Governance and regional variation of homicide rates: Evidence from cross-national data

Criminological theories of cross-national studies of homicide have underestimated the effects of quality governance of liberal democracy and region. Data sets from several sources are combined and a comprehensive model of homicide is proposed. Results of the spatial regression model, which controls for the effect of spatial autocorrelation, show that quality governance, human development, economic inequality, and ethnic heterogeneity are statistically significant in predicting homicide. In addition, regions of Latin America and non-Muslim Sub-Saharan Africa have significantly higher rates of homicides ceteris paribus while the effects of East Asian countries and Islamic societies are not statistically significant. These findings are consistent with the expectation of the new modernization and regional theories.

Populism and Liberal Democracy: Populists in Government in Austria, Italy, Poland and Switzerland

The enduring electoral success of populist parties across Europe and the increasing opportunities they have gained to access government in recent years bring once more into relief the question of whether populism and democracy are fully compatible. In this article we show how, despite playing different roles in government within very different political systems, and despite the numerous constraints placed upon them (for instance, EU membership, international law and domestic checks and balances), populist parties consistently pursued policies that clashed with fundamental tenets of liberal democracy. In particular, the idea that the power of the majority must be limited and restrained, the sanctity of individual rights and the principle of the division of powers have all come under threat in contemporary Europe. This has contributed to the continuing erosion of the liberal consensus, which has provided one of the fundamental foundations of the European project from its start.

A challenge for liberal democracy: How to understand the Russian intervention in Ukraine. Bertelsmann Policy Brief, 16.10.2014

The Russian intervention in Ukraine has provoked a deep crisis which will likely last for years, with profound consequences not only for Ukraine, Russia and Eastern Europe, but also for the internal situation in the European Union. The current Russian aggression is frequently seen as a profound violation of international law, breaking the rules that are fundamental for relations in Europe. It is perceived as perhaps a step towards rebuilding imperial Russia or, at the very least, an attempt to keep Ukraine within Russia’s sphere of influence. However, one very important aspect is virtually neglected, namely, that Russia’s Ukraine venture may have a significant impact on the future of liberal democracy in Europe and beyond.

Liberal Democracy and the Inferior 'Other'Other’: Could the peace liberal democracy promises to bring not extend to ‘Others’?

Advocates of liberal democracy argue that its principles and practices contribute directly to peace (at both inter-state and domestic levels). They rely on ideals such as the rule of law, institutional checks and balances on power, an ethos of tolerance, and free market economics to deliver the liberal peace. Liberals, however, overlook three important features embedded in the construction of liberal democracy which can serve to facilitate political violence: 1) the fixed and thus non-negotiable nature of liberal democracy’s core principles, 2) the inferior manner in which it conceives ‘Other’ social orders that do not share its core principles, and 3) the urge to proselytise Others. Together, these constitutive qualities can facilitate moves by leaders of Other groups to argue that liberal democracy threatens ‘their’ preferred identity, and thus its promised peaceful outcomes can be put in doubt.

Democracy and the Project of Liberal Inclusion

Democracy is a multi-dimensional concept, ranging from definitions based exclusively on institutional frameworks (for example, Held, 2005, Przeworski, Alvarez, Cheibub and Limongi, 2000) to complex and integrated measures that include political and civil rights, democratic practices, values and, finally, a diverse set of institutional arrangements in society, including welfare, education, industrial relations and the legal system (Inglehart and Welzel, 2005, Jaggers and Gurr, 1995, O'Donnell, Cullel and Iazetta, 2004). This reflects the range of and distinction between merely formal electoral democracy and genuinely 'effective liberal democracy' (Inglehart and Welzel, 2005: 149), where democracy is firmly embedded not only in its institutions but in the values of its citizenry. Evidence from cross-national research confirms that formal democratic institutions, different dimensions of effective democracy, and democratic values are indeed strongly linked (Inglehart and Welzel, 2005: 154, Jaggers and Gurr, 1995: 446). Democracy is more than just a set of institutions, rules and mechanisms: it is a set of core values engrained in the 'lived experience' of its citizens. Core values of democracies are individual autonomy and egalitarianism, tolerance of diversity, and freedom from oppression for both individuals and institutions. Democracies restrain their governments by the rule of law and grant its citizens equal access to and equal treatment by legal institutions. Among these institutions, criminal justice and the treatment of those who violated rules and regulations represent sensitive seismographs for the quality of effective democracies, and the ways how democracies realise their core values.

Regulation beyond government: Weber, Foucault and the liberal governance of media content

This paper steps back from the question of how regulation of digital media content occurs, and whether it can be effective, to consider the rationales that inform regulation, and the ethics and practices associated with content regulation. It will be argued that Max Weber's account of bureaucratic expertise remains relevant to such discussions, particularly insofar as it intersects with Michel Foucault's concept of governmentality, and contemporary applications of the notion of 'governing at a distance'. The nature of the challenges to media regulators presented by online environments, and by digital and social media, are considered in depth, but it is argued that the significance of regulatory innovations that respond to such challenges should not be underestimated, nor should the continuing national foundations of media regulation. It will also discuss the relevance of the concept of 'soft law' to contemporary regulatory practice.

