Democratic Perspective Research Articles

The Case of Local Administration in Turkey Within the Perspective of Participatory Democracy

The Case of Local Administration in Turkey Within the Perspective of Participatory Democracy

The “Activist Client”: Social Responsibility, the Political Self, and Clinical Practice in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis

The idea of the “activist client” is intended to be taken both literally and metaphorically—applying to some extent to a wider range of clients than actual activists. The paper develops a set of ideas about a “political turn” in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, using the tag “the inner politician.” There is a focus on working directly with political material in the session, and the pros and cos of this practice are reviewed. Wider issues such as social responsibility and social spirituality are discussed, as well as an exploration of the limits of individual responsibility. Some specific topics covered in the paper include the political roots of depression, difficulties with the concept of the therapeutic alliance from the point of view of democratic perspectives on clinical work, and a challenge to the unquestioned valuing of empathy (based on a reading of therapy though a Brechtian lens). There are numerous clinical examples.

DEMOCRACY AND REGIONAL SHARIA REGULATIONS: A SUKABUMI CASE

This article sheds some lights on the implementation of regional sharia regulations (Perda syariah) from the perspective of democracy, focusing on the aspects of representation and accountability. Qualitative study was employed in this research. The study finds out that the presence of regional sharia regulations in the context of democratic Sukabumi is substantially representative. This is due to the fact that Sukabumi people represent the majority group, which is Muslims. However, from the side of accountability, the regulations have low level of accountability since the sharia regulations have not solved the real issues amidst Sukabumi people.
 KEY WORDS: Accountability, Democracy, Regional Sharia Regulations, Reformation, Representative

Media Choice Proliferation and Shifting Orientations Towards News in the United States and Norway, 1995–2012

Abstract Around the world, rapid media choice proliferation is empowering audiences and allowing individuals to more precisely tailor personal media use. From a democratic perspective, the relationship between the changing media environment and news use is of particular interest. This article presents a comparative exploration of citizens’ changing orientations towards local, national and international news in two very different countries, Norway and the United States, between 1995 and 2012. Prior research suggests that more media choice correlates with a decrease in news consumption. Our analysis shows a pattern of increasing specialization in news orientation in both countries. We also find that the strongest Norwegian trend is one of specialization while the strongest trend in the United States is one of disconnection. Altogether, the results illustrate how local conditions shape the effects of global technological developments.

Formação do Pedagogo e gestão escolar: um estudo exploratório

Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo compreender os elementos presentes na formao do pedagogo que contribuem para a atuao desse profissional na direo escolar. Analisamos as Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais para o curso de Pedagogia (DCNP) e escutamos a opinio de profissionais formados que, hoje, atuam em escolas bsicas em relao s contribuies do referido curso no exerccio da sua profisso. Por se tratar de uma pesquisa exploratria vinculada s atividades de iniciao cientfica, optamos por uma metodologia de natureza qualitativa que tem como alicerces o levantamento bibliogrfico-documental associado a entrevistas realizadas com trs diretoras de escola da cidade de So Paulo. A investigao nos mostrou que a amplitude de propsitos do curso de Pedagogia e a quantidade reduzida das disciplinas voltadas para a formao profissional do gestor contribuem muito pouco para a atuao desses educadores na conduo do seu ofcio.

Analysis Of Childcare Policy From a Caring Democracy Perspective

Analysis Of Childcare Policy From a Caring Democracy Perspective

近現代スイスの自治史 : 連邦制と直接民主制の観点から(第77回全国大会共通論題)

近現代スイスの自治史 : 連邦制と直接民主制の観点から(第77回全国大会共通論題)

Degrowth, energy democracy, technology and social-ecological relations: Discussing a localised energy system in Vaxjö, Sweden

