Democratic Reconstruction Research Articles

Godfatherism and Democratic Reconstruction in Nigeria: A Review of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic

Much of the contemporary discourse on Nigeria's democracy and politics from 1999 till date has at its centre, the phenomenon of 'godfatherism' in the leadership of political parties, and in running the affairs of our multi-nation-state. As a result of the corruption of the electoral and political processes, governmental structures, electoral politics and state power are skewed towards satisfying the self- regarding interests of the dominant political mentors otherwise known as 'political godfathers'. Relying on their wealth and their political machines, they secure party nomination for candidates of their choice by any means, sponsor their election, including manipulating the electoral process. This paper is intended to examine critically the crisis of political godfatherism in Nigeria and its implications for the future of the nation's democracy. It suggests ways the gods of Nigerian democracy and politics can be checked and confronted if the country is to deepen democracy and strengthen democratic institutions.

Toward the democratic reconstruction of the urban

This commentary offers a critical assessment of Ross Beveridge and Phillippe Koch's article “Seeing democracy like a city.” While there is much we can learn from their analysis and perspective, in the end, it offers only marginal resistance against the colossal structural forces quashing the democratic emancipation of the urban, leaving us with little hope for systemic and comprehensive democratic reconstruction. Only through a mass politics designed to capture and wield state-centered democratic power can we hope to realize broader system change in late-stage, neoliberal capitalist regimes.

Democracy and Civic Space: Normative Models and Ukrainian Discourse

The article, authored by Ukrainian and Polish social researchers, analyses normative approaches towards understanding models of democracy and their relation to civic space. Despite the existence of multiple models of democracy, they can largely be reduced to two main forms: direct and representative democracy.Deliberative democracy is posited as a third form, which, according to some scientists, combines elements of representative, direct, and participatory democracy. The analysis is based on the assessment of democracy and civic space in Ukraine, utilising data from six applied international social studies, as well as the evaluation of the modern characteristics of some components of Ukrainian civic space. According to the rating of CIVICUS Monitor, Ukraine has been classified in the category of countries where the civic space is «obstructed» from 2019 to the present time (Autumn 2023). Currently, the advancement of civic space in Ukraine towards more favourable forms of freedom of association, peaceful assembly, and expression of opinion in the country are threatened by several factors simultaneously, with the dominant role being Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine.During the martial law and in the post-war context of Ukraine, civil society acts as an indispensable ally of the authorities in the process of democratic reconstruction. Civil society organizations (CSOs) represent a wide range of social interests, ensuring that the voices of different groups and segments of thepopulation are heard and taken into account. Their broad base allows them to bridge the gap between government and citizens, helping to build trust and ensuring transparency. CSOs have a proven track record of institutional monitoring, which is a critical factor in preserving and strengthening democratic values in a post-conflict environment.The article also uses the results of the authors' previous and current academic research*, as well as the results of twenty years of advocacy and analytical work as public experts in Ukraine and Europe. ==== *Remark. The Ukrainian author relies on the results of her own previous and current academic research within the H. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and analytical studies as a public expert, and the research of the Polish co-author was supported by the National Science Center (research project 2019/33/B/HS5/02648).

Theorizing “Co-operative Advantage” in News-Markets: Rethinking Media-Ownership, Renewing the Sociology of Journalism’s Radical Tradition, and Reframing Democratic Media Reform

ABSTRACT The sociology of journalism has traditionally neglected news co-operatives’ potential. This largely reflects the investor-owned news sector’s entrenched growth through most of the twentieth Century. However, investors increasingly fail to sustain quality, independent journalism into the twenty-first Century. This failure creates openings for the co-operative news-sector’s expansion and media democratization, practical projects implicitly intertwined with the theoretical project of renewing the sociology of journalism’s radical tradition. Embedded within Curran’s media reform model, this theoretical essay therefore blends co-operative and journalism studies’ conceptualizations to more rigorously account for news co-operation’s evolving prospects. Drawing from Spear’s general theory of co-operative advantage, I argue news co-ops have six inbuilt advantages over investor-owned media firms. The emerging news sector’s varied governance types, development trajectories, and examples demonstrate how co-operative advantages are relevant to news-markets. This novel conceptual synthesis thus illustrates that a more robust focus on co-operative news innovations can both renew the sociology of journalism’s radical tradition and inform the news industry’s democratic reconstruction.

