Political Participation Of Citizens Research Articles

How Parties and Ambitious Politicians Undermined American Democracy—and the Reforms that Might Save It

Abstract Asserting that American checks and balances have broken down, Lawrence Jacobs asserts that parties must filter out dangerous candidates such as Donald Trump. To do so requires a number of reforms to undo several wrong turns in the evolution of the party system. Ambitious political elites including Jefferson, Jackson, LaFollette, and McGovern introduced changes in the name of greater equality that served their own interests but also had a number of harmful consequences. Reforms are needed to expand and reinvigorate citizen political participation along many dimensions and curb elite influence. In his book Democracy Under Fire: Donald Trump and the Breaking of American History, Lawrence Jacobs offers a robust vision of democracy and argues democracy is incompatible with entrenching minority control of electoral outcomes or political decision-making. Yet some of the failures and changes that gave rise to current threats to democracy, including authoritarian candidates, have affected other nations and have causes that go beyond remedies considered here. Some of the modest reforms proposed by Jacobs seem unlikely to achieve the purposes he envisions. However, reforms that do not require constitutional amendments and broader citizen political engagement that extends beyond election season are welcome proposals.

Deployment of the Deliberative Model of Political Participation of EU Citizens in the Discourse of the European Democracy Future

The article investigates the process of deployment of the deliberative model of political participation of EU citizens in the discourse of the future of European democracy, which was officially defined by the EU at the organizational level (Conference on the Future of Europe), but the thematic content of the problem was not limited to any official documents, so every EU citizen got the opportunity to express an idea and participate in the discussion of the ideas of other subjects of deliberation at the first stage of the Conference (Multilingual digital platform). The study of the application of digital tools of political participation in the practices of deliberative democracy, applied during the Conference on the Future of Europe, proved that two formats of such tools were used: first, the format of the Multilingual Digital Platform functioned according to the digital model of the deployment of political participation; secondly, the format of the European Citizen Panels was based on a mixed model that combined the principles of digital and face-to-face communications in the deliberation process. At the same time, both formats most systematically reflect the nature of the transformation of the discursive model of political participation of EU citizens from dialogic to deliberative forms based on digital tools. The study of the forms of deliberation on the future of European democracy during the Conference on the Future of Europe and its results allows us to conclude that structurally, the problem of European democracy was defined by EU citizens as a set of interdependent dimensions promising for a common political agenda: elections to the European Parliament; EU federalization; political participation of citizens and consultations; institutional reforms; promotion of common European identity and common public space; protection and strengthening of democracy. The established set of markers, thematic areas and clusters of the deliberation of the future of democracy at the second European Citizen Panel was reflected in 39 guidelines proposed for the development of the final recommendations of the Conference: ensuring rights and (non)discrimination – 9 guidelines; protection of democracy and the rule of law – 5; reforming the EU – 10; formation of European identity – 9; citizens' participation – 6. In the final documents of the Conference, a consensus was reached on 5 proposals, which accumulated most of the recommendations of citizens regarding the future of European democracy, expressed during the deliberation process.

Citizen political participation in Kenya: a cross-sectional analysis

ABSTRACTCitizen participation in politics continues to be an issue of concern for the Kenyan democracy, which needs to be understood to be addressed. Much of the existing literature on this topic focuses on demographic factors, with no sufficient scholarship interrogating political culture and its influence on citizen political participation. In this thesis, I employ an empirical analysis of the determinants of political participation among Kenyans using primary data I collected through an online survey. My main argument is that political culture matters in determining the patterns of political participation among Kenyans. Results from probit regression analyses illustrate that political culture significantly predicts the levels of political participation among Kenyans, across age cohorts. These findings bring up the discussion on the current rate of citizen participation in politics in Kenya, especially in a world in which democracy is increasingly under threat, and promotes case study analyses, and understanding of participatory democracy.

