Political Participation Rights Research Articles

Interrogating the evolution of a constitutionally-legitimised 'Big Man' political culture and its influence on political participation by Kenyan youth

This article critically analyses the evolution ofKenya's constitutionally-legitimised 'Big Man' political culture and its influence on youth political participation. The core thesis of the article is that Kenya's constitutionally-legitimised 'Big Man' political culture restricts youth political participation, beyond voting, while making them susceptible to manipulation by politicians. In exploring this thesis, the article's guiding research question is: Beyond voting, how has the Kenyan government enhanced or restricted direct youth political participation as a right provided for under article 25 of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and subsequently domesticated under the Kenyan Constitution? The modes of political participation examined in this context are forming a political party and running for public office. Contextually, the article interrogates the political regimes of Kenyatta, Moi, Kibaki and Uhuru and their use of constitutional amendments to crystallise power in the executive for critical analysis of the evolution of Kenya's 'Big Man' political culture pertaining to youth political participation. It then applies the lessons learned from past and current regimes to inform recommendations on how the state can facilitate the Kenyan youth to enjoy the right of political participation fully, effectively and equally as provided for under article 25 of ICCPR as domesticated under the Kenyan Constitution.

TERRITORIAL POLICY OF THE EU STATES: TARGETS, TOOLS, ACHIEVEMENTS

The article presents the process of formation and development of the territorial policy of the European Union and its Member States. The author defines the goals and logic of territorial and political transformation of national territorial and political systems in the context of glocalisation – macro-regional integration of national entities in Europe, where regions are proclaimed the main beneficiary of reforms, and place is proclaimed the topos, the basis of the political process. Place-based politics, development of self-government systems, decentralisation reforms, promotion of local and regional autonomy and systemic asymmetry, where status is determined by the scope of functional responsibilities, are considered as processes of de(re)construction of a new model of polycentric governance and political interaction in the context of formation of an effective supranational political space of the EU. The author examines the peculiarities of the transformation of systemic relations in the EU member states, including the relations between metropolises and non-European remote territories (on the example of France and the Netherlands), and the relations between the supranational centre of the EU and these remote territories of the EU states, which have the specifics of asymmetric involvement in the territorial and political processes of the EU. The author notes that the development of the EU political space is ahead of the process of transformation of the territorial morphology, which is manifested in the expansion of political participation rights at the supranational level and the preservation of restrictions at the national level. The paper notes that the EU’s spatial development strategy is formed on the basis of an institutional compromise between different levels of political decision-making in a multi-level and polycentric system of territorial and political relations and is provided by a set of instruments. This complex is formed by: the policy of vertical and horizontal cooperation; multilevel and polycentric governance; practices of regional and autonomy; asymmetry of statuses and functional roles; 4D decentralisation instruments; standardisation and measurement (indexation) of standards; instruments of consociative democracy, which provide for “inclusion policy”, “effective citizenship”, “mobile political participation” in the context of deepening integration, increasing mobility, and changing the functional significance of the institution of citizenship.

Kant on Civil Self-Sufficiency

AbstractKant distinguishes between ‘active’ and ‘passive’ citizens and holds that only the former are civilly self-sufficient and possess rights of political participation. Such rights are important, since for Kant state institutions are a necessary condition for individual freedom. Thus, only active citizens are entitled to contribute to a necessary condition for the freedom of each. I argue that Kant attributes civil self-sufficiency to those who are not under the authority of any private individual for their survival. This reading is more textually grounded than the dominant reading, which understands civil self-sufficiency in terms of economic relations alone. I further argue that Kant was interested in relations of authority because he was concerned to eliminate certain forms of corruption. This indicates that Kant’s contested distinction between active and passive citizens was a response to a key problem of any account of public lawgiving.

The Civic and Political Participation of Non-Citizen Residents in Japan: Multi-Ethnic Cities in an Ethno-Nationalist Society

ABSTRACT This article examines the roles that local actors play in driving a transition to multicultural co-living, drawing on the lessons learned from the experience of two Japanese municipalities in facilitating civic and political participation by non-citizens. It seeks to ascertain the factors that drive the transition to forms of local inclusion that foster the rights of foreign nationals to civic and political participation. Effective transitions to inclusiveness in these Japanese cities, the article finds, resulted largely from effective policy entrepreneurship and leadership, which I argue was produced by forward-looking local mayors, ethnic associations, and support groups. Given their lack of voice at the national level, the two municipalities in this study had previously had little option but to act on the pressing need to extend the rights of civic and political participation to foreign residents in their local communities. Despite differences in their circumstances, the two cities both had the skills and drive to overcome challenges and seize opportunities at the local level that effected real change for their inclusive communities.

