Democratic Process Research Articles

Russia as a Donor: What is Behind the Aid?

In the mid-2000s Russia took measures to regain the status of a donor providing aid to developing countries. However, Russia’s aid allocation patterns suggest that its motivations are different from the traditional donors which are more likely to tie aid to fostering democratic processes. This study examines empirically motivations of Russia’s aid. The findings provide support for the argument that Russian development assistance evolved into a politically motivated tool tied to Russia’s foreign policy. First, Russia changed its approach from multilateral aid provision to bilateral, and increased multilateral aid share for regional organizations, in which Russia plays a key role. Second, Russia provided a significant amount of aid to former Soviet Union countries in 2014, the year of the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine, suggesting that the aid was used to strengthen Russia’s influence in the region. Third, it was found that countries that received aid from Russia were more likely to support Russia’s position on the international stage. The findings suggest that Russia is closer to emerging donors which are more motivated by self-interests.

Implementation of Pancasila Democracy in Temanggung District in the General Election

This research examines the implementation of Pancasila democracy during general elections in Temanggung District, focusing on public participation and trust in the electoral process. The study aims to analyze the application of Pancasila values in the democratic process, assess public involvement and trust, identify obstacles, and propose solutions. Normative legal research methods and a conceptual approach were employed to analyze the implementation of Pancasila democracy. Findings indicate the need to optimize measures to achieve democracy aligned with Pancasila principles, including enhancing public trust and awareness of the collective goal of elections. Residents of Temanggung Regency demonstrate a high level of trust in community participation as a manifestation of Pancasila democracy. The study identifies strengths and weaknesses in implementing Pancasila democracy, highlighting obstacles like low awareness and limited engagement. Proposed solutions include increasing public awareness, enhancing voter education, and fostering community engagement to strengthen democratic values. Addressing challenges such as voter education, political apathy, and distrust in the electoral system is crucial for a robust Pancasila democracy. Enhancing public participation, trust, and awareness is essential for upholding Pancasila democracy in Temanggung District.

The role of political foundations in the bank indebtedness of political parties: the case of Spain

ABSTRACT The bank indebtedness of political parties and the economic connections they maintain with their foundations can influence the quality of democratic processes and the independence of public representatives. In this paper, we argue that both of these funding elements can also be related. Based on an analysis of the economic information on Spanish political parties and their foundations between 2007 and 2019, we prove that business and individual donations that political foundations receive, as well as contributions made to them by political parties, influence the level of bank indebtedness of the parties they are linked to, as well as the cost of such indebtedness. Our results imply that as well as having direct consequences for the economy and public policy, the economic instrumentalization of the foundations by political parties influences the financial structure of political parties and conditions their position before credit institutions as well as their competitive capacity.

Implications of Vote-Selling on Ghana’s Democracy: Evidence from Bantama Constituency

Vote-selling has detrimental implications for Ghana’s democratic process and principles. The study aimed to examine the implications of vote-selling on Ghana’s democracy. A qualitative approach and case study design were adopted. The convenience sampling technique was used to select 14 participants for the study. Data was analyzed using thematic analysis. The analysis shows that voters sell their votes because of unfulfilled campaign promises, the readiness of politicians to spend on campaigns, and the voters’ willingness to use elections to get their share of the national cake. Vote-selling transactions start with convincing voters, followed by the process of channeling incentives, conveying voters to voting stations, and ending with proof of voting. Also, the findings show, that the inability to select competent leaders, corruption, tyranny, inability to initiate good policies and the inability to hold politicians accountable are the implications of vote-selling on Ghana’s democracy. The study concludes that vote buying and selling are a contract where both politicians and voters, that is sellers and buyers profit while ignoring the aftermath consequences of such an action. The study also concludes that vote-selling has detrimental implications for Ghana’s democracy. We recommend that NGOs, electoral commissions, civil societies, and non-state actors should spearhead and strengthen democracy by mounting vigorous campaigns to educate the electorates not to accept financial or material benefits before they vote for a particular candidate. Moreover, the consequences of vote-selling and buying should be included in high school curricula to educate Ghanaians on its implications

