This article interrogates the relationship between two apparently disjointed themes: the consensual presentation and mainstreaming of the global problem of climate change on the one hand and the ...debate in political theory/philosophy that centers around the emergence and consolidation of a post-political and post-democratic condition on the other. The argument advanced in this article attempts to tease out this apparently paradoxical condition. On the one hand, the climate is seemingly politicized as never before and has been propelled high on the policy agenda. On the other hand, a number of increasingly influential political philosophers insist on how the post-politicization (or de-politicization) of the public sphere (in parallel and intertwined with processes of neoliberalization) have been key markers of the political process over the past few decades. We proceed in four steps. First, we briefly outline the basic contours of the argument and its premises. Second, we explore the ways in which the present climate conundrum is predominantly staged through the mobilization of particular apocalyptic imaginaries. Third, we argue that this specific (re-)presentation of climate change and its associated policies is sustained by decidedly populist gestures. Finally, we discuss how this particular choreographing of climate change is one of the arenas through which a post-political frame and post-democratic political configuration have been mediated. Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.
Empirical literature regarding which actors support the most participatory democracy is surprisingly scarce. Discussing the core ideological features of populist and post-materialist-centred parties, ...we expect that these parties emphasise participatory democracy more than their competitors. Additionally, populist parties should embody a monist demand for greater participatory democracy, while post-materialist-centred (PMC) parties should advocate a pluralist understanding of it. Drawing on party electoral manifestos, we verify these assumptions in several national elections across Europe. Our findings show mixed support for the theoretical expectations. Both post-materialist and populist parties support participatory democracy more than other parties, and their principles diverge. More precisely, our data confirm that PMC parties advocate a pluralist understanding of participatory democracy. Yet populist parties show a fuzzier picture. While populist radical right parties exhibit a monist profile, radical left populist parties are much more in line with post-materialist arguments.
How do we prepare young people to understand the complex problems confronting our society and their place as citizens in shaping solutions? Until 1997, the contribution of schools to these challenges ...was ad hoc and uncoordinated, but with the introduction of citizenship education into the National Curriculum in England a new political project began. Between 2002 and 2012, England has become a leading player in the debate about how to induct young people into democracy. Jerome explores the connections between the values promoted by the government and the forms of citizenship promoted through the National Curriculum and considers: What did the politicians want the policy to achieve? What kinds of citizens were teachers trying to create? What kind of citizens do the young people feel that they have become? To answer these questions this book considers a range of evidence from large scale national and international research projects to single school case studies, conducted with student co-researchers. The study illustrates the complexity of policy making and reveals the gap between curriculum policy and implementation.
A Lexical Index of Electoral Democracy Skaaning, Svend-Erik; Gerring, John; Bartusevičius, Henrikas
Comparative political studies,
10/2015, Volume:
48, Issue:
12
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Recent years have seen an efflorescence of work focused on the definition and operationalization of democracy. One debate concerns whether democracy is best measured by binary or graded scales. ...Critics of binary indices point out at that they are overly reductionist, while defenders counter that the different levels of graded measures are not associated with a specific set of conditions. Against this backdrop, we propose to operationalize electoral democracy as a series of necessary and sufficient conditions arrayed in an ordinal scale. The resulting “lexical” index of electoral democracy, based partly on new data, covers all independent countries of the world from 1800 to 2013. It incorporates binary coding of its subcomponents, which are aggregated into an ordinal scale using a cumulative logic. In this fashion, we arrive at an index that performs a classificatory function—each level identifies a unique and theoretically meaningful regime-type—as well as a discriminating function.
There is an established body of politically informed scholarly work that offers a sustained critique of how corporate business ethics is a form of organizing that acts as a subterfuge to facilitate ...the expansion of corporate sovereignty. This paper contributes to that work by using its critique as the basis for theorizing an alternative form of ethics for corporations. Using the case of the 2015 Volkswagen emissions scandal as an illustrative example, the paper theorizes an ethics that locates corporations in the democratic sphere so as to defy their professed ability to organize ethics in a self-sufficient and autonomous manner. The Volkswagen scandal shows how established organizational practices of corporate business ethics are no barrier to, and can even serve to enable, the rampant pursuit of business self-interest through well-orchestrated and large-scale conspiracies involving lying, cheating, fraud and lawlessness. The case also shows how society, represented by individuals and institutions, is able to effectively resist such corporate malfeasance. The ‘democratic business ethics’ that this epitomizes is one where civil society holds corporations to account for their actions, and in so doing disrupts corporate sovereignty. This ethics finds practical purchase in forms of dissent that redirect power away from centres of organized wealth and capital, returning it to its democratically rightful place with the people, with society.