The Role of Political Parties in the Implementation of Democratic General Elections in the Indonesian State Administration System

Purpose: The objective of this study is to analyze the role of political parties in the organization of democratic general elections, in the context of the Indonesian constitutional system. Theoretical framework: Democratic elections are one of the fundamental pillars of the Indonesian political system, based on democratic principles. In this context, political parties play a decisive role in influencing and shaping the general election process, as well as in providing a forum for citizen political participation. Method: This research will use a qualitative approach, with a descriptive analysis and a literature analysis. The results of the study show that democratic elections can be demonstrated in at least 3 things, i.e. whether human rights are recognized, protected and promoted, the loyal capacity of electoral participants. Results and Conclusions: According to the study, democratic elections in Indonesia require an active role of political parties as representatives of the interests of the people. Political parties must be able to articulate the wishes and needs of citizens and to formulate programmes and policies that reflect citizens' values and expectations. In addition, political parties must ensure that the process of electing candidates is highly transparent and accountable. Research Implications: According to the conclusions of this study, political parties play an important role in Indonesia in ensuring the consedeo of democratic elections. Representing the interests of the people, participating in fair elections. Originality/value: Writing quality candidates and leadership candidates, and mobilizing the public to actively participate in elections are part of the responsibilities of political parties.

Analysis of the Influence of the Idea of a Closed Electoral System on Citizen Political Participation

The choice of an electoral system is fundamentally more of a political process and considerations of political advantage are almost always a factor in the choice of an electoral system. Furthermore, the electoral system itself is divided into two, namely an open proportional system and a closed proportional system. With an open proportional system, citizens can specifically choose their parties and candidates for the legislature. Meanwhile, in a closed proportional system, citizens can only vote for a party, later the party leader has the right to determine the party's legislative candidates. The author describes that a closed proportional electoral system has advantages and disadvantages. This system has the advantage that applying a closed proportional system can later reduce the campaign budget, so there is no need to waste too much money. However, on the other hand, this system has drawbacks, namely that this system receives a lot of rejection from citizens who feel that this system is unfair and can open up a wide space for party leaders to commit all acts of fraud. Basically whichever system is chosen will have a tendency towards one of these two goals. A closed electoral system affects the political participation of citizens. The reason is, this idea has reaped a lot of rejection by citizens because they feel that this system will open the door to fraud for party rulers and later candidates for legislative members can be more inclined to their party leaders and not to citizens, because they feel that those who elect them are party leaders.

The Egyptian Social Contract: A History of State-Middle Class Relations. By Relli Shechter

In The Egyptian Social Contract: A History of State-Middle Class Relations, Relli Schechter explores how state-middle class relations shaped politics and society in twentieth-century Egypt and why “state-led socio-economic development” came to predominate “over the political participation of citizens, or democracy” (2). Much previous scholarship on state-civilian relations in the Middle East has focused on what Schechter calls the “populist-authoritarian” social contract, sometimes referred to as an “authoritarian pact” or “bargain thesis.” Such analyses, as in books like Beatrice Hibou’s The Force of Obedience, describe a top-down, carrot-and-stick system whereby citizens give up their political rights in exchange for economic security. Schechter argues that in Egypt such a model is insufficient, as it downplays the reciprocity and bargaining the took place between state and society. More specifically, Schechter claims that the effendi middle class’s concerns for socio-economic stability framed negotiations to their benefit, so that they yielded a “de facto contract between the effendi middle class and the state” (8). This process began in the liberal period (1922-1952) when an initial emphasis on social reform, “alleviating poverty, ignorance and diseases through means of self-help for the poor,” shifted to what Schechter identifies as “an effendi-centered call for social justice” that demanded the state take more initiative in promoting equity and opportunity for all. A look at the state’s provision of services, such as health and education, demonstrates that regardless of intention, the emphasis on “social justice” disproportionately benefited the effendi middle class. For example, by the end of the 1960s, despite the new policy of providing university education for free, 85% of university students came from the 15% of the population considered to be middle class (128). For many reasons that Schechter elucidates, only 10% came from peasant or workers’ families.

El consumo de información y de conversación política interactiva en las actitudes y la participación política de los jóvenes en la zona metropolitana de Monterrey, Nuevo León, México. Escenario preelectoral 2018

Traditional media (print media, radio and television) or those represented by the digital age (Internet and social networks) are suitable channels for the process represented by political communication; in turn, this is a factor that impacts on political attitudes and political participation of citizens. In correlation to the above, the main objective of this research is to determine the explanatory level of the consumption of political information and interactive political conversation against the political attitudes and participation of young people. The research design is quantitative, since an opinion poll was applied in the pre-electoral scenario 2018 in the Metropolitan Area of Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico. The main results indicates that the consumption of political content online is the variable that has a higher level of explanation about the interest in the policy of the participants of the study, There is also evidence that could bring the results of the research closer to the theories of political mobilization. On the other hand, in relation to political attitudes there is a very important contrast since there is a political interest and a feeling of openness of the relatively high political system in opposition to a very marked political cynicism on the part of young people.