Democratic participatory networks and governance processes in Sicily

Democratic participation improves the chances of success of local development policies. New governance processes that directly involve the actors who inhabit the territories are necessary for the challenges that sustainable growth requires. Therefore, the feedback on the pre-existing conditions of cooperation and coexistence is essential for carrying out actions with a place-based logic of development. The Innovation Helix Model allows us to understand the relational dynamics and support territorial strategies in enhancing innovation processes that contemplate the relationship between civil society, public and private institutions, and the natural environment from the perspective of a democratic approach. In this way, ecosystemic innovation is a dynamic network of territorial actors interconnected within a delimited geographical space. This study proposes an innovative way of investigating territorial relationship networks. It examines and describes the network deriving from the policies implemented in an internal area of Sicily. The governance processes implemented through partnership agreements between local actors over ten years have created relationships measured and described through Social Network Analysis (SNA), specifically with Affiliation Networks and Community Detection with a bipartite structure. The study moves towards an innovative territory analysis, looking for the relational links and providing references for building bottom-up policies with greater awareness.

Цифровизация электоральных процедур и обеспечение доверия граждан к избирательному процессу

The article is dedicated to the study of digitalization of electoral procedures and assurance of trust of citizens in the electoral process. The article reviews the procedure for organization of and holding elections and observance of applicable legal requirements, the author analyzes the introduction of electronic voting in this process. Strengthening of democratic processes in the Russian Federation directly depends on the civil involvement in the political life of the country including in elections of the head of the state.

Peran Generasi Muda dalam Pemilihan Kepala Desa di Desa Kaban Tengah Kecamatan STU Jehe Kabupaten Pakpak Bharat

The article is titled "The Role of Youth in the Village Head Election in Kaban Tengah Village, STU Jehe District, Pakpak Bharat Regency." This article aims to describe the role of youth in the village head election in Kaban Tengah Village, STU Jehe District, Pakpak Bharat Regency. The research method used is descriptive qualitative. Based on the research results, the author found that the youth's participation in the village head election in Kaban Tengah Village is influenced by socio-political agents, such as family, peer groups, schools, workplaces, mass media, and direct political contact. The dissemination and introduction of elections to the youth in Kaban Tengah Village are carried out by socializing the importance of elections to the youth, conducted by the KPU and the government of Pakpak Bharat Regency. Youth is very important to ensure the realization of a democratic and integrity-filled election process in Kaban Tengah Village.

The Negative Impact of Social Media on Generation Z in Election Activities in 2024

Social media has become the main platform for Generation Z to obtain political information and participate in the political process. However, in this context, social media can also bring a number of negative impacts that can affect Generation Z's ability to make rational choices. This research investigates the negative impact of social media on Generation Z in the process of making rational choices in the 2024 general election with the aim of improving the quality of Generation Z's thinking and expanding their rationalisation in making choices and determining leaders who will be influential in the future. The method used in this research is a qualitative method with the nature of a normative juridical approach, which is carried out by examining library materials or secondary data. The results showed that the negative impact of the role of social media on Generation Z greatly influenced Generation Z's rational choice of Presidential and legislative elections in 2024. This is because Generation Z's quality of thinking is vulnerable to the negative impact of social media, making it difficult for Generation Z to make rational choices in elections. This finding has significant implications for the democratic process, given that Generation Z is an important future voter.

Conflict and democratization in Afghanistan

ABSTRACT The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 terminated the country’s democratisation. The crisis was more an outcome of the two-decade-long flawed state-building and democratisation, and the escalation of the insurgency than an overnight change in the country’s politico-military landscape. This paper examines Afghanistan’s failed democratization from 2001 to 2021 by focusing on five variables including stateness, welfare, rule of law, political regime, and political community. The paper explains how flawed progress in the five areas gradually eroded the democratisation process resulting in state collapse and the restoration of the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate.