The Influence of Direct Democracy on Agency Costs: Lessons from Corporate Governance

This dissertation seeks to improve the usage of direct democracy in order to minimize agency cost. It first explains why insights from corporate governance can help to improve constitutional law and then identifies relevant insights from corporate governance that can make direct democracy more efficient. To accomplish this, the dissertation examines a number of questions. What are the key similarities in corporate and constitutional law? Do these similarities create agency problems that are similar enough for a comparative analysis to yield valuable insights? Once the utility of corporate governance insights is established, the dissertation answers two questions. Are initiatives necessary to minimize agency cost if referendums are already provided for? And, must the results of direct democracy be binding in order for agency cost to be minimized?

Democratic Legitimacy and the Politics of Rights : A comparative analysis of the conceptual relationship between democracy and rights in contemporary political theories

Democratic Legitimacy and the Politics of Rights is a research in normative political theory, based on comparative analysis of contemporary democratic theories, classified roughly as conventional liberal, deliberative democratic and radical democratic. Its focus is on the conceptual relationship between alternative sources of democratic legitimacy: democratic inclusion and liberal rights. The relationship between rights and democracy is studied through the following questions: are rights to be seen as external constraints to democracy or as objects of democratic decision making processes? Are individual rights threatened by public participation in politics; do constitutionally protected rights limit the inclusiveness of democratic processes? Are liberal values such as individuality, autonomy and liberty; and democratic values such as equality, inclusion and popular sovereignty mutually conflictual or supportive? Analyzing feminist critique of liberal discourse, the dissertation also raises the question about Enlightenment ideals in current political debates: are the universal norms of liberal democracy inherently dependent on the rationalist grand narratives of modernity and incompatible with the ideal of diversity? Part I of the thesis introduces the sources of democratic legitimacy as presented in the alternative democratic models. Part II analyses how the relationship between rights and democracy is theorized in them. Part III contains arguments by feminists and radical democrats against the tenets of universalist liberal democratic models and responds to that critique by partly endorsing, partly rejecting it. The central argument promoted in the thesis is that while the deconstruction of modern rationalism indicates that rights are political constructions as opposed to externally given moral constraints to politics, this insight does not delegitimize the politics of universal rights as an inherent part of democratic institutions. The research indicates that democracy and universal individual rights are mutually interdependent rather than oppositional; and that democracy is more dependent on an unconditional protection of universal individual rights when it is conceived as inclusive, participatory and plural; as opposed to robust majoritarian rule. The central concepts are: liberalism, democracy, legitimacy, deliberation, inclusion, equality, diversity, conflict, public sphere, rights, individualism, universalism and contextuality. The authors discussed are e.g. John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, Seyla Benhabib, Iris Young, Chantal Mouffe and Stephen Holmes. The research focuses on contemporary political theory, but the more classical work of John S. Mill, Benjamin Constant, Isaiah Berlin and Hannah Arendt is also included.

A crisis of social democracy : organized labour and the NDP in an era of neoliberalism

The NDP was founded out of the ashes of the Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation to cooperate with the Canadian Labour Congress to become the 'political arm of organized labour' in Canada. The NDP has long claimed they are the party which represents the policy goals of organized labour in Canada: that the NDP alone will fight for trade union rights, and will fight for Canadian workers. Divergent Paths is an examination of the links between the labour movement and the ND P in an era ofneo-liberalism. Provincial NDP governments have become increasingly neoliberal in their ideological orientation, and have often proved to be no friend to the labour movement when they hold office. The Federal party has never held power, nor have they ever formed the Official Opposition. This thesis charts the progress of the federal NDP as they become more neoliberal from 1988 to 2006, and shows how this trend effects the links between the NDP and labour. Divergent Paths studies each federal election from 1988 to 2006, looking at the interactions between Labour and the NDP during these elections. Elections provide critical junctions to study discourse - party platforms, speeches, and other official documents can be used to examine discourse. Extensive newspaper searches were used to follow campaign events and policy speeches. Studying the party's discourse can be used to determine the ideological orientation of the party itself: the fact that the party's discourse has become neoliberal is a sure sign that the party itself is neoliberal. The NDP continues to drive towards the centre of the political spectrum in an attempt to gain multi-class support. The NDP seems more interested in gaining seats at any cost, rather then promoting the agenda of Labour. As the party attempts to open up to more multi-class support, Labour becomes increasingly marginalised in the party. A rift which arguably started well before the 1988 election was exacerbated during that election; labour encouraged the NDP to campaign solely on the issue of Free Trade, and the NDP did not. The 1993 election saw the rift between the two grow even further as the Federal NDP suffered major blowbacks from the actions of the Ontario NDP. The 1997 and 2000 elections saw the NDP make a deliberate move to the centre of the political spectrum which increasingly marginalised labour. In the 2004 election, Jack Layton made no attempt to move the party back to the left; and in 2006 the link between labour and the NDP was perhaps irreparably damaged when the CAW endorsed the Liberal party in a strategic voting strategy, and the CLC did not endorse the NDP. The NDP is no longer a reliable ally of organized labour. The Canadian labour movement must decide wether the NDP can be 'salvaged' or if the labour movement should end their alliance with the NDP and engage in a new political project.