Democratic Principles-Based Reconstruction of Presidential Threshold Provisions on Indonesian Presidential Elections

The problem raised in this paper is how to reconstruct the Presidential Threshold Provisions for the Election of the President and Vice President in Indonesia, based on the principles of democratic elections. In this paper, the author guided Constructivism as a paradigm and used Legal Constructivism as an approach, which will lead to conceptual ideas. The results of this study that the ideal setting regarding the provisions of the Presidential Threshold for the nomination of President and Vice President in Indonesia would be more appropriate if it can be 0%. This is an effort to present many qualified candidates for President and Vice President so that the public can see a more diverse range of pairs and will also encourage the application of the principles of democratic elections.

5 - Ethnicism and the Democratization of Civil Society: Envisioning Changes in the Proximal and Causal Ideologies of ‘Marginality’ in Africa and America

This paper focuses on the possibilities of transforming social and political marginality by democratising the ethnic groups in societies replete with multiethnic social construction of ‘underclass’ conflict such as America and Africa to engage prioritised issues targeted at promoting the interests of collec- tive existence in the sustenance of national goals in both continents. Although the concept of ethnicity embraces several interesting aspects of our empirical experience, they nonetheless have theoretical significance as metaphors of so- cial struggle for democratic principles of equality and justice. The paper argues that in order to develop a broader based democratic agenda that would eclipse the intense controversies in the pursuit of sexual equality within the ethnic systems, there is a vital need for a democratic reconstruction of governance strategies that erstwhile have created complex difficulties in re- assessing the continental social systems of nationalism and ethnicism, and much more that failed to examine the anti-racist and anti-tribal interactive approaches of the community alliance. It examines the basis for the lack of resistance to the institutionalised ethnic relations of power that continue to prop systems of domination, victimization and exploitation in both Africa and America. It analyses the theoretical and practical hierarchic trend of ethnicism and feminism, which makes them sour- ces of social dysfonction. More significantly, in postulating an effective possibility of reconstructive challenges characterized by mainstream view which equates feminism with ethnic co-operation, the paper also critically deconstructs the onslaught of ‘sexual sociality’, and ‘democratic sexism’ in the United States and, more profoundly, in Africa.

Legislative resistance to illiberalism in a system of coalitional presidentialism: will it work in Brazil?

ABSTRACT Illiberal governments typically attempt to undermine representative democracy by adhering to a single comprehensive doctrine sustained through a majoritarian account of legitimacy that is suspicious of the rationality of liberal constitutional democracies. But perhaps there is hope for a system of coalitional presidentialism, such as Brazil. It has been argued that coalitional presidentialism may be in a better position to resist an illiberal project to erode democracy because of its centripetal and conservative forces, which might constitute a firewall against the concentration of powers in the executive branch. The legislature can either slow the pace of authoritarian measures or subject the government to relevant political defeats, raising the chances of democratic reconstruction. Should we expect success for legislative resistance to illiberal populism? What can the Brazilian experience under the first eighteen months of Bolsonaro's government teach us about it? Even though it might be too early for a conclusive assessment of these matters, we try to offer in the following sections a moderately optimistic response to the first question based on our assessment of the second.

Implementation of the strategy of sustainable development in the model of critical theory of society and education system

The call for democratic reconstruction of education should contribute to the development of the acquisition and use of knowledge and thought of as a response to emerging technologies and trends in globalization. In particular, be aware that nowadays some unfair terms communities, individuals are privileged in having access to technology, a high-tech skills and cultural capital than the less privileged communities. One way to overcome this abyss of a whole complex of new classes of inequalities, gender, race, education is restructuring so that all students have access to new technologies and new knowledge in the system democratized education and training process. Hegelian dialectics can help the efficiency of the relationship between students and teachers today in a situation where there is a lack of cultural, social experience as well as the specific subjectivity between groups, nations and generations. Teachers, students, and citizens must recognize this potential conflict and consolidate work to overcome these conflicts, making these actions more productive. Overall, the democratization of education can be enhanced in part by increasing elaboration and interactive forms of education, including such as distance education, the development of collective educational websites, online discussions and a scientific online community, shared internet research projects. But the restructuring of education also requires targeted public, values education, literacy cultivation. For teaching and learning books and printed materials based on multimedia and Internet materials should be considered as an additional, rather than as the primary means of democratization of education.

