When Participation Wins Votes: Explaining the Emergence of Large-Scale Participatory Democracy

Author(s):  
Jared Abbott

Why are large-scale participatory institutions implemented in some countries but only adopted on paper in others? I argue that nationwide implementation of Binding Participatory Institutions (BPIs)––a critical subtype of participatory institutions––is dependent on the backing of a strong institutional supporter, often a political party. In turn, parties will only implement BPIs if they place a lower value on the political costs than on the potential benefits of implementation. This will be true if: 1) significant societal demand exists for BPI implementation and 2) the party’s political opponents cannot take advantage of BPIs for their own gain. I test this theory through two detailed case studies of Venezuela and Ecuador, drawing on 165 interviews with key national-level actors and grassroots activists.

2021 ◽  

Threats and promises are prevalent in international relations (IR). However, deception is also a possibility in diplomacy. Why should one state believe that another state is not merely bluffing? How can a state credibly communicate its threats and promises to others? The IR scholarship suggests that one way by which a state may make its commitments credible is by generating audience costs—the political costs a leader suffers from publicly issuing a threat or promise and then failing to follow through. There is a broad and methodologically diverse literature on the existence, mechanisms, and effectiveness of audience costs. The concept of audience costs has also been applied to explain many phenomena in IR. This article examines the IR scholarship on audience costs across different methodological approaches, including qualitative case studies, large-N statistical tests, and survey experiments.


Author(s):  
Jared Abbott ◽  
Benjamin Goldfrank

The three books reviewed here represent a new generation of rigorous scholarship on participatory institutions (PIs). They demonstrate that – under certain conditions – it is possible to build large-scale PIs that strengthen democratic governance and improve citizens’ lives. Nonetheless, significant challenges remain. Due in part to the absence of either high-quality national-level comparative data or fine-grained subnational data, and in part to research design choices of existing studies, the literature remains limited in its capacity to make general claims about the causes and effects of large-scale PIs. Ultimately, the key question collectively addressed, but not fully answered, by the works reviewed is whether governments can build PIs that deliver on their promise to improve the quality of democracy and enhance public service provision on a large scale in diverse contexts beyond Brazil.


Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 2928
Author(s):  
Jeffrey D. Walker ◽  
Benjamin H. Letcher ◽  
Kirk D. Rodgers ◽  
Clint C. Muhlfeld ◽  
Vincent S. D’Angelo

With the rise of large-scale environmental models comes new challenges for how we best utilize this information in research, management and decision making. Interactive data visualizations can make large and complex datasets easier to access and explore, which can lead to knowledge discovery, hypothesis formation and improved understanding. Here, we present a web-based interactive data visualization framework, the Interactive Catchment Explorer (ICE), for exploring environmental datasets and model outputs. Using a client-based architecture, the ICE framework provides a highly interactive user experience for discovering spatial patterns, evaluating relationships between variables and identifying specific locations using multivariate criteria. Through a series of case studies, we demonstrate the application of the ICE framework to datasets and models associated with three separate research projects covering different regions in North America. From these case studies, we provide specific examples of the broader impacts that tools like these can have, including fostering discussion and collaboration among stakeholders and playing a central role in the iterative process of data collection, analysis and decision making. Overall, the ICE framework demonstrates the potential benefits and impacts of using web-based interactive data visualization tools to place environmental datasets and model outputs directly into the hands of stakeholders, managers, decision makers and other researchers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. e100429
Author(s):  
Marta Krasuska ◽  
Robin Williams ◽  
Aziz Sheikh ◽  
Bryony Franklin ◽  
Susan Hinder ◽  
...  

BackgroundThere is currently a strong drive internationally towards creating digitally advanced healthcare systems through coordinated efforts at a national level. The English Global Digital Exemplar (GDE) programme is a large-scale national health information technology change programme aiming to promote digitally-enabled transformation in secondary healthcare provider organisations by supporting relatively digitally mature provider organisations to become international centres of excellence.AimTo qualitatively evaluate the impact of the GDE programme in promoting digital transformation in provider organisations that took part in the programme.MethodsWe conducted a series of in-depth case studies in 12 purposively selected provider organisations and a further 24 wider case studies of the remaining organisations participating in the GDE programme. Data collected included 628 interviews, non-participant observations of 190 meetings and workshops and analysis of 9 documents. We used thematic analysis aided by NVivo software and drew on sociotechnical theory to analyse the data.ResultsWe found the GDE programme accelerated digital transformation within participating provider organisations. This acceleration was triggered by: (1) dedicated funding and the associated requirement for matched internal funding, which in turn helped to prioritise digital transformation locally; (2) governance requirements put in place by the programme that helped strengthen existing local governance and project management structures and supported the emergence of a cadre of clinical health informatics leaders locally; and (3) reputational benefits associated with being recognised as a centre of digital excellence, which facilitated organisational buy-in for digital transformation and increased negotiating power with vendors.ConclusionThe GDE programme has been successful in accelerating digital transformation in participating provider organisations. Large-scale digital transformation programmes in healthcare can stimulate local progress through protected funding, putting in place governance structures and leveraging reputational benefits for participating provider organisations, around a coherent vision of transformation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-530 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maartje Janse

