Best Form Of Government Research Articles

Governance Crisis and Democracy in Nigeria, 1999 - 2012

Democracy is adjudged the best form of government all over the world. In 1999, Nigeria joined other civilised countries by enthroning democratic political system. Consequently, this paper examines governance crisis and effects on the sustainability of democracy in the country. Adopting narrative descriptive approach, the paper notes that democracy is capable of ensuring good governance based on rule of law, accountability, and transparency among others if well managed. However, in the case of Nigeria, the paper observes that the nation has made some giant strides in its democratic journey since 1999 but the people are yet to fully reap the fruits embedded in this political system. This is as a result of challenges like corruption, ethnicity, leadership failures and other egregious national problems which combined in frustrating the sustenance of democracy in Africa’s most populous nation. The paper concludes that what is needed in the country is the strengthening and building of institutions of government rather than personalisation of state authority. The institutions of government so strengthened will act as catalysts in promoting the goals of democracy and serve as bulwark against abuses. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n14p125

Egipto como Utopía: sobre el ‘Busiris’ de Isócrates y su posible relación con el pensamiento político de Platón

During the 5th and 4th centuries BC, Egypt was a kind of conceptual mirror for the Greeks whenever they should speak of history, science or religion, and this is especially evident regarding the debate about the best form of government. The government of sages or priests, two of the utopian ideas most fi rmly rooted in Greek thought, fi nds a mythical basis in Egypt. This contribution aims to study the speech Busiris, by Isocrates, and its possible relationship with the Platonic projects of the Republic and, especially, the Laws. We will analyze the image of Egypt as an Utopian mirror and the various approaches to the historical and literary context of the relation bewteen Isocrates and Plato, from irony to political-philosophical proposals.

Humor and Politics through the Animal in Cervantes and Leopold

Humor and Politics through the Animal in Cervantes and Leopold

China's New Political Discourse

At the turn of the 20th Century when Western power was at its height, Sun Yat‐Sen sought to blend the Confucian tradition of meritocratic governance and Western‐style democracy in his vision for modern China. With the “rise of the rest” in the 21st Century—led by China—perhaps the political imagination is open once again, this time not only to Western ideas flowing East, but Eastern ideas flowing West as well.The political imagination has been pried open anew not only because of the sustained success of non‐Western modernity in places like Singapore and China, but because democracy itself has become so dysfunctional across the West, from its ancient birthplace in Greece to its most advanced outpost in California. That liberal democracy is the best form of governance ever achieved in the long arc of history is no longer self‐evident. Today, democracy, which has been captured by a short‐term, special‐interest political culture, has to prove and improve itself by incorporating elements of meritocracy and the long‐term perspective. If not, political decay beckons.In this section, we evaluate the tradeoeffs and ponder the possibilities of combining a more knowledegable democracy with a more accountable meritocracy.

Meritocracy Is a Good Thing

At the turn of the 20th Century when Western power was at its height, Sun Yat‐Sen sought to blend the Confucian tradition of meritocratic governance and Western‐style democracy in his vision for modern China. With the “rise of the rest” in the 21st Century—led by China—perhaps the political imagination is open once again, this time not only to Western ideas flowing East, but Eastern ideas flowing West as well.The political imagination has been pried open anew not only because of the sustained success of non‐Western modernity in places like Singapore and China, but because democracy itself has become so dysfunctional across the West, from its ancient birthplace in Greece to its most advanced outpost in California. That liberal democracy is the best form of governance ever achieved in the long arc of history is no longer self‐evident. Today, democracy, which has been captured by a short‐term, special‐interest political culture, has to prove and improve itself by incorporating elements of meritocracy and the long‐term perspective. If not, political decay beckons.In this section, we evaluate the tradeoeffs and ponder the possibilities of combining a more knowledegable democracy with a more accountable meritocracy.

