Democratic Initiatives Research Articles

Sow the Wind, Reap the Whirlwind? Mobilization Cascades in Direct Democratic Initiatives.

In this study, I investigate patterns of mobilization in one type of direct democratic procedure, popular initiatives. The goal of this study is to analyze whether a popular initiative exhibits a mobilizing effect on another popular initiative, when the latter initiative is concerned with the same policy issue and is making more far-reaching demands. I analyze three such initiative pairs from Switzerland that came to a vote in 2012, 2013 and 2014, with data on the municipal and cantonal (state) level. The results of a comparison of simple linear and multilevel models suggest that a mobilization effect in terms of turnout and outcome might exist, but it is a weak effect. Normative concerns, however, remain: If voters’ preferences are affected by the mere fact of being exposed to policy options, then direct democratic procedures are not just moments of preference expression, but also of preference generation.

Participatory Budgeting and Community-Based Research: Principles, Practices, and Implications for Impact Validity

Research and evaluation is an integral part of the Participatory Budgeting (PB) process. Since PB in New York City (PBNYC) is designed to be a democratic and community-based initiative that is grounded in the values of equity and inclusion, it is important that the research and evaluation methods used to study the process and its participants adhere to the same principles. For the past five years, a team of community-based researchers, academics, and PB participants have designed research questions and instruments, implemented data collection, analyzed and shared data with PB participants and practitioners, and issued reports to the wider public. Like PB, the research design is rooted in the communities where PB is operating. The research is not intended to sit on a shelf but is actively used by participants and practitioners to help reflect on the process, improve deliberation in decision-making, and strengthen the process and outcomes of PB. This article will discuss Participatory Action Research principles used by the Community Development Project of the Urban Justice Center, explore the applicability of these principles to the Participatory Budgeting research context, and explain how these practices have helped to deepen and improve the process and outcomes of PBNYC.

Спільність порядку денного українських телеканалів

Relevance of the study. The problem of thematic misbalance in news is indisputable nowadays. Newsmakers are obliged to meet not only standard news criteria, but also a media audience expectations regarding the structuring of its interests. The main objectives of the study were to detect the coherence in agendas of the leading Ukrainian TV channels as well as to trace their conformity with the public agenda. Methodology. Content-analysis method was used to identify those topics in news stories (N=1186) that got the most attention on the studied channels. Calculating the coherence and rank correlation coefficients made it possible to trace the commonality in thematic priorities among channels themselves and between channels and their audience. Data triangulation method made it possible to select the points of public agenda from the survey by the “Democratic Initiatives” Foundation. Results. The studied channels tend to reflect Ukrainian and world events in identical thematic proportions: coherence coefficient of devotion attention to the topics was fixed at a high level: W = 0.87 (p≤0.005). There is a tendency for emphasizing particular range of issues (bureaucrats, corruption, crime, material support) and missing from attention of some others (decentralization, environmental issues). Only a half of the topics (49%) was identified as important to the public’s view, other issues didn’t correspond to public agenda, therefore, the manifestation of the agenda-setting effect was fixed at a weak level (r = 0.2 at p> 0.1). The probable cause of the low correlation between media and public agendas may be the deterioration of living standards in Ukraine due to current state of war conflict. Conclusions. In terms of thematic priorities, leading television channels can be characterized by a high degree of consistency, while the television agenda is only half-compliant with public agenda, so that its conformity with the public agenda was fixed at a weak level.

