Democratic Policy Research Articles

ÉMERGENCE ET DÉCLIN DE LA GOUVERNANCE DÉMOCRATIQUE EN DROIT INTERNATIONAL

Les années 1989-2010 peuvent être considérées comme une époque – sans précédent dans l’histoire du droit international au cours de laquelle la gouvernance – interprétée ici comme l’exercice de l’autorité publique au niveau national à travers des institutions plus ou moins centralisées – s’est vue réglementée par un nombre grandissant de règles de droit international. Cette évolution s’est notamment traduite par l’émergence d’une obligation relative à l’origine démocratique des gouvernements. Cette obligation a été qualifiée dans la doctrine américaine de « principe de légitimité démocratique ». Toutefois, l’importance géostratégique acquise par certains États non démocratiques, la priorité désormais accordée à l’agenda sécuritaire, la crise économique de 2007-2010, ainsi que les instrumentalisations des politiques de démocratisation par certains pays occidentaux semblent avoir freiné la consolidation du principe de légitimité démocratique en droit international. En effet, le rôle que la démocratie a joué dans la pratique de la reconnaissance, la création d’États, les relations diplomatiques, la coopération économique, l’utilisation des forces multilatérales et l’accréditation au sein des organisations internationales semble s’être affaibli significativement, laissant présager la fin de cette époque toute singulière dans l’histoire du droit international. Après avoir brièvement décrit la consolidation (I) et l’affaiblissement contemporain (II) du principe de légitimité démocratique dans la pratique du droit international et la doctrine depuis 1989, cet article évaluera de manière critique les leçons tirées de cette période, en particulier s’agissant de la mesure dans laquelle le droit international est à même de réglementer la gouvernance au niveau national (III). Il se penchera enfin sur les diverses dynamiques qui ont traversé la doctrine ayant étudiée cette question au cours des deux dernières décennies (IV).

Mincing Words: The Three Layers of the AKP’s Narrative on Kurdish Politics

In 2009–2015, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) put forward several initiatives to end insurgency in Kurdish majority areas. However, successive “openings” failed to make progress. The electoral and international goals of the AKP gradually became incongruent with the peace process, and the AKP espoused heavy-handed tactics in July 2015. The ups and downs of the process in 2009–2015 show that it was already fragile. Some causes of this fragility were external to the AKP, such as the opposition parties’ eagerness to use the process to poach nationalist voters and the PKK’s violence. However, I argue that the contradictory nature of the AKP’s narrative was also a crucial factor. The party’s earlier narrative required the strict separation of two layers: security policies to fight terrorists and democratization policies to address the legitimate grievances of citizens. However, the intersubjective strategies that it experimented later required a gray area between these two fields. The AKP, instead of changing strategies, has constructed a three-layered, contradictory narrative.

Remaking the Imperial Presidency: The Mayaguez Incident of 1975 and the Contradictions of Credibility

ABSTRACT The 1975 Mayaguez incident was a missed opportunity to establish a more democratic American foreign policy. President Gerald Ford managed the crisis seeking domestic and international credibility. But his conception of credibility was more fractured than that of his predecessors, who regarded it as synonymous with militarism, presidential primacy, and secrecy. Ford believed the preservation of American power depended upon a renewal of American democracy, and he was determined to preside over a period of national reconciliation after the traumas of Watergate and Vietnam. His sense of credibility therefore pushed him towards diplomacy in addition to militarism, co-operation with Congress in addition to presidential unilateralism, and openness in addition to secrecy. The antinomies within Ford’s sense of credibility were partly a product of his time, which saw an eruption of public scepticism towards American and presidential power, and partly of his temperament and experience endowing him with a reverence for democratic consensus. Throughout the crisis, Ford wrestled with the contradictions embedded within his sense of credibility. Although he ultimately resolved those contradictions in an anti-democratic direction and deepened the imperial presidency, that outcome was not foreordained.