Political Meritocracy and Direct Democracy: A Hybrid Experiment

At the turn of the 20th Century when Western power was at its height, Sun Yat‐Sen sought to blend the Confucian tradition of meritocratic governance and Western‐style democracy in his vision for modern China. With the “rise of the rest” in the 21st Century—led by China—perhaps the political imagination is open once again, this time not only to Western ideas flowing East, but Eastern ideas flowing West as well.The political imagination has been pried open anew not only because of the sustained success of non‐Western modernity in places like Singapore and China, but because democracy itself has become so dysfunctional across the West, from its ancient birthplace in Greece to its most advanced outpost in California. That liberal democracy is the best form of governance ever achieved in the long arc of history is no longer self‐evident. Today, democracy, which has been captured by a short‐term, special‐interest political culture, has to prove and improve itself by incorporating elements of meritocracy and the long‐term perspective. If not, political decay beckons.In this section, we evaluate the tradeoeffs and ponder the possibilities of combining a more knowledegable democracy with a more accountable meritocracy.

Is democracy the only game in town? Tension between immigrants' democratic desires and authoritarian imprints

This article borrows from the literature on transitional democracies to examine levels of support for democracy and non-democratic alternatives among immigrants travelling from partly and non-democratic countries to Canada. It evaluates how immigrants who grew up under authoritarian rule come to adapt to democracy. The findings indicate that immigrants from partly and non-democratic countries experience tensions in their adaptation to democracy, expressing strong democratic desires but also manifesting what could be interpreted as lasting imprints of their socialization under authoritarian rule. Immigrants from partly and non-democratic countries exhibit strong support for democracy (they almost all believe it is a good form of government, the best one, and understand democracy in broadly similar terms as the rest of the population). Yet, if democracy is the main game in town for the immigrants, it is not the only one; immigrants from partly and non-democratic countries are significantly more likely than people socialized in a democratic political system to support other forms of governments that are non-democratic. The article thus argues for the lasting impact of authoritarianism on people's democratic outlooks despite the presence of strong democratic desires.

The Best Form of Government and Civic Friendship in Aristotle’s Political Thought

The Best Form of Government and Civic Friendship in Aristotle’s Political Thought

Monarchy in the Hebrew Bible

This article continues the analysis of political theory in the Hebrew Bible. The books of Samuel and Kings recount the history of the monarchy in ancient Israel. This setup allows the author to conclude his analysis of confederacy and also to examine two other forms of government: theocracy and monarchy. The author argues that confederacy is too weak to provide reliable protections to the people. He endorses the ideal of theocratic rule but views theocracy as unsuitable for practical governance. He identifies weaknesses in monarchy but endorses it as the best form of government provided that the king is constrained by appropriate checks and balances. Contrary to the view of many biblical scholars, no text from Genesis to Second Kings fundamentally disapproves of monarchy as a form of government.

The Meanings of Democracy: Introduction

The Meanings of Democracy:Introduction Larry Diamond (bio) Over the past two decades, public-opinion research has become increasingly prominent and widely used in efforts to assess and explain the progress of and prospects for democracy in Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa, and most recently the Middle East. By posing standardized questions to representative samples of voting-age people in various countries within a cultural or geographic zone, regional "barometer" surveys have become sources of revealing cross-country comparisons that shed light on how people view and support democracy. But how should one measure support for democracy? Early work on public opinion after democratic transitions in Europe presumed that one could measure such support merely by asking people questions such as the following (which has become one of the most widely used items in cross-national research): Can you tell us which one of the following three statements you agree with: 1) "Democracy is always preferable to any other form of government"; 2) "Under some circumstances an authoritarian government can be preferable to a democratic one"; or 3) "For people like me it does not matter whether we have a democratic or a nondemocratic regime." Similar items have been used across many countries to assess popular commitment to democracy as the best form of government. In the last fifteen years, adopting methods introduced by Doh C. Shin for the study of Korea, others have examined on a ten- or eleven-point scale the extent to which citizens say: 1) they desire democracy for their country; 2) they think that democracy is suitable for their country; 3) they think that democracy can work to solve the problems of their country; and 4) they [End Page 102] think that democracy is as important as or more important than other national goals, such as economic development. Comparative analysis of responses to these questions would seem to be fairly straightforward—if, that is, respondents across countries possess a clear and broadly shared understanding of what democracy is. But what if they do not? What if expressions of support for democracy represent nothing more than some vague acknowledgement of democracy's social desirability—the global equivalent of "motherhood and apple pie"? For the past two decades, this possibility has increasingly preoccupied and troubled researchers. In order to assuage their worries, scholars have come up with new means to measure underlying support for democracy without using the "D-word." One of the most seminal innovations in this regard builds explicitly on the "Churchill hypothesis"—named for the British prime minister's famous quip that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others—by measuring the extent to which respondents in the postcommunist democracies reject such plausible authoritarian options as military rule, one-party rule, and one-man rule. The presumption is that rejection of all three alternatives represents robust evidence of support for democracy.1 Since Richard Rose, William Mishler, and Christian Haerpfer introduced this method of gauging "authoritarian detachment" some two decades ago, use of the measure has spread around the world. But statistical analysis has shown that it measures something rather different than support for democracy. And so the search has continued on two fronts: first to assess what exactly people around the world understand by the word "democracy," and second to develop yet other ways of getting at people's understanding of and support for democracy that do not rely on the "D word." In developing new and innovative ways of meeting the second challenge (as the following articles do), we are also gaining more traction in addressing the first challenge as well. The four essays in our cluster on the meanings of democracy emerge from a larger cooperative effort to understand how citizens of emerging democracies (and some transitional or authoritarian countries) understand the "D-word." The Global Barometer—drawing together regional barometers from postcommunist Eurasia as well as Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Arab world—is now trying to develop a common standardized approach to this and related questions. But because the effort is still young, we do not yet have a common, standardized set of questions—and data—that would, in Michael Bratton's useful...