СОЦІАЛЬНА ВІДПОВІДАЛЬНІСТЬ СУДУ ЯК ПЕРЕДУМОВА ЮРИДИЧНОЇ ВІДПОВІДАЛЬНОСТІ СУДДІ

The article reveals the conceptual foundations of the social responsibility of the court as an important prerequisite for the legal responsibility of a judge. It has been established that the problem of court and judge liability is regulated by the following international and Ukrainian documents, such as: 1) European Charter on the Law «On the Status of Judges» adopted by the Council of Europe; 2) The Law of Ukraine «On the Judicial System and the Status of Judges»; 3) the Constitution of Ukraine; 4) The Code of Judicial Ethics, approved by the Decision of the XI (regular) Congress of Judges of Ukraine; 5) Recommendation CM/Rec (2010) 12 of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Council of Europe to member states regarding judges: independence, efficiency and responsibilities; 6) Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct. The results of a survey conducted by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the Razumkov Center, the Council of Judges of Ukraine and the Center for Judicial Studios with the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation based on the «Monitoring of the State of Independence of Judges in Ukraine – 2012» as part of the study of the level of trust in the modern system were considered and analyzed, justice, judges and courts. It is determined that a judge has both a legal and a moral duty to impartially, independently, in a timely manner and comprehensively consider court cases and make fair judicial decisions, administering justice on the basis of legislative norms. Based on the study of the practice of litigation, it has been proven that judges must skillfully operate with various instruments of protection from public influence. It has been established that in order to ensure the protection of judges from the public, it is necessary to create special units that will function as part of judicial self-government bodies. It was proposed that the Council of Judges of Ukraine, which acts as the highest body of judicial self- government in our state (in Ukraine), legislate the provision on ensuring the protection of the procedural independence of judges.

Политика Временного правительства в решении «национального вопроса»: подходы и методы реализации региональных вариантов

The article presents an analysis of the “national policy” of the Provisional Government. The events of the February Revolution exacerbated a number of problems associated with the national question in the state, and these events led the new government to necessity to develop and implement policies to meet the requirements of the time. The national policy of the Provisional Government was based on the party ideology of the Cadets, the Octobrists, the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and was an eclectic approach to solve the “national question.” The Provisional Government defended the idea of the indivisibility of Russia, so in the very first policy documents abandoned the idea of the empire’s disintegration on the national basis, and the solution of the “national question” was seen in the provision of cultural autonomy, the development of language and ethnic identity of the peoples from the national borderlands. The Provisional Government sought to develop the variability approach to the national question in large ethnic regions: Poland, Finland, Ukraine, Central Asia and Kazakhstan. However, the rise of nationalism in the borderlands of the Russian State, the spread of the ideas of regionalism required more fundamental changes. Therefore, the course chosen by the Provisional Government, did not find support in the society, and democratic initiatives were not enough in the time of difficult inter-revolutionary period. The confidence in the preservation of Russia undivided, the inertia of the control system, the loss of control over the national situation in the state led to the failure of the Provisional Government’s policy in the national sphere.DOI 10.14258/izvasu(2016)2-01

Bosnia and Herzegovina 20 Years after Dayton: Complexity Born of Paradoxes

This article will start with an analysis of the Dayton Peace Agreement, and assess to what extent it focused on peace-building, state-reconstruction and democratization. It will provide an overview of major peace-building, state-reconstruction and democratization initiatives by international and local actors in post-war Bosnia. Following the often-presented argument that ‘Dayton is a good peace agreement but a bad blueprint for a democratic state’, the article will ask if the Dayton Peace Agreement has failed in the consolidation of Bosnian statehood and the democratization of the country. In order to do this, an in-depth analysis of the current situation in terms of state consolidation and democratization will be given. The main argument of the article demonstrates that while the Dayton Agreement had some inherent weaknesses, actions by local elites and international state-builders also explain some of the current issues of the Bosnian state.

Heightening Leadership Effectiveness in Local Governments of Uganda: ‘Challenge the Process’ for Organisational Support

ABSTRACTLeadership effectiveness is an enviable characteristic in public as well as in private organisations. This article presents a discussion of the leadership practice known as ‘Challenge the Process’; within the context of Bushenyi district local government administration in Uganda. The discussion reveals that the leadership practice of ‘challenge the process’ influences the organisational climate and can be influential in generating change within an organisation. The study also demonstrates that Bushenyi district employees associate the behaviour patterns of their leaders and supervisors with the organisation. Based on data collected, the argument is that the leadership practice of ‘challenge the process’ positively influences employees’ perceived organisational support in Bushenyi local government of Uganda. The conclusions are in agreement with Kouzes and Posner (2002) that leaders who ‘challenge the process’ can achieve extraordinary results and improve employees’ perceived organisational support.The article recommends that in the current environment of local government administration in Uganda be characterised by a democratic political dispensation and private-public sector initiatives; leaders should consider not merely being mindful of the rules and standing instructions in public administration; must be innovative, willing to take risks, and challenge assumptions about the way things have always been done in order to increase employees’ perceived organisational support. As stressed by Kouzes and Posner (2002), leaders in local governments can promote the resourcefulness of employees at work through the practice of ‘challenge the process’.

