Search

A growing dissatisfaction with the political class has emerged in Italy. Inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the original strategy adopted by the Five Star Movement (FSM) was to connect citizens and institutions directly, thanks to ICTs. A participation platform called “Rousseau” was created to this end in 2016. However, after the Movement’s great success in the 2018 national elections, digital utopianism was gradually abandoned. In 2021, the statute was reformed, creating new roles and organs making the FSM more akin to a traditional party, and the ‘Rousseau’ platform was replaced by another one with limited functions. This evolution leads to three theses: first, the reference to Jean-Jacques Rousseau had a mainly symbolic value for FSM; second, as recent facts show, this ideal reference weakened with the action of governing and the ‘normalisation’ of the party; third, this evolution confirms that the Rousseauian ideal is difficult to realise in a complex society.

The article is devoted to highlighting the current aspects of the legislative regulation of the referendum as an important form of direct people’s power, which is of decisive importance for modern Ukrainian constitutionalism, determines the directions of development of our society and the state, and is also designed to ensure the free expression of will of all citizens in a wide range of issues. The modern world is filled with slogans of many states about “which of them is more democratic and where freedom of expression of will is greater”. One of the manifestations of the presence of the above in the countries is the achieved level of people’s power in the country, that is, the extent to which the existing procedures for expressing the will and exercising the will of the people affect the management of public and state affairs. The formation of a civil society and the development of a legal state involve the transformation of the people from the object of state administration to the main subject of power, which necessitates the development and improvement of all forms of people’s government, which means the broad and active participation of citizens in the management of the affairs of the state and society. Along with this, those institutions of democracy that allow the people to directly solve the most important problems of social and state life are of priority. In Ukraine, the recognition of the people in the Constitution as the bearer of sovereignty and the only source of power, as well as the establishment of the ability to exercise power by the people directly and through state and local authorities, became a serious step in the creation of a democratic and legal state.Referendum is an important form of direct people’s power, which consists in the voting of voters, as a result of which decisions are made on issues of a state or self-governing nature. Considering the importance of this issue, there were many laws in the Ukrainian legislation that were supposed to regulate all issues related to the referendum, such as: the concept of a referendum, the procedure for its holding and the onset of legal responsibility for violating the legislation on the referendum. However, over time, all these laws were repeatedly changed in connection with the discovery of so-called “pitfalls” in them, including: the inconsistency of some norms of the constitution, the lack of regulation of some issues, etc., Стаття присвячена висвітленню актуальних аспектів законодавчого регулювання референдуму, як важливої форми безпосереднього народовладдя, що має визначальне значення для сучасного українського конституціоналізму, визначає напрями розвитку нашого суспільства та держави, а також покликаний забезпечувати вільне волевиявлення всіх громадян у широкому спектрі питань. Сучасний світ наповнений гаслами багатьох держав про те – «хто з них більш демократичний і де свобода волевиявлення більша». Одним із проявів наявності у країнах вищезазначеного є досягнутий рівень народовладдя у країні, тобто те, наскільки реально існуючі процедури волевиявлення та здійснення волі народу впливають на управління суспільними та державними справами. Становлення громадянського суспільства та розбудова правової держави передбачають перетворення народу з об’єкта державного управління на головного суб’єкта влади, що зумовлює необхідність розвитку й удосконалення всіх форм народовладдя, під яким розуміється широка й активна участь громадян в управлінні справами держави та суспільства. Поряд із цим пріоритетними є саме ті інститути демократії, які дозволяють народу безпосередньо вирішувати найважливіші проблеми суспільного та державного життя. В Україні визнання у Конституції народу носієм суверенітету та єдиним джерелом влади, а також закріплення можливості здійснювати владу народом безпосередньо та через органи державної і місцевої влади стало серйозним кроком у створенні демократичної та правової держави.Референдум є важливою формою безпосереднього народовладдя, яка полягає в голосуванні виборців й у результаті якого приймаються рішення з питань державного чи самоврядного характеру. Дивлячись на важливість цього питання, в українському законодавстві існувало багато законів, які повинні були регулювати всі питання, що стосуються референдуму, такі як: поняття референдуму, процедура його проведення та настання юридичної відповідальності за порушення законодавства про референдум. Проте, з плином часу всі ці закони неодноразово змінювалися у зв’язку з виявленням у них, так званих, «підводних каменів», серед яких: невідповідність деяких норм конституції, не закріпленість регулювання деяких питань тощо.

