A Legitimacy Crisis of Representative Democracy?

Author(s):  
Jacques Thomassen ◽  
Carolien van Ham

This chapter presents the research questions and outline of the book, providing a brief review of the state of the art of legitimacy research in established democracies, and discusses the recurring theme of crisis throughout this literature since the 1960s. It includes a discussion of the conceptualization and measurement of legitimacy, seeking to relate legitimacy to political support, and reflecting on how to evaluate empirical indicators: what symptoms indicate crisis? This chapter further explains the structure of the three main parts of the book. Part I evaluates in a systematic fashion the empirical evidence for legitimacy decline in established democracies; Part II reappraises the validity of theories of legitimacy decline; and Part II investigates what (new) explanations can account for differences in legitimacy between established democracies. The chapter concludes with a short description of the chapters included in the volume.

Theories about legitimacy decline and legitimacy crisis are as old as democracy itself. Yet, representative democracy still exists, and empirical evidence for a secular decline of political support in established democracies is limited, questionable, or absent. This calls into question existing explanatory theories of legitimacy decline. How valid are theories of modernization, globalization, media malaise, social capital, and party decline, if the predicted outcome, i.e. secular decline of political support, does not occur? And which (new) explanations can account for the empirical variation in political support in established democracies? This book systematically evaluates: (a) the empirical evidence for legitimacy decline in established democracies, (b) the explanatory power of theories of legitimacy decline, and (c) promising new routes in investigating and assessing political legitimacy. In doing so, this volume provides a broad and thorough reflection on the state of the art of legitimacy research, and outlines a new research agenda on legitimacy. It brings together a broad team of accomplished scholars, approaching these questions from different angles based on their respective topic of expertise. The result is a set of studies that do not only provide state-of-the-art analytical and empirical analyses, but also provide original insights in the questions at hand.


Author(s):  
Akrati Saxena ◽  
Harita Reddy

AbstractOnline informal learning and knowledge-sharing platforms, such as Stack Exchange, Reddit, and Wikipedia have been a great source of learning. Millions of people access these websites to ask questions, answer the questions, view answers, or check facts. However, one interesting question that has always attracted the researchers is if all the users share equally on these portals, and if not then how the contribution varies across users, and how it is distributed? Do different users focus on different kinds of activities and play specific roles? In this work, we present a survey of users’ social roles that have been identified on online discussion and Q&A platforms including Usenet newsgroups, Reddit, Stack Exchange, and MOOC forums, as well as on crowdsourced encyclopedias, such as Wikipedia, and Baidu Baike, where users interact with each other through talk pages. We discuss the state of the art on capturing the variety of users roles through different methods including the construction of user network, analysis of content posted by users, temporal analysis of user activity, posting frequency, and so on. We also discuss the available datasets and APIs to collect the data from these platforms for further research. The survey is concluded with open research questions.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1207-1221
Author(s):  
Carlos E. Jiménez-Gómez

Despite its origins, openness in the judiciary has expanded beyond transparency and, therefore, beyond the common law open justice principle. Several initiatives worldwide are echoing this trend and a new term, open judiciary, is arising as a way to address openness in the justice field. This chapter gives an overview of open judiciary initiatives worldwide, focusing on some of the most successful, in order to identify drivers of adoption, critical success factors, and preliminary results. The research is embedded in a broader exploratory study on the state of the art of open judiciary. The chapter is addressed to answer two of the research questions: What are some learning practices that can be identified worldwide in relation to openness in the judiciary? What are some of the most important lessons that can be learnt from these practices?


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 529-540
Author(s):  
Paul Eisenberg

Purpose This paper aims to approach fundamental topics of financial crime and the law. What does constitute financial crime? Which field of law is best suited to address the threats of transgression by financial executives? What does motivate highly rewarded financiers to become white collar criminals? Design/methodology/approach To answer these research questions, contemporary theories of criminology in general and of white collar crime in particular, as well as theories on motivation, are critically discussed. Benefits and limitations of the theories in use are exemplified on the background of the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) scandal. Findings The paper criticises that the state-of-the-art theories are not able to embrace financial criminality in its entirety. A provoking pace for further research might be that of psychopathic disorders among white collar criminals. Thus, white collar crime maintains its challenging character. Originality/value This paper provides a thorough testing of multidisciplinary theories that emerged over the past decades against the recent LIBOR scandal. The research questions addressed and the methodologies applied provide a framework for the assessment of the prevailing theories against other financial scandals.


