Understanding Of Democracy Research Articles

Introduction to the Special Issue From Mini-publics to Mass Publics

ABSTRACT Recent years have seen a proliferation of experiments in deliberative democracy, with much focus on the internal workings and throughput legitimacy of such innovations as mini-publics. The research on the links between such mini-publics and the public is still in its infancy and there is a strong debate around the legitimacy of extending the outcomes of small-scale deliberation to the public. This Special Issue addresses the questions of legitimacy mainly from two broad perspectives; the input and the output legitimacy while some papers provide insights on throughput legitimacy as well. Input refers to the representativeness of participants from demographic, attitudinal and intersectional points of view. Output refers to whether the mini-public outputs reflect what the broader electorate would think and how representatives and policymakers deal with their outputs. The papers provide both theoretical and empirical discussion on participants' representativeness in mini-publics and politicians' potential involvement as well as issues of the whole process and how citizens perceive the legitimacy of mini-publics. Analysis also focuses on issues of attitudinal congruence of participants and its importance while other papers examine the impact of mini-publics to the wider electorate by also considering the role the preferences of policymakers have in the whole deliberative process. Theoretical contributions in this special issue analyze the theoretical implications of these democratic innovations for our understanding of democracy and the way forward.

The electoral situation as a chronotope

This article explores the phenomenon of elections as a political chronotope, a spatio-temporal realm where the mechanisms of democracy unfold. Its aim is to elucidate the unique socio-political nature of elections. The author establishes that the spatial and temporal characteristics define the format and regulations governing electoral interactions. The term «chronotope» is understood as an interdisciplinary concept that captures the essential connections between temporal and spatial features within a specific order of phenomena. Although extensive research has focused on the social, technical, and psychological aspects of expressing one›s will, the ontology of elections, which encompasses the comprehension of the «unity of time and place of action» and the involvement of political actors in the electoral scenario, has been largely overlooked. Additionally, this study concentrates on the concept of the electoral situation, which delineates the synchronous and diachronic connections wherein citizens’ political choices are positioned, realized, and interpreted. The notion of the electoral situation can be correlated with the term «political landscape», which is only partially related to actual geography but predominantly pertains to the comprehensive conditions of an electoral competition (the coordinate system) and the participants involved in this process. The article’s author illustrates how the electoral situation constructs synchronous and diachronic connections at various levels of political interaction. Notably, these connections are facilitated by political mythologems, which serve as unifying and integrative factors within the electoral chronotope. By examining these mythologems, the author highlights their role in shaping the narrative and symbolism surrounding elections, ultimately influencing the dynamics and outcomes of the electoral process. Overall, this article delves into the intricate relationship between elections and the spatio-temporal framework in which they occur. By emphasizing the significance of the electoral situation and its connection to the broader political landscape, the author sheds light on the multifaceted nature of electoral processes, enriching our understanding of democracy’s fundamental mechanisms.

The electoral situation as a chronotope

This article explores the phenomenon of elections as a political chronotope, a spatio-temporal realm where the mechanisms of democracy unfold. Its aim is to elucidate the unique socio-political nature of elections. The author establishes that the spatial and temporal characteristics define the format and regulations governing electoral interactions. The term «chronotope» is understood as an interdisciplinary concept that captures the essential connections between temporal and spatial features within a specific order of phenomena. Although extensive research has focused on the social, technical, and psychological aspects of expressing one›s will, the ontology of elections, which encompasses the comprehension of the «unity of time and place of action» and the involvement of political actors in the electoral scenario, has been largely overlooked. Additionally, this study concentrates on the concept of the electoral situation, which delineates the synchronous and diachronic connections wherein citizens’ political choices are positioned, realized, and interpreted. The notion of the electoral situation can be correlated with the term «political landscape», which is only partially related to actual geography but predominantly pertains to the comprehensive conditions of an electoral competition (the coordinate system) and the participants involved in this process. The article’s author illustrates how the electoral situation constructs synchronous and diachronic connections at various levels of political interaction. Notably, these connections are facilitated by political mythologems, which serve as unifying and integrative factors within the electoral chronotope. By examining these mythologems, the author highlights their role in shaping the narrative and symbolism surrounding elections, ultimately influencing the dynamics and outcomes of the electoral process. Overall, this article delves into the intricate relationship between elections and the spatio-temporal framework in which they occur. By emphasizing the significance of the electoral situation and its connection to the broader political landscape, the author sheds light on the multifaceted nature of electoral processes, enriching our understanding of democracy’s fundamental mechanisms.

