Democratic Political Systems Research Articles

Los presidentes latinoamericanos y las características de la democracia

The objective of this paper is to seek relationships between the characteristics of democracy in a country and the features of its political class. In order to so, indexes that measure different attributes of democratic political systems are linked with the political and social profile of the individuals who have occupied the presidency. The study applies to Latin America presidents in the period between 1978 and 2015. Starting with an initial observation of the data, the analysis concentrates on six countries: the three that present the best results and the three with the worst scores in an aggregate of indicators used to assess democratic systems. To the extent that the quality of political systems increases, there is a tendency for the quality of their politicians to increase as well, or at least there is less likelihood that leaders with low levels of training and political professionalism will be able to succeed in politics.

Social movements and political outcomes: why both ends fail to meet

The relationships between social movement challenges and political outcomes remain strongly underresearched in the field of social movements. Here, we use the labels “social” and “political” in a broad sense to comprise many types of challenges and many types of outcomes, such as economic and social outcomes for specific movements as well as general policy outcomes. Four theories are crucial for understanding successful mobilization of social movements: relative deprivation, resource mobilization, framing , and the theoretical figure of the opening political opportunity structure . Political outcomes, at least in democratic political systems, are usually the result of a parallelogram of different claims and means of influencing outcomes, in short, of compromises. Here, we list various forms of outcomes, from successful acceptance of movement demands to part-time successes or entire failures, and also the various strategies incumbents have in dealing with social movement challenges. Researchers usually have focused on the individual and structural conditions of the emergence of social movements but less so on the conditions of processing social movement demands and the outcomes for movements themselves, for the electorate and for policy changes. Consequently, there is little research available that would meet the requirements of an adequate research design in view of the numerous factors spelled out here as a theoretical control list. The idea of a response hierarchy of incumbents is suggested as a sort of a dispositional concept for further, more consolidated, research in this area. Also the notion of cycles of various sorts has to be kept in mind in order to avoid misjudging of both, the persistence of social movements over time, and their eventual successes and failures.

Exploring deliberative policy analysis in an authoritarian country

ABSTRACTDeliberative policy analysis (DPA), which embraces increased public involvement and rejects technocracy, seems naturally to be connected to democratic political systems. Why, then, and how has DPA developed in China, an authoritarian country? This forum piece takes experimental policy research methodology (EPRM), a localized version of DPA in China, as an embodiment of this and depicts the political, institutional, and disciplinary landscape in which DPA has been conducted in China from a historical perspective. The essay introduces EPRM’s basic concepts, outlines its evolutionary trajectory from a specific systems methodology to a localized DPA method, and discusses the implications of the Chinese experience.

Tackling the Resource Curse: The Role of Democracy in Achieving Sustainable Development in Resource-Rich Countries

A number of studies in the academic and policy literature suggest that resource-rich countries with democratic political systems are more likely than their resource-rich counterparts with less democratic systems to enjoy prudential governance of natural resources, which, in turn, makes inclusive sustainable development more likely. This report focuses on the potential roles of stakeholders and institutions in the governance of natural resources. It aims to pinpoint specific mechanisms that are pivotal for ensuring prudential management. It draws on a multitude of examples and includes six case studies that illustrate the interaction between democracy, natural resources and development outcomes.

Unbuilding from the Inside: Leadership and Democratization in South Africa and South Korea

Leaders have an important role in initiating and shaping the democratization process. Formal and informal structures within the political system constrain possible options requiring leaders to exercise agency to manage expectations and facilitate change. This article examines the actions of F.W. de Klerk (South Africa) and Roh Tae Woo (South Korea) in initiating processes that eventually led to the consolidation of democratic political systems. The aims of the article are: (1) to identify the array of opportunities and threats faced by the two leaders; and (2) to determine the effect of regime form in shaping these structural factors. Drawing on previous work on the role of leadership in democratization, the analysis focuses on four factors: authority, institutions, opposition and continuity. To assess decisions made in the distinct political contexts the article examines how the respective structural configuration (one-party and military) was managed.