Athenian democracy may have opened up politics to every citizen, but it had no impact on participation in sport. The city's sportsmen continued to be drawn from the elite, and so it comes as a ...surprise that sport was very popular with non-elite citizens of the classical period, who rewarded victorious sportsmen lavishly and created an unrivalled program of local sporting festivals on which they spent staggering sums of money. They also shielded sportsmen from the public criticism which was otherwise normally directed towards the elite and its conspicuous activities. This book is a bold and novel exploration of this apparent contradiction, which examines three of the fundamental aspects of Athens in the classical period - democratic politics, public commitment to sport and constant warfare - and is essential reading for all of those who are interested in Greek sport, Athenian democracy and its waging of war.
Can democratic states transplant the seeds of democracy into developing countries? What have political thinkers going back to the Greek city-states thought about their capacity to promote democracy? ...How can democracy be established in divided societies? This books answers these and other fundamental questions behind the concept known as 'democracy promotion.' Following an illuminating concise discussion of what political philosophers from Plato to Montesquieu thought about the issue, the authors explore the structural preconditions (culture, divided societies, civil society) as well as the institutions and processes of democracy building (constitutions, elections, security sector reform, conflict, and trade). Along the way they share insights about what policies have worked, which ones need to be improved or discarded, and, more generally, what advanced democracies can do to further the cause of democratization in a globalizing world. In other words, they seek answers to the question, Is democracy exportable?
When it comes to the status of democracy, the current times present a curious chasm: On the one hand, the depoliticization of contemporary discourses and institutions has led to both the diagnosis of ...a factual 'post-democracy' and a normative legitimacy crisis of democracy; yet on the other, there has been a resurgence of normative democratic ideals and practical 'democratic innovations' in the sphere of civil society. This article evaluates the potential of these innovations to engender a genuine renewal of democracy. I find that, despite their emancipatory underpinnings, most participatory and deliberative innovations fit a description of (mere) citizen activation - an elite-led engineering of citizen engagement that, beyond the control of citizens themselves, not only fails to lead to empowerment, but can even work to perpetuate existing structures. In recognition of the ambivalent nature of the post-democratic condition, I argue academics and democratic practitioners must accept a new, more responsive role in relation to citizens and the wider society.
Las escuelas son contextos ideales para aprender la democracia a través de su ejercicio, por ello el objetivo del artículo es conocer y caracterizar las prácticas democráticas de centros educativos ...en Portugal y España a partir de discursos de docentes. Basado en el análisis de 51 entrevistas, el artículo presenta las percepciones docentes sobre prácticas que reconocen ser fundamentadas en principios democráticos. Para ambos países, los resultados sugieren tres categorías diferentes de prácticas democráticas: i) prácticas que promueven la apertura al diálogo y a la participación del alumnado en la toma de decisiones; ii) prácticas que fomentan la convivencia y las buenas relaciones interpersonales, tanto en el aula como en la escuela; iii) prácticas dirigidas al aprendizaje de normas, procedimientos y valores característicos de una sociedad democrática. Los datos muestran que docentes de España y Portugal reconocen un amplio abanico de prácticas, iniciativas y experiencias educativas fundadas en principios de democracia y de justicia social en sus centros educativos.
The spirit of compromise Gutmann, Amy; Gutmann, Amy; Thompson, Dennis
2012., 20140427, 2014, 2012-04-22, 2014-04-27, 20120101
eBook
To govern in a democracy, political leaders have to compromise. When they do not, the result is political paralysis-dramatically demonstrated by the gridlock in Congress in recent years. InThe Spirit ...of Compromise, eminent political thinkers Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson show why compromise is so important, what stands in the way of achieving it, and how citizens can make defensible compromises more likely. They urge politicians to focus less on campaigning and more on governing. In a new preface, the authors reflect on the state of compromise in Congress since the book's initial publication.
Calling for greater cooperation in contemporary politics,The Spirit of Compromisewill interest everyone who cares about making government work better for the good of all.
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