Democratic Intervention Research Articles

THE EU’S DEMOCRACY PROMOTION INITIATIVES IN SOUTH ASIA: PAST AND PRESENT

The European Union (EU) and its member states have played a significant role in South Asia, consequently aligning with its fundamental principles, e.g., the rule of law, respect for human rights and minority rights, good governance, democracy, and equality based on values like inclusion, tolerance, justice, solidarity, and non-discrimination. The EU has always supported the promotion and consolidation of democracy, not only in South Asia bul olso across the world. In this sense, the study examines the EU’s democracy promotion initiatives in association with its programmes. This study addresses the literature gaps in the comparison of the EU’s democratic intervention with references from past and present perspectives. The article further investigates challenges in the region in the context of rising populism and satrapy in South Asia and its neighbourhoods. Afghanistan and Myanmar are the best examples of the current scenario. However, the rise of populist government has already been raised in Europe to challeange a liberal democracy, where positioning the EU’s role in democracy initiatives is questionable in terms of credibility and impactful promises.

Regime Type of Foreign Supporters of Resistance Movements and its Impact on State Repression

ABSTRACT Does the regime type of a foreign state supporter of a resistance movement influence violent repression by domestic states facing resistance? Studies on resistance movements have recently begun to explore the effects of third-party support on the behaviors and successes of the movements themselves and the governments they oppose. While this literature has unearthed important findings on the impact of external interventions on behalf of resistance groups, one area of research that remains unexplored is how the political features of third-party actors shape the behavior of governments that face resistance movements. This study investigates how the domestic political characteristics of foreign supporters of resistance movements affect the repressive behaviors of domestic states facing resistance. Looking specifically at the regime type of foreign state supporters of opposition groups, we argue that resistance movements that receive assistance from democratic foreign states deter domestic governments facing resistance from using violent repression. Such governments recognize the selection effects associated with democratic intervention and the reputational costs associated with human rights practices and thus, they are less likely to commit physical violence against dissidents. Our findings for resistance campaigns during the period of 1981–2013 support our expectations that external support from democratic states for resistance movements reduces the likelihood of domestic governments facing resistance using violent repression against dissident groups.

The politics of student loan in Turkey: regimenting the youth through authoritarian debtfarism

ABSTRACT The mass-scale expansion of student loan schemes in Turkey over the last two decades has been accomplished by a governance technique which the article defines as authoritarian debtfarism. By restructuring the Credit and Dormitories Institution (KYK) as subordinated to the executive and insulated from democratic intervention, the authoritarian neoliberal state in Turkey has sought to fulfil its new economic function, i.e. enabling the societal reproduction of the youth by increasing their financial dependency on credit money. The state-led student loan expansion in Turkey emerged in a tuition-free higher education setting without a sophisticated financial infrastructure and in an economic environment marked with perpetual graduate unemployment as well as inflationary pressures on repayment amounts. Based on a detailed interrogation of the official documents and in-depth interviews with defaulters, this article argues that authoritarian debtfarism has imposed a rigid market discipline over the university youth by using non-transparency and arbitrariness as its governance mechanisms. Consequently, future labour of the graduates is put on hold through a long-term debt relation, compelling them to integrate into labour market precariously as a new segment of the relative surplus population.

Paved Over: At the Intersection of Urban Mobility, Class Politics, and the Limits of Power in Mexico City, 1920s-1960s

The mid-twentieth-century history of urban modernization and mobility in Mexico City was intertwined with political violence. It ranged from the forceful clearing of a working-class community to make way for a stadium parking lot to the “slow violence” of denying people access to trolleys to transport their goods or weaponizing transit policy to reward friends and punish rivals. This article shows how these activities reflected the increasingly violent decisions of an indifferent national and local elite rooted in Mexico City’s political reorganization, which created a powerful, centralized, and unelected bureaucracy: the Department of the Federal District. Public officials, engineers, business leaders, everyday citizens, and newspapers contested issues related to urban mobility. These engagements shaped how people lived and moved in the district and were affected by class politics. They also provoked new configurations for democratic intervention that led people to organize, protest, and resist state power in Mexico City.