This paper offers a combined theoretical and empirical assessment of energy democracy and degrowth in relation to the case study of a city's municipally-owned energy company in Sweden. Energy democracy is a fairly new concept and is a normative proposal that aims at articulating prospects for reduction of consumption, resource efficiency, use of renewable sources of energy and community empowerment. Though degrowth and energy democracy have similar goals and orientation, a combined analysis of both normative proposals remains underdeveloped. The focus on energy democracy serves us to articulate a deeper discussion on how technology, energy use and sustainability challenges interplay with definitions and meanings of degrowth vis-à-vis processes of capital accumulation. Empirically, we use the case of a municipality-based project of energy extraction and distribution in Sweden to discuss degrowth and energy democracy perspectives in this context. Theoretically, we develop insights from critical theories of technology. A main conclusion of the paper is that prospects for energy democracy and degrowth are limited in the energy project approached in the paper as it is based on the use of forest resources-a contested resource in the area - and also because this project assumes the development of economic processes oriented towards economic growth within the framework of capital accumulation.

The Past, Present, and Future of Mexico's National Bioethics Commission.

The establishment of Mexico's National Bioethics Commission (Comisión Nacional de Bioética), in 1992, was conceived within the context of a global movement aimed at raising awareness of the ethical implications of technological and scientific development, especially in biomedicine. In 2005, a new decree put the commission under the scope of the Secretariat of Health and granted it technical and operational autonomy, allowing it to become a regulatory agency aimed at promoting a culture of bioethics, encouraging reflection on human health, and developing guidelines for health care, research, and education, through a global, secular, and democratic perspective. The commission became the leading actor in the strategy for institutionalizing bioethics in Mexico after reforms to the country's General Health Act in 2011, which required that public, social assistance, or private health care facilities establish a hospital bioethics committee to address bioethical dilemmas or issues and, when relevant, a research ethics committee to address research with human subjects. This assignment has shifted the focus of the activities and goals of the National Bioethics Commission toward establishing these committees in line with current regulations and developing mechanisms to ensure that they operate with the highest standards of ethical conduct, performance, and accountability.

Religion and Self-Governance: Catholicism, Islam, and the Issue of Censorship

AbstractTwo aspects of democratic self-governance are analyzed: Collective self-governance, or the authority of citizens over one another, and individual self-governance, referring to the ability of each citizen to govern her/his own beliefs and actions. Individual self-governance is thought to require some level of autonomy on the part of individual citizens, and authenticity of personal preferences and desires. Beliefs about autonomy and authenticity in Roman Catholic and Islamic theology are considered, and these perspectives are applied to the problem of restricting certain types of discourse, based on the content of that discourse. While censorship if usually considered to be incompatible with democratic governance, Catholic and Islamic perspectives on individual self-governance suggest the possibility that some forms of censorship may enhance, rather than detract from citizen autonomy and authenticity, and enhance the possibility of positive collective self-governance.

Knowledge of the EU and citizen participation in European governance: an agonistic democracy perspective

ABSTRACTThis article examines how knowledge of the EU affects citizen participation in European governance. Drawing upon the theoretical approach of agonistic democracy and discerning EU awareness from EU political knowledge, the article argues that absence of the former limits the political capacity of citizen participation in European governance, while absence of the latter restrains its normative potential. The narrative starts with a brief overview of the existing literature on knowledge of the EU and introduces the distinction between EU awareness and EU political knowledge. It continues with the basic features of agonistic democracy, referring in particular to citizen participation and questions about knowledge. The third section of the essay puts in use the distinction between awareness and political knowledge to show how the two impact on the political capacity and normative potential of civic involvement in EU politics. The concluding section summarises the article’s main points and proposes new research pathways for the sub-discipline of EU democracy.