ENGINEERING OF VALUE MEANINGS IN THE INFORMATION AGE

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. Political engineering with national interests in mind involves technological sovereignty. Such engineering is a condition for political stability and a source of opportunities for prosperity. 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. These include: individual experience; stimulation of activity; strengthening of rational guidelines for the formation of a political position; the government's interest in an informed citizen and in increasing his role as a participant in the political process; harmonious correlation of humanity's desire for high technologies with the tasks of implementing axiological meanings that will stand in the way of replacing the Cartesian principle «I think, therefore, I exist» with «I consume, therefore, I exist». The author uses the typology of parameters and strategies of political adaptation to characterize the phenomenon of political engineering.

Critical junctures and the crystallization of cosmopolitanism and communitarianism

AbstractA burgeoning literature documents the emergence of a new globalization cleavage in Western Europe, centered around the issues of immigration and European integration. We investigate to what extent the globalization cleavage has crystallized by studying the alignment of preferences regarding open borders, their connection to more fundamental elements in the normative component of cosmopolitanism and communitarianism, and the extent to which this links up to the organizational component through party choice. To do this, we use innovative items tapping into political priorities, values, understandings of democracy, and virtues in a cross-sectional comparative survey in Norway and the UK. We find that the globalization cleavage is significantly more developed in the UK than in Norway but lacks a solidified normative component in both. This implies that considerable opportunities remain for ideological entrepreneurs to either fortify or dilute this cleavage, even in the UK.

‘Freedom’ on the Road to Ruin: An Australian Apology to America’s Freedom-Loving Hard Right.

Contemporary America faces deep-seated problems - not least because so many Americans have lost respect for their own electoral system and democratic institutions. America suffers too from unrelenting right wing hyperbole in respect of significant social issues, including their conviction that only they understand, and value, freedom. Because of Australia’s restrictive responses to the covid-19 pandemic, Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis – a potential Presidential candidate - denigrates Australia as ‘not a free country; not a free country at all’. Australians may dismiss Governor DeSantis’s comments as laughable, but a chorus of hard right comments in support of his view invites a comparison of the different ways in which ‘freedom’ is understood in Republican America and in Australia. One consequence of DeSantis’s conception of ‘freedom’ is the extraordinary American death rate from the Covid-19 pandemic, which in the case of Florida – which DeSantis celebrates as the ‘free-est State’ – stood at about 48 times the Australian rate when he scorned Australia as indistinguishable from communist China. Despite massive American spending on defence budgets, a domestic battle has been waged, and lost, in respect of the more prosaic defence of America’s traditional economic philosophy, and its defining institutions; and American conservatives are now divided even within their own ranks as to what it is that they wish to conserve, other than partisan advantage. The roots of America’s present malaise are to be found in the evolving (mis)understandings of a set of keywords including ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’, ‘tyranny’, ‘individualism’, and ‘society’. The radical right has impoverished the understanding of these keywords, and Australia’s pandemic response was in fact designed to give itself freedom from the ‘freedom’ that the Republican right now eulogises. In the name of an implicit and contentious teleological vision, the Republican understanding of ‘freedom’ has now descended to the point where America’s hard right perversely sees itself as actually now needing to save Australia from democracy, while simultaneously undermining its own democratic institutions. The need for a reinvigorated teaching of economic philosophy is plain to see.

A democratic school: Teacher reconciliation, child-centred dialogue and emergent democracy

Abstract This article is an exploration of a democratic school where the author spent several years researching and engaging with teachers and students while investigating the practice of Philosophy for/with Children (P4C) within Irish Educate Together schools. I offer an account of how teachers in these contexts seek to reconcile and harmonise their P4C practice with their own educational and democratic outlooks. These perspectives were uncovered through a ‘lived enquiry’ study involving deep immersion in the day-to-day life of a school as a researcher and P4C practitioner. Teachers seeking to reconcile their practice with their views in this context resulted in the children in their classrooms learning through democratic processes, where democracy is not merely prescribed, but instead becomes a way of life. By drawing upon excerpts of teacher interview data from my doctoral studies, I suggest that there is a ‘rough ground’ of practice where diverse and unique perspectives can be revealed when lived, deeply immersive and sensitive approaches are taken towards practitioners and their communities. The intertwining of Educate Together and P4C philosophies of education is explored, with particular emphasis on the notion of child-centredness, dialogue and philosophical enquiry with children. Expanding on the democratic educational ideas of Biesta and Fielding, I argue that there is a deeply contextual and philosophically compelling connection between teachers engaging in P4C, the atmosphere or environment in which dialogue with children can occur and a different understanding of democracy through education that may result.