The role of property rights in commercial agreements

<p>The form of a state depends widely in the way that the state treats the property rights. ‘Every definition of property has direct consequences for the question of the distribution of economic wealth and power, the role of governments and the autonomy of citizens’ (Gray & Edgeworth, 2003) and so property is always a paramount issue for a State. Most of the Western countries have adopted democratic political systems and a capitalist economical system of production in where is necessary to give recognition to private property.</p><p>This paper aims to present how transfers of property take place under Common Law, focusing on personal property issues, and comparing them with other legal systems in South America that have different rules for transfer of property.</p>

A Syrian neurosurgeon's journey.

A Syrian neurosurgeon's journey.

ASSESSING ATTITUDES TOWARD MUNICIPAL POLICE IN MEXICO DURING DEMOCRATIC TIMES: A CASE STUDYING

One of the key roles of States is to act as primary authorities over their territories and societies to establish order and provide security. Nevertheless, the processes of establishing and maintaining order and social control are complex. As such, different groups and institutions are required to interact effectively to encourage collective behavior. Among the different State agents, the police are directly in charge of fighting crime as well as maintaining social control. Their role in the development of democratic political systems is indeed significant. Police officers’ varying degrees of respect for civil, political, and human rights affect the tone of the relationship between the public and the government. Furthermore, the performance of the police in combating crime and violence can serve as an indicator of government competence. Today, the acceptance of democratic governance around the world has achieved an appeal seldom seen in modern history, yet the spread of democracy has not necessarily allowed all States to establish or maintain order and provide social control. This situation has been especially true for emerging and transitional democracies, as manifested through increasing problems of insecurity. Mexico is one such case of a nascent democracy facing significant insecurity challenges. In an attempt to learn more about the phenomenon of insecurity, this study examines citizens’ perceptions of the Mexican police at a municipal level. By using different approaches of criminal justice as well as a cross-sectional survey design, the study finds that police integrity, political legitimacy, and the perception of escalating neighborhood crime significantly affect varying attitudes toward the police. According to the results, Mexican police administrators and policymakers in general ought to place special attention on issues of integrity and political legitimacy to improve security and other areas of public policy in a country that is currently entering the democratic stage

Democracies at risk? A forecasting analysis of regime type and the risk of terrorist attack

How substantial is democracy as a cause of transnational terrorist attacks? Can our identification of democratic political systems help us to anticipate the flow of transnational terrorism? We seek to address these questions by analyzing data on transnational terrorist incidents from 1968 to 2007. We rely on receiver operating curves as a diagnostic tool to assess forecasting ability of various models of terrorist activity. Our analyses yield four central conclusions. First, our model of transnational terrorism provides a fairly strong basis for forecasting attacks—at least at the (relatively broad) level of the country-year. Second, while the overall forecasting capacity of this model is fairly strong, democracy adds very little to our capacity to forecast terrorist attacks relative to a parsimonious model that includes only distance and the prior history of terrorism. Collectively, these two variables perform about as well as a much more broadly specified model in forecasting terrorist attacks out of sample. Third, the model is highly redundant in a predictive sense. That is, many if not most of the other variables appear to provide similar information in terms of identifying terrorist attacks. Finally, we suggest that scholars focus on the development of more fine-grained and time-variant predictive indicators in order to improve our ability to forecast transnational terrorism.

Political Representation of Future Generations and Collective Responsibility

The political representation of future generations would change the relationship between public decisions and the members of democratic political systems. In this paper we examine the implication of these changes on the responsibility of the living members for the future effects of current polices with special reference to climate change. The claim defended is that the collective responsibility of the living members for future outcomes diminishes when public decisions are made less responsive to them. In order to explain why this is the case a ‘participatory account' of collective responsibility is developed according to which collective responsibility is premised on the extent to which public decisions depend on their members. The paper concludes with a discussion on the grounds for valuing collective outcome responsibility and why the conflict between this norm and the claim that future generations should be granted political representation poses fundamental questions about the value of democracy.