Käesolev väitekiri panustab poliitilise esindatuse kontseptuaalsesse diskussiooni, osundades teatud puudujääkidele postfundamentalistlikus teoorias ja illustreerides seda Läti juhtumiuuringu kaudu. Doktoritöö uurib kodanike võõrandumist oma poliitilistest esindajatest ning usaldamatust nende vastu radikaalse demokraatia vaatenurgast. Radikaalsed teoreetikud peavad neid probleeme neoliberaalse demokraatia kriisi tagajärgedeks ja pooldavad uute kollektiivsete subjektsuste kujunemist, mis vastustaks olemasolevad hegemooniad. Selle lähenemise silmapaistvaks esindajaks on Ernesto Laclau ja tema koostöös Chantal Mouffe’iga välja arendatud populismi kontseptsioon ning hegemooniateooria. Doktoritöö analüüsib kriitiliselt esindusinstitutsioonide rolli Laclau töödes, käsitledes seda Läti juhtumi kontekstis, kus järjepidev valitsusvastane ja „rahva“-meelne diskursus ei ole suutnud tuua muutusi poliitilisele maastikule. Läti demokraatliku identiteedi konstrueerimine on toimunud hoopis esindusinstitutsioonide eitamise ja esindatuse tõrjumise kaudu, samas rõhutades „rahva“ demokraatlikku suveräänsust, mis tuleks saavutada otsedemokraatia kaudu. Läti riigi ja rahvuse pikaajalise diskursiivse konstrueerimise analüüsiga näidatakse, kuidas „rahva“ poliitiline subjektsus on moodustunud kas isolatsioonis või otseses vastuseisus esindusinstitutsioonidega nagu parlament, poliitilised parteid ja valitsus. Läti juhtum kinnitab demokraatlikus teoorias laialt levinud skeptitsismi otsedemokraatia kui esindusdemokraatia hädade parandaja suhtes. Samal ajal on see juhtum vastukaaluks paljudele radikaalse demokraatia suuna esindajatele omasele kriitikale, mille kohaselt on poliitilised institutsioonid pelgalt liberaalse demokraatia instrumentideks. Selle asemel võtab käesolev uurimus omaks Claude Lefort'i vaate demokraatliku võimu kohast (mis on institutsionaalselt määratletud) ja kasutab Läti juhtumit, näitamaks institutsioonide normatiivset ja praktilist väärtust demokraatia toimimise ja püsimajäämise seisukohast. "Rahva" oletatava vahetu kohalolu ja "rahva" institutsionaalse kehastuse vahelise esindatuse "lõhe" eitamine raskendab demokraatliku identiteedi ülesehitamist Lätis. Lefort'i jaoks on esindusinstitutsioonid peamiseks mehhanismiks, mis seda lõhet taastoodab. Doktoritöö kinnitab taas kord ja tõstab esile esindusinstitutsioonide sümboolset rolli radikaalse demokraatia teoorias. Lisaks avab doktoritöö uusi mõttesuundi demokraatlikust siirdest postkommunistlikus kontekstis. Levinumad teaduslikud käsitlused pigem ülehindavad kultuuriliste ja ajalooliste tegurite rolli Ida-Euroopas ning eeldavad hierarhilise suhte olemasolu Ida-Euroopa ja Lääne demokraatiate vahel. Piirkonna kultuurilised eripärad võivad tõepoolest aidata mõista seal esinevat rahulolematust demokraatiaga, kuid neid kultuurilisi eripärasid tuleb vaadelda kui identiteedi muutuvaid enesekäsitlusi, mitte kui monoliitseid plokke, milles poliitilised identiteedid on ette määratud. Doktoritöö väidab, et demokraatlike institutsioonide sümboolse rolli käsitlused vajavad värskendamist – need peaksid arvesse võtma olemasolevate poliitiliste süsteemide radikaalset kriitikat ja pakkuma uusi esindusinstitutsioonide vorme, tulemaks toime demokraatia nüüdisaegsete väljakutsetega., This dissertation contributes to the conceptual debate on political representation by identifying certain significant blind spots in post-foundational theory and illustrating this with an empirical case study of Latvia. It explores citizens’ alienation from and mistrust of their political representatives from radical democratic perspectives. Radical theorists view these issues as resulting from the crisis of neoliberal democracy and argue for the formation of new collective subjectivities that would challenge the existing hegemonies. A notable example of this position is Ernesto Laclau’s conceptualization of populism and the theory of hegemony he developed with Chantal Mouffe. The dissertation critically examines the role of representative institutions in Laclau’s work, drawing on the case of Latvia, where continuous anti-government and pro-‘people’ discourse has not brought any substantial change to the political landscape. Instead, Latvian democratic identity construction is defined by the negation of representative institutions and the rejection of representation while embracing the democratic sovereignty of ‘the people’, to be achieved via direct democracy. Through a long-durée analysis of the discursive construction of the Latvian nation and state, I show how the political subjectivity of ‘the people’ has been constituted either in isolation or in direct antagonism to representative institutions such as the parliament, political parties, and the government. Latvia’s case confirms the widespread scepticism in democratic theory about direct democracy being a corrective to the ills of representative democracy. At the same time, it counters the criticism, typical for many radical democratic perspectives, of political institutions being instruments of liberal democracy. Instead, this study adopts Claude Lefort’s view of the democratic place of power (institutionally defined), and uses the case of Latvia to demonstrate the normative and practical value of institutions for the functioning and survival of democracy. The rejection of the representative ‘gap’ between the presumed unmediated presence of ‘the people’ and its embodiment through institutions complicates the construction of a democratic identity in Latvia. For Lefort, representative institutions are the key mechanism for explaining how this gap remains open. The dissertation thus re-states and highlights the symbolic role of representative institutions in radical democratic theory. Furthermore, the dissertation opens new ways of thinking about democratic transition in the post-communist context. The dominant scholarly perspectives risk overstating the role of cultural and historical factors in Eastern Europe by assuming its hierarchal relation to Western democracies. The cultural specifics of the region can indeed help to understand its democratic discontents, but they must be viewed as shifting self-representations of identity, not monolithic blocks that pre-determine political identities. Overall, the dissertation argues for a revitalized perspective on the symbolic role of institutions in democracy, which should consider the radical critiques of existing political systems and envision new forms of representative institutions to tackle the contemporary challenges to democracy., https://www.ester.ee/record=b5533733

The main problem of this work is the following question: Considering the prerogative of the democratic State of law, what are the challenges of a representative democracy in a scenario of mistrust in the institutions? It is proposed as objectives to demonstrate that even with the progress towards a democratic state, with a longing to cope against the state's arbitrarities, democracy goes through many changes, not always positive. Associated with the countless information of corruptive acts, there is the tradition of distaining the citizen from the public sphere, resulting in crises of representativeness and legitimacy, in addition to discredit in democratic institutions. For this, it was used as a parameter the data of the last report made available by the public opinion survey of the NGO Latinobarometer. O presente trabalho tem como tema de estudo a democracia representativa e as fragilidades das instituições democráticas. Como problema central o seguinte questionamento: Qual o desafio da Democracia representativa diante de um cenário de desconfiança nas instituições democráticas? Para responder a problemática levantada, objetivou-se tratar sobre a crise de representatividade e legitimidade emum Estado Democrático, destacando-se o distanciamento do cidadão da esfera pública e a desconfiança nas instituições. Ainda, realizar-se-á uma abordagem sobre corrupção como prática contrária aos princípiosdemocráticos, além disso, segue-se abordando os desdobramentos no sistema democrático como decorrência do fenômeno corrupção. Utilizar-se-á o método de abordagem dedutivo e como método deprocedimento será empregado o monográfico, com uso de estatísticas do último relatório disponibilizado pela pesquisa de opinião pública da ONG Latinobarômetro (2018). Conclui-se que a corrupção tem ligação direta com a descrença nas instituições, refletindo no regime democrático e impactando em falência de representatividade. Com efeito, tem-se como desafio mediante as fragilidades das instituições públicas que determinados núcleos andem alinhados na busca da concretização dos anseios sociais.

