Notion Of Democracy Research Articles

Something in the Air: Civic science and contentious environmental politics in post-apartheid South Africa

The emergence of an environmental movement in post-apartheid South Africa has involved the reframing of the environment as a ‘brown’ issue, articulating the discourse of social and environmental justice and a rights-based notion of democracy. Environmental movements have pursued a dual strategy of deliberation and activist opposition. Environmental movements have deployed science to pursue the strategic task of democratic opposition and have established networks of environmental knowledge and expertise. Ecological modernization is the dominant approach to environmental governance and adopts a science-based policy approach. In this context the regulation and management of the environment is premised on the need for science, which provides the authoritative basis for a regulatory response. In local environmental movements, there exists a fundamental tension between a cumulative history of lay knowledge about pollution and the lack of official acknowledgement of qualitative narratives. This is accompanied by a lack and suspicion of reliable official data. Environmental movements have thus employed ‘civic science’ strategically to place the issue of air pollution on the political agenda. This paper uses the case of environmental politics in Durban to reflect on the ways in which civic science and lay knowledge, together constituting community hybrid knowledge, are produced and disseminated in order to pressure the state and capital. The three ways in which knowledge is deployed are: to frame environmental problems, in strategies of oppositional advocacy, and in deliberative policy forums. Empirical analysis shows that civic science is produced through knowledge networks, and both lay knowledge and civic science are opportunistically used by environmental movements to engage both inside and outside formal policy making arenas. This deployment of hybrid knowledge by environmental movements represents a broader challenge to the power of science and technology based on increasing evidence of the hazards and risks facing ordinary people in their daily lives.

Multi‐level rural community engagement in health

Community participation in health is consistent with notions of democracy. A systems perspective of engagement can see consumers engaged to legitimise government agendas. Often community participation is via consultation instead of partnership or delegation. A community development approach to engagement can empower communities to take responsibility for their own health care. Understanding rural place facilitates alignment between health programs and community, assists in incorporating community resources into health care and provides information about health needs. Rural communities, health services and other community organisations need skills in working together to develop effective partnerships that transfer some power from health systems. Rural engagement with national/state agendas is a challenge. Community engagement takes time and resources, but can be expected to lead to better health outcomes for rural residents.

Republican Dignity: The Importance of Taking Offence

This paper analyses the republican notion of non-domination from the viewpoint of individual dignity. It determines the aspect of individual dignity that republicans are concerned with and scrutinises how it is safeguarded by non-domination. I argue that the notion of non-domination as it is formulated by Pettit contains a number of ambiguities that need to be addressed. I discuss these ambiguities and argue for specific solutions that place great importance on a person’s moral beliefs and his status as a moral being amongst others. Furthermore, I argue that the impunity interpretation is to be favoured over the immunity interpretation of non-domination. I show that whilst these solutions accord well with many important republican tenets, they have other implications that contradict known republican positions. In particular, I show there is both room and a need for retributivism within republicanism.

Towards a transformed library and information sector in South Africa: rethinking roles

The paper examines the current state of libraries in South Africa. It draws on the state's role in the provision of library services since South Africa became a democracy in 1994. There seems to be a worrisome aspect that the place of public libraries within local and provincial governments is in a state of uncertainty. Hence the urgency with which the National Council for Library and Information Services (NCLIS) is approaching the problem by having appointed a technical team to develop broad legislative and policy guidelines for the transformation of the library and information services (LIS) sector. The focus of the paper is rather on an argument for a rethink of the role of libraries and librarians within the local and provincial context. It is the author's contention that the services of a library should contribute towards the quality of life, that is, the library should play a role in education, the promotion of moral values, the eradication of illiteracy, the alleviation of poverty and assisting in the quest for knowledge and the promotion of democracy in society. The whole notion of democracy needs to be deconstructed. Certain objectives need to be set in order to attain this aim of the library, namely, the library should foster and provide certain facilities for the development of individuals and groups at all levels of education, for example, a study area and an activity room or auditorium; the library should be accessible to the user to fulfil his / her information needs, in the quickest possible time; the library should be a main centre for the promotion and appreciation of all arts so that cultural life can be enriched; the library should play a positive part in the encouragement of active usage of leisure and recreation time. This calls for a well informed and empowered library professional. Although the concept of library professional is used somewhat loosely here, library workers in general should not be excluded when library services are rendered.

