Suchergebnisse

New challenges to democratization / Peter Burnell -- State sovereignty and democracy : an awkward coupling / Laurence Whitehead -- Ideological challenges to democracy : do they exist? / Marina Ottaway -- The continuing backlash against democracy promotion / Thomas Carothers -- Democracy assistance and the search for security / Nancy Bermeo -- Public support versus dissatisfaction in new democracies : an 'inside challenge'? / Renske Doorenspleet -- External sources and consequences of Russia's "sovereign democracy" / Michael Mcfaul and Regine A Spector -- Democratizing one-party rule in China / Shaun Breslin -- Democratization by whom? Resistance to democracy promotion in the Middle East / Bassma Kodmani -- Energy : a reinforced obstacle to democratization? / Richard Youngs -- Addressing democracy's challenges / Peter Burnell and Richard Youngs.

After World War II, democratization came into fashion as panacea for countries in transition. This trend continues to be an issue in the 21st century too. The implications of the transformation for public as well as private life are considerably different for women than for men. Studies have shown that even in democratic states gender inequality has been reinforced than effectively attenuated. Feminist theories take up the issue of female discrimination on a theoretical level and provide explanations and measures in order to erase these inequalities. Gender mainstreaming is an approach to address gender inequalities in practice. The European Union, as a community of values, promotes gender mainstreaming not only among its member states, but also for its candidate states in the context of external democracy promotion. This paper examines the current gender initiatives in Serbia which is currently an EU candidate country. In fact, there are many gender activities form different civil society actors and NGOs around Serbia. The positivist feminist theories are more apt to explain the current gender activities. The post-structuralist theories mainly deal with micro situations. Therefore, it is difficult to apply these perspectives in a study on the overall gender situation in a specific country. By contrast, these theories could be applied for studying micro situations within a particular country. Accordingly, the theory has implications on the research design for such a study. A study based on post-structuralist theory would be based on ethnography rather than statistical data and a literature review.

We analyze the process of democratization in a polity with groups that are divided along ethnic as well as economic lines. We show that: (i) the presence of ethnic minorities, in general, makes peaceful democratic transitions less likely; (ii) minorities suffer from discriminatory policies less in democracies with intermediate levels of income inequality; and (iii) in new democracies with low levels of income inequality, politics is divided along ethnic lines, and at greater levels of inequality economic cleavages predominate.

Explores the contention that fresh challenges have arisen to democratization and assesses the claim that democratization around the world is facing a serious challenge. This book examines the issues relating to developments within non-democratic states and issues related to the democratic world and its efforts to support the spread of democracy.

Since the lifting of martial law in 1987, Taiwan has progressed toward one of Asia's most advanced democracies. This paper looks at the historical and socio-political circumstances and traces the global and domestic factors behind the transformation. Assuming that advanced levels of democratic governance can only be obtained through mediated social control over the state and the economy, the study explores whether democratic values and norms have become internalized and identifies the current caveats of further democratic development. More specifically, the paper argues that although Taiwan's democratization has been caused by external sovereignty-related factors, the discourse on national identity has repoliticzed the public political realm after decades of authoritarianism and led to the habitualization of democratic values and norms. The paper concludes with an assessment of the prospects for comprehensive and inclusive public participation in the shaping of Taiwan's political conditions. (Asian Aff/GIGA)

The current Internet infrastructure is not able to support independent evolution and innovation at physical and network layer functionalities, protocols, and services, while at same time supporting the increasing bandwidth demands of evolving and heterogeneous applications. This paper addresses this problem by proposing a completely democratized optical network infrastructure. It introduces the novel concepts of optical white box and bare metal optical switch as key technology enablers for democratizing optical networks. These are programmable optical switches that their hardware is loosely connected internally and completely separated from their control software. To alleviate their complexity, a multidimensional abstraction mechanism utilising software defined network technology is proposed. It creates a universal model of the proposed switches without exposing their technological details. It also enables a conventional network programmer to develop network applications for control of the optical network without specific technical knowledge of the physical layer. Furthermore, a novel optical network virtualization mechanism is proposed, enabling composition and operation of multiple co-existing and application specific virtual optical networks sharing the same physical infrastructure. Finally, the optical white box and the abstraction mechanism are experimentally evaluated, while the virtualization mechanism is evaluated with simulation.

'Explaining Chinese Democratization' by Shahua Hu is reviewed.

An examination of the impact of the Guatemalan peace process on democratization & social justice focuses on what gains have/have not been achieved, & the expansion of political space. The Guatemalan experience from the early 1980s to the present is analyzed in relation to theoretical debates about democratization & social justice in Latin America. It is argued that situations involving long civil war/society upheavals cannot be completely understood from the viewpoint of the literature on democratic transitions. Rather, Central American countries that experienced revolutionary convulsions must also be examined within the context of the literature that emphasizes participatory & procedural dimensions of democratization. The evolution of the Guatemalan peace process is traced & key elements of the accords are described to contend that they have created a new political scenario. It is maintained however that democracy will remain weak & unconsolidated until the many resistances are overcome. The crucial issue of socioeconomic equity & its relation to political democracy are considered along with prospects for the future. 136 References. J. Lindroth

An examination of the impact of the Guatemalan peace process on democratization & social justice focuses on what gains have/have not been achieved, & the expansion of political space. The Guatemalan experience from the early 1980s to the present is analyzed in relation to theoretical debates about democratization & social justice in Latin America. It is argued that situations involving long civil war/society upheavals cannot be completely understood from the viewpoint of the literature on democratic transitions. Rather, Central American countries that experienced revolutionary convulsions must also be examined within the context of the literature that emphasizes participatory & procedural dimensions of democratization. The evolution of the Guatemalan peace process is traced & key elements of the accords are described to contend that they have created a new political scenario. It is maintained however that democracy will remain weak & unconsolidated until the many resistances are overcome. The crucial issue of socioeconomic equity & its relation to political democracy are considered along with prospects for the future. 136 References. J. Lindroth