Democracy Justice Research Articles

Democratic justice and status inequality in temporary labor migration

ABSTRACT This paper argues against the claim that liberal democratic societies’ commitment to political equality requires them to offer a path to citizenship to temporary migrant workers (i.e. the democratic justice argument). I advance two arguments against this claim: (i) that access to citizenship is neither sufficient nor necessary to reduce temporary migrant workers’ exploitation and (ii) the democratic justice argument hinges on an untenable conception of status inequality. The paper fleshes out these two reasons in detail to then present an adequate analysis of the status difference that temporary labor migration programs (TLMPs) give rise to. I conclude that TLMPs’ restriction of their participants’ rights and access to citizenship can be compatible with democratic principles and, particularly, with political equality.

Insights on health policies from a political philosophy perspective

Health policies play a crucial role in shaping people’s well-being. While public health often relies on evidence-based policy to improve health outcomes, many non-scientific factors determine the health policy-making process....

Formal models and justifications of democracy

Recently, some epistemic democrats have taken a result from Hong and Page (Proc Natl Acad Sci 101(46):16385–16389, 2004) to help justify the virtues of deliberative democracy. In this paper, I present novel computational models and show that the result fails to be robust in ways that undermine it as evidence for justifying the virtues of deliberative democracy. In particular, the same model lauded by epistemic deliberative democrats can also be used to support certain kinds of epistocracy.

No Level Playing Field: Barriers to Disability Representation in Politics

AbstractWhile one in five people in the UK are disabled, their number among elected representatives remains disproportionately low. In ongoing efforts to make politics more inclusive and diverse, disabled people often remain sidelined. As a politically relevant identity, disability is associated with a shared set of experiences and policy interests which are often overlooked. This is at least in part owing to the under‐representation of disabled politicians, which is likely also contributing to a sense of political alienation. Thus, tackling the barriers that disabled people experience in the political recruitment process is not only a matter of democratic justice and equality, but also essential for ensuring that disabled people's needs and concerns are recognised and met. This article outlines the obstacles that disabled people experience in pursuing elected office—including inaccessibility, inadequate financial resources and ableist institutions and cultures—and offers recommendations to political parties, parliaments and governments on how to mitigate them.

THE ROLE OF THE SUPREME COURT IN ENSURING THE OBSERVANCE AND RESPECT FOR THE RULE OF LAW

The rule of law is the cornerstone of modern democratic legal systems and an important condition for their continued existence. At the legislative level, it has been recognised in Ukraine since the adoption of the Constitution of Ukraine in 1996, and the establishment of democratic values continues to this day. This scientific paper investigates the development and establishment of the rule of law through judicial proceedings to attain its purpose of delivering justice. In most developed European countries, there is a well-accepted legal tradition whereby constitutional jurisdiction takes precedence over general jurisdiction, thus making the Constitutional Court superior to the Supreme Court. However, the legal reality in Ukraine demonstrates a contrary scenario. As shown by the author, the Ukrainian approach, while highly distinctive, does not contradict international principles about the formation of the rule of law through the courts. Furthermore, the principal legislative provisions completely match the criteria of international and European law. Nevertheless, the study concludes that the excessive activity of the Supreme Court appears to be a significant drawback due to its overly extensive case law. For instance, during the first half of 2023, the Supreme Court heard a total of 63 406 procedural appeals and cases, including 5 433 in the sphere of criminal justice and 7 174 taking into account cases and materials not heard the previous year (Верховний Суд, Аналіз здійснення правосуддя). That is the reason why the Ukrainian legal system is confronted with the issue of defining legal certainty, which is one of the key characteristics of sustainable and democratic justice (Consultative Council of European Judges, 2017). The article identifies that not only is this problem currently unresolved by the Ukrainian legislature, but it also emphasises the importance and necessity of defining the status of case law in the country, as well as the influence of the Supreme Court on ensuring the rule of law. According to the author, there are several options available to overcome these challenges which must be handled expeditiously in light of the ongoing war and Ukraine's eventual membership in the European Union. Based on the results of this article, it is proposed to adopt two legislative proposals. First, case law should be recognised as a source of law, namely the legal conclusions established in Supreme Court rulings. Second, these judgments must be published in the determined form to be regarded as a source of law. To clearly identify the Supreme Court decisions containing legal conclusions and serving as a source of law, the study proposes a separate publication of these judgements from others that do not hold such status. For example, they could be published in dedicated documents/collections, etc. specifically designed for this purpose. Moreover, the author concludes that such an instrument already exists, despite the fact that it is not officially recognised as such. According to the results of this research, the Supreme Court's reviews and digests of case law are an illustration of this particular tool.