The Indigenous Municipality as a Local-Global Space for Democratic and Citizen Reconstruction for Development: Changes and Resistance to Development

The Indigenous Municipality as a Local-Global Space for Democratic and Citizen Reconstruction for Development: Changes and Resistance to Development

Los fantasmas de la dictadura y la agenda de los derechos humanos entre los actores de la comunidad judía argentina durante la recuperación democrática (1979-1984)

El restablecimiento de la democracia en Argentina, hacia fines de 1983, movilizó a diversos sectores de la opinión pública. La revisión de lo sucedido durante el régimen dictatorial, así como los debates en torno a los problemas que la apertura política debería resolver, constituyeron un horizonte de interpelación entre diversos actores. En particular, aquellos que se identificaron con el espectro heterogéneo de instituciones y organizaciones ligadas al ámbito judío produjeron una serie de narrativas y experiencias que permiten reconocer el modo singular en que se revisó lo sucedido durante la dictadura, y el lugar que ocuparía la agenda de los derechos humanos en un clima de reconstrucción democrática. El presente trabajo se propone recomponer las posiciones en torno a cómo se constituyó tempranamente una representación sobre el carácter antisemita del régimen dictatorial y cómo esa imagen posicionó a los diversos actores de la comunidad judía como víctimas –o no– del régimen dictatorial y, por tanto, con legitimidad para operar sobre la recuperación democrática.

El Partido Intransigente en la reconstrucción democrática. Perspectiva microanalítica y aproximaciones de escala. Mar del Plata, Argentina (c. 1982-1991)

This article analyzes the trajectory of the Intransigent Party of Argentina during the period of democratic reconstruction following the last military dictatorship (c.1982-1991), in a microanalytical perspective. Based on the study of this organization in the city of Mar del Plata, the text shows specificities of the local case. At the same time, we examine the characteristics, tensions and conflicts that affected this political force at different scales, in Buenos Aires province and at the national space. In a broad sense, it contributes to the knowledge of the challenges faced by the minority political parties in democracy, the processes of internal fragmentation and the study of the political-party youths in light of a force that was self-represented as national, popular and revolutionary.

Augusto Conte diputado. Entre la Democracia Cristiana y el Movimiento de Derechos Humanos

El artículo focaliza el análisis en el desempeño del diputado democristiano Augusto Conte durante los primeros años de la reconstrucción democrática en Argentina. Desde una perspectiva microanalítica a escala individual, es posible echar luz sobre el complejo entramado de actores político-sociales de comienzos de los años ochenta en torno a dos problemas centrales de esa particular coyuntura: la revisión del pasado dictatorial y el enjuiciamiento de los responsables de las violaciones a los derechos humanos. El seguimiento de esa trayectoria permite elucidar los alcances y limitaciones con las que se enfrentó este diputado en tanto representante del movimiento de derechos humanos en el Parlamento frente a las estrategias del gobierno, las demandas y tensiones que atravesaron los organismos de derechos humanos y los conflictos que se plantearon en el Partido Demócrata Cristiano en cuyo nombre asumió el cargo.