The Rule of Law and the Rule of Persons

This essay defends the Rule of Law as a set of formal attributes that any regular system of law must possess. However, it disputes the view that the Rule of Law could itself be a form of rule and hence offer criteria of good governance. Consequently, the qualities of fairness and equity associated with the Rule of Law must be seen as the product of a certain sort of rule of persons. The argument progresses through an investigation of five worlds of the Rule of Law: Bureaucratia, Monarchia, Communitaria, Libertaria and Respublica. The first, third and fourth attempt to rule through law alone, the second to see the Rule of Law as a form of personal rule. All fail, with the solution provided by the fifth. By ensuring all persons rule each over the others, Respublica offers a form of good governance that produces the forms and substance of the Rule of Law.

Twenty Years of Postcommunism: Deepening Dissatisfaction

Twenty Years of PostcommunismDeepening Dissatisfaction Ivan Krastev (bio) It was "the best of years." Reflecting on the historical significance of Central Europe's revolutions, Robert Cooper wrote that "the year 1989 divides the past from the future almost as clearly as the Berlin Wall divided the East from the West."1 The revolutions of '89 turned the will of the people as expressed in free and fair elections into the only source of legitimate government that modern societies were ready to accept. Centuries-old arguments critical of the desirability or feasibility of democratic regimes virtually disappeared. Democracy may not have run out of enemies, but it ran out of critics. The revolutionary crowds on the streets of Prague and East Berlin—peaceful, triumphant, and insisting on their right to live in a "normal society"—provided the ultimate validation for the superiority of liberal democracy as a form of government. The contradictions that had been afflicting Europe's democratic experience over the last two centuries seemed finally to have reached a resolution. Inspired by the spread of democratic regimes following the demise of communism, political theorists became more interested in the process of democratization than in the transformations taking place within existing democracies. In the years immediately following 1989, little attention was paid to the impact of that year's epochal events on the way that democracy was beginning to be perceived by its own citizens. No longer was democracy only the least undesirable form of government—the best of a bad bunch, if you will. Instead, it was coming to seem like the best form of government, period. People were starting to look to democratic regimes not merely to save them from something worse, but to deliver freedom, prosperity, and honest and effective governance all in one big package. Today, twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, there is a growing [End Page 113] ambiguity about the historical significance of 1989 and about the state of democracy in Europe (particularly Central Europe). Trust in democratic institutions (including elections) is steadily declining. The political class is viewed as corrupt and self-interested. Disenchantment with democracy appears to be growing. According to one 2008 survey, only 21 percent of Lithuanians, 24 percent of Bulgarians, 24 percent of Romanians, 30 percent of Hungarians, and 38 percent of Poles believe that they have benefited from the fall of the Berlin Wall.2 The revisionists' hour has arrived. In his new book Uncivil Society, the U.S. historian and political scientist Stephen Kotkin powerfully argues that, the Polish case aside, the communist collapse across Central and Eastern Europe is best understood as the implosion of an ineffective and demoralized communist establishment (the "uncivil society" of his title) than by a revolt of civil society.3 The people on the streets of Prague and Sofia were not so much revolutionary citizens as dissatisfied consumers. The idea of civil society has long been a magical construct, one that has somehow succeeded in simultaneously satisfying modernization theorists' belief in the historical mission of the middle class, the New Left's fascination with spontaneous activism, neoliberals' affection for antistatism, and Western donors' fondness for English-speaking NGOs. But today that construct is losing its appeal. 1989 and All That The new wave of revisionism does not limit itself to reappraisals of what really happened in 1989 and who did it. Instead, the revisionists seek in the first place to alter our understanding of who were the overall winners (and who were the net losers) from the change. There are many today who believe that it was not the people but the elites who broke free and collected the jackpot of 1989. The end of communism, this account goes, set in motion a process that has liberated ex-communist elites from fear (of purges), from guilt (for being rich), from ideology, from the chains of community, from national loyalties, and even from the necessity to govern. Was George Orwell right, one wants to ask, when he wrote that "all revolutions are failures, but they are not all the same failure"?4 My argument here, however, is not that the revolutions of 1989 were a failure. What I...