The “Shia crescent” and Arab State Legitimacy

The “Shia crescent” and Arab State Legitimacy Kevin Mazur For all of the discussion of radical political movements and looming crises threatening to upset their region, most leaders of the Arab world have enjoyed remarkably long tenures. Hosni Mubarak’s 28 years in power in Egypt are dwarfed by Muammar Qadhafi’s forty in Libya and the Saud dynasty has ruled the better part of the Arabian peninsula for 82 years. Indeed, it appears that these regimes have either become extremely effective at parrying challenges to their authority or the threats to their rule are not as menacing as they are often portrayed. While the existence of vast, overlapping security apparatuses in each of these countries points to the veracity of the first explanation for regime longevity, there is also an element of truth to the idea that some threats to these regimes are manufactured. The ‘Shia crescent’ bogeyman—introduced in 2004 by King Abdullah of Jordan, one of the Sunni leaders ostensibly most threatened by it—is one such embellishment of dangers to Sunni Arab regimes. This accusation, echoed in muted terms by Saudi officials, was explicitly reiterated by Hosni Mubarak in 2006 when he claimed that Shia are loyal to Iran wherever they live. The notion of a ‘Shia crescent’ fails as an explanation of the role and intentions of Shia leaders in Arab politics. Reidar Visser demonstrates in the preceding article that the Iraqi Shia clergy is, in fact, a willing participant in the existing state system because the status quo fulfills the clergy’s goals better than direct intervention in political affairs or collusion with Iran. However, that the threat of a Shia uprising does not correspond with political reality does not deprive the allegation of its utility as a political tool. The aforementioned Sunni leaders warn of Shia intentions to strengthen their hold on political power vis-à-vis both their citizens and the international community. An enemy whose members share a deeply rooted, hostile ideology and span state borders is a compelling reason to prefer the existing power structure to the regime change desired by some average citizens and more outspoken advocates of the Bush ‘Freedom Agenda’. Ironically, Sunni leaders offer the ‘Shia crescent’ accusation for the same reason that the Iraqi Shia clergy does not attempt to directly insert itself into politics—the stability of the region’s existing state system is in the interest of both parties. However, this convergence of tactical preference does not equate to a goal shared by Sunni political leaders and Shia clerics. Whereas Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issues carefully worded statements [End Page 21] supporting the existing system to maintain his influence as a supranational, pan-Shia leader, the political leaders of the Sunni Arab world make oblique references to a Shia threat to give relevance and legitimacy to their rule. Sunni Arab leaders’ need to shore up their respective images is acute: garnering popular legitimacy—especially in an age where notions of democracy and capitalist economic development raise the expectations of citizens of the developing world—is no easy task for bloated, autocratic regimes. This work is especially difficult when one’s notion of economic liberalization primarily entails awarding monopolies to relatives and clients, as is often the case in the Arab world. Arab nationalism as professed by heads of state—beginning with Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasser and continuing in some form until the present—has been a remarkably effective tool for deferring the Arab masses’ expectations of greater material well being and democratic reform. In spite of the 1960 breakup of the United Arab Republic, the crushing Israeli defeat of a combined Arab force in 1967, and Saddam Hussein’s assault on a fellow Sunni Arab state in 1991, championing Arab nationalism was one of the primary methods of publicly justifying the rule of several of the Arab autocracies. In fact, the second article of the Egyptian constitution still lists unification of all Arab polities as an explicit goal of the Egyptian state. But a key ingredient in the Arab nationalist veneer is the claim of participation in the resistance against foreign influences, in general, and the Zionist one, in particular. When the leaders of...

