scholarly journals Who Caucuses? An Experimental Approach to Institutional Design and Electoral Participation

2013 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 329-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher F. Karpowitz ◽  
Jeremy C. Pope
Keyword(s):  
Observational Data ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Experimental Approach ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Experimental Finding ◽  
Presidential Campaign ◽  
Electoral Participation ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
Mass Participation ◽  
Institutional Choices

During the 2008 presidential campaign, the question of mass participation in primaries and caucuses became unusually salient, with a close Democratic race calling special attention to these often overlooked procedural elements of America's democratic system. This study adds a new element to scholarship on institutional design and citizen participation by way of a survey-based experiment conducted in the midst of the 2008 campaign. The results show that institutional choices are not neutral. Nominating candidates through caucuses rather than primaries not only reduces the number of participants, but also significantly affects the ideological composition of the electorate. Caucuses produce a more ideologically consistent electorate than do primaries, because policy centrists appear to avoid caucuses. This experimental finding is strongly buttressed by the observational data on Obama and Clinton voters.

FLASH MOB AS A MODERN FORM OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION: ANALYSIS OF TECHNOLOGICAL, MOTIVATIONAL AND IDENTIFICATION FACTORS

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 124-143
Author(s):  
D.I. KAMINCHENKO ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Information Society ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Empirical Level ◽  
Mass Participation ◽  
Communicative Space ◽  
Modern Form

Modern digital technologies contribute to the emergence of new forms of social and political activity. One of these forms of participation is flash mob. Flash mobs are able to activate society for mass participation in various political events, which indicates the relevance and necessity of studying flash mobs as a modern form of citizen participation in social and political processes. The purpose of this study is to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the flash mob from the standpoint of the intersection of several factors: technological, identification and motivational. The research methodology at the theoretical level is made up of the theory of the information society and the concept of “network identity”, on the empirical level - the method of sociological survey with the subsequent compilation of contingency tables. As a result of the study, it is established how widespread the practice of participation of active users of social media in various flash mobs is. Based on the data on the most significant opportunities for using social media, an interim conclusion is made about the existing motivational attitudes of the participants in flash mobs. Through the use of several determinants of network identity, a number of its properties are identified and considered, which are manifested in the communicative space of social media. It is established that the factor of participation / non-participation in the flash mob is not decisive in the manifestation of the properties of network identity.

CORRUPTION IN ADVERSARIAL SYSTEMS: THE CASE OF DEMOCRACY

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (02) ◽  
pp. 221-241
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Weinstock
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Design ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Institutional Framework ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Central Task ◽  
Perverse Incentives ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
Democratic Systems ◽  
Positive Traits ◽  
In Virtue Of

Abstract:In this essay I argue that adversarial institutional systems, such as multi-party democracy, present a distinctive risk of institutional corruption, one that is particularly difficult to counteract. Institutional corruption often results not from individual malfeasance, but from perverse incentives that make it the case that agents within an institutional framework have rival institutional interests that risk pitting individual advantage against the functioning of the institution in question. Sometimes, these perverse incentives are only contingently related to the central animating logic of an institution. In these cases, immunizing institutions from the risk of corruption is not a theoretically difficult exercise. In other cases, institutions generate perverse or rival incentives in virtue of some central feature of the institution’s design, one that is also responsible for some of the institution’s more positive traits. In multi-party democratic systems, partisanship risks giving rise to too close an identification of the partisan’s interest with that of the party, to the detriment of the democratic system as a whole. But partisanship is also necessary to the functioning of such a system. Creating bulwarks that allow the positive aspects of partisanship to manifest themselves, while offsetting the aspects of partisanship through which individual advantage of democratic agents is linked too closely to party success, is a central task for the theory and practice of the institutional design of democracy.

scholarly journals Good Governance as an Instauration Towards Socioeconomic Development: a Case Study of Pakistan

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 58
Author(s):  
Shama Zaman ◽  
Samina Saeed
Keyword(s):  
Strategic Planning ◽  
Socioeconomic Development ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Critical Phenomenon ◽  
Specific Criterion ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Major Donors ◽  
Mass Participation

