scholarly journals The Demand Side of Democratic Backsliding: How Divergent Understandings of Democracy Shape Political Choice

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natasha Wunsch ◽  
Marc S. Jacob ◽  
Laurenz Derksen
Keyword(s):  
Political Candidates ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Democratic Attitudes ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Democratic Norms ◽  
Economic Considerations ◽  
Common Understanding ◽  
Do So

Why do citizens in democracies fail to punish political candidates who openly violate democratic standards at the ballot box? The bulk of existing research assumes that a common understanding of democracy underpins citizens’ evaluations of different candidates, resulting in a trade-off between undemocratic practices and partisan or economic considerations. We shed doubt on this assumption by showing that divergent understandings of democracy coexist among citizens and affect vote choice. We leverage a novel approach to estimate individual-level citizen commitment to democracy by means of a candidate choice conjoint experiment in Poland, a country experiencing democratic backsliding in a context of deep polarization. We find support for our claim that respondents with less clear-cut liberal democratic attitudes not only tolerate democratic violations more readily, but do so irrespective of a given candidate’s partisan affiliation. Thus, we contend that a lack of attitudinal consolidation around liberal democratic norms explains continued voter support for authoritarian-leaning leaders.

Legal gaslighting

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alvin Y.H. Cheung
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Legal Reforms ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
International Audience ◽  
Democratic Norms ◽  
Do So

Suppose that an authoritarian regime wants to make changes to legal norms or institutions to consolidate its hold on political power. Suppose further that the regime in question cannot simply ignore the domestic or international costs of doing so, and that it has an interest in responding to critiques of these changes based on liberal democratic norms and the rule of law. How can it do so? One possible approach is to sow confusion and undermine the normative standards themselves – in effect, to ‘gaslight’ the domestic or international audience (or both). To that end, a regime might assert that the change it proposes resembles a ‘best practice’ from one or more other jurisdictions. Such emulation need not be thorough, or even sincere; it may suffice simply to assert that a proposed change resembles that in a jurisdiction with ironclad rule-of-law credentials. The changes being adopted may bear no real resemblance to the ‘comparators’ on closer examination. Alternatively, the measures being adopted may be similar on their face, but operate in such a different context that they end up serving a very different function to the function they perform in the comparator jurisdiction. Such gaslighting need not succeed in deceiving outsiders or subjects; undermining the standards by which legal reforms are measured, sowing confusion, or providing a superficial pretext for inaction may be sufficient.

Population Control (Review Article)

1961 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 89-98
Author(s):  
Karol J. Krotki
Keyword(s):  
Population Control ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Small Enterprise ◽  
Opportunity Costs ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Factual Information ◽  
Undue Influence ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Economic Considerations

Discussions about the role of small enterprise in economic development tend to remain inconclusive partly because of the difficulty of assessing the relative importance of economic and non-economic objectives and partly because of the dearth of factual information on which to base an economic calculus. It is probably true, moreover, that, because of a lack of general agreement as to the economic case for or against small enterprise, non-economic considerations, including some merely romantic attitudes toward smallness and bigness, tend to exert an undue influence on public policies. There may, of course, be no clear-cut economic case. And noneconomic considerations should and will inevitably weigh significantly in policy decisions. If, however, some of the economic questions could be settled by more and better knowledge, these decisions could more accurately reflect the opportunity costs of pursuing non-economic objectives.

Conclusions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoff Moore
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Social Responsibility ◽  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Organizational Ethics ◽  
Stakeholder Approach ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Managerial Implications ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
Do So

The purpose of the concluding chapter is to review and draw some conclusions from all that has been covered in previous chapters. To do so, it first summarizes the MacIntyrean virtue ethics approach, particularly at the individual level. It then reconsiders the organizational and managerial implications, drawing out some of the themes which have emerged from the various studies which have been explored particularly in Chapters 8 and 9. In doing so, the chapter considers a question which has been implicit in the discussions to this point: how feasible is all of this, particularly for organizations? In the light of that, it revisits the earlier critique of current approaches to organizational ethics (Corporate Social Responsibility and the stakeholder approach), before concluding.

