Suchergebnisse

Although frequently invoked as a rhetorical tool in political discussions, "political will" remains ambiguous as a concept. Acknowledging the centrality of political will to policy outcomes, the authors propose a pragmatic and systematic approach to definition. This approach facilitates analysis by identifying particular shortcomings in political will. This identification in turn permits the application of appropriate theoretical frameworks from various disciplines and the effective construction and use of ameliorative measures. The authors also address fundamental issues like the specification of contexts. The analytical approach includes a conceptual definition dissected into essential components, along with corresponding means of operationalization and targets for assessment. Among the major definitional components are requirements that a sufficient set of decision makers intends to support a particular initiative and that such support is committed. The latter condition is difficult to ascertain, but various signals, influences, and constraints on action are observable.Aunque frecuentemente invocado como una herramienta retórica en las discusiones políticas, "la voluntad política" se mantiene como unconcepto ambiguo. Reconociendo la importancia de la voluntad política en los resultados políticos, los autores proponen una aproximación pragmática y sistemática para su definición. Esta aproximación facilita el análisis al identificar faltas particulares en el concepto de voluntad política. Dicha identificación permite a su vez la aplicación del marco teórico apropiado de varias disciplinas y la construcción efectiva y utilización de medidas de mejoramiento. Los autores abordan también tópicos fundamentales como la importancia del contexto. La aproximación analítica incluye una definición conceptual diseccionada en componentes esenciales, junto con medios correspondientes de operacionalización y los objetivos a evaluar. Entre los componentes más importantes de la definición están los requerimientos que una serie de hacedores de políticas intente apoyar una iniciativa particular y que dicho apoyo sea real. La última condición es difícil de determinar, pero varias señales, influencias, y limitaciones son observables.

This paper explores the prescriptive arguments for and against political participation in social work. The literature on political participation is briefly reviewed and data from a survey looking at political participation among social workers is presented. Data analysis on political participation by sex, ethnicity, award, task, years in practice and attitude toward political involvement is presented.

This paper argues that the World Social Forum and larger Global Justice and Solidarity Movement of which it is a part are important sites for the elaboration of a new form of cultural politics. Although culture is often considered secondary or subservient to supposedly more serious political issues, various actors and practices, as well as the events of the Forum, demonstrate that culture is a key site for transformative political action. The paper argues that in order for concerned actors to both understand and develop the potential of the new political tools presented by the World Social Forum, and other actors critical of neo‐liberal globalisation, we must dispel common misconceptions about the nature of culture and politics. We must recognise the centrality of culture to all political action. The paper considers both the way the Forum has been written about and particular struggles within the social forum processes that demonstrate the salience of these cultural politics.

We consider an economy where competing political parties alternate in office. Due to rent-seeking motives, incumbents have an incentive to set public expenditures above the socially optimum level. Parties cannot commit to future policies, but they can forge a political compromise where each party curbs excessive spending when in office if it expects future governments to do the same. We find that if the government cannot manipulate state variables, more intense political competition fosters a compromise that yields better outcomes, potentially even the first best. By contrast, if the government can issue debt, vigorous political competition can render a compromise unsustainable and drive the economy to a low-welfare, high-debt, long-run trap. Our analysis thus suggests a legislative tradeoff between restricting political competition and constraining the ability of governments to issue debt.

There is substantial evidence that intolerance arises from perceptions of difference. A prevailing view holds that even if intolerance is understandable as a defense mechanism, or as an attitude intended to ward off threatening groups and noxious activities, it often is the result of human irrationality and indulgence of prejudice. This conclusion is supported by studies that seem to demonstrate the apparent irrelevance of the actual level of threat to levels of intolerance. These studies show human actions attendant to diversity are caused by established convictions (i.e., prejudice) rather than by the degree of threat. However, informed by theoretical approaches provided by neuroscientists, we report findings that threat is, indeed, a provocative factor that modifies political tolerance in predictable ways. Previous studies defined threat as probabilistic assessments of the likelihood of bad events. When threat is defined as novelty and normative violations (i.e., as departures from expected, or normal, occurrence), then consistent relationships to intolerance are obtained.

There is more to modern 'political religions' than political ritual and religious semantics, as is normally assumed with regard to National Socialism and other totalitarian regimes. Ideologies and political style do matter, but they do not provide the answer as to how 'dead certainty' was achieved about the ultimate mission. The terror of the revolutionary 'furies' and the 'sacrifice' of national revivalism provide a historical trajectory for the proposition that in the modern world it is not the violence that is in the religion, but the religion that is in the violence. Fundamentalist violence - from the Holocaust to the attacks of September 11 2001 - must therefore be seen as the touchstone for an economy of the sacred in a secularized world. Thus, the 'morality of violence' (Sorel, 1990) feeds into acts of political terrorism and genocide not just by way of legitimation but also as a proof of the transcendent quality of political violence itself. 1 Illustration, 65 References. (Original abstract - amended)

THE THEME I PROPOSE TO TREAT HERE RUNS LIKE A PARALLEL tributary to the mainstream of Giovanni Sartori's theme: 'We are living above and beyond our intelligence'. But while Sartori concentrates his attention on the pros and cons of 'political engineering' in the modern society, its feasibility and cost benefits, I concentrate on the question which can be summarily formulated as follows: 'can modern political judgment itself, i.e. before it sets political engineering, or indeed policy-making, in motion, comprehend (in the double meaning of the expression) the issues upon which it should be exerted in their individual esotericism and in their collective array?' But before starting to examine this question, I must make a few caveats.

Abstract We theoretically investigate how political abstention among certain social groups encourages populist parties to enter the political stage, trying to absorb inactive voters. We design a two-stage game with two established parties and n voters who jointly determine a taxation policy. The electorate is divided into two groups, the advantaged and the disadvantaged. Voters' decisions on whether to participate depend on a party's tax rate proposal and on general party ideology. Effective political participation requires a certain amount of financial, social and intellectual resources to, for example, evaluate party programs or to engage in political discussion. As the disadvantaged are endowed with fewer resources, they lack political efficacy, resulting in less political participation. Consequently, the established parties propose a tax rate which is biased towards the preferences of the advantaged. The unused voter potential among the disadvantaged draws the interest of a populist challenger. To win support from the disadvantaged, the challenger party optimally proposes a respectively biased tax rate, which then works to polarize the political spectrum.Please confirm if the author names are presented accurately and in the correct sequence (given name, middle name/initial, family name). Author 1 Given name: [Kim Leonie] Last name [ Kellermann]. Also, kindly confirm the details in the metadata are correct.All correct.

Report for 1914 forms v. 5, no. 4 of the Proceedings of the Academy. ; Mode of access: Internet.

La confianza política ha sido identificada como uno de los indicadores centrales de la adhesión de los ciudadanos a su sistema político y, en especial, a la democracia. Como consecuencia de esto, investigadores han planteado que existe una estrecha relación entre confianza y participación política. Sin embargo, las características de dicha relación no han sido del todo definidas en la literatura comparada. En este artículo exploro la relación entre confianza y participación política en América Latina utilizando datos de lapop 2014. Sostengo que los individuos que más confían en sus instituciones tienden a participar en mayor medida en modalidades de participación convencionales, mientras que aquellos que desconfían más de sus instituciones utilizan otros mecanismos, como las protestas. En esa relación, la eficacia política ocupa un lugar importante en los mecanismos de participación convencional.