Comparing Diaspora Policies of Turkey and Azerbaijan: “Are Common Diaspora Policies Possible?”

The term diaspora is used to describe social groups that have migrated from their homeland, and preserved and maintained their home country’s culture. In the 1990s, with the acceleration of communication, transportation, and the ease of displacement, migration movements in the world increased and modern diasporas developed transnational relations in their country of residence. Modern diasporas have attracted sending states’ attention over time and have led states to develop various policies for institution building, political participation, lobbying, and civil and social rights. This article reveals the similarities and differences in Turkey and Azerbaijan’s diaspora policies from a historical perspective and examines the kinds of activities and policies these two states currently have in the context of the Turkish world. The possibility of the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities (Turkey) and the State Committee on Work with Diaspora (Azerbaijan) developing common diaspora policies is also discussed. The study’s data is collected using the document analysis method, which includes a literature review and an examination of reports from the public institutions mentioned, in order to discuss the possibility of the two countries to producing a common diaspora policy.

La consecución de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible en los ayuntamientos mediante el derecho constitucional a la participación ciudadana local en España

Through this text, the importance of executing municipal public policies in the best possible way is addressed, this is guaranteeing a quality public service in which citizen opinion is counted on. For this reason, Art. 23 of the Spanish Constitution is valued, which guarantees the right of political participation in the local case. Likewise, an analysis is made of how it is possible to exercise these municipal powers in a participatory manner while guaranteeing the Sustainable Development Goals, in order to achieve the best possible good local government.

Internally Displace Persons and Informal Citizenship

After a sectarian attack on the Shia community in Sampang, Indonesia, they live in refugee camps. Even though the refugees have now returned, the reconciliation efforts took quite a long time. The Shia community had to live in refugee camps for about ten years. This paper argues that the clientelistic structure is the main obstacle to repatriation. Amid social and economic marginalization and the limited role of the government in fulfilling their basic rights in the refugee camps, the Shia of Sampang can still hold on to fulfill their citizenship and hope to return home through informal networks and mechanisms. This article shows that although with the help of various parties, the Sampang Shia community can gradually gain legal status, political participation, and (limited) economic rights as citizens, it is still difficult for them to regain their membership in Sampang socially and culturally.

The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan

The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan

Division of Property and Expansion of Rights of Political Participation: primogeniture and the Rebuttal of Patriarchalism in James Tyrrell and John Locke

The political writings of two English philosophers of the seventeenth century – James Tyrrell and John Locke – devote a considerable part of their thought to the rebuttal of Sir Robert Filmer’s patriarchalism. Both defend, as an alternative to an absolute political power based on the paternal right of the king, a government established by the consent of those who are governed; and both assume the topic of primogeniture as central in their counter-arguments against patriarchalism. The present article intends to focus on the anti-patriarchalism arguments devoted to the second topic. Mainly, it tries to identify the reason that may be behind the choice of Sir Robert’s critics to deny a right of primogeniture, when that right was in force in their country in the seventeenth century. Departing from the assumption that, then, the exercise of political rights relied of the status of proprietary, then the defense of the end of primogeniture, and the consequent possibility of the division of property by the various members of one family, may open the door to an expansion of the rights of political participation.

Kant on Traveling Blacksmiths and Passive Citizenship

Abstract Kant makes and elaborates upon a distinction between active citizenship and passive citizenship. Active citizens enjoy the right to vote and rights of political participation generally. Passive citizens do not, though they still enjoy the protection of the law as citizens. Kant’s examples have left commentators puzzling over how these distinctions follow from his stated rationale or justification for active citizenship, namely, that active citizens possess a kind of political and economic self-sufficiency. This essay focuses on one subset passive citizenry – that of traveling blacksmiths, barbers, and day laborers in order to examine Kant’s distinctions. I argue that these examples show that Kant’s concerns regarding dependence are, at least in some cases, pragmatic rather than political.

