People Rule Research Articles

Democracy as Religion in the Context of the Global Governance System

Introduction. The article examines the modern understanding of democracy as a religious belief system. New technologies and globalization open up opportunities to influence all spheres of society, which makes it possible to impose ethical standards and moral ideals through political technologies and propaganda. Understanding democracy as a new kind of religion allows us to get a full-fledged view of all key elements of the current culture of the modern world, which determines the main semantic content of global revolutionary transformations. Its consideration in the spiritual dimension is an additional vector for the study of social and political processes of globalization. Taking into account the increasing of tensions in the global political arena and the deepening interdependence of all international actors, such an approach can play an important role in their analysis and forecasting. The object of study is democracy; the subject of the study is the specifics of the modern vision of democracy, democratic values and ideals as a special form of religious cult. The purpose of the study is to identify the role of democracy, its new moral values and guidelines in the context of global revolutionary transformations.Materials and methods. The methodological basis of the study was following general scientific and special methods: method of system analysis; historical-genetic method; phenomenological method; analytical method; historical method; contextual analysis and formal logical research methods.Research results. The authors analyzed the specifics of the dominant interpretation of democratic values and goals in the context of Western political culture. The main elements of the new system of beliefs, their relationship, evolution and place in the modern world are revealed. The results obtained allow us to conclude that democracy is being transformed into a special form of cult, which has the characteristic features of religious teaching.Discussion and conclusion. The ideology of people's rule has lost its original meaning, turning into a special cult that serves as an instrument of social management, without taking into account traditional cultures, the diversity of societies and states, and the national identities of peoples. Democracy as a religion without God has become an instrument of the world information agenda, exploiting faith to build a new world order.

Lessons of liberation struggles and legal ideas of Ukrainians in the 19th century for today

Purpose. The purpose of the study is to characterize the main ideological currents and legal doctrines of the 19th century, as well as to identify positive practices for improving the legal awareness and legal culture of Ukrainians in today's conditions. In view of the fact that in the 19th century the ideas of sobornost - the unity of ethnic Ukrainian lands were formed, the ideas of republicanism and people's rule were developed, some of these ideas should be included in the basis of the legal ideology of today. Methods. The methodological basis of the research was the principles of historicism, objectivity, complexity, a problem-chronological approach, as well as a complex of general scientific, special scientific and philosophical methods. Results. It has been established that for Ukrainians, a combination of various worldviews and state legal ideas is traditional, in particular liberalism, conservatism, social democracy, and nationalism itself (it took shape as a separate movement only in the 1920s and 1930s). The historically formed pluralism of views regarding the solution of social, economic and political issues has always been characterized by the dominance of a single idea - the unity of ethnic Ukrainian lands and the establishment of a sovereign state on their territory. Therefore, the idea of ethnic unity, a single state Ukrainian language, preservation of historical memory should not be a condition, but an obligation in the conditions of existence of the modern state of Ukraine. Freedom of speech, people's rule, as well as Christian ethics and morality are the main and traditional values characteristic of the Ukrainian state-legal opinion. The protection of these values takes place in today's conditions. Originality. Historically determined conceptual approaches to the understanding of the state, which were formed in the 19th century, have been identified. and can be included in the modern legal ideology of Ukraine. Practical significance. The results of the research can be used in further historical and legal studies, preparation of special courses.

Implementation of the principle of people's power as a way of participation in the administration of justice

The publication examines the doctrinal principles on the forms of direct democracy and the existing problems regarding the exercise of power by the people. Based on the historical perspective of the analysis of European legislation in this area, ways of improving the Basic Law of Ukraine are proposed.
 It was established that, despite the insignificant and contradictory support of the thinkers of the ancient world and the Middle Ages regarding the need to recognize the right of the people to cancel the legislative acts of the representative bodies of the state, this idea received significant development precisely in the era of the New Age, when the proclamation of people's rule was accompanied by the establishment of parliamentarism, the authority and trust of which is constantly fell among the common people. It has been proven that the essence of such judgments was that modern democracy is based on the idea of popular sovereignty, that is, on the need to create such a system of state-legal relations that would ensure the primacy of law in all spheres of social relations and enable the people to exercise their right to be the source and basis state power precisely because of various forms of political participation in the state management of the country, one of which is participation in the exercise of judicial power.
 It has been determined that the views of thinkers in support of forms of people's power boil down to the fact that the right to limit state power is recognized as an inalienable, natural human right that belongs to them from birth. Therefore, people's power itself is one of the means related to the system of checks and balances, and therefore helps not only the normal functioning of state authorities by exercising control over the actions of their representatives, but also the direct exercise of power by the people, which thereby helps to ensure the principle of popular sovereignty.
 It has been established that today the practice of applying forms of direct democracy is significantly ahead of theoretical developments in this area. This very issue is voluminous, and at the same time there are a large number of gaps and contradictions in the possibility of constitutional consolidation of new forms of people's rule.