Political Communication Strategy of The General Election Supervisory Agency of Karimun District in Legislative & Presidential Election in 2024

Elections are one of the most important democratic processes in Indonesia. This study aims to examine more deeply the political communication carried out by Bawaslu Karimun Regency in the 2024 legislative & presidential elections. This research uses a qualitative research approach with a constructivist paradigm and data collection by collecting data with interviews and documents. The study uses descriptive analysis methods through library research. The research identifies problems to ensure elections are fair, transparent, and free from various forms of manipulation or violations. The analysis includes communication and situation analysis, namely cooperation with the media to fight hoaxes, provide accurate information, and oversee elections transparently. The implementation and monitoring of communication strategies are critical to maintaining integrity and transparency in general elections. The evaluation and re-planning of the communication strategy is an important step to assess performance and identify areas for improvement.

The Some Issues of Corruption in Mongolian and Other Asian Countries Cases

The goal of our study is to investigate the multifaceted impacts of corruption on society, focusing on how it erodes trust, weakens democratic processes, hampers economic development, and exacerbates social issues. Specifically, we aim to understand the mechanisms through which corruption deteriorates institutional and social trust, undermines governance and electoral fairness, distorts economic markets and public resource allocation, and intensifies social inequalities and environmental degradation. Corruption profoundly undermines society by eroding trust, weakening democracy, hampering economic development, and exacerbating social issues. When corruption is rampant, trust in institutions and social relationships deteriorates, fostering a cynical and suspicious society. Democratic processes suffer as corruption undermines fairness and discredits governance, leading to voter disillusionment. Economically, corruption distorts markets, increases costs, and siphons public resources, hindering growth and development. Socially, corruption exacerbates inequality, entrenches poverty, fuels social divisions, and contributes to environmental degradation by promoting lax regulatory enforcement and policy manipulation.

Pandangan Masyarakat terhadap Demokrasi Pemilu di Indonesia dengan Berlandaskan Pancasila dan UUD 1945

This article aims to find out the public's views on electoral democracy in Indonesia based on Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution. This research was conducted with a qualitative approach, through the literature review method. The main source of research data is research articles that are relevant to the focus of this article's problem and published through the google scholar website in the last 10 years. Data analysis was carried out qualitatively with the stages of data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion drawn. The results of the analysis show that democracy includes social, economic, and cultural conditions that require free political liberation and provide an opportunity for the emergence of opinions of respect for the existence of people for participation in the life of the state, and to be respected by the community. Each country has its own characteristics in exercising public power or democracy. This is because the history of a country describes the culture, way of life, and desires to be achieved. The state has an obligation and authority to organize a democratic process based on the law and the basic principles of democracy. It is important to restore democratic life based on laws based on Pancasila values

Innovative Solutions for Democratic Processes: A Case Study on Secure JNEC Voting System

In the digital era, there is a need to convert the traditional voting approach. Thus, this paper introduces the JNEC Voting System (JVS), an offline desktop application designed to modernize the voting process. Traditional paper voting systems practiced in Jigme Namgyel Engineering College (JNEC) present challenges such as time-consuming procedures, the potential for invalid votes, and vulnerability to fraud. To address these issues, JVS employs a .NET framework, with C# for frontend and backend development, and MySQL as the database. The development process follows an iterative method, allowing for continuous improvement, flexibility, and adaptability. JVS enables voters to cast their votes by scanning ID cards, while administrators can create events, manage candidates, and manage voter registration. By eliminating the limitations of traditional approaches, JVS aims to enhance the efficiency and simplicity of voting. The primary goal was to replace paper voting systems in college and reduce the time for voting, counting, and result declaration. To tackle these challenges, JVS seeks to boost voter confidence and involvement. Further, it contributes to more transparent, secure, and accountable elections.