The EU's Promotion of External Democracy: In search of the plot. CEPS Policy Brief No. 281, 13 September 2012

This policy brief illustrates that both the conceptualisation of democracy and the means to achieve it remain vague, and explains why this is problematic. It points out the risks that stem from a lack of clear understanding about how human rights, governance, civil society and socio-economic development relate to democratisation. It concludes that the EU should reflect on the substance of its external democracy promotion policies and conceptualise the relationship between the different elements of democracy promotion cited above and democratisation. While ongoing reforms of international democracy promotion should continue, a wider debate on substance could help identify what the EU should support in the future. The EU should also establish a reflective external democracy promotion policy where the assessment of actions on democratic development becomes systematic and is institutionalised.

Are Feminism and Monotheistic Religions Compatible? & Religion and Liberal Democracy: Are They Philosophically Compatible?

Are Feminism and Monotheistic Religions Compatible? Dr. Roberta K. Ray How compatible are the three major monotheistic religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) with feminism and the goal of equal rights for women in Western democracies? A special focus is on how Christian religions have functioned as a barrier to equal rights for women in the United States from Colonial period through the 21st century. Religion and Liberal Democracy: Are They Philosophically Compatible? Dr. John W. Ray American government is based on liberal democratic political theory. Based on an examination of the political philosophies of Locke, Mill, Rousseau, Hegel, Emerson and Rawls, Ray concludes that adherence to a liberal democratic political ideology is fundamentally incompatible with a religious grounding of political reality.

The making of an ideology of the third way:the evolution of christian democracy in Germany (with special reference to 1945-49)

This study investigates the search for the third way in the history of German Christian Democracy. Today, in the United Kingdom, the 'third way' is seen as a new phenomenon, a synthesis of post-war belief in the welfare state and neo-liberal conservatism. Yet it insufficiently acknowledges that the origins of third way thinking, the marriage of social justice with free market economics, of individualism with collective responsibility, are found in the early philosophies of Catholic Social Theory and Protestant Social Ethical Teaching in Germany. This study shows that in the hundred years from the 1840s to the end of the 1940s, there were Catholic and Protestant socio-ethical thinkers and political reformists in Germany who attempted to bridge the philosophical differences between liberalism and socialism, to develop a socio-economic order based on Christian moral values. It will focus on the period 1945-1949, when the CDU was founded as the first interdenominational, Christian party. The study provides the first comprehensive account of the political debates in Christian democratic groups in the Soviet, British, French and American allied occupied zones, also giving equal attention to the contribution from the Protestant wing, alongside the more widely acknowledged role of Catholics in the birth of the CDU. It examines how Christian Democrats envisaged correcting the aberrations of German history, by uniting all social classes and Christian religions in one all-embracing Volkspartei, and transforming party politics from its earlier obsession with sectarian and ideological interests towards a more pragmatic 'third way' programme. The study argues that through the making of its ideology, the CDU modified the nation's understanding of its history, re-interpreted its traditions, and redefined the meaning and perception of established political philosophies. This reveals how the ambiguity of political terminology, and the flexible practice of 'third way' politics, were an invaluable political resource in the CDU's campaign for unity, ideological legitimisation and political power.

The governance of online expression in a networked world:free-speech, surveillance and censorship

In recent years, we have witnessed the mushrooming of pro- democracy and protest movements not only in the Arab world, but also within Europe and the Americas. Such movements have ranged from popular upheavals, like in Tunisia and Egypt, to the organization of large- scale demonstrations against unpopular policies, as in Spain, Greece and Poland. What connects these different events are not only their democratic aspirations, but also their innovative forms of communication and organization through online means, which are sometimes considered to be outside of the State’s control. At the same time, however, it has become more and more apparent that countries are attempting to increase their understanding of, and control over, their citizens’ actions in the digital sphere. This involves striving to develop surveillance instruments, control mechanisms and processes engineered to dominate the digital public sphere, which necessitates the assistance and support of private actors such as Internet intermediaries. Examples include the growing use of Internet surveillance technology with which online data traffic is analysed, and the extensive monitoring of social networks. Despite increased media attention, academic debate on the ambivalence of these technologies, mechanisms and techniques remains relatively limited, as is discussion of the involvement of corporate actors. The purpose of this edited volume is to reflect on how Internet-related technologies, mechanisms and techniques may be used as a means to enable expression, but also to restrict speech, manipulate public debate and govern global populaces.