We critically discuss the Jefferson/D'Hondt and Webster/Sainte-Laguë methods, which are used to allocate parliament seats to parties in the mixed-member proportional representation systems in Germany, New Zealand, Bolivia, South Africa, South Korea, Scotland and Wales, as well as in the European Parliament. The task is as follows: (1) the parliament must be of a certain size or slightly larger than that, (2) the party factions must include all direct mandate holders elected in constituencies and (3) the faction ratio should reflect, with a certain accuracy, the votes received by the parties across the country. We show that discrete optimization techniques result in better and more accurate apportionments. In addition, we consider adjustment vote weights defined within the optimization approach and show that they can give a general consistent solution to the apportionment problem. All of these are illustrated using the example of the 2021 German Bundestag elections.

Understanding belief in conspiracy theories and the psycho-social profile of people who endorse them is a major contemporary challenge for social scientists. Conspiracy theories have been linked to a series of political attitudes and behaviours that can be considered negative for modern societies and democracies, namely populist (Erisen et al., 2021), anti-democratic attitudes (Albertson & Guiler, 2020) and illegal non-normative behaviour (Imhoff et al., 2020). However, recent research has also revealed more positive correlates of conspiracy beliefs such as increased support for more direct democracy (Pantazi et al., 2022). In this research we wish to integrate these apparently contradicting findings. We suggest that belief in conspiracy theories is positively associated with both more and less democratic political alternatives in conspiracists' desperate attempt to change the political status quo. We will measure the link between conspiracy beliefs, support for democracy, autocracy, and anarchism in a series of surveys and experiments. We will test this assumption through a vignette experimental design in the United States.

International audience; Citizen audit is about investigating, as citizens, local public finances and holding elected officials and decision-makers to account. By studying the trajectories of activists engaging in this practice in France, Spain, and Belgium, this article contends that dissatisfaction with existing representative institutions does not necessarily lead to political apathy or to the delegitimisation of representative democracy. The aim of the paper is to contribute to the literature on critical political judgments. It highlights the critical dispositions of the activists, embedded in social trajectories, and how it gives rise to a yet unconsidered political imaginary: the will to democratise representative democracy through popular control over political representatives. Subsequently, such critical judgments are put into perspective with a repertoire of practices operationalising the control of citizens over powerholders and elected officials. It helps to overcome the idealistic bias of the literature on democratic imaginaries, while helping to shed light on modes of action and citizen participation that are little taken into account in scholarship on collective action.; L'audit citoyen consiste à enquêter, comme citoyen•nes, sur les finances publiques locales et à demander des comptes aux élu•es et aux décideur•euses. En étudiant les trajectoires des personnes qui s'engagent dans cette pratique militante, en France, en Espagne et en Belgique, cet article montre que l'insatisfaction à l'égard des institutions représentatives existantes n'aboutit nécessairement ni à l'apathie politique, ni à la délégitimation de l'ordre représentatif. À partir de l'analyse de ces militant•es, il contribue d'abord à la littérature sur les jugements critiques de la représentation politique. En revenant sur les dispositions critiques des militant•es, ancré•es dans des trajectoires sociales, il met en valeur un imaginaire démocratique insuffisamment étudié, à savoir la volonté de démocratiser la démocratie représentative, par l'intermédiaire d'un contrôle populaire sur les représentant•es politiques. Par la suite, ces jugements critiques sont mis en perspective avec un répertoire de pratiques opérationnalisant le contrôle des citoyen•nes sur les gouvernant•es. Cela permet de dépasser l'écueil idéel de la littérature sur les imaginaires démocratiques, en même temps que cela contribue à éclairer des modes d'action et de participation citoyenne peu pris en compte dans les travaux sur l'action collective.

Moving beyond the legal and historical hegemonic definitions of the quilombo, this paper investigates continuities in gendered racial violence in Brazil by evoking the political and poetic of the quilombo. Inspired by the works of the historian and poet Beatriz Nascimento, the multifaceted notion of quilombo is conceptualized as an ongoing praxis of fugitivity and coalition that draws on the interconnectedness of anti-colonial, feminist, and anti-racist struggles. In exploring geopolitical breaks and epistemological ruptures, this paper fosters a necessary conversation between theory and practice by engaging with the living archives of three Afro-Brazilian writers and activists: (i) Beatriz Nascimento’s fundamental contributions on the political, material and symbolic dimensions of quilombo; (ii) the legacy and vision of Marielle Franco focusing on the necessity to ocupar the institutional politics like a growing seed; (iii) the work of Erica Malunguinho and Mandata Quilombo through the praxis of aquilombar the constitutional democracy, based on the alternation in representative power and repossession. Dieser Artikel geht über die hegemonialen rechtlich-historischen Definitionen des Quilombo in Brasilien hinaus und untersucht die Kontinuitäten in der geschlechtsspezifischen rassistischen Gewalt, indem er die politischen und poetischen Genealogien des Quilombo heraufbeschwört. Inspiriert von den Arbeiten der Historikerin und Dichterin Beatriz Nascimento wird der facettenreiche Begriff des Quilombo als eine fortlaufende Praxis von Flucht bzw. Flüchtigkeit und Koalition konzeptualisiert, die sich auf die Verflechtung von antikolonialen, feministischen und antirassistischen Kämpfen stützt. In dem Artikel werden geopolitische und epistemologische Brüche erforscht und ein notwendiges Gespräch zwischen Theorie und Praxis gefördert, das sich mit den lebenden Archiven dreier afro-brasilianischer Schriftsteller und Aktivisten beschäftigt: (i) Beatriz Nascimentos fundamentale Ausarbeitungen zu den symbolischen und materiellen Dimensionen des Quilombo als Territorium; (ii) die Arbeit von Marielle Franco, die sich auf die relationale Ubuntu-Maxime und die Notwendigkeit der Überwindung der institutionellen Politik konzentriert; (iii) die Interventionen von Erica Malunguinho, die den Quilombo durch die Praxis des aquilombar erweitert und die auf dem veränderten repräsentativen Demokratie sowie der Wiederinbesitznahme von Land, Gemeinschaften, Körpern, Erinnerungen, Aufständen, Befreiung beruhen.

