Suchergebnisse

The generalized perception that the international system is changing due to the emergence of new great powers has been motivating analysts & policy makers to advance new proposals for institutional cooperation among democracies. This article studies two of those proposals -- John McCain's "League of Democracies" & the one of a study group of Princeton University -- and argues that they have very different origins & possible outcomes. Their differences are grounded in two competing conceptions of the United States role as global liberal actor. Adapted from the source document.

Este artigo tem por objetivo analisar alguns dos paradoxos relacionados ao liberalismo econômico e os discursos de segurança a ele subjacentes que, embora neguem os princípios basilares das democracias modernas, passam a fazer parte delas. Neste exame o principal eixo teórico será o pensamento de Foucault. Primeiramente será apontado que o liberalismo econômico, na análise foucaultiana, tem como premissa uma essência antropológica de ser humano, pois assume como ponto de partida que a liberdade só floresce na ausência de constrangimentos. Na medida em que esta premissa metafísica se impõe às instituições das democracias modernas, alguns desdobramentos se colocam. Surge a noção de que o papel das instituições democráticas é o de proporcionar liberdade. Entretanto, só pode haver liberdade se houver segurança. Assim, impõe-se um paradoxo: as democracias têm como telos a liberdade, mas a liberdade pressupõe medidas de segurança (na guerra ao terror, por exemplo) que negam tanto os preceitos democráticos quanto a própria liberdade. ; This article aims to analyze some of the paradoxes related to economic liberalism and the underlying security discourses that, although denying the basic principles of modern democracies, become part of them. In this exam the main theoretical axis will be Foucault's thought. First, it will be pointed out that economic liberalism, in Foucaultian analysis, has as its premise an anthropological essence of being human, since it assumes as its starting point that freedom only flourishes in the absence of constraints. As this metaphysical premise imposes itself on the institutions of modern democracies, some developments are posed. Arises the notion that the role of democratic institutions is to provide freedom. However, there can be freedom only if there is security. Therefore, a paradox is imposed: democracies have freedom as their telos, but freedom presupposes security measures (in the war on terror, for example) that deny both democratic precepts and freedom itself.

This article provides an overview and a broad comparison of the development of party membership in European democracies and discusses the implications of the decline in party membership for our understanding of party organization and party democracy. Our study provides an update of reporting by Mair and Van Rush (2001), which followed the study of Katz, Mair et al. (1992). The analysis covers the period from the late 1980s until the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century. The number of countries that is included is expanded (to 27), so our study now includes almost all European democracies, including the long-established democracies in Western Europe, the more recent democracies in Southern Europe as well as post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. The data we present are based on direct, individual membership figures as reported by the parties (in the article we show, moreover, that there is a strong correlation with the data come from survey research exists, however disadvantage of the survey data is that this level of party membership systematically overestimate). We analyze both the level of party membership expressed in raw numbers (M) and the party membership as a percentage of the electorate (M / E), an indicator that is more suitable for transnational comparisons. Adapted from the source document.