion; the principle of the rule oflaw; timeliness, systematicity, predictability and scientific validity of legislative decisions, etc.

Developing students’ social values within the US higher education institutions

The experience of the United States, where in higher education students are trained for conscious social activities and independent responsibility for the benefit of the community and society as a whole, seems to be significant for the theory and practice of higher education in Ukraine. The appeal to the American educational experience is due to the fact that today the United States as a state governed by the rule of law is a reliable guarantor of individual rights and freedoms, provided by strong traditions of civic education – the key to educating students' social values. At the same time, the interest in higher education in the United States is due to its high prestige within the world educational environment, its well-known democratic orientation and constant content and methodological improvement. In the United States, training graduates in adapting to their social life as responsible citizens-members of certain communities and professionals in society has historically been a duty of higher education. The purpose of the article is to highlight the features of the educational process in the course of general education in the framework of undergraduate studies within the US higher education, institutions, which contribute to the development of students’ social values. It is noted that the pedagogical experience of the United States, where students are being trained in conscious social activities and independent responsible activities for the benefit of society in higher education institutions, is useful for the theory and practice of higher education in Ukraine. The methodology of the research is based on the analysis of scholarly and pedagogical sources of the USA and Ukraine on the problem under study with the elements of induction and deduction to characterise the state of its development in the USA; the summarising of the organisation of various types of training in the US higher education institutions, which provide for the formation of students’ social values. The originality of the research lies in the fact that for the first time in the Ukrainian pedagogical science, the views of American scholars on the types of training, as well as the civic engagement of students in the U.S. higher education institutions which contribute to the development of their social values have been summarised. It has been found out that today, in higher education in the United States, students’ engagement into social activities during their general education ensures their readiness for a meaningful and responsible life in an interdependent world characterised by uncertainty and rapid changes. By teaching leadership and community service through dialogue and collaboration, the U.S. colleges and universities contribute to the development of students’ social values, social and intellectual development of students who, moving from a comfort zone to a contact zone, are able to interact effectively within a variety of situations.

Participation, Inclusion, and the Democratic Content of Constitutions

Theories of participatory and deliberative democracy contend that participatory and inclusive constitution-making processes are more likely to generate democratic outcomes than the traditional, elite-led approaches. The empirical evidence, however, has remained inconclusive and the propositions mostly normative. Using an original data from 195 constitutions promulgated in 118 countries since 1974, this study examines the impact of participatory and inclusive processes on the democratic content of constitutions. Building on the recently developed conjectures in the literature, this study introduces two original measures for individual-level public participation and aggregate-level group inclusion in constitution-making processes. The statistical analysis provides compelling empirical evidence that increased public participation is associated with an increased number of democratic provisions in constitutions, indicating that broad participatory processes can improve the democratic content of constitutions. Group inclusion, however, is not a significant predictor of the content of constitutions. The findings offer empirical support for participatory and deliberative theories of democracy and their prediction on democratic outcomes of participatory processes.

The Ideal of Western Democracy and Law State as a Conceptual Basis for the Formation of National Political Interests

