Ethnic Democracy and the Legal Construction of Citizenship: Arab Citizens of the Jewish State

1992 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 432-443 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoav Peled
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Jewish State ◽  
Citizenship Status ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
Occupied Territories ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
The Common ◽  
Civil And Political Rights

The citizenship status of its Arab citizens is the key to Israel's ability to function as anethnic democracy, that is, a political system combining democratic institutions with the dominance of one ethnic group. The confluence of republicanism and ethnonationalism with liberalism, as principles of legitimation, has resulted in two types of citizenship: republican for Jews and liberal for Arabs. Thus, Arab citizens enjoy civil and political rights but are barred from attending to the common good.The Arab citizenship status, while much more restricted than the Jewish, has both induced and enabled Arabs to conduct their political struggles within the framework of the law, in sharp contrast to the noncitizen Arabs of the occupied territories. It may thus serve as a model for other dominant ethnic groups seeking to maintain both their dominance and a democratic system of government.

Perception of Legal Inequality in Deeply Divided Societies: The Case of Israel

1993 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 423-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elia Zureik ◽  
Fouad Moughrabi ◽  
Vincent F. Sacco
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Divided Societies ◽  
The Face ◽  
Civil And Political Rights ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Way

When commentators discuss the Israeli political system, they invariably single it out as the exception in a region otherwise lacking in democratic and representative regimes. Although political philosophers and theorists remind us that the test of de mocracy hinges on, among other things, the way a society treats its minorities and guarantees them civil and political rights in the face of majority opposition, the de bate over what constitutes justice, equality, and freedom is unlikely to be resolved in a discussion centered on abstract principles and their absolute meanings. It is one thing for a society to profess egalitarian values and another to measure the extent to which these values are perceived and experienced by those immediately affected by them. This does not mean that there are no universal standards of justice against which to measure performance of the law. Our point is that the experiential dimen sion of the law is equally relevant, for it mediates between the meaning of the law as derived from abstract principles and the way it is implemented in daily life.

scholarly journals Praktyka precedensowa w porządku prawa stanowionego. Podstawowe czynniki warunkujące

2017 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 159-175
Author(s):  
Leszek Leszczyński
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Social Acceptance ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Legal Doctrine ◽  
Judicial Practice ◽  
Division Of Powers ◽  
Operational Interpretation ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
The Common

PRECEDENTIAL PRACTICE IN THE STATUTORY LEGAL ORDER.BASIC DETERMINING FACTORSThe purpose of the paper deals with the consideration of the several basic factors determining the development of the precedential practice in the statutory legal order. Such practice might be defined at the using the previous judicial decisions in the actual decisional process in the validation or derivative aspects of the operational interpretation of law, with potential adaptation of some so­lutions from the common law order. Among the favorable factors for the shaping of this practice one might find the maturity and the positive attitude of the judiciary, features of the specific decision-making process, the attitude of the legal doctrine, social acceptance of the active role of the judiciary bringing potentially ethical correction to the legislative regulations, the technical and informational skill in identification of the needed decisions, the reliable evaluation of the candidate for the position of judge, as well as the functioning of the principles of division of powers, rule of law and independence of judiciary, being elements of the democratic political system. On the contrary, the autocratic political system keeps the position of the strongest counter­-favorable factor to the precedential practice. One of the reasons deals with lack of the control of such practice from the center of political power, what brings the instruments that through the de­gradation of the above mentioned principles of democratic system, restrict the precedential judicial practice.

What is the Common Good? The Case for Transcending Partisanship

Daedalus ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 142 (2) ◽  
pp. 84-94
Author(s):  
Mickey Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Political System ◽  
General Election ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Common ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Right

Even if most of us can agree on a definition of the “common good” (not a simple matter), there are substantial barriers to establishing public policies in accord with that agreement. The “democratic” element in our political system – the right of voters to choose the men and women who will create our laws – depends on the views of those voters being given considerable weight in determining eventual policy outcomes. Unfortunately, we have developed a political system – both in our elections and in the governing process – that gives disproportionate influence to relatively small numbers of voters (who are also the most partisan) and allows political parties through their closed procedures to limit the choices available to general election voters. Coupled with legislative rules that allow partisans to determine the makeup of legislative committees, the resulting process leaves the common good, however defined, a secondary consideration at best.

scholarly journals Conditions for an Effective Democracy in Multicultural Societies and Countries

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Flora Kadriu
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Setting ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Civil And Political Rights ◽  
Theory Of Democracy

The motive behind this paper is exploration of the conditions for effective democracy in multicultural societies and countries. The two principles of social setting in the context of classical parliamentary democracy ensue from a special set of civil and political rights, as basis for cultural identity, which further underlies the collective cultural rights (CCRs) or group-differentiated rights (GDRs). Such setting is initiation into a serious process of changes in classical democracy. The cultural diversity accommodation in the political system of a given democracy is an intricate process that shifts the liberal justice concept and requires a new political system dubbed by some authors as multicultural democracy, instead of merely democracy in multicultural societies. This theory is chiefly known as “consociational theory of democracy”. In this paper, efforts are made to establish the new theoretic and experiential institutions and relations we are to call conditions for an effective multicultural democracy.

scholarly journals Język prawno-administracyjny okresu dwudziestolecia międzywojennego.

