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Ghana is religiously diverse. Data from the country's Statistical Service indicates that as of 2010, 71.2% of the population was Christian, 17.6% was Muslim, and 5.2% were adherents of traditional religious beliefs. Non-believers accounted for only 5.3%. Believers other than believers of the three main religions were less than 1%. Despite the diversity, the country has enjoyed peaceful co-existence among all sects and denominations; sectarian violence is a rare phenomenon. Controversies about religious discrimination and stereotypes, and government over indulgence of religion are, however, not uncommon. This article examines the vexed question of separation of church and state in Ghana. It seeks to identify what the country's religious identity is —whether secular or otherwise—and the implication of that identity for religious expression in public life.

Lebanon stands out in the Middle East for its relative political openness, religious freedom, and the academic and professional achievements of Lebanese women. Yet, paradoxically, it has one of the lowest rates of women's political participation in the region. This paper is the result of an initiative undertaken by the Lebanese government in July 2012 to increase women's political participation. Through this initiative, sex-segregated workshops on women's political empowerment were held for male and female representatives of Lebanon's political parties. The goal was to start a productive conversation that would ultimately lead to progress from the 2012 status quo of women constituting only three percent of the National Parliament of Lebanon. In this paper, we will describe the process and content explored during the women's political empowerment workshops. Opportunities to affect change of the current level of women's participation will be highlighted and conclusions will be drawn to aid similar initiatives.

Recent developments in Europe starting with the Russia-Ukraine conflict and ending with the economic and political instability in Greece have given rise to instability in the European Union. Yet, none of the previous crises could be compared with the crisis concerning the current massive influx of refugees into the EU that challenges both solidarity and responsibility of the member states. In this context, it is extremely important to understand the actual security threats related to the refugee crisis, particularly for the Baltic countries that have linked their security with European Union and the NATO. Particularly in Estonia and in Latvia, the refugee crisis has been presented as a high security matter as possible rejection of the EU-migrant could lead to the country's isolation from the international community, the loss of the NATO security network and its exposure to the security threats from Russia. Alternative decision to accept the refugee quotas could on the other hand create challenges for internal security in terms of legitimacy of national governments and public support to refugee policy. In the light of recent terrorist attacks in France these questions seem even growingly important.

The objective of this research to know the views members of the Arab community hold towards the political culture in its three dimensions. Members of the Arab community in Germany (ACG) were asked as well as about the sources of political information and about their views about the current events in the Arab world (Arab Spring). After reviewing relevant literature and concepts of political culture the researcher developed a questionnaire which was distributed to members of the ACG in several German cities of different sizes, both in West and East Germany.The study used package (SPSS) statistical analysis of the study and adoption of percentages and frequencies, averages and standard deviations to examine the study questions and used Independent Samples Test to examine the hypotheses of the study. The results of the study indicate that the political culture of the Arab community in Germany is close and homogeneous and that the similarity of the political and social environment outweighs the differences of the many Arabian countries of origin. The reason for this is attributed to the fact that Germany as the hosting country is governed by the principles of democracy and political and cultural pluralism, , and this in turn reflects positively on the political culture of the members of the Arab community which is integrated rather than fragmented.On a political level the study has shown that communication between the formal and informal German institutions with members of the Arab community needs to be improved and that members of the Arab community in Germany need to be encouraged to get involved and participate more in political life in Germany regarding both, general elections and affiliation to German political parties.

In late 2013, the Kansas Board of Regents proposed a social media policy, a policy which the board eventually unanimously approved. The policy authorized "the chief executive officer of a state university…to suspend, dismiss or terminate from employment any faculty or staff member who makes improper use of social media." A strong and unified condemnation of the policy followed, led primarily by the faculty of those institutions and their various faculty governance organizations. This conflict between the free speech rights of academics and the governing authority of government and university administrations in the state of Kansas was neither the first nor last such conflict; U.S. courts had already established a doctrine over the free speech rights of public employees. Therefore, this conflict presents an opportunity to observe how the judicial establishment and definition of rights affects subsequent political conflict and discourse. The conflict over the social media policy adopted by the Kansas Board of Regents raises questions of whether the established judicial articulations of free speech in an academic setting shaped the efforts of Kansas faculty in opposition to this policy and the crafting of the policy itself.