Focusing on John Stuart Mill, a particularly illuminating contributor to modern democratic theory, this article examines the connections between modern democracy and the European colonial experience. It argues that Mill drew on the exclusionary logic and discourse available through the colonial experience to present significant portions of the English working classes as domestic barbarians, whose potential rise to power posed a danger to civilization itself: a line of argument that helped him legitimate representative government as a democratic, rather than an antidemocratic form of government, as it had been traditionally perceived. The article contributes to our understanding of the development of modern democratic theory and practice by drawing attention to the ways the colonial experience shaped core Western institutions and ways of thinking, and it makes the case that this experience remains an essential, if often unacknowledged, part of our collective “self.”

In a representative democracy, some decide in the name of the rest. These elected officials are commonly gathered in public assemblies, such as parliaments, where they discuss policies, legislate, and vote on fundamental initiatives. A core aspect of such democratic processes are the plenary debates, where important public discussions take place. Many parliaments around the world are increasingly keeping the transcripts of such debates and other parliamentary data in digital formats that are accessible to the public. This is meant to increase transparency and accountability, but these records are often only provided as raw text or even as images, with little, if any, annotation and in inconsistent formats, making them difficult to analyse. Here, we present ptarl-d, an annotated corpus of debates in the Portuguese Parliament, covering the years 1976 to 2019 and representing the entire period of Portuguese democracy.

This article reconstructs Operation Car Wash’s (Operação Lava Jato) political project. Three different phases of the operation are analysed: its conception, its encounter with political and administrative corruption, and its attempt to mobilize popular support to combat political and administrative corruption. The analysis characterizes the operation as a particular manifestation of judicial intervention in the system of representative politics, presenting a critical view of its effects on the balance of power between non-elected and elected officials.

Ante la crisis de la democracia representativa liberal, las salidas han apuntado a tres direcciones principales: la reducción de la democracia a su forma mínima, como poliarquía, la ampliación de la democracia representativa con dispositivos de democracia participativa y procesos de reingeniería electoral, y las reformas constituyentes del Estado en una combinación barroca de visiones garantistas-neoconstitucionalistas-neoinstitucionalistas. Normativamente los dispositivos de participación, la iniciativa popular para la convocatoria a consultas, la presentación de proyectos de ley o la revocatoria de mandatos, se han ampliado. Pero, en la práctica, han funcionado más como placebos en una democracia tutelada, para mantener controlada a la ciudadanía, que como mecanismos de participación. El resultado es que la flecha de la democracia, que, a partir de los retornos en los ochenta, apuntaba a la ampliación y fortalecimiento de la democracia, se ha revertido y se orienta a formas de democracia autoritaria, con nuevas estrategias de disciplinamiento y control. La tendencia, desde el poder dominante, es construir un binarismo entre democracia representativa y democracia participativa, que oculta la emergencia de semillas antisistémicas de desconexión más allá del Estado y el mercado, bajo formas de democracia directa, comunitaria, nuevas formas de poder desde la sociedad.

The article deals with the features of participative budgeting as a relatively new experiment in the sphere of participative democracy. It's pointed out that this democratic form was initiated in 1989 in а Brazilian city Porto Alegre and then it was spread not only over Latin America but also over other continents. Special attention is paid to the countries of Europe where participative budgeting was implemented most actively. Positive features of participative budgeting as well as its possible disadvantages are analyzed.The author argues that participative budgeting being one of the forms of participative democracy remains at the same time closely tied to the institutions of representative democracy. The initiator of its implementation remains most often municipal executive power as a whole or its individual representatives and first of all heads of local administration.

In most schools everywhere, democracy and participation continue to be carried out through the usual channels based on representative democracy and the vote of elected representatives. However, this reality is not monolithic, and we do find centers committed to practise a full and more profound democracy. Based on a case study, the article analyzes the theoretical and practical approach of Germinal School. Despite some difficulties, this school has successfully implemented a project of radical democracy, both through micropolitics and daily pedagogical action. This article also examines why it is so difficult to democratize school and how to create a truly democratic institution. Finally, we address the possibility of extending the democratic model presented here to other schools.

When are inequalities in political power undemocratic, and why? While some writers condemn any inequalities in political power as a deviation from the ideal of democracy, this view is vulnerable to the simple objection that representative democracies concentrate political power in the hands of elected officials rather than distributing it equally among citizens, but they are no less democratic for it. Building on recent literature that interprets democracy as part of a broader vision of social equality, I argue that concentrations of political power are incompatible with democracy, and with a commitment to social equality more generally, when they consist in some having greater arbitrary power to influence decisions according to their idiosyncratic preferences. A novel account of the relationship between power and social status clarifies the role of social equality in the justification of democracy, including a representative democracy in which public officials have more political power than ordinary citizens.

In contemporary democracies, the balance between the minority principle and democratic principles, one of the components underlying the relationship between liberalism and democracy, is being broken. This paper offers a reflection on this theme – crucial for the future of representative government – in relation to the importance of the theory of elites. The article is divided into three parts: the first part briefly traces the main phases of the theory of elites from the late nineteenth century to the present, indicating, for each, the salient features; the second part focuses on the elements characterizing the alliance between the minority principle and democratic principles, which forms the basis of liberal representative democracy, with specific consideration paid to the geometric architecture of democracy, comprising a horizontal dimension and a vertical dimension; finally, the third part argues the need for strengthening the logic of distance to consolidate the connection between the theory of elites and liberal representative democracy.

