Suchergebnisse

Enhanced participation has been prescribed as the way forward for improving democratic decision making while generating positive attributes like trust. Yet we do not know the extent to which rules affect the outcome of decision making. This article investigates how different group decision rules affect group trust by testing three ideal types of decision rules (i.e., a Unilateral rule, a Representative rule and a 'Non‐rule') in a laboratory experiment. The article shows significant differences between the three decision rules on trust after deliberation. Interestingly, however, it finds that the Representative rule yields more trust than the Non‐rule and also significantly more trust than the Unilateral rule, when analysing the results at group level. These findings challenge the theoretical understanding by, for example, deliberative normative theorists that more inclusive, consensual and non‐hierarchical decision‐making procedures enhance trust vis‐à‐vis other more hierarchical decision‐making procedures.

Government formation in multi-party democracies is notoriously ridden with information uncertainty. Uncertainty is aggravated when new parties enter parliament, which generally suggests a 'newcomer handicap' in government formation. However, relegating newcomers to the opposition comes with uncertainty in its own right, which suggests immediate cabinet participation as new leaders seize the opportunity and established parties pursue containment. We explore elite responses to this strategic problem in the postcommunist democracies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) where new parties often gain parliamentary representation. Even in CEE, a newcomer handicap in government formation is apparent, controlling for other detrimental party attributes. However, this applies to small newcomers only. For larger parties the handicap turns into a bonus, an effect only qualified once the newcomer outnumbers its competitors. Either way, newness-induced uncertainty thus intensifies the strategic rationale of government formation. As party systems become more volatile, these findings are relevant beyond CEE.

Information & communication technology(ies) (ICT) is tipped to play an increasingly enabling role in the inclusion & exclusion of groups from participation in the discourse of 'development', with material consequences. In affecting how 'development' is framed, discussed & practiced, the conception & use of such technologies itself thus becomes an important field of discourse for the analysis of power relations in the 'developmental' field. This paper shows how a recent ICT-related initiative by the World Bank Group can be seen as an attempt to replicate its position of strength within the predominant, technocratic discourse of development, to the exclusion of alternative views of technology, & even of 'development' itself. Using a method of critical discourse analysis, the paper then examines a recent speech on ICT by the Bank's president, which provides a detailed example of the way in which existing, macro-level power structures are replicated at the micro-level of discursive practice. 44 References. Adapted from the source document.

Insbesondere der extreme Norden Nigerias ist in starkem Maße auf die Nutzung biologischer Energieträger (Feuerholz) angewiesen. Eine internationale Consulting-Firma (Silviconsult Ltd) wurde mit der Entwicklung eines den Lebensnotwendigkeiten angepaßten Ressourcennutzungsplanes beauftragt. Im vorliegenden Artikel werden die zentralen Empfehlungen von Silviconsult vorgestellt und kritisch diskutiert. (DÜI-Spl)

THE UNIVERSITY OF GHANA HAS DECIDED TO ESTABLISH AN AFRICAN CENTER FOR REGIONAL INTEGRATION. THE CENTER WILL HELP PROVIDE A NEW DIRECTION TO THE CURRENT INTEGRATION PROCESS IN AFRICA AND WILL HELP TO RESPOND EFFECTIVELY TO INTERLOCKING CHALLENGES THAT ARE SLOWING DOWN THE PROCESS OF REGIONALISM ON THE CONTINENT. THIS CENTER FOR REGIONAL INTEGRATION ILLUSTRATES THE EMPHASIS BEING PLACED ON THE NEED FOR AFRICAN ECONOMIC INTEGRATION AND GROWTH. THIS CENTER IS NEEDED BECAUSE SO FAR THERE IS SCANTY EVIDENCE OF ANY PRACTICAL SUCCESS IN THESE AREAS. THIS FAILURE IS DUE IN PART TO EXISTING INTEGRATION-ORIENTED INSTITUTIONS WHICH ARE NOT TECHNICALLY EQUIPPED TO EFFECTIVELY MEET THE CHALLENGES OF AFRICAN REGIONALISM. SIMILARLY, FAR TOO LITTLE ATTENTION HAS BEEN PAID TO POPULAR PARTICIPATION IN ECONOMIC INTEGRATION AND DEVELOPMENT. IT IS HOPED THAT THE PROPOSED AFRICAN CENTER FOR REGIONAL INTEGRATION WILL OFFER MUCH-NEEDED LEADERSHIP AT ALL LEVELS AND WILL PROVIDE A LINK BETWEEN RESEARCH, POLICY, AND THE DESIGN OF REGIONAL INTEGRATION.

