Understanding Of Democracy Research Articles

Different Perspectives on Democracy as an Explanation for the “Populist Radical Right Gender Gap”?

The “radical right gender gap” is an established finding in contemporary research, indicating that women support populist radical right parties (PRRPs) in significantly lower numbers than men. Despite substantial literature dedicated to uncovering the reasons behind this gap, significant questions remain unanswered. This article examines the nature of the radical right gender gap in greater detail, focusing on Switzerland—a country with one of the most established PRRPs in Western Europe, the SVP/SPP (Schweizer Volkspartei/Swiss People’s Party), making it a representative case. A defining feature of PRRPs that sets them apart from other parties is their clear distinction between in-groups and out-groups in society, coupled with the propagation of nativist and anti-pluralist values. While PRRPs emphasize caring for the in-group, they often advocate excluding the out-group from rights and privileges. This article argues that the preferences of PRRPs and female voters are in stark contrast regarding these issues. Building on empirical evidence that women place more importance on certain features of a democratic system than men do, we propose that this discrepancy may help explain the gender gap in support for these parties. Utilizing data from the European Social Survey 2020, which includes detailed questions on various understandings of democracy, we find robust support for our hypotheses within the Swiss context. Compared to men, women consider protecting the rights of minorities and safeguarding all citizens from poverty as especially important for a functioning democracy. These preferences emerge as influential factors contributing to women’s reluctance to support PRRPs.

The Democracy I Like: Perceptions of Democracy and Opposition to Democratic Backsliding

Abstract When democracy is under attack, the hope is often that citizens will punish undemocratic incumbents. However, recent studies show that not all citizens punish governments for their undemocratic actions. In this article, we argue that citizens' understanding of and satisfaction with democracy are sources of heterogeneous reactions. In a survey experiment conducted in Germany and Poland, we show that the importance that citizens attach to specific institutions under threat, as well as their understanding of democracy, can explain much of the variance in citizens' responses to undemocratic actions. Citizens are willing to defend what they consider important for democracy – regardless of whether this reflects theoretical conceptions of democracy. Moreover, in times of democratic backsliding, Polish ‘critical citizens’, those who are dissatisfied with the way democracy works in Poland, are more likely to punish governments for undemocratic actions. Our findings help us understand how to increase citizens' resilience against democratic backsliding.

Canaries of Democracy: The Role of Public Libraries in Times of Political Turmoil

ABSTRACT This article reports conclusions from a three-year research project on Swedish public libraries. The focus of the project is on librarians experience of libraries mission to promote democracy when democratic norms and values are challenged politically by radical right populism. Results of a longitudinal survey point to stability and lack of political interest over time, but increased societal polarization causes several ethical dilemmas for librarians. Examples of illegitimate political influence and librarians adapting to changes in the political climate call for renewed discussions on the professional role and understandings of democracy in library practice.

Demokrasi, Governance, dan Oligarki: Konglomerasi Media MNC Group Keterlibatannya Melancarkan Capres Ganjar Pranowo Pada Pemilu 2024

This article discusses the issue of the MNC group as oligarchic media and the news it displays only appears to be based on political interests. The media oligarchy influences political contestation, the latest political reality shows that the Perindo Party supports presidential candidate Ganjar Pranowo in the 2024 presidential election and also utilizes television media as a political capital and political campaign infrastructure in the 2024 presidential election. This research aims to explore the phenomenon of the MNC Group media conglomeration which siding with the coalition of presidential candidate Ganjar Pranowo to form an oligarchy that can influence the governance system. This research adopted a qualitative research design and data collection was carried out through literature reviews from various journals and online publications of articles related to this issue. Research findings show that the MNC Group as the media broadcaster broadcasts broadcasts on television only for political purposes, this has resulted in a democratic crisis because the media no longer has independence, and this phenomenon states that there is a media oligarchy in Indonesia which makes Indonesia bad governance. The research results contribute to a better understanding of democracy, media oligarchy, and cultural hegemony in political media.