Author(s):  
Carlos E. Jiménez-Gómez

Despite its origins, openness in the judiciary has expanded beyond transparency and, therefore, beyond the common law open justice principle. Several initiatives worldwide are echoing this trend and a new term, open judiciary, is arising as a way to address openness in the justice field. This chapter gives an overview of open judiciary initiatives worldwide, focusing on some of the most successful, in order to identify drivers of adoption, critical success factors, and preliminary results. The research is embedded in a broader exploratory study on the state of the art of open judiciary. The chapter is addressed to answer two of the research questions: What are some learning practices that can be identified worldwide in relation to openness in the judiciary? What are some of the most important lessons that can be learnt from these practices?


1988 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 42-53
Author(s):  
Bogdan Krakowian

The early development of second language acquisition [SLA] research in the area of morphology and syntax can be traced in some excellent publications both exemplifying and evaluating the state of the art in this area (e.g., Anderson 1981, Davies, Criper, and Howatt 1984, Hatch 1983, Wode 1981b). The research questions identified and pursued at that time have continued to occupy researchers. (The ones which are the most important and relevant for the discussion here are as follows: 1 the problem of regularity in interlanguage [IL] morphology and syntax; 2) the contribution of Universal Grammar to SLA, and 3) variability in IL performance. The problems enumerated above will provide a framework for the discussion of the acquisition of morphology and syntax. Some additional comments on other, related issues will be included.


2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Delgado-Santos ◽  
Giuseppe Stragapede ◽  
Ruben Tolosana ◽  
Richard Guest ◽  
Farzin Deravi ◽  
...  

The number of mobile devices, such as smartphones and smartwatches, is relentlessly increasing to almost 6.8 billion by 2022, and along with it, the amount of personal and sensitive data captured by them. This survey overviews the state of the art of what personal and sensitive user attributes can be extracted from mobile device sensors, emphasising critical aspects such as demographics, health and body features, activity and behaviour recognition, etc. In addition, we review popular metrics in the literature to quantify the degree of privacy, and discuss powerful privacy methods to protect the sensitive data while preserving data utility for analysis. Finally, open research questions are presented for further advancements in the field.


2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne M. McMahon

This study seeks to assess the state-of-the-art on the workplace diversity – firm performance relationship. Based on a review of academic research on workplace diversity and firm performance published in nine leading journals in the field of management during the period 2000-2009, it addresses the following research questions: a. How are diversity and firm performance constructs defined? b. What are the findings of research linking workplace diversity and firm performance? c. What factors mediate and/or moderate the diversity-performance relationship? Based on the findings of extant research, we develop a model to explain and interpret the diversity – firm performance relationship, and understand its implications.


Author(s):  
Robert Wiśniewski

The Introduction emphasizes both the novelty and importance of the cult of relics in late antique Christianity. It presents the state of the art, showing that while the early cult of relics attracts interest as an aspect of the cult of saints, it has hardly been hardly studied on its own. It also discusses the main research questions and the general plan of the book, in which the chapters are arranged according to a thematic order, but which also studies the diachronic development of the phenomenon. Finally, it discusses questions of terminology that are important for the cult of relics, and particularly presents its concise vocabulary in various languages of ancient Christianity.


Author(s):  
Henrique Castro Martins

ABSTRACT Context: this document is designed to be along with those that are in the first edition of the new section of the Journal of Contemporary Administration (RAC): the tutorial-articles section. Objective: the purpose is to present the new section and discuss relevant topics of tutorial-articles. Method: I divide the document into three main parts. First, I provide a summary of the state of the art in open data and open code at the current date that, jointly, create the context for tutorial-articles. Second, I provide some guidance to the future of the section on tutorial-articles, providing a structure and some insights that can be developed in the future. Third, I offer a short R script to show examples of open data that, I believe, can be used in the future in tutorial-articles, but also in innovative empirical studies. Conclusion: finally, I provide a short description of the first tutorial-articles accepted for publication in this current RAC’s edition.


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