This article examines the positioning of social issues within Russian public discourse during the First World War. By analyzing the public deliberation surrounding war-related social problems, the authors trace the impact of this discourse on the nascent configuration of Russia’s social welfare institutions. The study draws upon archival materials from the State Duma and State Council, sessions of the Supreme Council for the Relief of Mobilized Families, congresses and conferences of public organizations, as well as records from the Zemstvo Union and the Union of Cities. Methodologically, the research is grounded in deliberative democracy theory, which frames governance as the outcome of dialogue between state authorities and civil society. The analysis reveals that politically engaged segments of Russian society repeatedly addressed the issue of social support for war victims, advocating for modifications to the existing system of relief in order to expand social guarantees. Crucially, the public sphere witnessed the formation of a demand for the recognition of assistance to those affected by the war as a state obligation. The model that emerged envisioned direct relief efforts being administered by local self-governance bodies, supported by state funding. The authors conclude that the procedural formality of this dialogue, and the organizational involvement of state authorities in addressing social problems, indicate a discernible degree of democratization within the political sphere.

ABSTRACT There cannot be a coherent democratic theory because democracy is not a determinate topic. Representative democracy is a relatively modern regime form. It now needs rehabilitation because so many instances have performed poorly for so long. Representative democracy is now also an aging regime. As a type of state, it is subject to the territorial contentiousness and contested legitimacy of any state. It claims its legitimacy from iterative popular choice, but the plausibility of that claim is increasingly strained by the drastic disparities in life chances reproduced through the property systems it protects. The inherent difficulty for citizens to judge how to advance their collective interests is aggravated by the recent transformation of the information economy. In the cumulative damage inflicted by climate change it faces a deadlier peril than any previous regime and one which only a citizenry that can enlighten itself in time can reasonably hope to nerve itself to meet. This text was initially prepared for and delivered as the first Sakurada-Kai Foundation Oxbridge Lecture at Keio University, Tokyo on Tuesday 13 January 2026.

Abstract Many Indigenous nations in the settler state of Canada have two governments: elective band councils and a customary leadership not subject to regular elections. When these groups struggle for authority, outsiders often side with the band councils on the assumption that elections are necessary for a government to be democratic. But this assumption reflects an unwarranted electoral bias. In fact, non-elective customary governments can be more democratic than elected band councils. As we show, customary governments sometimes draw wider participation from Indigenous communities, and they can create responsiveness through non-electoral mechanisms that promote voice and exit. This gives Canada a democratic reason to promote Indigenous democratic innovation through policy and legal reforms that facilitate state recognition of customary governments.

Book Review: <i>On Truth in Politics: Why Democracy Demands It</i> , by Michael P. Lynch and <i>A Democratic Theory of Truth</i> , by Linda M. G. Zerilli “They are eating the pets of the people who live there.” Democracy, Truth and the Task of Political EpistemologyOn Truth in Politics: Why Democracy Demands It, by LynchMichael P., Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press,

Partisan media gained increasing traction as debates regarding disinformation, polarization, anti-media populism, and media bias have drawn attention to the rise of nonmainstream media outlets. But what does “partisan media” mean, and is it the right framework for exploring current changes to the information environment? This article claims the term “partisan media” is lacking because (a) conceptually, it is too vague and all-embracing to serve as a useful analytical category; (b) historically, it was shaped by a U.S.-centric vision of media and society, assuming objectivity as an organizing force of journalism and a two-party political system; (c) normatively, it fails to capture the nature of media outlets that weaponize the facade of journalism against the roles assigned to media in democratic theory. Drawing on media roles literature and empirical evidence, this study proposes an alternative approach, distinguishing media from anti-media media, based on facticity, loyalty, plurality, and solidarity. The article calls to measure media organizations on their societal merits through their position on a democratic spectrum, thus offering an urgent intervention in the field.