Cycles of legitimacy and delegitimation across regimes in Argentina, 1900–2008

If we define a crisis of political legitimacy in a nation as one that occurs when sizeable portions of the politically relevant population challenge or deny the normative validity of claims to authority made by its existing leadership, then Argentina has experienced at least seven such legitimacy crises in the past hundred years. The causes of these crises include the actions of political leaders, political institutions that have proven inadequate to the demands made upon them, frustrated economic growth and an inability of groups to compromise on mutually acceptable solutions. Survey data since 1984 show that Argentinians have consistently had much less confidence in the basic institutions of their society than have citizens in the rest of Latin America and in the world as a whole. Moreover, confidence in most institutions dropped precipitously between 1984 and 2006. Although Argentinians show low interest in politics and trust family members far more than outsiders, most of them still find that democracy is the best form of government for their country. In the future, some of the best ways to enhance political legitimacy in Argentina include increasing the efficiency of political institutions, limiting corruption and – perhaps most important of all – assuring that economic prosperity is maintained and that hard work is rewarded.

Support for Democracy and Autocracy in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, 1992—2002

This article analyzes the “realist” support for the current regime as well as the support for democracy as a set of “idealist” principles in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. It also analyzes political support for nondemocratic regimes as alternatives to democratic governance. The main conclusion of this article is that mass public support for democracy as the best form of government encompasses an absolute majority of citizens in Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, and Belarus as well as a relative majority of Russian citizens. Political support for the current regimes declined between 1992 and 2002 and collapsed in Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, and Armenia. This collapse of public support for the current political regime contributed to the “revolutions” in Georgia and Ukraine. The proportion of supporters for authoritarian regimes in Russia and the other post-Soviet countries decreased from about one-third to onefifth of their respective electorates. This cross-national study provides empirical evidence of increasing support for democracy as an ideal form of government and a corresponding decrease in support for autocracy in eight political regimes in the Commonwealth of Independent States area in the period from 1992 until 2002.

Beyond Practical Virtue: A Defense of Liberal Democracy Through Literature (review)

