scholarly journals Authoritarian setback in the current crisis of brazilian democracy

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (34) ◽  
pp. e0304
Author(s):  
Emerson Gabardo ◽  
Marion Brepohl ◽  
Marcos Gonçalves
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Civic Culture ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Theoretical Terms ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Awakening ◽  
Lack Of Commitment

The article analyzes the democratic crisis experienced by Brazil from the second decade of the 21st century onwards. The aim is to investigate how this historical period can be characterized. The text asserts that it is inappropriate to understand Brazil without observing its historical distrust of democracy and lack of commitment to the rule of law. The research is based on the assumption that Brazilian modernization in the transition from the 20th to the 21st century was ambiguous but with important achievements. However, the authoritarian mentality and the gap in terms of the quality of political participation are factors of structural permanence. The hypothesis is that Brazil is experiencing a specific moment characterized by the awakening of an authoritarian and conservative mentality that impacts both the State and civil society. The research methodology is based on a bibliographical discussion, with contributions in history, political science, and law. The subjects are discussed in theoretical terms to understand the problems related to the political participation gap, the inequality between citizens, the difficulties of civic culture (mainly in the digital environment), and some inherent weaknesses in democratic performance. Starting from the idea that civic culture influences institutions and these, in turn, impact civic culture, Brazil is currently experiencing a political and cultural setback. Contrary to what could be imagined a few years ago, the process of Brazilian social modernization is threatened in its most important achievements, which implies a danger to the values ​​that sustain democracy. Keywords: authoritarianism; brazilian democracy; political culture; political participation; the rule of law.

scholarly journals Functions of the state: concepts, classifications, scientific interpretations

1970 ◽  
pp. 406-410
Author(s):  
Marharyta Butsan
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Public Life ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Legal Form ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Government ◽  
Cultural Functions ◽  
State Functions

In the article the concept of state functions, realizing which the state carries out a targeted management impact on various spheres of a public life. They show that the government should do to achieve and implement the goals and tasks that lie before him in a certain historical period. Purposes of the functions of the state are the results that must be obtained in implementing the functions, goals can be immediate, intermediate, ultimate. On one stage of historical development, priority may be given to economic, the other political or socio-cultural functions, the third function of defense, etc. At the beginning of its inception, the state played a very small list of functions. The contents of most of them was of a pronounced class character. The functions manifest national characteristics of the country, because the state is obliged to provide the geopolitical interests of the ethnic group, to support the development of national culture, language, and the like. The contents and the list of functions to a large extent depend on the nature of the state, its social purpose in public life. The main duty of the state to maintain a level of social organization that would ensure not only the preservation of the integrity and prosperity of society as a whole, but also the needs of individuals. The article studies scientific approaches with respect to interpretation of the concept of functions, given the existing classification of state functions: the areas of activities of the state, duration and the like. The analysis of existing functions in Ukraine. The human rights function is currently the most relevant. Advocacy function has the expression in activities that are aimed at protecting the rights and freedoms of man and citizen, the rule of law and the rule of law in all spheres of public and political life. The peculiarities of exercise of the functions of the state are divided into legal and organizational. The legal form is a homogenous activity of state bodies related to the adoption of legal acts. Organizational form is a homogenous activity of the state aimed at creating organizational conditions to ensure functions of the state. In Ukraine there are three main forms of implementation of the activities of the state depending on types of activities: legislative, Executive, judicial. The basis for this separation is the provision of the Constitution of Ukraine, which is highlighted in these branches of government. In the implementation of all main functions of the state are actively involved all types of public power in Ukraine.

scholarly journals Populism as a threat to the rule of law

Eudaimonia ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 137-185
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Anđelković
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
21St Century ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Historical Outline ◽  
The World ◽  
Introductory Part ◽  
Democratic Societies

The aim of this paper is to bring the reader closer to what the term populism means, what are its defining elements, in which parts of the world and in what forms is this phenomenon present today, and, finally, what consequences it has on modern democracies and the rule of law. The introductory part of the paper deals with the issue of defining the term populism, presenting the theories that are most common in the literature and setting out the constitutive elements of the term. The paper further provides an overview of the regions in which populism is most present today, with a general inspection of its manifestations and a brief historical outline of its origins. Finally, the paper concludes with the analysis of the negative and positive consequences that the populism has on today's democratic societies, as well as of its impact on the rule of law – i.e., by answering the question of whether the founding pillars of the 21st century rule of law manage to withstand the onslaught of a strong, all-coming, populist wave?

