Representative Form Of Government Research Articles

The role of municipal digital services in advancing rural resilience

Community resilience refers to collective efforts to help improve response and recovery for the entire community in response to disasters. Municipalities that provide information and services to residents through digital platforms have more options for meeting citizen needs during crises. In this study, we examine the provision of digital services by rural municipalities in Maine, USA during the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on an inventory of 100 municipal websites and interviews with 20 municipal officials, we assessed the prevalence of 20 digital services, associations between municipality characteristics and digital services, and factors that spur changes in digital services. We discovered that many rural communities use digital platforms, and provide digital information, digital transactions and opportunities for digital democracy. While we found positive associations between greater levels of digital services, larger community populations, and more representative forms of government, we learned that a range of technological and cultural barriers also determine the degree to which a municipality engages with and adapts their digital services. Our findings establish a link between municipal digital services and rural resilience, confirm prior trends observed in larger and more urban local governments, and encourage future work on relatively under-studied rural areas.

Audience Democracy 2.0: Re-Depersonalizing Politics in the Digital Age

Abstract This paper aims to explore the changes that representative democracy is experiencing as a result of the transformation of communication channels. In particular, it focuses on non-electoral representation in the form of movements that emerged throughout the 2010s and that were defined by a strong social media presence (e.g. Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, Yellow Vests). Despite not attempting to gain political power via elections, these movements, through online and offline activities, nonetheless managed to shape the realm of politics. The paper thus analyzes the movements’ inner representative dynamics and the ways they reshape representative democracy. It engages with a critical reading of Hanna Pitkin’s concept of symbolic representation and draws on Michael Saward’s framework of the representative claim to reevaluate Bernard Manin’s notion of “audience” democracy as today’s form of representative government. The argument is that, as digital development provides citizens with less demanding modes of political participation and platforms of representative claim-making, it enhances the sphere of opinion formation and the role of non-electoral representation. This sphere entails a tendency towards a re-depersonalization of politics, thus leading towards the transformation of “audience” democracy.

No safety in numbers: political representation and political violence targeting women in Kenya

ABSTRACT Although quotas and other efforts to increase women’s political participation can ensure that the descriptive representation of women changes dramatically over a short period of time, it is not clear that social norms and political interests can shift as quickly as the distribution of legislative seats. Rather than being interpreted as a move toward a more pluralistic and representative form of government, the increased number of women in office may represent a threat to those who benefit from the status quo, and their resistance to losing their privilege may manifest in myriad forms of discrimination and violence. The relationship between political violence targeting women and increasing numbers of women in politics is often overlooked, despite the recognized potential for “backlash” against women’s empowerment initiatives. This article leverages data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) to explore the impact of increasing numbers of women in government on violence targeting women in Kenya. The findings show that rates of political violence targeting women have risen in tandem with the share of seats held by women in the lower chamber. That increasing women’s representation in political office may result in violent backlash against women generally should prompt greater attention from policymakers and academics to patriarchal resistance to women’s advancement.

Rule by the Few in the Federalist Papers: An Examination of the Aristocratic Preference of Publius

Abstract The Federalist Papers are a set of eighty-five essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay during the founding era of the United States, with the purpose of persuading the states to adopt the Constitution as the replacement for the Articles of Confederation. The Papers were some of the most impressive political writings of the time, and are still cited frequently today by the United States Supreme Court. The arguments set forth in the Papers attempted to defend the Constitution's aristocratic characteristics against its opponents, the Anti-Federalists, while also attempting to normalize an anti-democratic, representative form of government in the minds of the American people. The clever advocacy and skillful rhetoric employed by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay led to the eventual ratification of the Constitution, and consequently the creation of the most powerful and prosperous nation on the planet. This paper examines the differences between the traditional forms of government, the political philosophies of the Papers’ authors, the anti-democratic, aristocratic nature of the government proposed by the Constitution, and the arguments for and against its adoption, as articulated in the Papers and various other writings.

Who leads? Village development committees and local governance in Southern Malawi

AbstractSince the 1980s, many developing countries have enacted policies of decentralization to create localized, representative forms of government. A highly under‐studied body of local governance are village development committees (VDCs). Utilizing a mixed‐method approach in three districts of Southern Malawi, we combine surveys, focus groups, and interviews to examine the role of VDCs in local politics. Selected by their peers, VDC members navigate a complicated landscape including: local and central politicians, government bureaucrats, NGOs and special interest groups, and traditional authorities. We find that citizens are accurately able to evaluate the development work that VDCs are doing and consistently rate their trust in these institutions higher than their trust in elected authorities. Still, challenges persist: members receive no standardized training and there are consistent gender gaps in the experiences of men and women members of the VDCs.