Cyber conflict or democracy “hacked”? How cyber operations enhance information warfare

Abstract Are cyber-enabled information warfare (IW) campaigns uniquely threatening when compared with traditional influence operations undertaken by state actors? Or is the recent “hacking” of Western democracies simply old wine in new—but fundamentally similar—bottles? This article draws on classical theories of democratic functionality from the political science and communications studies fields to deconstruct the aims and effects of cyber-enabled IW. I describe democracies as information systems wherein the moderating functions of democratic discourse and policy deliberation rely on robust mechanisms for asserting the credibility, origination, and quality of information. Whereas the institutions of democracy are often compromised in ways that force failures of the system’s moderating dynamics, influence operations in the digital age act to subvert the traditional mechanisms of democratic functionality in new ways. Sophisticated digital age information operations create a multifaceted attribution challenge to the target state that amounts to unprecedented uncertainty about the nature and scope of the threat. However, the promise of cyber-enabled IW capabilities emerges more from the rewiring of modern democratic information environments around new media platforms than it does from the cyber conflict faculties of state actors. Rather, cyber operations act as an adjunct modifier of IW abilities that allow belligerent governments to secure new sources of private information, to divert attention from other pillars of IW campaigns, to compromise the capabilities of domestic counterintelligence assets and to tacitly coerce important members of society.

Women Empowerment In India With Special Reference To Social And Economic Upliftment

Empowerment of Women is essentially the process of upliftment of economic, social and political status of Women, the traditionally underprivileged ones, in the society. It is the process of guarding them against all forms of violence. Empowerment is the process that creates power in individuals over their own lives, society and in their communities. People are empowered when they are able to access the opportunities available to them without limitations and restrictions such as in education, profession and lifestyle. Feeling entitled to make their own decisions creates a sense of empowerment. Empowerment includes the action of raising awareness, literacy and training. Women’s empowerment is all about equipping and allowing women to make life-determining decisions through the different problems in society. The principle of gender equality is enshrined in the Indian constitution in its Preamble, Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles and Fundamental Duties. The Constitution not only grants equality to women, but also empowers the state to adopt measures of positive discrimination in favour of women. Within the framework of democratic policy, our laws, development policies, plans and programmes have aimed at women’s advancement in different spheres. Women of India are relatively disempowered and they enjoy somewhat lower status than that of men in spite of many efforts undertaken by Government.

When More Democracy Means More Inequality: A Path Analysis

Path analysis is used to examine an observed positive relationship between inequality and democracy. Specifically, the impact of democracy and corruption on inequality and per capita income is assessed based on a cross-sectional data set covering 125 countries. We show high inequality democracies are associated with elevated corruption, lower per capita income, and a ceiling on democratic achievement. We argue that democracy increasing in tandem with inequality is consistent with authoritarian leadership attempting to grow an economy for self-enrichment. We propose measures of democracy need to account for democratic policies whose actual aim may be the enrichment of elites.

Financialization and generational differences in the correlates of perceived importance of investment in Hong Kong

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine how people’s perceptions of the importance of financial investment relate to their value orientation, societal perceptions and policy attitudes. Tying together insights from theoretical analysis of the financialization of society and Mannheim’s (1972) theory of generation, this study hypothesizes that perceived importance of investment should be less connected to a desire for a wealthy lifestyle and more connected to a critique of social inequality among the young generation. Analysis of survey data (N = 1,020) from Hong Kong, an international financial hub, shows that perceived importance of investment relates positively to consumer materialism, perceptions of social inequality and support for social democratic policies. More importantly, the relationships between the latter variables and perceived importance of investment vary across age groups in ways largely consistent with the expectation. The findings illustrate the changing social significance of financial investment and the reluctant embracement of investment by young people.Design/methodology/approachA representative telephone survey (N = 1,020) was conducted and analyzed.FindingsThe analysis shows that perceived importance of investment relates positively to consumer materialism, perceptions of social inequality and support for social democratic policies. More importantly, the relationships between the latter variables and perceived importance of investment vary across age groups in ways largely consistent with the expectation.Originality/valueThe findings illustrate the changing social significance of financial investment and the reluctant embracement of investment by the young generation. It is, to the authors’ knowledge, the first study in Hong Kong addressing people’s attitudes toward investment in relation to the notion of financialization.

Se o Rio é lusitano, por que a Ilha das Flores não o é?

