Disenfranchisement and the Capacity/Equality Puzzle: Why Disenfranchise Children but Not Adults Living with Cognitive Disabilities

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-279
Author(s):  
Attila Mráz
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Political Equality ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Collective Competence ◽  
Democratic Principles ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Political Decision Making ◽  
Political Liberal

AbstractIn this paper, I offer a solution to the Capacity/Equality Puzzle. The puzzle holds that an account of the franchise may adequately capture at most two of the following: (1) a political equality-based account of the franchise, (2) a capacity-based account of disenfranchising children, and (3) universal adult enfranchisement. To resolve the puzzle, I provide a complex liberal egalitarian justification of a moral requirement to disenfranchise children. I show that disenfranchising children is permitted by both the proper political liberal and the proper political egalitarian understandings of the relationship between cognitive capacity and the franchise. Further, I argue, disenfranchising children is required by a minimalistic, procedural principle of collective competence in political decision-making. At the same time, I show that political equality requires the enfranchisement of all adults, regardless of cognitive capacities, and that the collective competence principle does not ground adult disenfranchisement. This justifies the progressive legal trend that holds the capacity-based disenfranchisement of adults to be incompatible with liberal democratic principles.

How Literacy Empowers Us

2016 ◽  
pp. 338-347
Author(s):  
Maureen Fitzgerald-Riker
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Learning To Read ◽  
Social Empowerment ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Political Decision Making

This chapter examines the relationship between literacy and social empowerment. The author contends that literacy evolves at an early age through language acquisition. Literacy extends beyond learning to read - it is the basis of critical thinking, shared reflection, and participation in community and political decision-making. Historically, not everyone has had access to the global literacy essential for civic engagement. Implications for the classroom are included in this article to encourage the development of educational systems that advocate for change while promoting social empowerment and civic engagement.

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 209-216
Author(s):  
Todd Butler
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Stuart England ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Political Decision Making

Concerns over equivocation, captured letters, and religious division continued to attend the relationship between thought, expression, and political obedience throughout the Restoration. The concern in early Stuart England for political intellection was thus not simply a product of its immediate moment but the catalyst for a more fundamental recognition of deliberation and other forms of individual and institutional thought as being arenas for political action. In looking backward, then, we might recognize the early Stuart era’s continual attention to the means by which monarchs and subjects alike thought through their political dilemmas to be something of a precursor to a more modern interest in political decision-making, and the extent to which processes of the mind remain integral to the operation—proper or otherwise—of contemporary democracies.

scholarly journals VOX POPULI, VOX DEORUM? ATHENIAN DOCUMENT RELIEFS AND THE THEOLOGIES OF PUBLIC INSCRIPTION

2018 ◽  
Vol 113 ◽  
pp. 365-398
Author(s):  
William Mack
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Collective Decision ◽  
The Other ◽  
Collective Decision Making ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Sacred Spaces ◽  
Symbolic Representations ◽  
Divine Agency ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Political Decision Making

This article argues that, by concentrating on a reading of the depictions of deities on the Athenian document reliefs as symbolic representations of states rather than as divinities, previous scholarly approaches to them have failed to explore the role they ascribe to the gods in collective decision-making and the exercise of public authority. This article resituates the interpretation of these monuments in the context of other monuments depicting the gods and recent approaches to them, and the other ways in which public inscriptions, both at Athens and elsewhere, make reference to divine actors, through their erection in sacred spaces and the use of thetheoiheading. It then examines the range of possible readings of the relationship between divine agency and political decision-making which these monuments privilege and argues that they reflect a conventional understanding that, in general, Athenian decision-making was underpinned by the gods.