Diversität als demokratische Intervention

ZusammenfassungDiversität ist in den letzten Jahrzehnten zum zentralen Paradigma der Aushandlungen um gesellschaftliche Gleichheit geworden. Mit Maßnahmen sogenannter Diversitätspolitik wird der Versuch unternommen, sozialstrukturelle Differenz institutionell abzubilden und einzubinden. Diese Politiken sind jedoch insbesondere aus feministischen und postkolonialen Perspektiven zunehmend in die Kritik geraten. Vor diesem Hintergrund wird in diesem Beitrag die Frage gestellt, ob das Konzept der Diversität für die Verwirklichung des demokratischen Gleichheitsversprechens zielführend ist. Es wird argumentiert, dass trotz der weitreichenden Kritiken an aktueller Diversitätspolitik, der normative, an Gleichheit orientierten Kern der Diversitätssemantik ernst zu nehmen ist. Hierfür muss eine Politik der Diversität jedoch auf eine umfangreiche Transformation der gesellschaftlichen Strukturen abzielen. Aus diesen Einsichten werden erste Konturen einer Konzeptualisierung von Diversität als demokratische Intervention vorgestellt, die Leerstellen der Repräsentation aufdeckt, die ständige Reflexion komplexer gesellschaftlicher Differenzkonstellationen fordert und diese als Einbruch in die etablierten Paradigmen politischer und sozialer Repräsentation mobilisiert.

Antifascist Narrative and the Politics of Optimism

AbstractThis essay identifies the structure of US antifascist literary narrative, and in so doing, outlines its history and theorizes its democratic intervention. It argues that since the 1930s, antifascist narratives have been fueled by an optimism they maintain in the face of an existential threat to democracy. Spawned at moments of danger, antifascist narratives do not fight fascism simply to restore the status quo of liberalism, but strive to expand democracy through the defeat of fascism, forging a new reality in the fight against monsters. The essay focuses on two largely forgotten works published in the late 1930s, perhaps the darkest era for antifascists: James T. Farrell’s novella, Tommy Gallagher’s Crusade (1939), and William Thomas Smith’s serial novel, The Black Stockings (1937), which appeared in the Baltimore Afro-American. These two works are part of a subgenre of antifascist literature that I call “the blackshirt narrative,” a subgenre particularly worth revisiting for those interested in preserving and expanding democracy in the twenty-first century.Spawned at a moment of danger, [antifascist] optimism does not just fight fascism in order to restore the status quo of liberalism, but . . . strives to expand democracy through the defeat of fascism, forging a new reality in the fight against monsters.

In Defense of Insurrection/Intervention Asymmetry

Just war theory has traditionally accepted revolutionary overthrow of an undemocratic government as a just cause but not foreign intervention for the same purpose. For many contemporary cosmopolitan theorists this asymmetry involves an indefensible inconsistency. For example, Ned Dobos argues that it is only a potential foreign intervener’s duty to its own citizens and soldiers, not any additional duty of non-intervention, that places additional restrictions upon the use of force across borders. I defend insurrection/intervention asymmetry, arguing that due to several intersecting practical difficulties, intervention has a higher threshold of just cause. I argue that interven­tion’s high costs and low likelihood of success, intervener’s limited ability to evaluate the validity of democratic intervention, and the effects of intervention on the international system, lead to a stronger presumption against intervention than revolution. In particular, democratization is a just cause for revolution but not humanitarian intervention.