중국 시민 정치참여의 단계적 변화 연구

Political participation has an important significance in political democracy and national governance in modern society which is also the basic operating system of modern democracy. Chinese citizens' political participation has always emphasized the concept of democracy in terms of not laying the foundation of the socialist political system.
 However, previous studies analyze the political participation of Chinese citizens in terms of institutional and case studies, not in macro-level. Therefore, this study examines the time-series changes and current status of Chinese citizen political participation at a macro level.
 The early form of Chinese civic political participation was mobilization-type political participation, which was an important driving force to break away from the feudal era and maintain a stable state system in the early days of the modern China. The next form that emerged is participation in various 'movement' dimensions reflecting the times when economic development was prioritized with independent civic political participation at a limited level. In the third stage, the form of government-led political participation appeared intensively after the 2000s, and at the same time, it was a process of more democratic political reform and institutionalization of citizens' political participation. The last stage is political participation in China's policy criticism, which is expanding based on ICT. A new form of political participation is emerging around online networked opinion leaders, which will establish itself as a basic participation method for generations living in the smart era in the future.
 Based on this analysis, the paper is concluded by presenting suggestions and limitations for the sound development of Chinese civic politics.

Политическое участие в цифровом обществе

The article is devoted to the study of changes related to the impact of the spread of digital technologies on the political participation of citizens. The author shows that the idea of complicity, co-management acquires new relevance due to the availability of new technological capabilities. The paper proposes an up-to-date definition of political participation and summarizes the most favorable conditions for the implementation of expanded political participation using digital technologies. The author also pays attention to the negative aspects of the spread of digital forms of political participation.

Does population size matter? Political participation of citizens through mobile instant messaging services depending on the place of residence

The use of mobile instant messaging services is increasing among citizens. Applications like WhatsApp, with more than 2 billion users around the world, have changed the way we communicate. The objective of this research is to know how citizens make use of the WhatsApp service launched by the town hall of their municipality of residence. To do so, an online survey was carried out on 1202 citizens residing in Spain. The sample has been stratified considering the size of the municipality of residence of the respondents. The results show that the City Council’s WhatsApp service has greater penetration in smaller municipalities (up to 10,000 inhabitants). Therefore, these citizens would show more serious concern for local politics than the rest. Regarding its use, it stands out how residents in small municipalities use it more for informational purposes, while residents in medium municipalities (from 10,001 to 100,000 inhabitants) and large municipalities (more than 100,001 inhabitants) participate more and use it more frequently to register for the services offered by the City Council, as well as to raise doubts about the management run by the municipal corporation.

Amil Zakat as the Citizen Political Participant with Religious Philantrophy Face

Indonesia’s not-totally-state-centered zakat management policy makes amil zakat in Indonesia have double-identity. It’s not only as an Islamic law formalization in state level, but also as a medium for non-parties citizens' political participation in civil level. By using literatures study, this research aims to analyze head-to-head between Amil Zakat Institute (Lembaga Amil Zakat/LAZ) YASA Malang and everyday-maker. This research also aims to enrich everyday-maker perspective, because in fact there are so many Muslim social institutions which have some similarity with everyday-maker, but with some differences in their motives and characteristic of program. Everyday-maker is a new typology of citizen political participation found by Bang and Sorensen at 1999, where citizens are fixing their daily problems theirselves, instead waiting for government to fix it. However, everyday-maker starts from Danish’s upset with their government works, meanwhile LAZ YASA Malang starts from the concept of Islamic philantrophy and spirit of building lowest-level Muslim’s socio-economics independency. This research, because of the difference of motive between LAZ and everyday-maker, successfully finds some novelty rather than the previous everyday-maker researches, like one-eighth amil’s portions as the source of amil zakat salaries and government involvement in the legality. Something else that differentiates LAZ and everyday-maker is a theological value that becomes the basic, where everyday-maker works done by LAZ is based on belief about Allah’s help and grace in the movement.