Laços históricos e culturais tornaram os portugueses o principal grupo de imigrantes que se fixaram no Brasil, especialmente no Rio de Janeiro. Os estudos que já se dedicaram ao tema ressaltam variados aspectos: os estímulos à emigração, as estratégias de fixação e de reconstrução de identidades no novo país, as solidariedades e sociabilidades proporcionadas, as relações mantidas entre os dois lados do Atlântico etc. Um aspecto pouco analisado diz respeito aos processos de recepção desse grupo no Rio de Janeiro, em especial, sua presença na Hospedaria da Ilha das Flores, dispositivo criado em 1883, e que ocupou papel central nas ações de recepção de imigrantes das políticas imperial e republicana. Nesse sentido objetivamos analisar esses processos relacionando-o à Hospedaria da Ilha das Flores, na primeira década de funcionamento desta instituição, 1883-1892.

Democracy versus Security as Standards of Political Legitimacy: The Case of National Policy on Irregular Migrant Arrivals

Democratic citizens confront a range of problems framed as “security” issues, in policy areas such as counterterrorism and migration control, which place substantial political pressure on democratic norms. We develop a normative theoretical framework for assessing whether and how policies that curtail democratic governance standards in the name of security can be justified as politically legitimate. To do so, we articulate a novel normative account of legitimacy, which integrates insights from both democratic and realist traditions of thought to illuminate the complementary contributions of democratic and security standards to political legitimacy. We further elaborate a framework for applying this theoretical account to political practice in the form of a policy-focused “security test” for legitimacy in democratic states. Finally, we explore how this test may be deployed to help resolve policy dilemmas in democratic practice, by examining its application to a case study of national policy on irregular boat arrivals in Australia and Canada. Through this analysis, we contribute to the development of both richer theoretical understandings of the complex modern value of political legitimacy, and clearer action-guiding principles for balancing competing demands of legitimacy within securitized democratic policy regimes.

Independent Regulatory Agency: Delegation of Powers

The existence of independent regulatory agencies - independent bodies which operate at arm´s length from the government and which are not directly accountable to the voters or their elected representatives - is still the object of intense debate. Independent regulatory agencies emerge in democratic policies across the world. It is difficult to find de lege ferenda rationale for their existence in a democracy where public policy is supposed to be made by electorally accountable people and where public institutions are not usually endowed with a high degree of independence. Thanks to economic theories and principles this article reveals a justification of their existence and gives arguments for their creation. The instrumental rationality problem, the problem of time inconsistency and the credible commitment problem constitute a heavy burden for government in some areas. A delegation of regulatory powers in these areas from the government to an independent body represents a solution to all these problems. The knowledge gained from economic theories can be beneficial for comprehension of the functioning of independent authorities and for setting their institutional legal framework.

New European Banking Governance and Crisis of Democracy: Bank Restructuring and Privatization in Slovenia

ABSTRACT The paper makes three contributions to the understanding of the post-crisis European banking governance. First, it offers a more comprehensive approach to banking governance, beyond the Banking Union, through its concept of ‘New European Banking Governance’ (NEBG) that incorporates EU state aid rules and fiscal regulations. Second, it considers the impact of NEBG on democratic institutions and processes in EU member states, an under-researched topic in the literature on European banking governance. Finally, through its in-depth case study of Slovenia it considers the NEBG in relation to peripheral Eurozone states. It argues that the post-crisis banking governance framework of the EU not only severely constrained the Slovenian state in its policy choices but rearranged its policy-making institutions in a way that restricted and continues to restrict democratic banking policy formation.

The Policies of the First Green-Red Government in the German Federal State of Baden-Württemberg, 2011–2016

In recent years, green parties have gained, at least in some Western democracies, access to government at different levels. In 2011, a coalition between the Green Party under Winfried Kretschmann and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) came to power in Baden-Wurttemberg (BW) following 58 years of predominantly Christian Democratic (CDU) government in the state. The present paper analyzes whether this change of government has led to a corresponding “green–red” policy change. Applying a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to 12 different policy sectors, we find evidence of remarkable changes in policy in some key areas related to Green politics, and evidence also of both Social Democratic reforms and path dependence in many other sectors. The results of our fsQCA show that the responsibility of Social Democratic politicians for the ministries in the respective policy sectors in financially relevant policy sectors was enough reason for the implementation of far-reaching reforms. Social Democratic ministries in financially relevant policy sectors with a rather low degree of political leeway brought in Social Democratic policy solutions. Moreover, a sufficient reason for some Green policy manifestations was the combination of Green Party ministries in more regulatory policy sectors with a rather high degree of political leeway.

