Search results for "Democracy."
showing 10 items of 638 documents
Freedom’s Right. The Social Foundations of Democratic Life
2015
Microinnovations in Human-Technology Interaction
2011
It has been claimed that the Web 2.0, the open source movement, and the emerging mode of peer production have inaugurated a new era of debate about openness, participation, and cooperation as bedrocks for rebuilding the civilizations of the modern world. By way of introducing the concept of wikipolitics, this paper examines whether, and if so how, politics and democracies can benefit from this emerging participatory spirit and modern ICTs, and to document possible dangers of such a shift in the democratic process
The role of social networking services in eParticipation
2009
Published version of a chapter published in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 5694, 46-55. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03781-8_5 A serious problem in eParticipation projects is citizen engagement – citizens do not necessarily become more willing to participate simply because net-services are provided for them. Most forms of eParticipation in democratic contexts are, however, dependent on citizen engagement, interaction and social networking because democratic systems favour the interests of larger groups of citizens – the more voices behind a political proposition, the greater its chances of success. In this context of challenges the study of s…
Opinion Dynamics and Collective Decisions
2021
We expect that democracy enables us to utilize collective intelligence such that our collective decisions build and enhance social welfare, and such that we accept their distributive and normative consequences. Collective decisions are produced by voting procedures which aggregate individual preferences and judgments. Before and after, individual preferences and judgments change as their underlying attitudes, values, and opinions change through discussion and deliberation. In large groups, these dynamics naturally go beyond the scope of the individual and consequently might show unexpected self-driven macroscopic systems dynamics following socio-physical laws. On the other hand, aggregated …
Asediar la fortaleza sin ánimo de conquista: La incidencia política de la sociedad civil en Habermas
2012
El objeto de este trabajo es analizar el concepto de la sociedadcivil presentado por Jürgen Habermas y su lugar en el contexto de los debatessobre la teoría democrática. Se introducirá el concepto de democracia deliberativa,haciendo hincapié en su relación con la noción de comunicación y opinión pública. De acuerdo a esta perspectiva la capacidad de la sociedad civil para influir en elcampo público-político puede tender un puente entre las concepciones de la democracia de raíz liberal y las de raíz republicana. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the concept of civil societypresented by Jürgen Habermas and his place in the context of discussions ondemocratic theory. It will introduce th…
Toward a Sociology of EU Politics
2018
In this chapter, the author discusses some of the intellectual tools that sociology can mobilize in the analysis of European Union (EU) politics, and then follows with a closer investigation of some sociological research. To illustrate EU politics, this chapter concentrates on the European Parliament, the most democratic European institution. The author contrasts the sociological approach and its advantages with more traditional research in political science and international relations. European integration has provided new objects of analysis for sociologists. Some focus on the EU as a new polity. Others have developed a more specific approach that has been labeled structural constructivis…
Democracy and Depression: A Cross-National Study of Depressive Symptoms and Nonparticipation
2020
Depression is the most common mental health disorder. It has consequences not only on individuals but also on social and political levels. We argue that depressive symptoms impair political participation by reducing the motivation and physical energy of sufferers. We test our hypotheses by conducting regression analyses of four nationally representative cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys that collectively span many democracies. Our results are threefold. First, we find that the severest depressive symptoms lower the probability of voting by 0.05–0.25 points, an effect that is exceeded only by education and age. Second, we show that depressive symptoms negatively affect political inter…
La lógica internacional de la vía chilena al socialismo, cincuenta años después
2021
The electoral victory of the Chilean Popular Unity (UP) in 1970, in a continent under major tension since 1959, propitiated the attempt to open a new path to socialism without armed struggle, but ended with a military coup in 1973. This article aims to review the various readings of what happened under the presidency of S. Allende and to explain how the Chilean process revalued the concept of democracy internationally, giving it a content that continues to this day. La victoria electoral de la Unidad Popular (UP) chilena en 1970, en un continente hipertensionado desde 1959, propició el intento de abrir una nueva vía al socialismo sin lucha armada, pero acabó con un golpe militar en 1973. Es…
La internacionalización de la Carta Magna española de 1978: signo de madurez constitucional
2018
Resumen:La presente contribución adopta como hipótesis de partida la relativa influencia de los estándares internacionales en la redacción de la Constitución de 1978 y la absoluta necesidad de adaptación a la realidad del Estado supranacional e internacionalmente integrado. En este sentido, un primer enfoque permite comprobar que, a pesar del juego potencial de las disposiciones constitucionales de apertura internacional, y tras cuatro décadas de vigencia de la Carta Magna Española de 1978, la justicia constitucional y la doctrina constitucionalista no han mostrado una actitud clara y abierta hacia las exigencias jurídicas internacionales, con la excepción de un relativo entusiasmo hacia lo…
Algunas propuestas graduales de democratización del procedimiento de reforma constitucional
2020
AbstractIn recent years, a part of the Spanish constitutional doctrine has focused its attention on the procedure of constitutional reform of the Spanish Constitution of 1978 suggesting diverse reform proposals. Practically all of the researchers who have dedicated efforts to this issue start their analysis from a conception of the Constitution according to which the constitution-making process is considered secondary, if not irrelevant, or playing down the possibility of direct citizen participation. The goal of this article is to present a series of gradual proposals for democratizing the constitutional reform procedure from a differentiated approach of the one commonly defended by the ma…