It Is Your Decision to Date Interracially: The Influence of Family Approval on the Likelihood of Interracial/Interethnic Dating

2021 ◽  
pp. 0192513X2199413
Author(s):  
Byron Miller ◽  
Savanah Catalina ◽  
Sara Rocks ◽  
Kathryn Tillman
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Romantic Relationships ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Interracial Romance ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Do So

Although attitudes toward interracial romantic relationships (IRRs) have generally improved over the years, many Americans still disapprove of their family members being in IRRs. Prior studies have examined correlates of individual-level attitudes about interracial romance, but less is known about whether family members’ attitudes are directly associated with young people’s decisions to date interracially. Using data collected from 790 romantically involved college students at two large public four-year universities, we find that young adults who believe their siblings, parents, and grandparents approve of IRRs have greater odds of dating interracially. Compared to Whites, Blacks and Hispanics are more likely to be interracially involved but their decision to do so is much less dependent on the approval of their parents and grandparents. We also find young adults are more likely to date interracially if they have five or more relatives with IRR experience themselves. The findings and their implications are discussed.

Social Development and Police Reform: Some Reflections on the Concept and Purpose of Policing and the Implications for Reform in the UK and USA

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Williams ◽  
Craig Paterson
Keyword(s):  
Social Development ◽  
Conceptual Understanding ◽  
Critical Question ◽  
Police Reform ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Common Understanding

Abstract The increase in calls for police reform following the death of George Floyd has led to renewed debate about social inequality and the role of policing in society. Modern bureaucratic police systems emerged from locally administered structures and Anglo-American policing models continue to be aligned, to varying degrees, with the political, socio-cultural, legal, and ideological aspects of contemporary liberal democratic society with its emphasis on democratic localism and decentralised accountability. However, at a time when society is reimagining itself and technology, government, and nations are radically re-shaping themselves, a critical question is whether there is a sufficiently common philosophical and conceptual understanding of policing to support its development rather than just a common understanding of police functions. This is profoundly important when considering the current calls for reform of policing in the USA and other western democratic states. The article argues that there is an urgent need to reconsider how we conceptualize policing and its relationship with social development.

scholarly journals Threat or Corrective? Assessing the Impact of Populist Parties in Government on the Qualities of Democracy: A 19-Country Comparison

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Davide Vittori
Keyword(s):  
Negative Impact ◽  
Quality Of Democracy ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Country Comparison ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Scholars have long debated whether populism harms or improves the quality of democracy. This article contributes to this debate by focusing on the impact of populist parties in government. In particular, it inquires: (1) whether populists in government are more likely than non-populists to negatively affect the quality of democracies; (2) whether the role of populists in government matters; and (3) which type of populism is expected to negatively affect the quality of liberal-democratic regimes. The results find strong evidence that the role of populists in government affects several qualities of democracy. While robust, the findings related to (2) are less clear-cut than those pertaining to (1). Finally, regardless of their role in government, different types of populism have different impacts on the qualities of democracy. The results show that exclusionary populist parties in government tend to have more of a negative impact than other forms of populism.

scholarly journals Killing a Constitution with a Thousand Cuts: Executive Aggrandizement and Party-state Fusion in India

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tarunabh Khaitan
Keyword(s):  
Good Governance ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The People ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
General Elections ◽  
The Media ◽  
Democratic Norms

AbstractMany concerned citizens, including judges, bureaucrats, politicians, activists, journalists, and academics, have been claiming that Indian democracy has been imperilled under the premiership of Narendra Modi, which began in 2014. To examine this claim, the Article sets up an analytic framework for accountability mechanisms liberal democratic constitutions put in place to provide a check on the political executive. The assumption is that only if this framework is dismantled in a systemic manner can we claim that democracy itself is in peril. This framework helps distinguish between actions that one may disagree with ideologically but are nonetheless permitted by an elected government, from actions that strike at the heart of liberal democratic constitutionalism. Liberal democratic constitutions typically adopt three ways of making accountability demands on the political executive: vertically, by demanding electoral accountability to the people; horizontally, by subjecting it to accountability demands of other state institutions like the judiciary and fourth branch institutions; and diagonally, by requiring discursive accountability by the media, the academy, and civil society. This framework assures democracy over time – i.e. it guarantees democratic governance not only to the people today, but to all future peoples of India. Each elected government has the mandate to implement its policies over a wide range of matters. However, seeking to entrench the ruling party’s stranglehold on power in ways that are inimical to the continued operation of democracy cannot be one of them. The Article finds that the first Modi government in power between 2014 and 2019 did indeed seek to undermine each of these three strands of executive accountability. Unlike the assault on democratic norms during India Gandhi’s Emergency in the 1970s, there is little evidence of a direct or full-frontal attack during this period. The Bharatiya Janata Party government’s mode of operation was subtle, indirect, and incremental, but also systemic. Hence, the Article characterizes the phenomenon as “killing a constitution by a thousand cuts.” The incremental assaults on democratic governance were typically justified by a combination of a managerial rhetoric of efficiency and good governance (made plausible by the undeniable imperfection of our institutions) and a divisive rhetoric of hyper-nationalism (which brands political opponents of the party as traitors of the state). Since its resounding victory in the 2019 general elections, the Modi government appears to have moved into consolidation mode. No longer constrained by the demands of coalition partners, early signs suggest that it may abandon the incrementalist approach for a more direct assault on democratic constitutionalism.