This paper identifies examples of mobilizing and organizing in the New England Town Meeting. Mobilizing and organizing are frameworks of collective action. Organizing has a transformative effect on individuals while mobilizing does not. The open New England Town Meeting, as it is conceptualized in this paper, consists of participation, deliberation, and governance. The data for this paper comes from the case of Brentwood, New Hampshire’s 2023 Town Meeting. The researcher created field notes using ethnographic participant observation and video which were analyzed using latent content analysis. This paper found that examples of mobilizing consist of invoking a higher authority, using data, continuously pushing for a position, simplifying policy, and acting with emotion. For organizing, this paper found examples of using experience, asking information gathering questions, sharing ideas, and modifying the process. Themes found throughout these examples include authority, discovery, process, and emotion. This paper supports mobilizing and organizing as distinct types of collective action. Transformation is a key aspect of organizing, and thus organizing, in its forms and occurrences, may be a helpful tool to analyze and ensure healthy democracies. This paper develops the participatory deliberative governance concept which incorporates transformation into participatory and deliberative democratic theory.

ABSTRACT Scholarship on democratization often reduces social movements’ legal engagement to deliberative rationality, obscuring how transformation operates through distinct yet complementary procedural logics. This article argues that movements democratize law through dual‐track engagement : Political deliberation universalizes moral demands via communicative rationality, whereas legal interpretation determines indeterminate norms through self‐reflective juridical reasoning. These processes generate rights through formal procedures that transform constitutional meanings irreducible to deliberative consensus alone. Democratic legitimacy thus derives not from institutional success but from juridification—maintaining three conditions that enable complementary navigation: communicative translation preserving deliberative genesis throughout legal formalization; functional differentiation sustaining both rationalities’ autonomous character; and identity preservation preventing organizational absorption into system logic. Chile's student movement (2011–2022) validates this framework through paradigmatic contrast: The same actors successfully constitutionalized education as a social right (2011–2016) when navigating dual rationalities as an organized movement yet failed catastrophically in constitutionalizing comprehensive social rights (2019–2022) despite wielding maximum institutional power—holding the presidency, ministries, and the Constitutional Convention. Progressive institutionalization colonized operational capacity, transforming navigational practices through instrumental rationality that supplanted communicative foundations. Citizens rejected the resulting progressive constitution by 62%, despite its substantive embodiment of the movement's historical demands. This analysis advances democratic theory by operationalizing the conditions distinguishing juridification from colonization, revealing that movements’ transformative capacity depends not on institutional access or progressive ambitions, but on specific organizational configurations that preserve communicative rationality through complementary procedures.

Given that the recent turn to ‘imagination’ in social and cultural thought is not in all cases based on a clearly political outlook, it is recommendable to revisit Cornelius Castoriadis’s path-breaking political account of social imagination. However, even the latter, it is argued, must be confronted with an understanding of politics more in line with the tradition of political realism. In order to fully activate the political potentials of Castoriadis’s thought, he is situated in a larger contextual network of intellectual reference points. By characterizing Castoriadis’s thought as a post-Marxist theory of radical democracy, based on a post-foundational ontology of imagination, Castoriadis is put in dialogue with other neo- and post-Marxist theorists, such as Antonio Gramsci and Ernesto Laclau, who present us with a more realistic understanding of the political function of imagination.

Abstract Constitutional democracies face significant threats. Such threats are countered by various theories of militant democracy and non-militant democratic self-defence, using a wide range of repressive, educational and social policy tools. The article introduces an alternative perspective on democratic self-defence policies, emphasising integration as a key component in maintaining the resilience of the constitutional community and draws on Rudolf Smend’s integration theory. It explores how constitutional design through its structures, powers, procedures, rituals and symbols shapes community cohesion and strengthens the constitutional order by deliberately using emotions.

This paper focuses on Feenberg’s theory of democratization of technology, and deeply analyzes its reference value to the technological evolution of contemporary China. This paper first reviews the core meaning of the theory, focusing on the two key concepts of “technology code” and “instrumental theory”, and points out that the process of technology design needs to be deeply integrated into social values and multiple interest demands, and public participation is the core path to realize the democratization of technology. On this basis, the article first affirms the breakthroughs China has made in the frontier areas of artificial intelligence and digital technology, and then analyzes the multiple challenges facing the current stage of development, including the risk of technological ethics anomie, the hidden danger of industry monopoly, and the lack of enthusiasm and depth of public participation in the technological process. Finally, combined with the theoretical core, the paper puts forward the targeted enlightenment and practical strategies: in the policy dimension, the government should embed the concept of technological democracy into the top-level planning to promote the openness and transparency of technological decision-making; in the enterprise level, the government should actively practice the principle of technological democracy to build the bottom line of social responsibility while pursuing economic benefits; In the field of social culture, efforts should be made to improve the public’s technological cognitive literacy and foster an atmosphere of technological development advocating democratic participation.