Digital Transnational Dissidence and State Control: A Conceptual Reflection on the Practice and Limits of Digital Transnationalism

The historical practice of citizen participation in politics was confined to elections, yet in the digital era, increasing digitalisation in everyday life has opened windows of opportunities for alternative civilian participation in the political processes, oppositionary activities being foremost among them. Individual or collective opposition parties thus today also confidently carry out political activities against governmental politics through cyber and digital spaces, and thanks to digital advances, oppositionary political participation can no longer be confined to national borders. Hence, in forms of digital transnationalism and transnational dissidence, irrespective of the connection of the articulator to the target country, people around the world criticise governmental politics and shape public perceptions in one country from abroad. Nevertheless, governments, as well, make use of digital space in taking part in transnational practices in both shaping domestic and international public opinion and challenging overseas or domestic dissident digital transnationalism with an aim to increase its control over the narrative of its politics. This paper elaborates on this paradoxical relationship – the nexus of digital transnationalism, transnational opposition and state control. The paper examines how and why cyberspace turns into a domain for transnational political opposition and, in a related way, examines state endeavours to regulate and govern digital areas as a means of overseeing the digital transnationalism of (trans)local and transnational dissidence groups. Particularly with reference to the latter, the paper deliberates on the limits of digital transnationalism against state control.

Government Digital Repression and Political Engagement: A Cross-National Multilevel Analysis Examining the Roles of Online Surveillance and Censorship

Much research has shown that online news engenders greater political participation, but less attention has been paid to how the relationship can be suppressed by government online surveillance and censorship, especially as Internet freedoms continue to decline in many parts of the world. Drawing from 2017–20 World Value Survey and Varieties of Democracy project data, we conducted multilevel analyses across forty-four countries from seven continents that have different political and media systems. Results showed that online news and online surveillance were positively related to political engagement while online censorship was negatively related. Cross-level interactions also showed some support for the informational theory of repression, whereby the relationships among online news, surveillance, and engagement were conditioned at different levels of online censorship. The results suggest that while country-level online surveillance and censorship is highly correlated, varying levels can engender or suppress political engagement in different ways, which have implications for future studies on the dynamics of government digital repression and citizen participation in politics from a global comparative perspective.

Update of Methodological Principles for Studying Political Participation of Citizens in the Conditions of Digitalization of Democratic Political Process

The article presents the results of a study of the main trends in updating the methodological principles for studying the political participation of citizens in the context of the digitalization of the democratic political process. It has been established that in modern political science, e-democracy is a term by which scientists describe a wide range of practices of online involvement of citizens in political decision-making. The relationship we established between the concept of e-democracy and classical models of democracy, which indicate the specific content of political participation, indicates that e-democracy is based on models of participatory democracy and deliberative democracy. It is substantiated that due to the potential of e-democracy in the formation of new ways of communication between citizens and actors in the political space, its tools of political participation begin to integrate into the subject space of the liberal model of democracy, in which the political participation of citizens is deployed in social networks, therefore it has a decentralized nature and status. instrumental value. The analysis of the content of scientific discussions regarding the relationship between the categories of e-democracy and digital democracy in the context of the problem of political participation proved that the term digital democracy better reflects the essence of digitalization processes in the political space, but it is used as synonymous with the term e-democracy. Political participation by means of digital democracy involves a combination of virtual and traditional instruments of influence on the political system, while in the classical approaches of democracy, e-participation is defined as the result of the evolution of forms of citizen participation in politics. It is proved that the process of digitalization of democracy determined the need to update the methodological principles of the study the influence of mobilization practices on the nature of political participation. The conceptualization of this problem is most fully realized by van Dijk, who means digital mobilization practices as a mechanism for updating the connection between the functions, forms and tools of political participation, which clearly demonstrates that digital democracy is a way to improve the quality and legitimacy of political decision-making.