SmartWoW – constructing a tool for knowledge work performance analysis

2015 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 479-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miikka Palvalin ◽  
Maiju Vuolle ◽  
Aki Jääskeläinen ◽  
Harri Laihonen ◽  
Antti Lönnqvist
Keyword(s):  
Work Performance ◽  
Knowledge Work ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Work Practices ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
New Ways Of Working ◽  
Novel Approach

Purpose – New Ways of Working (NewWoW) refers to a novel approach for improving the performance of knowledge work. The purpose of this paper is to seek innovative solutions concerning facilities, information technology tools and work practices in order to be able to “work smarter, not harder.” In order to develop work practices toward the NewWoW mode there is a need for an analytical management tool that would help assess the status of the organization’s current work practices and demonstrate the impacts of development initiatives. This paper introduces such a tool. Design/methodology/approach – Constructive research approach was chosen to guide the development of the Smart ways of working (SmartWoW) tool. The tool was designed on the basis of previous knowledge work performance literature as well as on interviews in two knowledge-intensive organizations. The usefulness of the tool was verified by applying it in four organizations. Findings – SmartWoW is a compact questionnaire tool for analyzing and measuring knowledge work at the individual level. The questionnaire consists of four areas: work environment, personal work practices, well-being at work and productivity. As SmartWoW is a standardized tool its results are comparable between organizations. Research limitations/implications – SmartWoW was designed a pragmatic managerial tool. It is considered possible that it can be valuable as a research instrument as well but the current limited amount of collected data does not yet facilitate determining its usefulness from that perspective. Originality/value – This paper makes a contribution to the existing literature on knowledge work measurement and management by introducing an analytical tool which takes into account the NewWoW perspective.

Kielemme kääpiösijoista

Virittäjä ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 124 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jussi Ylikoski
Keyword(s):  
Borderline Case ◽  
Full Agreement ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Temporal Form ◽  
Case System ◽  
Dwarf Planets ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Traditional Paradigm ◽  
Instructive Case ◽  
Do So