Community Organizing for Democratic Renewal: The Significance of Jacques Maritain’s Support for Saul Alinsky and His Methods

Jacques Maritain’s ideas about democratic renewal remain as important and inspirational as ever. A less well-known element of Maritain’s political thinking is his support for grassroots community organizing. This support, peppered throughout his writings, comes into stark relief when examining his longtime friendship and correspondence with Saul Alinsky, the dean of community organizing in the US. This article argues, first, that we must understand Maritain’s and Alinsky’s friendship to properly appreciate the legacy of Maritain’s political thought, and second, that understanding the complementarity of their approaches allows us to see that these two friends together present a powerful strategy for democratic renewal. After surveying the two’s friendship, the article presents two insights from their work about community organizing as the pursuit of democratic justice and addresses an objection about Alinsky’s methods. The article concludes with a case study of an interfaith community organization to show how it practices Alinsky’s methods and embodies the political and ethical values that Alinsky and Maritain supported in common.

Judicial Independence: A Continued Political Interference in Recent Judicial Proceedings in Uganda

Chapter eight of Uganda's constitution highlights the judiciary's crucial role as the protector of the constitution, with the authority to exercise judicial powers bestowed upon them by the people. The judiciary is essential to upholding the constitutionality of laws, acts of parliament and customs and identifying and addressing inconsistencies. Article 128 Clause 1 of Uganda’s 1995 Constitution emphasizes the importance of maintaining the judiciary’s independence, ensuring it remains a bastion of integrity and fairness. However, recent cases shed light on the consequences of political interference, which is becoming an increasingly worrisome issue in Uganda. Thus, the research focuses on some sources of political interference in Uganda's judicial proceedings and its persistence, including an opaque and politicized process of appointments, pressure applied to judges by the executive branch and powerful interests, and disrespect for court orders by the executive and legislature. The consequences of such interference in the democratic justice system are discussed, and they have led to a decline in the independence of the judiciary, covering the breakdown of public trust in the judiciary, unfair legal judgements, and weakened constitutional principles. The findings highlight Uganda's urgent need for action and an independent judiciary. This study applies doctrinal legal research methodology to discuss the continued political interference in the recent judicial proceedings in Uganda since 2006. The study recommends constitutional reforms to curb the overgrowing political interference in courts’ judicial independence and preserve constitutionalism principles by examining this theme.

France in the Middle East: A Democratic Justification for Military Interventions in Iraq and Beyond

France in the Middle East: A Democratic Justification for Military Interventions in Iraq and Beyond

Recognition and Redistribution in Aristotle’s Account of Stasis: a Response to Our Critics

Abstract We reply to the objections raised in Polis 40 (2023) by Ryan Balot and Manuel Knoll to our original paper ‘Recognition and Redistribution in Aristotle’s Account of Stasis’, published in Polis 39 (2022). We argue that Knoll is correct in arguing that Aristotle distinguishes between democratic views of distributive justice and his own, but wrong to argue that this wholly resolves a tension in Aristotle’s exposition between views of democratic justice as, in one sense, based on equality ‘according to worth’ and in another based on arithmetic equality. Balot, we contend, misconstrues our original argument when he represents us as claiming that, according to Aristotle, the injustice which leads agents to engage in stasis exists entirely in their own minds. We did not and do not hold that view and therefore (pace Balot) are in no way committed to any of its alleged implications. Balot’s misunderstanding on that point entails a wholesale misrepresentation of our original argument.

Incompatible sovereigns: Populism, democracy and the two peoples

The article aims to investigate the problematic relationship between populism and democracy by comparing the conceptions of ‘the people’ and popular sovereignty which they presuppose. In the first two sections, the populist and the democratic ‘peoples’ are reconstructed, and the unbridgeable gap dividing them is highlighted. The discussion of the democratic people requires a concise analysis of the main contemporary democratic frameworks, including deliberative democracy, ‘neo-Roman’ republicanism, agonistic democracy. The article works out the implications of the incompatibility between the two ‘sovereign peoples’ identified, and concludes that such an incompatibility undercuts the kinship of populism and democracy. While populism is often said to intertwine with democracy in some way, the article argues that it significantly departs from democratic theory and practice, and belongs to a distinct conceptual space. It cannot be made to overlap with ‘illiberal democracy’, a ‘democratic myth’, a crude electoral majoritarianism, nor does it amount to hiding undemocratic policies into properly democratic justifications. The boundary dividing populism and democracy, therefore, starts unfolding at the level of the conception of the people. While democratic theory invariably assumes a people intended as simultaneously heterogeneous and united, populism conceives of the people as a moral whole, internally undifferentiated, whose homogeneity and intrinsic righteousness preclude the task of specifying what popular sovereignty ultimately means. Such specification, on the other hand, is inescapable for any democrat assuming the people as a composite unity. The last section addresses four possible objections to the argument, variously formulated by Ernesto Laclau and by scholars approaching populism from a post-Laclauian or discursive-performative perspective.

