Die Bretter, die gebohrt werden, bleiben dick

2001 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Strünck
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Responsibility ◽  
Parliamentary Government ◽  
Political Finance

AbstractDeregulation of the political process could be an instrument to reduce the overwhelming power of specialised interest groups and tighten the links between voters and politicians. But deregulation causes serious problems. Reputation pooling by international political enterprises depends on a transnational public sphere which is quite unrealistic. And political enterprises are not capable of shaping candidates for public service. Putting political finance in the hands of voters simply moves lobbying activities to the level of voters and does not change the asymmetrical influence of interest groups. Above all, the idea that political enterprises exchange experts in parliament does not fit into the crucial principle of parliamentary government and political responsibility.

scholarly journals Minister-Permanent Secretary Relationships: Lessons from Zimbabwe’s Government of national Unity

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Tawanda Zinyama ◽  
Joseph Tinarwo
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Large Degree ◽  
The State ◽  
Team Work ◽  
The Political ◽  
National Unity ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Government

Public administration is carried out through the public service. Public administration is an instrument of the State which is expected to implement the policy decisions made from the political and legislative processes. The rationale of this article is to assess the working relationships between ministers and permanent secretaries in the Government of National Unity in Zimbabwe. The success of the Minister depends to a large degree on the ability and goodwill of a permanent secretary who often has a very different personal or professional background and whom the minster did not appoint. Here lies the vitality of the permanent secretary institution. If a Minister decides to ignore the advice of the permanent secretary, he/she may risk of making serious errors. The permanent secretary is the key link between the democratic process and the public service. This article observed that the mere fact that the permanent secretary carries out the political, economic and social interests and functions of the state from which he/she derives his/her authority and power; and to which he/she is accountable,  no permanent secretary is apolitical and neutral to the ideological predisposition of the elected Ministers. The interaction between the two is a political process. Contemporary administrator requires complex team-work and the synthesis of diverse contributions and view-points.

scholarly journals Public Service Media for Critical Times: Connectivity, Climate, and Corona

2021 ◽  
pp. 69-111
Author(s):  
Graham Murdock
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Service ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
Advance Information ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Communication Approach ◽  
Climate Crisis

In this chapter, Graham Murdock analyses the role of public service media in the contemporary times of crisis that have been shaped by connectivity, the climate crisis, and the COVID-19 crisis. Using lots of examples, the political economy of communication approach, and Habermas’s concept of the public sphere, the chapter points out that Public Service Media is not something of the past, but is needed for guaranteeing a vivid and democratic public sphere in the digital age. The chapter points out the potentials of public service media for creating and maintaining digital public spaces that advance information, education, entertainment, and participation. This chapter is a written and amended version of a talk by Graham Murdock that he gave on 15 February 2021 at a webinar that was part of the AHRC project “Innovation in Public Service Media Policy” (https://innopsm.net/) and its research focus on “Envisioning Public Service Media Utopias”. A video of the talk is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4dJSzyW_GM.

Lottocratic Institutions from a Participatory Perspective

2019 ◽  
pp. 138-160
Author(s):  
Cristina Lafont
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
Democratic Control ◽  
Political Deliberation ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
High Road ◽  
Political Decisions

This chapter explores how we might institutionalize deliberative minipublics in order to serve genuinely democratic goals. In contrast to empowered uses of minipublics that would bypass the citizenry’s political deliberation, citizens could use minipublics for contestatory, vigilant, and anticipatory purposes. These uses of minipublics would improve the quality of deliberation in the public sphere and would also force the political system to take the high road of properly involving the citizenry in the political process. The chapter illustrates these potential forms of “deliberative activism” with the help of examples of actual deliberative polls that James Fishkin has conducted over several decades. This analysis shows how deliberative minipublics can help improve the democratic quality of political deliberation in the public sphere while strengthening citizens’ democratic control over political decisions.

Choice and Voice – A Review

2008 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Greener
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Service Users ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship

‘Choice’ and ‘voice’ are two of the most significant means through which the public are able to participate in public services. Choice agendas position public service users as consumers, driving improvements by choosing good providers over bad, which then thrive through greater allocations of funds as money follows their selections (Le Grand, 2007). Choice-driven reforms tend to be about trying to make public services more locally responsive (Ferlie, Freeman, McDonnell, Petsoulas and Rundle-Smith, 2006). Voice-driven reforms, on the other hand, tend to position public service users as citizens, suggesting an emphasis on accountability mechanisms to drive service improvements through elections, with the possible removal of low regarded officials, or a greater involvement of local people in the running of services (Jenkins, 2006). Voice implies that citizens hold the right to participate in public services either through the political process, or through their direct involvement in the running or delivery of the services themselves. Of course, it is also possible to combine choice and voice mechanisms to try and achieve greater service responsiveness and accountability. In this review, choice reforms will be treated as those which are based upon consumer literature, and voice reforms those based upon attempting to achieve greater citizenship.Citizenship and consumption are two areas with significant literatures in their own right, but whereas the citizenship literature is widely cited in the social policy literature, the consumption literature appears rather more selectively. This review examines each area in turn in terms of its application to social policy, and then presents a synthesis of commonalties in the two literatures, which represent particularly promising avenues for exploring the relationship between public services and their users.