Good governance has been inclinational to a well-civilized society. The notion of governance has emphatically been promoted in the twenty-first century for sustainable socioeconomic development in a form of millennium & sustainable development goals (MDGs and SDGs). Because good governance is one of the multilayered stratagem being directly involved in a socioeconomic progression, it sets off a mechanism of modus operandi from higher to lower governing hierarchy. Significantly, it enlightens basic democratic system to levitate an infrastructure of good governance through standing on multidimensional pillars of accountability, transparency, rule of law and mass participation. Strategic planning of good governance overcomes the uneven justifications in all spheres of life. In fact, justified distribution of socioeconomic assets is deployed by the principles of good governance. That assists in maintaining the balance of power to not only initiate the development but cause its sustainability in the course of socioeconomic paradigms. Thus it is subsumed directly or indirectly in strengthening the individual, institutional, and societal capacity development. Impartially, a specific criterion of good governance has been designed as a tool effector in the national action plans of both developed and developing states. An accompaniment of good governance with socioeconomic sector in Pakistan has been distinguished as a critical phenomenon to the development process and to the effectiveness of development assistance. Because the issues of good governance are responsive to the present and future socioeconomic needs and developments, an insurance towards the condition of good governance urges major donors and international financial institutions to spread investment over socioeconomic challenges and reforms in Pakistan. Hence strategic planning and management highlighted with quality and standards reinvigorate the practice of good governance through assuring socioeconomic development as a reality and fortune of the nation.

Sustainability Governance in Democracies

2015 ◽  
pp. 270-293
Author(s):  
Doris Wydra ◽  
Helga Pülzl
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Development Indicators ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Right

The pursuit of sustainable development requires a political system that secures effective citizen participation in decision-making, an economic system that is able to generate surpluses on a sustained basis and a social system providing for a solution to tensions arising from disharmonious development; it recognizes also the rights of the individual to adequate conditions of life through balancing environmental, economic and social norms. Although international law is neutral towards different forms of government, increasingly democracy is regarded as the only form of government truly reflecting the “consent of the governed” and therefore being in accordance with the right of the self-determination of people and thus the basis for the realization of human rights. But the theoretical and practical linkage between democracy and sustainable development is still weak. Although there is a burgeoning literature on democratic mechanisms and sustainability, democracy is not regarded as prerequisite for sustainability. The authors argue in this paper that although sustainable development seemingly does not need democratic forms of governance as the values attached to SD could also be implemented in a non-democratic system, research on democracy, human rights and sustainable norms need to be better linked to each other in order to be able to implement the political requirements simultaneously. The authors propose an integrated approach that respects the ideas of sustainable development, as well as human rights and democratic forms of governance. Thus, the authors present different systems of democratic governance, sustainable development indicators systems as well as human rights systems. From there the authors develop ideal-type models that represent those ideas and develop an integrated approach to a democratic sustainable development system in accordance with human rights.

The “Iron Law of Oligarchy” in the Athenian Polis … and Today

1985 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 295-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Fred Alford
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Union Democracy ◽  
Mass Participation ◽  
The City ◽  
Western Democracies ◽  
The Way

AbstractThis article shows how Athens in the late fifth and early fourth centuries mitigated Robert Michels' famous “iron law of oligarchy.” It is argued that Athens' success es related to its practice of universal male citizen participation in the administration of the city. At several points a comparison is drawn between how the International Typographical Union (ITU), studied in Lipset, Trow, and Coleman's Union Democracy, mitigated the “iron law,” and how Athens did so. The purpose of this article, however, is not to draw as many comparisons as possible. It is rather to suggest that the very possibility of comparison implies that the lessons of Athens are still relevant, if properly interpreted. This last clause is important, for it is argued that the way in which mass participation mitigated the iron law at Athens was subtle, and easily misinterpreted, perhaps especially by those who are eager to see greater participation in contemporary Western democracies.

Democratic Meta-Deliberation: Towards Reflective Institutional Design

2014 ◽  
Vol 63 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 38-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Landwehr
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Democratic Practices ◽  
Participatory Politics ◽  
Democratic System

Theories of deliberative democracy are popular for their promise that in a deliberative polity, democracy can realise both participatory politics and rational policies. However, they are also confronted with the allegation that by qualifying essentially non-democratic practices as deliberative, they inadvertently (or not) become accomplices in the trend towards post-democratic governance. A central example of such a development is the rise of non-majoritarian bodies to which governments delegate decision making, thereby de-politicising conflicts and turning democratic discourses into technocratic ones. This article adopts a systemic perspective on deliberative democracy, asking whether non-majoritarian forums can be legitimated in a democratic system and whether they can contribute to their deliberative quality. It is argued that the legitimation of delegated decision-making is not possible without a culture and practice of democratic meta-deliberation which enables reflective institutional design.

Democratic Institutional Design: The Powers and Incentives of Venezuelan Politicians and Interest Groups. By Brian F. Crisp. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000. 294p. $100.00 cloth, $34.95 paper.

