Agenda Democracy Carpenter, Daniel
Annual review of political science,
06/2023, Letnik:
26, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The study of agenda setting has become curiously disconnected from democratic theory and democratization. Following Schattschneider, Dahl, and recent developments in political theory, I call for its ...reintegration in theoretical and empirical realms. The concept of agenda democracy allows for better understanding of contests over institutions, significant historical-institutional transformations, the study of inequality and its mechanisms of generation and maintenance, and the building and undermining of democracy. Agenda democracy requires a broad understanding of agendas (beyond a mere menu of final policy choices), recognizes that many democratic regimes have institutions that systematically render agendas nondemocratic, and compels us to look at the interstices of institutions and society (party transformation, petition and grievance mechanisms, advocacy campaigns, initiatives to expand what I call the shortlist of the possible) for moments of significant change. Agenda democracy compels the examination of democratizing agenda restrictions, the study of conservative organizations in politics, and the consideration of decomposing the term "movement."
This article argues for the importance of health literacy to improve health decision making. With growing connectivity at the level of individuals, communities, populations, and people across ...geographies, we have exciting opportunities to advance health. Health literacy is fundamental for democratization of health. The complexities and demands of what is needed for health and healthcare must align with the skills and abilites of people to access, navigate, understand, and use needed information. Content must be clear, transparent, accurate, and useful in meeting the needs of people seeking solutions. Health literacy occurs when this happens, and is foundational for reaching the exciting potential of democratizing health.
The article considers the interrelation between the mechanisms of total control implementation and political trust formation in a totalitarian state with an emphasis on the goals and methods of ...shaping social awareness, which determines the features of the further transformation of the political regime. In particular, the expediency of interpreting the features of posttotalitarian consciousness as a factor in the formation of institutional trust in the process of democratization is argued. The relevance of the research question is determined by the fact that political trust is traditionally analyzed to explain public support for politicians or political institutions in a democratic or transitional regime. However, sometimes scholars ignore or even deny its role in supporting certain types of undemocratic authority. In this context, considering the general interpretation of totalitarianism as mass terror, as well as its broader understanding with the recognition of the monistic essence, the article proposes to shift the focus of attention to the controlling function of the state, realized through mass repressions, mass propaganda activities and the process of resocialization. Arguing that a totalitarian state requires a specific subjectivity from citizens in establishing such political control, the author proposes to consider the combination of violent coercion (external control) with political self-censorship (internal control) as a condition for its totality. Therefore, from a methodological point of view, the expediency of determing external control as a factor of the formation of political trust, and political self-censorship as a consequence of trust in totalitarian authority is argued. The article also substantiates that the government-supported inversion relationship between political and interpersonal trust is important for explaining the specifics of trust after the change of political regime in the state. Consequently, author proves that the so-called artificial formation of trust within the dictatorship plays a significant role in explaining post-totalitarian transformations. In particular, it determines the support of formal and informal political institutions in the context of democratization.
Educational attainment is a key indicator of status and opportunity in meritocratic societies. However, it is unclear how educational expansion has affected the link between cognitive abilities and ...educational attainment. As a result, this study examines the correlation between cognitive ability and educational attainment across male birth cohorts in Norway. Utilizing administrative register data covering more than four decades, we investigate multiple measures of educational attainment and their connection to cognitive abilities. Our findings reveal a consistent decline in the correlation over time. These findings question the assumed shift towards meritocracy in educational systems and highlight a more complex relationship between cognitive ability and educational attainment.
This article analyses the state of democracy in 2020. The world is still more democratic than it was in the 1970s and 1980s, but a trend of autocratization is ongoing and affecting 25 countries in ...2020, home to 34% of the world’s population. At the same time, the number of democratizing countries has dwindled by nearly half, reducing to 16 countries, home to a mere 4% of the global population. Freedom of expression, deliberation, rule of law and elections show the most substantial net declines in the last decade. A major change is that India, formerly the world’s largest democracy, turned into an electoral autocracy. The V-Dem data suggests that direct effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on levels of liberal democracy were limited in 2020. Still, the longer-term consequences may be worse and must be monitored closely. Due to the pandemic and state restrictions on the freedom of assembly, mass mobilization declined to its lowest level in over a decade, yet the decline in pro-democracy protests in 2020 may well prove to be short-lived once the pandemic subdues.