OKUL MÜDÜRLERİNİN SERGİLEDİĞİ YARATICI LİDERLİK DAVRANIŞLARINA İLİŞKİN ÖĞRETMEN GÖRÜŞLERİ

Eğitim programlarının kalitesinin iyileştirilmesi sürecinde eğitim kurumlarında liderlik yapan kişiler büyük öneme sahiptir. Eğitimde yaratıcı lider olan kişi sadece sorunları çözmekle ilgilenmez sorunları tespit eder, tanımlar, düzeltir ve eğitim alan herkes için daha iyi bir gelecek hazırlamaktadır. Eğitimin kurumundaki liderlerin yaratıcı olması ile birlikte eğitim kurumundaki iletişim sistemi etkin bir şekilde çalışır, tüm personel takım hâlinde çalışır, yapılan hatalar hoş görülür ders çıkarılır, fikirler özgürce ifade edilir ve demokratik bir anlayışın inşa edilmesine olanak tanınır. Eğitim kurumunda yaratıcı liderlik yapan kişi eğitim ortamının kalitesini arttırmakla birlikte öğretmen, öğrenci ve de aileyi de etkilemektedir. Bu araştırmanın amacı okul müdürlerinin sergilediği yaratıcı liderlik davranışlarına ilişkin öğretmen görüşlerinin değerlendirilmesidir. Bu amaçla araştırma nitel araştırma yöntemlerinden durum çalışması yöntemi ile yürütülmüştür. Araştırmanın çalışma grubunu farklı okul ve branşlarda görev yapmakta olan 12 kadın 13 erkek 25 ortaokul öğretmeni oluşturmaktadır. Araştırma verilerinin toplanmasında beş sorudan oluşan yarı yapılandırılmış görüşme formu kullanılmıştır. Araştırma verilerin analizinde içerik analizi yöntemi kullanılarak ortaya çıkan öğretmen görüşleri tema ve kodlar şeklinde incelenmiştir. Araştırma bulguları incelendiğinde okul müdürlerinin; yaratıcı liderlik özelliklerinin bireysel açıdan yeterli olduğu, yaratıcı lider olmasının okulun başarısını arttırdığı, yaratıcı lider olmalarının olumlu karşılandığı, okulun amaçlarına ulaşmasında çevre faktörünü göz ardı etmedikleri ve karşılaştıkları problemleri çözmede toplumsal çözümlere başvurmaya ağırlık verdikleri sonucuna ulaşılmıştır.

Dannelse og ingeniørfaglighed

International interdisciplinary research on engineering education and practice (Christensen et al., 2007, 2009, 2019, and 2022 forthcoming) points to the fact, that the engineer’s understanding of the ‘social’ is underprioritized and discursively enacted as soft versus hard technical disciplines. As a result, it has often contributed to a cultural impoverishment of our lifeworld. Hence there is a need for a Bildung perspective in engineering degree programs. A perspective taking its point of departure in the democratic, cultural, and human challenges of society. The discourse on Bildung has primarily taken place in relation to the pedagogical professions, whereas the engineering profession has often been overlooked. In this contribution we make up for this by considering a contribution with potential for supplying a concept of Bildung suitable for the engineering profession and engineering degree programs. The article brings forth the social and ethical responsibility embedded in engineering work in democratic societies and calls to mind John Dewey´s democratic understanding of Bildung (Dewey, 2011 [1916]). The article projects, how this understanding of Bildung might offer an opportunity for rethinking engineering and engineering activity capable of contributing to democratic and responsible resolutions of societal challenges.

How the Chinese people understand democracy: a multi-method study based on four waves of nationwide representative surveys

ABSTRACT Different methods of measurement for survey research have been developed to explore how the public understands democracy. In the existing research on the democratic understanding of the Chinese people, closed-ended questions are often used to measure this understanding. However, the results obtained can only prove whether the democratic understanding of the Chinese people deviates from or is close to liberal democracy. This article applied grounded theory to classify respondents’ answers to an open-ended question. Unlike previous research findings, this article’s findings showed that even Chinese people’s democratic understanding has certain procedural or substantive elements. However, this understanding consists of only emphasizing their rights and interests under the Communist Party of China-led system rather than being more inclined toward liberal democracy. Additionally, the higher effective response rates for closed-ended questions suggested that Chinese people need a higher level of political knowledge and engagement in public affairs to form their own understanding of democracy when answering an open-ended question. We argue that although closed-ended questions are more convenient for statistical analysis, open-ended questions with the classification method developed in this study can paint a more accurate picture of respondents’ understanding of democracy in China.