What Kind of Citizenship for European Higher Education? Beyond the Competent Active Citizen

How might European higher education contribute to the promotion and development of European citizenship? In this article, the author addresses this question through a critical discussion of the notions of ‘active citizenship’ and ‘civic competence’, which play a central role in current policy and research on the role of education in the development of European citizenship. The author argues that there is a tendency within the idea of ‘active citizenship’ to depoliticise the very idea of citizenship because it is based upon a consensus notion of democracy and a functionalist understanding of citizenship and the formation of citizens. The author also argues that the idea of civic competence reduces civic learning and political education to a form of socialisation which undermines rather than supports political agency. For these reasons, the author argues that European higher education should not aim to become a socialising agent for the production of the competent active citizen but should seek to support modes of political action and civic learning that embody a commitment to a more critical and more political form of European citizenship than what is envisaged in the ideas of ‘active citizenship’ and ‘civic competence’.

The Quest for Hizbut Tahrir in Indonesia

AbstractThis article describes the nature of Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) in the post-Suharto era and its views on the resurrection of the global Islamic caliphate, its opposition to the notions of democracy and nation-state. In the aftermath of Suharto's fall in 1998, HTI has seized the opportunity to promise the establishment of a fair society under a global Islamic caliphate. The rapid rise of HTI has, more so than most other Islamist groups, been accentuated by the growing public dissatisfaction with the post-Suharto or reformasi period. There is an increasing perception in larger society that political, economic, and law reforms introduced in the reformasi era has had no significant impact to improve people's daily lives. This deteriorating condition under post-Suharto regimes has successfully justified the HTI's claims that Indonesia needs a radical and comprehensive system, or what HTI coined as al-khalifah al-Islamiyyah (Islamic caliphate). Looking at HTI's grand narrative of the global Islamic caliphate and its refutation of the ideas of democracy and nation-state, it is clear that HTI has taken a number of negative steps in the direction of democratic consolidation in Indonesia.

Castoriadis' Concept of Institution and Democracy

In this article I discuss the relation between institution and democracy in Castoriadis’ philosophy. The paper proposes an outline of the development of Castoriadis’ political philosophy with focus on institutionalization, imagination and self-limitation of democratic institutions as central elements in Castoridis’ thought. We begin with a short introduction to the concept of institution and institutionalization. Then we discuss the elements of Castoridis’ critique of bureaucracy as a way to distinguish between totalitarian society and democracy. This is the basis for understanding the relation between the imaginary, freedom and autonomy as basic elements of democracy. Finally the paper discusses Castoridis’ new notion of democracy as a kind of self-limitation and creation of collective meaning as the basis for social legitimacy. (find out more)

Schmitt e o problema da democracia: nostalgia da transcendência ou a representação como questão para a democracia

O artigo analisa a questão da democracia em Carl Schmitt. Para tanto, retoma seu conceito de forma política que inclui identidade e representação. Após apresentar uma distinção fundamental para a noção de democracia, deriva algumas conseqüências do contraste com as idéias de Schmitt. A representação e a identidade como formas políticas constituiriam, então, uma impossibilidade para a democracia.

“We All Know A Democracy When We See One”: (Neo)liberal orthodoxy in the ‘democratisation’ and ‘good governance’ project

‘Democratisation’ and ‘good governance’ have come to constitute a fundamental aspect of Western interventions in Latin America, Asia, Africa and the former Eastern bloc, particularly in the post-Cold War period. Despite a vast literature on ‘democratisation,’ there has been a paucity of analysis which interrogates the great-power-defined agendas of democratisation. The naturalism of a particular vision or model of democracy is such that its promotion is rarely questioned or critically interrogated. Yet democracy is an essentially contested concept and universalistic claims around the Western (neo)liberal notion of democracy are being increasingly challenged. The article interrogates therefore the notion(s) of democracy articulated by the dominant social agents associated with the democratisation project, through specific reference to Africa. It contends that an orthodox notion can be identified. The orthodoxy constitutes a (neo)liberal, procedural notion of democracy, a claim substantiated through interrogation of the orthodoxy and the detailing of the extent to which the orthodox notion is informed by (neo)liberal theory and practice. The article concludes that ‘democratisation’ and ‘governance’ interventions are to be understood as a current manifestation of the liberal project.