This article focuses on large-scale petitioning campaigns, or petitionnementen as they were called, organized between 1828 and 1878, including contemporary reflections and debates on this new phenomenon. Although there were only a handful of petitionnementen, they had a remarkable impact—not only on the issues at hand but also on the balance of power between Crown, Cabinet, Parliament, and people. Mass petitions necessarily challenged the political system, whose legitimacy was based on elections under a limited franchise. Based on parliamentary reports, pamphlets, and other sources reflecting on petitioning in general and the petitionnementen more specifically, this article asks how petitioners claimed legitimacy, and how politicians and other observers responded to those claims. Special attention is given to the international context within which Dutch petitioning practices developed. The article focuses on three case studies, representing the major petitioning campaigns of this period: the Southern petition movements of 1828–1830 that were a catalyst for the Belgian revolution (thus reinforcing the association between mass petitioning and revolution), the Anti-Catholic “April Movement” of 1853, and the so-called People’s Petitionnement of 1878, against the liberal education law. Remarkably enough, in the Netherlands it was not progressive reformers, but most prominently conservative Orthodox Protestants who organized petitionnementen.


Author(s):  
Peter Hägel

Chapter 1 introduces billionaires as the prophets of the neoliberal age, whose entrepreneurship is increasingly shifting from business to other social realms, including politics. Several examples illustrate how the political agency of billionaires goes beyond the national level, and why it is of interest for the study of world politics. It delineates the specific focus of the book: how billionaires, as private actors, can shape public policy across borders, transnationally or within global governance. It discusses the neglect of billionaires as political actors, especially in International Relations, describes the methodological challenges of studying the ultra-wealthy, and explains why the book’s case studies concentrate on billionaires that are U.S. citizens. An outline tells the reader the direction of the inquiry, the main questions, and the major arguments that are being pursued in the following chapters.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 1183-1189
Author(s):  
Dr. Tridibesh Tripathy ◽  
Dr. Umakant Prusty ◽  
Dr. Chintamani Nayak ◽  
Dr. Rakesh Dwivedi ◽  
Dr. Mohini Gautam

The current article of Uttar Pradesh (UP) is about the ASHAs who are the daughters-in-law of a family that resides in the same community that they serve as the grassroots health worker since 2005 when the NRHM was introduced in the Empowered Action Group (EAG) states. UP is one such Empowered Action Group (EAG) state. The current study explores the actual responses of Recently Delivered Women (RDW) on their visits during the first month of their recent delivery. From the catchment area of each of the 250 ASHAs, two RDWs were selected who had a child in the age group of 3 to 6 months during the survey. The response profiles of the RDWs on the post- delivery first month visits are dwelled upon to evolve a picture representing the entire state of UP. The relevance of the study assumes significance as detailed data on the modalities of postnatal visits are available but not exclusively for the first month period of their recent delivery. The details of the post-delivery first month period related visits are not available even in large scale surveys like National Family Health Survey 4 done in 2015-16. The current study gives an insight in to these visits with a five-point approach i.e. type of personnel doing the visit, frequency of the visits, visits done in a particular week from among those four weeks separately for the three visits separately. The current study is basically regarding the summary of this Penta approach for the post- delivery one-month period.     The first month period after each delivery deals with 70% of the time of the postnatal period & the entire neonatal period. Therefore, it does impact the Maternal Mortality Rate & Ratio (MMR) & the Neonatal Mortality Rates (NMR) in India and especially in UP through the unsafe Maternal & Neonatal practices in the first month period after delivery. The current MM Rate of UP is 20.1 & MM Ratio is 216 whereas the MM ratio is 122 in India (SRS, 2019). The Sample Registration System (SRS) report also mentions that the Life Time Risk (LTR) of a woman in pregnancy is 0.7% which is the highest in the nation (SRS, 2019). This means it is very risky to give birth in UP in comparison to other regions in the country (SRS, 2019). This risk is at the peak in the first month period after each delivery. Similarly, the current NMR in India is 23 per 1000 livebirths (UNIGME,2018). As NMR data is not available separately for states, the national level data also hold good for the states and that’s how for the state of UP as well. These mortalities are the impact indicators and such indicators can be reduced through long drawn processes that includes effective and timely visits to RDWs especially in the first month period after delivery. This would help in making their post-natal & neonatal stage safe. This is the area of post-delivery first month visit profile detailing that the current article helps in popping out in relation to the recent delivery of the respondents.   A total of four districts of Uttar Pradesh were selected purposively for the study and the data collection was conducted in the villages of the respective districts with the help of a pre-tested structured interview schedule with both close-ended and open-ended questions.  The current article deals with five close ended questions with options, two for the type of personnel & frequency while the other three are for each of the three visits in the first month after the recent delivery of respondents. In addition, in-depth interviews were also conducted amongst the RDWs and a total 500 respondents had participated in the study.   Among the districts related to this article, the results showed that ASHA was the type of personnel who did the majority of visits in all the four districts. On the other hand, 25-40% of RDWs in all the 4 districts replied that they did not receive any visit within the first month of their recent delivery. Regarding frequency, most of the RDWs in all the 4 districts received 1-2 times visits by ASHAs.   Regarding the first visit, it was found that the ASHAs of Barabanki and Gonda visited less percentage of RDWs in the first week after delivery. Similarly, the second visit revealed that about 1.2% RDWs in Banda district could not recall about the visit. Further on the second visit, the RDWs responded that most of them in 3 districts except Gonda district did receive the second postnatal visit in 7-15 days after their recent delivery. Less than half of RDWs in Barabanki district & just more than half of RDWs in Gonda district received the third visit in 15-21 days period after delivery. For the same period, the majority of RDWs in the rest two districts responded that they had been entertained through a home visit.