(Counter)mapping renewables: Space, justice, and politics of wind and solar power in Mexico

The ongoing expansion of renewable energies entails major spatial reconfigurations with social, environmental, and political dimensions. These emerging geographies are, however, in the process of taking shape, as their early configurations are still open to democratic intervention and contestation. While a recent line of research highlights the prominent role that maps are playing in directing such processes, the potential effects of countermapping on these evolving geographies have not yet been explored. In this article, we present a countermapping initiative promoting a dialogue between critical geography, political ecology, and environmental justice. Our work is the result of an alliance between Geocomunes—a collective of activist cartographers based in Mexico—and the EjAtlas—a global collaborative project tracking cases of grassroots mobilizations against environmental injustices. We take the case of Mexico's low-carbon development strategy to dissect the spatial expansion of wind and solar mega-projects at both national and regional scales. Our project consists of a series of databases and maps aimed to “fill” the spaces and relations otherwise “emptied” by the state's cartographic tools designed to promote investments in the sector. When presenting our results, we highlight how renewable energy projects in Mexico have so far juxtaposed with local territories, peoples, and resources, in ways that trigger instances of environmental injustice on the ground. We close this article by discussing the role of critical cartography and countermapping in building alternative political–economic projects for the energy transition.

The Transnationalization of Corporate Governance: Law, Institutional Arrangements and Corporate Power

This Article presents a critique of corporate governance theory against the background of a fundamental transformation of the political economy in which the corporation is embedded. This transformation is effectuated, on the one hand, by the denationalization and privatization of corporate governance rule making, which now encompasses a wide range of new transnational fora and actors. On the other hand, this transformation is a substantive one which touches on the core beliefs that have shaped corporate law and corporate governance for more than a century. The coalescence of these two driving forces places the current debate around “corporate purpose” and alternative visions of the corporation in the context of political economy changes which require a serious engagement with the question how it can be prevented that the corporation continues to become even further insulated from democratic political intervention. With these two forces in mind, this Article makes a socio-legal intervention, exploring the actual, regulatory landscape of corporate governance norm production today. We study the connections between law and norm creation on both the nation-state and the global level – rather than treating transnational law as the exception – and seek to engage corporate governance as part of a larger critique of law’s troubled relationship with the business corporation as an entity that exists not only in legal doctrine but in a wealth of actual socio-economic relationships. Complementing this analysis, the Article engages with the question whether the corporation’s purpose can be exhaustively be captured by tying it to the maximization of shareholder value. In light of the global financial crisis and its devastating consequences not so long ago, particularly for retail investors, workers and mortgage debtors, and the present-day collapse of world-wide economic activity due to Covid-19, it would seem unlikely were we to find that the allegation, uttered some two decades ago, whereby the shareholder value maximization paradigm constituted the “end of history of corporate law”, was still seen to be true. But, this very belief seems alive and well so that when, in the spring of 2020, business appeals to government for “rescue” in an historically unknown fashion, we must take a closer look at the historical relationship between “the state” and “the market.” What becomes evident from a historical perspective is the linearity of how mainstream corporate law has over time prepared the ground for a far-reaching autonomization and insulation of corporate governance from “society at large.” The Article analyzes the arguments and policies in support of this alleged autonomy of corporate governance and finds that the roots reach deeper than even the current debates over “stakeholderism” let on. While we are intrigued with the recent advances made in these debates and by important “players” such as the Business Roundtable, it is not at all clear what their lasting impact might be. Our analysis shows that corporate law’s distance from “non-shareholder” interests has long been tied into an economistic concept of the business corporation, from which all memory of the corporation as creature of law is eventually removed. By depicting the corporation through the concept of an in itself reductionist “nexus of contracts” that prioritizes investor-management relations at the exclusion of all other contractual and affected stakeholders of the firm, corporate governance can “take off” into Rudolf Ihering’s heaven of “pure legal concepts”, all the while betraying its deeply ideological character and actual economic and political power.

Learning from failure: Exploring the psychodynamics of work in a clinical simulation centre

We analyse an intervention in a UK teaching hospital designed to enable ‘learning from failure’, using concepts from the Dejourian school of the psychodynamics of work. Whilst much of the English-language literature about and by Dejours focuses on his theoretical elaboration of Freud’s concepts of frustration and suffering in the context of contemporary conditions of work, this article attends to Dejours’ method of action research in workplaces. Our purpose is to consider how speech about the failures of work might be considered a basis for democratic intervention, especially in the context of simulation-based learning for professional development in healthcare.