Exploring popular conceptions of democracy through media discourse: analysing dimensions of democracy from online media data in 93 countries using a distributional semantic model

ABSTRACT Survey studies show that popular support for democracy is strong in democratic and non-democratic countries. Naturally, the question is if democracy actually means the same thing in different linguistic, cultural, and political contexts. Mass media is often mentioned as decisive in forming citizens' understandings of democracy, but the media discourse is rarely in focus in comparative studies on popular conceptions of democracy. This article contributes to the debate by analysing data collected from online media in 93 countries. By utilizing tools from natural language processing, we provide new insights based on methods that are both extensive, flexible and cost-efficient. Our analysis shows that the media discourse revolves around democracy as governance, as outcomes and as values, but that these abstract understandings have additional dimensions. Our main contributions are three: (i) we show that the media discourse is related to popular understandings of democracy; (ii) our results indicate that there are common denominators of how the D-word is discussed in media across the globe, but when analysing the dimensions in more detail, common denominators are few and (iii) by relating democracy to everyday politics, media seems to legitimize any regime as democratic rather than being a beacon for liberal democracy.

Challenging Liberal Principles: Understanding of Democracy among Populist Radical Right Youth Leaders in Austria and Germany

ABSTRACT Responding to the growing political success of populist radical right parties, scholars have increasingly examined those parties relationship to democracy. While some consider these parties as a democratic corrective to a crisis of political representation, others point to their ideological conflict with the principles of liberal democracy. We contribute to this debate by exploring the understanding of democracy of populist radical right youth leaders. Specifically, we conducted nine qualitative semi-structured expert interviews with leaders and executive members of the populist radical right youth wings in Austria (Ring Freiheitlicher Jugend/RFJ) and Germany (Junge Alternative/JA). To determine their understanding of democracy, we utilised a vignette technique to simulate governmental decision-making in resolving specific political scenarios. The findings indicate that although the youth leaders recognise democracy as such, their understanding of democracy contains majoritarian and anti-egalitarian aspects that might indirectly curtail liberal principles of democracy. This study thus provides an in-depth analysis of the motivations underlying the intentions of populist radical right youth leaders toward potential transformations of democratic institutions.

Legislating on economic-social rights amidst de-democratisation: lessons from a lapsed Indian bill on the right to health

ABSTRACT Due to their special nature, the economic-social rights (ESRs) – compared to civil-political rights (CPRs) – entail distinct legislative methodology. This is still a nascent area of knowledge globally. ESRs are increasingly pivotal in the trending populist governments. Also, there is growing practical clarity on the paradigm of indivisibility and interdependence of ESRs and CPRs. However, unlike CPRs, the ESRs continue to be seen as resource-contingent, and therefore not amenable to legislative regulation but to ‘progressive realization’ through policies. This article foremost contests that, and instead asserts that ESRs too are legalisable and even justiciable, though differently from CPRs. It illustrates this from a lapsed national health bill of the Indian government, drafted and steered by the author. The matrix comprising the right to health and an Indian legislative initiative is used: the right to health as a particularly complex ESR; and India as a representative democracy with rising influence of privatisation and a declining legislature. Secondly, this experience demonstrates that ESRs need alternative concepts, techniques and practices of legislating. The unfolding nature of ESRs and their deep political-economic entrenchment require nimble and intricate negotiations among competing stakeholders. This makes the ESR laws evolving non-linear processes more than finished end-products. Also, process heaviness makes their legislation necessarily complicated and slow. Thirdly, the case study shows, legislating on ESRs invokes a qualitatively different understanding of democracy. Since ESRs essentially involve multiple interest groups and the larger regulatory framework comprising both the legislature and the executive, they implicate innate democratic values. In the contemporary de-democratisation context, their long-drawn legislative process – even a disingenuous one, initiated only for legitimacy – could counter-intuitively bolster deliberative democracy. For all three reasons, the process itself – besides the enacted law, the product – deserves recognition as an underexamined critical success-indicator of legislative methodology, especially for ESRs.

“SAVAGE DEMOCRACY” BY C. LEFORT AND M. ABENSOUR

The article examines one of the interpretations of radical democracy, which in the works of C. Lefort was called “savage democracy”. Based on the analysis of the historical development of political regimes of the modern era, Lefort comes to the conclusion that the victory of democracy is not a historical necessity. He proposes to go beyond the understanding of democracy as an established political regime and think of it as a constant conflict of political forces. M. Abensour reveals the term “savage democracy” as the power of people, manifested in the actions of people at the moment of historical rupture. At such moments political institutions are reestablished, and new political languages reflecting the interests of participants in popular movements are formulated.

