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This paper uses a unique data set on over 1,400 world leaders between 1848 and 2004 to investigate differences in educational qualifications between leaders who are selected in democracies and autocracies. After including country and year fixed effects, we find that democracies are around 20% more likely to select highly educated leaders. This finding is robust to a wide range of specifications, choices of subsamples, controls, and ways of measuring education and democracy.

The specific institutionalization of time is a major defining element of democracies and a vulnerable condition of their stability and legitimacy. The first part of the chapter covers the regular temporal routines of democratic systems. In the synchronic dimension, it considers the time requirements of democratic practices and examines the timed relationship between different levels and actors of the democratic system. In the diachronic dimension, the chapter asks for the time horizons that temporal constitutions of democracies create for political actors—related to future expectations and to past experiences. The second part of the chapter turns to time challenges democracies face today. First, it addresses the issue of social acceleration that goes along with potential vulnerabilities and adaptabilities of democratic systems. Second, the chapter discusses problems created by situations of crisis in states of emergency and in democratic transitions. Based on that, the chapter draws some conclusions for future research. ; Peer Reviewed

In this article I present democracy as a distributive system containing two basic principles: to elect and to be elected. I call this distributive track system 'local political justice'. From this, I inquire under what circumstances a citizen adhering to these 'tracks' can be perceived as disadvantaged and as a creditor, in the public arena of modern democracies, who can present a claim. I analyze how to handle the situation of the disadvantaged with the institutionalization of the selection by lots. And finally, try to provide exploratory arguments showing that the institutions of the lottery draw (i) is not inconsistent with the preferences of citizens who do not want it, (ii) its adoption does not harm them and finally (iii) its adoption improve the condition of those disadvantaged who propose it. ; En este artículo presento la democracia como un sistema distributivo que contiene dos principios básicos: elegir y ser elegido. Denomino a este sistema de pistas distributivas 'justicia local política'. A partir de ello indago bajo qué circunstancias un ciudadano que adhiere a esas 'pistas' puede percibirse como desventajado y como acreedor a enunciar, en la arena pública de las actuales democracias, un reclamo. Analizo de qué manera es posible atender su situación de desventajado con la institucionalidad del sorteo. Y finalmente, trato de brindar argumentos exploratorios que muestren que la institucionalidad del sorteo (i) no es incompatible con las preferencias de los ciudadanos que no la desean, (ii) por tanto su adopción no los perjudica y finalmente (iii) que su adopción mejora la condición de aquellos desventajados que la proponen.

"Geopolitical competition between liberal democracies and authoritarian States is one of the defining features of our age. Most of this competition takes place below the threshold of armed confrontation, using measures short of war. Relying on the notions of hybrid threats and grey zone conflict to help make sense of these developments, this book brings together thinkers from various disciplines and backgrounds to consider some of the most pressing legal and ethical questions that arise in this context. The volume offers readers an assessment of the key concepts, trends and dynamics as well as a detailed analysis of specific areas. Individual chapters explore to what extent the existing rules and institutions of international law remain suitable for containing contemporary forms of geopolitical rivalry, how the law itself serves as an instrument, domain and object of strategic contestation and what ethical principles might provide normative guidance to liberal democracies and inform the application of conventional legal categories. The contributions in the book reflect different perspectives and approaches, but share the common assumption that hybrid threats and grey zone conflict exploit the vulnerabilities of democratic nations and pose substantial challenges to the international legal system. By providing a systematic assessment of these challenges, the book contributes to a better understanding of the field and towards devising more effective responses to address the adverse effects that hybrid and grey zone conflict have on liberal democracies and on the international rule of law"--

En este artículo presento la democracia como un sistema distributivo que contiene dos principios básicos: elegir y ser elegido. Denomino a este sistema de pistas distributivas 'justicia local política'. A partir de ello indago bajo qué circunstancias un ciudadano que adhiere a esas 'pistas' puede percibirse como desventajado y como acreedor a enunciar, en la arena pública de las actuales democracias, un reclamo. Analizo de qué manera es posible atender su situación de desventajado con la institucionalidad del sorteo. Y finalmente, trato de brindar argumentos exploratorios que muestren que la institucionalidad del sorteo (i) no es incompatible con las preferencias de los ciudadanos que no la desean, (ii) por tanto su adopción no los perjudica y finalmente (iii) que su adopción mejora la condición de aquellos desventajados que la proponen. ; In this article I present democracy as a distributive system containing two basic principles: to elect and to be elected. I call this distributive track system 'local political justice'. From this, I inquire under what circumstances a citizen adhering to these 'tracks' can be perceived as disadvantaged and as a creditor, in the public arena of modern democracies, who can present a claim. I analyze how to handle the situation of the disadvantaged with the institutionalization of the selection by lots. And finally, try to provide exploratory arguments showing that the institutions of the lottery draw (i) is not inconsistent with the preferences of citizens who do not want it, (ii) its adoption does not harm them and finally (iii) its adoption improve the condition of those disadvantaged who propose it. ; Fil: Avaro, Dante Adalberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Villa María; Argentina