The proposition that modern western democracy is a point of intersection of modern political, economic and national interests is substantiated. In particular in the process of becoming a capitalistsociety, the political interests of the “middle class”, which are realized primarily through collegial legislative bodies in opposition to the institutions of feudal absolutism and despotism, wereinextricably linked with economic interests – mass interest in the creation of ground foundations of free competition, as shown in the article, formed the political interests of the general population andbecame a necessary prerequisite for the emergence of Western political democracy that arose as a result of great European and American bourgeois social revolutions. At the same time it is shown that the antimonarchical system of separation of powers based on the mechanism of “checks and balances”, the introduction of the principle of equality before the lawcontribute to the realization of the ideal of the state “night watchman” and, thus, activate the process of becoming national markets; it was thanks to these political institutions and the emergence of civilsociety that guaranteed the assertion of inalienable rights and freedoms and the filling of political interests with democratic content as one of the most important components of a modern law state thatthe advanced capitalist countries pushed. That is why the famous “Declaration of the Rights of Freedom of Man and Citizen”, which refers to the powerful motives of activity in the political realm ofcitizens of the law state proclaims that the “source of sovereign power is the nation”. It is also proved that the extremely negative impact on the democratization of the Ukrainian statehood and the development of a market economy, which made possible the Russian aggression against Ukraine, makes the current dismantling by the leading EU and US countries a model of a social state and a “mixed economy”, which has consequently become the next financial world crisis. In turn, the steady increase in global instability and the presence of a powerful comprador fifth column in Ukraine, require the formation of political institutions and mechanisms in our country that ensure maximum consideration and realization of political interests of nationally conscious citizens through an effective model of presidentialism, which all these years is only being imitated in our country. In the light of the world experience, a number of systemic characteristics of such a form of political government and a consistent democratic social order have been analyzed.

A political economy for social movements and revolution: popular media access, power and cultural hegemony

One key marker of mass social movements transitioning to participatory democratic governance is popular media access. This essay argues that democratic media access by public constituencies becomes a site for constructing social revolution and simultaneously a manifest empirical measure of the extent of democratic participation in the production, distribution, and use of communication with new cultural possibilities. The participatory production practices (with citizens producing and hosting their own programs) and the democratic content (of oral histories, local issues, critiques of government and business, and everyday vernacular) reflect the hegemony of emerging ‘Bolivarian’ twenty-first century socialism expressed as popular participation in media production. Bolstered by constitutional changes and public funding, popular social movements of civil society, indigenous, women, and working class organizations have gained revolutionary ground by securing in practice the right of media production. Findings indicate that public and community media (that move beyond alternative sites of local expression and concerns) provide a startling revolutionary contrast to the commercial media operations in every nation. Popular media constructions suggest a new radically democratic cultural hegemony based on human solidarity with collective, participatory decision-making and cooperation offering real possibilities and experiences for increased equality and social justice.

PuttingTheir Guns on the Scale: Constitution-Making in Burma/Myanmar under Military Command

Abstract The process of making the present Constitution of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar in Burma/Myanmar under the military dictatorship State Law and Order Restoration Council/State Peace and Development Council (SLORC/SPDC) from 1993 through to 2007 is rightly viewed as an undemocratic, repressive process. Both the citizens of Myanmar and the international community generally had no say in the whole process. Thus, the process may be viewed as one of resistance by the SLORC/SPDC against global constitution-making norms and practices, on the one hand, and local democratic politicians and groups, on the other hand. The Constitution that came into operation in January 2011 admittedly has highly undemocratic content. However, it undeniably has some democratic content that started bearing fruit, eventually culminating in the winning, in the November 2015 general election, and the coming to power of, the National League for Democracy party in March 2016. I trace the constitution making in Burma/Myanmar by expanding the time frame of analysis until 2016 and revisit the ‘resistance’ argument. Then I posit that the process is a double-pronged strategy by the SLORC/SPDC to, first, resist global and local pressures with the intention of, later, engaging with them when the time was perceived to be right and conducive to their interests.

Pragmatism in the Third Reich

In this article I try to answer one central question: how can it be explained that the most intense reception of American pragmatism in Germany took place during the Nazi dictatorship (and not in democratic political environments before – during the Weimar Republic – and afterwards – in the first 20 years of the Federal Republic)? The answer is complicated: it starts with an academic exchange programme between Germany and the USA which brought the young post-doc Eduard Baumgarten in the mid -20ties to America and put him in contact with John Dewey and some of his pupils. After his return in 1929 he hoped to write and teach about pragmatism. This project came to an abrupt end, when Martin Heidegger denied him a promised position at the university of Freiburg. After the Nazi “seizure of power” the situation became worse when a completely negative expert opinion by Heidegger, by then the leading Nazi philosopher, blocked Baumgartens habilitation in Göttingen. Baumgarten fought back and established ties to a rising star in Nazi-philosophy, Alfred Baeumler, a devoted follower of Nietzsche’s “Will to Power.” This move secured in the end the publication of Baumgarten´s two books on American philosophy and especially on pragmatism. But this triumph came at a cost: a “reinterpretation” of the democratic content of pragmatism and an effort to show similarities between it and Nietzsche´s philosophy.