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (6/2020(775)) ◽  
pp. 34-48
Author(s):  
Ewa Malinowska
Keyword(s):  
Interwar Period ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
Half Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Polish Language ◽  
Principal Value ◽  
The Common

The object of this sketch is the legal and administrative Polish language of the interwar period, that is the time of the Second Polish Republic. Regaining the statehood after one and a half century of the Partitions marked signifi cant transformations in the history of the nation and the society, the return of the Polish language to offi ces, the gradual standardisation of the language of administration, unifi cation and codifi cation of law. The political system of the Second Polish Republic evolved. The system of parliamentary democracy, adopted in 1919 and established in the March Constitution, transformed gradually, in particular after the May Coup in 1926, into the authoritarian system. The principal value in the March Constitution is the nation, which was bestowed with power. In the April Constitution, the principal value is the state as the common good of all citizens. There were not enough Poles with a good background among administrative offi cers. A major role in preparing templates of documents was played by lawyers, who gave consideration also to language aspects.

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.

scholarly journals Being a ‘citizen’ in the smart city: Up and down the scaffold of smart citizen participation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Cardullo ◽  
Rob Kitchin
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Conceptual Tool ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Common ◽  
Urban Issues

This paper critically appraises citizens’ participation in the smart city. Reacting to critiques that the smart city is overly technocratic and instrumental, companies and cities have reframed their initiatives as ‘citizen-centric’. However, what ‘citizen-centric’ means in practice is rarely articulated. We draw on and extend Sherry Arnstein’s seminal work on participation in planning and renewal programmes to create the ‘Scaffold of Smart Citizen Participation’ – a conceptual tool to unpack the diverse ways in which the smart city frames citizens. We then use this scaffold to measure smart citizen inclusion, participation, and empowerment in smart city initiatives in Dublin, Ireland. Our analysis illustrates how most ‘citizen-centric’ smart city initiatives are rooted in stewardship, civic paternalism, and a neoliberal conception of citizenship that prioritizes consumption choice and individual autonomy within a framework of state and corporate defined constraints that prioritize market-led solutions to urban issues, rather than being grounded in civil, social and political rights and the common good. We conclude that significant normative work is required to rethink ‘smart citizens’ and ‘smart citizenship’ and to remake smart cities if they are to truly become ‘citizen-centric’.

The Citizenship Status of Criminal Offenders

2018 ◽  
pp. 88-125
Author(s):  
Milena Tripkovic
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Civic Virtue ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Criminal Offenders ◽  
Citizenship Rights ◽  
Citizenship Status ◽  
The Common ◽  
Sense Of Justice ◽  
Number Of Individuals

This chapter aims to translate the three models into tangible citizenship conditions, allowing us to establish whether criminal offenders ought to retain their citizenship rights post-conviction. It is argued that—under the first model—most criminals remain citizens since episodic violations do not signal a lack of capacity for a “sense of justice.” Similarly, most criminal offenders are not without “civic virtue”—they remain self-governing subjects whose civic qualities can be enhanced. Finally, while criminals certainly act against the “common good,” most remain valuable members of the community who bring forward a specific vision of the good life, which prevents the community from excluding them. All three models, however, equally point toward the existence of a small number of individuals who are without crucial citizenship requirements, and the chapter concludes that—regardless of differences between the three models—all of them similarly permit exclusions of persons with strong, incorrigible anti-social inclinations.

The Idea of Israel as a Jewish State

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 531-559
Author(s):  
Alan Patten
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Civic Identity ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Jewish State ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Special Obligation ◽  
The Common ◽  
Descriptive Sense ◽  
Equal Citizenship

AbstractIsrael is often described as a Jewish state and as the locus of Jewish self-determination. How should these phrases be understood? How can they be squared with a commitment to equal citizenship for non-Jewish Israelis? This Article distinguishes between descriptive and normative answers to these questions. The descriptive answer interprets the phrases as referring to the fact that a majority of Israelis are Jewish. The normative answer reads into the phrases a special obligation to promote the common good of the Jewish people. The Article argues that the phrases are unobjectionable when taken in the descriptive sense, but problematic when understood in the normative sense. A state that is guided by the normative answer would offer inadequate protection to key interests of minorities. The critique of the normative answer also points to the more positive conclusion that Israel should foster an Israeli civic identity amongst all its citizens.

The Applicability of Human Rights Conventions to Israel and to the Occupied Territories

1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eyal Benvenisti
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
Legal Implications ◽  
Israeli Government ◽  
Convention Against Torture ◽  
Occupied Territories ◽  
Civil And Political Rights

The recent ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by the Israeli Government is part of a welcome effort to ratify multilateral conventions dealing with human rights, some of which Israel had signed long ago. In addition to this Convention, the Israeli Government ratified, during the summer of 1991, the 1966 Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the 1966 Covenant on Economic and Social Rights, the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, and the 1984 Convention Against Torture. On the occasion of the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, this article discusses the legal implications of the ratification of human rights conventions to the Israeli legal system and to the legal systems in the occupied territories.

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