TÜRKİYE DE ETNİSİTE BAĞLAMINDA TARAFTAR ÜZERİNDE SPOR MEDYASININ ETKİSİ

Within recent years, the ethnicity awareness in Turkey has been prominent, while ethnic rights and claims have started to be legitimized under the heading of “democratic initiative” within Turkey’s political framework. However, the impact that of sports and sports media has on the individuals, which is quite substantial, is being neglected. The impact of the media in general, and that of the sports media in particular are substantially important in today’s societies which go through quick technological alterations and transformations. In regard to sports media’s importance, we have used a random sampling method to conduct a survey on 555 fans residing in the Southeastern region of the country, where ethnic differences come into more prominent. Our objective is to manifest the perception of sports media in regard to ethnicity, and from the point of view of fans coming from different backgrounds. Based on the results, we are able to conclude that sports media in Turkey does not represent racist approaches but is not either a factor contributing to the social integration.

Open methods: bringing transparency to research metrics

>> See video of presentation (24 min.) Digital technologies, growth and globalization of the research community, and societal demand to address the Grand Challenges of our times, are driving changes in the dynamics of research, an evolution sometimes referred to as “Science 2.0”. They impact the entire research workflow, from securing resource, through conducting research, to disseminating the results using more routes than ever before, to peers, industry and society. This broad transmission of the results and benefits of research also paves the way for citizens and civil society organizations to be much more directly and actively involved as “agenda gatekeepers”, with a role in steering research, and perhaps even as funders themselves.These changes result in a more complex research ecosystem, populated by more stakeholders with ever higher expectations. The resources to support this ecosystem are not infinite, and these changes also drive the development of additional approaches into evaluating research alongside the well-established practices of peer review, and of securing expert opinion and narratives. This has driven a growing interest in the use of research metrics, alongside qualitative inputs, in making allocation decisions.In just the same way as the changes leading to Science 2.0 are driven bottom-up, Elsevier believes that the most effective way to embed quantitative insights along the existing qualitative is by endorsing a community-built solution. We are bringing our technical expertise and global reach to bear to facilitate democratic initiatives. One example of this is our engagement with the Snowball Metrics program [1], in which universities agree amongst themselves on metrics that give them useful strategic insights, rather than accept metrics that funders find useful and which are often, in effect, imposed. The initiative tests the methods on all available data sources to ensure they are robust and commonly understood and will support apples-to-apples benchmarking, and publish the metrics “recipes” for free so that they can be used by anyone, for their own purposes and, if applicable, under their own business models.Such engagements have shaped Elsevier’s position on research metrics and their use in research assessment. We recognise the need for a much broader range of research metrics than has traditionally been available: publication and citation metrics remain valuable, but must be complemented by those in other areas such as collaboration, deposition and reuse of research data, and benefit to society. Our vision is to be able to provide quantitative information about the entire research workflow, and we are engaging on several fronts to make this vision a reality.At the same time, we have also learnt about how the research community expects research metrics to be used in a responsible way, and our approach embraces this [2]. We recognize that metrics never reflect 100% of research activity, and that they should always be used together with qualitative inputs: peer review, expert opinion and narrative. The methods underlying any metric should be open to build trust, and to stimulate debate and improvement where needed, so that these same methods can be applied to all data available, whether they are open or proprietary. This consistent approach will bring the greatest benefit to the research community.ReferencesSnowball Metrics Recipe Book: http://www.snowballmetrics.com/wp-content/uploads/snowball-recipe-book_HR.pdf.Elsevier’s position on the role of metrics in research assessment: http://www.elsevier.com/online-tools/research-intelligence/resource-library/resources/response-to-hefces-call-for-evidence-independent-review-of-the-role-of-metrics-in-research-assessment.

AN ATTEMPT FOR THE PROTECTION OF SEXUAL DIVERSITY IN BRAZILIAN LAW

This article intends to talk about a democratic initiative of the Brazilian Bar Association to promote human rights and sexual diversity in Brazil. Brazil is walking up the road to protect LGBTI citizens and to legally recognize same-sex couples. The country has guaranteed many rights to homosexual couples and their children, but the lack of a specific act to rule these matters is a problem in a country whose legal system is still very dependent to legal acts and positivism. This work tries to show the state of art of homosexual couples’ rights in Brazil and how the proposal of a new statute to protect the rights of LGBTI people, in all aspects of their daily life could protect them and contribute for a democratic society.