«Всею землею Российские державы»: Очерк истории народовластия в России (X–XVII века)

The idea of democracy plays one of the leading roles in contemporary Russian political discourse. Still nowadays a lot of Russian people perceive the idea of democracy as something foreign and borrowed, derived from the outside, furthermore even the word “democracy” very often carries negative associations. Each people, country and civilization has the right to independently decide the issue of their political system on the basis of their own specific historical experience and not accept theoretical schemes and models imposed from the outside. Russia has also its own historical experience as the history of Russia and country and civilization runs to more than thousand years. But that doesn’t mean that there were no democratic institutions in the history of Russian people or that there were no democratic practices. What kind of public democratic system can be found in Russian political tradition? The present article is devoted to the study of this question. The author examines democratic traditions in Russia in the 10th–12th centuries. We certainly won’t find the theoretical conception of the term “democracy” in spiritual; and political ideas in Russia of the 10th-12th centuries, as well as any detailed analysis of the history of Russian democratic institutions in the works of Russian thinkers of that time. Still annalistic and other sources contain extensive factual data that can be used by the researchers for the analysis of Slavic and Russian democratic traditions and reconstruction of the democratic conceptions of our ancestry.

Democratizing Global ‘Bodies Politic’: Collective Agency, Political Legitimacy, and the Democratic Boundary Problem

This article outlines a new approach to answering the foundational question in democratic theory of how the boundaries of democratic political units should be delineated. Whereas democratic theorists have mostly focused on identifying the appropriate population-group – or demos – for democratic decisionmaking, it is argued here that we should also take account of considerations relating to the appropriate scope of a democratic unit’s institutionalized governance capabilities – or public power. These matter because democratically legitimate governance is produced not only through the decision-making agency of a demos, but also through the institutionally distinct sources of political agency that shape the governance capabilities of public power. To develop this argument, the article traces a new theoretical account of the normative and institutional sources of collective agency, political legitimacy, and democratic boundaries, and illustrates it through a democratic reconstruction of the classical body politic metaphor. It further shows how this theoretical account lends strong prescriptive support to pluralist institutional boundaries within democratic global governance.

"Education and Social Integration" - Twenty-Five Years Later

In 1953 William 0 . Stanley wrote the prominent social reconstructionist treatise, Education and Social Integration. Fifteen years later he concluded that because of insufficient popular commitment, reconstruction had not occurred. Nevertheless, Stanley closed his 1968 address by reaffirming the fundamental commitment. of the Western people to democracy. The article which follows argues that Stanley even in 1968 is too sanguine: democratic reconstruction can take place only if establishment of the very commitment he assumes already to exist is made a primary goal of political education .

Zapatystowska rewolucja polityczno-komunikacyjna

1 stycznia 1994 roku Zapatystowska Armia Wyzwolenia Narodowego (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN) rozpoczęła powstanie w meksykańskim stanie Chiapas wymierzone w neoliberalne przemiany w Meksyku oraz politykę władz wobec rdzennych mieszkańców kraju. Różniło się ono jednak od większości zrywów w Ameryce Łacińskiej. Powstańcy zaproponowali bowiem, co stanowi problem badawczy niniejszego artykułu, nowy sposób myślenia o polityce i relacjach społecznych, odmienną wizję transformacji społecznej, a także metody zbiorowego działania. Zakłada ona demokratyczną przebudowę Meksyku przez samo społeczeństwo obywatelskie. Z tego też powodu odrzucili postulat przejęcia władzy politycznej w państwie, zamiast czego koncentrują się na tworzeniu oraz ochranianiu autonomicznych wspólnot. W efekcie zaczął wyłaniać się autonomiczny i horyzontalny porządek, budowany od dołu ku górze, w oparciu o demokrację bezpośrednią, konsensualny sposób podejmowania decyzji zbiorowych, równość społeczną, uznanie różnicy, czy też odrzucenie praktyk hegemonicznych. Stanowiło to ekspresję niezwykle eklektycznej i wolnościowej kultury politycznej, która ich charakteryzuje. Odnaleźć w niej można bowiem elementy właściwe dla tradycji anarchistycznej, marksistowskiej, Teologii wyzwolenia, czy też kultury oraz obyczajów rdzennych mieszkańców Meksyku.