Jeremy Bentham’s vision of international order

Despite the global influence of his works during and after his lifetime, Jeremy Bentham is a largely neglected figure in IR. While his utilitarian mode of reasoning and his relentless efforts to change British society have received significant scholarly attention, the same cannot be said of his international writings and his vision of an international order of liberal nations. Bentham’s “global intellectual activism” in promoting legal reform abroad during the 1810 s and 1820 s suggests that the prospect of “exporting” constitutional and representative forms of government was key to this vision. In piecing together Bentham’s mature constitutional theory and his vision of an international order of liberal nations, this paper sheds some light on the historical emergence of a deep-seated assumption that informs much of current debates about the future of the liberal international order: the belief in the moral superiority of liberal democracies and their central role in upholding international order.

Another Look at Respecting Patients’ Autonomous Choices – In India

Although medicine based on scientific principles is gaining ground, in India, the efforts to advance the ethical principle of respect for patients’ autonomous choices appear to lag behind. Illiteracy, poverty and inexperience in making autonomous choices were given as the reasons. When the same reasons were not impediments in choosing and participating in a representative form of government, why should they matter in making autonomous choices and participating in medical decisions – jointly with health-care practitioners?Autonomy or self-determination is a Human Right. Legally, it is upheld by most constitutions around the world; ethically, it continues to receive worldwide approbation. By the virtue of this right, health-care providers are obliged to breakdown medical information enabling patients – individually or collaboratively – to choose and authorise a course of action or entrust it to the good judgment of others. Inexperience or illiteracy, as India's grand experiment in democracy proves, may be overcome by reaching out to the patients: Taking time to talk with them (instead of speed-reading) or to the extended family members and including them in crucial conversations. It is obvious that the ideals of autonomic expression and full democratic participation are yet to be realised. Our immediate obligation, it seems, is to understand the reasons why we lag behind respecting patients’ autonomous choices; at the same time, institute reasonable controls which, when conjoined with our knowledge of its binding principles, would lead us to make apposite decisions were we to apply them uniformly. A few examples are as follows: (a) a signature-line in the consent form to capture family agreement to patient's choices, (b) mandatory International Conference on Harmonisation/Good Clinical Practice training for entire teamof health-care practitioners and Institutional Review Board (IRB)/Independent Ethics Committee (IEC) members involved in research on humans and (c) empower IRB/IEC to audit clinical trials and certify compliance with Indian Council On Medical Research standards. Anything less, than this, would seem to be unethical.

Mass and elite politics in Mill's considerations on representative Government

SUMMARYThis paper examines the formal filters of the public's political will defended by JS Mill as consistent with the best form of representative government. Holding that institutions must adjust to democratic society, and that democratic society must be improved to achieve wise rule, Mill rejects secret ballots and electoral pledges, and advocates a constitutional council and graduated enfranchisement. He also recommends but does not require the indirect election of the President and a unicameral legislature. Mill's historically sensitive approach puts pressure on interpreters to be sensitive to their own political and social context when applying Mill's ideas. In particular, obviously undemocratic measures such as plural voting should be adjusted to reflect Mill's view that the ratio between legitimacy and competence is constantly changing. The continual readjustment between the powers of masses and elites is the way that Mill's Considerations on Representative Government manage to avoid the now-traditional charge of expertocracy.