Out-of-school learning as an effective tool of civic education in elementary school? Evidence from Germany

Strengthening political knowledge and democratic understanding of children is an essential aim of citizenship education. In Germany, most curricula of civic education target high school students, neglecting younger children in elementary school. The present study investigates the impact of an out-of-school program for elementary school students at a state parliament on their political knowledge and political interest. The program introduces the students to parliamentary institutions, processes, and decision-making. Among other didactical elements, the students participate in a simulation of a plenary session. The article examines the short-term and long-term effects of program attendance with a quasi-experimental design. The findings show that the out-of-school program positively affects children's political knowledge and interest, thereby confirming that civic education can already be effective at the elementary school level. By implementing such interactive learning programs, schools and teachers could positively contribute to young citizens' political socialization.

‘Democracy without Politics’ in the European Commission's Response to Democratic Backsliding: From Technocratic Legalism to Democratic Pluralism

AbstractThe debate on EU responses to democratic backsliding in EU member states has mostly been anchored on technocratic appeals to the rule of law and judicial independence, and on Poland and Hungary. In this article, we ask: What understandings of democracy have shaped the European Commission's response to democratic backsliding in recent years? After developing an understanding of pluralist democracy, we uncover the way in which the European Commission conceives of democracy through a discourse analysis of European Commissioners' speeches (2018–21) and a normative‐theoretical analysis. We identify the Commission's conception as a form of ‘democracy without politics’, and argue that it matches the EU's policy choices in regard to democratic backsliding. We argue that a fuller, healthier and normatively more attractive conception of democracy encompasses more attention to political pluralism, agonistic contestation and the vibrancy of civil society.

Rationalizing Democracy: The Perceptual Bias and (Un)Democratic Behavior

Democracy often confronts citizens with a dilemma: stand firm on democracy while losing out on policy or accept undemocratic behavior and gain politically. Existing literature demonstrates that citizens generally choose the latter—and that they do so deliberately. Yet there is an alternative possibility. Citizens can avoid this uncomfortable dilemma altogether by rationalizing their understandings of democracy. When a politician advances undesired policies without violating democratic rules and norms, people find ways to perceive the behavior as undemocratic. When a politician acts undemocratically to promote desired policies, citizens muster up arguments for considering it democratic. Original survey experiments in the United States, and 22 democracies worldwide, provide strong support for this argument. It is thus not deliberate acceptance, but a fundamentally different perceptual logic that drives the widespread approval of undemocratic behavior in today’s democracies.

The Influence of Public University Student Leadership on Democratization Education in Malaysia

Malaysia's progress depends on the effectiveness of leaders in maintaining unity based on the principles of Rukun Negara and upholding the existing law. The development of democratization education is extremely important to ensure the well-being of our beloved Malaysia. This process must take place perfectly for the well-being of Malaysian citizens towards continuing to lift the country's progress in the future. Students are the front line of the country on their shoulders carrying the trust of leadership and the future of the country. They play an important role as future leaders and need to have a high level of understanding and appreciation of democratization and duty as Malaysians. Specifically, this research examines the impact of student leadership on the democratization of education in Malaysian public universities. The student leadership questionnaire developed by Kouzes & Posner in 2007 and the democratized education questionnaire developed by Evans & Rose in 2007 adopted a cross-sectional survey method in the data collection process. A total of 326 student leaders of Peninsular Malaysia Public University participated as the study’s Respondents. Student leadership has also had a 39.6% impact on democratized education. This research can be used by national leaders, university administrations, and the Ministry of Education as a guide for assessing the leadership of future national leaders. It can be used as a basic reference to improve various knowledge of leadership management based on democratization education as the basis for the formation of the identity of Malaysian leaders.

GLAMOROUS STABILITY IN THE CONDITIONS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES AND GLOBALIZATION

The problem of stability / instability of the modern state and factors of overcoming destructive phenomena are considered, the most important of which is excessive growth of phenomenon of chance in political development. The article is devoted to problems of specificity of explication of concept of glamorous stability in the information epoch. The content of axiological guidelines, which are priority for forming stability of both society and political regime, was analyzed. It is determined that information and communication technologies can be "digested" by interaction technologies and public practices according to their needs and purposes. The author analyzes what value meanings in formation of identities contribute to stabilization in political sphere and social adaptation as a whole. Author notes negativism of tendency to priority of technology over axiology in spiritual and practical mastering of the world by human. The calls of modern times are reflected on understanding of democracy: procedure’s aspects are prevails over substantial side. It is logical that sharpening of contradictions in the orbit of such important axiological meanings as stability, democracy, freedom.