ELECTRONIC PETITIONS AS A MEANS OF IMPLEMENTING THE PRINCIPLES OF PUBLIC GOVERNMENT AND A RESOURCE FOR IMPROVING STATE GOVERNMENT

The issue of the importance of electronic petitions as a means of implementing people's power and a resource for improving state governance is considered. A petition (from the Latin petitio - "appeal") in the general sense is a collective request submitted to state authorities or local self-government bodies in written or electronic form. An electronic petition in the general sense is a special form of expression of a request or proposal submitted by a certain subject and addressed to a state authority or the head of state. The positive qualities of electronic petitions traditionally include simplicity and convenience, saving time and simplifying the bureaucratic procedure in its design and processing. The modern information society contributed to the qualitative improvement of the procedure or mechanism of registration of such a form of appeal, which can be submitted in electronic form. This is a certain appeal with a specific problem, placed on a special electronic platform, where people get the opportunity to support this or that request or demand, without spending a significant amount of time and using only the Internet. Since the 1990s, research mediated by the Internet has gradually become widespread in the social sciences due, in particular, to the expansion of the use of the Internet in various spheres of social relations. Among them, online petitions are increasingly used today. The mentioned problems are analyzed quite vividly on the pages of professional literature. The necessary circle of specialized literature is analyzed. On the basis of historical and historical-comparative methods, the specifics of initiating petitions to state authorities have been clarified. It was noted that the full implementation of this form of appeals presupposes the presence of a certain maturity of social relations and the development of parliamentarism. Peculiarities of submitting petitions in paper and electronic forms are compared. It is emphasized that the introduction of the practice of submitting electronic petitions is based on the achievements of the modern information society and the possibilities of digitalization of any documents. The position regarding the significance of the petition institute in the process of development of modern democratic governance is formulated and substantiated. According to our assessment, in this case, the first thing should be about significant innovations in the rights and freedoms of citizens, as well as in the implementation of the principles of people's rule and in approaches to state governance in general. In addition, a popular electronic petition can receive wide coverage in both traditional media and social networks. It is known that the main advantages or positive qualities of submitting this form of petitions include convenience, since the need to physically collect signatures in support of one's proposal disappears, and the possibility of simplified communication with officials or state authorities. However, in a successful case, more important importance should be attached to the significance of electronic petitions in the field of social and political-legal relations as a whole. First of all, this concerns the implementation of the right of citizens to participate in the management of state affairs, the meaningful filling of the concept of electronic governance, as well as the place of such appeals in the sphere of clarification and development of state policy. It was noted that the full implementation of this form of appeals presupposes the presence of a certain maturity of social relations and the development of parliamentarism. The main advantages or positive qualities of submitting electronic petitions include convenience, since the need to physically collect signatures in support of one's proposal disappears, and the possibility of simplified communication with officials or state authorities

THE ROLE OF ADVISORY BODIES IN THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF SOCIAL AND HUMANITARIAN POLICY MECHANISMS IN UKRAINE