A Hegelian Approach to the Crisis of the Democratic Rule of Law

This paper does resemble a philosophical-juridical perspective that reflects on the possibility to reconstruct the constitutional democracy through a Hegelian focus. Its aim is to tackle the current crisis of our liberal democracy, as well as to determine its causes. These causes are not only found in a deficient praxis of its purposes, but fundamentally in an insufficient understanding of the principles of that type of democracy. At the end, this democracy, if we mind to deter its ruin, has to last on the idea of universal will and its determination through the individual rights and liberties. In this context, political liberties obtain a key role, especially the right of political participation and the freedom of expression, whose final purpose lays in the construction of a rational political will.

La participación polí­tica indí­gena y las organizaciones de la sociedad civil. Análisis de la zona metropolitana de Monterrey, México

La migración indí­gena a ciudades industriales como la zona metropolitana de Monterrey (ZMM) en el Estado de Nuevo León, al noreste de México, ha provocado la reconfiguración jurí­dica y polí­tica de la entidad mediante la implementación de procesos de consulta previa, libre e informada a personas y pueblos indí­genas. En ese sentido, la capacidad de reacción por parte de los gobiernos locales y los diversos actores involucrados, como las organizaciones de la sociedad civil (OSC) indí­genas y proindí­genas, en la promoción, garantí­a y respeto de los derechos indí­genas de participación polí­tica ha sido variada. A partir de la herramienta cualitativa de entrevista semiestandarizada, en 2018 se reconoció el papel que tienen tres de las principales OSC de Nuevo León en los procesos de consulta previa y su capacidad de vinculación y materialización de derechos de participación polí­tica indí­gena. Se puede observar que, a pesar del cumplimiento en términos formales y procedimentales de la consulta indí­gena, los esfuerzos de las OSC no han podido materializarse en una mayor participación y representación polí­tica indí­gena en Nuevo León debido a la desconfianza y débil sinergia entre las asociaciones

Comparative analysis of efficiency of democracy in Ukraine according to the indices of democracy The Economist Democracy Index, Freedom In the World and Polity IV

This article represents an analysis of efficiency of Ukrainian democracy within the framework of three popural indices of democracy – The Economist Democracy Index, Freedom In the World index and Polity IV. Comparative analysis shows the core factors which bring three different democratic concepts, used in the indices, to the integral unity. Finding correlation between factors of Ukrainian democracy, measured in the indices through a certain time period (2006-2018), helps getting integral look at the problem of non existent universal theoretic base for understanding democracy. The basic idea of the analysis, represented in this article, shows that different factors, used by indices in measuring democracy, do not evenly correlate in practice, though they represent holistic approach to the essence of democracy. Choosing specific theoretical approach of understanding democracy makes it hard for indices to fully measure real democracy. This analysis aims at searching correlation in different basic factors of democratic models, used by indices with different approaches. As the result of the analysis the article ranks a number of basic factors, used in three popular indices of democracy, according to the strength of correlation of these factors with other factors of the index they represent and with the final score of the index. Integral choice of the basic factors, which correlate with the change of Ukraine’s democratic trends according to the three indices, covers several dimensions of democratic model. Ukrainian democratic trends in the specific time period (2006-2018), as the analysis shows, from integral point of view correlates the most with the changes in electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties and legal restrictions of the executive power. Political culture, political participation and individual rights show weak correlation with Ukrainian democratic trends within the period of time, chosen for the analysis.

Testing the Limits of Consociational Imagination: The Non-discrimination Norm in Divided Societies

Abstract Consociational democracy rests on the idea of granting certain collective political rights to the most powerful ethno-cultural groups, in addition to the individual rights of political participation of all citizens. Despite its relative popularity among scholars and international policymakers alike, its collectivist ethos has long been exposed to critique on various grounds, including the perspective of international human rights law. The essence of this critique is the allegation that, by institutionalising ethno-cultural identity as the basis of political participation, consociational arrangements discriminate against persons not belonging to the dominant groups. Focusing on the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, this article argues that equality analysis of consociational democracies, if taken seriously, illuminates our thinking about the possible compromises between the extremes of liberal individualism of the human rights perspective and inherent collectivism of consociational thought and practice. The article concludes that such compromises are both possible and necessary, but they seem to invite the embracing of additional institutional complexity in devising consociational arrangements.