Decentralization in political parties has become an important topic in contemporary political studies, as it is believed to strengthen internal party democracy and encourage broader member involvement in decision-making. This study aims to explore how decentralization can play a role in enhancing internal democracy within political parties. The main focus of this research is to identify the factors that cause centralization in political parties, how decentralization can increase member participation in decision-making, and the impact of decentralization on the quality of internal democracy in political parties. The approach used in this study is descriptive qualitative research with a case study on several political parties in Indonesia that have implemented or are considering implementing decentralization. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with party leaders at both central and regional levels, party cadres, as well as political experts. Additionally, an analysis of the internal party documents was conducted. The analysis aims to provide a deeper understanding of the implementation of decentralization and its impact on the internal dynamics of political parties. The results of the study show that decentralization has the potential to increase member participation in decision-making processes that are more inclusive and responsive to local conditions. Respondents indicated that decentralization opens up more space for regional cadres to present ideas and make decisions that are more relevant to local community needs. However, the main challenge identified in this study is the issue of oversight and management, which could lead to fragmentation within the party's structure. This indicates that while decentralization has significant potential, its implementation must be carried out carefully to avoid risks that could harm party unity. This study concludes that decentralization can improve internal democracy within political parties, provided that an effective communication system between the central and regional levels exists, as well as adequate supervision to prevent the abuse of power. This research makes a significant contribution to the development of democratization theory in political parties in Indonesia and can serve as a reference for political parties that seek to implement a more effective decentralization structure.

BackgroundThe pandemic of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) will only be mitigated by policy action and innovation and importantly, supported by local and community action. Last year (2024) with the United Nations General Assembly high level meeting on AMR in September we decided to ascertain citizens’ understanding of the issues and prioritisation for actionMethodsOver the summer, while intergovernmental negotiations on the outcome document were taking place, we used Deliberative Polling®, a methodology founded on deliberative democratic theory, in six middle income countries across three continents to explore people's understanding and support for 45 policies that were likely to feature in the political declaration.ResultsIn total 2419 participants were randomised to deliberation intervention (written and video information, facilitated online small group discussions, and expert plenary sessions) or control groups who only completed the pre- and post- deliberation surveys. Support increased significantly through deliberation for 3/4 of the proposals (>90% for 2/3), as well as on knowledge about AMR and internal political efficacy. Proposals relating to infection prevention were most heavily supported across all six countries. We found regional variation in support for proposals relating to informal antibiotic access and the use of antibiotics in food production, with less support for selected proposals from South AmericaConclusionsDeliberative polling is a powerful method of large scale community engagement and this is new for AMR helping us to understand the views of the public relating to policies that will require their support to enact.

The 2024 Maros Regency Regional Head Election (Pilkada) presents a unique phenomenon of single-candidate dominance, raising critical concerns about the quality of local democracy. This study employs a qualitative phenomenological approach to examine the experiences and perceptions of political actors, voters, and civil society regarding the implications of single-candidate leadership. Field findings indicate that nearly all political parties in the Regional People's Representative Council (DPRD) supported the incumbent pair, effectively eliminating competition and reducing substantive political choice. Voter participation, particularly among young citizens, declined due to perceived predictability and limited alternatives, while the blank ballot option proved ineffective due to low political literacy. The dominance of a single candidate has contributed to structural depoliticization, weakened representative institutions, and eroded the checks and balances system, fostering political oligarchy and apathy. Analysis integrates theories of substantive democracy, political participation, and freedom of choice, revealing that elections function more as a formality than a mechanism for meaningful public engagement. The study recommends transformative reforms, including revitalizing political parties, strengthening community-based political education, reforming nomination systems, expanding public discourse forums, and enhancing institutional checks and balances. These measures aim to restore inclusive, deliberative, and substantive democratic practices in Maros, ensuring genuine representation, critical citizen participation, and accountable local governance.