This study analyzes the quality of citizen representation in local government in Albania. The territorial administrative map of Albania contains 61 municipalities and 12 regions. The territory of a municipality lies in urban, peri-urban and rural areas. In them coexist civic communities with different social, economic, cultural, ethnic characteristics, etc. The current legislation provides only the election of the mayor, every four years, according to the majority system with one round and the election of municipal council members according to the proportional system, with closed lists. The lists are proposed by political parties. Independent citizens also have the right to run for mayor or members of the municipal council. Apart from the municipality, for all other territorial-administrative levels, city, neighborhood, administrative unit, village, according to which the municipality is organized, the law on local self-government provides for the establishment of bodies responsible for the administration of local affairs appointed exclusively by the mayor of the municipality. The analysis of the level and quality of the representation of the citizens in the elected local bodies, shows that: (i) the representation in the Municipal Council of the communities living in the urban areas and the rural area is not proportional; (ii) civic communities belonging to marginalized groups are not qualitatively represented; (iii) the representation of national minorities, in particular the Roma and Egyptian minorities, is negligible. The analysis highlights the need for intervention in legislation in order to increase the level of representation and quality of service for local communities, through: (i) election of the administrator and the administration council of the administrative units, every four years, by the citizens; (ii) providing a proportional representation in the municipal council and the regional council of communities residing in urban and rural areas. (iii) providing for the establishment of representation quotas in local elected bodies of national minorities, in accordance with the law on national minorities. The revision of the legal package under which the last territorial-administrative and local selfgovernment reform was implemented, aiming at a comprehensive and consensual legislative process is an effective opportunity to increase the quality of local representative democracy.

Electoral stability has been viewed as an essential condition for the healthy functioning of representative democracy. However, there is little agreement in the literature about what shapes the stability of the electorate in general nor much attention paid to that of the Asian electorates in particular. We propose historical legacies, uniquely testable in Asia, as central determinants, but also test for conventional factors examined in other regions. By analyzing more than 150 elections in 19 post-WWII Asian democracies, we find that certain types of authoritarian (military or personalist) and colonial (non-British) legacies have a detrimental impact on the stabilization of the electorate, while some of the findings from other regions apply also to Asia. Our additional finding that such effects of historical legacies, particularly authoritarian interludes, are attenuated and cease to be significant with sufficient maturation of democracy, has important implications for the way party systems develop and democracies consolidate.

The system of representative democracy has its origins in England. Participation in governance is an important element of representative democracy because the people exercise their power through representatives. This paper aims to analyze the challenges and achievement of representative democracy in Albania after the fall of communism regime. Since 1990, Albania entered into a period of transition where participation in governance was seen as positive element to approach western values. This paper seeks to address the following question: Does the development of representative democracy help participation in governance? Whom does the power belong to, and how should this power be exercised? Can the people, participate in governance, and control the representatives, if they do not properly represent it? How can power be returned to the people? Main methodology used in this paper is doctrinal research. The paper is structured in three sections. After the introduction (section 1), the paper discusses theoretical framework of representative governance and the importance of participation in governance. The third section analyzes the challenges of representative democracy in the context of Albania. Keywords: Democracy; Governance; Participation

The article introduces the special issue on ‘Administering Representative Democracy. The European Experience of Parliamentary Administrations in Comparative Perspective’, explaining how it seeks to...

This article focuses on representation and government formation in the Italian regions in the electoral cycle from 2018 to 2020. By relying on a large number of data collected in the 18 regions and...

In this article we wish to provide a survey of online documentary resources for the historical study of political thought and illustrate a series of “good practices” which could be adopted to optimize the use of publicly available digital collections in historiographical research. As a case study, we first report on the search, in very large digital collections of historical documents, for occurrences of the phrase “representative democracy” (and its dictionary equivalents in Italian and French) between 1778, the first occurrence of the term recorded in our data, and 1799. Most of the occurrences retrieved through a careful process of selection and scrutiny have not previously been discussed in the literature. In the last part of the article we discuss the contribution of text analysis tools to diachronic research, looking at frequency data from resources such as Google Books Ngram Viewer and HathiTrust + Bookworm, and comparing findings about the lexical profiles of “democracy” and “representative democracy” in historical and contemporary corpora.

In this article, the relationship between new social movements, representative democracy and neoliberalism is examined. Starting with student protests in Europe and the United State, the late 1960s have witnessed the emegence of new social movements. Ecological, anti-nuclear, feminist, student, anti-racist, and LGBTI+ protests all have been examined with the scope of the new social movements paradigm. The remarkable protest wave of the 1970s has been followed by contemporary movements in different forms like the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement. Although these movements differ in terms of issues they deal with and goals they seek, they have a lot in common. Unlike the old movements like labour protests, these new movements primarily focus on postmaterial issues. Postmaterial identity demands and rights of these movements conflict with material demands of neoliberal governments. Furthermore, modern democracies fail to address these issues. Representative democracy is seen as an obstacle to political participation. On the other hand, postmodernism is a suitable concept to explain internal discrepancies and dispersion of new social movements. It is argued that (a) the legitimacy crisis of representative democracy and neoliberal response of capitalism to its structural crisis have triggered new social conflicts and movements, (b) these movements differ from old movements in terms of their forms, goals, and demands, (c) new social movements are postmodern.

Why has voter turnout declined in democracies all over the world? This article draws on findings from microlevel studies and theorizes two explanations: generational change and a rise in the number of elective institutions. The empirical section tests these hypotheses along with other explanations proposed in the literature—shifts in party/candidate competition, voting-age reform, weakening group mobilization, income inequality, and economic globalization. The authors conduct two analyses. The first analysis employs an original data set covering all post-1945 democratic national elections. The second studies individual-level data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and British, Canadian, and US national election studies. The results strongly support the generational change and elective institutions hypotheses, which account for most of the decline in voter turnout. These findings have important implications for a better understanding of the current transformations of representative democracy and the challenges it faces.