Author(s):  
Karen J. Alter

In 1989, when the Cold War ended, there were six permanent international courts. Today there are more than two dozen that have collectively issued over thirty-seven thousand binding legal rulings. This book charts the developments and trends in the creation and role of international courts, and explains how the delegation of authority to international judicial institutions influences global and domestic politics. The book presents an in-depth look at the scope and powers of international courts operating around the world. Focusing on dispute resolution, enforcement, administrative review, and constitutional review, the book argues that international courts alter politics by providing legal, symbolic, and leverage resources that shift the political balance in favor of domestic and international actors who prefer policies more consistent with international law objectives. International courts name violations of the law and perhaps specify remedies. The book explains how this limited power—the power to speak the law—translates into political influence, and it considers eighteen case studies, showing how international courts change state behavior. The case studies, spanning issue areas and regions of the world, collectively elucidate the political factors that often intervene to limit whether or not international courts are invoked and whether international judges dare to demand significant changes in state practices.


Author(s):  
Anatolii Petrovich Mykolaiets

It is noted that from the standpoint of sociology, “management — a function of organized systems of various nature — (technical, biological, social), which ensures the preservation of their structure, maintaining a certain state or transfer to another state, in accordance with the objective laws of the existence of this system, which implemented by a program or deliberately set aside”. Management is carried out through the influence of one subsystem-controlling, on the other-controlled, on the processes taking place in it with the help of information signals or administrative actions. It is proved that self-government allows all members of society or a separate association to fully express their will and interests, overcome alienation, effectively combat bureaucracy, and promote public self-realization of the individual. At the same time, wide direct participation in the management of insufficiently competent participants who are not responsible for their decisions, contradicts the social division of labor, reduces the effectiveness of management, complicates the rationalization of production. This can lead to the dominance of short-term interests over promising interests. Therefore, it is always important for society to find the optimal measure of a combination of self-management and professional management. It is determined that social representation acts, on the one hand, as the most important intermediary between the state and the population, the protection of social interests in a politically heterogeneous environment. On the other hand, it ensures the operation of a mechanism for correcting the political system, which makes it possible to correct previously adopted decisions in a legitimate way, without resorting to violence. It is proved that the system of social representation influences the most important political relations, promotes social integration, that is, the inclusion of various social groups and public associations in the political system. It is proposed to use the term “self-government” in relation to several levels of people’s association: the whole community — public self-government or self-government of the people, to individual regions or communities — local, to production management — production self-government. Traditionally, self-government is seen as an alternative to public administration. Ideology and practice of selfgovernment originate from the primitive, communal-tribal democracy. It is established that, in practice, centralization has become a “natural form of government”. In its pure form, centralization does not recognize the autonomy of places and even local life. It is characteristic of authoritarian regimes, but it is also widely used by democratic regimes, where they believe that political freedoms should be fixed only at the national level. It is determined that since the state has achieved certain sizes, it is impossible to abandon the admission of the existence of local authorities. Thus, deconcentration appears as one of the forms of centralization and as a cure for the excesses of the latter. Deconcentration assumes the presence of local bodies, which depend on the government functionally and in the order of subordination of their officials. The dependency of officials means that the leadership of local authorities is appointed by the central government and may be displaced.


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