The ‘Legacy of Authoritarianism’ and Democratic Governance in Africa

The 1990s global transition to democratisation and subsequent public sector reforms to strengthen democratic governance in Africa represents a complete ‘rupture’ with past authoritarianism and other exclusionary politics prior to democratisation. However, current governance and democratic practices in the continent still reflect features of an ‘authoritarian past.’ In fact, this article is timely especially in this period where tensions and conflicts in contemporary Africa remain linked to problems of democratic governance and inclusive development, especially as Africans embark on their current ‘emerging agendas.’ As such, picking out the ‘legacy of authoritarianism’ and interrogating whether this background has any bearing on the quality of democratic governance in contemporary Africa, the analysis reveals that normatively, particular incumbents and state officials promote a governance process that is democratic in outlook but in actual sense, their authoritarian and exclusionary impulses as well as their desire to maintain power by all cost, have interacted in contributing to the current democratic governance deficits in the continent. The article cautions that reducing the explanation of such an antithesis of the democratic theory, to the legacy of authoritarianism, could limit our conceptual and practical understanding of some of the shortcomings of neoliberal democratic intervention in African democratisation. It concludes that without a governance system rested on democratic values with ‘African roots—a culturally sustainable democracy,’ all national, sub-regional and continental socio-economic development efforts are condemned from the outset.

The contribution of psychosocial variables in explaining preschoolers’ physical activity.

Based on the theory of planned behavior and the structural model of health behavior, the objectives of this study were to verify whether the psychosocial variables of daycare workers (intention, perceived behavioral control, descriptive norm, past behavior) influence preschoolers' physical activity in daycare centers and determine how these psychosocial variables combine with other factors (environmental, sociodemographic, democratic intervention) to explain children's physical activity. Forty-six daycare workers from 20 daycare centers in Quebec, Canada completed a self-reported questionnaire assessing psychosocial and sociodemographic variables. Thirty days later, 242 children wore an accelerometer. A research assistant went to each daycare center to observe the environment and the democratic intervention of daycare workers. The specific direct determinants of children's overall mean count/15 seconds were intention, descriptive norm, democratic intervention, daycare workers' age, availability of material, and children's age and gender. In order to increase the overall mean count/15 seconds among preschoolers, it would be important to motivate daycare workers to make children move. Strategies likely to help motivate daycare workers to take action are also necessary. It might be interesting to encourage them to use democratic intervention with children. Use of material adapted to the needs of the children that stimulates their intellectual and socioaffective development should also be encouraged.

The age of asocial war: democratic intervention and counterinsurgency in the twenty-first century

Why, in spite of past failures, do liberal democracies continue to intervene militarily and fight counterinsurgency wars? The answer is grounded in learning. Liberal democracies acknowledge past failures, tracing them to the interaction between the events on the battlefield and society at home. Specifically, they identify the educated middle class and its mix of expedient and altruistic motivations as preventing effective military campaigns and victory. Hence, the main effort of liberal democracies is that they aim to fight wars that are divorced from society. At their disposal are advanced military technology, the professional all-volunteer force, proxies and alliance partners, and private military companies. The desocialising effects of these are complemented by control of the media and thereby the flow of information from the battlefield to society. Liberal democracies have found a way to continue to play the violent game of world politics, but they do so less democratically as they fight asocial wars.

A critical theory of technology applied to the public discussion of geoengineering

In this piece, I examine geoengineering technologies through the lens of a critical theory of technology. A critical theory of technology aims “to account for the increasing weight of public actors in technological development” [15, p. 24]. Many argue that this is particularly necessary with respect to climate engineering since most discussions surrounding it have taken place far removed from public scrutiny. My operating assumption, in this piece, rests on an important question; namely, is democratic intervention into the use and design of technology essential and possible, whether it be on a normative level, in which democracy is understood as the overriding norm, or a practical level, in which the public is viewed as both capable and vital to perceiving and correcting the errors of so-called experts? I argue that a critical theory of technology adds an important dimension to this debate.