Inventing the individual: the origins of Western liberalism

The new book from Larry Siedentop, acclaimed author of Democracy in Europe, Inventing the Individual is a highly original rethinking of how our moral beliefs were formed and their impact on western society today. Magisterial, timeless, beautifully written ...Siedentop has achieved something quite extraordinary. He has explained us to ourselves. (Spectator). This ambitious and stimulating book describes how a moral revolution in the first centuries AD - the discovery of human freedom and its universal potential - led to a social revolution in the west. The invention of a new, equal social role, the individual, gradually displaced the claims of family, tribe and caste as the basis of social organisation. Larry Siedentop asks us to rethink the evolution of the ideas on which modern societies and government are built, and argues that the core of what is now our system of beliefs emerged much earlier than we think. The roots of liberalism - belief in individual liberty, in the fundamental moral equality of individuals, that equality should be the basis of a legal system and that only a representative form of government is fitting for such a society - all these, Siedentop argues, were pioneered by Christian thinkers of the Middle Ages, who drew on the moral revolution carried out by the early church. It was the arguments of canon lawyers, theologians and philosophers from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, rather than the Renaissance, that laid the foundation for liberal democracy. There are large parts of the world where other beliefs flourish - fundamentalist Islam, which denies the equality of women and is often ambiguous about individual rights and representative institutions; quasi-capitalist China, where a form of utilitarianism enshrines state interests even at the expense of justice and liberty. Such beliefs may foster populist forms of democracy. But they are not liberal. In the face of these challenges, Siedentop urges that understanding the origins of our own liberal ideas is more than ever an important part of knowing who we are. LARRY SIEDENTOP was appointed to the first post in intellectual history ever established in Britain, at Sussex University in the 1970's. From there he moved to Oxford, becoming Faculty Lecturer in Political Thought and a Fellow of Keble College. His writings include a study of Tocqueville, an edition of Guizot's History of Civilization in Europe, and Democracy in Europe, which has been translated into a dozen languages. Siedentop was made CBE in 2004. Praise for the book: One of the most stimulating books of political theory to have appeared in many years ...a refreshingly unorthodox account of the roots of modern liberalism in medieval Christian thinking. (John Gray, Literary Review). A brave, brilliant and beautifully written defence of the western tradition. (Paul Lay, History Today). An engrossing book of ideas ...illuminating, beautifully written and rigorously argued. (Kenan Malik, Independent). A most impressive work of philosophical history. (Robert Skidelsky).

Distant Relations: Identity and Materiality in Elite Discourse on Britain's Overseas Territories

This article examines representations of identity in two British Overseas Territories: St Helena in the South Atlantic and the British Virgin Islands in the Caribbean. While local forms of representative government exist here, political authority over several significant areas of political life is retained by the British state. As such, the connections between sovereignty, politics and identity are less clearly demarked than in many states. Based on interviews carried out on the islands in 2011, the article explores the way in which national and local identities in the territories are understood in relation to their link with the United Kingdom. The research identifies the importance of geography and economics as key elements in the construction of identity discourses in these territories. This emphasis points to the importance material factors have in shaping the way communities are imagined, particularly where sovereignty is held externally.

О рецепции опыта американской двухпартийной системы в современной России: за и против. Нужна ли современной России американская модель двухпартийной системы?

Lately there has been a lot of talk in Russian political
 circles about the desirability of transition from a multiparty to twoparty system. It is believed that today its American model is one of the most effective mechanisms of representative form of government.
 Several attempts to create a two-party system have been undertaken
 in Russia for the last decade and a half, but it was not possible
 to implement this idea. After the elections in September 2013 a
 number of politicians have proposed to create a two-party system
 of government, considering that current ruling party «Yedinaya Rossiya
 (United Russia)» requires an adequate party rival. In prospects
 one cannot exclude the creation in Russia of a two-party system,
 but in present conditions it is difficult to assess the degree of its
 effectiveness. On the one hand, its functioning is conducive to a
 Federal form of government and majority system of election of senior officials, and on the other, there are centrifugal trends in the
 dynamics of political processes, strengthened after the laws adopted
 over the last decade on the liberalization of procedure of
 registration of political parties. In this regard a number of sociopolitical
 movements demand to make amendments in the electoral
 legislation, aimed at the consolidation of political forces or
 parties with similar policy.

Direct Republicanism in the Administrative Process

This Article offers a new response to an old problem in law: how to secure sound, democratically legitimate policies from unelected regulators. The question stems from a principal-agent problem inherent in representative forms of government — the possibility that government officials will not act in the public’s best interests — and it is rarely absent from legal and policy debates. Major regulatory failures and the government’s responses to them have renewed its significance in recent years, as agencies implement new laws and adapt old ones, courts review their actions, and the White House and Congress debate proposals for regulatory reform. Traditional models of democratic legitimacy in law focus on agency accountability to elected officials or increasing interest group participation in the regulatory process. These models are valuable but ultimately fall short, largely because their representative nature replicates rather than remedies the core principal-agent problem. More recently, some scholars and reformers have attempted to engage citizens directly in the regulatory process. But these efforts have not circumvented the representation-based problems, and they also suffer from the high costs and other complications of democracy that counsel in favor of representative forms of government. This Article introduces a new model for democratic legitimacy, direct republicanism, which attempts to combine elements of representative and approaches. In a republican system, large panels of randomly selected citizens decide policy questions presented to them by government officials. In this way, citizens can act as their own representatives, the principals their own agents. The Article sketches an initial application of republicanism to the regulatory process in the form of administrative juries.