The main contribution of this study is to identify democracies in the world that are at risk of becoming non-democracies. It is hypothesized that if democracies have a low level of legitimacy and have low effectiveness, they are at risk of becoming non-democratic regimes. These types of democracies are called weak democracies. Of the seven democracies that are identified as weak democracies between 2000 and 2010, the weakest of them, Mali, has already fallen. However, looking at the results of this study, it is not surprising that the democratic regime in Mali fell. The other six countries that are identified as weak democracies are Benin, Mongolia, Lesotho, El Salvador, Belize, and Mexico. The democratic regimes in these six weak democracies should be observed in more detail in the future to predict whether they are close to falling and losing their democratic institutions, or whether they will recover and no longer be weak democracies. Adapted from the source document.

Almost forty years ago, evidence from large studies of adult twins and their relatives suggested that between 30-60% of the variance in social and political attitudes could be explained by genetic influences. However, these findings have not been widely accepted or incorporated into the dominant paradigms that explain the etiology of political ideology. This has been attributed in part to measurement and sample limitations, as well the relative absence of molecular genetic studies. Here we present results from original analyses of a combined sample of over 12,000 twins pairs, ascertained from nine different studies conducted in five democracies, sampled over the course of four decades. We provide evidence that genetic factors play a role in the formation of political ideology, regardless of how ideology is measured, the era, or the population sampled. The only exception is a question that explicitly uses the phrase "Left-Right". We then present results from one of the first genome-wide association studies on political ideology using data from three samples: a 1990 Australian sample involving 6,894 individuals from 3,516 families; a 2008 Australian sample of 1,160 related individuals from 635 families and a 2010 Swedish sample involving 3,334 individuals from 2,607 families. No polymorphisms reached genome-wide significance in the meta-analysis. The combined evidence suggests that political ideology constitutes a fundamental aspect of one's genetically informed psychological disposition, but as Fisher proposed long ago, genetic influences on complex traits will be composed of thousands of markers of very small effects and it will require extremely large samples to have enough power in order to identify specific polymorphisms related to complex social traits.

Parliamentary democracy is the most common way of organizing delegation and accountability in contemporary democracies. Yet knowledge of this type of regime has been incomplete and often unsystematic. Aiming to provide conceptual clarity, this book shows how representation issues can be understood

"European Democracies is an introduction to the politics and governments of Western, Central, and Eastern Europe. Organized thematically rather than country-by-country, this fully revised edition examines topics such as electoral systems, the European Union, refugees and the welfare state, and asks how to explain variations in policy outcomes, and how globalization is affecting European Democracies, among others. Throughout, the author treats Europe as a single but diverse entity and asks readers to compare what they learn about European politics with the politics of their own country. Key features in this new edition include: An updated thematic introduction to the politics and governments of Europe; Fully revised to include comprehensive coverage of recent electoral politics and political events in Europe, such as Brexit, the refugee crisis, and terrorist attacks; New chapters on immigration and the nature of European political culture and welfare state. New comparative sections covering topics such as political parties, and financial and political differences in governments between Europe and the USA."-- Provided by publisher.

Latin America's democracies are not in danger of collapse at this time. But there are many real problems, and not many indications that these problems are being addressed with imagination and determination.

This article identifies for the first time systematic performance differences between younger and older democracies and argues that these are driven by the inability of political competitors to make broadly credible preelectoral promises to voters. Younger democracies are more corrupt; exhibit less rule of law, lower levels of bureaucratic quality and secondary school enrollment, and more restrictions on the media; and spend more on public investment and government workers. This pattern is exactly consistent with the predictions of Keefer and Vlaicu (n.d.). The inability of political competitors to make credible promises to citizens leads them to prefer clientelist policies: to underprovide nontargeted goods, to overprovide targeted transfers to narrow groups of voters, and to engage in excessive rent seeking. Other differences that young democracies exhibit, including different political and electoral institutions, greater exposure to political violence, and greater social fragmentation, do not explain, either theoretically or empirically, these policy choices.