scholarly journals Religious factor of political responsibility

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (28-29) ◽  
pp. 233-241
Author(s):  
Yuliia Melnyk ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Political Process ◽  
State Level ◽  
Religious Organizations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Responsibility ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
Religious Factor ◽  
The Government

The article examines the religious factor of political responsibility features at the present stage. The purpose of the article is to determine the role of the religious factor of political responsibility, to study the place of religious political responsibility in the system of types of political responsibility in modern conditions of religion politicization. An analysis of the political process and its subject structure undoubtedly provides an opportunity to assert that political responsibility plays a significant role in the mechanisms of its harmonization. Being on the path of creating the rule of law, modern Ukrainian society is influenced by various factors, among which a significant role belongs to religion. The relationship between religion, morality, ethics and politics leads to conclusions about the formation and existence of a specific type of political responsibility – religious political responsibility, the sanctions of which are more severe to the norms of morality and ethics. The existence in the political process of feedback between civil society institutions, public authorities and religious organizations, the participation of priests in elections and the creation of political parties by religious organizations and their leaders, indicates the spread of religious and political responsibility, makes them its subjects . A study of the composition of political responsibility provided an opportunity to conclude that religious political responsibility is inherent in the highest public authorities only in the case of mono-confessionalism at the state level. Religious organizations have become subjects of political responsibility due to the steady trend of politicization of religious relations and religion in general. In Ukraine, cases of religious political responsibility include abuse of trust in «religious» voters, use of parishioners as an administrative resource, manipulation of confessional attributes to confirm their actions and election programs, and so on. The consequences of religious and political responsibility can be public condemnation by society and religious organizations, expulsion from a particular religion, growing distrust of the government, future distrust of voters, non-re-election, and so on.

scholarly journals GDR Cinema on Swedish Television

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (19) ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
Emil Stjernholm
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
The State ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
The Political ◽  
German Film ◽  
The Public ◽  
East German ◽  
Political Economic

This article studies the import of East German films by Swedish public service broadcaster Sveriges Radio, and their reception in the Swedish public sphere. While few GDR films reached theatrical distribution, Swedish television imported and broadcasted over 30 productions by the state-owned film studio DEFA during the 1970s and 1980s, making this the primary distribution window for East German film in Sweden. Relying on sources such as Sveriges Radio’s in-house correspondence and screening reports, the weekly Sveriges Radio magazine Voices in Radio/Television (Röster i Radio/TV) and the public service corporation’s annual reports, this study sheds light on the political, economic and ideological considerations involved in the cultural exchange between Sweden and the GDR.

scholarly journals Human Rights Concept in Islamic Legal Thought

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 167
Author(s):  
Dede Husni Mubarok ◽  
Alief Akbar Musaddad
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
New Order ◽  
The Public ◽  
Legal Thought ◽  
The Public Sphere

When the New Order regime fell, demands or aspirations for the formalization of Islamic law in Indonesia were intensively voiced by a group of Muslims, both through the political process and in interactions in the public sphere. However, other secular and Muslim groups are worried about the formalization of Islamic law because many provisions in sharia are considered inconsistent with the pillars of democracy and human rights, such as freedom, gender equality, equality of citizenship, and tolerance. The two seemingly contradictory poles are interesting to study through etymological and terminological approaches to the terms of the Shari’ah in the correlational interpretations of the Qur’an and Sunnah texts and the dynamics of their historical meanings so that it will give birth to the image of Islamic Shari’ah which is friendly, full of peace, and respect for human rights. Therefore, Islamic law, which is flexible, elastic, tolerant, and inclusive, can substantially be applied in the midst of multicultural, multi-religious, and multi-ethnic social realities in the context of upholding democracy and respecting human rights.

scholarly journals Energiewende’s Lone Warriors: A Hyperlink Network Analysis of the German Energy Transition Discourse

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 18-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Kaiser ◽  
Markus Rhomberg ◽  
Axel Maireder ◽  
Stephan Schlögl
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Energy Transition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Field ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Social Fields ◽  
Hyperlink Network Analysis ◽  
The Media

This paper explores the integration of different social fields within the German Energy Transition (Energiewende) discourse in the election year 2013 by analysing the hyperlink structures online. Energiewende describes the fundamental transition from non-renewable energy to sustainable sources. This goal is both ambitious and controversial. Numerous stakeholders try to make their voices and interests heard and as such politics has to both disseminate and collect information in order to include all relevant groups from different social fields in the political process. This discourse is also visible online. By analysing the hyperlink structures we are able to see the attention distribution of different actor groups in the network. This study shows that most actors tend to link within their own social field and do not aim for a more integrated public sphere. Especially political actors appear to be lone warriors who neither look left or right and mostly link within their own party and ignore other actors. Whereas social field as the media or public administration are relevant within the network we find that scientific actors are ignored by all fields, except for their own.

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