The People in the Modern Chinese Novel: Popular Democracy and World Literature

During his tenure in the Lu Xun Academy in Yan'an, the center of the Chinese Revolution, the novelist Zhou Libo ran a seminar on world literature. While teaching masterpieces of European novelists, Zhou developed a theory of the novel that inherited themes of liberal humanism and appropriated them for a burgeoning revolutionary culture. In his teaching notes, Zhou upholds the people as the transformative engine for social progress: they are authors of their own culture, the political subjects of popular democracy, and in solidarity with the working classes of the world. This essay considers Zhou's fiction theory as a part of the transition from the old democratic revolution led by the Chinese bourgeoisie to the new democratic cultural initiative carried out by the enlightened intelligentsia and progressive working people.

Deliberative Capacity in the Political and Civic Sphere

AbstractIn an evolving deliberative system, a crucial question is how deliberation of ordinary citizens differs from that of professional politicians. This study compares the deliberative capacity of citizens and political elites on exactly the same issue, namely a direct democratic initiative in Switzerland on the expulsion of criminal immigrants. In concrete, I perform a quantitative content analysis of the quality of citizen deliberation in an online poll and compare this to the quality of deliberation in representative politics, namely in the non‐public committee and public floor debates in the Swiss parliament. The findings show that political elites reach much higher levels of justification rationality than ordinary citizens, but achieve lower levels in terms of respect. I conclude that citizen deliberation, while useful as an advisory tool, cannot replace serious deliberative scrutiny in representative politics.

The Big Question: What Is the Biggest Threat to Democracy?

The Big Question: What Is the Biggest Threat to Democracy?

"The Democratic Initiative": The Promises and Limitations of Industrial Unionism for New York City's Laundry Workers, 1930 - 1950

This article examines the historical circumstances surrounding the unionization of New York City's laundry workers in the 1930s, focusing on the different approaches taken by Communist organizers, feminist activists of the Women's Trade Union League, and established union leaders in the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA). The successful drive to organize more than thirty thousand laundry workers in 1937 launched an experiment in industrial unionism within a service industry composed primarily of women and people of color. The article explores the factors that made organization possible and the subsequent evolution of the Laundry Workers Joint Board within the institutional culture of the ACWA, detailing how the ACWA integrated the new affiliate into a bureaucratic union structure that marginalized the leadership of African Americans, women, and Communists, and failed to challenge the longstanding patterns of racial and gender discrimination within the industry. While workers saw significant improvements following unionization, the tensions between rank-and-file members and union leaders underline some of the limitations of mid-twentieth-century US industrial unionism for women and people of color.

Reconnecting Information Literacy Policy with the Core Values of Librarianship

In 2009, President Barack Obama declared October of that year to be National Information Literacy Awareness Month and issued a proclamation stating that "an informed and educated citizenry is essential to the functioning of our modern democratic society." The Obama proclamation's emphasis on information literacy's role in education and democracy makes it akin to the 2005 Alexandria Proclamation on Information Literacy and Lifelong Learning. In both of these documents, information literacy is located at the core of lifelong learning. It empowers people in all walks of life to seek, evaluate, use, and create information effectively to achieve their personal, social, occupational, and educational goals. These two documents are powerful and inspiring to many academic librarians because they are reminders of the broader social context and democratic initiatives within their work. Inspiring as these documents are, they can also be intimidating and overwhelming: how can we help create an informed and educated citizenry or help our students meet technological, economic, and social challenges, to redress disadvantage and to advance the well-being of all? This article is not an attempt to provide answers to these questions but a call to move these questions to the fore of our policy and pedagogical discussions. By revisiting seminal documents like the Alexandria Proclamation, the Association of College and Research Libraries' Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, and the American Library Association's (ALA) Core Values of Librarianship, we argue that information literacy is full of possibilities to explore rather than problems to be solved. To this end, we summon discussions of Appreciative Inquiry and critical information literacy and foreground the ALA Core Values as ways to reengage with the possibilities and potentials within information literacy to meet larger social goals.

Schooled in democracy? Promoting democratic values as a whole-school approach to violence prevention

This article discusses a Europe-wide project that aimed to promote Safer Schools through utilising a Charter of ‘democratic principles’. This included the non-violent resolution of conflicts and the right to equal treatment and respect. The first part of this article discusses the empirical findings from original research conducted with five London schools (and their local partners) who participated in this project. It was found that most participants were positive about the project's potential, with many ‘democratic initiatives’ cited as examples of how the promotion of a principled Charter could produce good practice in combating violence in schools. The second part of this article raises more fundamental questions about the role of democracy in violence prevention programmes. In particular, it questions the assumption of a direct relationship between (non)violence and democratic values, and asks whether it is possible to promote democratic principles within inherently undemocratic institutions such as schools.

