დემოკრატია საქართველოში: Da Capo?

შესაძლებელია, რომ ოცწლიანი ექსპერიმენტირების შემდეგ, საქართველოში თავისუფალი არჩევნების გზით, ძალაუფლების მშვიდობიან გადაცემას, 2012 წლის 1 ოქტომბერს ქვეყანა „კონსოლიდირებული დემოკრატიის" ლეგენდარულ ეპოქასთან მიეახლოვებინა? კოალიცია ქართული ოცნება-დემოკრატიული საქართველოს (ქო) გამარჯვება პირველი შემთხვევაა დამოუკიდებელი საქართველოს ისტორიაში, როდესაც ერთმა მთავრობამ ნებაყოფლობით დაუთმო ძალაუფლება მეორეს. საქართველოს არ მიუღწევია სამუელ ჰანტინგტონისეული „ორი ცვლილების ტესტისთვის" (ჰანტინგტონს მიაჩნია, რომ ძალაუფლების ცვლილება ორჯერ უნდა მოხდეს, რათა დავრწმუნდეთ, რომ ყველა პარტია იცავს დემოკრატიულ წესებს); ბევრია დამოკიდებული იმაზე, თუ როგორ მოეპყრობა ახალი მთავრობა, პრემიერ-მინისტრ ბიძინა ივანიშვილის ხელმძღვანელობით, ოპოზიციას და როგორ გაუმკლავდება ერთიანი ნაციონალური მოძრაობა მეორეხარისხოვან როლს ათწლიანი იოლი დომინირების შემდეგ. დასავლელმა ექსპერტებმა, ევროპარლამენტის წევრებმა და ამერიკელმა კონგრესმენებმა დაგმეს რა ქართული ოცნების მთავრობაში მოსვლის შემდეგ მალევე დაწყებული ყოფილი მთავრობის მაღალჩინოსნების დაჭერებისა და სასამართლოების სერიები, ეჭვი გამოთქვეს ცვლილებებთან დაკავშირებით. ისინი გმობენ „დემოკრატიულ უკუსვლას" და ინტერესდებიან, განწირულია თუ არა საქართველო ერთპარტიული დომინანტობის კიდევ ერთი გამოცდილებისთვის. ფაქტობრივად, რასაც ჩვენ ვხედავთ, არასწორად ინფორმირებული დასავლელი დამკვირვებლებია, რომელთაც ხშირად მცდარად წარედგინებათ საქართველო. თავდაპირველად, დასავლური აზრის შემქმნელებმა არასწორი ინტერპრეტაცია მისცეს საქართველოს პირველ პრეზიდენტს, ზვიად გამსახურდიას, როგორც ადამიანის უფლებებისთვის მებრძოლ მამაც ყოფილ დისიდენტს. ისინი კიდევ დიდხანს უჭერდნენ მხარს ედუარდ შევარდნაძეს მას შემდეგ, რაც თავად ქართველი ამომრჩევლისთვის კარგად იყო ცნობილი სისტემატური საარჩევნო თაღლითობის შესახებ. ისინი მიესალმებოდნენ ახალგაზრდა და დინამიკური მოდერნიზატორის, მიხეილ სააკაშვილის „რეფორმებს" იმისდა მიუხედავად, რომ სახეზე იყო ადრეული ნიშნები იმისა, რომ დემოკრატია და კანონი ექვემდებარებოდა მის გადაწყვეტილებას, შეექმნა ძლიერი სახელმწიფო. შეფასებაში დაშვებულ ამ შეცდომებს თავისი შედეგები მოჰყვა: დასავლეთის მხარდაჭერამ გაახანგრძლივა სააკაშვილის პოსტზე ყოფნის პერიოდი და წაახალისა საქართველოს გადაკეთების ამბიცია, მიუხედავად სოციალური და პოლიტიკური საფასურისა. ამას დაემატა აბსურდული დემოკრატიული სტანდარტები, რომლებსაც დასავლური მთავრობები საქართველოს უყენებდნენ, თუმცა თავად ძლივს ახერხებდნენ მათ შენარჩუნებას. ასეთი სტანდარტები მექანიკურ კრიტერიუმებად იქცა, რაც შეუმჩნეველს ხდიდა დეტალებში ჩამალულ ეშმაკს. საკუთარ ეკონომიკურ და დემოკრატიულ დეფიციტებში ჩაფლული ევროკავშირი და შეერთებული შტატები მეტად თავშეკავებულნი უნდა იყვნენ იმ პოლიტიკისა და ინსტიტუციების ექსპორტირებისას, რომლებიც ხშირ შემთხვევაში, არ შეესატყვისება საქართველოს მოთხოვნილებებს ან ვერ აგვარებს მის პრობლემებს.