What kind of citizen? Political choices and educational goals

The notion of democracy occupies a privileged place in our society. Educators and policymakers are increasingly pursuing a broad variety of programs that aim to promote democracy through civic education, service learning, and other pedagogies. The nature of their underlying beliefs, however, differs. “What Kind of Citizen?” calls attention to the spectrum of ideas represented in education programs about what good citizenship is and what good citizens do. Our argument derives from an analysis of both democratic theory and a two year study of educational programs in the U.S. that aim to promote democracy. The study employed a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative data from observations and interviews with analysis of program documents and quantitative analysis of pre/post survey data. We detail three conceptions of the “good” citizen: personally responsible, participatory, and justice oriented that emerged from literature analysis and from our study. We argue that these three conceptions embody significantly different beliefs regarding the capacities and commitments citizens need in order for democracy to flourish; and they carry significantly different implications for pedagogy, curriculum, evaluation, and educational policy. We underscore the political implications of education for democracy and suggest that the narrow and often ideologically conservative conception of citizenship embedded in many current efforts at teaching for democracy reflects not arbitrary choices but rather political choices with political consequences.

Demokracja a państwo prawa

The paper aims to demonstrate the meaning of the notions of democracy and a state of law in relation to the Constitution as the fundamental law. All these issues are related to the contemporary social and political situation of Poland and the European Union. It is observed that in the state of law, civic fredoms and rights are helpful in separating the public from the private. Democracy is the rule of the people who need to be headed by a direct ruler. The notions of the ‘state of law’ and ‘democracy’become mutually related to the Constution, referred to as the fundamental law. The paper shows the contemporary status of democracy, compared to the state of law, and it provokes the question whether we should lay our own foundations of democracy which wouldspond to our social and political reality.

Connolly's Democratic Pluralism and the Question of State Sovereignty

This article will explore William Connolly's notion of democratic pluralism—his attempt to develop a notion of agonistic democracy that is compatible with pluralism and difference, and that does not found itself on totalising ideas and essentialist identities. As part of the pluralisation of democracy, Connolly hints at the possibility of a democratic politics no longer confined to the nation state. However, this point is not sufficiently developed and contains a number of ambiguities. Here I will explore what I see as a central tension between the principle of democracy (collective autonomy) and the principle of state sovereignty. I will draw on the radical tradition of classical anarchism, as well as Jacques Derrida's notion of the democracy to come, to try to think democratic ethics and politics outside the framework of the nation state.

Three Conceptions of Democratic Control

The idea of control or power is central to the notion of democracy, since the ideal is one of giving kratos to the demos: giving maximal or at least significant control over government to the people. But it turns out that the notion of kratos or control is definable in various ways and that as the notion is differently understood, so the ideal of democracy is differently interpreted. In this little reflection, I distinguish between three different notions of popular control, arguing that only one is really suitable in democratic theory. Under the first conception of popular control, it means that the people have a causal influence on government; under the second, it implies that the people exercise intentional direction over government; and under the third, it requires that the people enjoy an intermediate degree of power: I describe this as institutional control over government. I argue that popular control as causal influence is not demanding enough for the ideal of democracy, that popular control as intentional direction is too demanding, and that the only plausible candidate for interpreting the ideal is that of institutional control. I discuss two ways in which this sort of popular control may be realized, arguing against what I call a ‘market’ model and presenting the rival, ‘condominium’ model in a rather more favorable light.