The politics of boundaries in South Africa: the case of Matatiele

ABSTRACTThis paper engages with a key concern in boundary studies namely what are the major forces which inform boundaries and boundary demarcation/making. Boundaries being quintessentially geographical are infused with social, political and spatial content. While the Berlin Conference imposed national boundaries using geography as a colonial tool, the principle of boundaries imposed at the intra-national scale is a current concern. The paper focusses on boundary demarcation in post-apartheid South Africa through a consideration of the Matatiele boundary dispute. Matatiele, a small town, situated towards the south-western corner of KwaZulu-Natal, but now part of the Eastern Cape Province, has been the subject of a longstanding boundary dispute between the two provinces. The matter has been a subject of a number of protracted court battles between residents of the town and the different tiers of government, the provincial and national tiers of government in particular. The paper details the struggle for spatial justice – the political strategies, in particular – of proponents for the inclusion of Matatiele into KwaZulu-Natal. The paper demonstrates that in a (quasi) federal spatial formation such as South Africa, boundaries are politically overdetermined at the national scale. The local democratic content, therefore, is rendered inconsequential.

ДЕМОКРАТИЗАЦІЯ СУСПІЛЬСТВА ЯК ОСНОВА ДЕМОКРАТИЗАЦІЇ ВЛАДИ: ТЕОРЕТИКО-МЕТОДОЛОГІЧНІ ПІДХОДИ

Проаналізовано та узагальнено теоретико-методологічних підходів щодо демократизації суспільно-політичних відносин як основи демократизації влади. Розглянуто ключові питання впливу сформованих суспільно-політичних цінностей на розвиток демократії. Визначено, що демократизація ‒ необхідна передумова розвитку духовної культури, всебічного розповсюдження духовного процесу, де акцент робиться на обізнаності культури загальнолюдських цінностей, ідеалів та принципів. Обґрунтовано, що демократизація суспільно-політичних відносин сприятиме задоволенню потреб і інтересів громадян та призведе до підвищення авторитету як владних структур, так і інститутів громадянського суспільства. Для вдосконалення процесу демократизації суспільно-політичних відносин необхідно розвивати та стимулювати формування ключових демократичних цінностей, таких як: професіоналізм керівників урядів на різних рівнях влади; ефективність, підзвітність гілок влади; орієнтація на соціальні потреби країни з урахуванням минулого історичного досвіду; відкрита, прозора, некорумпована та соціально орієнтована система політичних відносин.

Sergey Dovlatov'un Eserleri Çerçevesinde Rusçada Örtmeceler

Toplumun dünya anlayışını ve kültürel değerlerini yansıtan bir olgu olarak dil sürekli gelişmekte ve yetkinleşmektedir. Dil gelişiminin her aşaması farklıdır ve bu aşamalar kendine özgü karakteristik özellikler barındırmaktadır. Yaşayan dillerin gelişiminin mevcut durumunun gözlemlenmesi sonucunda, dillerin örtmeceleştirilme sürecinde olduğu kanısına varılmaktadır. Rus dili bu eğilimde bir istisna değildir. Ortaya konan bu çalışmada, Rus dilindeki örtmece olgusunun hem dilbilimsel hem de edebî yönü Sergey Dovlatov'un eserlerinden alınan kesitler üzerinden incelenmektedir. Çağdaş Rus edebiyatının en çok okunan yazarlarından biri olan Sergey Dovlatov'un karakteristik özellikleri içerisinde en çok ön plana çıkan, eserlerinin içeriğinin demokratik nitelik taşımasıdır. Söz konusu demokratik içeriğin rahatlıkla meydana getirilebilmesinde, örtmece kullanımının payı göz ardı edilemeyecek kadar büyüktür. Bu çalışmada örtmece olgusunun gerek teorik, gerekse işlevsel bakış açılarıyla analizi yapılmaktadır.