Racial Education in Brazilian Children´S Literature Teaching

This paper discusses racial relations in teaching of children´s and young literature in Brazil. Based on the laws 10.639/2003 and 11.645/2008, which require that Brazilian schools teach the history and culture of Afro-Brazilians and Native Nations, we seek to problematize the applied research project From Reader To Reader, considering the effectiveness of the cited laws and the receiving of the African and Afro-Brazilian literary books brought together in Kit Afro: an affirmative policy of democratization of the access to literary production for diversity implemented by the Municipal Teaching Network of Belo Horizonte. Our discussions are guided by studies about race relations in Brazil (GOMES, 2012), teaching of literature (OLIVEIRA, 2015) and transcultural and decolonial pedagogy (HOPENHAY, 2009; WALSH, 2017).

Editorial RSD6

The sixth Relating Systems Thinking and Design Symposium (RSD6 2017) was held at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design in Norway in October 2017. The central theme of the symposium was “Environment, Economy, Democracy: Flourishing Together”, and called for contributions on democratic participation and policy innovation, sustainable business innovation, flourishing communities, and related systems-thinking-oriented approaches to architecture, settlements and the built environment. A wide range of contributions addressed themes, such as social impact in flourishing and change programs, health and population wellness, ecological design and bioregion development, human-scaled and regional economies, related sociotechnical and technological systems, etc. Yet, while the five earlier symposia did receive a number of papers that were focused on architecture and urban design, RSD6 was the first RSD symposium with a dedicated paper session on architecture and urban design. This special issue of Formakademisk collects together five of the papers that focus on architecture and urban design from a linked systems-thinking and design-thinking perspective. Each article pursues a distinct theme concerning the development of the profession, performance-oriented architecture and urban design, the role of exterior space in rethinking the architectural envelope, and questions of participation and community building. This breadth of themes in the selected articles indicates the increasingly deep impact of systems-thinking in the fields of architecture and urban design.

From the Warnock Report (1978) to an Education Framework Commission: A Novel Contemporary Approach to Educational Policy Making for Pupils With Special Educational Needs/Disabilities

This paper argues that the significance of the Warnock Report after 40 years goes beyond the impact of its deliberations and recommendations on UK policy and practice and its wider international influence. The Report’s significance also highlights the nature of provision for pupils with SEN and disabilities and the changing context of policy making in contemporary liberal democratic society. This paper shows the strong inter-connection between SEN and inclusion with other aspects of educational provision as the basis for proposing that future policy directions depend on general policy processes. It then argues that policy for pupils with SEN illustrates the democratic deficits in educational and policy-making processes in general. It uses this analysis to conclude that without grappling with these bigger policy issues we cannot expect some crucial questions in the field to be addressed more coherently and convincingly either conceptually or practically. Drawing on a post-democracy political analysis (Crouch, 2000). and contemporary ideas about deliberative democracy (Fishkin, 2018), with a recognition of the plural values that underlie policy tensions (Dahl, 1982). it proposes an Education Framework Commission (EFC). The Commission would set policy priorities as a settlement that has the potential to reconcile plural and sometimes contrary value positions. It would aim to design a ten-year consensual educational policy framework, within which political parties and governments will work; a framework that could be renewed after this period. An EFC would cover all key aspects of education including designs for including the diversity of learners. Finding common ground between different social and political value perspectives involves deliberative democratic principles and approaches that could influence representative democratic policy making. Though this proposal arises in an English context it has international relevance to the project of renewing ideas and values about the nature of schooling in a way that takes genuine account of SEN and disabilities.