Increasing Voter Participation Through Health Care–Based Voter Registration

Young people and historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups are poorly represented in the democratic process. Addressing voting inequities can make policy more responsive to the needs of these communities. To assess whether leveraging health care settings as venues for voter registration and mobilization is useful, particularly for historically underrepresented populations in elections. In 2020, nonpartisan nonprofit Vot-ER partnered with health care professionals and institutions to register people to vote. This cross-sectional study analyzed the demographics and voting behavior of people mobilized to register to vote in health care settings, including hospitals, community health centers, and medical schools across the US. The age and racial and ethnic identity data of individuals engaged through Vot-ER were compared to 2 national surveys of US adults, including the 2020 Cooperative Election Study (CES) and the 2020 American National Election Study (ANES). Health care-based voter registration. The main outcomes were age composition, racial and ethnic composition, and voting history. Of the 12 441 voters contacted in health care settings, 41.9% were aged 18 to 29 years, 15.9% were identified as African American, 9.6% as Asian, 12.7% as Hispanic, and 60.4% as White. This distribution was significantly more diverse than the racial and ethnic distribution of the ANES (N = 5447) and CES (N = 39 014) samples, of which 72.5% and 71.19% self-identified as White, respectively. Voter turnout among health care-based contacts increased from 61.0% in 2016 to 79.8% in 2020, a turnout gain (18.8-percentage point gain) that was 7.7 percentage points higher than that of the ANES sample (11.1-percentage point gain). Demographically, the age distribution of voters contacted in health care settings was significantly different from the ANES and CES samples, with approximately double the proportion of young voters aged 18 to 29 years. This cross-sectional study suggests that health care-based voter mobilization reaches a distinctly younger and more racially and ethnically diverse population relative to those who reported contact from political campaigns. This analysis of the largest health care-based voter mobilization effort points to the unique impact that medical professionals may have on voter registration and turnout in the 2024 US elections. In the long term, health equity initiatives should prioritize expanding voting access to address the upstream determinants of health in historically marginalized communities.

Fifty years of Teikei: the evolution of the movement’s ten principles and its impact on alternative food initiatives in Japan

IntroductionJapan’s teikei movement, recognized as a source of inspiration for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in Western countries, is now entering its fifth decade. Built upon trust and shared values, teikei has continued to rely on mutually supportive relationships between organic producers and consumers. The movement’s commitments were originally articulated through the ten principles of teikei, which offer a roadmap to create food systems based on solidarity principles going beyond market transactions. Despite a decline in numbers, teikei groups continue to operate in the midst of societal shifts that are altering food practices and consumption patterns. These changes have had an impact on the implementation of the ten principles and on the power dynamics between producers and consumers.MethodsThis research investigates how such shifts have affected the development of alternative food systems in Japan, the evolution of teikei as a social movement, and the tensions that arise from contrasting notions of agri-food system alterity rooted in decommodified relationships versus market-based transactions. We employ the ten principles as a framework to investigate the transformations of some representative teikei groups over time, and identify three types of shifts: relational, operational, and ideological. These shifts show how different teikei actors have been engaging in realizing the vision of building sustainable agri-food systems through alternative market relations.ResultsThe shifts also underscore the fluid and situated nature of agri-food system alterity within historical, geographical, and cultural relational spaces. The current variations of teikei configurations and the progressive diversification of approaches to address the challenges of upholding the original principles demonstrate the movement’s adaptability over time. However, they also demonstrate the necessity to strike a compromise between conflicting needs.DiscussionThe development of the teikei movement is not only important from an historical and geographically-situated perspective, but also as a dynamic and evolving experiment in the potential and challenges of active food citizenship. The democratic decision-making processes embedded within teikei principles and practices offer a valuable model for understanding how individuals enact their food citizenship and contribute to ongoing transformation of the agri-food system. Simultaneously, these shifts also serve as a warning against how democratic principles can be eroded by conventionalization and neoliberalization, and about the assumptions that arise during the process of building alternative agri-food systems, such as gendered labor.