Compared to What? Judicial Review and Other Veto Points in Contemporary Democratic Theory

Many democratic and jurisprudential theorists have too often uncritically accepted Alexander Bickel's notion of “the countermajoritarian difficulty” when considering the relationship between judicial review and democracy; this is the case for arguments both for and against judicial review. This framework is both theoretically and empirically unsustainable. Democracy is not wholly synonymous with majoritarianism, and judicial review is not inherently countermajoritarian in the first place. In modern democratic political systems, judicial review is one of many potential veto points. Since all modern democratic political systems contain veto points, the relevant and unexplored question is what qualities might make a veto point relatively democratic.Proceeding on the assumption that democracy's primary normative value is found in its opposition to domination by both state and private actors, we make a preliminary effort to delineate what qualities a democratic veto point might have, identifying five criteria, and evaluate judicial review using these criteria. We conclude that judicial review's performance against these criteria is decidedly mixed, but in the final balance is likely to be a modest net positive for democracy, particularly when compared to other veto points commonly found in contemporary democratic political systems.

Secularity and religious neutrality in the context of democracy: Origins and concepts

The paper aims to reflect on utility of principles of future articulation of church-state relations in democratic political systems, particularly in Western democracies, especially with regard to the requirement that the state and law be secular. Secularity was born and grew in the shelter of the Christian philosophical tradition, not only because that tradition assumed respect for human dignity and fundamental freedoms, but also because the Christian doctrine of two empires served as fertile ground for decoupling of politics and religion. Modern-day Western democracy also grew with its roots in Christian heritage and tradition. Consideration is given to the arguments contained in the concept of post-secular society, proposed by Habermas, and in the theses of Pope Benedict XVI, which both suggest that secularity is not an end in itself, as well as that religion provides inner bonds of the society, in terms of identity, solidarity, values, political motivation, that are indispensable for the ability of a society to enjoy democratic process. Particular attention is given to understanding the encounter between Western democracy and Islam, as well as to the question whether secularization of Western democracies can proceed further, or should it backtrack, if democratic standards attained in the West are to be preserved and furthered? Out of the three actualized paradigmatic models of secularity in developed democracies of the West - those of France, the U.S., and Germany - key legal aspects of the last two, which both recognize the role of religious organizations in public life, are also considered. The findings shall be employed for a practical purpose: determining which concept, secularity or religious neutrality of the state, can be more useful for conceiving church-state relations in democratic political systems, political those belonging to the Western type of democracy, in the future.

The Guise of the Sunni-Shiite Use of Excommunication (Takfir) in the Middle East

1 Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. XXXVIII, No.4, Summer 2015 The Guise of the Sunni-Shiite Use of Excommunication (Takfir) in the Middle East Sayed Hassan Akhlaq* The militarization of Islam is rapidly spreading through the Muslim world from the East in Pakistan to western North Africa. This violent interpretation of Islam can be examined in multiple contexts. Despite the fact that these Islamic countries do not have democratic political systems for the most part and function through traditional diplomacy, they attempt to justify their foreign policy to their people. The need to have broad national support leads these countries to utilize Islam as a means of political justification. In particular, one of the greatest weapons in the Islamic arsenal is tafkir, or excommunication which aids and abets the governments in their domestic and foreign policy. Extremists on both sides, Sunni and Shiite, call the opposing side nominal Muslims—in other words, those who wish to destroy the true nature of Islam through politics. I will focus on two countries in the Middle East in particular, one, Saudi Arabia, guardian of Islam’s most holy places, Mecca and Medina, which functions as the central authority for the Sunni faithful, the majority in Islam; the other, Iran, more or less plays the same role for Shiite Muslims. This essay begins with an exploration of the present relationship between faith and politics for Sunnis and Shiites. It then briefly examines excommunication in an Islamic context. In doing so it offers several examples of how *Sayed Hassan “Akhlaq” Hussaini is a research fellow for both the Catholic University of America and George Washington University, and an advisor for the Center for the Study of Islam and the Middle East in Washington DC. He earned his PhD in philosophy in 2009 from Allameh Tabatabaii University in Tehran, Iran, and completed his Islamic theological studies (Hawzeh Elmieh) in Mashhad. He has published four books, numerous articles, chapters, editorials, and encyclopedia and dictionary entries. Acting as an academic advisor to the Afghanistan Academy of Sciences in 2010, he taught at many universities in Iran during 2007-2010. Akhlaq is currently working on a book project titled The Intellectual foundations of Islamic Culture.” 2 this concept serves the governments’—both Sunni and Shiite political interests. Ironically, as will be demonstrated in the essay, Sunni and Shiite Muslims were originally not known for such use of excommunication. In fact, a Muslim sect known as the Kharijites was most strongly associated with the practice of excommunication. In a fascinating and unprecedented 1300 year reversal of roles, today’s Kharijites, centered in present-day Oman, seek to ameliorate the relationships between Sunnis and Shiites and, similarly, Iran and the West. Thus, what follows is a story of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Oman that details how religious concepts, such as excommunication, can be used under the guise of religion to achieve political ends in regional conflicts. This article ends with a suggestion of some of the ways the West can frame the issue and constructively deal with this problem. Historical Background The current relationship between faith and politics in Saudi Arabia and Iran should not be separated from its historical context; this refers to Sunni and Shiite interpretations of it. Three particular areas establish a strong connection between the nature of Islam and politics. First, the Quranic Verses clearly recognize the following authority for the prophet within community: the spiritual;1 the legal and judiciary;2 and the political aspect.3 Second, the prophet preached Islam for 23 years and during the final 10 years, established within his community a new large state that Arabs had never before experienced; charismatic leadership of the state which directed all areas of the legal, cultural, economic, political, and, of course, spiritual matters in the state; and righteous and absolute rule. This communal relationship, together with the Quran, constitutes Sharia Law: the acts of worship and of interactions with others in the community. It inspires in Muslims the notion of “Ummah,” a faithful community committed to social values that guarantee worldly and otherworldly happiness. This background laid a foundation for the Islamic idea of theocracy. Historically, the first division in...