Hollowness of Imagination: Common Sense and Democracy

The transition to democracy in Indonesia has somehow resulted in a majoritarian democracy. By linking the legacy of the New Order regime with the current understanding of democracy, this paper attempts to comprehend and analyze how deeply the common sense of the New Order regime has been rooted in the lives of Indonesian people. The legacy of the New Order regime has been rooted in the personal lives of individuals because the regime implemented its values ​​in the realm of family structures and education systems. To help liberate the minds and souls of Indonesians and be truly democratic, society must be able to become autonomous. A critical pedagogical approach will help to lay bare the common sense and values ​​that have been instilled by the regime, so that people can live autonomously and side by side. Since democracy in Indonesia tends to favor the majority, this study proposes a critical pedagogical approach at every level of society to achieve a power sharing arrangement.

Henning Fonsmark and the reformulation of Danish democracy in the 1990s

ABSTRACT This article uses the editor and public intellectual Henning Fonsmark as a prism through which to explore critiques of democracy in late twentieth-century Denmark. It shows how Fonsmark innovatively combined criticism of the welfare state with opposition to the left-wing dominance in the fields of culture and education and the left’s conception of democracy as a way of life. After describing Fonsmark’s contribution to criticism of the welfare state from the 1970s onwards, the article argues that an important part of Fonsmark’s legacy was his construction of a concept of democracy that ran counter to the social democratic understanding of democracy as pitting the people against the elite. Moreover, the article stresses that, in interpreting the ideological takeover of the Danish welfare state by the left, Fonsmark helped to mobilize opposition to the allegedly cultural and educational hegemony of the left, which was to become an important element of the Danish right’s culture wars at the end of the twentieth century.

The Social Subcontract: Business Ethics as Democratic Theory

What does democracy demand of business? We argue that an answer to this question requires an understanding of the sorts of ethical obligations businesses have more generally. Against approaches that understand the duties of business in terms of citizenship or fiduciary obligation, we propose and develop the notion of subcontractor duties. We conceive of commercial activity as a social subcontract, in which businesses are empowered to exercise their judgment in pursuit of parochial interests, but for broader social reasons. Such license, however, puts businesses in a position to use this judgment in ways that unduly influence broader political processes. Given this, business ethics should be seen as indispensable for normative democratic theory, as it offers a conception of how business leaders should discharge their discretionary power in a manner least offensive to democratic principles. Drawing on a pragmatist understanding of democracy, we contend that businesses must respect, and avoid undermining, the formal and informal processes that characterize democratic politics. We conclude with rough sketch of what this looks like in practice, listing three broad sets of desiderata that a social subcontract seems to demand of businesses vis-à-vis democracy.

Lefort and Rancière on democracy and sovereignty

This paper focuses on Lefort’s and Rancière’s conceptions of democracy as a set of conflictual processes through which the composition of the public sphere is reassessed. Reading their works together and sometimes in opposition to each other, the paper extracts elements of a theory of inessential sovereignty that avoids the pitfalls of populist antagonism and of neoliberal diffuse domination. It analyses Lefort’s and Rancière’s understandings of democracy as rule of the people, which are based on ontological and aesthetical distinctions between ‘politics’ and ‘the political’. It argues that in the structural situation of dissensus described by both Lefort and Rancière, popular sovereignty could be conceptualized as lying in an ability to shape and transform the public sphere.

A Qualitative Investigation into Student Empowerment in Higher Education: Perceptions of Students, Faculty Members and Administrators

The aim of this study was to explore the concept of student empowerment and empowering aspects of the higher education curricula as perceived by the students, faculty members and administrators. The research design was a case study and it is conducted at a private university in Turkey. The data were obtained via semi-structured interviews with 24 undergraduate students, eight faculty members and five administrators. The findings of the study revealed the complexity and multi-dimensionality of student empowerment. Participants defined empowered students in higher education as having active personal and social characteristics. Different members’ views of the empowering factors overlapped to a great extent and they were grouped under three interconnected dimensions: academic, social and political empowerment. Participants' reports indicate that student empowerment in university curricula depends on several factors, such as faculty qualifications, active student participation in curriculum decisions, student clubs, extracurricular activities, and whether students have the opportunity/right to voice their demands and objections. The data analysis points out a possible existence of a fourth dimension which centers around personal characteristics. Hence, further research is needed to prove the existence of this fourth dimension as in the current data set it did not come forth as a major dimension. Furthermore, the findings revealed that democratic understanding is a precondition for student empowerment and a “deep” democratic understanding is needed in higher education institutions.