REVIEWS Johnson, Joel A. Beyond Practical Virtue: A Defense ofLiberal Democracy Through Literature. Columbus and London: Univ. of Missouri Press, 2007. 163 pp. Paper: $37.50. Political scientist Joel Johnson uses plots and characters from classic works of American fiction to defend liberal democracy as a political system , specifically the version ofliberal democracy to which the United States at least ostensibly subscribes. Johnson introduces his book with the claim that a vigorous defense of liberal democracy is especially important today because democracy's spread around the world has run into powerful obstacles . Radical Islam, in particular, rejects many of its tenets. Johnson worries that, due to the global "setbacks democracy has experienced of late, Americans and other friends of democracy have tended to lose faith" (ix). He imagines democrats "secretly" asking themselves, "Can democracy really be the best form of government ... if so many of those who reject democracy are willing to die in order to destroy it?" (ix). Readers should probably resist any provocation they may feel to question whether it is indeed a desire "to destroy" democracy, as Johnson here suggests (following President Bush's similar assertion after the September 1 1 attacks), or, instead, resentment against perceived a/2f/-democratic U. S. policies and actions abroad, that has in fact played a more significant role in motivating recent jihadist attacks on U.S. interests. Fortunately, it becomes clear after the first few pages ofJohnson's preface that Johnson does not in fact seek to enlist Cooper's The Pioneers and Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court as combatants in some supposed "clash of civilizations " between Western democracy and the Muslim world. Instead, Johnson aims to use works of American literature to refute a specific set of criticisms and anxieties about democracy articulated from within the Western humanistic tradition itself. Referring primarily to nineteenth- and early twentieth-century writers such as Carlyle, Nietzsche, Arnold, Pound, and T.S. Eliot, Johnson delineates what he calls the "aesthetic critique of democratic liberty" (33). "Aesthetic" critics ofliberal democracy worry that its emphasis on equality and on distributing power to the people destroys social hierarchies and relations ofauthority that are necessary for cultivating the highest forms of civilization. Democratic culture gravitates toward the lowest common denominator . Liberal capitalism in particular, especially as these critics saw it developing in the United States, produces a society of money-grubbers, in which a hollow materialism displaces other "higher" values. Superior individuals , including those with the potential to produce great art and important philosophy, are not supported with the resources or the environment that would allow them to develop to their fullest capacity. Johnson admits 240Reviews that some might be inclined to dismiss these charges as no more than the elitist grumblings of "cranks or snobs" (35). Part of his own motive in confronting the "aesthetic critique," however, is that doing so presents an opportunity to argue the contrary: that liberal democracy is the best political framework for allowing, even encouraging, all individuals in a society to develop to their own fullest potential as human beings. Johnson's defense of liberal democracy on the grounds that it helps individuals develop to their fullest, he explains, differs from the more common arguments that political theorists offer in favor ofit, for instance claims that liberal democracy tends to produce societies that are more just and/or more economically prosperous (3-5). Johnson derives his illustrations of the positive effects that liberal democracy has on individual development from novels by lames Fenimore Cooper, Mark Twain, and William Dean Howells. Natty Bumppo, for instance , demonstrates the importance of individual freedom. In the woods, "Natty is subject neither to a hierarchy nor to the whims ofhis neighbors." As a result, "he is able to live according to his 'gifts,' and can become the sort of person he is best suited to be—in his case a hunter and scout" (69). Huck Finn's journey down the river, during which he gains critical distance from the institutions of his society, including slavery, and comes to regard the escaped slave Jim as a friend, again illustrates that the experience of personal liberty allows people to "rise to their...

La science politique de John Stuart Mill

This essay explores aspects of John Stuart Mill’s approach to social and political science in the Considerations on Representative Government (1861) with an emphasis on the significance of character or ‘ethology’ in this science. The starting point is a discussion of psychology and ethology in Book VI of the Logic (1843). This conception is examined in terms of Mill’s framework of inductive and deductive science and the distinction between art and science where the views of Mill and Jeremy Bentham are contrasted. Given Mill’s view of the relationship between art and science, the science of ethology (including political ethology) assumes a more prominent position in Mill’s thought than any political art or any distinctly political science. Contrary to many commentators, it is argued that Mill never abandoned his commitment to ethology, as is clear from the discussion of ‘the ideally best form of government’ in the Considerations. Mill’s conception of ‘active character’ here underpins and directs what might otherwise be seen as a traditional account of forms of government. The cultivation of active character becomes an essential condition for the success of representative government. The essay concludes with remarks on Mill’s emphasis on society for his account of liberty in On Liberty (1859) and suggests that he considered new ways of understanding the traditional processes of government.