Recent work highlights the importance of pre-modern political practices for explaining persistent institutional features, including representative democracy. Typically, this argument is institutional in nature—pre-industrial practices are hypothesized to either bolster or retard the transmission of democratic institutions. This article proposes a separate channel through which legacies of early statehood continue to impact the prospects of democratic governance. Using survey data from Africa, we document a positive relationship between early statehood development and support for autocratic rule among ordinary Africans. This finding is robust to a wide range of pre- and post-treatment covariates, country and survey round fixed effects, as well as an instrumental-variable design. The identified relationship is particularly prominent in respondents from precolonially centralized ethnic groups in former British colonies, suggesting the importance of locally surviving traditional institutions for propagation of norms that owe their origins to precolonial autocratic socialization.

This paper revisits the core concept of representation in light of democratic innovations and more specifically in the context of minipublics. We disentangle how representativeness is currently add...

In Western democratic societies, decisions to allocate public funding towards a sports stadium or event are generally made via representative democracy by elected policymakers. Increasingly, refere...

In a representative democracy, leaders (ideally) who are elected through the electorates should indicate consensus that the newly elected leader truly does represent the majority of the nation or the group. That is, once elected, can the ensuing perceptions of the electorate's consensus provide the newly elected leader with a sense of legitimacy and the ability to represent the group? Two experiments demonstrate that the perceptions of group consensus stemming from democratic elections can imbue newly elected leaders (even if they were once deviant) with legitimacy. Study 1 (N = 158) demonstrates that normative leaders are perceived as more legitimate than deviant leaders when elected with high voting consensus, which increased the perceived prototypicality of the normative leader through greater perceptions of legitimacy. Study 2 (N = 182) showed that newly elected leaders (vs. candidates) are perceived as more legitimate, which in turn, increases the group's perceptions of the once deviant leader's prototypicality, granted that the leader is democratically elected. Results suggest that democratic elections create conditions under which once deviant leaders can gain in perceived prototypicality and create lasting changes to the group identity.

Government formation in multiparty systems requires election winners to strike deals to form a coalition government. Do voters respond and how do they respond to coalition government deals? This paper examines the short-term consequences of coalition government formation on voters in European democracies relying on survey panel data and original content analysis of coalition agreements. It tests theoretical expectations that deal with both the actual and perceived ideological shifts parties make when joining coalition deals as well as the effect of a much simpler heuristic cue based on preferences. The findings indicate that coalition deals have consequences on party preferences, but voter perceptions play a much stronger effect than the actual content of coalition deals. These results have important implications for our understanding of public opinion and provide important insights into the current difficulties and challenges of government formation and representative democracy.

La primera vez que se hace mención a la representación del pueblo se produce como consecuencia de la formación de la Junta de Caracas en la que se indicaba que dicho organismo debería contar con una representación del “pueblo”. Constituida la Junta, ésta convocó elecciones para configurar un proceso constituyente, mediante un Reglamento de elecciones. El documento citado parte de una defensa de los principios de participación política y de democracia representativa, por sistema mayoritario a pluralidad de votos. El sufragio es de carácter censitario y capacitario, con grandes restricciones de carácter económico. La Democracia representativa se proclama en el texto de 1811, que emplea el término Pueblo y no Nación, estableciendo el voto indirecto y el sufragio censitario, por motivos económicos, tanto de carácter activo como pasivo. En la convocatoria al proceso constituyente de 1812, así como en el texto constitucional de 1819, se introduce el concepto de que los diputados electos al Congreso no sólo serán representantes de su provincia, sino de toda la Nación, manteniendo los mismos criterios sobre el sufragio que el texto anterior.

Communication in journee d'etudes Les sources materielles de la loi sous la Revolution (coord. par I. Rouge-Ducos, A. Simonin et Y.-A. Durelle-Marc, dans le cadre de l'ANR RevLoi, Archives Nationales Paris, 15 novembre 2011) Resume : La publication de la loi durant la premiere moitie de la Revolution francaise propose d'un point de vue technique, politique et theorique, une serie de problemes cruciaux. Consistant dans la diffusion ecrite ou orale du texte de la loi, la publication en assure la Publicite, ce qui confere a cette operation, par-dela les aspects materiels, un caractere profondement politique et la situe au cœur du fonctionnement de la democratie representative. Ceci eclaire les prescriptions legales et dispositifs elabores par les assemblees revolutionnaires afin d'assurer une publication efficace de la loi. Mots-Clefs : Publication ; Publicite ; Connaissance de la loi ; Authenticite ; Execution des lois. Abstract : In the first half of the French Revolution, the publication of Law proposes a series of important problems, from a technical, a political and a theoretical point of view. As a written or spoken expression of Law, publication ensures Publicity of Law and therefore confers a deep political character to it. The latter places the publication of Law at the heart of representative democracy and enlightens revolutionary rules and mechanisms chosen to help the efficiency of the publication of Law. Key words : Publication ; Publicity ; Knowing the Law ; Authenticity ; Enforcement of Law.

This project will seek to extend our understanding of the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and the kind of democracy people support. In two previous studies we found that people who believe more in conspiracy theories tend to show less support for direct and more support for representative democracy. Extending this line of research, here we wanted to test how successful direct democracy is in actually reducing conspiracy thinking as compared with representative democracy. Reasoning that the relationship between conspiracy theories and support for different kinds of democracy is explained by increased cynicism and political powerlessness among conspiratorial individuals, we here sought to determine whether people who operate in a direct democratic country vs one with representative democracy might be less cynical and more empowered and thus end up believe less in conspiracy beliefs.

This project studies the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and a support for various types of democracy.

