Democratic Imperatives Research Articles

Why Deliberate? The Encounter Between Deliberation and New Public Managers

A number of organizations in Britain's National Health Service (NHS) have been experimenting with ‘deliberative’ techniques of citizen involvement, techniques that were designed with democratic imperatives in mind. However, political practices are moulded by their institutional settings and the goals of their proponents, so it is unlikely that they have been left ‘pure’ following their encounter with public management imperatives.This paper offers an explanation for the interest in deliberative processes in the NHS by comparing deliberative and public management imperatives, as well as discussing more case‐specific motivations, drawing on interviews with health policy actors between May and July 2001. I then use those insights to highlight gaps between the deliberative ideal and deliberative practice, showing what has been gained and what has been lost in the encounter between deliberative democracy and new public managers.

Legitimacy Problems in Deliberative Democracy

The classic accounts of deliberative democracy are also accounts of legitimacy: ‘that outcomes are legitimate to the extent they receive reflective assent through participation in authentic deliberation by all those subject to the decision in question’ ( Dryzek, 2001, p. 651 ). And yet, in complex societies deliberative participation by all those affected by collective decision-making is extremely implausible. There are also legitimacy problems with the demanding procedural requirements which deliberation imposes on participants. Given these problems, deliberative democracy seems unable to deliver legitimate outcomes as it defines them. Focusing on the problem of scale, this paper offers a tentative solution using representation, a concept which is itself problematic. Along the way, the paper highlights issues with the legitimate role of experts, the different legitimate uses of statistical and electoral representation, and differences between the research and democratic imperatives driving current attempts to put deliberative principles into practice, illustrated with a case from a Leicester health policy debate. While much work remains to be done on exactly how the principles arrived at might be transformed into working institutions, they do offer a means of criticising existing deliberative practice.

Agendas, Interests and Authority: Science and Politics in Canada

In the spring of 1953, two young scientists announced they had discovered the of life. By describing the structure of DNA, Francis Crick and James Watson helped explain the nature of heredity. It was not quite the secret of life, but it was certainly an enormous contribution to our knowledge of biology. Fifty years later, the consequences continue to unfold. On the one hand, Trent University, the home of the Journal of Canadian Studies, has just announced plans to become a centre for DNA research, to pursue innovations in health and forensic science and to seek out opportunities for local economic development. On the other hand, just last month Trent students opened an organic cafe, serving food that, they promise, will be free of genetically modified ingredients. The capacity provided by science to understand and to reshape nature has created both new possibilities and new anxieties, in Canada and elsewhere. Scientific knowledge and its political, economic and social implications have not received extensive attention in the Journal of Canadian Studies. As this issue of the journal demonstrates, however, this area of study is entirely consistent with the spirit of Canadian Studies, demanding interdisciplinarity, a balanced understanding of both universal themes and concrete details, and, often, a view of scholarly study as an activist enterprise. Examining science in society requires many disciplines, from philosophy to history, from sociology to political science. This diversity of perspectives is well represented in this issue, in articles that range from the politics of scientific institutions, to the quantitative study of scientific productivity, to the sociology of recent controversies involving science. Science itself, of course, is often viewed in universal terms, as a community of scholars transcending borders and pursuing knowledge valid in every context. As comparative studies of science have demonstrated, however, borders do matter: different contexts generate distinctive approaches to understanding nature. Certainly, the classic problems of science in society - such as adjudicating the competing research agendas of scientists, politicians, industrialists and the public, or negotiating the tension between democratic imperatives and technocratic perspectives that privilege expertise, are not specific to Canada. None the less, the dis-tinctive history of Canadian science is informed by institutions such as the Geological Survey of Canada, the National Research Council and the federal research granting agencies; the evolving relationship between Canadian scientists and a natural environment of unusual biological and geographical diversity; and recent shifts in science policy, from the building of an autonomous scientific community to the formation of a national system of innovation focussed on science as an economic instrument. The history has generated a continuing dialectic between universal challenges and the concrete experience of science in Canada. Finally, several articles in this issue exhibit a commitment to an activist agenda, exploring concerns regarding the environmental impacts of resource extraction, the implications of new technologies such as genetically modified food, or the consequences of restrictions on alternative health care. Such preoccupations are informed by an awareness of the ties between science and political and economic authority, and the implications of these ties for democracy, equity, environmentalism and other values important to many Canadians. Defining the Terrain This issue begins with several essays that define the terrain of Canadian science, examining where research is done - in laboratories and field stations, in universities, hospitals, governments and industry - as well as the ideas and interests that shape scientific activity in these diverse locations. David Holdsworth provides historical and philosophical context, locating contemporary debates within the longstanding dichotomy between an autonomous scientific community pursuing knowledge for its own sake and a scientific practice guided by a concern for pragmatic utility in the service of society. …