Judicial Review of Executive Power: Legality, Rationality and Reasonableness (Part 1)

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 122-152
Author(s):  
Chuks Okpaluba
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Theoretical Terms ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Administrative Action ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Many

Early in the life of the South African democratic dispensation, the Constitutional Court distinguished the conduct of the President as the head of the executive branch of government from an administrative action. However, it held that executive conduct was, like all exercise of public power, constrained by the constitutional principles of legality and rationality. So, as a necessary incident of the rule of law, the executive may not exercise powers or perform duties not conferred upon it by the Constitution and the law. The cases decided since then demonstrate in practical and theoretical terms the democratic aphorism that no one is above the law and everyone is subject to the Constitution and the law. In the process, the Constitutional Court has entertained appeals for the review of executive powers such as where, inter alia, the President had acted on a wrong advice or terminated the appointment of the head of the National Intelligence Agency; the legality of Ministerial Regulations and of the rationality of the presidential appointment of the Director of the National Prosecuting Authority. The role of reasonableness as a ground of review of executive conduct rather than administrative action has been demonstrated in the many cases where the distinction has been made between the rationality test and the reasonableness test. The conclusion, therefore, is that, through their interpretation of the Constitution and review of executive powers, the courts have developed a code of principles regarding the rule of law, good government, and democracy.

Rule of law. Argomenti di una teoria (giuridica) istituzionale

2009 ◽  
pp. 27-66
Author(s):  
Gianluigi Palombella
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Historical Reconstruction ◽  
Theoretical Terms ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Normative Significance ◽  
Normative Standard ◽  
Institutional Model ◽  
The Ideal

- This article aims to offer an interpretation of the potential of the Rule of Law in the present day. By conducting an historical reconstruction and comparative analysis, among other things, the notion of the Rule of Law is explained in terms of a specific normative standard, i.e. of an ideal objective, an institutional model against which existing laws can be compared critically. The normative significance is expressed here in terms of the concepts of institutional balance, not of the dominance and duality of law. Celebrated extensively in the more famous national constitutions and international charters, the ideal of the Rule of Law is defined here asa) coherent with the historical constants through which its institutional meaning comes to different forms of expression,b) extendible to the transformations of contemporary legal institutions, also beyond the state, andc) conceptually sustainable in theoretical terms, where it is expressed so as to avoid falling into the partly connected, though different, controversies about morality or about the conditions under which law is valid.

scholarly journals The Legitimacy of Civil Services in the 21st Century

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Demmke
Keyword(s):  
Private Sector ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
The State ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Public Employees ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
The Early 21St Century

For a lengthy period, governments worldwide believed that civil servants should be linked to the authority of the state and could not be compared to employees in the private sector. This group of public employees were perceived as agents of the “Leviathan” (Hobbes), intended to uphold the rule of law and to implement government policies. In this conception, where the state was separated from society and citizens, it was inconceivable that civil servants could be compared to other employees. Towards the end of the 20th century, in almost all countries worldwide, reform measures have encouraged the change, deconstruction and decentralization of the civil service on all fronts. In the meantime, there are now as many different categories of public employees as there are different public functions, organizations, and tasks. Overall, the number of civil servants has decreased and some countries have abolished traditional civil service features. Moreover, working conditions and working life have changed. Thus, whereas for a long time, civil servants were very different from the employees of private companies, this distinction is much less clear in the early 21st century. Such a situation had been unthinkable 10 years earlier. Consequently, the traditional concept of the civil service as a distinct employment group and status is slowly disappearing. In addition, current organizational reform trends have made public administration as such into a somewhat heterogeneous body. In the early 21st century, civil services have become more diverse, less hierarchical and standardized, more flexible, diverse, representative and less separated from the citizenry than they were traditionally. Whereas the term “bureaucracy” had represented clear values (hierarchy, formalism, standardization, rationality, obedience etc.), new reforms have brought with them new values, but also more conflicting ones, and value dilemmas. Whereas most governments still agree that human resource management (HRM) policies should continue to be based on rational principles such as the rule of law, equity, and equality, the increasing popularity of behavioral economics and behavioral ethics and the trend toward the delegation of responsibilities to employees through different concepts such as engagement, lifelong learning, and competency development, illustrate that current trends run counter to classical bureaucratic styles. Moreover, digitalization and flexibilization trends are changing work systems and leading to an individualization of HR practices by facilitating the monitoring and measuring of individual efforts and engagement practices. Thus, the problem with this description of administration in the 21st century is obvious. Whereas the terms “bureaucracy” or “civil service” can be defined and broken down into concrete definitions, this is much less the case with the new civil service systems and new administrative models. However, stereotypes around public organizations and civil servants continue to survive, even though they were shaped in a world that no longer exists. Even in the early 21st century, many people still have the perception that civil servants work in an environment that is clearly separated from the private sector. Also, most public-service motivation theories start from the assumption that civil servants are different because they are civil servants.

scholarly journals Ukraine in the 21st Century: Strengthening Civilisational Agency

2020 ◽  
pp. 595-604
Author(s):  
Serhii Pyrozhkov ◽  
Nazip Khamitov
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
Independent State ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Intellectual Elite ◽  
Worldview Transformation ◽  
Transformation Of Consciousness ◽  
Fundamental Values