Why democracy must be global: self-founding and democratic intervention

Globalization, foreign intervention, and failed states have drawn new attention to theoretical issues of how political orders and communities can be legitimately founded, and what it means for a people to be self-governing. In this article, I will challenge an argument in this debate saying that the founding of new political orders is always in some sense illegitimate insofar as it cannot be decided democratically. In opposition to this view, I will suggest that the founding of political orders is legitimate even from a democratic point of view when decided together by people within as well as beyond the boundaries inherent in the foundation. In case of persisting disagreement over boundary issues, political decisions can still derive democratic legitimacy from global procedures that are equally inclusive of everyone capable of contesting those decisions. Elaborating on the implications of this argument, I will also reject the notion that foreign interventions for establishing democracy are themselves necessarily illegitimate or undemocratic.

War and Democratization: Legality, Legitimacy and Effectiveness

Promotion of democracy in post-war and post-conflict societies became a hot topic during the 1990s. External actors linked their peace-building efforts to the promotion of democracy. Four modes of promotion of democracy by external actors can be distinguished: first, enforcing democratization by enduring post-war occupation (mode 1); second, restoring an elected government by military intervention (mode 2); third, intervening in on-going massacres and civil war with military forces (‘humanitarian intervention’) and thereby curbing the national sovereignty of those countries (mode 3); and fourth, forcing democracy on rogue states by ‘democratic intervention’, in other words, democracy through war (mode 4). In this special issue we consider the legality, legitimacy, and effectiveness of the four modes where the international community of states not only felt impelled to engage in military humanitarian or peace-building missions but also in long-term state- and democracy-building. All cases analysed here suggest that embedding democratization in post-war and post-conflict societies entails a comprehensive agenda of political, social, and economic methods of peace-building. If external actors withdraw before the roots of democracy are deep enough and before democratic institutions are strong enough to stand alone, then the entire endeavour may fail.

U.S. Signs Central American Free Trade Agreement; Lobbies for Democratic Intervention Clause at the OAS

U.S. Signs Central American Free Trade Agreement; Lobbies for Democratic Intervention Clause at the OAS

Reconstructing the Internet: How Social Justice Activists Contest Technical Design in Cyberspace

Reconstructing the Internet: How Social Justice Activists Contest Technical Design in Cyberspace

Democracies as Intervening States: A Critique of Kegley & Hermann

The Democratic Peace Proposition, which contends that no two democracies have gone to war with each other, has been challenged by scholars who claim that such an argument does not apply to lower forms of conflict. In a series of articles, Margaret Hermann and Charles Kegley argue that democracies often intervene in the internal affairs of other liberal states. But their criteria for case selection and democracy are problematic. In this study, I retest their arguments over a broader time-span, omitting cases of invited intervention, non-state entities, and occupied territories. I also employ new intervention data and a regime-type dataset which accounts for within-year regime changes. I find that liberal countries are less likely to intervene in the affairs of other free states than is expected given the democratic presence in the interstate system. The statistical rarity of such dyadic democratic intervention increases confidence in the applicability of the Democratic Peace to conflicts falling short of war.

The economic community of West African states, the defence of democracy in Sierra Leone and future prospects

The wave of democratization in the 1990s has brought considerable challenges and opportunities for post‐cold war Africa. One such challenge is the democratic intervention of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) under the aegis of the multilateral intervention force, ECOMOG, to restore a democratic government and constitutional order. The ECOWAS democratic intervention in the West African state of Sierra Leone can be located in a wider debate about international dimensions of democratization. In several respects, it also reflects the changing nature of international politics in the post‐cold war period particularly with regards to certain traditional norms of international society, namely non‐intervention and state sovereignty. The ECOWAS democratic efforts in Sierra Leone demonstrate that it is increasingly becoming acceptable for regional and international organisations to ‘defend’ democracy, albeit under the auspices of forcible as well as non‐forcible humanitarian intervention. However, these kinds of external intervention on behalf of democracy have in most cases led to its retrenchment. This article therefore critically assesses how the nature of domestic politics led to the suspension of democracy in Sierra Leone, the domestic and international implications of the ECOWAS defence of democracy there and the country's post‐conflict democratic prospects.