How to Assess the Democratic Qualities of a Multi-stakeholder Initiative from a Habermasian Perspective? Deliberative Democracy and the Equator Principles Framework

The paper presents a renewed Habermasian view on transnational multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) and assesses the institutional characteristics of the Equator Principles Association (EPA) from a deliberative democracy perspective. Habermas’ work has been widely adopted in the academic literature on the political responsibilities of (multinational) corporations (i.e., political corporate social responsibility), and also in assessing the democratic qualities of MSIs. Commentators, however, have noted that Habermas’ approach relies very much on ‘nation-state democracy’ and may not be applicable to democracy in MSIs—in which nation-states are virtually absent. We argue that Habermas’ detailed conceptualization of the institutionalization of deliberative democracy can be applied to transnational MSIs if these initiatives can be said to have their own ‘dèmoi’ that can be represented in associational decision-making. Therefore, we develop a definition of the dèmos of an MSI based on the notion of collective agency. Subsequently, we explain how Habermas’ approach to democracy can be applied to MSIs and show that it has more to offer than hitherto has been uncovered. Our illustrative analysis of the EPA confirms the criticisms regarding this MSI which have recently been articulated by researchers and practitioners, but also yields new findings and possible avenues for the further development of the EPA: That is, although our assessment suggests that the EPA in its current state is still far from being a democratic MSI, the possibility of a sensible analysis of its democratic character indicates that transnational MSIs can, in principle, help to fill governance gaps in a democratic way.

Bottom-Up Constitutionalism: The Case of Net Neutrality

Net neutrality is no longer only a battle cry of a few Internet romancers but has evolved into a key value for contemporary society that is being institutionalised as a constitutional right. With the help of sociological systems theory, this text argues that the social and legal institutionalisation of constitutional rights need to be distinguished. Commonly, constitutional rights emerge from society before they are reformulated in the legal realm. Using the example of the United States, the paper shows empirically that net neutrality is about to emerge as a new fundamental value and right. Its constitutionalisation is happening bottom-up, driven by social movements, Internet activists and advocacy groups, and further, in an interweavement of civil society dynamics with the legal system. The question is whether constitutional structures have already become identifiable. The last section discusses the relationship between social and formal constitutional structures from a legitimacy and democracy perspective.

Accountability and secrecy in the Australian Intelligence Community: the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security is a significant, evolving and little-known accountability mechanism. As the basis of a case study, publicly available committee documents offer valuable insights into accountability practices within an unusual area of government. These documents highlight a range of accountability exchanges and broader relationships, as well as some of their defining features. Exploring critical institutional factors requires conceptual clarity about accountability and what makes it effective or ineffective. An accountability forum can thus be examined as a social mechanism through which the key stages of accountability unfold, at least in theory. Secrecy is a potentially significant intervening variable in this case, but by applying democratic and constitutional perspectives on accountability, some more general strengths and weaknesses are evident. Points for practitioners While this institution and the Australian Intelligence Community are distinctive and interesting, empirical and normative understandings are limited. The relationship between accountability and secrecy is also significant but not particularly well understood. Accountability studies tend to have a strong conceptual focus, although some scholars have explored ‘good’ or ‘poor’ accountability. Focused on developing an evaluative framework concerning accountability within a secretive context, this study aims to contribute to these knowledge gaps, institutional concepts of accountability and emerging empirical work.

Basic income: A social democratic perspective

Basic income: A social democratic perspective

Respect for cultural diversity as a global bioethical principle. Own reasons from a Protestant perspective

In the development and acceptance of Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Bioethics and Human Rights, the United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) did not involve the Protestant faith tradition in the consultation process (other traditions were indeed consulted). This brings the universality (UNESCO perspective) as well as the acceptability of the Declaration and its principles (democratic perspective) into question. In order to address this issue, it is necessary to involve the Protestant tradition in the discourse by presenting own reasons that support the universal principles in the Declaration (theological perspective). This discourse has shown that respect for cultural diversity, pluralism and the priority of universal shared values can be grounded from a Trinitarian perspective; therefore, the appeal of the Declaration to consider this principle seriously in the field of bioethics can be supported by the Protestant religious tradition.