Nearly 25 years after the Ohrid Framework Agreement, North Macedonia stands as a paradigmatic case of consociational power-sharing: formally stable yet persistently marked by party dominance and accountability deficits. While existing research has shown how power-sharing can entrench clientelism and patronage, this article analyzes the mechanisms through which inclusion can facilitate durable control, bridging consociational theory’s insights on group inclusion and power-sharing with democratic theory’s debates on accountability and regime closure. Introducing the concept of segmental regime entrenchment, the analysis traces how formal inclusion mechanisms, when embedded in environments of weak horizontal accountability, may transform from guarantees of pluralism into instruments of durable segmental party dominance. The article develops a three-stage framework—segmentation, segmental monopolization, and suppression—to explain how power-sharing arrangements produce asymmetric but lasting closure, with especially pronounced effects in segments that hold strategic brokerage positions. By connecting power-sharing arrangements to concerns about elite accountability and regime responsiveness, the study provides a framework for understanding the persistence of segmented governance and the challenges of reform in power-sharing contexts.

Digital platforms, particularly YouTube, provide an avenue for political discourse and public engagement, allowing individuals the opportunity to participate in discussions on various political issues. However, the extent to which viewers’ comments contribute to constructive and deliberative political discourse remains poorly examined in Nigeria. This study analysis YouTube viewers' comments on Tinubu's Emílòkàn video, with a specific focus on their role in promoting or inhibiting deliberative democracy in online discourse, and to ascertain the perceptions of the online audience towards the video as well as determine the level of acceptance among online viewers. The study adds to available knowledge on online political discourse and its impact on public opinion. The study employs a mixed-methods approach to analyse the YouTube viewers’ comments. It collects data through web scraping techniques and analyses using qualitative methods such as Content analysis and Sentiment analysis tools to identify prevailing sentiments and to assess the level of constructive deliberation in the comments. The study draws on theories of deliberative democracy and the Political Theory of the Digital Age to interpret its findings. It determines the role of YouTube comments in shaping and reflecting public opinion on political matters. The study concludes that online community offers policymakers and political actors diverse opportunities to effectively engage with their constituents – a process that fosters inclusive political dialogue and participation in Nigeria.

The appointment of an Acting Regional Head by the Central Government during the transition period of the 2024 National Simultaneous Regional Elections has sparked constitutional controversy regarding government authority and alignment with the principles of local democracy and decentralization. This study aims to examine the legal construction of the Central Government's authority in appointing Acting Regional Heads. In addition, this study also seeks to evaluate the suitability of this practice with the principles of democracy and decentralization as stipulated in the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia. The method used in this study is a normative legal research method, by applying a statutory approach and a conceptual approach. The legal sources that are the object of analysis include the 1945 Constitution, Law No. 10 of 2016, Law No. 23 of 2014, and Regulation of the Minister of Home Affairs No. 4 of 2023, Constitutional Court decisions, and scientific literature related to the theory of authority and democracy. The results of the study indicate that the authority of the Central Government in appointing Acting Regional Heads is formally attributive and meets the principle of legality. However, the regulatory framework still leaves serious issues related to the limits of authority, selection mechanisms, accountability, and minimal participation by the Regional People's Representative Council (DPRD) and local communities. This situation creates a deficit in democratic legitimacy and a tendency towards recentralization, which has the potential to undermine the principle of regional autonomy. This study concludes that the appointment of Acting Regional Heads is formally constitutional but problematic from a democratic and decentralized perspective, necessitating a reconstruction of the appointment mechanism to align with the principles of local democracy and a democratic state based on the rule of law.

