7 Disinformation and Threats to Democratic Institutions

2021 ◽  
pp. 221-260
Asian Survey ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 31 (8) ◽  
pp. 683-693 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Baxter ◽  
Syedur Rahman

Author(s):  
Joseph Chan

Since the very beginning, Confucianism has been troubled by a serious gap between its political ideals and the reality of societal circumstances. Contemporary Confucians must develop a viable method of governance that can retain the spirit of the Confucian ideal while tackling problems arising from nonideal modern situations. The best way to meet this challenge, this book argues, is to adopt liberal democratic institutions that are shaped by the Confucian conception of the good rather than the liberal conception of the right. The book examines and reconstructs both Confucian political thought and liberal democratic institutions, blending them to form a new Confucian political philosophy. The book decouples liberal democratic institutions from their popular liberal philosophical foundations in fundamental moral rights, such as popular sovereignty, political equality, and individual sovereignty. Instead, it grounds them on Confucian principles and redefines their roles and functions, thus mixing Confucianism with liberal democratic institutions in a way that strengthens both. The book then explores the implications of this new yet traditional political philosophy for fundamental issues in modern politics, including authority, democracy, human rights, civil liberties, and social justice. The book critically reconfigures the Confucian political philosophy of the classical period for the contemporary era.


2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-15
Author(s):  
Christos Kollias ◽  
Panayiotis Tzeremes

Abstract The economic and social drivers of democratisation and the emergence and establishment of democratic institutions are longstanding themes of academic discourse. Within this broad body of literature, it has been argued that the process of urbanisation is also conducive to the emergence and consolidation of democracy through a number of different channels. Cities offer better access to education and facilitate organised public action and the demand for more democratic rule and respect of human rights. The nexus between urbanisation and human rights is the theme that is taken up in the present paper. Using a sample of 123 countries for the period 1981–2011, the paper examines empirically the association between urbanisation and human empowerment using the Cingranelli-Richards Index. In broad terms, the findings reported herein do not point to a strong nexus across all income groups. Nevertheless, there is evidence suggesting the presence of such a statistically significant positive association in specific cases.


2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (4I-II) ◽  
pp. 675-688
Author(s):  
Ghulam Murtaza ◽  
Muhammad Zahir Faridi

The present study has investigated the channels through which the linkage between economic institutions and growth is gauged, by addressing the main hypothesis of the study that whether quality of governance and democratic institutions set a stage for economic institutions to promote the long-term growth process in Pakistan. To test the hypothesis empirically, our study models the dynamic relationship between growth and economic institutions in a time varying framework in order to capture institutional developments and structural changes occurred in the economy of Pakistan over the years. Study articulates that, along with some customary specifics, the quality of government and democracy are the substantial factors that affect institutional quality and ultimately cause to promote growth in Pakistan. JEL Classification: O40; P16; C14; H10 Keywords: Economic Institutions, Growth, Governance and Democracy, Rolling Window Two-stage Least Squares, Pakistan


2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 7-21
Author(s):  
Dušan Pavlović

Author(s):  
Piero Ignazi

The Conclusion addresses the parties’ present condition in the European political systems. Indeed, at the dawn of the new century parties have become Leviathan with clay feet: powerful in the political arena thanks to control of state resources, but very weak in terms of legitimacy in the eyes of public opinion. Only by abandoning the citadelle in which they are entrenched, recasting societal linkages, relinquishing all their privileges, and dismissing their self-referential attitude might they recover the confidence of the electorate. Maintaining a state-centred status will only lead to a dead end, and this will also harm the democratic system itself. The collapse of parties’ legitimacy inevitably affects democratic institutions: the mounting populist and plebiscitary wave suggests how pervasive is the crisis and how dramatic the challenge.


Author(s):  
George Letsas

The idea that states have discretion in complying with their human rights obligations, and the idea that human rights obligations should be compatible with a degree of diversity between states, are either trivial or misleading. In order to assess properly the doctrine of the Margin of Appreciation, one has to reconstruct it as a normative thesis about the conditions under which an international human rights court should place substantial weight on a decision by a domestic authority. Thus understood, however, the doctrine is problematic as it offends the values underlying human rights and the rule of international law. The chapter evaluates Andreas Follesdal’s particular defence of the Margin of Appreciation and argues that neither sovereignty nor democracy provides normative support for unqualified judicial deference. It argues further that the exceptions Follesdal wishes to place on deference to democratic institutions end up covering the whole of the scope of human rights obligations, making the idea of deference redundant.


Author(s):  
Gabriela González

The concluding chapter explains how race had served defenders of slavery by providing them with an excuse to hold men and women in bondage. For their inhumane treatment of Africans during the Age of Enlightenment to be justified, their humanity needed to be ideologically stripped away—scientific racism served that purpose. Racist theories also kept other groups in subaltern positions. Mexicans with mestizo, mulatto, and Indian genealogies experienced racialization in the United States. Simply put, Americans, proud of their liberal political heritage and their democratic institutions, needed to see oppressed groups as somehow sub-human in order to reconcile their political beliefs with the nation’s less than egalitarian realities. It is for this reason that the politics of redemption practiced by Mexican immigrant and Mexican American activists merits attention.


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