Sounds like a whisper: Australian Community Broadcasting hosts a quiet revolution

Recent research into the Australian community broadcasting sector has revealed a developing role for community radio, in particular, in reviving notions of democracy by enhancing public sphere engagement by audiences. This paper is drawn from the first national qualitative audience study of the sector undertaken by the authors and provides strong evidence to suggest listeners are challenging globalised views of the world. They see community radio as ‘theirs’ and the only media able to accurately reflect Australia’s cultural diversity. This is enabling a revival of public sphere activity in the face of restrictions on democracy following an upsurge in global terrorism. We argue that the community broadcasting sector in Australia is providing citizens with services largely ignored by commercial media and to some extent, the publicly-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation

The contradictions of high‐stakes accountability ‘success’: a case study of focused leadership and performance agency

This article seeks to advance the discussion of the availability of contemporary notions of school leadership for school leaders working within high‐stakes accountability reform environment that produce discourses of urgency and legitimize practices of performance that implicitly favour centralized, neo‐Tayloristic managerial approaches. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork in a school community largely populated by Latino and immigrant youth, I portray a school replete with discourses of urgency and practices of performance which emphasize control and tight coupling. I suggest that an anti‐pluralistic, assimilationist and subtractive stance towards the schools’ bilingual education programme implicitly gained credence and undercut the school community’s commitment to a culture and language as an asset orientation. In this context the school leadership and community felt constrained in their earnest commitment to democratic and pluralistic notions of school leadership. As such, this article provides a case on which to map and theorize how tightly coupled administration and control orientations of leadership flourish in a performance‐oriented context.

Solving the Dewey Problem: Where Do We Go From Here?

Solving the Dewey Problem:Where Do We Go From Here? Henry Louis Taylor Jr. (bio) and Linda McGlynn (bio) Introduction: the Penn Thesis In Dewey's Dream, through their reflective synthesis of the work of John Dewey and other progressive educators, as well as insight gained from their own experiences, Lee Benson, Ira Harkavy, and John Puckett have outlined a philosophical framework with the potential to unite the progressive movement that is seeking to transform the United States into a socially just, participatory democracy.1 In this manifesto, the Penn Group (Harkavy, Benson, and Puckett) interpret Dewey's dream as the desire to transform the world into a Great Community composed of countries that are truly just, collaborative democracies. Logically and practically, the start point in this global quest is the conversion of the United States into a people-centered, cosmopolitan republic based on the principles of participatory democracy and social justice. The essence of the 'Dewey Problem', then, is how to transform the United States into an authentic participatory democracy. The secret to this task, according to the Penn Group, is the radical transformation of three interactive socio-spatial sites—the university, the public school, and neighborhood.2 Understanding the hierarchical, interactive nature of this trilogy is central to grasping the significance of converting the American university into a civically engaged academy. Following Dewey, the Penn Group also believes that public schools are the best vehicles for problem-solving, imbuing neighborhoods with participatory democracy, and transforming them into socially functional places based on the principles of reciprocity and social justice. To realize this goal in practice, however, the modern university must be transformed into an agent for positive social change. It must abandon its aloof, detached approach to knowledge accumulation and teaching and become engaged in the affairs of its local community by working in tangent with them to solve urgent social and economic problems. This viewpoint is based on the vision of University of Chicago President William Rainey Harper. Harper believed that the central mission of the American university was to help build a truly democratic society by taking responsibility for the performance of the entire school system within its community. He argued that "through the school system every family in the entire broad land of ours is brought into touch with the university; for from it proceeds the teachers." On the other hand, if the entire school system is not accelerating the democratic process, then the university must be performing poorly, Harper reasoned.3 To put the Harper thesis another way, if the communities surrounding higher eds are replete with underperforming schools, unemployment, violence, dilapidated housing, disease, and hopelessness, then the university is not performing its mission. As former University at Buffalo President, William R. Greiner, said, "It is my firm conviction that the great universities of the 21st century will be judged by their ability to help solve our most urgent social problems."4 Therefore, presuming the correctness of the Harper thesis, to implement successfully the Dewey strategy of using public schools to create socially functional cosmopolitan neighborhoods, the American university must be transformed. The rise of an authentic, civically engaged university, and its direct involvement with the communities that surround it, would trigger a 'progressive' domino effect, which would turn schools and communities into just, democratic, multi-ethnic and cooperative places capable of triggering the social transformation of the United States as a whole. The engaged university is the most strategically placed institution to lead this movement. Realizing Dewey's dream in practice, then, "requires a comprehensive institutional response that engages the broad range of resources of the urban university to solve the strategic problem of our time—the problem of creating democratic, local, cosmopolitan communities," says the Penn Group.5 The purpose of this essay is to contribute to the development of the Penn Thesis by identifying the major challenges that must be overcome to advance Dewey's goal of transforming the United States into a socially just, participatory, democratic society. Transition to the Civically Engaged University: the Problem of Democracy, the Third Revolution, and the Bloom Problem Surprisingly, although notions of democracy stand at the core of the Dewey Problem, there is little...