Centennial perspectives on China’s 1911 Revolution

Both within and beyond China, contemporary reflections on the end of two millennia of imperial rule in China frequently focus upon the failure of the new republic to form a strong state and an effective parliamentary form of representative government. For many the agenda for political change in China today is traced back to unfulfilled opportunities in the past. This presentation suggests another set of perspectives that asks what political challenges were met in order to create a state ruling almost all the territory of the former empire, a transition unusual if not unique in the world history of empires, and how the manner in which those challenges were met influences the kinds of problems and possibilities China faces a century after the end of the last dynasty.

Rhetoric and Representation: Reassessing Territorial Diets in Early Modern Germany

The representative form of government is in a somewhat difficult situation today. Ever since Jean-Jacques Rousseau judged in 1762 that “à l'instant qu'un Peuple se donne des Réprésentans, il n'est plus libre, il n'est plus,” representative government has been exposed to a steady stream of harsh criticism. The number of critics eventually increased to include Marxists, communitarians, and radical democrats. On the other hand, it is a matter of fact that over the last decades, representative systems were developed in, or at least formally adopted by, the vast majority of nations. For example, more than 140 out of the nearly 200 world's states formally have parliaments associated in the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Institutions such as parliaments and parties, and procedures such as elections and legislation form a ubiquitous and at the same time heavily disputed part of the present political landscape.

Utilitarian Liberalism: Between Gray and Mill

John Gray’s hostile reading of J.S. Mill’s utilitarian doctrine of individual liberty and social authority is rejected in favour of a more sympathetic reading. According to the latter, Mill’s doctrine says that every civilized society ought to distribute equal rights to complete liberty of self‐regarding conduct. Although clarification of the relevant terms is required, utilitarian calculations are not needed to understand or apply this principle of self‐regarding liberty because it is already a utilitarian principle. Mill’s doctrine also says that every civilized society has legitimate authority to consider establishing rules of social (or other‐regarding) conduct, although society may rightfully decide to adopt broad laissez‐faire policies for some types of social conduct, including trade and expression. In particular, to promote the general welfare, any civil society should enact and enforce a legal code of equal justice which distributes equal rights and correlative obligations designed to protect the right‐holder from suffering serious harms without his consent. Although its content may vary across different social contexts, an optimal code must always distribute certain basic human rights, including the right to complete self‐regarding liberty. Gray’s objection that such a moral and political project is defeated by value‐pluralism is not persuasive. Under plausible conditions, any people seeking to promote the interests of all must consent by (at least) majority vote to some form of representative government with authority to enact and enforce such a code of justice. Value‐pluralism itself, unless it endorses this project at least to the extent of protecting some minimum set of basic human rights, fails as moral and political theory.

The Institutional Foundation of U.S. Trade Policy: Revisiting Explanations for the 1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act

In the 1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act (“RTAA”), Congress delegated its constitutionally granted power to set tariffs to the President. Trade agreements negotiated under the RTAA required noex postcongressional approval. Instead, the broad authority conferred upon the President was subject to congressional renewal every three years. Tariff reductions also were no longer made unilaterally via omnibus tariff legislation, but rather bilaterally via trade agreements and in exchange for comparable tariff reductions from foreign trading partners. The RTAA dramatically altered the governance structure that had controlled U.S. trade policymaking for over a century, laying a new institutional foundation that made U.S. postwar participation in, and leadership of, global trade liberalization and expansion possible. Indeed, the RTAA is arguably the most important piece of trade legislation of this century. It also is an unusual case of congressional delegation of policymaking authority to the President. Representative Hamilton Fish (R-N.Y.) called the RTAA “a betrayal of our representative form of government [that] amounts to an open admission by Congress that … it is now incompetent and unfit to legislate properly, intelligently and in the public interest.” The press described the RTAA as a “radical departure in commercial policy.” What accounts for this extraordinary delegation, especially by a legislative body better known for guarding its power than for giving it away?