The Marsalis Family and the Democratic Imperative in Jazz

L'article relate la creativite des musiciens de jazz Noirs Americains, les Marsalis, et insiste sur l'importance des creations collectives, compatibles, d'une part, avec l'integrite artistique et l'innovation et, d'autre part, avec le succes commercial

Developing Economies and the Demographic and Democratic Imperatives of Globalization

In the past decade the world economy has witnessed both great progress and great inequities resulting in part from the liberalization of markets-including capital markets-that has accompanied the process of globalization, and from the intense pace of technological change. This article highlights the need for individuals, organizations and governments to counterbalance the excesses and abuses of capitalist societies while at the same time noting the importance of ensuring environmental safeguards. It recognizes, however, that efforts must be directed at maintaining the dynamic momentum of globalization and of extending its benefits to greater numbers. For this to happen, there must first be a debate about globalization, focusing on how to intensify its pace and extending its benefits, as well as curbing its excesses. Second, intellectually robust coalitions must be created between business, NGOs, the academic community, the media and other interested parties, to put pressure on national governments in both developed and developing countries, and on international government institutions, to improve, intensify and extend the process of both political and economic liberalization.

Fiscal Equity Litigation and the Democratic Imperative

(1999). Fiscal Equity Litigation and the Democratic Imperative. Equity & Excellence in Education: Vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 5-18.

Towards a new research agenda for post-compulsory education and training

This article discusses ways in which the research community associated with post-compulsory education and training in the United Kingdom might refocus their research agendas to take account of democratic and social justice imperatives.

The Rise of Women's Education in the United States and Korea: A Struggle for Educational and Occupational Equality

When, why, and how did women in the United States and Korea become educated? Although independent studies have documented the rise of education for women in each country, no analysis has yet compared how in these seemingly dissimilar cultures education became not an oddity for women but a modern necessity. Although the revolution in women's education resulted from and gave rise to profound ideological shifts in both countries, it took its roots as well in radical political and economic changes that accompanied industrialization. In the United States women's education began in the post-Revolutionary period (1780–1835) with the growth of public town schools and private seminaries devoted primarily to inculcating domestic ideals, morality, and civic virtue. Mary Lyon's founding of the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1837 marked the advent of higher education for women, which then accelerated the push for other women's colleges, co—education, and the opening of teaching as a “feminized” profession during the mid—to late—nineteenth century. Excluded from formal education under the Yi Dynasty (1392–1910), Korean women were modestly educated in feminine morality and virtue based upon Confucian doctrines that strictly limited their roles to the domestic household. When Methodist missionary Mary Scranton founded Ewha Hakdang in 1886 for one student, it became Korea's first formal educational institution for women, subsequently offering the first college—level program in 1910, providing almost the exclusive access to higher education under Japanese colonial rule until 1945, and awarding 97% of its degrees between 1948 and 1985. Although deriving from fundamentally different backgrounds, Puritanism or evangelical Protestantism in the United States and the Confucian philosophy in Korea, the early rationales for women's education involved a similar blend of religious prescriptions, democratic and domestic imperatives, and eventually arguments for socioeconomic utility. But within the overt agendas articulated by educational leaders or prescribed by the state lay hidden the seeds of what would become the twentieth—century goals for women: the right to an education, the demand for equal education for women, the pursuit of independence and personal autonomy, and the push for economic security through occupational opportunity and mobility. I low the women's movement has changed the destiny and mission of women's colleges, without denying the heritage that shaped these institutions from their founding, provides a textbook example of the shifts in women's education that have occurred over nearly 200 years in the United States and 100 years in Korea. This comparative analysis, therefore, begins by examining the historical and ideological roots of women's education, then focuses specifically on the rise of Mount Holyoke and of Ewha Womans University as the first women's colleges in the United States and Korea respectively. By examining career and employment patterns of women graduates, we begin to see how education altered women's lives and occupational choices and how women's aspirations have been met or frustrated by labor force trends, entrenched economic structures, and socio—cultural mores. Although differences surely emerge, what is more striking is the similarity in patterns of development and in the spirit of the pioneering women and men who opened the doors to education for women—doors to minds that can never be closed.

TRIBE VS. ISLAM: The Post-colonial Arab State and the Democratic Imperative

TRIBE VS. ISLAM: The Post-colonial Arab State and the Democratic Imperative

Adult Education and the Democratic Imperative: the Vision of Eduard Lindeman as a Contemporary Charter for Adult Education

(1983). Adult Education and the Democratic Imperative: the Vision of Eduard Lindeman as a Contemporary Charter for Adult Education. Studies in Adult Education: Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 36-46.

The “Democratic Imperative” In Corrections

The “Democratic Imperative” In Corrections