Zagadnienie demokracji i totalitaryzmu w myśli Józefa kard. Ratzingera - Benedykta XVI

Celem niniejszego badania była analiza związku demokracji i totalitaryzmem w ujęciu myśli J. Ratzingera/ Benedykta XVI. Hipotezą badawczą było stwierdzenie, że J. Ratzinger dostrzegał istotne zagrożenie przekształcenia się demokracji w totalitaryzm (myśl ta była spójna z przekonaniem Jana Pawła II o tym, że demokracja bez wartości łatwo się przemienia w jawny lub zakamuflowany totalitaryzm (CA, 46). Paradoksalnie kluczem do tego przekształcenia jest pojęcie wolności w oderwaniu od kategorii dobra i prawdy. Zdaniem J. Ratzingera/Benedykta XVI demokracja powinna być rozważana przede wszystkim w ujęciu substancjalnym (treść demokracji), a nie jedynie proceduralnym czy instytucjonalnym. W tym kontekście istotą demokracji są prawa człowieka oparte na prawie naturalnym, natomiast współczesna liberalna demokracja ma tendencje do podważania wartości moralnych, na których jest ufundowana, a których sama nie jest w stanie sobie zapewnić. Rosnący w siłę relatywizm moralny coraz częściej przedstawiany jako immanentna część samej demokracji. W konsekwencji społeczeństwo, które przyjmuje prymat wolności „wyzwolonej” od wszelkiej prawdy (ontologicznej i aksjologicznej) wykazuje tendencje do autodestrukcji.

A thousand healths: Jean-Luc Nancy and the possibility of democratic biopolitics

This article addresses the relationship between ontology and politics in Jean-Luc Nancy’s theory of democracy by probing the implications of his latest ontological innovation, the concept of struction. We argue that Nancy’s democracy is a mode of politics that makes the radical pluralism of struction legitimate, opening and guarding a political space for the coexistence of the incommensurable. From this perspective, and despite Nancy’s own skepticism about the concept of biopolitics, the notion of struction opens a pathway for theorizing democracy in a biopolitical key as the regime of coexistence of radically incommensurable forms of life in the absence of any coordinating principle. We nonetheless take issue with Nancy’s prescription for democracy to remain devoid of any political affirmation of its own. Instead, we suggest that the prescriptive content of democracy consists in the affirmation of the contingency of all the forms of life that coexist in it, which implies their freedom, equality, and community. In this manner, democracy makes the incommensurability of struction both legitimate and enjoyable.

About the philosophy of international relations

The author examines philosophic components in the ways of thinking and decision-making in the sphere of international relations, while drawing links from the past to the present. Thus, this article strategically contributes to the quality, democratic content and rationality of decision making on innovations for institutionalised processes for globalisation, and stimulates systemic international learning.

Policy analysis and strategic foresight for maintaining security during public events in the Global South

This article examines policies and policy-relevant effects during the preparation and implementation phases of an internationally relevant large-scale public event in an emerging country of the Global South. The 2010 World Cup in South Africa serves as an example to show the behavioural patterns, quality, democratic content and rationality of decision making of the involved transnational companies and globalised institutions. Global players such as FIFA, Coca Cola and others utilised strategic intelligence to serve own corporate interests but ignored human rights for their own benefit. As a consequence, South Africa plunged into enormously high public debts and experienced an increase of social inequalities and poverty. This example for neo-colonialist effects of globalisation in the Global South suggests that better policies for 'catch-up strategies' in the development process should be identified, namely one that takes into account foresight, public security for all populace and the importance of human rights.