An Ever Closer Fusion? A Dynamic Macropolitical View on Integration Processes

To explain the evolution of the EU, a macropolitical approach using overall aggregate data is taken. Four dynamic views are tested: the neofunctional/neofederal assumption of linear growth; the realist view of decline; the governance/pendulum view of cyclical up and down; and the fusion thesis view of structural growth and differentiation. The article uses five indicators: binding outputs; scope enlargement of public policies; transfer of competencies; institutional growth and procedural differentiation; and involvement of intermediary groups in channels of influence. The data point to trends of merging public resources at several state levels, leading to increasing complexities, a lack of transparency and difficulties in reversing the development. This ever closer fusion is explained as a dynamic product of rational strategies of European welfare states faced with growing interdependencies and spillovers, furthered by the institutional logics of EU bodies. Criticized for the lack of legitimacy and the entailing of national democratic constitutions, this new polity may be perceived as a new stage in the evolution of European state and—more open to critical debate—a novel form of representative government.

The Emerging New Politics of Liberalizing Paraguay: Sustained Civil-Military Control without Democracy

The Process of the transition from authoritarianism to more representative forms of government has become a major subject of the scholarship on Latin American politics today (O'Donnell,et al,1986; Malloy and Seligson, 1987; Stepan, 1989; Diamondet al,1988-1990; Lowenthal, 1991). Given this interest, as expressed by the growing literature in this area, little attention has been paid to the transition process now going on in Paraguay, which is now emerging from one of Latin America's most long-standing authoritarian regimes.A number of studies testify to the authoritarian nature of Paraguay's government and society. Johnson indicates that Paraguay ranked either 18th or 19th—out of 20 Latin American nations ... in 9 successive surveys of democratic development, carried out at 5-year intervals from 1945 to 1985 (Jonnson> 1988). A longitudinal study of press freedom found that Paraguay was invariably placed in the category of “poor,” or even “none,” between 1945-1975 (Hill and Hurley, 1980). When Palmer applied his 5 indicators of authoritarianism (nonelective rule, coups, primacy of the military, military rule, executive predominance) to the countries of Latin America, Paraguay consistently ranked first in its degree of authoritarianism (Palmer, 1977).

The future of Muslim politics: Critique of the ‘fundamentalist’ theory of the Islamic state

This article considers the future of Muslim political thought in the context of growing de-Islamization and the dominance of Western institutions. The ‘fundamentalist’ theory of the Islamic state—total mobilization of Muslim societies under a universal state—is criticized as religiously an immanentist heresy, and politically a totalitarian nightmare. Proposed here is a way out of the moral and intellectual crisis in Islamic political thought through the principle of Shura—meaning that Muslims must evolve their own form of representative government.

Woman Candidates and Support for Feminist Concerns: the Closet Feminist Syndrome

WX A HY SHOULD WOMEN hold a larger proportion of public offices in this country? What difference does it make if most positions of political power are filled by men? Responses to these questions generally follow one of two lines of argument. According to the first, the paucity of women in public office is inconsistent with fundamental democratic principles and with a representative form of government. Greater representation is viewed as a democratic right, and the lack of more extensive participation by women is seen as an indication that our democratic system is malfunctioning. This justification for greater participation by women in all aspects of the governance of society is frequently voiced by commissions on the status of women, feminist activists, and various women's political organizations. Social scientists also have used this argument to point to a need for greater participation by women. Kirsten Amundsen has perhaps most carefully examined the contradiction between women's lack of greater participation and basic tenets of democratic theory, concluding: . .. the effect of sexist ideology has been to disarm the American woman politically and also to deprive American democracy of the potentially informed and intelligent contribution of more than half of its citizenry. From the point of view of classical democratic theory, this is clearly disastrous (1971: 133). While this argument for increasing the number of women holding public office is purely normative, a second argument can be tested empirically. According to this second point of view, women in positions of power will exert a distinctive, sex-related influence on public policy. The election of more women to office is seen as important because it may lead to changes in public policy. The hypothesized gender-related consequences of electing more women to office vary. Since women in the general population have been found to be less militaristic than men (Pomper 1975: 78-79), some believe that increased participation by women will help to prevent wars. Others think women, because they have been locked out of power, are uncorrupted and thus more likely than men to produce policy free of the influence of special interests. Others believe that women are more nurturant, more humane, more altruistic, and/or more compassionate than men and that these characteristics somehow will affect their performance in office (Stoper and Johnson 1977).