Institutional Freedom Research Articles

Academic freedom in Europe: Limitations and judicial remedies

Abstract Europe has recently struggled with democratic backsliding and autocratization. This autocratization has accompanied a decline in academic freedom in many backsliding countries, as reported by the Academic Freedom Index. Can the standards set by the European supranational courts effectively safeguard academic freedom? This article provides answers to this question. It argues that despite differences in their approaches, the theoretical conceptions of scholarship held by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) share an essential feature: both have moved towards embracing the ‘liberal science script’ by protecting academic freedom. The main difference between the two courts’ approaches is the subject of protection. The ECtHR focuses on the individual rights of academics: It protects free speech in the academic context by establishing a high standard for holding academics liable for publicly expressing their views inside and outside of academia. The ECJ has applied the concept of institutional autonomy, thereby setting a high standard for safeguarding the freedom of academic institutions. This standard can be applied with regard to the demands placed by policy-makers on academia regarding its role in democracy, including gender equality requirements for EU research funding.

The relationship between economic freedom and growth: Evidence from the Next Eleven (N-11) countries

This study examines the association between economic freedom and economic growth in the Next Eleven (N-11) economies from 2001 to 2020. This paper also links the individual areas of economic freedom with growth in these countries. The study obtains economic freedom data from the Fraser Institute and the Heritage Foundation. It uses fixed effects and random effects techniques to examine the relationship between economic freedom and per capita income growth. The paper finds a positive association between economic freedom and growth in N-11 countries. The results also highlight that three areas of the economic freedom index (legal system & property rights, sound money, and free trade) are found to be positively associated with growth. In contrast, the other two areas (size of government and regulation) exhibit an insignificant relationship with growth. The results of this study highlight that N-11 countries with higher levels of economic freedom and better quality of economic institutions are likely to witness higher growth. Therefore, formulating policies that focus on improving the legal system, safeguarding property rights, maintaining a stable macroeconomic environment, and fostering free trade to facilitate economic progress in the N-11 countries is necessary.

Economic Freedom and Financial Performance of Microfinance Institutions (MFIs): Asian Perspective

Economic Freedom and Financial Performance of Microfinance Institutions (MFIs): Asian Perspective

Digital Gender Gap, Gender Equality and National Institutional Freedom: A Dynamic Panel Analysis

Digital Gender Gap, Gender Equality and National Institutional Freedom: A Dynamic Panel Analysis

The Actualization of Democracy Values Based on Local Wisdom

The Indonesian Democracy Index for Lampung Province was ranked 8th in 2021 reaching 80.18 (BPS: 2021). West Tulang Bawang Regency has an indicator of human development at level 4, the lowest in a Regency/City in Lampung Province with a percentage of 66.22 (BPS: 2021), based on indicators of freedom, equality and capacity of democratic institutions. This scientific study aims to examine the actualization of democratic values based on the local wisdom of the people of Tulang Bawang, West Lampung. This type of research is field research which leads to naturalistic research with the nature of qualitative research. Primary data sources are purposive sampling as the key informants can be representative and data processing methods are obtained from observations, interviews and documentation from community leaders and humanists. Inductive data analysis involves methods with reduction stages, data presentation and data verification. The local wisdom of the West Tulang Bawang community consists of the Nenemo Philosophy and the Ragem Sai Mangi Wawai Program. Democratic values that are highly respected in the world include freedom, openness, equality, justice and responsibility. Associated with local wisdom, it turns out that democratic values already exist in the principles of life in the cultural wisdom of Pepadun. Attitudes and behaviors in the Pepadun culture of the West Tulang Bawang community, of course, have meanings including Mes which means to endure, Nedes which means to hold on deeper, Ago which means to want, Kuwawo which means to be able to be internalized in a multicultural society by reflecting hard work, nemen which means earnest, nedes which means resilient, and nekhimo which means to accept God’s gift sincerely. The people of Tulang Bawang Barat have values of equality, and responsibility in social life. The meaning of Ragem Sai Mangi Wawai comes from the language of the Lampung tribe Pepadun Megow Pak Tulang Bawang which is used as the motto as well as the movement’s unifying motto in carrying out the development of both infrastructure and social morals in West Tulang Bawang Regency using indicators of justice, freedom, and openness as a concrete form of cultural diversity. Among religion, ethnicity, and other social groups, the people of Lampung Pepadun who are in Tulang Bawang Barat are united in all ways to achieve success together without eliminating or undermining other groups. This is in line with the actualization of democracy as well as this distinctive culture as striving for the civilization of ethnic communities in challenging times. This component is related to democratic government which is carried out by involving the participation of people both in democracy and development, and does not abandon noble ideals on the basis of values that are born from conscience.
 Keywords: Actualization, Democracy and Local Wisdom