Inequality, development, and the rising democracies of the Global South

The 2010 G-20 summit marked the transition to a new multipolar world with participation of rising powers from the Global South. This article explores the new hopes for a more equitable future with a focus on the tripartite alliance of India, Brazil, and South Africa (IBSA). In contrast to their BRICS counterparts China and Russia, the IBSA countries have democratic political systems and share major foreign policy objectives, including UN Security Council reform. Rejecting deterministic and neoliberal models, this article presents a broader conceptualization of inclusive development and examines the trenches of development as contentious constructions. The IBSA countries’ legacies of steep socio-economic inequalities are compared with their most recent development records and stated ambitions of policy discourse. The article uses scenario construction to highlight stakes and choices for democratic development at this critical geopolitical juncture.

Local Currency Bond Market Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Stock-Taking Exercise and Analysis of Key Drivers

This paper studies the current state and drivers of government local currency bond market (LCBM) development in Sub-Saharan Africa. We argue that well-developed government LCBMs could reduce countries’ exposure to external shocks; help overcome ‘original sin’; facilitate domestic savings mobilisation; and may have important financial, macroeconomic and institutional spill-overs. With detailed information collected from various sources the paper first shows that quite a few African countries have made significant progress in developing LCBMs. Increasingly, African governments issue fixed-rate local currency bonds with tenors of ten years and more on a regular basis. However, we also find that LCBMs in Africa often have low liquidity, feature very few corporate securities and generally have relatively narrow investor bases dominated by commercial banks. The second part of the study presents an econometric analysis of the drivers of African government LCBMs based on a new high-quality panel dataset compiled by the OECD. Our results indicate that LCBM capitalisation is correlated negatively with governments’ fiscal balance and inflation, and positively with common law legal origins, institutional quality and strong democratic political systems.

Rozwiązania prawnoustrojowe Republiki Weimarskiej w perspektywie historycznej i porównawczej

The history of the Weimar Republic begun in last months of World War I. After war the new constitution was enacted. The name of a state: “Weimar Republic” is given by historians. The main purpose of this article is to present political system of Republic in the perspective of comparative law and history of law. In the history of forms of government in the interwar period, there is distinction between two categories “old” and “new” democratic political systems. The Weimar Republic belong to “new” category. It cause some dissimilarities and practical problems (e.g. during economic crisis). The paper presents characteristic of constitution, general principles, etc. Very important to emphasize are elements of direct democracy (referendum). Constitution used achievements of other countries, especially from French Third Republic (parliamentary republic), United States of America (presidential system, federal government) and United Kingdom. The article consider territorial structure, constitutional authority (legislature, executive and judiciary) and its historical basis and comparison with another examples. In addition, there are presented some unique issues, like political responsibility of the president, or administrative courts. There are opinions, that the Weimar constitution was the most progressive in the interbellum period.