The article addresses the issue of Ukraine’s civilisational agency in the modern world. The authors state that a civilisational destiny of a state is determined by geopolitical actors claiming a superpower status, the state’s own choice, people’s will, its political and intellectual elite. Then, a state becomes a unit of international relations and law, world geopolitics, science, art; a civilisational actor of history, the present, and the future. Ukraine strives to become such an actor, have its civilisational project, and implement it. Our country is located between the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian civilisational societies, thus its capacity to be an actor in the modern globalised world is contingent on efficient cooperation with both of the societies. The authors believe that the implementation of the civilisational project of Ukraine as an actor and not as an object of modern world lies in systemic cooperation with the international actors which accept freedom and dignity of a human being as fundamental values. The authors single out the civilisational measures of such a society, which is a society of trust, social and political partnership, and balanced interaction of the rule of law and civil society. In its civilisational project of the 21st century, Ukraine should stand for a society of innovations and information, where a person can live up to her full potential. It is about the worldview transformation of consciousness and relations among people, countries, civilisations, and civilisational worlds. The implementation of this project is a fundamental condition for ensuring the national security and existence of Ukraine as an independent state. That is indeed a noble cause of Ukraine and its people in the multifaceted world of the 21st century. Keywords: Eurasian civilisational society, Euro-Atlantic direction, agency of Ukraine, independent state.

scholarly journals Representing Justice: Architecture and the New Zealand Supreme Court

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Matthew Thomas Watson
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Judicial System ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Built Form ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Treaty Of Waitangi

<p>This thesis investigates the architectural significance of a recent exemplar of judicial architecture, the New Zealand Supreme Court complex (2010), in order to assess the complex’s design as an embodiment of judicial aspirations. The underlying assumption of this study (based on the works of Goodsell, Edelman, Garapon and others) is that the architecture of the Supreme Court complex legibly responds to its layered (but not always publicly accessible) briefing process, a process which expresses the aspirations of the New Zealand justice system at the beginning of the 21st century. By way of background, the study describes the history of the New Zealand judicial system, outlining the evolution of New Zealand’s court hierarchy (including the genesis of the Supreme Court as New Zealand’s court of final appeal) and of New Zealand’s judicial architecture. The role of the Supreme Court within New Zealand’s constitutional and legal framework is also examined, particularly in relation to recognising and supporting the rule of law and Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand jurisprudence. The judicial aspirations of the Supreme Court are evinced through analyses of the Supreme Court Act 2003 and the Supreme Court project’s briefing process. These aspirations are coupled with an analysis of the Supreme Court complex’s built form to enable an assessment of architectural expressions in the Supreme Court complex of concepts of judicial independence, history and tradition; the indigenous nature of the Supreme Court; and the Court’s role in upholding the rule of law and sovereignty of Parliament. The outcome of this research is a greater understanding of the function of the Supreme Court complex as a symbol of the judicial values and aspirations for New Zealand’s justice system in the early 21st century. The significant findings of this study are that the Supreme Court complex is legibly successful in terms of its architectural engagement with New Zealand’s judicial heritage and the contemporary approaches of openness, transparency and access in the judicial system, but that the architecture the Supreme Court fails to appropriately engage with the significance of the on-going M􀀀ori–Crown constitutional relationship embodied in the Treaty of Waitangi, evincing a disconnect between the judicial aspirations expressed at the establishment of the institution and those expressed in the Court’s built form. It is suggested that this discrepancy highlights a layering of aspirations that occurred in the Supreme Court complex’s briefing process.</p>

Democratic theories and the problem of political participation in Nigeria: Strengthening consensus and the rule of law

Human Affairs ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Ujomu ◽  
Felix Olatunji
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Fair Play ◽  
Democratic Participation ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Democratic Practice ◽  
Basic Rights ◽  
Democratic Principles

AbstractThis paper addresses the problem of the strategies and theories of democratic participation in Nigeria that breed institutional marginality and bad governance due to shortfalls in pursuing the values of justice and empowerment as core democratic characteristics. The same democratic principles such as voting, parliament, constitution, judiciary, that are suggestive of gains such as responsible use, and peaceful transfer of power may not have translated fully into sociopolitical empowerment for responsibility and representation in evolving democratic practice in Nigeria due to problems of agency and political ideology. Democratic theorizing and participation in Nigeria has defied orthodox presuppositions seen in the disrespect for basic rights and the disregard for the rule of law in democracy that allow for fair play within and among the elites and political grassroots. Thus this study investigates the Nigerian predicament as a model or case study, raising questions about the reasons for the systematic disempowerment of groups.

Political corruption, party financing and democracy in Kenya

2008 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oscar Gakuo Mwangi
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Political Corruption ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Campaign Financing ◽  
Transparency And Accountability

ABSTRACTThis article examines political corruption and political party financing in multiparty Kenya. It uses the Goldenberg and Anglo-Leasing mega-scandals to demonstrate the existence of political corruption, particularly campaign financing, arguing that it has increased under multiparty rule and affected the nature of governance. It has adversely affected political participation and competition, the rule of law, transparency and accountability. Illegal funds to finance the Kenya African National Union's elections in the 1990s were raised through the Goldenberg Affair, whereas those aimed at financing the National Rainbow Coalition's elections in December 2007 were to be raised through the Anglo-Leasing scandal. Corrupt campaign financing, therefore, poses a threat to democracy in the country. The democratic space created and expanded by multipartyism has, however, provided new opportunities for waging the war against corruption. It is in the context of these arguments that the conclusion raises broader issues for corruption and democracy in Africa.

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