The Spanish cadet in the European military context a comparative analysis of the professional socialisation

Research on the attitudes, motivations and social and political behavior of European cadets have been made throughout the last decade. Nowadays Spain also joins those surveys. Thru the analysis of polling data, we can consider the different attitudes of Spanish cadets in relation with the other European ones. The conclusion is that although the Spanish political transition to democracy has not ended already in the military teaching system, there are a lot of similarities among Spanish and European cadets.

What is the european social model? an aproximation based on Spanish case

The public perception of the EU in Spain varies greatly. The most positive aspects of Spanish membership are associated with the consolidation of democracy, economic growth, the introduction of the euro, the growth in employment and structural and cohesion funds, the increase in the female participation rate, and the equal opportunities policies. The analysts are in favour of common objectives in the employment policy and multi-level government. The less positive aspects of the EU are the risks of losing social protection and loss of employment in some sectors due to mergers of multinationals and delocalization of companies towards Eastern Europe. The continuous demands for reform of the welfare state, the toughening of the conditions of access to social benefit and the reform of the labour market are also seen as problematic issues. Risks of competitive cuts and social dumping.

Educació en valors i formació docent. La diversitat com a valor

La reflexió sobre la meva pràctica educativa m’ha portat a endinsar-me en el món de la diversitat i de l’educació en valors, i preguntar-me sobre la seva ubicació en la formació docent. L’enfocament d’aquestes qüestions s’ha realitzat des de l’òptica de la persona. Des d’ella s’han buscat uns eixos vertebradors mínims que haurien d’estar presents tant en tot plantejament educatiu concret, com en la legislació en matèria educativa i en els plans de formació del professorat. Aquests eixos vertebradors s’han articulat en una tipologia de valors formada pel valor de la persona, des del qual sorgeixen el valor de l’educació, els valors de la democràcia i el valor de la utopia. El que he realitzat en aquesta recerca ha estat analitzar la legislació educativa i els plans d’estudi de formació de mestres de les universitats de Catalunya a partir de quatre grups d’indicadors que pretenen l’estudi del seu marc contextual, del vocabulari utilitzat –concretament els termes “ètica”, “moral” i “valor”-, del tractament de la diversitat –a partir del territori i la classe social, l’ètnia, el gènere i les necessitats educatives especials-, i de l’enfocament de l’educació en valors –segons la tipologia anteriorment apuntada-.

Informe de justificació de la Beca per estades per a la recerca fora de Catalunya pre-doctorals

Estudi elaborat a partir d’una estada a la Università degli Studi di Urbino, Bologna, Itàlia, entre juliol i desembre del 2005. Es revisa el concepte d’igualtat i multiculturalisme en el Mediterrani, especialment en la conca nord mediterrània com a zona de recepció de la immigració. Paral·lelament s’analitza el concepte de democràcia a la conca nord i sud mediterrània, i la relació entre aquestes dues voreres pel que fa a la percepció mateixa de democràcia i l’Estat de dret. Inclou entrevistes amb Gustavo Gozzi, Enrico Pugliese i Joseph Piqué.

Marxian insights from the mainstream

Starting in 1999 a group of papers have appeared in mainstream journals that treat of the relation between capitalism and democracy in an eminently Marxian fashion. These analyses bear on a number of papers published mainly in S&S, specifically those of Castañada, Ellman, Harnacker, Nimtz and Petras. This paper provides résumés of all of these works and then sets out the implications of the mainstream papers for the left wing ones. It concludes by emphasising the importance for the left of the mainstream results.

Las ideas de Marx llegan a la corriente principal de la economía

The paper first sets out simplified versions of recent mainstream papers which explain the rise of democracy in 19th century Europe and its instabliity in Latin America. Then it attempts to convince Marxists of the importance of these works for Marxist thought.

Globalization and Europeanization: Analysing Change

The main motivation for exploring the relationship between globalization and Europeanization is the understanding of the importance of exogenous factors for policy change at the domestic level. Can we distinguish the impact of Europeanization to that of globalization? What is the relationship between globalization and Europeanization and what can we learn about the impact of the two phenomena upon political institutions, public policies, identities and values of EU member-states? Can we distinguish the traces of globalization to those of Europeanization upon the domestic level? The paper draws upon International Relations and International Political Economy theories of globalization as well as upon the Europeanization literature. Both phenomena are multi-dimensional and in order to assess their impact and their relationship three dimensions are explored: political institutions, public policies and values and identities. It is concluded that the two phenomena are interwoven and that there is no antithetical relationship between them. Their core is similar, based on the values of neo-liberalism, representative democracy and open market economy.