Shaping Emerging Community-Engaged Scholars’ Identities: A Genre Systems Analysis of Professionalization Documents that (De)Value Engaged Work

This article presents the findings from a small case study to examine how community-engaged research is systemically delegitimized over the course of a scholar’s career. Analyzing a genre system of university professionalization documents prior to tenure and promotion shows how such documents discourage emerging scholars from thinking of their community-engaged work as research, except when it results in traditional forms of scholarship like a publication or conference presentation. A more complicated understanding of this genre system reveals pressure points to leverage for institutional change that might allow community-engaged scholars greater institutional freedom to create and sustain strong community partnership projects.

STANDARDIZATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION AS A SCIENTIFIC AND PEDAGOGICAL ISSUE: THEORETICAL ANALYSIS

The standardization of higher education as a scientific and pedagogical issue is theoretically justified in the article. It has been established that the basis for the development of higher education standards and their adaptation, taking into account the European experience, are legislative acts that ensure the functioning of the sector of higher education in Ukraine, didactic materials and scientific intelligence on the subject of the phenomenon under study. The idea of the relationship between the quality of educational services in the system of higher education of Ukraine and the acceleration of educational reforms is highlighted. The theoretical and terminological aspect of the standardization of higher education was analysed, and the issue of replacing basic educational concepts was identified, which as a result leads to misunderstanding of the processes both in the education system and in its individual branches. Possible directions (globalization, Europeanization and intercultural one) of the educational policy of Ukraine for the development of higher education standards and their specifics are revealed. It was determined that the standardization of higher education and ensuring its quality takes place in the conditions of a liberal model of educational policy, which simultaneously strengthens the ideas of academic freedom and social responsibility of educational institutions. Therefore, the state educational policy of Ukraine sees the standardization of higher education as a tool for socio-cultural and economic growth.

The role of the "third place" in the practices of youth leisure: house party (home party) as a social event

The problem of youth leisure is a frequent object of study in modern sociology. However, Russian scientists are increasingly paying attention to club culture and various youth subcultures, often overlooking the social phenomenon of house parties. The article analyses the results of individual studies of house parties in the USA, Holland, Denmark, the UK (skins party), the former USSR (“kvartirnik”/home gig) and modern Russia (“vpiska” (inclusion)/ shubz and its various formats). For the methodological basis of the study two approaches are used. The approach of E. Hoffmann, that allows us to study a house party as a social event of an entertaining nature, and the theory by R. Oldenburg of the “third place”, that a house becomes during a party. The article touches upon the historical aspect of house parties, their golden age dating back to the 19th century in the UK. In the context of the sacredness of the event and institutional freedom, a house party is compared to a “crash pad” commune of the hippie subculture. The researchers note the possibility of forming a hangout (“tusovka”) as a series of house parties opp osing disciplinary culture and social hierarchy. Special attention is paid to the issue of alcohol consumption as a ritual of collective intoxication during house parties and drinking games. The concept of a home quasi-party is introduced, which main purpose is not entertainment, but education, political agitation or direct sales. The main idea of the article is to reflect not only the negative, but also the positive socio-cultural functions of a house party, that is considered by some researchers as an exclusively deviant and/or criminogenic form of leisure of the modern youth.