This article analyses the constitutional, statutory and informal arrangements available to the Portuguese Assembly of the Republic for participation in EU decision making. The focus is on the 2006 European Scrutiny Act, the 2010 reform of the scrutiny procedures and the Barroso initiative. These developments provide a solid basis on which the Assembly's dependence on the Government can be reduced. The informal method of parliamentary scrutiny of EU affairs hitherto practised in Portugal has morphed into a document-based system. In these respects, the Portuguese Parliament no longer deserves the epithet of a laggard.

Discourse and rhetoric of service-user involvement are pervasive in all mental health services that see themselves as promoting a Recovery ethos. Yet, for the service-user movement internationally, 'Recovery' was articulated as an alternative discourse of overcoming and resisting an institutionalized and oppressive psychiatric model of care. Power is all pervasive within mental health services yet often overlooked in official discourse on user-involvement. Critical research is required to expose the unacknowledged structural and power constraints on participants. My research problematizes practices of user involvement in one mental health service area in Ireland. Part I of this article examines the background context of policies and practices of user-involvement from the service-user perspective and explains developments in relation to service-user involvement in the case of Ireland. Participants in my study articulate their motivation for engagement with mental health service reform in terms of the right to participate in social justice terms, of wanting to improve services and humanise care. Power dynamics emerge as one of the primary obstacles to equitable involvement. Part II of this article presents an explanatory framework of power, using a model developed in the field of development studies; Gaventa's (2006) 'power cube.' The three dimensions of the cube represent the forms, spaces and levels of power. The explanatory potential of this model to highlight how hidden and invisible power operates in mental health services is illustrated by selected comments from the same participants. The power cube is a useful tool to illuminate the dynamics occurring in service-user involvement spaces. Showing how different forms of power operate in the spaces and levels of mental health involvement can develop service-users' awareness of the hidden and invisible aspects of power. Through this awareness, they can strategize around their potential to influence decision-making in mental health services.

For many years, the organized Bar has sought to guide the process of judicial selection. Its greatest activity has been in metropolitan communities where the choice is nominally by vote of the people. Such participation by a quasi-public group in a democratic procedure raises several pertinent questions. For example, what effect will it probably have on methods of selection now in force? Is such activity likely to become an accepted feature of our political life? Is such participation to be regarded as in the public interest? Is it a specific corrective that the body politic has developed to counterbalance too much democracy in judicial selection?To shed some light on these and related questions, the writer (as a graduate student at the University of Chicago) made a study of judicial selection in Chicago from 1870 to 1933, particular attention being given to the rôle of the Chicago Bar Association in the process.

POWER IS ONE OF THE MOST COMMONLY USED CONCEPTS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES AND IN ORDINARY POLITICAL DISCOURSE. IT WOULD SEEM TO BE CENTRAL TO THE STUDY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS. IT IS DIFFICULT TO EXPLAIN SOCIAL RELATIONS AND THEIR OUTCOMES, AT EITHER THE NATIONAL OR INTERNATIONAL LEVEL, IN TERMS OF POWER AS IT IS NORMALLY CONCEIVED IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES. YET, HOWEVER THEORETICALLY SOPHISTICATED PEOPLE TRY TO BE, THEY ARE DRIVEN TO USE SOME SUCH CONCEPT FOR WANT OF AN ALTERNATIVE.