Internal variables affecting Iraqi political decision-making after the year 2003

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Political System ◽  
Internal Variables ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Political Crises ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Political Decision Making

The research aims to study the internal variables affecting the political system, namely the constitution, national and federal identity, and political parties. The research concluded that Iraq is going through severe political crises, which are: 1.The permanent Iraqi constitution of 2005 still carries multiple problems, the most important of which is the relationship between the center and the region, with the existence of quotas and consensus, and they are the basis for the failure of effective Iraqi political decision-making, and the absence of a social contract 2.The existence of chaos of political parties and the domination of large blocs in decision-making, which led to the marginalization of minorities and the loss of their rights. Keywords:occupation; decision – making ; Internal variables; federalism; Political quota

scholarly journals Climate Justice and Democracy: A Normative Approach

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mamudul Hasan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Basic Needs ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Relevant Issue ◽  
Normative Approach ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Political Decision Making

This paper tackles a highly relevant issue, namely the relationship between climate justice and democracy. The driving motivation of the paper is to ask what principles of climate justice demand from democracies. The paper explores intrinsic and instrumental arguments and develops a sufficiency account: citizens are entitled to the emissions necessary not only to realize their basic needs but to participate as equals in political decision making.

Ideals and Actions: Do Citizens’ Patterns of Political Participation Correspond to their Conceptions of Democracy?

2014 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 234-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Åsa Bengtsson ◽  
Henrik Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
National Election Study ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Political Decisions ◽  
Political Decision Making

The interest in procedures for political decision-making has grown tremendously during recent decades. Given the intense scholarly debate and the implementation of greater opportunities for citizen participation in many democracies, there has been surprisingly little interest in citizens’ conceptions of democracy understood as their preferences concerning the processes by which the political system works. Some recent attempts do, however, suggest that it is important to expand the study of public opinion from policy output to decision-making processes, and that there are coherent patterns in citizens’ expectations of the way in which political decisions come about. What is not clear, though, is whether citizens’ different conceptions of democracy have repercussions for how they engage in politics. Using the Finnish National Election Study of 2011 (Borg and Grönlund 2011), this article explores the relationship between citizens’ conceptions of democracy and patterns of political participation. Results demonstrate a distinct association between citizens’ ideals and the actions they take.

Corporate Political Action: Rethinking the Economic and Organizational Influences

1999 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas A. Schuler
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Organizational Factors ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Organizational Influences ◽  
Corporate Political Action ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Political Decision Making

Although the influence of economic factors has long dominated the analysis of corporate political action, the role of organizational factors is increasingly seen as important in explaining the phenomenon. Building upon a recent study (Martin 1995) that emphasizes the prominence of organizational factors in political decision-making, we revisit a previously used literature, reconceptualize the relationship between economic and organizational factors and corporate political action as one of mediation, and employ new data and methods to test this relationship. Our findings demonstrate emphatically the importance of organizational factors in understanding corporate political action.

Affect and Political Choice

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann N. Crigler ◽  
Parker R. Hevron
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Political Choice ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Political Decision Making

Whether political observers and participants applaud or decry the presence of emotions in political decision-making, scholars have begun to view the relationship between affect and reason as a key component of decision-making. This chapter provides an overview of the research on affect and political choice. The authors argue that emotions undergird acts of political choice, not simply as additional variables to explain preferences or actions but also as integral to the processing of information and decision-making. They briefly define affect, emotion and mood and outline some of the methodologies commonly used to measure each of the four emotion functions that are central to political communication and choice. These four functions of emotion – expressive, perceptual/attentional, appraisal, and behavioral – are discussed in relation to political decision-making.

Against Political Equality

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tongdong Bai
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Equal Opportunities ◽  
Political Equality ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Hierarchical Order ◽  
The People ◽  
Hybrid Regime ◽  
Political Decision Making ◽  
International Interventions

This book argues that domestic governance influenced by Confucianism can embrace the liberal aspects of democracy along with the democratic ideas of equal opportunities and governmental accountability to the people. But Confucianism would give more political decision-making power to those with the moral, practical, and intellectual capabilities of caring for the people. While most democratic thinkers still focus on strengthening equality to cure the ills of democracy, the proposed hybrid regime—made up of Confucian-inspired meritocratic characteristics combined with democratic elements and a quasi-liberal system of laws and rights—recognizes that egalitarian qualities sometimes conflict with good governance and the protection of liberties, and defends liberal aspects by restricting democratic ones. The author applies his view to the international realm by supporting a hierarchical order based on how humane each state is toward its own and other peoples, and on the principle of international interventions whereby humane responsibilities override sovereignty. The book presents a novel Confucian-engendered alternative for solving today’s political problems.

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