Kuyper’s sphere sovereignty and institutional religious freedom in Indonesia

Although the Indonesian Constitution guarantees religious freedom in Indonesia, the implementation of that freedom is not without ambiguity. As the state defines what constitutes religion and categorises official and nonofficial religions, religious communities such as indigenous religious groups are struggling to obtain equal access to the public administration and to express their faith to the broader society. The ambiguity of religious freedom in Indonesia is obvious in the matter of institutional freedom of religion. Minority religious groups, especially those of nonofficial religions, would find their institutional freedom much restricted. Kuyper’s sphere sovereignty has proved to be successful in establishing institutional religious freedom in the Netherlands. This article seeks to show the relevance of Kuyper’s sphere sovereignty to the matter of institutional religious freedom in Indonesia.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: Kuyper’s sphere sovereignty does not only show the importance of religious freedom but also the equal access for every religious community to institutionalise themselves. In the Indonesian context, sphere sovereignty could contribute to the issue of institutional religious freedom, especially for the adherents of nonofficial religions.

Economic freedom and financial performance of microfinance institutions: Asian perspective

Economic freedom and financial performance of microfinance institutions: Asian perspective

Organization of teacher education (comparative analysis)

The urgency of the problem of training pedagogical staff capable of demonstrating readiness to perform any task in the course of their work is enhanced by globalization trends and accession to the European educational space. The purpose of the article is to research the organization of teacher education at the present stage of development of educational systems, which involves a comparative analysis of the experience of foreign countries in this aspect. The methods of the research were: analysis, systematization, generalization of scientific sources, comparison of experience in the organization of teacher education. It has been found that the development of teacher education in each country has its own characteristics, but there are also general trends. Among them are the content of teacher training and the organization of their practical training, which is accompanied by the search for new approaches, the freedom of higher education institutions to determine the duration and content of practice, and the differentiation of pedagogical practice. The professional development of teaching staff is carried out through short-term paid courses, participation in seminars, conferences, online courses on teaching programming. New models of pedagogical education are being created that aim to prepare teachers capable of independent learning and development of personal evidence-based practice; to teach effectively in heterogeneous classes with pupilsfrom different social and cultural backgrounds in a wide range of abilities and needs in early childhood education institutions and at the university. A comprehensive analysis of European pedagogical methods and innovative technologies for training future teachers is seen as promising for national education.

Penegakan Hukum Nasional dan Hukum Internasional Terhadap Kejahatan Cyber Espionage Pada Era Society 5.0

The era of Society 5.0 is a condition of society that is required to solve various challenges and social problems by utilizing various innovations that were born in the era of the Industrial Revolution 4.0 such as the Internet on Things, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, and robots to improve the quality of human life. The new things in Era Society 5.0 should not change law enforcement based on decision-making, the freedom of legal institutions in deciding cases, the professionalism of the apparatus, and public transparency. The rapidity of this era in entering the country during the Covid-19 pandemic, triggering cybercrimes that use new tools such as virus spread, and cracking. One of the crimes that the state is vulnerable to is Cyber Espionage. This crime is an act of espionage that takes advantage of advances in technology and information. As a state of law, Indonesia is required to have policies that regulate Cyber Espionage actions while still paying attention to aspects of international law so that law enforcement in Indonesia can run smoothly. To find out the readiness of Indonesian law in facing the threat of Cyber Espionage, we write this article with a normative juridical research with three approaches, conceptual approach, statutory approach, and comparative approach. The results of our research show that the national legal instruments in Indonesia are still limited to the Electronic Information and Transaction Law (ITE), Government Regulations regarding its implementation, Presidential Regulations on National Defense (Perpreshanneg), and the absence of policies that specifically regulate cyber crimes.

Институт философии и философия институтов

The conflict with the appointment of an interim leadership at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences is seen as both situational and systemic. The problem corresponds to the main topics of the author's research: 1) modern and postmodern; 2) general theory of ideology and analysis of spe­cific ideological processes; 3) problems of intellectual, political and institutional freedom. Attempts to discredit the activities of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences in terms of format and style fit, on the one hand, into the traditions of the well-known “doctors’ plot”, and on the other hand, into the experience of the latest extreme postmodernism with its most open ec­lecticism and disconnection from external reference. At the same time, there is an implicit attitude towards ideology not as a system of ideas, but as a system of institutions. This allows us to talk about analogies with the practice of raider capture. Philosophy is considered as a self-sufficient and at the same time prac­tically oriented type of intellectual activity. This self-sufficiency brings it closer to art, in which, starting from a certain level of masterpieces and geniuses, gen­eral value hierarchical comparisons are considered not quite correct.