Im Rahmen einer Bachelorarbeit werden in einer korrelativen, querschnittlichen Untersuchung folgender Forschungsfragen thematisiert: (1) Wie hängt Einsamkeit mit politischem Interesse zusammen? (2) Wie hängt Einsamkeit mit politischem Engagement zusammen? (3) Steht Einsamkeit in Zusammenhang mit einer stärkeren Fokussierung des politischen Interesses auf Themen, die einen direkten Einfluss auf das eigene Leben haben? (4) Hängt Einsamkeit mit der Befürwortung repräsentativer oder direkter Demokratie zusammen? (5a) Führt Einsamkeit, vermittelt über den Einfluss auf politisches Interesse dazu, dass die Befürwortung von direkter Demokratie steigt? (5b) Führt Einsamkeit, vermittelt über den Einfluss auf politisches Interesse dazu, dass die Befürwortung von repräsentativer Demokratie sinkt?

41 p., Este Documento de Trabajo consiste en una revisión sobre el desarrollo histórico del concepto de participación política. Explorará la evolución de dicha categoría desde tiempos premodernos hasta la llegada de la revolución digital, evaluando su incidencia en los sistemas de legitimidad, las estrategias de movilización y los axiomas jurídicos que han dominado en cada época. Su objetivo es familiarizar al lector con los estudios historiográficos y politológicos sobre la participación política, a la par que sugiere cauces interpretativos para pensar el futuro de las democracias representativas del siglo XXI., This Paper is a review of the historical development of the concept of political participation. It will explore the evolution of this category from pre-modern times to the advent of the digital revolution, assessing its impact on the systems of legitimacy, mobilisation strategies and legal axioms that have dominated each era. It aims to familiarise the reader with historiographical and political science studies on political participation, while suggesting interpretative channels for thinking about the future of representative democracies in the 21st century.

The interaction of national parliaments in the international arena requires information support, which is provided not only by international parliamentary organizations and associations, but also by creating special web platforms that contain a variety of information about the activities, problems and prospects of parliaments and determine the general trends in the development of the institution of parliamentarism. The article describes the AGORA web portal, which positions itself as a "leading global platform for knowledge about parliamentary development." Its aim is to centralize and share knowledge on the development of parliamentarism, as well as to develop and demonstrate high-quality resources to support parliaments and provide relevant information to politicians and academic circles. In November 2020, a new modernized version of AGORA was launched, which includes three areas: 1) accumulation and exchange of knowledge in the field of parliamentarism, 2) coordination of exchange of experience and development of recommendations on best practices in parliamentary activities, 3) development and implementation of e-learning courses for parliamentarians and parliamentary staff on various issues (climate, gender, budgets, interaction with civil society). The most interesting and innovative materials of AGORA are analyzed, special emphasis is placed on the problems of development of modern Ukrainian parliamentarism and specific activities of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The facts presented in the article show that the international web portal AGORA is an authoritative factor in shaping the views of the international community on the processes and events of modern parliamentary development. The use of his publications will contribute to a clearer understanding and adequate assessment of the state of affairs in the field of representative democracy and the exercise of democracy., Взаємодія національних парламентів на міжнародній арені потребує інформаційного забезпечення, яке надається не тільки по лінії міжнародних парламентських організацій і об’єднань, але і шляхом створення спеціальних веб-платформ, які містять різноманітну інформацію про діяльність, проблеми та перспективи розвитку парламентів країн світу і визначають загальні тенденції розвитку інституту парламентаризму. У статті наведена характеристика веб-порталу AGORA, який позиціанує себе в якості «лідируючої глобальної платформи знань про парламентський розвиток». Його мета полягає у централізації і обміну знаннями про розвиток парламентаризму, а також розробці і демонстрації високоякісних ресурсів для підтримки парламентів і наданні відповідної інформації для політиків і академічних кіл. У листопаді 2020 року була запущена нова модернізована версія AGORA, яка включає три напрямки: 1) накопичення та обмін знаннями в сфері парламентаризму, 2) координація обміну досвідом і вироблення рекомендацій щодо кращих практик в сфері парламентської діяльності, 3) розробка та проведення електронних учбових курсів для парламентарів та парламентського персоналу з різноманітних проблем (клімат, гендерні питання, бюджети, взаємодія з громадянським суспільством). Аналізуються найбільш цікаві і інноваційні матеріали AGORA, особливий акцент зроблений на висвітлені проблем розвику сучасного українського парламентаризму та конкретної діяльності Верховної Ради України. Наведені у статті факти свідчать, що міжнародний веб-портал AGORA є авторитетним чинником для формування уявлень міжнародної спільноти про процеси і події сучасного парламентського розвитку. Використання його публікацій сприятиме більш чіткому розумінню і адекватній оцінці стану справ в сфері представницької демократії і здійснення народовладдя.

This article proposes a reflection on the polarity, widely discussed by modern political and juridical thought, between direct democracy and representative democracy, presenting the latter as capable of structuring the politic relationships and of conveying the information necessary for the assumption of weighted relative deliberations to the management of public affairs., Magisterium, V. 1 (2022)

