Suchergebnisse

There is a great resistance from several Asian country leaders towards democracy. Basically, they view that the US has "forced" some Asian countries to implement its model of government which is thought to be a good form of government for all countries, particularly in terms of placing democracy as a "yardstick" when some of the countries need International Aids. While actually, they argue that what works for one country does not necessarily appropriate for others. Lee Kuan Yew argue that what people's real need is a "good government", whase its implementation might differ for each country and might also differ from "Western" values. Nevertheless, some observers have criticized the concept as well. They argue that it has been implemented on the expense of restricting political space available for he citizens. This essay will elaborate each of the claims and will try to provide a tentative alternative which might need further discussion. Keywords: Democracy; Good government; Western Values

In this article the authors describe what forms of political participation, outside the electoral process, the populations of twenty-one European countries tend to employ & to what degree. They identify three types of non-electoral political participation: active-conventional, active-demonstrational, & passive participation. Overall non-electoral political participation is considerably lower in the post-communist & Mediterranean countries than in the Western European & Scandinavian countries. In the latter countries the passive type of political participation is clearly a much stronger form of participation than the other two types. Conversely, in the Mediterranean countries passive participation is weaker & is exceeded in places by the active-conventional type of participation. The Mediterranean area is also notable for the unusually strong presence of the active-demonstrational type of participation. The authors also examine the social micro- & macro-conditions related to these three types of political participation. In conclusion they attempt to address the question of whether there is a connection between political activity & satisfaction with the way democracy works.

This research is motivated by the formation of the Democratic Volunteer Program by the Election Commission in increasing voter participation in legislative elections in 2014 in the city of Padang. Volunteers Democracy is a social movement intended to increase voter participation and the quality of the voters in the voting. Volunteers Democracy consists of 5 groups of voters strategic group of voters, religious groups, women's groups, disability groups, Group Fringe. Volunteers Democracy referred to in this research is the existence of volunteers of democracy amongst the people which includes knowledge about the role of volunteers democracy, Impact Volunteer of the volunteers of democracy, as well as the constraints faced by volunteers of democracy in increasing voter participation in legislative elections in 2014 in the city of Padang. Research type is descriptive. The instruments used are interviews and documentation. The results showed, the existence of Democracy Volunteer to assist the Commission in order to regrow positive awareness of the importance of the elections in the life of the nation in order to decrease the level of abstentions. From these results it can be concluded, the volunteer role of democracy in increasing voter participation in legislative elections in 2014 in the city of Padang is to regrow public awareness of the importance of the elections in the life of nation and state in order to decrease the level of abstentions.Keywords: role, volunteering democracy, voter participation, pileg.

The article analyses the evolution of the Slovak political party "Smer" (Direction) and its position in the party system of Slovak Republic. The article focuses on the shift of the party program from the "Centrist Populism" towards "Social Democracy." According to the first program documents the Party of "Smer" (Direction) was designed as pragmatic, non-ideological party. In the persistent conflict between authoritarianism vs. democracy "Smer" identified itself as the pro-democratic and pro-market force. Party policy before 2002 contained only few social democratic components; it was closer to the conservative or right-wing populist parties. After the parliamentary election 2002 and the failure of non-communist left "Smer" decided to become a member of the Socialist International (SI) and Party of European Socialists (PES). The process of the institutional approach to the international Social Democratic Party structures was accompanied by the substantial changes in the social and economic program of the party. The process was completed on the institutional level in May 2005, when Smer joined both SI and PES, and on the level of political program on the Party Congress in December 2005. In the process of so called "socialdemocratisation" of "Smer" the international factor played crucial role, especially the need to have an international partner in the European Parliament. "Smer" met the standards of the Social Democratic identity only in the social and economic affairs. The other five dimensions - environmental policy, participative democracy, cultural and human-rights dimension, supra-national dimension and the dimension of equality and freedom "Smer" met only partially or not at all, so these process remains unfinished. According to some political declarations "Smer" remains the populist party and the uncompromising critic of the right-wing government of Mikuláš Dzurinda, on the other side the official documents of the party anticipate only the moderate corrections of the economical and social reforms, ...