The article examines the role of advisory bodies in the democratization of social and humanitarian policy mechanisms in Ukraine. The article provides classification and differences of types of democracy and ways of democratization. It is noted that the democratization of mechanisms in the social and humanitarian sphere should become the basis for the development of an effective social and humanitarian policy, close to the demands of the population, able to take into account and express the interests of the person, community, and society as fully as possible. The assumption was put forward and proven that the nature of direct democracy is revealed in its functions - directions or types of direct manifestation of the will of the people, which mediate its content and forms by subjects, objects, methods, means of direct people's rule and other features. It was concluded that the current stage of democratic transformations in Ukraine requires strengthening the mechanisms of democratization of social and humanitarian policy through direct participation of citizens in socio-political processes, since the inefficiency of the main institutions of the political system is largely due to the lack of public control over their activities in the inter-election period and the limitation of political participation of citizens only through electoral processes. It is substantiated that the task of democratization of social and humanitarian policy requires the use of a whole set of mechanisms, namely: I. General mechanisms of democratization of state administration (social and humanitarian sphere as a subsystem of state administration); II. Special mechanisms for the democratization of social and humanitarian policy; III. Mechanisms of democratization of social and humanitarian policy at the local level. It is emphasized that the democratization of mechanisms of social and humanitarian policy is impossible without democratization of the entire political system, the main ones of which are: mechanisms of direct democracy; mechanisms of delegated democracy; mechanisms of citizen participation democracy.

“Russian Historical Fate” without Invasion: Novgorod People's Rule or Vladimir Autocracy, or the third Way

“Russian Historical Fate” without Invasion: Novgorod People's Rule or Vladimir Autocracy, or the third Way

Meeting the Mahatma.

Meeting the Mahatma.

Republic in early modern China: The cross-cultural dissemination of a political concept

ABSTRACTThe English term republic and the Chinese term Gonghe (共和, “joint harmony”; i.e., “republic” in modern Chinese) stem from different conceptual origins and carry different connotations. When they first encountered the term republic, the intellectuals of China and Japan could only understand it by drawing on the political knowledge of Chinese antiquity. But soon after, two different concepts corresponding to the term republic emerged in the form of Chinese characters within the Chinese and Japanese linguistic environments—minzhu (民主, “people's rule”) and gonghe, which gradually shed their ancient Chinese significations. After its coining as an early modern political concept in the Japanese language, the term gonghe sporadically filtered into the Chinese linguistic context during the 1880s and 1890s. In 1898–1902, the concept of gonghe rapidly gained popularity in China, primarily due to its introduction by Liang Qichao (梁启超, 1873–1929) and other figures, with a clearly demarcated line separating the term from its ancient Chinese significance. As the concept of gonghe spread in China, it became embroiled in the contemporary tide of political reform, both influencing and being influenced by this trend. In the first decade of the 20th century, two competing interpretations of the term gonghe appeared. The moderates, represented by Liang Qichao, maintained that the evolution of the political system had a natural order; that their contemporary China did not yet have the conditions to adopt a republican system; and that it was necessary to first improve the citizens’ character, and cultivate the habits of self-governance among the people. The radicals, represented by Sun Yat-sen (孙中山, 1866–1925), held that China should overleap a constitutional monarchy, overthrow the Manchu emperor through violent revolution, and directly establish a republican form of government. The views of the radical party won discursive power, but their discussions and deliberations on the implications of a republic were clearly inadequate. Following the outbreak of the 1911 Revolution, a republican form of government was quickly established, but its functional results fell far short of people's expectations, causing the concept of a republic to be distrusted, criticized, and even shelved.

Direct democracy and the courts

Who should have the last word on fundamental policy issues? This book analyzes the rise of two contenders - the people, through direct democracy, and the courts. Now available in nearly half the states, direct democracy has surged in recent decades. Through ballot measures, voters have slashed taxes, mandated government spending, imposed term limits on elected officials, enacted campaign finance reform, barred affirmative action, banned same-sex marriage, and adopted many other controversial laws. In several states, citizens now bypass legislatures to make the most important policy decisions. However, the 'people's rule' is not absolute. This book demonstrates that courts have used an expanding power of judicial review to invalidate citizen-enacted laws at remarkably high rates. The resulting conflict between the people and the courts threatens to produce a popular backlash against judges and raises profound questions about the proper scope of popular sovereignty and judicial power in a constitutional system.