The Crisis of Democracy and the Legitimate Rule of Law: Kelsen, Populism, and the Politics of Recognition

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: This essay examines how deliberation and recognition contribute to our understanding of democracy as a form of government combining two sources of legitimacy, one based on a legal procedure and the other based on ideological faith commitment.
 THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: Although joint deliberation about policy aims and recognition of person’s political identities are often assumed to be complementary (Habermas, 1996; Honneth, 2014; Taylor, 1994), I argue that this need not be the case. Political identities oriented by faith commitments pose a challenge to deliberation oriented by rational compromise. A one-sided emphasis on deliberation or recognition as exclusive sources of democratic legitimation threatens to debase the res publica to an arena of identity politics whose populist proclivities are antithetical to liberal democracy. Exacerbating this trend is the phenomenon of political polarization caused in large part by the economic stratification and socio-cultural fragmentation of a global, digital form of capitalism. My method for examining and resolving the problem relies on notable philosophers who have written about the legal and political implications of deliberation and the politics of recognition: Charles Taylor, Jürgen Habermas, and Hans Kelsen.
 THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The paper begins by summarizing the importance of recognition for political life and its ambivalent humanistic and nationalistic (and sub-nationalistic) senses (Part 1). I then turn to Kelsen’s critique of recognition as incompatible with the rule of law, followed by his qualified endorsement of recognition, understood as a necessary political ethos underwriting a liberal, deliberative form of democracy (Parts 2 and 3). Turning to our contemporary democratic crisis, I show how structural transformations within and between political parties and the public sphere have given rise to authoritarian forms of populism (Part 4). I conclude by noting how imperatives within digital capitalism produce ambivalent effects regarding the restoration...
 

Trust in Anonymous News? How Users Navigate Political News Channels on Russian Telegram

The paper explores the phenomenon of anonymous news channels on Russian Telegram, which have become increasingly popular in recent years. Drawing on 25 self-confrontation interviews, we answer the following questions: Do users trust anonymous news? If not, why do they keep using this information source? How does a restrictive socio-political context influence users’ trust in alternative news sources? Our results show that, in Russia, the concept of trust is linked to the normative democratic understanding of journalistic functions. At the same time, many users believe that trust in media is not at all necessary and develop individual strategies to navigate a “chaos of narratives”. The paper discusses Telegram’s role in shaping trust or distrust in news.

Authoritarianism at School: Indoctrination Education, Political Socialisation, and Citizenship in North Korea

ABSTRACT It is well known that North Korea uses political propaganda to elicit popular support, and this article focuses on how primary and secondary schools play an essential role in conveying the regime’s messages. The article asks how this process shapes North Koreans’ perceptions towards citizenship and how their perceptions of ‘democracy’ differ from those in other parts of the world. School education, I argue, socialises North Koreans and shapes their everyday political attitudes and citizenship perceptions. This study examines 32 North Korean Socialist Moral textbooks and identifies four core regime messages embedded in these texts: Personality Cult education in relation to the Kims, promoting socialism, fostering nationalism, and cultivating communitarianism and collectivism. I propose that these regime messages positively and negatively affect perceptions of democratic citizenship. Messages that promote communitarianism can encourage North Koreans to engage in democratic politics, but messages about political leadership, nationalism, and collectivism can hamper North Koreans’ understanding of democracy and their capacity to develop democratic norms. This study has implications for research into how North Korean defectors are integrated into democratic South Korea, suggesting that these defectors’ longstanding exposure to authoritarian education in North Korea will necessarily influence how they conceive of democracy.

Идея автономии в свете республиканской крити­ки современной либеральной концепций свободы

In the European philosophical tradition, there are two trends in the understanding of freedom – the negative concept of freedom, which grew out of the mechanicism of the 17th century, which formed the basis of the liberal political tradition, and the con­cept of freedom as autonomy, established in a modern form in the works of Benedict Spinoza and Immanuel Kant, and later becoming the basis of the Republican politi­cal tradition. Historically, the negative concept of freedom has assumed a dominant position, in certain periods completely replacing all alternatives. However, the appeal to the idea of freedom as a state of autonomy can become one of the significant ap­proaches to critique of the liberal understanding of freedom, way of understanding its limitations. The historical analysis of the formation of the liberal concept of freedom al­lows us to identify those features of it that prevent this conceptualization of freedom from fully comprehending all forms of external influence leading to a state of unfree­dom. These include, in particular, the limited understanding of interference in free choice, characteristic of liberalism due to the spirit of mechanicism embedded in it at the early stages of its development. This limitation in the liberal concept of freedom can be identified by referring to the Republican tradition of understanding freedom that inherited its definition of freedom from the legal tradition of Antiquity and postulates the need for the absence of not only arbitrary interference in an individual’s free choice, but also the very possibility of such an interference (something that is allowed in some forms of liberalism). At the same time, the appeal to the concept of autonomy in the form of a comparative analysis of the republican understanding of freedom and freedom as autonomy allows us to reveal the limitations of the republican understanding of free­dom, the reliance on which does not allow us to consider the external restrictions of freedom associated with the inculcation of certain values and their subsequent inter­nalization.