Islamic Education And Democracy: Harmonizing Faith And Civic Engagement

This study explores the intersection of Islamic education and democratic principles, focusing on their historical context and core tenets. Historically, Islamic education has emphasized knowledge, ethics, and community welfare, aligning with many democratic ideals such as equality and civic engagement. This research examines the compatibility between Islamic values and democratic principles, arguing that both systems advocate for justice, participation, and the common good. However, integrating these frameworks presents challenges, including criticisms regarding potential conflicts between religious doctrines and democratic freedoms. Despite these challenges, the benefits of harmonizing Islamic education with democracy are significant. Such integration can foster a more inclusive, ethically grounded civic society, enhancing mutual respect and cooperation. This study aims to contribute to the ongoing discourse on how educational practices rooted in Islamic teachings can enrich democratic processes, ultimately promoting a balanced approach to faith and civic responsibility.

Militarization of Democracy and the Resurgence of Military Coups in Africa

Although the wave of democratization has swept through Africa from 1990s thus reinforcing the acceptability of democratic principles of governance, the post-colonial states in Africa have historically been confronted with incessant military interventions. The recent resurgence of military incursion in Africa has led to the remonstrance of scholars and policy makers involved in seeking nuanced understanding in this democratization process questioning the efficacy and resultfulness of democracy and the military interventions in the continent. This research methodologically explores relevant secondary sources of data within qualitative research method to examine the various undemocratic practices enacted by African political leaders as attributed features of a militarized democracy creating an enabling environment for the advent of military resurgence in the continent. This article avers that, the version of democracy embraced by political leaders in Africa is a militarized democracy whereby authoritarian and autocratic principles are characterized proprium of civilian governments leading to various challenges militating against the continental development, which also created an enabling environment for the military interventions.

Etika Berpolitik: Pandangan Islam terhadap Black Campaign dalam Berdemokrasi

Black campaigning has become an increasingly troubling issue in the modern political context, including in general elections. The Islamic view of this phenomenon confirms that such actions fall into the category of despicable behavior that must be avoided. In the study of fikih siyasah and Islamic religious teachings, black campaigns are considered to involve actions that are contrary to the moral and ethical principles taught by religion. The practice of black campaigning can cause conflict, division, and distrust in the community towards the ruling government. The use of sensitive issues such as SARA can also worsen the atmosphere and damage national unity. This research uses a literature study that aims to look at the Islamic view of black campaigns, as well as their impact on society and the democratic process.

ONLINE VOTING SYSTEM

With rapid growth in technologies the old voting methods can change to advanced voting methods. Online voting software is a modern solution that can efficiently and securely facilitate the voting process for various groups and organizations. The use of such software eliminates the need for physical polling stations, as voters can cast their ballots from anywhere with an internet connection. The benefits of using online voting software are many; it increases accessibility, saves time and resources, ensures accuracy and transparency, and supports a more democratic decision-making process. Eligibility verification and accurate voter information are essential components of a successful online voting platform. While several countries have already implemented online voting software, this approach still faces challenges and limitations that must be addressed before universal adoption. In the following sections, we will delve further into the various types of electronic voting methods and examine successful global examples of online voting. We will also discuss current trends and future developments in online voting software provide a comparison between online and traditional voting methods. KEYWORDS: Django , Python, DBSqlite3, Bootstrap, Webauth, Charts.js, HTML, JS, CSS.

U.S. Social Work Students and Social Media: A Descriptive Analysis of Survey Items across Four Time-Points.

Between fall 2018 and spring 2023, the author conducted four survey studies on social work students' use, attitudes, and knowledge regarding social media: (1) a pilot study in fall 2018 (N = 57), (2) a comparative study in spring 2019 (N = 42), (3) a national survey study in fall 2019 (N = 430), and (4) a national replication survey study in spring 2023 (N = 287). The purpose of this article is to describe general observed trends across these four studies. Findings included persistent and pervasive use of social media, decreased knowledge of the impact of social media in undermining democratic processes, students' inverted concern for others' use of social media when compared with concern over their own use, diminished agreement with the importance of protecting personal data and treating data protection as a civil/human right, overall agreement that law enforcement should be able to use social media in the apprehension of people accused of committing a crime, decreased agreement that disinformation is a problem on social media, ambivalence toward social media's positive impact on society, and increased strong disagreement that students wish to delete their accounts but feel unable to do so. Recommendations are shared.