Educating Richard: Incest, Marriage, and (Political) Consent in Gower's “Tale of Apollonius”

Gower's treatment of the incest motif in the “Tale of Apollonius” in Book VIII of the Confessio Amantis is embedded into the poet's discussion of kingship, which, like incest, emerges as being subject to legal discourses. Read politically, the portrayal of Apollonius would appear to sustain a host of often discordant voices, many of which articulate the text's desire to represent Richard II: there is the ideal monarch, the flawed ruler, and the maturing hero. A balanced reading favours Apollonius as a narrative device oscillating between the functions of giving advice to a prince and issuing “constructive criticism” to a tyrant. The antidote to bad kingship and incest is administered in the form of good governance and marriage, two concepts that were undergoing radical reform at the time, namely the introduction of consent as their foundation. I will argue, therefore, that the successful integration of political and marital consent as a condition for good rule lies at the heart of Gower's advice to the inexperienced monarch.

Ukraine Is Not Russia: Comparing Youth Political Activism

Ukraine and Russia began to take different transition trajectories during Vladimir Putin's first term and Leonid Kuchma's second term in office, 2000–2004. The former has taken Russia toward an authoritarian system, with a rubber stamp parliament, pliant media, imprisoned or exiled oligarchs, harassed NGOs and marginalized pro-Western, democratic parties. Since the 2000 Kuchmagate crisis and 2004 Orange Revolution, Ukraine has taken a democratic path away from what has become the CIS authoritarian norm. Ukraine held its first free and fair elections in 2006, its media are now free, and the move toward a parliamentary system will bring future dividends for democratization. Russia's Eurasian, autocratic path and Ukraine's European, democratic path are both backed by public opinion. Ukrainians support democracy as the best form of government, while Russians blame democracy for the country's ills during the 1990s and are willing to trade it for autocratic great power status. The youth in both countries reflect these preferences.

The Impact of External Threat on States and Domestic Societies1

I begin with the premise, amply validated, that liberal democracy is the best form of government for the avoidance of ethnic conflict. And by ethnic conflict, I mean violence to persons or property committed by members of one ethnic group against those of another, or by the state (often controlled by an ethnic majority) against members of any ethnic minority. Events occurring in the international arena that negatively influence democratic governance also can increase the probability of ethnic conflict. State security, which frequently is highly dependent on the state's immediate environment, is critically important in the maintenance of liberal democracy. The concept of state security has been at the core of international relations (IR) theorizing, at least in the post-World War II period, if not earlier. The security dilemma as developed by Robert Jervis (1978) and Jack Snyder (1985), of course, has been at the heart of IR theory, as has the related concept of threat in Stephen Walt's (1987) transformation of the balance of power into the balance of threat. But in most IR applications, state security was deemed a function of interstate relations, without necessarily having an impact on either the state itself or on domestic societies. Quantitative analyses of arms races were exemplars of this interstate emphasis. Several years ago I found that state security had an impact on the inner workings of the state itself, particularly on the extent of its democratic governance. Diminished state security is associated with less democracy cross-nationally, and with the overthrow of democracy in favor of autocratic government (Midlarsky 1995, 1998, 2002). These findings are related to the “reversal of the causal arrow” in democratic peace theory suggested by me, and others such as William Thompson (1996) and Patrick James and his colleagues (1999). Of course, the …

A deeper freedom: liberal democracy as an everyday morality

Today those who believe in liberal democracy must reexamine and reaffirm their commitments. Here, Charles Anderson probes our urgent concerns and questions. Even those who believe that liberal democracy is the best form of government may think that liberal individualism leads to selfishness, permissiveness, and irresponsibility. Many would teach a cultural or religious counterethic to offset the excesses of freedom. Grounding his view in classic philosophic and religious ideals, Anderson argues that a deeper vision of individuality and freedom can lead to both a sound public philosophy and a worthy personal ethic. In the same way that we as humans try to understand our place in nature and the cosmos, Anderson seeks to understand how we, as unique individuals, can understand our place among our fellow humans. Beginning with friendship and love, he extends his inquiry to the relationships of teaching, community, work, and democracy. Anderson shows how the natural desire of free people to find meaning in relationships with one another can lead to depth and fullness both in private and public life.