Online civic engagement: Fostering citizen engagement through social media

The Industrial Revolution 4.0, which makes the internet its backbone, has accelerated the process due to the Covid-19 pandemic which forced citizens to shift all their activities to the digital world, including the involvement of citizens in responding to public discourse. Citizens' public discourses that previously took place in real public spaces have now shifted to digital spaces, one of which is social media. To bridge these changes, a conceptualization of civic engagement is needed through a digital platform. The online citizen involvement was later referred to as online civic engagement, namely civic engagement activities specifically carried out by digital citizens involving several types of digital media, one of which is social media. This literature study provides a clearer picture of the forms of community interaction through social media that go beyond what is known as “slacktivism”. When many democracies are faced with the problem of decreasing citizen participation in politics, social media comes with a new form of civic interaction with what is meant by online civic engagement.

Non-citizen voting rights and political participation of citizens: evidence from Switzerland

AbstractCan non-citizen enfranchisement policies reduce the turnout gap between citizens with an immigration background and native citizen voters? While increasingly common in practice, there are only a handful of studies on the political consequences of non-citizen enfranchisement on voter mobilisation. Here, we examine the impact of non-citizen voting (NCV) rights on the political participation of citizens with and without an immigration background. Focusing on Switzerland, we use high-quality household panel data (SHP) from 1999 to 2014, leveraging both longitudinal and municipal level variation of enfranchisement laws when identifying their effect on turnout. We show that NCV rights boost political participation overall, and it particularly enhances turnout among citizens with an immigration background. Our analysis adds to existing theoretical explanations and empirical debates on representation and political participation in diverse democratic societies with large immigrant populations.

The implications of COVID-19 for concepts and practices of citizenship

Based on a review of citizenship and citizen participation in politics and policy studies, this article reveals diverse concepts of citizens and citizenship and their changing roles within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It argues that the pandemic will result in bringing citizens back into the policy process, given that active participation of citizens in solving wicked social problems has been emphasised. Our results suggest that the pandemic will result in a return of public citizens as their voluntary, active participation and coproduction practices are expected to increase.

Fostering the Political Participation of EU Non-national Citizens: The Case of Brussels

Political participation is considered an essential feature of democracy. The European Union (EU) aimed to foster political participation with the introduction of European citizenship, which gives the right to vote and stand as a candidate in municipal and European Parliament elections in whichever EU country the citizen resides. However, from the few figures available, registration and turnout rates among mobile EU citizens seem very low. In this article, we investigate the effectiveness of a proactive campaign in order to promote the participation of European non-national residents in municipal elections by focusing on a specific initiative: the VoteBrussels Campaign. Focusing on Brussels, and in the general on the Belgian case, offers us the opportunity to carry out a quasi-experimental design. Our findings suggest that a mobilisation campaign has a positive regionwide effect on the participation of mobile EU citizens.

Актуальные тенденции политического развития по ходу пандемии COVID-19 и последующей «новой нормальности»

The central issue of post-image politics will be the question of whether the pandemic will bring about an anti-democratic rollback and an evolving authoritarianization of power, or, on the contrary, will become an impetus for the positive development of democracy, an increase in the role of civil society and political participation of citizens. Objectively, world politics will experience unprecedented transformational pressures under the influence of the ongoing pandemic crisis, but, at the same time, it will face a choice – to maintain the crisis stagnation, hoping to just survive, or perceive the crisis as a source of new opportunities for the development and progress.

Literacy of Virtual Era Democracy in Al-Ma'soem Islamic Boarding School Sumedang Regency


 Abstract
 Since the 1998 reformation, the freedom of expression and political participation of citizens has been real and dynamic. Understanding and awareness of the importance of democracy as political education, especially in the Virtual Age, is increasingly becoming a challenge. The Santri, as the next generation, have a strategic role in the continuation of democratization in Indonesia. The method of activities on Virtual Era Democracy Literacy is carried out through the Online method with Problem Based Learning and Brainstorming techniques, through assistance of Community Service Program. The results of the activity show that the Literacy of Virtual Era Democracy provides benefits in increasing insight and understanding of democracy, especially in the virtual era. The Santri felt happy and enthusiastic about this activity, because online experiences provided a new atmosphere in the digital era. Changing the attitudes and new behavior in the digital domain regarding democracy need to be discussed continuously as an adaptation to new habits. 
 
 Key Word: Literation, democracy, virtual , santri