Plunder: when the rule of law is illegal

Preface. Introduction. 1. Plunder and The Rule of Law . An Anatomy of Plunder. Plunder, Hegemony, and Positional Superiority. Law, Plunder, and European Expansionism. Institutionalizing Plunder: The Colonial Relationship and the Imperial Project. A Story of Continuity: Constructing the Empire of Law (lessness). 2. Neo-liberalism: Economic Engine of Plunder. The Argentinean Bonanza. Neo-Liberalism: An Economic Theory of Simplification and a Spectacular Project. Structural Adjustment Programs and the Comprehensive Development Framework. Development Frameworks, Plunder, and the Rule of Law. 3. Before Neo-Liberalism: a Story of Western Plunder . The European Roots of Colonial Plunder. The Fundamental Structure of US Law as a Post-Colonial Reception. A Theory of Lack, Yesterday and Today. Before Neo-Liberalism: Colonial Practices and Harmonious Strategies-Yesterday and Now. 4. Plunder of Ideas and the Providers of Legitimacy . Hegemony and legal Consciousness. Intellectual Property as Plunder of Ideas. Providing Legitimacy: Law and Economics. Providing Legitimacy: Lawyers and Anthropologists. 5. Constructing the Conditions for Plunder . Plunder of Oil: Iraq and Elsewhere. The New World Order of Plunder. Not Only Iraq: Plunder, War, and Legal Ideologies of Intervention. Institutional Lacks as Conditions for Plunder: Real or Created?. Double Standards Policy and Plunder. Poverty: Justification for Intervention and Consequence of Plunder. 6. International Imperial Law . Reactive Institutions of Imperial Plunder. U.S. Rule of Law: Forms of Global Domination. The Globalization of the American Way. An Ideological Institution of Global Governance: International Law. Holocaust Litigation: Back to the Future. The Swallowing of International Law by U.S. law. Economic Power and the U.S. Courts as Imperial Agencies. 7. Hegemony and Plunder. The Demise of the Rule of Law in the United States . Strategies to Subordinate the Rule of Law to Plunder. Plunder in High Places: Enron and its Aftermath. Plunder in Even Higher Places: Electoral Politics and Plunder. Plunder of Liberty: The War on Terror. Plunder Undisrupted: The Discourse of Patriotism. 8. Beyond an Illegal Rule of Law?. Summing Up: Plunder and The Global Transformation of the Law. Imperial Rule of Law or the People's Rule of Law. The Future of Plunder. Notes to Text. Selected Further Reading. Documentary Film Resources. Index

Indigenous Peoples of the Russian North and Cold War Ideology

During the Soviet period, much of Western scholarship on the smaller indigenous groups of the Russian north and far east-that is, Peoples-was shaped by Cold War ideology. In this paper, we analyze ways in which Cold War ideology distorted representations of Soviet policy toward Peoples, and some of the consequences of these distortions.1By Northern we mean the 26 relatively small, indigenous groups of the north and far east of the former U.S.S.R. which were designated as nationalities by the Soviet state. Their traditional cultures were based on hunting, fishing, trapping, and reindeer breeding. In the late 1980s, the 26 Peoples ranged in population approximately 34 000 Nenets to approximately 200 Oroki (International Working Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) 1990). Two larger groups in northern Siberia-the Sakha/Yakut and the Komi, each numbering around 300 000-were not counted among the smaller nationalities.Most of the Peoples lived in seven Autonomous Regions created by the Soviet state in the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic (RSFSR). By the 1960s, in practically all of these regions, Peoples were greatly outnumbered by people elsewhere in the U.S.S.R., mostly Russians (Armstrong 1978). Generally, the newcomers were transients who lived in urban centres while Northerners lived in rural areas.Cold War IdeologiesThe Cold War (1945-91) can be characterized as a contest between the former Soviet Bloc, led by the U.S.S.R., and the West, led by the U.S., which stopped short of direct U.S.-Soviet armed conflict largely because of the threat of mutual assured destruction posed by nuclear war. This contest involved, among other things, comparisons between various aspects of life in the West and the Soviet Bloc in an effort to marshal political support for capitalism or socialism. Such comparisons were embedded in particular ideologies. These ideologies attempted to provide answers to fundamental questions about the nature and direction of the West and the Soviet Bloc: why was each side the way it was? Was this good or bad? What should be done about it, if anything? (see Dolbeare and Dolbeare 1971; Eagleton 1991).Marxism-Leninism, the official ideology of the former U.S.S.R., was based on the view that capitalism involved exploitation of workers by capitalists (Bartels 1999), and that such exploitation had been eliminated in the U.S.S.R. The Soviet state, which owned the major means of production, communication, and exchange, viewed itseld as an instrument of working people's rule, and thus as democratic. It was illegal for individuals to own the major means of production, exchange and communication. Otherwise, exploitation would reappear. Surplus provided by Soviet workers was to be used to insure security of the state and the socialist social order, and to improve Soviet living standards (see Afanasyev et al. 1974; Bartels 1999). Revenues state-owned enterprises largely supported all social services, including housing, education, daycare, heat, light, medical care, and pensions. As a result, taxes were very low, as were basic living expenses such as the cost of certain food items, rent, utilities, and public transport, including internal air travel. Employment was guaranteed by the state. Soviet socialism was based on the principle, from each according to their ability, to each according to their work, and was seen as the penultimate stage in an evolutionary progression culminating in a stateless, technologicallyadvanced communist society based on the principle, from each according to their ability, to each according to their need (see Khorzov et al. 1977:393-406).In contrast, the ideological foundation of Western societies during the Cold War centred on freedom of individuals to publicly express their political views, to worship, to travel, to participate in a multiparty electoral system, and to own property, including the major means of production, communication and exchange. …