Equality and Conscience: Ethics and the Provision of Public Services

We live with the legacy of injustice, political as well as personal. Even if our governments are now democratically elected and governed, our societies are scarred by forms of power and privilege accrued from a time in which people’s race, sex, class and religion were grounds for denying them a role in government, or in the selection of those who governed them. What does that past imply for the treatment of religion in democratic states? The problem is particularly pressing once one accepts that religious freedom is not just a matter of individuals’ freedom of conscience and worship, but of people’s claims to associate with others through institutions whose powers, status and commitment to equality are very different (Laborde, 2015). If this means that churches pose some of the same philosophical and practical problems as families, from a democratic perspective, the fact that churches have no obvious point or justification, beyond being the repository of the claims to conscience of their members, appears to distinguish them from the former. In principle, this should make it easier to think about the claims of government, as compared to those of churches. In practice, however, it may simply bring into sharper focus philosophical and political challenges to equality that contemporary democracies now face.

Partocracy or Democracy: A Popperian Perspective of Democracy in Albania

"If the idea of democracy is sustainable, its implementation is uncertain, " says Cister, in order to highlight the fact that, despite efforts of different societies to consolidate their democracy, the democracy as a governance system, continues to be at risk. In this context, this research paper aims to identify, argue and analyze the level of the Albanian democracy development, which is consolidating a declined democracy system, that of partocracy. To develop this discussion, we are focused on the examination and recognition of the above two systems, which in terms of Albanian democracy, put in front of each-other, two theses in the field of political philosophy, that of Karl Popper and Mauro Calise. The comparison and recognition of these philosophical theses will guide the study of Albanian model of democracy. This discussion will go through philosophical theses, based on indicators of democracy that are: pluralism, voting system and decentralization of powers.

Limitations of the Democratic Capacity of the Constitutional System of Bosnia and Herzegovina

In this paper, author tries to emphasize the fundamental characteristics of the positive-legal status of political regime of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnia and Herzegovina has applied the model of consociational democracy (all four elements: grand coalition, mutual veto, proportionality and segmental autonomy) which excludes effective participation of citizens in decision-making. The constitutional structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina is dominated by direct democracy. It is also based on the fight of political elites. The paper discusses perspectives of direct democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This paper also focuses on the possibility of merging the civil and ethnic in the functioning of constitutional-political system of Bosnia and Herzegovina. An analysis of the democratic potential of the two most important state bodies for the implementation of any democracy—legislative representative body and the constitutional court will be made.

The Majority and Minority in a Constitutional State: the Ethnic Aspect

This article examines the problems of the balance between an integration policy and an adaptation policy applied by the modern States with regard to national minorities. This question is scrutinized in the context of a more capacious perspective of modern democracy, with effective mechanisms of representation and protection of interests and rights of minorities as its essential attribute. Minority groups that need special attention on behalf of the State are ethnic minorities that include indigenous peoples, old and new national minorities. In the policy implemented towards indigenous peoples, modern States retain the policy of adaptation as dominating. Nowadays, the balance between the elements of the adaptation policy and integration policy towards national minorities is undergoing notable changes, namely in the context of increasing migration flows to developed countries, as well as intensifying separatist sentiments in some of them. The author notes that the policy towards new (immigrant) minorities experiences a noticeable trend towards intensification of the integration policy, whereas the policy implemented towards old minorities combines integration and adaptation. Their balance and manifestations in a particular country depend on many factors: the number of national minorities, the level of national consciousness and the prevalence of separatist tendencies among minorities, the severity of inter-ethnic relations, the chances of minorities to have their interests taken into account on the basis of formally equal representation and satisfaction of minorities and the national majority with situation that has developed in the state, the effectiveness of the functioning of the State structures focused on protecting the interests of minorities, the threats posed to cultural identity of titular nationalities, etc. The author comes to the conclusion that integration should be aimed not only at facilitating the existence of minorities in an alien cultural environment of a titular nation, but also at preservation of this environment, i.e. at ensuring the mutual solidarity of title and minority peoples. In this connection, the author makes certain suggestions with regard to the improvement of Russian legislation in this field.