Preface -- References -- Acknowledgements -- Book Outline -- Contents -- Chapter 1: Introduction: Nationalism and Political Representation in Colonised Countries -- 1.1 Greek and Greek Cypriot Nationalism -- 1.2 Colonial Narratives of Party Politics -- 1.3 Cleavage Lines and Greek Intra-Ethnic Politics -- 1.3.1 A New Hegemonic Bloc and Internal Antitheses -- 1.4 Framework of Analysis: From Outsiders to Insiders and Back Again -- References -- Chapter 2: The New Social Terrain of (Nationalist) Party Politics -- 2.1 The End of Ottoman Occupation -- 2.1.1 Social Relations and the Socio-Political Elite -- 2.2 The British Colonial Era -- 2.3 Economic Reforms -- 2.4 A Society in Change -- 2.4.1 The Cypriot Bourgeoisie to the Fore -- 2.4.2 A New Elite -- 2.5 Social Relations and Sources of Clientele Relations -- References -- Censuses -- Cyprus Blue Books -- Chapter 3: Institutional Engineering and Political Change -- 3.1 The Legislative Council: A Quasi-Parliament -- 3.2 Voting Reform -- 3.3 Citizen Participation in Elections -- 3.3.1 Political Exclusionism -- 3.4 The Iron Law of Oligarchy: Elite Politics -- 3.5 Patronage Politics -- 3.6 The (Colonial) Limitations of (Nationalist) Party Politics -- 3.6.1 Compromised Democracy -- 3.6.2 Electoral Process as a Lightning Rod -- References -- Censuses -- Cyprus Blue Books -- Chapter 4: The Reconstruction of the Public Sphere: The Hegemony of Nationalism -- 4.1 Agents of Nationalism and the Demand for Enosis -- 4.2 The Nature and Singularities of the National Movement in Cyprus -- 4.3 The Popular Nature of the National Movement: An Artificial Construct? -- 4.4 Mechanisms of Transmission of the Nationalist Ideology -- 4.4.1 Education -- 4.4.2 Printed Media -- 4.4.3 The Balkan Wars -- 4.5 Ideas as Carriers of Change -- References -- Censuses -- Cyprus Blue Books

Grass-roots citizen groups have posed a fundamental challenge to institutional politics in West Germany over the past twenty years, an important aspect of which has been their adverse reaction to state-sponsored technological projects. Citizen protestors have challenged not just government policy decisions, but the legitimacy of the bureaucracies producing them, & have sought alternative political forms that would reconcile participatory democracy & technological development. Case studies of specific protest movements are subjected to a comparative analysis exploring their different forms & their impact on German politics. Adapted from the source document.

The presence of the internet as a communication and information technology that continues to innovate can give birth to a variety of social media that can be used by an individual for various purposes. Aside from being a means of communicating in cyberspace, social media classified as new media can be used as an effort to present one's self-image including politicians. Now social media can not be separated from the daily life of an individual. Not only as a social need, but the use of social media was able to give influence in the political world. Fast, inexpensive, and effective making social media the most important communication tool in politics. This article aims to discuss the various roles of social media in the political world in Indonesia. The method used is quantitative by identifying the text. The author will use the framing analysis method by taking three research results that explain the various roles of social media in the political world. The results of article writing explain that the role of social media in the political world in Indonesia is as a media campaign, the development of political literacy, and increased voter participation.

Introduction : the plight of the environmental scientist / Willem Halffman, Esther Turnhout & Willemijn Tuinstra -- What is science? (and why does this matter?) / Willem Halffman -- Frames : beyond facts versus values / Willem Halffman -- Case A framing climate-change / Mike Hulme -- Science, politics and the public in knowledge controversies / Esther Turnhout & Thomas Gieryn -- Case B what does 'climategate' tell us about public knowledge controversies? / Silke Beck -- Case C whose deficit anyway? : institutional misunderstanding of fracking sceptical publics / Laurence Williams & Phil Macnaghten -- The limits to knowledge / Willemijn Tuinstra, Ad Ragas & Willem Halffman -- Case D angry bulbs / Ad Ragas & Marga Jacobs -- Usable knowledge : science, policy and society / Willemijn Tuinstra, Willem Halffman & Esther Turnhout -- Case E expertise for European fisheries policy / Willem Halffman & Martin Pastoors -- Interdisciplinarity and the challenge of knowledge integration / Esther Turnhout -- Case F knowledge integration in the millennium ecosystem assessment / Clark Miller -- Case G integrated assessment for long-range transboundary air pollution / Willemijn Tuinstra -- Lay expertise / Esther Turnhout & Katja Neves -- Case H lay expertise and botanical science : a case of dynamic interdependencies in biodiversity conservation / Katja Neves -- Case I the Loweswater Care Project / Claire Waterton -- Environmental experts at the science-policy-society interface / Esther Turnhout -- Case J group think and whistle blowers in CO2 capture and storage / Heleen de Coninck -- Environmental knowledge in democracy / Esther Turnhout, Willem Halffman & Willemijn Tuinstra -- Conclusion : science, reason and the environment / Willem Halffman, Willemijn Tuinstra & Esther Turnhout