Post Democracy Research Articles

LOBBYING AGAINST DEMOCRACY

This essay seeks toexcavate the anti democratic propensities of corporate lobbying. Itbegins by considering th e nature of lobbying and then attempts to comprehend therelationship between corporate lobbying and democracy in terms of Crouch ’s theory ofpost democracy. The political culture of post democracy is blatantly corporatist andpromotes the anti democratic proclivities of the corporate lobby by providing readyopportunities for non transparent lobby ing . Cohen Eliya & Hammer classify nontransparent lobbying as a n index of the failure of the democratic process. The essayapplies the typology developed by them to Germany as a case study of anti democraticcorporate lobbying in action. It concludes by consider ing regulation and criminalisationas two possible remed ies for the anti democratic transgressions of non transparentcorporate lobbying. The former is explored by way of an analysis of t he regulatoryregimes of Germany and the USA ; the latter by considering non transparent corporatelobbying as a homologue of the crime of corruption.

Rethinking populism and its threats and possibilities: Ponowne zastanowienie się nad populizmem – jego wyzwaniami i możliwościami

Resurgent populism – with crime as a core theme - is depicted as a dangerous perversion of liberal democracy. But by avoiding a definition of populism, critics tend to simply conflate populism with contemporary right-wing authoritarianism. Academic analysis, including criminological, is not free of such tendencies. After a brief consideration of criminology’s engagement with penal populism and the recent spread of a more far-reaching authoritarian political populism, the article argues for the need to more carefully conceptualise populism. Theoretical clarity is needed for assessing the character of contemporary populism; for grasping its drivers in, for example, neo-liberal globalization and what Crouch calls “post democracy”; and for discerning its possible future trajectories, progressive as well as regressive. It is also argued that simple denunciations of populism often reflect a complacent liberal mentality that contributes to political disaffection fuelling populist movements, and overlooks legitimate grievances, including the (often criminal) failings of liberal institutions. Rather than being a political aberration, populism, it is argued, should be seen as a “normal” dimension of democratic politics with implications for criminal policy (as well as politics at large).

Land use and land cover change detection and prediction in Bhutan's high altitude city of Thimphu, using cellular automata and Markov chain

Rapid urbanization is changing landscapes often resulting in the degradation of ecosystem services and quality of urban life. Remote sensing and GIS tools can provide valuable information to deepen our understanding of the dynamics of these changes to better plan and build sustainable cities for the future. Using remote sensing data, socio-economic data, and field observations, we simulated spatiotemporal dynamics of land use and land cover changes in the city of Thimphu. Simulation results reveal that the landscape of Thimphu city has changed considerably during the study period and the change trend is predicted to continue into 2050. The study observed a significant increase (12.77%) in built-up area from 2002 (52.88%) to 2018 (65.5%), followed by a slight increase in the cover of bare ground. On the contrary, forest cover declined drastically (15.25%) followed by agriculture (1.01%). Rapid population growth triggered by rural urban migration coupled with hasty socio-economic development post democracy are the main drivers of these changes. These changes have fragmentated forest cover, increased soil/gully erosion, surface runoff, and storm induced floods of storm and sanitation drains, thereby impinging on the overall quality of life in the city. Under the business as usual scenario, prediction analysis for the year 2050 show that built up area will consume almost all of the city area (73.21%) with forest significantly reduced to patches making up only about 16% of the city. These findings beg for an urgent need to implement effective planning specially to protect the existing forest and water resources from further degradation.

READING THE CONCEPT OF POST DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTY FROM PIERRE BOURDIEU

Modern dönemde demokrasi, halkın yönetiminin garantörü olarak görülür. Halk, egemenliğini; demokrasinin en önemli aygıtı olan siyasi partiler vasıtasıyla gerçekleştirir. Halkı temsil etme görevi verilen siyasi partiler, postmodern dönemde yeniden tanımlanmıştır. Siyasi partilere yüklenen yeni anlamlarla yönetimde hâkim olanın kim ya da kimler olduğu mevzusu tartışılmaya başlanmıştır. Haliyle bu durum, demokrasinin yeni bir modeli olan “post demokrasinin”, ne olduğunun sorgulanmasını zorunlu hale getirmiştir. Demokratik ilkelerin yeniden belirlendiği, hakikat olanın yeniden şekillendirildiği post dönemde; demokrasinin nasıl evirildiğinin sorgulanması, en önemli enstrümanlarından olan “siyasi partiler” üzerinden okunması çalışmamızın amacını oluşturmuştur. Bu perspektifle post demokrasi kavramı, Bourdieu’nun sermaye kuramına dikkat çekilerek ele alınmıştır.