Artikkelissa tarkastellaan suomen kielen sijataivutuksen ja adverbinjohdon rajaseutua. Suomen kieliopin kuvauksissa on tapana esittää 15 sijaa, joiden runsautta pidetään suomen kielen erityispiirteenä. Artikkelissa siirrytään perinteisen sijaparadigman marginaalin eli jopa niin sanottujen marginaalisten sijojen (abessiivin, instruktiivin ja komitatiivin) ulkopuolelle. Tarkastelun kohteena on vanhastaankin sijataivutuksen yhteydessä huomiota saanut väyliä ja välineitä ilmaiseva prolatiivi, mutta keskiössä ovat erityisesti isin-päätteiset temporaaliset ja (i)ttAin-päätteiset distributiiviset muodosteet, kuten iltaisin ja maanantaisin tai alueittain ja lajeittain. Tutkimusaineistona ovat laajat kirjoitettua nykysuomea edustavat korpukset. Kyllin laajoissa tutkimusaineistoissa sekä isin-temporaali että (i)ttAin-distributiivi paljastuvat verrattain produktiivisiksi muodostetyypeiksi: temporaalimuotojen (esim. kesäöisin, sapattisin) rinnalla etenkin distributiivimuodot ovat erittäin monikäyttöisiä (kyläkunnittain, nuorkauppakamareittain, tyylipiirteittäin). Erityistä huomiota saavat muodosteiden syntaktiset ominaisuudet, joiden valossa temporaali ja distributiivi – ja myös prolatiivi – poikkeavat tavanomaisista adverbeista, jollaisina niitä perinteisesti on pidetty. Mahdollisia ovat muun muassa relatiivilauseet (kirjeitse, jossa – –, maanantaisin, jotka – –), genetiiviattribuutit (elokuun lauantaisin, Suomen kunnittain) ja eräät taipumattomat määritteet (joka maanantaisin, koko kyläkunnittain). Uusi havainto on myös temporaali- ja distributiivimuotojen kyky saada instruktiivimuotoisia adjektiiviattribuutteja: lausekkeet satunnaisin viikonloppuisin ja tietyin aihealueittain muistuttavat marginaalisuudessaankin sijamuotoja ja etenkin komitatiivia (omin ~ omine lupineen). Artikkelissa esitetään, että sijajärjestelmämme kuvauksen rajapintaa voisi laajentaa eräänlaisilla kääpiösijoilla samaan tapaan kuin eräitä aurinkokuntamme jäseniä voidaan luonnehtia kääpiöplaneetoiksi, vaikka ne eivät varsinaiseen planeetan määritelmään sopisikaan.   On Finnish dwarf cases: prolative, temporal and distributive The article discusses the borderland between nominal case inflection and adverb derivation in Finnish. Finnish grammars customarily present a case system of fifteen cases. The present article takes a step outside of the most marginal cases (abessive, instructive and comitative) within the traditional paradigm. In addition to observations on the so-called prolative, which has at times been considered a borderline case, the main focus of the study is on two kinds of formations traditionally regarded as denominal adverbs. The previously under-described formations ending in -isin have a repetitive temporal meaning (e.g., iltaisin ‘in the evenings’) and those ending in -(i)ttain/-(i)ttäin are distributive forms (e.g., maittain ‘by country’). Based on data drawn from large corpora of modern written Finnish, the temporal form -isin and particularly the distributive forms -(i)ttain/-(i)ttäin appear to be rather productive morphological categories. Special attention is given to the syntactic properties of these formations, as the data shows that not only do the case-like prolative forms differ from ordinary adverbs, but the temporal and distributive forms do so too. The author argues that the formations in question are not fully denominal forms, rather they reveal many features characteristic of nouns: they may be accompanied by postmodifying relative clauses as well as genitive and adjectival modifiers. In the absence of the full agreement typical of Finnish adjectival modifiers, the associated adjectives occur in the instructive case (e.g., satunnais-in viikonloppu-isin [random-pl.instr weekend-temp] ‘on random weekends’ and tiety-in aihealue-ittain [certain-pl.instr thematic.area-distr] ‘by certain thematic areas’), which in turn makes the temporal and distributive forms resemble those of the comitative case. The article shows that the inflection–derivation interface of the Finnish noun is far from clear-cut. On the basis of the findings presented in this study, the author asserts that our understanding of the Finnish case system could be advanced by introducing the concept of the “dwarf case”, analogous with that of dwarf planets, which are members of the Solar System and share many features with planets despite not being true planets themselves.

scholarly journals A Novel Use of Honey’s Aggregation Approach to the Analysis of Repertory Grids

Field Methods ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Céline Rojon ◽  
Almuth McDowall ◽  
Mark N. K. Saunders
Keyword(s):  
Implicit Theories ◽  
Personal Construct ◽  
Workplace Performance ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Repertory Grids ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Aggregation Processes ◽  
Grid Technique ◽  
Data Granularity ◽  
Constructivist Epistemology

This article examines and appraises a novel approach for generating shared group constructs through aggregative analysis: the application of Honey’s aggregation procedure to repertory grid technique (RGT) data. Revisiting personal construct theory’s underlying premises and adopting a social constructivist epistemology, we argue that, while “implicit theories” of the world, elicited via RGT, are unique to individuals, the constructs on which they are founded may be shared collectively. Drawing on a study of workplace performance, we outline a protocol for this novel use of Honey’s approach, demonstrating how it can be utilized to generate shared constructs inductively to facilitate theory building. We argue that, unlike other grid aggregation processes, the approach does not compromise data granularity, offering a useful augmentation to traditional idiographic approaches examining individual-level constructs only. This approach appears especially suited to addressing complex and implicit topics, where individuals struggle to convey thoughts and ideas.

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