The Policy Formulation of Educational Funding in Yogyakarta Province

The quality of education is depends on input factors. Funding is one of input factors which still an obstacle faced by disadvantaged groups. The local government in decentralization era has responsibility to carry out education and its funding as an implication of regional autonomy. This study aims to analyze the policy formulation of education funding in Yogyakarta Province by case study method. Primary data was collected by interviews and document collection. We found that the policy formulation of education funding consists of problem formulation, identification of alternatives, and budgeting. Stakeholders used brainstorming methods to formulate problems and identification alternative. They found some problems which can be distinguished into; minimum service standard, child abuse, and education management. Whereas, budgeting is determined by conformation mechanism between requirement of the problem solving and the themes of regional development plans. So that, the problems identificationandprogrampreparationcarriedoutdemocraticallybutthedetermination of budgeting were carried out by bureaucratic and top-down manner. Necessarily, formulatingproblem-basedpolicyismoreimportantthanprioritizingplanwithoutdated problem. Then, democratic policy which organized as bottom level stakeholders participationtakeanimportantrolebecausetheycloserandbetterknowaboutsociety problem.

Everybody Hurts Sometimes: How Personal and Collective Insecurities Shape Policy Preferences

Understanding when individuals support government action is central to government responsiveness and democratic policy making. While previous research on political behavior has explored the influen...

Local regional workforce returns on investment of a locally governed and delivered general practice vocational training program

This study evaluated a program arising from the Commonwealth policy of regionalised training for general practice with regard to the outcomes for the region investing in the training program. A complete operational audit was performed of the outcomes of a training provider of the Commonwealth program, evaluating workforce contribution and retention in the region during and after training, stratified for the effects of locally contextualising, advanced skill training and origin of trainee. The local regional workforce contribution during training peaked at 130 full-time equivalents in 2015. Cumulatively, 53% of alumni remained in the region, but over 40% moved to practice in metropolitan south-east Queensland and other Australian capital cities. Local contextualising of training, completing additional advanced skills training and being an Australian graduate were associated with increased retention in the region. A regional training program is a significant local asset introducing potential general practitioners (GPs) to the region. However, this regional area has become a 'rural' training ground for GPs into metropolitan practice rather than local investment translating as comprehensively as possible into long-term local workforce. The Commonwealth program should focus on local workforce outcomes as an evaluation metric rather than the proportion of trainees in rural training.

Foreign aid preferences and perceptions in donor countries

We present original survey data on preferences for foreign aid in 24 donor countries from 2005 to 2008. On publicly-funded foreign aid (Official Development Assistance, or ODA), we find patterns that are consistent with a standard model of democratic policy formation, in which donations are treated as a pure public good. Controlling for perceptions of current ODA, we show that individual preferences for ODA are (i) negatively correlated with relative income within a country-year; and (ii) positively correlated with inequality at the country level. We extend the analysis to explain variation in the gap between desired aid and actual ODA, arguing that lobbying by high-income special interest groups can divert resources away from the median voter’s preferred level of aid. Consistent with this, we observe that ODA is significantly lower where policymakers are more susceptible to lobbying. Finally, we present a novel test of competing “crowding out” hypotheses. Self-reported private aid donations are negatively correlated with actual ODA, and positively correlated with perceived ODA. This finding is consistent with an emerging argument in the literature, whereby ODA crowds out private aid by enabling charities to forego fundraising activities and crowds in private aid through a signaling channel.

Democratize Health Policy Through Citizen’s Charter in North Bengkulu District

This research is analyzing about how the policy of democratization and regional autonomy can born Citizen’s Charter in public sevice. The purpose of the regional autonomy implementation is to shortening the distance of service among goverment and the society, so the local goverment can understand more about desires, aspirations and needs of the community compared with the central government who has longer distance from the society. The effort to shortening the distance makes the execution of regional autonomy needs some changes and inovations in giving the service in order to match with the society needs. The result of this research shows that the democratization and regional autonomy policy still can’t born the Citizen’s Charter in local public service yet, particularly in health care services contract in the Arga Makmur city, North Bengkulu. Realization of the Citizen’s Charter principles in the Puskesmas Arga Makmur, North Bengkulu district is proved to have different characteristics with the Citizen’s Charter which occurred in Java commonly. In North Bengkulu, the implementation of the Citizen’s Charter not only need strong political will from local goverment, budget support (General Revenue and Expenditure Budget/ APBD), the availability of adequate infrastructure, commitment and quality of the resource officers, community support, the importance of shifting paradigm in society toward formal treatment like Puskesmas, but also need a personal leadership for the head of Puskesmas. Without any initiation from personal leadership, it can be sure that the implementation of Citizen’s Charter in regional seems can’t be running well.