Institutional Freedom of Conscience in Relation to Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

Institutional Freedom of Conscience in Relation to Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

Analyzing Social Media to Explore the Attitudes and Behaviors Following the Announcement of Successful COVID-19 Vaccine Trials: Infodemiology Study.

BackgroundThe rollout of COVID-19 vaccines has brought vaccine hesitancy to the forefront in managing this pandemic. COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is fundamentally different from that of other vaccines due to the new technologies being used, rapid development, and widespread global distribution. Attitudes on vaccines are largely driven by online information, particularly information on social media. The first step toward influencing attitudes about immunization is understanding the current patterns of communication that characterize the immunization debate on social media platforms.ObjectiveWe aimed to evaluate societal attitudes, communication trends, and barriers to COVID-19 vaccine uptake through social media content analysis to inform communication strategies promoting vaccine acceptance.MethodsSocial network analysis (SNA) and unsupervised machine learning were used to characterize COVID-19 vaccine content on Twitter globally. Tweets published in English and French were collected through the Twitter application programming interface between November 19 and 26, 2020, just following the announcement of initial COVID-19 vaccine trials. SNA was used to identify social media clusters expressing mistrustful opinions on COVID-19 vaccination. Based on the SNA results, an unsupervised machine learning approach to natural language processing using a sentence-level algorithm transfer function to detect semantic textual similarity was performed in order to identify the main themes of vaccine hesitancy.ResultsThe tweets (n=636,516) identified that the main themes driving the vaccine hesitancy conversation were concerns of safety, efficacy, and freedom, and mistrust in institutions (either the government or multinational corporations). A main theme was the safety and efficacy of mRNA technology and side effects. The conversation around efficacy was that vaccines were unlikely to completely rid the population of COVID-19, polymerase chain reaction testing is flawed, and there is no indication of long-term T-cell immunity for COVID-19. Nearly one-third (45,628/146,191, 31.2%) of the conversations on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy clusters expressed concerns for freedom or mistrust of institutions (either the government or multinational corporations) and nearly a quarter (34,756/146,191, 23.8%) expressed criticism toward the government’s handling of the pandemic.ConclusionsSocial media content analysis combined with social network analysis provides insights into the themes of the vaccination conversation on Twitter. The themes of safety, efficacy, and trust in institutions will need to be considered, as targeted outreach programs and intervention strategies are deployed on Twitter to improve the uptake of COVID-19 vaccination.

The Freedom of Religious Institutions and Human Flourishing in India: A Present and Future Research Agenda

In this paper, I explore how India’s complex regime of control and management of religious institutions and communities—ironically, particularly Hindu institutions—influences the capacity of these institutions to promote various dimensions of human flourishing and socio-economic uplift among the most marginalized. In addition, I provide an overview of India’s highly varied landscape when it comes to the freedom of religious institutions from state control, and in particular discuss how some minority religious institutions experience fewer government constraints on some aspects of their freedom to self-identify and self-govern, especially when compared to some majority institutions, such as Hindu temples. Although some minority institutions still face constraints on certain aspects of their operations, the freedom they have to manage their internal affairs can, at times, translate into greater agility and the ability to innovate and flourish in the context of 21st-century India.

