Search results for "media"

Constitutionalism and the Presidency in the Russian Federation

2003

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has emphasized the idea that the state should be a leading actor in post-Communist reconstruction. This chapter argues that constitutionalism, in the narrow meaning of the rule of law in the political process, coexists with a mildly authoritarian, state-oriented presidential regime such as the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin. In Russian discourse, political reconstruction has been seen as cynical ‘political technology’ and Putin’s way to power is the primary example of such a kind of technology. The constitution and its interpretation by the Russian Constitutional Court give vast powers to the president. Under Yeltsin some attempts by the Duma …

Comparing Freedom House Democracy Scores to Alternative Indices and Testing for Political Bias: Are US Allies Rated as More Democratic by Freedom Hou…

2014

AbstractSeveral scholars have criticized the Freedom House democracy ratings as being politically biased. Do countries indeed incorrectly receive better ratings that have stronger political ties with the United States? This article tests whether differences between a number of alternative indices of democracy and the FH ratings can be explained in a systematic manner by variables that record relationships between the US and the countries under investigation. Differentiating between the periods before 1988 and after 1989, strong and consistent evidence of a substantial bias in the FH ratings is obtained for the former period. For the latter period, the estimates are less consistent, but stil…

Integrating refugees into higher education – the impact of a new online education program for policies and practices

2018

Gaining access to higher education (HE) is a serious concern for refugees. Although studies on the integration and success of refugees in HE are scarce, the challenges associated with this issue as...

Measuring the quality of humanitarian information products: Insights from the 2015 Nepal earthquake

2018

Information plays a critical role in humanitarian assistance. It has become a product that is shared for multiple purposes such as situational awareness, decision-making, coordination, reporting, and attracting funding. In the aftermath of sudden onset disasters, humanitarians are constrained with huge workload, time pressure, and uncertainties and thus, information products are often criticized with respect to quality issues. In this paper, we aim at developing an empirically grounded framework that can measure the quality of information products through accuracy, objectivity, completeness, and consistency. We validate the framework with the help of practitioners and apply it to the inform…

Corporealising a Healthy Democracy? Inequality, Bodies and Participation

2019

Socio-economic inequality is associated with differentiated levels of health and poor health affects political participation; inequalities are embodied in political life. This contribution, focusin...

2018

This article presents the experiences and problems of the Indonesian parliament, or DPR (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat), during the transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one, in 1999–20...

Where Democrats Disagree: Citizens’ Normative Conceptions of Democracy

2017

While support for the essential norms of liberal electoral democracy is high in almost all developed democracies, there is arguably also a gap between democratic aspirations and democratic practice, leading to dissatisfaction among citizens. We argue that citizens may hold very different normative conceptions of democracy which are equally compatible with support for liberal democracy, but lead to different expectations where institutional design and democratic practice are concerned. Satisfaction with democracy may thus depend on congruence between such normative conceptions and institutionally entrenched norms. Drawing on survey data from Germany with a comprehensive item battery on attit…

The consequences of supply gaps in two‐dimensional policy spaces for voter turnout and political support: The case of economically left‐wing and cult…

2019

Parties with left-wing positions on economic issues and right-wing (i.e., authoritarian) positions on cultural issues have been historically largely absent from the supply side of the policy space of Western European democracies. Yet, many citizens hold such left-authoritarian issue attitudes. This article addresses the hypotheses that left-authoritarian citizens are less likely to vote, less satisfied with the democratic process and have lower levels of political trust when there is a left-authoritarian supply gap. Using data for 14 Western European countries from the European Social Survey 2008 in the main analysis, it is shown that left-authoritarians are less likely to vote and exhibit …

Automatic Integration of Spatial Data into the Semantic Web

2017

International audience

Local expert experiences and perceptions of environmentally induced migration from Bangladesh to India

2017

This study investigates local expert perceptions of the role of environmental factors, especially in terms of contemporary climate change, in population movements from Bangladesh to India. The aim is to delve into locally held understandings of the phenomenon and to gain a better understanding of these migration processes, which are actively intertwined with local experiences. Both Indian and Bangladeshi experts were interviewed using semi-structured, in-depth interviews in order to explore insights from locally held perceptions and understandings of contextual factors. In total, 10 Bangladeshi and 15 Indian experts were interviewed, covering different disciplines, sectors, regions and job …