In recent decades, the boundaries of democratic polities have been increasingly contested in the field of democratic theory. The theoretical discussion has focused on the philosophical norms that ...should demarcate the boundaries of democratic constituencies. This article defends and explores an alternative approach that, instead of focusing solely on theoretical norms, theorizes democratic processes of boundary-making. This alternative approach addresses the multiplicity of intertwined boundaries bounding demos and agents capable of transforming and democratizing these multiple boundaries. I characterize a category of agents who democratize symbolic everyday boundaries as transboundary associations. The democratization of the symbolic boundaries of everyday interactions is a necessary condition for the democratization of formal boundary-making, since in democratic orders and societies, institutions cannot simply impose boundaries on people. Transboundary associations produce sites for incipient democratic politics that transcend current institutional and symbolic boundaries, producing possibilities for reciprocal boundary-making.
The institutionalization of party politics is supposed to contribute to the consolidation of democracies. Analysis of Hungary's democratic backsliding shows, however, that this is not necessarily the ...case. This article demonstrates that the combination of populist party strategies, polarized party relations, and the inertia of the party system constitutes a significant challenge (here labeled "populist polarization") to the consolidation of liberal democracy. After considering the applicability of structuralist and transitologist frameworks to the political dynamics in Hungary, the article differentiates the notion of populist polarization from similar concepts and argues that populist polarization in the region poses a more acute danger to high-quality democracy than the much-feared under-institutionalized and fragmented configurations of party politics.
•A process of environmental democratization in Colombia has accelerated since 2006.•Water justice is a mobilizer and unifier of environmental democratization initiatives.•Environmental ...democratization has been repressed by a number of state agencies.•Environmental democratization is a process of transformative democratic politics.
Mechanisms of democratic participation have been activated in Colombia since 2006 for the purpose of protecting water sources, hydrosocial territories and peasant livelihoods. A chronological perspective on the numerous and varied cases illustrates their cumulative, transformative effect on judicial decisions taken by the high courts, which have endorsed these mechanisms of direct democracy and expanded the scope of democratization to socioenvironmental issues. The process of environmental democratization in Colombia has been gradual, starting with the creation of opportunities for citizen participation in the Constitution of 1991; followed in the first decade of this century by the activation of the mechanisms of democratic participation created; and culminating with the watershed Constitutional Court ruling T-445 of 2016, which confirmed the right of municipalities to consult with their citizens about mining and oil extraction in their territories. The cases are analyzed here through the lens of democratization and transformative and judicialized politics. The paper argues that the reconfiguration of power through the use and contestation of participatory mechanisms reveals an ambiguous state-formation process characterized by repressed democratization. It also demonstrates that the process of environmental democratization that started with the activation of the democratic participation mechanisms introduced in the Constitution of 1991 has been one of transformative democratic politics, in which a dynamic array of political actors have consolidated democratic participation on environmental issues through constitutional lobbying and activism.
Renewable Energy Sources (RES) offer a key transformative potential from a social point of view due to their modularity and capacity to generate energy at local level, allowing for the development of ...democratic and participative bottom-up initiatives. Spanish RES cooperatives, unlike other European countries, are few in number. Here, we review their development by applying the Multi-Level Perspective approach. Spanish RES cooperatives have recently come up against a hostile regulatory and economic context, which has induced specific organizational and operating structures such as the application of innovative participation methods and investment tools. Spanish RES cooperatives regularly collaborate in sharing learning processes and experiences, having also demonstrated their capacity to spread new ideas at both social and political levels. However, despite their growth and territorial spread over the last few years, RES cooperatives still have a minor presence in the Spanish energy system. Although some internal factors may limit their potential as an active instrument towards the transition to RES in the country, the regime's resistance is found to be the main barrier. This paper concludes with some recommendations for policy makers and RES cooperatives to enhance its potential role in the forthcoming energy transition process.
•Renewable energies offer a key transformative potential from a social point of view.•Few RES cooperatives exist in Spain despite thousands of them currently exist in Europe.•Current economic-political context is found to be the main barrier for their development.•Spanish RES cooperatives feature particular organizational and operating structures.•A flexible and conducive legislative framework might stimulate their development.
Civil War and Female Empowerment Bakken, Ingrid Vik; Buhaug, Halvard
The Journal of conflict resolution,
05/2021, Letnik:
65, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Recent research has directed attention to the transformative potential of war for female empowerment. As a disruptive shock, armed conflict can create a window of opportunity for advancing the ...societal role of women. We complement this research agenda by looking at how conflict severity and termination condition the outcomes for women in the aftermath of civil conflict. We expect that both level of violence and mode of resolution affect subsequent female empowerment, where severe conflicts ending by a negotiated settlement have the greatest transformative potential. Consistent with expectations, we find that post-conflict improvements in female empowerment occur primarily after high-intensity civil conflicts. However, subsequent tests reveal that this effect is driven largely by conflicts terminated by peace agreements. The greatest improvement in female empowerment is seen when peace agreements have gender-specific provisions. These results support calls for a sustained effort toward mainstreaming gender issues in conflict resolution and peacebuilding processes.
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