Suchergebnisse

Der Autor möchte mit einigen thesenhaften Anmerkungen zum gemeinsamen Nachdenken und zur Diskussion über das Leitbild "Demokratie stärken" innerhalb der Gewerkschaftspolitik anregen. Er weist in seinem Vortrag im Rahmen der Ver.di-Programmdebatte des Hamburger Landesbezirks darauf hin, dass eine enge Verbindung zwischen der Demokratie und dem Gemeinwesen besteht. Die Demokratie hat Allgemeinheit erlangt und kann als gemeinsamer Maßstab für pluralistische Optionen und unterschiedliche Handlungen in der Gesellschaft gelten, insofern diese "Gemeinsamkeit der Demokraten" nicht zugleich zur politisch-ideologischen Ausgrenzung missbraucht wird. Das einzig gültige Kriterium für Demokratie in allen gesellschaftlichen Institutionen gesellschaftlicher Ungleichheit lautet nach Meinung des Autors: Selbstbestimmung und unmittelbare Teilnahme des Bürgers. Der Autor diskutiert abschließend die Frage, was eine traditionelle Gewerkschaftsorganisation zur Verständigung über das Wesen des Politischen und zur Stärkung der Demokratie leisten kann. (ICI)

In den drei Definitivartikeln seiner Friedensschrift formuliert Immanuel Kant 1795 drei entscheidende Voraussetzungen zum "ewigen Frieden": Die Einzelstaaten sollen im Inneren auf republikanische Verfassungen, das Völkerrecht soll auf einem föderativen Zusammenschluss freier Staaten gründen und durch die Ergänzung um ein öffentliches Menschenrecht zu einem Weltbürgerrecht fortgeschrieben werden. Erst wenn man sich "in einer kontinuierlichen Annäherung an die Verwirklichung aller drei Staatsmaximen befindet", dürfe man "sich schmeicheln", den Weg zum öffentlichen Frieden zu beschreiten. Kants Thesen wurden in der politikwissenschaftlichen Disziplin der Internationalen Beziehungen zum Ausgangspunkt genommen, um über Kant hinaus vor allem folgende Fragen über den Zusammenhang von Krieg und Demokratie empirisch zu prüfen: (1) Führen Demokratien weniger Kriege als Autokratien? (2) Ziehen Demokratien gegen Demokratien in den Krieg? (3) Sind Kriege Geburtshelfer von Demokratien? (4) Verringern sich mit ansteigender Quantität und Qualität der Demokratien auch die Anzahl der Kriege und die regime-externe wie interne Gewalt? Der vorliegende Beitrag geht auf diese Fragestellungen ein. (ICD2)

"The following paper presents the basic concept for the Democracy Ranking of the Quality of Democracy and positions this approach in context of academic discourses about democracy and the quality of democracy. Key dimensions of democracy are freedom, equality and control. Quality-of-democracy models commonly emphasize a democracy understanding that is broader than earlier concepts of primarily electoral democracies. Different global democracy and democratization measurement initiatives (Freedom
House, Polity IV, Vanhanen's Index of Democracy, and the Economist Intelligence Unit's Index of Democracy) are reviewed and compared. The Democracy Ranking underscores a conceptualization of the Quality of Democracy = Quality of Politics + Quality of Society. The conceptual formula for the Democracy Ranking (see Figure 5 in Chapter 5), therefore, may be summarized as: quality of democracy = (freedom + other characteristics of the political system) + (performance of the nonpolitical dimensions). This formula offers an opportunity for creating regularly conducted indicator-based rankings of countries, based on the quality of their democracy." (author's abstract)

AbstractSeattle's Democracy Vouchers program provides a unique form of public financing for political campaigns in which voters decide how to allocate public funding across candidates. This paper is the first to study the effects of public financing for political campaigns on political participation. I estimate that the Democracy Vouchers program increases voter turnout by 4.9 percentage points, suggesting that public financing programs can increase political participation. I also find that campaigns become more reliant on small contributions. For city council candidates, dollars from small contributions under $100 increase by 156% while dollars from large contributions over $250 decrease by 93%.

Democracy, Charles Tilly, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. xi, 227.The ideal of democracy is rarely challenged openly in the contemporary world, yet it remains one of the social science's essentially contested concepts. Despite a large and growing literature on the topic, there is little consensus on how we are to decide when a particular regime qualifies as a democracy or not. In his ambitious and forceful new book, Charles Tilly argues that this lack of a clear and accurate definition of democracy is of considerable consequence. Lucid explanations of democratization, political standing of regimes, related foreign policy decisions and the quality of people's lives are all at stake. Tilly devotes his first chapter to building a working definition of democracy before putting forward a cogent explanatory framework for understanding how and why democracies emerge and why they sometimes disappear and to demonstrate what difference it makes.

The article summarizes core findings of the Danish Democracy and Power Study (1998-2003) regarding changes in democratic governance and discusses whether they contribute to a decline or a modernization of democracy. It is argued that changes should not be evaluated by standards that are too strongly linked to the institutional structure of the past, that accountability should not be over-emphasized as a criterion of democracy, and that one should look for functional equivalents. The constraints of globalization for national politics, especially for welfare policies, are called into doubt, and it is pointed out that even the impact of the European Union (EU) is limited in many core policy areas. The EU may enhance the capacity of politics against markets, but a core problem is a democratic deficit in public debates and participation. Turning to national politics, however, we find equivalent democratic deficits in political decision-making processes. Empowerment of citizens is high, but there is a deficit of participation in input side politics beyond elections, and problems with the linkages between the people and their political leaders. However, new structures of mass elite communication have developed which at least have contributed to responsive governance and widespread political trust.

The article summarizes core findings of the Danish Democracy & Power Study (1998-2003) regarding changes in democratic governance & discusses whether they contribute to a decline or a modernization of democracy. It is argued that changes should not be evaluated by standards that are too strongly linked to the institutional structure of the past, that accountability should not be over-emphasized as a criterion of democracy, & that one should look for functional equivalents. The constraints of globalization for national politics, especially for welfare policies, are called into doubt, & it is pointed out that even the impact of the European Union (EU) is limited in many core policy areas. The EU may enhance the capacity of politics against markets, but a core problem is a democratic deficit in public debates & participation. Turning to national politics, however, we find equivalent democratic deficits in political decision-making processes. Empowerment of citizens is high, but there is a deficit of participation in input side politics beyond elections, & problems with the linkages between the people & their political leaders. However, new structures of mass elite communication have developed which at least have contributed to responsive governance & widespread political trust. References. Adapted from the source document.

This piece examines the curious nature of the conceptual foundations of current democracy promotion practice. I point out that while it is broadly accepted today that a liberal democratic politico-economic model should stand at the heart of democracy promotion, the scholarly literature on democracy-capitalism relationship stands in sharp contrast to this consensus in highlighting the contested nature of this relationship. Through a survey of some of the key theoretical texts on capitalism and democracy, and a brief empirical survey of politico-economic contours of current democracy promotion, this article highlights the poorly thought-through links between capitalism and democracy in current democracy promotion. It is argued here that un-reflexive conjoining of democracy and liberal capitalism and sidestepping of the plurality of nuanced positions on this relationship in scholarly literature is problematic and that revisiting the lines of contestation over the relationship between capitalism and democracy is deeply consequential for re-evaluating and revising democracy and market promotion policies in the current context of 'dual crisis' facing democracy promoters today. Adapted from the source document.