Progress and Human Rights Justice as Evaluating Criteria for Global Developments

Abstract The paper clarifies first a critical understanding of “progress”. Progress implies a development for the better, the comprehensive definition of which must be a conception of justice if progress is to justify global developments and political rule. Therefore a somewhat minimal but complex definition of “human rights justice”, as formulated in the international human rights pacts since 1948, is explained. Through this, the different but systematically interrelated human rights (liberty rights, justice rights, political rights, economic, cultural and social rights) can allow for reflected and more comprehensive assessments of progress in different areas of development. But it is also necessary to integrate the specific progress developments into a comprehensive conception of human rights justice, the precise definition of which requires not only the observance of social but ultimately of all human rights, and in particular political participation rights. In the final section some problems of this approach will be discussed.

노인정치참여와 인권에 관한 연구

노인정치참여와 인권에 관한 연구

Judicial protection and interpretation of the right to take part in a referendum – an overview of the jurisprudence of the Hungarian Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court

This paper gives an overview of the jurisprudence of the Hungarian Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court regarding the right to take part in a referendum. This is a fundamental right of political participation, not unlike the right to vote and to stand as a candidate in parliamentary elections. It being a genuine fundamental right, the Constitutional Court interpreted its authentic meaning and stipulated the most important constitutional requirements related to this right. One of the most important requirements was the establishment of a system of remedies, where the final decision on the certification of a question proposed for a referendum must be taken by the Constitutional Court. Parliament fulfilled this legislative requirement and since 1998 the Constitutional Court has controlled the constitutionality of the decisions taken by the National Election Committee on the certification of the referendum questions proposed. The 2013 Act on referendum transferred this competence to the Supreme Court. Since then, the Constitutional Court shall only decide referendum-cases which were submitted with the so-called ‘direct constitutional complaint’, an extraordinary type of constitutional remedy. The present paper compares these two remedy systems introduced for the protection of the right to take part in a referendum.

Análisis de los tratados internacionales para el reconocimiento del derecho de sufragio local a personas extranjeras residentes en España que no ostentan la ciudadanía europea

Habiendo transcurrido cerca de una década del inicio, en el marco del art. 13.2 CE, del segundo proceso de suscripción de tratados bilaterales para el reconocimiento del derecho de sufragio local a personas extranjeras residentes en España de algunas nacionalidades, es un buen momento para realizar un balance respecto a la incidencia práctica de los mismos. Tras haber desplegado sus efectos en dos convocatorias electorales (municipales de 2011 y 2015), y a las puertas de los comicios locales de 2019, el nivel de participación de los potenciales beneficiarios de los tratados ha sido muy escaso. En este artículo se analizan críticamente estos instrumentos internacionales, ofreciendo alternativas para avanzar realmente en los derechos de participación política de los residentes extranjeros.

Mobility, Connectivity and Non-Resident Citizenship: Migrant Social Media Campaigns in the Irish Marriage Equality Referendum

The proliferation of migrant social media campaigns calling for a ‘Yes’ vote in the Irish Marriage Equality referendum (May 2015) raises new questions about the conventions of political participation and non-resident citizenship rights. Via a discourse analysis of these campaigns, this article shows how the algorithmic agency of social media combines with the political agency and affective identifications of campaigners to shape the terms of non-resident citizen claims for enfranchisement and sexual citizenship rights. The article argues that despite their novel political tactics, the central campaign discourses of (im)mobility (leaving/staying-put), connectivity (active engagement) and ongoing stake in an inclusive homeland are underpinned by conventional democratic criteria for enfranchisement. The article addresses how these discourses intersect with state and business regimes of mobility and connectivity to produce a particular ordering of citizenship. It also points to those emergent practices and norms of political participation generally, and of non-resident citizenship in particular, that are foregrounded by these campaigns.

Economic Participation Rights and the All-Affected Principle

The democratic boundary problem raises the question of who has democratic participation rights in a given polity and why. One possible solution to this problem is the all-affected principle (AAP), according to which a polity ought to enfranchise all persons whose interests are affected by the polity’s decisions in a morally significant way. While AAP offers a plausible principle of democratic enfranchisement, its supporters have so far not paid sufficient attention to economic participation rights. I argue that if one commits oneself to AAP, one must also commit oneself to the view that political participation rights are not necessarily the only, and not necessarily the best, way to protect morally weighty interests. I also argue that economic participation rights raise important worries about democratic accountability, which is why their exercise must be constrained by a number of moral duties.