Why we should not believe every lesson Andrew Moravcsik teaches us: A response

This article is a response to Andrew Moravcsik’s “What Can We Learn from the Collapse of the European Constitutional Project?”, published in No. 2, Vol. 47 (2006) of the PVS. In our reply we focus on three main points. First, we argue that Moravcsik’s apologia of the status quo does not convince in light of the challenges that a European Union currently with 27 member states and increasing heterogeneity is facing. Second, we discuss his causal chain model linking participation, deliberation and political legitimacy. We argue that Moravcsik confuses causality with conditionality. By doing so, he exaggerates claims of normative political science about the causal relationship between participation, deliberation and legitimacy, and makes it an unjustifiably easy target for critique. Third, we critically examine Moravcsik’s notion of democracy in order to show that his view of democracy as guaranteeing “certain social goods” brings about the risk of producing a theory of democracy without democracy.

Islamic Democracy and Human Rights

This article deals with the basic doctrines of government and politics that were developed during the history of classical and medieval Islam. It aims to elaborate and develop those basic principles that are not contradictory to, and include the seeds of, modern liberal democracy and pluralism, though they have followed different historical paths. These principles include two sets of notions: first, political contract and consensus, and second, tolerance of differences, plu ralism and opposition. Here I aim to both highlight, when possible, and con struct, when necessary, the important ideological and religious arguments on democracy and pluralism that have been under development in modern Islamic political discourses.1 Such arguments can be used in the progressive interpreta tions of Islam vis-vis reactionary and conservative interpretation. For from an historical perspective, progressive interpretations of Islam can be supported by finding the means and ways for the democratization and liberalization of Islamic thought. The article selectively uses the historically developed religious and political formations, especially, those of the period of the governments of the Prophet and the rightly guided Caliphate. This period is seen as formative and constitu tive in the making of Islamic thought because of its distinctive religious and po litical impact on the minds of almost all Muslims. Most Muslim thinkers, phi losophers, jurists, ideologists, and historians employ it to justify one ideology and understanding or another. Because of the importance of that period in validating any Islamic notion or system or, more importantly, in the making of a notion or system Islamic, this study also uses examples from different historical periods. Thus, these periods represent moments of historical practices and interpretations that moved closer or away from the original ideals developed from the first model of the prophet and the rightly guided Caliphate. It is the argument of this article that the notions of democracy and pluralism are not only in harmony with Islamic thought, but that the seeds of these no tions are embodied in many notions of government and politics of Islamic po

Social justice in music education: the problematic of democracy

While social justice concerns of feminist research in music education have been mostly ignored or rejected by the profession, democracy based on paternalist Enlightenment concepts of humanism and liberalism is generally understood and accepted with little or no consideration of its social and economic implications. More nuanced accounts refer to John Dewey's notions of democracy as a way of life, community, or democracy as an ideal, but assumptions underpinning these notions such as community and consensus as unproblematic virtues in addition to considerations of democracy's limitations typically go unexamined, notwithstanding caveats of its failures particularly in terms of women and so-called ‘minorities.’ Focusing on specifically liberal forms of democracy and democratic practices in music education—particularly as they are constructed as models for presumably equitable and just classroom interaction and curricular content—I use feminist, postmodern epistemological and ontological perspectives to problematize assumptions, ideals and processes on which liberal democracy is based and look beyond and beneath the dualisms and representations on which it depends. My argument that unexamined traditional liberal practices and discourses inevitably serve to re-inscribe colonial narratives of salvation is deployed to open spaces for thinking democracy's potential in music education discourses and practices.