Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the Separation of Powers in Federal Polity and “Wills of Nation”

The problem of this article is built around the tension between the concept of organ sovereignty and democracy theory. First of all, this vision of sovereignty fails to describe the diverse forms of popular participation in collective decision-making. It speaks very sparingly of the people as a political actor. Moreover, the concept of organ sovereignty does not provide the theoretical resources to describe the intermediary bodies in the space between the state and the individual. The tradition of liberal democracy emphasises the importance of such bodies for maintaining popular control over state. Also, the idea of organ sovereignty, by reducing all power to a single legislature, ignores the demand for self-government coming from communities located within the same state and yet united by a certain collective identity. Today, democracy theorists are turning to the concepts of federalism in order to overcome the above-mentioned limitations set by the concept of organ sovereignty. So far, however, the concepts of federalism have not been very convincing in describing the various forms of popular participation in collective decision-making. Above all, they have failed to consistently justify the existence of multiple decision-making centres within a single polity. The article argues that the model of the federal polity proposed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his later work “Considerations on the mode of government in Poland” explains how within one polity multiple centres of collective decision-making can coexist. The model also provides an understanding of how citizen participation in multiple decision-making centres can be organised.

14. The Committee of Permanent Representatives:

The Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper) originated as a diplomatic forum to meet regularly and prepare meetings of the Council of Ministers. It quickly and quietly evolved into a locus of continuous negotiation and de facto decision-making, gaining a reputation as ‘the place to do the deal’. This reputation is based on insulation from domestic audiences and an unrivalled ability to make deals stick across a range of issue areas and policy subjects. Most importantly, Coreper spotlights the process of integrating interests in a collective decision-making system with its own organizational culture, norms, and style of discourse. In actual operation, the Committee has much to offer institutional theorizing, as multiple ‘logics’ of action are discernible and often complexly entwined.

Practicing Democracy from Childhood

Democracy manifests itself in a range of ways and is an imperfect, dynamic struggle for collective decision-making. This article discusses the multifaceted processes of deliberative democratic praxis found in traditional Māori society. Central to decision-making in te ao Māori, hui provide formal and informal structures for deliberative democracy, precedent setting, learning, and transformation through consensus making, inclusive debate, and discussion across all levels of society. Rather than coercion and voting, rangatira relied on a complex mix of customary values and accomplished oratory skills to explore issues in family and community meetings and in public assemblies. Decisions made through inclusive deliberative processes practiced in hui established evident reasoning and responsibility for all community members to uphold the reached consensus. This article claims that practicing deliberative democracy as a fundamental way of life, learned through ongoing active and meaningful participation throughout childhood, improves the integrity of democratic decision-making.

Reflections on the limits and possibilities of democratic management in High Schools in a City in Ceará

This paper discusses Education Management in the context of Public Policies. The objective is to understand the limits and possibilities of a Democratic Management in High Schools in a municipality of the State of Ceará. The qualitative research used the methodological strategy of multiple case study, collecting data through document analysis and interviews with members of the core management of two high schools. The results indicated that democratic management is made possible by means of similar mechanisms between the schools, but obtains different results due to educational conditions, related to workload, curricular components, and physical facilities. It was possible to discuss the potential of democratic management and the actions that favor collectivity, while there are limits, such as bureaucratic obstacles, considered challenging for collective decision-making.

IDB Behavioral Economics Group: Project Highlights of the Last Decade

The IDB Behavioral Economics Group is an interdepartmental working group on behavioral economics. For nearly a decade, armed with the tools and insights offered by psychology and economics, the IDB has been partnering with local and national governments in Latin America and the Caribbean to promote knowledge related to individual and collective decision-making in the region. Through this work, we hope to serve our countries better and continue improving peoples' lives.

Modeling the process of horizontal coordination of decisions at enterprises based on a reflexive approach

The relevance of the study of the processes of coordination of decisions at enterprises by means of mathematical modeling of the corresponding processes has been substantiated in the paper. The concept of horizontal coordination of decisions at enterprises has been defined. The modeling of the process of horizontal coordination of decisions at an enterprise with the presence of a coordination center at a higher level than the one where the coordination takes place is considered. At the same time, two options for managing the process of coordinating decisions at enterprises with different goals of the coordination center are given. The first case assumes the achievement of the goal of managing a focal point, interested in obtaining reliable information from agents at the level of decision coordination with an employment of a non-manipulated direct mechanism. The second case assumes that the coordination center has a specific management goal in the process of horizontal coordination of decisions at the enterprise. Reflexive control in this case provides for the manipulation of obtaining the result of agreement, which will be as close as possible to a certain fixed value – the control goal of the coordination center. The use of the models of reflexive management of the process of horizontal coordination of decisions at the enterprise, which are given in the article, depends on the existing management goal of the coordination center. The use of appropriate models of horizontal coordination at management levels will help to increase the efficiency of collective decision-making processes at enterprises, which will improve the efficiency of their functioning. A promising direction of research has been defined – modeling the processes of coordinating decisions at different levels of management.

The Impact Of Multinational Enterprises On Global Governance: The Protests Movement View

This study is based on secondary data and looks at the activities of Multinational Corporation and its impact on global governance from the protests movement point of view. Available data show that multinational corporations derive at least a quarter of their revenue outside their home countries. However, the debate is how significant do they contribute to development or involve in activities that lead to human and economic deprivation of host communities. The study reveals that the benefits are not enough compared to the damages. The multinational corporation uses global governance institutions to back up their interests and always get preferred treatment. The host communities who feel exploited are not happy but the multinational corporations are always innovative so, there is hope towards finding solutions. In this regard therefore, the relevant stakeholders should be engaged towards collective decision making and problem-solving in a participatory manner for effective global governance.

Exiles as Stakeholders

This chapter examines how much influence exiles are entitled to wield in the homeland. I situate this question in the broader boundary problem in democratic theory: how to determine who is entitled to participate in collective decision-making. I examine two leading principles of inclusion, and then elaborate on and apply the stakeholder principle: insofar as exiles have particular interests at stake, they are entitled to a correspondingly weighty say. The stakeholder principle admits of a hierarchy of stake and say, which protects against the moral hazards of ‘long-distance nationalism’ while reaffirming that identification alone entitles exiles to some say. I outline three types of interests exiles can have at stake and illustrate the competing interests within a stakeholder community, and the problem of some exiles having disproportionate influence. The stakeholder principle correctly diagnoses worries about ‘armchair revolutionaries’: the problem with exile influence is not when exiles have a say, but when they have too much of a say relative to others.