Radical Documentaries, Neoliberal Crisis and Post-Democracy

This article examines radical documentaries in Greece as a response to neoliberal crisis and post democracy. In a context where mainstream media have made themselves irrelevant, facing historical lows in trust and credibility, we found that radical documentaries have emerged outside the commodification of information and form part of the growing social or solidarity economy in Greece. Our analysis shows that these documentaries operate through a different political economy, that involves collaborative practices and that they are firmly oriented towards society rather than the political sphere. Overall, we found that radical documentaries are seeking to recuperate the media through engaging professional media workers, journalists, film directors, academics and actors; they operate through reclaiming media know-how; through radicalizing the financing, production and distribution by refusing to participate in commodification processes; and through recreating commonalities by thematizing the common, the public, and responsibility towards others.Their specific political role is found to be one of helping to restore the social body and to contribute to processes of commoning, whereby solidarity and social trust is recovered.

Radical Documentaries, Neoliberal Crisis and Post-Democracy

This article examines radical documentaries in Greece as a response to neoliberal crisis and post democracy. In a context where mainstream media have made themselves irrelevant, facing historical lows in trust and credibility, we found that radical documentaries have emerged outside the commodification of information and form part of the growing social or solidarity economy in Greece. Our analysis shows that these documentaries operate through a different political economy, that involves collaborative practices and that they are firmly oriented towards society rather than the political sphere. Overall, we found that radical documentaries are seeking to recuperate the media through engaging professional media workers, journalists, film directors, academics and actors; they operate through reclaiming media know-how; through radicalizing the financing, production and distribution by refusing to participate in commodification processes; and through recreating commonalities by thematizing the common, the public, and responsibility towards others.Their specific political role is found to be one of helping to restore the social body and to contribute to processes of commoning, whereby solidarity and social trust is recovered.

New Product Development Approach to Political Party Development in India: Study of Aam Aadmi Party

In the backdrop of India’s rising prominence in BRICS, understanding of its political environment, electoral competition, constituent parties with their political ideologies contesting to form government, attracts immense interest from the researchers in political science, political marketing and public policy. While literatures in political marketing are more than two decades (Harrop 1990, Gronroos 1990, Henneberg 1998, Kotler 1999, O’Shaughnessy 2001, Marshment 2001) mostly carried out in developed democratic systems USA, UK, Australia and New Zealand, India as a post transition democracy Heller (2000) received relatively less attention. The article has been conceptualized in the context of 2014 Indian general elections Loksabha 2014 (LS2014) as an attempt to study application of political marketing principles in a cross cultural democracy. The authors have probed the emergence of new political party Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) riding on the success of Janlokpal (civil society movement), the marketing approach used by AAP, essentially positioning and branding strategies, during the national elections and party institutionalization. Research strategy followed secondary research of published data (Yin 2009) for examining the new party creation from a marketing perspective.

Understanding Low Average Returns to Education in Africa: The Role of Heterogeneity across Education Levels and the Importance of Political and Economic Reforms

Until very recently, the conventional wisdom was that the return to education was very high in Africa. However, some recent analysis point to low average returns to education in some African countries including Nigeria. Given these low returns to education, a relevant question is what causes low returns or what can cause changes in returns to education? In this paper, I examine the hypothesis that economic and political reforms can lead to increased returns to schooling using the case of Nigeria. Following the sudden death of military general Sanni Abacha, Nigeria moved to democracy in 1999, ending an over 15 years stretch of military rule. This move was followed by significant institutional and economic reforms, which provide an opportunity to examine the short term impact of reforms on returns to education. The average return to education is estimated using instrumental variables exploiting a quasi experiment in Nigeria. The results provide evidence that reforms implemented post democracy in Nigeria led to a 2.6% point increase in average returns to education. Furthermore, I find that the low average return to schooling in Nigeria reflects more the low returns at the primary and secondary levels.

Winners and Losers Post Democratic Reform in Nigeria: A Microeconomic Analysis of Changes in Economic and Labor Market Outcomes

In this paper, the question of differential welfare impacts, across interest groups post democratic reform in a developing country, is explored. There is data evidence that welfare has improved post democracy in Nigeria. However, the distribution or concentration of the benefits of democracy in subgroups of the population is unknown. I break down the population into interest groups along the lines of sector, region, age cohort and education. The analysis shows these groups all benefitted from reforms post democracy but the magnitude differed significantly. I find that individuals with tertiary education are the big winners post democratic reform in Nigeria. Part of the high benefit of democratic reform on those with tertiary education is explainable from policy choices and reform. However, a part of it is linked with general equilibrium effects of a movement to democracy.