The Portuguese ‘New State’ and the Diffusion of Authoritarian Models in Interwar Latin America

As an authoritarian ‘gravity centre’ in the interwar period, the Portuguese New State was not the product of strong propaganda or power capacity. Its force of attraction derived, essentially, from having an international means of diffusion: important segments of the Catholic Church's organizations, its associated intellectual politicians, and particularly from having led a corporatist and authoritarian political system model. How and why did Salazar's New State inspire some of the new political institutions proposed by radical right-wing elites or created by many of these regimes? This article tackles this issue by adopting a transnational and comparative research approach, paying particular attention to the primary mediators of its diffusion and analyzing institutional reform processes in selected processes of crises and transitions to authoritarianism in Latin America.

Formulating the legislative structure of a hate crime

While hate crime legislation is well established in England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, Ireland has failed to address the issue of hate crime on a statutory basis. Law reform processes are currently underway across these jurisdictions, and this article seeks to explore a fundamental question in this context, that is, the relative merits of various approaches to structuring hate crime legislation.

Professional education in the digital transformation society

Purpose of the article is analysis of the experience of training students in the context of digital transformation. The article presents the dynamics of the development of online schools at the global level, highlights the main goals of using electronic educational resources. The respondents were presented with the variety of answer options. The most common were selected and put into a separate diagram. Results says the development of online education is being carried out at a high rate both in Russia and at the global level. Digital transformation gives rise to the demand for the development of new professions directly related to electronic instruments. Based on the data obtained, first of all, there is a need for specialists who are ready for high-quality teaching of students in the online space. The variety of electronic educational resources expands the opportunities for their training and focuses professional education on new reform processes.

Rethinking Electoral Reform Processes after the Report of the Electoral Commission on the Review of the MMP Voting System

<p>The 2012 Report of the Electoral Commission on the Review of the MMP system recommended that several changes be made to the way in which future parliaments are elected in New Zealand. The lack of legislative response to the recommendations highlighted an issue inherent in New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements - that changes to electoral rules are designed and enacted by politicians, and there is no mechanism through which citizens can initiate or meaningfully engage with electoral reform processes. This paper looks at whether there is a better way that such proposals for electoral rule changes could be managed, proposing the use of ‘citizen initiated’ Citizens’ Assemblies on Electoral Reform.</p>

Rethinking Electoral Reform Processes after the Report of the Electoral Commission on the Review of the MMP Voting System

<p>The 2012 Report of the Electoral Commission on the Review of the MMP system recommended that several changes be made to the way in which future parliaments are elected in New Zealand. The lack of legislative response to the recommendations highlighted an issue inherent in New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements - that changes to electoral rules are designed and enacted by politicians, and there is no mechanism through which citizens can initiate or meaningfully engage with electoral reform processes. This paper looks at whether there is a better way that such proposals for electoral rule changes could be managed, proposing the use of ‘citizen initiated’ Citizens’ Assemblies on Electoral Reform.</p>

Taming the Incumbency Advantage: Innovative Constitutional Designs from the "South"

This Discussion Paper was drafted for an International IDEA webinar on Taming the Incumbency Advantage (25 May 2021), the first of a series on innovative constitutional design options. It has been revised and updated to reflect contributions from webinar participants: Professor Juvence F. Ramasy (Madagascar), Professor Ridwanul Hoque (Bangladesh) and Professor Gabriel Negretto (Latin America), among others. The webinar series seeks to identify, discuss, profile and showcase the ‘hidden treasures’ of innovative constitutional/institutional design options—including from the Global ‘South’—with potential to help tackle emerging and recurrent challenges facing societies around the world. The goal is not to promote any specific institutional design, but rather to enrich conversations about constitutional reform processes and share comparative constitutional law and practice insights among academic and practitioners’ communities.

HISTORICAL AND LEGAL ANALYSIS OF THE HEALTH CARE WORKERS’ LEGAL STATUS DEVELOPMENT

The article is devoted to historical and legal analysis of the health care workers’ legal status development. The paper analyses the beginning of the establishment of the first rules of behavior and professional responsibilities of medical workers in Ukraine, as well as regulations governing the legal status of medical workers in different years in Ukraine. It has been emphasized on the importance of research in the context of the modern health sector reforms for the formation of its directions of implementation. The administrative and legal status of a medical worker makes it possible to determine their place and role in public administration and other public relations. The rights and responsibilities of health care workers are of great scientific and practical importance, especially in view of the ongoing health care reform processes in the country. In view of this, it is important to study the peculiarities of the formation of certain rights and responsibilities of medical workers, which constitute their current legal status, over a significant period of the Ukrainian history.

Prospects for decentralization in Ukraine: the experience of Poland

This article is an overview of local government reform processes in Ukraine. We focus on two key issues - the current state of decentralization and the problems of its further implementation. It is necessary to ensure a decentralization process that includes legislation, organization and society at the same time. We paid special attention to the process of creation of amalgamated territorial communities and highlighted its advantages and future risks. We also analysed such issues as local budget revenue in the context of decentralization of financial resources, problems of creating the financial base of local communities. Finally, the regional features of the association of territorial communities and problems with shaping the basic level of local self-government in Ukraine were analysed.

La Constitución después de octubre: el proceso constituyente frente a la crisis del neoliberalismo

This article analyses the constitutional crisis that was triggered in Chile by the events of 18 October 2019. The purpose is to explain the link between the constitution and social unrest and to explore whether a constituent process, such as the one designed in Chile, has the potential to address the unrest that produced it. The failed experience of Bachelet’s constituent process and the Latin American reform processes of the last thirty years show the threats and challenges of the future Chilean constitution.

Democratic Institutions Without Democratic Content?-New Regionalism and Democratic Backsliding in Regional Reforms in Sweden

The aim of this article is to examine trends of democratic backsliding associated with the long standing reform work on regional institutions and policies in Sweden. To this end, democratic backsliding is conceptualized in a different manner compared to conventional understandings. By doing so, the article highlights a missing aspect in the research on democratic backsliding that concerns how well-intended reforms designed to strengthen democratic institutions can also harbor non-democratic consequences. In Sweden, a new political arena was created when the former county councils were transformed into so-called called regions in 2019. As part of this, the regions have been assigned responsibility for both health care and regional development planning. The overall research problem to be analyzed in this article focuses on the relations between the policy objectives for democracy and regionalist ideas of economic growth that both were central concerns in the reform processes. The results highlight how the governing rationalities in the regional reform processes have changed during the period between 1990 and 2020. The original conception of creating a mini-version of a liberal and representative democracy have turned into a form of democratic backsliding privileging economic goals. The economic rationalities that permeate the political sphere today close the space for articulated different interests and opinions-a dimension that we argue is crucial for any democratic society. We draw two main conclusions: First that the neoliberal aspect of governing is missing in the analysis of democracy at the regional level, resulting in a descriptive discussion of democracy that tend to ignore the effects of the particularly strong emphasis on economic growth. Secondly, that there is a lack of a discussion on democracy that takes the regional level into account, i.e., that the sub-national level should be regarded and thus discussed as a distinctive level of democracy.