Ethics and the state: Israel's nationality law and the revision of a revolution

AbstractIn 2018, 70 years after it was founded, the State of Israel accepted a new nationality law, one which reshaped the identity of the state. Supporters of this constitutional law argue that it is necessary since the Jewish‐national character of the state is under threat, and since liberal‐democratic principles and policies have acquired undesired dominance in public life. The nationality law, however, does much more than restore a lost or imagined collective identity: it is a significant setback to both the liberal and republican understandings of a democratic state, as well as to Jewish‐Arab relations. More broadly still, the law displays the growing distance between the ethical and political spheres in Israel; this distance is expressed in the law's remarkable modifications of the three Zionist revolutions pertaining to the material (land), the linguistic and the political‐communal dimensions of Jewish, national life.

Empirical legitimacy as core of comparative democracy research

Legitimacy is a central resource for all political systems. This include democracies as autocracies. For democracies, you need the acceptance of the normative concept of democracy by the citizens. Simply put, this norm requires an empirical legitimacy. The empirical legitimacy focus on different understandings of democracy. Mostly the aspect of individual freedom is dominant. Empirical analyses show this idea do not only work for Europe. The article first shows what empirical legitimacy means conceptually and then analyzes this existence of legitimacy in a comparative perspective. It is the erosion of legitimacy that can lead a political regime to collapse. Current survey data from political culture research show not only differences in the legitimacy of democratic and autocratic regimes, but also an increase in the importance of different understandings of democracy. Some of these are no longer democratic.

DEMOCRATIC CHOICE OF UKRAINE: CONTENT AND PARAMETERS OF POLITICAL ENGINEERING

The article is devoted to the issue of the modern democracy. The key parameters of democratic choice of Ukrainian society are analyzed such as: possibilities of сo-development democracy as form of spiritual intercourse and as form of effective government; potential of this form of management for development of competitiveness of society in a modern world. Scientific interest is directed on the study of base points of democratic development. The problem of political engineering in the information age is considered. It is determined that political engineering is a system of management techniques and technologies, which in strategic and tactical terms is aimed at creative and effective social design and construction. Effective political engineering is a condition for overcoming destructive phenomena, the most important of which is the excessive growth of the phenomenon of randomness in political development. The article is devoted to the specifics of the explication of the concept of value (axiological) meanings in the information age. The content of axiological guidelines, which are a priority for political adaptation of both society and the political regime, is analyzed. The negativism of the tendency to prioritize technology over axiology in the spiritual and practical mastery of the world by man is noted. The challenges of modernity reflect on the understanding of democracy: procedural aspects prevail over substantive ones. The aggravation of contradictions in the orbit of such more important axiological meanings as stability, democracy, and freedom is logical. It is emphasized that the important risks of the information age are due to the use of axiological meanings of political entertainment, carnivalization and glamorization of the political space. The author identifies ways to overcome negative trends.

«Поденщик просвещения»: вопросы литературного творчества и печати в публицистике Инала Канукова

The article examines the journalistic legacy of the largest representative of the Ossetian enlightenment, the first Ossetian Russian-speaking writer and journalist I.D. Kanukov (1851–1899) in terms of literary work, the literary process, the socio-historical significance of fiction and the press and literary-critical constructions. The basic ideological principles of the heritage, it’s thematic, genre and methodological priorities, the circle of Russian writers especially authoritative for I.D. Kanukov, intertextual connections of his works of the corresponding kind are revealed, taking into account historical, biographical and cultural circumstances. The study finds out that the dominant place in the writer’s views on the historical significance of literature and the press is occupied by the educational and literary-centrist idea of “sacrificial service” to the truth and the people, through the prism of which I.D. Kanukov examines the works of Russian writers and interprets particular theoretical issues: the social status of a writer and a journalist, the relationship between a writer and a reader, creative direction, psychology of creativity, typification of character, etc.; that along with an unconditionally progressive, democratic understanding of the social functions of fiction and the press, I.D. Kanukov has some elements of didacticism and “orientation”. The place and significance of I.D. Kanukov’s journalism in the context of Ossetian and Russian literature and public thought is indicated.

