Suchergebnisse

Liberal democracies often include rights of participation, guarantees of protection, and policies that privilege model citizens within a bounded territory. Notwithstanding claims of universal equality for "humanity," they achieve these goals by epistemically elevating certain traits of identity above "others," sustaining colonial biases that continue to favor whoever is regarded more "human." The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these fault lines, unveiling once more the often-hidden prevalence of inequalities that are based on race, gender, class, ethnicity, and other axes of power and their overlaps. Decolonial theories and practices analyze these othering tendencies and inequalities while also highlighting how sites of suffering sometimes become locations of solidarity and agency, which uncover often-erased alternatives and lessons.

ASYMMETRIC NEGOTIATIONS HAVE BEEN FOUND, WHERE THERE IS A POWER IMBALANCE AMONG THE ACTORS, TO YIELD MORE SATIFYING AND EFFICIENT OUTCOMES THAN NEGOTIATIONS AMONG ACTORS OF EVEN POWER. IN LIGHT OF THE RECENT INTEREST IN THE FOREIGN POLICY BEHAVIOR OF DEMOCRATIC STATES, THE ANALYSIS IS EXTENDED TO DYADS CONTAINING DEMOCRACIES VERSUS DYADS WITHOUT DEMOCRACIES. GENERALLY, WEAK AND INCONCLUSIVE RESULTS LEND SUPPORT TO THE STRUCTURALIST DILEMMA. MORE SATISFYING OUTCOMES OCCUR WHEN DEMOCRACIES ARE PRESENT IN CONFLICT NEGOTIATIONS.

This contribution to "Debate: Transparency" notes that the voting public can 'evict' elected officials & policymakers guilty of poor performance in their jobs or of corrupt practices, but to do this fairly, people need to have the appropriate information to determine who is actually guilty, which requires that policymakers be transparent about their behavior & actions. Focus here is on the incentives that encourage officials to accurately report their actions to the public & how these might differ under various regime types, in this case, democracies & autocracies. The Polity IV measure (covering 161 countries, 1800-1999) is used to measure electoral accountability, drawing on data revealing competition for the election of a state's chief executive; electoral transparency; institutional constraints limiting the executive's decision-making authority; competitiveness in political participation; & whether there are binding rules governing political participation. Results show, eg, that out of a maximum score of 7.6, the Netherlands is at the top, the US receives a score of 7.2, & Cuba, 2.2. Tables, References. J. Stanton

This book is based on experience and reflections related to international support provided to parliaments and legislative bodies both in selected countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Ghana, Serbia, and Kyrgyzstan) and globally. The author intends to provide a critique of parliamentary support, as part of development assistance or foreign aid, for having been conceived in narrow terms of technical assistance and for failing to appreciate that aid effectiveness calls for a sound understanding of a country's politics, culture, and history. The monograph examines the effectiveness of aid in both stable democracies, and fragile and transition countries. The project is ideal for audiences interested in regional politics, the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, Central Asia, and development/democracy studies.

Korruption, Zweckentfremdung von Ressourcen und Verschwendung durch politische Entscheidungsträger sind endemische Bestandteile der Politik und häufig die Ursachen einer schwachen Wirtschaftskraft. Wähler in Demokratien können diese Missstände reduzieren, indem sie auf die Wahlversprechen der Politiker hinweisen. Dazu sind jedoch Informationen notwendig, um die Verantwortlichkeit der korrupten und ineffizienten politischen Führung für die enttäuschende Wirtschaftsentwicklung nachzuweisen. Die Studie untersucht nun die Anreize der politischen Entscheidungsträger hinsichtlich der Informationsbereitstellung über ihre politischen Handlungen bzw. ihr politisches Verhalten sowie die Unterschiede bei der Bereitschaft zur Transparenz in verschiedenen Regierungsformen und politischen Systemen. Die entsprechende Ausgangsthese lautet, dass die politischen Akteure die Gewinne aus der Bereicherung mit den Risiken ihrer Entlassung ausbalancieren, die so genannte 'Absetzung/Bereicherungs-Einbuße' bei der Abwesenheit von Transparenz. In diesem Zusammenhang werden zwei weitere Annahmen empirisch getestet: (1) Demokratien sind am transparentesten. (2) Die Amtszeit von politischen Kompetenzträgern fällt mit dem Grad der Verantwortlichkeit für die Wahlversprechen, steigt aber mit dem Umfang der Transparenz. Die Ausführungen basieren auf den Ergebnissen von zwei Studien zur (1) Transparenz und Demokratie von 1982 bis 1995 in 130 Ländern und (2) zur Amtszeit von 1975 bis 1995 in 177 Staaten. Die empirischen Befunde der beiden Analysen bestätigen den Zusammenhang von politischer Verantwortlichkeit, Transparenz, Demokratie und Amtszeit. (ICG2)

Abstract: Democratic consolidation is the most important task to be accomplished by countries newly democratized over the last two decades. However, most new democracies with only a few exceptions have difficulties to various degrees in consolidating democracy. The primary aim of this paper is to get a clearer idea of the difficulties which new democracies are now facing by examining patterns and contributing factors of electoral volatility in four new democracies, that is, three East European countries (Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland) and one East Asian country (South Korea). The level of electoral volatility in terms of vote and seat share in these countries is extremely high. Regarding future prospects for democratic consolidation, however, a more important conclusion is that each country has a quite different combination of factors contributing to electoral volatility, implying that prospects for democratic consolidation might also differ, depending on these characteristics.

This paper tries to identify the fiscal sustainability record of democratically and autocratically governed countries by applying various performance indicators (credit worthiness, payment defaults, national debt, foreign assets) and also to clarify what effect the characteristics of a regime have on consolidation efforts in a country. The study identifies two key findings. While in the past, democracies have clearly found it easier to preserve their credit standing and solvency and to avoid government bankruptcy, a similar advantage can no longer be detected for democracies in terms of reducing national debt and foreign debts. Why democracies, in spite of their arrangements with a sensitivity for the public good and for due process, are finding it so difficult to avoid shifting their debts to future generations, to undertake cutback measures and to provide sufficient financial foresight, can in principle be interpreted as the other side of the coin, namely highly presence-oriented interests boosted even further through the short "democracy-specific time horizon".

This paper tries to identify the fiscal sustainability record of democratically and autocratically governed countries by applying various performance indicators (credit worthiness, payment defaults, national debt, foreign assets) and also to clarify what effect the characteristics of a regime have on consolidation efforts in a country. The study identifies two key findings. While in the past, democracies have clearly found it easier to preserve their credit standing and solvency and to avoid government bankruptcy, a similar advantage can no longer be detected for democracies in terms of reducing national debt and foreign debts. Why democracies, in spite of their arrangements with a sensitivity for the public good and for due process, are finding it so difficult to avoid shifting their debts to future generations, to undertake cutback measures and to provide sufficient financial foresight, can in principle be interpreted as the other side of the coin, namely highly presence-oriented interests boosted even further through the short "democracy-specific time horizon".