Should 16-Year-Olds Be Allowed to Vote in Westminster Elections? Public Opinion and Electoral Franchise Reform

Britain has a long and often celebrated history of progressively expanding the electoral franchise. In recent years, the idea has been advanced to allow 16-year-olds to vote in general elections. This article uses data from a July 2013 national survey to examine public attitudes on this topic. These data show that less than one person in six favours lowering the voting age, with a large majority preferring the status quo. Younger—but not the youngest—people, men, working class and lower income persons, self-identified members of the ethnic majority and Scots tend to be most favourably disposed towards lowering the voting age. Multivariate analyses confirm these socio-demographic relationships and demonstrate that views about reducing the voting age covary in theoretically expected ways with several attitudinal variables prominent in the literature on voting, political participation and support for democratic political systems. Although statistically significant, none of the relationships of interest is especially strong. Thus, an effort to lower the age of majority would lack widespread popularity and be only weakly leveraged by the demographics of the British electorate. If franchise change occurs, it likely will be the result of an elite-driven project that succeeds because of widespread public indifference.

K-motion: visualizing election information for live television broadcasts

We present an interactive information visualization system for live television broadcasts of the ballot opening process. Our proposed system satisfies the general requirements for ballot opening processes in modern democratic political systems, in which a great deal of complex information floods in, but the time frame for gathering and processing information for live broadcasting is very limited. Traditional virtual studio techniques cannot properly handle such urgent situations, because the final presenter must wait for the visual content to be determined by the directors or engineers behind the scenes. As a solution, we implement a gesture-based interactive system based on commercial depth sensors that utilize the infra-red (IR) spectrum. Because commercial depth sensors experience interference and do not work properly under common studio lights that emit IR spectrum, we apply filters and compensation algorithms to implement a robust and stable visualization system for live television broadcasts. We also address usability and information visualization with our system, providing unique features for both the presenter and the television audience. Our system has been named "K-Motion," and it was used to broadcast on 11---12 April 2012 by the Korea Broadcasting System, one of the largest television networks in South Korea, and achieved the highest peak viewing record.

Motivational Consumption Model

An informed citizenry is important to the functioning of democratic political systems. Despite the proliferation of news outlets over the past decade, news consumption among the general American public remains shallow, and an empirical understanding of why people consume news remains limited. Integrating existing theories, this study proposes the Motivational Consumption Model, which explains why age and education predict news consumption through three psychological mediators: news beliefs, news motivations, and news attitudes. Using a national survey ( N = 1,143) and structural equation modeling, this study reveals the psycho-behavioral workings of news consumption.

The Democratic Deficit of Brazilian Foreign Policy: a Faorian Interpretation

raditionally conceived as a singular, differentiated policy insulated from public debate, foreign policy in democratic political systems has gradually drawn closer to other public policies. Mechanisms for channelling the demands of different political actors and even for direct participation in developing and executing foreign policy, as well as mechanisms of control and accountability, have been established and have moved the democratisation of foreign policy forward to a greater or lesser degree, according to the context. However, an examination of the literature shows that in foreign policy the democratic deficit is invariably perceived as greater than in domestic policies. To what can this be attributed? To the inertia of tradition or to a real specificity of foreign policy, in which debate might not be advisable? In the words of Christopher Hill (2003), this specificity is related to the “long-debated issue of how far foreign policy can or should be accountable to citizens who are probably ignorant of the issues but who may ultimately be asked to die in its name” (2003, p.17). For many, the tension between two types of Weberian rationality (purposeful rationality and value-oriented rationality) is particularly important in foreign policy.If the topic of the democratisation of foreign policy is of universal interest, it is particularly interesting in contemporary Brazil. As Ambassador (and former Minister of External Relations) Celso Amorim states in the book’s prologue, Brazilian foreign policy is increasingly present in public debate in Brazil and has therefore become another field of party conflict. At the same time, several institutional changes, within and without the Itamaraty (Ministry of External Relations), have assuaged the traditional insulation of the bureaucracy responsible for conducting Brazil’s foreign policy.That is why Dawisson Belem Lopes’s work, based on his Ph.D thesis defended at IUPERJ (