2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (2) ◽  
pp. 496-498
Author(s):  
Daniel C. Hellinger
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Dark Period ◽  
Stanford University ◽  
Urban Riots ◽  
Transitions To Democracy ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
The 1960S

Venezuelan politics attracted little attention from political scientists for thirty years after the defeat of the fidelista guerrillas in the 1960s, but there has been a surge of interest in recent years. The country retained civilian, elected govern- ment through a dark period of authoritarianism in Latin America, which seemed to make it a good candidate for deriving lessons about transitions to democracy. In the 1990s, however, the democratic system entered into crisis. Venezu- ela experienced urban riots, two unsuccessful coups, removal of a president from office before completion of his term, rising electoral abstention, collapse of the traditional parties at the heart of the system, and the election of a coup leader to the presidency. Attention shifted from what went right to what went wrong. These books help us understand the limitations of the Venezuelan democratic model.

scholarly journals Public intellectual as an educational project

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 224-239
Author(s):  
Victoria Shamrai
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Internal Contradiction ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
The Common ◽  
Global World

The article reveals the role of education in ensuring the existence of a contemporary democratic system. Democratic governance is viewed through the prism of the crisis of representative democracy that arises in global world. The focus of the crisis forms a crisis of citizen participation in democratic governance. Among the various scenarios for overcoming this crisis, the emphasis is on a model of deliberative (“discussing”) democracy. Accordingly, a key role in the productive functioning of contemporary democracy belongs to public discourse. Public discourse has an internal contradiction. Its participants are guided by their own interests, but the productivity of the discourse is achieved only if it is subject to the requirements of the common good. Five criteria of the authenticity of the discourse that make it aimed at the common good are highlighted. The medium of discourse that ensures its authenticity is a public intellectual. It is proved that the main vocation of education in the contemporary democratic system is the production of a public intellectual as an effective social character. In this process, a key role belongs to humanitarian education, respectively organized.

Sustainability Governance in Democracies

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-107
Author(s):  
Doris Wydra ◽  
Helga Pülzl
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Development Indicators ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Right

The pursuit of sustainable development requires a political system that secures effective citizen participation in decision-making, an economic system that is able to generate surpluses on a sustained basis and a social system providing for a solution to tensions arising from disharmonious development; it recognizes also the rights of the individual to adequate conditions of life through balancing environmental, economic and social norms. Although international law is neutral towards different forms of government, increasingly democracy is regarded as the only form of government truly reflecting the “consent of the governed” and therefore being in accordance with the right of the self-determination of people and thus the basis for the realization of human rights. But the theoretical and practical linkage between democracy and sustainable development is still weak. Although there is a burgeoning literature on democratic mechanisms and sustainability, democracy is not regarded as prerequisite for sustainability. The authors argue in this paper that although sustainable development seemingly does not need democratic forms of governance as the values attached to SD could also be implemented in a non-democratic system, research on democracy, human rights and sustainable norms need to be better linked to each other in order to be able to implement the political requirements simultaneously. The authors propose an integrated approach that respects the ideas of sustainable development, as well as human rights and democratic forms of governance. Thus, the authors present different systems of democratic governance, sustainable development indicators systems as well as human rights systems. From there the authors develop ideal-type models that represent those ideas and develop an integrated approach to a democratic sustainable development system in accordance with human rights.

Competing Commitments: Technocracy and Democracy in the Design of Monetary Institutions

2002 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 889-910 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Freeman
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Design ◽  
Information Economics ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Institutional Choice ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Research Designs ◽  
Institutional Choices

In this article, I refine and expand the agenda for research on monetary institutions. First, I evaluate the analyses and research designs presented in this special issue ofInternational Organization. Out of this evaluation, several ideas about how to produce a “third generation” of research on this topic emerge. Specific ideas include how to: create a better synthesis with certain branches of economics, such as information economics; broaden the welfare criteria on which institutional choices are made; deepen the analyses of coalitional and other political processes on which the choice of institutions are based; and strengthen the tests that are offered in support of these choices.In the second part of this article, I explore questions of how popular sovereignty over economic policy and institutional choice are achieved. I show that the institutional regimes proposed in the special issue are, in a sense, democratic as long as the public's “perceived consensus” about economic policies and macroeconomic outcomes is real. However, if, as new work suggests, there is genuine dissensus about policy and macroeconomic objectives, it is no longer clear that the regimes proposed in the special issue are democratic. In the conclusion, I briefly discuss a possible crisis of imagination in institutional design.

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