Addressing the net balances problem as a prerequisite for EU budget reform: a proposal

Conflict among member states regarding the distribution of net financial burdens has been allowed to contaminate the entire design of the EU budget with very negative consequences in terms of equity, efficiency and transparency. To get around this problem and pave the way for a substantive budget reform, we propose to decouple distributional negotiations from the rest of the budget process by linking member state net balances in a rigid manner to relative prosperity. This would be achieved through the introduction of a system of compensating horizontal transfers that would take to its logical conclusion the Commission's proposal for a generalized compensation mechanism. We discuss the impact of the proposed scheme on member states? incentives and illustrate its financial implications using revenue and expenditure projections for 2013 that are based on the current Financial Perspectives and Own Resources Decision.

Reversal of opinion: the implications of the work of Acemoglu and Robinson for marxist thought

This paper describes the implications for Marxist thought of the work of Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. In the first two periods of this they explained how the rise of democracy brought prosperity to Europe  and why the same process had not worked in Latin America because of the possibility of coups. The implication is that mass poverty can better be alleviated by safeguarding democracy rather than moving to socialism. In the last period A and R have formalized doubts about the efficacy of democracy in this role. The implication here is that Marxists should work to find a system of government that is immune to elite dominance. Hugo Chávez is taken as an example.

Democratization as a cost-saving device

We propose a theoretical analysis of democratization processes in which an elite extends the franchise to the poor when threatened with a revolution. The poor could govern without changing the political system by maintaining a continuous revolutionary threat on the elite. Revolutionary threats, however, are costly to the poor and democracy is a superior sys- tem in which political agreement is reached through costless voting. This provides a rationale for democratic transitions that has not been discussed in the literature.

The disadvantage of winning an election

This paper analyzes the problem that an incumbent faces during the legislature when deciding how to react to popular initiatives or policy proposals coming from different sources. We argue that this potential source of electoral disadvantage that the incumbent obtains after being elected can jeopardize the reelection possibilities of the incumbent. We analyze the decision of the incumbent when facing reelection and we characterize the conditions under which the advantages that the incumbent obtains can overcome the disadvantages. Finally, we use the results of this analysis to discuss some implications of the use of mechanisms of direct democracy like referenda and popular assemblies on electoral competition.

6

The use of the Internet now has a specific purpose: to find information. Unfortunately, the amount of data available on the Internet is growing exponentially, creating what can be considered a nearly infinite and ever-evolving network with no discernable structure. This rapid growth has raised the question of how to find the most relevant information. Many different techniques have been introduced to address the information overload, including search engines, Semantic Web, and recommender systems, among others. Recommender systems are computer-based techniques that are used to reduce information overload and recommend products likely to interest a user when given some information about the user's profile. This technique is mainly used in e-Commerce to suggest items that fit a customer's purchasing tendencies. The use of recommender systems for e-Government is a research topic that is intended to improve the interaction among public administrations, citizens, and the private sector through reducing information overload on e-Government services. More specifically, e-Democracy aims to increase citizens' participation in democratic processes through the use of information and communication technologies. In this chapter, an architecture of a recommender system that uses fuzzy clustering methods for e-Elections is introduced. In addition, a comparison with the smartvote system, a Web-based Voting Assistance Application (VAA) used to aid voters in finding the party or candidate that is most in line with their preferences, is presented.

Inter-regional redistribution through infrastructure investment: tactical or programmatic?

In this paper we analyze the effects of both tactical and programmatic politics on the inter-regional allocation of infrastructure investment. We use a panel of data for the Spanish electoral districts during the period 1964-2004 to estimate an equation where investment depends both on economic and political variables. The results show that tactical politics do matter since, after controlling for economic traits, the districts with more ‘Political power’ still receive more investment. These districts are those where the incumbents’ Vote margin of victory/ defeat in the past election is low, where the Marginal seat price is low, where there is Partisan alignment between the executives at the central and regional layers of government, and where there are Pivotal regional parties which are influential in the formation of the central executive. However, the results also show that programmatic politics matter, since inter-regional redistribution (measured as the elasticity of investment to per capita income) is shown to increase with the arrival of the Democracy and EU Funds, with Left governments, and to decrease the higher is the correlation between a measure of ‘Political power’ and per capita income.

Development and Democratization

Current studies, mainly focused on the postwar period, are split on the impact of development on democracy. Examining panel data that runs from early nineteenth century (a time where hardly any democracy was in place) to the end of the twentieth century, I show income matters positively for democratization – both after controlling for country and time effects and instrumenting for income. Since the effect of time partly varies over time, with some historical periods that are more favorable to democracy than others, I investigate the domestic variables (a decreasing marginal effect of growth in already developed economies) and international factors (the strategies of great powers toward small countries) generating that result. I finally probe the underlying processes through which income shapes political institutions, showing that development produces key changes in the distribution and nature of wealth that, in turn, make democracy a stable political outcome.