This paper examines the burden of proof in Nigerian election petitions through the lens of electoral integrity and democratic theory, with the aim of determining whether persistent public dissatisfaction with electoral adjudication stems from judicial failure or from structural deficiencies in the legal framework. Adopting a doctrinal and comparative research methodology, the study analyses constitutional provisions, the Evidence Act 2011, the Electoral Act 2022, and leading judicial decisions, complemented by comparative insights from Kenya, India, and the United States. The paper finds that Nigeria’s evidentiary regime imposes an onerous and often impracticable burden on petitioners, reinforced by presumptions of regularity in favour of electoral outcomes declared by INEC, strict timelines, and limited access to electoral materials. These constraints, rather than judicial unwillingness, largely account for the difficulty of overturning flawed elections. Comparative analysis reveals that jurisdictions permitting evidentiary burden-shifting upon the establishment of prima facie irregularities are better equipped to safeguard electoral integrity. The paper recommends targeted statutory reforms, including limited transparency obligations on INEC, recalibration of evidentiary presumptions, and greater recognition of technology-driven evidence. It concludes that strengthening electoral integrity in Nigeria requires reform of the evidentiary framework governing election petitions rather than continued attribution of blame to the judiciary.

Deliberative democratic theory has defended workplace democratization to render business decision-making more politically legitimate and of better epistemic quality. By disestablishing top-down hierarchical management in favor of a rational exchange of arguments over the common good of the firm, deliberative democrats hope to include rank-and-file workers in business decision-making. However, the actual implementation of workplace democracy involves much more conflict and non-deliberative tactics of opposition. Especially the division between managers and workers persistently troubles democratic workplaces. I argue that implementing workplace democracy via consensus-oriented procedures risks encouraging ‘deliberative domination’, a condition where privileged workers use their organizational and social privileges to consistently overrule others. To avoid deliberative domination, we must pursue agonistic workplace democracy. The latter envisions workplace democracy as a struggle between opposing stakeholders over company strategy. Rather than requiring democratic workplaces to pursue a rational consensus among stakeholders, workplace democracy must facilitate power-sharing between fundamentally disagreeing stakeholders.

ABSTRACT International migration and brain drain have been discussed from various perspectives, primarily the economic dimension. However, the political drivers of this phenomenon and their policy implications remain under-researched in Nigeria’s context. Accordingly, this paper specifically examined the political factors contributing to migration and brain drain in Nigeria. Exploratory qualitative method was employed, drawing insights from cancerous democracy theory (CDT), push-pull theory and human capital theory. Findings indicate that political instability and ethnic-related issues, corruption and ineffective public administration, political repression and human rights violations, electoral fraud and dysfunctional democracy, and inadequate budgetary allocation for essential services are key political related drivers of migration and brain drain in Nigeria. Theoretical analysis suggested that migration and brain drain occur when democracy serves as a tool for elite self-preservation rather than citizen welfare in a country that claims to be founded upon democratic ideals. Conclusively, Nigeria’s longstanding political and structural problems are the root causes of both overseas migration and brain drain. The study recommended that genuine democracy should prioritise the integration of heterogeneous populations into the governance process of countries influenced by the dynamics of cancerous democracy, push-pull, and human capital theories as a solution to politically motivated migration and brain drain especially in in Nigeria. This study contributed to expanding the application of CDT, by portraying that undemocratic practices in Nigeria often trigger international migration and brain drain.

ABSTRACT This article reassesses the legacy of Asia’s third wave 50 years on by shifting the analysis of democratization from regime forms to democratic functions. Standard benchmarks capture institutional change but tell us little about how democratic practices operate in context. Building on Warren’s problem-based democratic theory, the article advances a functionalist framework centred on three core democratic functions: empowered inclusion, collective will-formation, and collective decision-making. Applying this framework to five Asian cases (Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore), the analysis shows that similar institutional architectures can generate strikingly divergent democratic capacities. Taiwan exhibits functional coherence and democratic resilience; Indonesia and the Philippines combine electoral vibrancy with oligarchic constraint; Malaysia performs democratic functions unevenly across arenas; and Singapore selectively simulates democratic practices to reinforce authoritarian governance. Across these cases, democratic functions are realized, fragmented, or instrumentalized in ways that challenge assumptions of linear liberal convergence. The article concludes that Asia’s third wave is better understood as a process of functional differentiation than as a diffusion of liberal democracy. A functionalist perspective thus offers a more context-sensitive and conceptually pluralistic approach to studying democratization globally.