Building Global Democracy

Can all citizens learn political tolerance through engagement in democratic politics? The lack of direct experience with democratic processes may account for a portion of the tolerance gap between mass publics in established and new democracies and sugges

This article aims to contribute to a critical research agenda for investigating the democratic implications of citizen journalism and social news. The article calls for a broad conception of 'citizen journalism' which is (1) not an exclusively online phen

This article examines the genesis and influence of informal politics on non-democratic outcomes in Central Asia. As opposed to current scholarship which explains the emergence of informal politics as a result of kinship-based cultural legacies, this work

Promoting democracy abroad may seem like a good way to promote peace. Mature, stable democracies have not fought wars against each other, and they rarely experience civil wars. But the path to a democratic peace is not always smooth. Democratic transitio

While several studies have dealt with methodological aspects of measuring democracy, little attention has been devoted to the political and ideological issues that affect the construction and structure of these measuring instruments. The aim of this study

In the light of the successful and peaceful outcome of the December 2008 elections in Ghana, inclusive of the second transfer of power between political parties since the return to democratic rule in 1992, this paper considers whether Ghana can now be reg

Does democracy influence economic policymaking and outcomes? Our study investigates the implications of Dahl's two dimensions of democracy ('polyarchy'): contestation/competition and inclusion/participation. We hypothesize that increases in democratic com

US democracy promotion is integral to the pursuit of the grand project of the American Mission. By promoting democracy America makes its role one of international engagement as opposed to one of isolation. The first part of this paper examines the politic

A couple days ago, I posted about Pascal Lamy's speech on human rights, where he said, among other things, that "trade measures are the most commonly used instrument in developed countries to put pressure on states violating human rights." Presumably, on

This article aims to identify the main causal factors that underlie the overall levels of mass support for democracy in Hong Kong in the light of two approaches of comparative politics. Using a common questionnaire in 2003, 2005, and 2008, analyses of the

actors who are remolding the landscape of global governance. Emblematic of the new era of "flexibility," these elite players leverage their influence and power by moving in and out of multiple roles, often beyond public scrutiny. For academics, activists,

This article enquires into the implications the modern literature on economic development emanating from international institutions has for law reform and the role of the state in the economy. The main question asked is whether regulation has a uniform ro

Viewed through the lenses of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (or CRC), this article critically evaluates the growing controversy surrounding the teaching of human rights in Canada. During a lengthy period of multicultural angst an

In many social science accounts of the role of law enforcement organizations in relation to race and racism, police are positioned as the agents of racialization projects, directly or indirectly carrying out the state's work of demarcating insiders from o

Society and Governments: debates and alternatives for a post-crisis world" is the name of a Thematic World Social Forum meeting being held in the capital of the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia.

The crisis of the 9/11 terrorist attacks has sparked a surge of increased civic engagement by young people in the United States, but there is also evidence of a growing divide along class lines.

We insisted, for example, on a clear distinction between liberalization and democratization. We refused to accept the notion that democracy requires some fixed set of economic or cultural prerequisites. We emphasized the key role of elite interaction and

The few regulatory measures introduced since the financial collapse in 2008 are being supervised by the same banking sector to blame for the crash in first place, writes Financial Times journalist Lucas Zeise. Governments' farming out of supervisory dutie

In this article, I argue that political philosophers like Rawls and Habermas that characterize their methods as non-metaphysical or postmetaphysical depend on constitutions in order to provide a positive and public reference point for democratic participa

The aim of this paper is to examine the evolution of recruitment of elites due to globalization. In the last century, the main change that occurred in the way the Western world trained its elites is that meritocracy became the basis for their recruitment.