Democratic Justifications for Patient Public Involvement and Engagement in Health Research: An Exploration of the Theoretical Debates and Practical Challenges.

The literature on patient public involvement and engagement (PPIE) in health research has grown significantly in the last decade, with a diverse range of definitions and topologies promulgated. This has led to disputes over what the central functions and purpose of PPIE in health research is, and this in turn makes it difficult to assess and evaluate PPIE in practice. This paper argues that the most important function of PPIE is the attempt to make health research more democratic. Bringing this function to the fore and locating PPIE in the wider context of changes in contemporary forms of democratic engagement provides greater conceptual clarity over what PPIE in research should be trying to achieve. Conceptualizing PPIE as a form of democratization has a number of benefits. First, theories of what are appropriate, normatively justifiable and workable criteria for PPIE practices can be developed, and this can provide tools to address the legitimacy and accountability questions that have troubled the PPIE community. Second, this work can be used to form the basis of a research agenda to investigate how PPIE in health research operates, and how it can facilitate and/or improve democratic processes in health research.

Aristotle’s Understanding of Democratic Justice and His Distinction between Two Kinds of Equality: A Response

Abstract This short article is a response to Douglas Cairns, Mirko Canevaro, and Kleanthis Mantzouranis, who in Polis 39 (2022) explicitly criticize both of my previous interpretations of Aristotle’s view of democratic justice and of the relation of proportional and numerical equality. Against Cairns et al., I argue that there is no tension or contradiction between Aristotle’s statements on these two kinds of equality and on democratic justice. The paper suggests a new reading of Aristotle’s texts that strictly distinguishes between Aristotle’s own views and his references to ‘respected opinions’ (endoxa). It concludes that Aristotle consistently identifies democratic justice with ‘numerical’ or ‘arithmetic’ equality and not with proportional equality, which he usually identifies with equality ‘according to worth or merit’ (kat’ axian).

The rule of unreason: Analyzing (anti‐)democratic regression

The rule of unreason: Analyzing (anti‐)democratic regression

1985년 제12대 국회의원 선거 연구

This article explores the causes of the unexpected rise of the New Korea Democratic Party (NKDP). In the 1985 National Assembly election, a new party, NKDP emerged as the main opposition party, which led to the collapse of the party system manufactured by the authoritarian regime. We argue that the election results primarily aimed at restructuring the ‘opposition bloc’. The election results were less related with public outcry against the Chun Doo-hwan regime or as a punishment for the ruling Democratic Justice Party. However, the election provided a critical opportunity for the regime-challenging NKDP to unite with young people who were the vanguard of political resistance to the authoritarian regime. In that sense, the 1985 election gave an important momentum for the pro-democracy movement later. In addition, social and economic changes such as urbanization, the rise of young voters in the demographic structure, and the mass production of ‘highly educated voters’ were also important factors for the rise of the NKDP in the 1985 election.

Pengaruh Dana Desa Terhadap Kesejahteraan Masyarakat di Desa Sidomulyo Kecamatan Biru-Biru Kabupaten Deli Serdang

The purpose of this study was to analyze community perceptions, the influence and strategies of managing village funds on the welfare of the community in Sidomulyo Village, Biru-Biru District, Deli Serdang Regency. The analytical method used in this study is a quantitative method using primary data and secondary data. The indicators in this study are village funds, transparent, accountable, participatory, community welfare, social justice, economic justice, and democratic justice. This study uses a simple linear regression analysis and SWOT. The results showed that the calculation obtained that the value of village funds had a positive effect on community welfare, with a coefficient value of 1.036. In other words, increasing village funds will improve the welfare of the community. Given the value of Sig. = 0.000 < 0.05, it is concluded that village funds have a significant effect on community welfare. The right strategies used in managing village funds for community welfare are (1) utilizing information systems to improve the village economy; (2) developing the potential of young human resources in the position of village development strategy; (3) utilize village assistants in planning the development of village infrastructure facilities/infrastructure; and (4) channeling village funds appropriately in order to increase the productivity of rural communities.