From people's war to people's rule: insurgency, intervention, and the lessons of Vietnam

From people's war to people's rule: insurgency, intervention, and the lessons of Vietnam

Teaching by examples: The case of number series

Subjects' performance in Wason's rule discovery task has long been known to deviate from the norms advocated by philosophers of science. For a better understanding of people's rule discovery behaviour we employed a teaching‐by‐ examples paradigm, in which subjects were told to generate examples in order to teach someone else a rule. Subjects were aware of the rule and of the tutee's hypothesis; it was therefore possible to classify each example they provided as either a positive or a negative instance of the rule, and as either a confirmation or a refutation of the tutee's hypothesis. The set‐theoretical relationship between the tutee's hypothesis and the actual rule (embedded, surrounding) was manipulated in order to assess subjects' use of different types of disconfirmation. The task was arranged in such a way that the discrepancy between the tutee's hypothesis and the actual rule in the embedded and the surrounding conditions consisted of an identical set. The results (N = 96) revealed a high incidence of negative instances and of disconfirmations. Disconfirmations were more readily provided in the embedded condition (through negative tests of the hypothesis, using positive examples of the rules) than in the surrounding condition (through positive tests, using negative examples), thus lending support to positivity bias theory (Evans, 1989). The results indicate that subjects' poor performance in rule discovery tasks does not stem from inability to appreciate or use disconfirmations and negative examples, but from failure to consider alternatives.

Constraints and Preferences in Inductive Learning: An Experimental Study of Human and Machine Performance

The paper examines constraints and preferences employed by people in learning decision rules from preclassified examples. Results from four experiments with human subjects were analyzed and compared with artificial intelligence (AI) inductive learning programs. The results showed the people's rule inductions tended to emphasize category validity (probability of some property, given a category) more than cue validity (probability that an entity is a member of a category given that it has some property) to a greater extent than did the AI programs. Although the relative proportions of different rule types (e.g., conjunctive vs. disjunctive) changed across experiments, a single process model provided a good account of the data from each study. These observations are used to argue for describing constraints in terms of processes embodied in models rather than in terms of products or outputs. Thus AI induction programs become candidate psychological process models and results from inductive learning experiments can suggest new algorithms. More generally, the results show that human inductive generalizations tend toward greater specificity than would be expected if conceptual simplicity were the key constraint on inductions. This bias toward specificity may be due to the fact that this criterion both maximizes inferences that may be drawn from category membership and protects rule induction systems from developing over‐generalizations.

Has the People's Rule Arrived?-II

Has the People's Rule Arrived?-II

Has the People's Rule Arrived?-I

Has the People's Rule Arrived?-I

Thirty Years of the People's Rule in Oregon: An Analysis

Thirty Years of the People's Rule in Oregon: An Analysis

“People’s Rule” on Trial

“People’s Rule” on Trial

“People’s Rule” in Oregon, 1910

“People’s Rule” in Oregon, 1910