Demokrasi Pendidikan dalam Perspektif Pendidikan Islam

Democracy in Islamic Education is a highly important issue to investigate because it has the potential to provide significant benefits in the development of education, the understanding of democracy, and the understanding of Islamic values in the context of education. The purpose of this research is to identify the principles of democracy in Islamic Education and their implementation in teaching and learning. This research is based on a review of various literature sources that encompass the concepts of democracy in the context of Islamic education, the principles of democracy in Islamic Education, and their implementation in teaching and learning. The research findings reveal (1) the presence of two principles of democracy in Islamic Education: the freedom for educators and learners, where freedom includes the freedom to create, the freedom to develop potential, and the freedom to express opinions. (2) The form of implementing democracy in Islamic education is in the form of idealistic education, which is integral, humanistic, pragmatic, and rooted in strong cultural values. These findings are expected to be of concern to educators in shaping equality in education.

Thailand’s 2020–2021 Pro-Democracy Protests: Diversity, Conflict, and Solidarity

Beyond its popular characterisation as an “anti-monarchy youth movement,” Thailand’s 2020–2021 pro-democracy movement brought together a diverse range of agendas, including feminism, poverty, and education reform along with shared political demands. This article explores these different agendas, their relationship to the protests, and their implications for the collective identity of democracy protestors. Drawing from 17 in-depth interviews with protestors, it was found that the protests were not only a platform to express political positions but also for pedagogical socialisation, where protestors learned about different social issues and the struggles of other protestors. These processes led them to understand authoritarianism and democracy with a structural lens, where in addition to authoritarian government and the monarchy, the protestors aim to uproot various institutions exercising practices or cultures resembling that of the authoritarian regime. Their understanding of democracy was similarly expansive, going beyond parliamentary politics to accommodate issues within their daily lived experience. The protestors retained a sense of solidarity by conceiving of democracy as necessarily entailing a diversity of views and subsequently disagreements and conflicts. The protestors’ structural approach means the 2020–2021 protests were unique and a novel development from previous protests in Thailand.

Where do social media and education meet? A closer look at understanding of democracy

ABSTRACT Social media presents a contradictory relationship with democracy. Once, it was regarded as a tool for democracy, providing alternative sources of information and coordinating social movements for democratization. Later it also became a tool for authoritarian regimes to control information and spread propaganda to stay in power. This mixed perception suggests that both democratic and authoritarian forces can use social media to influence public opinion. This presents a puzzle to the relationship between social media use and democratic understanding. Does social media promote or erode understanding of democracy? This study argues that the effect of social media use on understanding of democracy depends on higher education. The relationship also differs between democracies and non-democracies. Using the newest wave of the World Values Survey (wave 7, 2017–2020), this study analyses the influence of social media use on understanding of democracy in non-democracies and democracies. The findings suggest that social media use positively affects understanding of democracy in democratic countries. However, the democratic effect of social media is nullified in non-democracy unless it interacts with higher education. The findings offer implications for the relationship between social media, higher education, and understanding of democracy.

Multicultural education as the supportive component of English language curriculum: a mixed-methods experimental design study at a Turkish University

ABSTRACT Multicultural education has emerged as a response to diversity in society, promising a more equal and inclusive opportunity for all citizens. As a country that has accepted a lot of migrants recently, Türkiye needs to adopt a multicultural approach in its educational settings. This study examines the integration of the multicultural education approach into English language teaching through an experimental practice using the Content Integration Model. The effects of this application on preparatory class English learners at a Turkish university in terms of respect for differences, critical thinking skills and understanding of democracy were analyzed. In this study, which used a mixed-methods experimental design, quantitative data were obtained through three different scales and analyzed with descriptive statistics and mixed-design ANOVA tests, whereas content analysis was used in the analysis of qualitative data obtained from focus group interview form, researcher's diary, and student products. As a result of the analysis of the quantitative data, it was seen that there was no significant difference between the pre- and post-test scores of the groups, however, the qualitative data revealed that the students showed improvement in areas such as intercultural skill development, communication, increasing self-consciousness and sharing their opinions through multicultural education practices.