The Politics of Tax Justice in Democracies: Redistribution Beyond the Median Voter Theorem

Democratic states tend to raise large shares of national income through taxes, and spend the money in ways which redistribute resources from higher to lower income groups. This connection between democratic politics and taxes is a commonplace of the political economy scholarship, but there is much less clarity about the mechanisms through which this redistribution occurs, and the reasons for variations in the degree to which the objectives of social justice are achieved. Democracy can coexist with quite large differences in overall income inequality, and these differences are often driven by institutional legacies that find their roots in the past. The scope for the usual tools of democratic governance – elections and political party programmes – to alter these paths are more limited than is often understood. The contemporary politics of taxation appears to offer very constrained choices to policymakers, but the aspirations of voters for redistribution through the tax system remain a fundamental feature of political competition and conflict in the rich democracies.

Latin American Civil Resistance and Brazilian Landless Workers Movement: The Concept of Gandhian Nonviolence and Its Uses

Latin America and the Caribbean countries of a total of 33 countries spread over the southern longitude are great example of diversity. These countries are witness to many and many types of experience socially, economically and politically. Politically, these countries have gained many experiences from the historical point of view. It also includes the existence of violent and non-violent fight for political democracy. In some countries a fight also fought for social and economic justice in democracies. In the present article, the study of non-violent fighting in the mass movement in Latin America has been done. Apart from this, a special study has been done on the technology of landless workers’ movement of Brazil’s 1984, important in Latin American countries.in this article, this important and comprehensive mass movement has been studied from the perspective of Gandhi’s technic of movement.

Kantian democracy and administrative legitimacy: a reply to my critics

ABSTRACT I first defend my Kantian account of the authority of democracy against Harel’s objection that it mandates democratic rule when it is not required and Stilz’s concern that the justification of democracy I propose is not sufficiently capacious to rescue democratic rule from epistocratic challenges. I then rescue my integrated model of administrative legitimacy from Vredenburgh’s charge that such model cannot solve the tension between the demands of democracy and those of bureaucracy. I finally address Saunders-Hastings’ concern that my account of the wrong of privatization relies on an excessively idealized view of political institutions for it to be action-guiding.

Human rights and security in the conditions of modern challenges and threats

In the article, human rights, respect for them, observance and protection are considered as a universal ideal, the basis of progressive development, a prerequisite for stability and stability of society. The need to protect life and health, ensure the inviolability of the person, freedom, and property, turns the task of cognitive and practical solution of this problem into an integral part of the life cycle of a person and society, the functioning and development of political and legal systems. It is noted that human rights are called the core of meaningful democracy. In the last few revolutionary decades, humanity learned a hard lesson: without the protection of human rights, there can be neither democracy nor any justification for democracy. It is emphasized that we live in a time when we have to overcome new threats that have appeared on the historical horizon: pollution and degradation of the global environment, overpopulation, depletion of natural resources, international terrorism, armed aggression, etc. Attention is focused on Russia’s military attack on Ukraine, which took place on February 24, 2022 and is a continuation of the Russian-Ukrainian war launched by Russia in 2014. From the first day of the invasion, Russia has been violating the rules of war and committing crimes against humanity and war crimes on a massive scale, in particular, mass murders, torture and rape of the civilian population, kidnapping and torture of Ukrainian and international journalists, politicians and public figures, deportation of Ukrainian citizens, etc. All these crimes do not have a statute of limitations and require conscientious recording in order to further punish criminals at all levels, compensate for damages, and deputize Russian society. As a conclusion, attention is focused on the fact that the main duty of our state is to ensure human security, which can be achieved only by eliminating the causes of threats to a person, his rights and freedoms. Guaranteeing the safety of individuals, society and the state against external and internal threats requires the creation of appropriate conditions for the implementation of state policy aimed at protecting national values and realizing the national interests of Ukraine. Key words: human rights, security, human security, crimes, crimes against humanity, war crimes.

EU private law injustices

Abstract This article offers a critique of injustices in European private law. It explains why the EU should be held morally responsible for the injustices created or supported by its private law. In particular, it demonstrates for several core elements of EU private law that they are unjust, because they cannot be justified with non-rejectable reasons, and insofar lead to domination by EU private law. This is the case, especially, for EU private law’s consumerism, its Eurocentrism, its constitutionalized market-functionalism, its doctrinal and judicial expert government, and its blindness towards intersectional domination. The article also critically discusses, and rejects, various theories offering blueprints for an ideal European private law system. Instead, it argues for the priority of democratic justice and for an urgent focus on salient injustices in EU private law’s theory and practice.