Are Ballot Initiatives a Good Way to Make Education Policy? The Case of Affirmative Action

Are direct democratic ballot initiatives a just way to make education policy, especially when the policy disproportionately affects members of underrepresented groups? This is the broad question taken up in this article, related in particular to how education policy decided through the ballot initiative process affects minorities. The authors use philosophical inquiry to examine the fairness of education policy decisions being made by voters via the ballot initiative process. The primary purpose of this article is to shed light on an underexamined issue within education policy analysis, the phenomenon of education-related initiatives that focus on dismantling historic civil rights policies.

Elimination or Integration of Pro‐Kurdish Politics: Limits of the AKP's Democratic Initiative

The new geopolitical conditions and the regional seeking of neoliberal, pro‐Islamist politics facilitate the ending of the Kurdish conflict in Turkey and to rebuild political relation with the Iraqi Kurds. Besides, the rise of pro‐Kurdish politics both within Turkey and Iraq has nearly closed the door on the sustainability of the traditional security policy. However, the AKP's Turkish nationalist ideological‐political character, the lack of the deep democratic values in the political tradition of neoliberal pro‐Islamic politics and its weak administrative capacity about the Kurdish issue have prevented it from going beyond the traditional national security policy to solve the Kurdish issue and to disarm the PKK.

Legitimacy Through Direct Democracy in the EU Member State: Direct Democratic Initiatives in the Estonian Parliament

Legitimacy is particularly important in democracies since democracy’s survival is ultimately dependent on the support of at least a majority of its citizens. One way of increasing both legislative drafting and legitimacy of the political system is to apply direct democracy (referendums) more widely – citizens consider referendums the most authentic and immediate way of expressing their will – therefore, decisions made by referendums have a substantially bigger significance than those made by representative power. The citizens are better informed and more involved in politics when they have direct-democratic participation possibilities in the political process. We can state that there is a growing trend of using direct democracy as a means of legitimizing aspects of the European integration project. In the decade between 1998 and 2008, twenty-four referendums were held on various aspects of European integration. At the same time the analysis of the actual situation in Estonia shows that holding referendums is sporadic and there are no mechanisms to legalize popular initiative. Therefore the referendum (or direct democracy in a wider sense) cannot be considered a guarantee for legitimate legal drafting as governing parties evade it, preferring legislative drafting in a traditional parliamentary way. The article deals with direct democracy which is legitimate according to the new constitution in the Republic of Estonia, one of the EU Member States that has witnessed direct democracy in the form of a referendum only once during its re-independence period (1992–2010). The referendum referred to above was directly related to Estonia’s accession to the EU and held in 2003. A research of opinion polls conducted among the residents of Estonia reveals that there is significant interest in exercising direct democracy but most parties do not comply with this interest; each and every initiative in the parliament for direct democracy has been rejected, including legalization of popular initiative. Therefore the referendum cannot provide guarantees for legitimacy, for whether they will be carried out or not is directly dependent on the will of the governing elite. If there is no will, referendums will not be held.

Raspberries, Tablecloths, and Critical Thinking

This article looks at three different sites in post-Soviet Latvia that have all been subject to liberal democratic reforms: the State Audit Office, a local municipality, and civic education classes in primary schools. These sites exemplify an introduction to the kind of accountability relations that are expected to exist in a liberal democracy. Through the lens of accountability, this article exposes how the democratic reform initiatives are taken up by Latvian citizens, in what has been called a “secondary production of knowledge,” to become part of their own tactics of survival and adjustment. The article reveals a sharp, morally charged juxtaposition of the “old” and the “new,” prevailing in the Latvian everyday reality. Governance reforms carry symbolic and moral urgency that stems from annihilation of the Soviet past. The reforms in this context serve as gestures to be made about one’s “modernness.” However, reorganization of governance practices on the ground reveals profound tensions when the new practices are endowed with locally relevant meanings. In this article, I attempt to demonstrate how the secondary production of knowledge coalesces into a sense of “cultural intimacy,” since often the individual’s deep commitment to the symbolic “new” has to coexist with awareness of one’s own incongruence with the new order.