India’s Other Religious Freedom Problems

There is no doubt that India is far from perfect when it comes to religious freedom. Indeed, India’s religious freedom problems have become an increasing focus of scholarly and policy attention. However, almost all of this attention is directed at one particular subset of religious freedom problems—i.e., restrictions imposed on the religious freedom of India’s minority communities, and particularly Muslims and Christians. Meanwhile, serious religious freedom challenges experienced by members of India’s Hindu majority population tend to be ignored. In this article: (1) I first describe the religious freedom situation in India as a complex terrain that requires a multi-dimensional mapping. (2) I then survey existing, influential studies of the religious freedom situation in India and identify their tendency to generate flat, one-dimensional mappings, and their consequent failure to analyze restrictions on the religious freedom of India’s Hindus, including both Hindu individuals and institutions. (3) I briefly analyze India’s regime of “Hindu Erastianism”—i.e., its extensive system of state regulation and control of Hindu institutions—and suggest how and why this regime amounts to a direct attack on core features of institutional religious freedom. (4) I conclude by briefly suggesting that the whole range of India’s religious freedom problems—including its “other”, less discussed problems—can be traced to a longstanding and destructive pattern of ideological polarization that owes as much to an uncompromising statist secularism as to Hindu nationalism. The existence of this now deeply ingrained pattern bodes ill for improvements in India’s religious freedom situation in the short term, and suggests that it is the country’s public culture, rather than its political balance of power, that must change if the world’s largest democracy is to enjoy greater religious freedom and tolerance in the future.

Institutional Religious Freedom in Full: What the Liberty of Religious Organizations Really Is and Why It Is an “Essential Service” to the Common Good

Should the freedom of churches and other religious institutions come down to little more than a grudging recognition that “what happens in the church, stays in the church”? In this article, I provide a more robust definition of what I call institutional religious freedom than a crabbed and merely negative understanding. In addition, I also go beyond a libertarian-style defense of institutional religious freedom as the ecclesiastical equivalent of the “right to be left alone” by suggesting a multitude of reasons why institutional religious freedom in a robust form deserves robust protection. Especially amidst exigent challenges such as the global COVID-19 pandemic, an anemic appeal to an ecclesiastical version of negative liberty on merely jurisdictional grounds will not be enough to defend religious organizations from an increasingly strong temptation and tendency on the part of political authorities—often acting on the basis of understandable intentions—to subject such organizations to sweeping interference even in the most internal matters. In contrast, the article offers an articulation of why both the internal and external freedoms of religious institutions require maximum deference if they are to offer their indispensable contributions—indeed, their “essential services”—to the shared public good in the United States and other countries throughout the world. Underscoring the external and public dimensions of institutional religious freedom, the article follows the work of law and religion scholar W. Cole Durham in that it analytically disaggregates the freedom of religious institutions into three indispensable components: “substantive”, or the right of self-definition; “vertical”, or the right of self-governance; and “horizontal”, or the right of self-directed outward expression and action.

Ensuring Individual Rights through Institutional Freedoms: The Role of Religious Institutions in Securing Religious Rights

Understanding the restrictions placed on religious institutions and associations, or the freedoms that they are denied, is essential for understanding the limits placed on individual religious freedoms and human rights more generally. This study uses the Religion and State round 3 (RAS3) dataset to track restrictions faced by religious organizations and individuals between 1990 and 2014 and explores how reduced institutional freedoms results in fewer individual freedoms. We find that restrictions on both institutional and individual religious freedoms are common and rising. Restrictions on institutional religious freedom are harsher against religious minorities than restrictions on individual freedoms. However, against the majority religion, restrictions on individual religious freedoms are harsher.

Konsep “Merdeka Belajar” dalam Pandangan Filsafat Konstruktivisme

This paper tries to understand the "Merdeka Belajar" policy program launched by the Ministry of Education and Culture of the Republic of Indonesia in the light of constructivism philosophy. Constructivism is a philosophi that assumes that knowledge is self-construction. Because the nature and learning outcomes are subjective, and depend on each individual, also uncertain, for one's constructivism entity and are more easily recognized by the term "Clutter Paradigm". There are parallels between what was proclaimed by Mas Minister Nadiem Makarim and the concept of education according to the philosophy of the concept of constructivism. Both of them emphasize the aspects of freedom, independence, and flexibility of educational institutions in understanding the competence of students. Learning arrangement with a chaotic approach so that students can be safe, comfortable, and easy to learn. Students as learning subjects –learner control play an important role in structuring the learning. The initiative of children as learners to learn –the willingness to learn- will die when faced with many rules that do not exist in the learning process. It takes freedom, reality, as well as positive attitudes and perceptions of learning as basic capital in the danger of learning initiatives that ultimately result in success in learning.