Tanigawa Gan and the Poetics of the Origin

The work of poet, theoretician, and political activist Tanigawa Gan (1923–95) played a decisive role in postwar Japanese intellectual and political life, deeply influencing politics of 1968. By interrupting prevailing discourses of democratic reconstruction, high economic growth, and cosmopolitan Marxism of urban life, Tanigawa (along with other members of his commune) practiced a rigorous subtraction from dominant ideological and aesthetic discourse of postwar Japanese life. Remapping their politics by imbricating activism with line of writing, they moved into rural and isolated villages, utterly deprived and depleted forgotten zones of countryside, where Tanigawa attempted to discover an origin, not in a romantic or nativist sense, but as a source of human energy for active aesthetic creation of life practices in exodus from dominant society. Tanigawa's writing itself—his practice of holding politics and poetics immanent to flux or energy of historicity of struggle of oppressed, to historical event of their dispossession—remains a powerful site of analysis for us today. In contemporary Japan, where struggles of unemployed, homeless, and semipermanently underemployed have emerged sharply against backdrop of turn to neoliberalism and dismantling of social policy, Tanigawa's work has seen a sudden resurgence. But his work is frequently being presented as utopian, nativist, romantic, and so forth. In examining a sequence of Tanigawa's poetry and certain of his critical essays, author tries to disrupt such readings by arguing that his attempt to conceive of a practice of writing, not focused on substantialization of the people or region but, rather, on dynamic flux of energy produced by this tension of exile itself, inaugurates a series of potential moments through which possibilities of resistant mappings can be understood. For Tanigawa, political potential of this mapping rather lies in mobilizing histories of affective memory of struggle that are sedimented in communities of dispossessed, what he called operating ( kosaku ) on situation.

La democracia al servicio de todos, integrante del bien común

La democracia como sistema político al servicio de todos es, en el momento presente, objeto de crítica no sólo en cuanto a su legitimidad, sino también por las formas de su ejercicio. Nadie parece dudar que el sistema democrático sea la mejor forma de institucionalización del poder y de la participación al servicio del bien común, aunque se discutan los fundamentos y las formas de su ejercicio. Al mismo tiempo existe una progresiva y generalizada desafección hacia los actores políticos, especialmente las élites gobernantes. Después de un primer diagnóstico, en este comentario nos centramos en la actual revisión de los consensos democráticos y ensayamos una propuesta de intensificación deliberativa de los ciudadanos en la reconstrucción democrática al servicio del bien común de una sociedad avanzada. El compromiso ético de todos por medio del ejercicio de las virtudes cívicas y la formulación y recuperación de proyectos comunes son las otras propuestas conclusivas.

The Democratic Reconstruction of the Hegelian State in American Progressive Political Thought

AbstractBoth critics and defenders of the modern American administrative state have recognized the influence of Hegelian ideas upon the American progressives. But existing scholarship on this connection has not delved into the institutional details of Hegelian political theory and its transformation in progressivism. This article traces the continuities and adaptations between Hegelian and American progressive theories of the administrative state through three conceptual pairs: individual rights and social welfare, civil society and the state, and legislation and execution. For both German Hegelian legal scholars and the American Hegelian progressives, these conceptual pairs staked out the basic normative and institutional tensions underlying the modern state. The progressives, however, gave these concepts a democratic interpretation, and thus sought to involve the public at multiple levels of the policy-making process. This Hegelian progressive theory provides a compelling basis for a public philosophy of the contemporary American state.

Como a família funciona em políticas de intervenção social?

In this paper, I review field data from two of my recent studies – on the reconfiguration of the field of intervention for adolescent violators in RS and on the policies for juvenile shelters in the city of Porto Alegre, RS – to reflect on the ways in which the family functions in policies of social intervention addressing children and youth in Brazil. My purpose is to understand certain processes in which the family not only appears as a key site for the formation of adults, but, in the Brazilian context, it is also set in the broader policy of democratic reconstruction. State policies prioritize decentralized forms of intervention making individuals and communities co-responsible for the construction and implementation of autonomy and protagonism, with a view to transforming individuals into “subjects of rights”. In this context, my aim is to dialogue with the literature on the subject, which highlights the “privatization of policy issues” as well as the expansion of a neoliberal rationality in contemporary governance practices that invest in the training of individual skills and capacities for self-government. I will argue that, despite the importance of the processes described above, the analyst should not overlook a parallel movement: the complexity of value dynamics, agents, and interests that co-produce such practices of change in the modes of governance of individuals and populations.