Search results for "Democracy."
showing 10 items of 638 documents
After the Referendum
2015
During the years 2011–2014, Latvia experienced a significant increase in the adoption and use of militant democracy measures—constitutional amendments, refusals of party registration, restrictions on referendums and popular initiatives. These events, triggered by a widely attended referendum on the introduction of Russian as the second state language, highlighted the problematic relations between democracy and nation-building in Latvia. Despite earlier expectations that the original militancy of Latvian democracy would decrease with the gradual integration of the Russophone minority, recent developments show that the defence of a particular type of nation-building has become an integral pa…
Catholics in the Irish Parliament: Daniel O'Connell and his influence in Italy
2014
Daniel O'Connell (Cahersiveen 1775 - Genoa 1847), an Irish politician and patriot, fought for Catholic Emancipation, to repeal the penal laws discriminating Irish Catholics and the Act of Union. Believing firmly in non-violence, he defended the representation of Irish Catholics in Parliament as the most appropriate instrument to support their rights. His thoughts and actions were spread and known in Italy and Europe while some Catholics were arguing on a possible reconciliation between religion and freedom and on the resulting openness to the principles of democracy and to the problem of representation. The Theatine Gioacchino Ventura from Palermo, one of the leaders of the Sicilian 1848 re…
Les institutions italiennes à travers les analyses de Luigi Sturzo (1871-1959)
2013
From the 1950s Luigi Sturzo captured the dysfunctions of the democratic system instituted in Italy. He courageously denounced the evils that afflicted the newborn democracy. The strange relationship between government and opposition, the growing importance of the parties, the proliferation of legislation, the reversal of functions between parliament and government, the reform of the Senate, are just some of the problems identified by Sturzo. His criticism, however, was not pointless but proactive in the meaning that he diagnosed in weaknesses and indicated the means for a better and more efficient working of institutions in a democratic country without making it necessary to undermine the c…
Preferences for Referenda: Intrinsic or Instrumental? Evidence from a Survey Experiment
2019
The call for more direct democracy, and referenda in particular, is often heard and met with support from large numbers of citizens in many countries. This article explores the motives for supporting referenda: Do citizens support them for intrinsic reasons, because referenda allow them to exercise their democratic rights more directly? Or are preferences for referenda predominantly based on the expectation that they will produce desired policy outcomes and thus instrumentally motivated? Our survey experiment explores such instrumental preferences by assessing how substantial policy preferences affect individuals’ choice of referenda over alternative decision-making procedures. We show tha…
Reflexiones sobre una eventual reforma constitucional de los institutos de democracia directa y semidirecta
2017
Resumen:Pese a la teórica vinculación de la participación directa a la idea de democracia, la constituyente española fue extraordinariamente prudente en la regulación de los institutos de democracia semidirecta por temor de la izquierda a la repetición de las negativas experiencias históricas en el uso del referéndum; su decidida opción por la democracia representativa quedo fuera de toda duda en los debates parlamentarios. Por ello el texto de 1978 es extraordinariamente sobrio en la aceptación tanto de la iniciativa popular como del referéndum. Y no lo ha sido menos la práctica durante 40 años de estos instrumentos.Sin embargo, las más recientes formaciones políticas presentes en el Parla…
¿Se han hecho más democráticos los partidos en España? La evolución en las reglas de elección del líder (1977-2008)
2011
En este trabajo, los autores verifican si, entre 1977 y 2008, ha habido un aumento de la democracia interna en los principales partidos políticos españoles. Para ello, analizan el proceso de selección del líder, al tiempo que cuestionan si ha habido un incremento de la igualdad en la participación para elegirlo, favoreciendo sistemas representativos o de elección directa. El artículo plantea también la hipótesis de si el grado de igualdad en las reglas de la elección influye en el grado de competencia en la lucha por el liderazgo del partido. Para comprobar tal supuesto, los autores examinan las condiciones de elegibilidad así como la representatividad del cuerpo electoral que escoge al líd…
The Beginning and End of Parental Responsibility — Finnish Parents’ Views
2012
INTRODUCTIONParental responsibility is a topic much discussed in present-day society. In these discussions the concept of parental responsibility appears self-explanatory, and it is often seen as the common denominator in dealing with child behaviour and educational issues, particularly in problem-centred discussions. Generally, responsibility seems to be one of the key concepts in policy-making and public debate about the lives of children and parents (Such & Walker, 2004).A theoretical model of present-day life that deals with parenting but also relates to parental responsibility is the theory of individualization (Giddens 1991, 1992). Individualization is a term used by Beck and Beck-Ger…
Local Powers and a Distant State in Rural Central African Republic
1997
‘The State Stops at PK 12’ – i.e. 12 kilometres from the capital, Bangui.The situation described by this statement, often heard in the Central African Republic, seems to conform to the objectives of the currently fashionable policies of decentralisation and structural adjustment – for example, to end ‘too much state’. However, the absence of the state in the rural areas of the CAR is so striking that the position in certain respects has almost reached the level of caricature. It also reflects the more general situation in other parts of the continent where the excesses of a centralised, over-staffed post-colonial regime can coexist perfectly with the pronounced absence in the rural areas of…
Procedural justice and democratic institutional design in health-care priority-setting
2013
Health-care goods are goods with peculiar properties, and where they are scarce, societies face potentially explosive distributional conflicts. Animated public and academic debates on the necessity and possible justice of limit-setting in health care have taken place in the last decades and have recently taken a turn toward procedural rather than substantial criteria for justice. This article argues that the most influential account of procedural justice in health-care rationing, presented by Daniels and Sabin, is indeterminate where concrete properties of rationing institutions are concerned. Such properties inscribe substantial norms into institutions. These norms can derive validity only…
Institutional Agonism: Axel Honneth’s Radical Democracy
2017
Axel Honneth may be criticised for reducing political philosophy to moral psychology. In what follows, I argue that if his theory of recognition is reframed as one of democracy, quite another pictu...