The territorial disputes in the South China Sea have become the major flashpoints of both potential and existing conflicts in Asia. With claimant states from both China and member states of ASEAN, the aggressive military gestures of the claimant states have led to a myriad number of confrontations throughout the years. The inevitability of ASEAN being in the center of the disputes, have led many critics towards the regional organization on its capacity to establish any significant changes towards the dynamics of the South China Sea disputes. This research argues the opposite of the existing academic literatures, which views ASEAN as not an ideal actor in facing the fast paced dynamics of the South China Sea conflicts. It argues of ASEAN's ability and capacity to persuade China into some forms of compromises into its policy, reflected through its defined position of a conflict management institution throughout the South China Sea crisis. The research thus argues how there is an existing misperception of ASEAN's conflict management endeavors with the occurrence of China's recent assertive gestures, ASEAN's ability in instilling cooperative values and confidence building measures among conflicted states, and relevance of ASEAN's multilateralism measures despite of China's historical stance of bilateral means of conflict resolution in regards to the South China Sea conflict.

This essay argues that the global trade liberalization, particularly since 1995, strengthens some transnational corporations (TNCs) to become more powerful. In this sense, some statements argued by state-centric realism have to be revised; however, doing that does not mean that realism is fully out-of-date. The case studies suggest that mother country, such as the U.S., is a critical agent for TNCs to project their power and/or to protect their vital interest in the global market. In other word, sovereign state, especially the stronger one, is still important under some specific conditions. Ironically, most countries in the global south are increasingly retreating from the stage of international trade while TNCs from the North are detaining many efficient means of control over technology, capital and even political access.

This research tests the association between legislature size and the size of 'non-elite' populations in the American states. The theoretical assumption is that larger legislatures will be populated by a more diverse group of members, who will better represent and advocate for non-elites. Data are drawn from three time periods, which captures considerable variation in important variables, and provides a robust test of association between the size of state legislatures and certain sub-populations. The research demonstrates that larger Lower Chambers are marginally associated with a lower percentage of adults without a high school diploma, easily associated with a larger percentage of the states' poor receiving Medicaid, and also related to smaller state prison populations. This is the case after controlling for demographic and economic factors that also predict the size of these sub-populations. The findings suggest legislature size plays a role in dominant contemporary policy arenas and that there may be societal benefits associated with larger—more diverse—assemblies.

This paper explores the idea that poor governance explains the rise of separatist nationalism in situations such as Zambia, Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia (in Africa) that had previously been independently governed during the colonial times, but later joined other states at independence to enjoy normal politics, but later degenerated into violent separatist nationalism. Our argument is that centralisation of power in an environment in which cultural groups are calling for regional autonomy, for even development, and for the international community to intervene on the side of peace, create grounds that explain the rise of violent separatist movements. The Barotseland Protectorate negotiated for autonomous development and, after securing constitutional guarantees in its favour, voluntarily joined Zambia in what was expected to be a one nation, two states system. After four decades of resisting constitutional amendments in favour of the centralisation of power, the Barotse of Zambia abandoned the politics of autonomous development and started calling for a separate state. Their resolve to remain peaceful is not aided by the international community that is reluctant to intervene, exposing the political process to radicals who consider violence as an alternative. The paper argues that violent separatist politics is preventable.

Following a deliberative shift towards public–private partnership networks in global environmental governance, the multi-stakeholder framework is increasingly advocated for engaging multiple actors in collective decision-making. As this arrangement relies on proper participatory conditions in order to include all relevant stakeholders, input legitimacy is crucial to achieving legitimate outcomes. However, 'stakeholding' implies that actors—recast into a specific institutional context—are sorted into new formal or informal categories. This paper scrutinizes the clean development mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol to interrogate the problematic issue of 'stakeholding'—i.e. the 'sorting' of actors—in enacting the multi-stakeholder framework. Based on an analysis of 25 CDM projects that provides insight into the widest range of participation opportunities for civil society regarding specific projects, this paper considers how certain institutional context of the Mechanism's stakeholder framework affects the involvement of civil society actors and the implications of this for balanced and fair input legitimacy. The findings suggest that, in practice, the informal corporate-induced sorting of actors into internal and external stakeholders keeps civil society actors outside the CDM's inner circle, forcing them to voice their concerns regarding specific projects via CDM insiders or through irregular channels. Furthermore, the absence of a clear definition of stakeholder in local consultations results in the inclusion of unsorted actors, destabilizing the distribution of participation opportunities. The paper concludes that recasting the deliberative principles of openness and plurality into the CDM's corporate-inspired stakeholding creates a specific institutional context that imposes more than one set of perhaps incompatible stakeholder categories while impairing input legitimacy.