Introduction: This article argues that, due to its characteristics, the republican citizenship model is the best alternative for promoting citizen participation in contemporary Western democracies. Objective: The purpose of the text is to analyze its advantages over other citizenship models, as well as to explain the reasons why it is considered the most appropriate approach for the theoretical and practical development of citizen participation. Method: For the elaboration of the article, the documentary research method and the argumentative analysis were used. First, the debate between the visions of representative democracy and participatory democracy is presented, to later examine the influence of the realist and idealist paradigms as political philosophical currents that underlie and sustain the main premises of each of these perspectives of democracy. Results: From the analysis, it is concluded that the republican citizenship model allows overcoming the representation-participation dichotomy, in addition to providing a more solid and congruent foundation for both the theory and the praxis of citizen involvement in public affairs. Introducción: En el presente artículo de reflexión se plantea que, por sus características, el modelo de ciudadanía republicana es la mejor alternativa para promover la participación ciudadana en las democracias occidentales contemporáneas. Objetivo: El propósito del texto es analizar las ventajas de la ciudadanía republicana respecto a otros modelos, así como explicar las razones por las que se le considera el enfoque más adecuado para el desarrollo teórico y práctico de la participación ciudadana. Método: Para su elaboración, se recurrió al método de investigación documental. En cuanto a la estructura del artículo, primero, se presenta el debate entre las visiones de democracia representativa y democracia participativa; posteriormente, se examina la influencia de los paradigmas realista e idealista como corrientes filosóficas políticas que subyacen y sustentan las principales premisas de ambas perspectivas de democracia. Al final, se describen los modelos de ciudadanía liberal, comunitarista y republicana, así como sus implicaciones para la participación ciudadana. Resultados: Del análisis realizado se concluye que el modelo de ciudadanía republicana permite superar la dicotomía representación-participación, además de brindar un cimiento más sólido y congruente tanto a la teoría como a la praxis del involucramiento ciudadano en los asuntos públicos.

I contend that parliamentary representative democracy betrays what must be democratic about democratic citizenship – its directness. I examine this betrayal to consider what makes democratic citizenship democratic, what is direct about direct democracy, and how it may provide a means to (re)democratize democracy. To do so, I engage the conundrums about citizenship Aristotle posed in the Politics. For millennia, theorists have used Aristotle’s dislike of democracy and related misrepresentations to dismiss direct democracy as impossible for large states. Moreover, the problems he raised have roiled political theory ever since because they established two issues that indicate how profoundly democracy troubles citizenship. The first concerns what it means for “the people” to remain sovereign even when most delegate the political powers of their citizenship to others. The second concerns the historical capacity of democracy to transform the political by disrupting entrenched power and legalized inequality. If so, democracy must somehow institutionalize disruption as a resource to keep it vigorous. I examine how the provocations of sovereignty, equality, and disruption democratize citizenship. These problems are unresolvable in a democracy. Their tensions are necessary to mobilize democratization, as Athenian democracy shows. Attempts to resolve them – such as republican representative democracy – destroy its energies.&nbsp

There is widespread agreement among scholars that political competition in Western Europe is multidimensional in nature. Most existing studies at the very least distinguish an economic from a cultural dimension of conflict. However, while large segments of the population are found to combine egalitarian and nationalist attitudes, parties adopting that ideological stance are exceedingly rare, if not completely absent. This has implications for the political representation of these so-called ‘left-nationalist’ voters and, more specifically, for their evaluations of the legitimacy of the representative system. In this paper, we put these expectations to the test using the 2017 Dutch Parliamentary Election Study. We show that evaluations of representative democracy vary for different combinations of egalitarian and nationalist attitudes. The findings shed further light on the link between substantive and symbolic representation and, more generally, on the functioning of representative democracy in the Netherlands.

The research aims to analyze the contextualization of Jean Jacques Rousseau's political thought in Indonesia, including state of nature, social contracts, common will, freedom, and democracy. This study used a qualitative method to describe the results of the analysis. Data was obtained through books, journals, scientific articles and others. The result of research on state of nature is that before Indonesia existed there were already states in the form of kingdoms. As for the social contract established in Indonesia through Pancasila in a complicated way due to agreements and conflicts from several groups. But in the end Pancasila was able to unite the Indonesian nation to this day. Regarding the general will and freedom, in Indonesia, it is regulated in Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia with various existing problems such as the abuse of general will and freedom that occurred during the Soekarno Guided Democracy and the Suharto Era. As for democracy, Rousseau views direct democracy as the best, while Indonesia is more familiar with representative democracy based on deliberation

Purpose – This study seeks to verify whether the performance of Brazilian Congressional Representatives is related to MHDI and GDP per capita indices and the regions they represent. Methodology – Regarding the performance of the parliamentarians, the data used were those made available by the Transparencia Brasil portal and analyzed using the multivariate exploratory non-hierarchical cluster analysis technique K-means. Federative Units were divided into clusters according to the similarities they presented with respect to the variables that made up the analysis. Findings – After the analyses, we were able to determine that there is no relation of equivalence between the performance of representatives in Congress and the observed research development indices (MHDI and GDP per capita) with states of different regions and quite distinct conditions of development making up the same group of analysis. Originality/value – The researched data, or even the identification of transparency actions demonstrates the wide variety of analysis possibilities that are available in terms of discussions of the performance of political agents and their respective returns for the population. We would suggest that future studies can use other data or other reports displayed in the transparency portals of various spheres of government. Other research possibilities can be developed based on qualitative analyses of the effective representativity of the projects proposed by these representatives of the people.

Esta investigación muestra un contraste entre las posiciones expuestas por los filósofos Slavoj Zizek y Byung Chul-Han frente al COVID-19 desde una perspectiva eurocéntrica, dando paso a una hipótesis sobre los posibles resultados en Latinoamérica. Se ha identificado como aspecto clave que la política y la economía neoliberalista que hoy en día rigen a gran parte de Latinoamérica, probablemente, conducirán a la destrucción de la sociedad como conjunto; de hecho, se pasarán a tomar actitudes de un capitalismo voraz e individualista, como lo describe Chul- Han en su tesis. Solo aquellos países que se sirvan de la democracia social y representativa para combatir la exclusión sistemática de las personas que no forman parte del gran mercado, serán capaces de lidiar con solidaridad sin necesidad de que esto sea confundido con el comunismo marxista-leninista que se aterriza a la economía, sino que se lleven a cabo los valores solidarios sobre los que esta ideología fue fundada como lo indica Zizek.

Transitive proxy voting (or "liquid democracy") is a novel form of collective decision making, often framed as an attractive hybrid of direct and representative democracy. Although the ideas behind liquid democracy have garnered widespread support, there have been relatively few attempts to model it formally. This paper makes three main contributions. First, it proposes a new social choice-theoretic model of liquid democracy, which is distinguished by taking a richer formal perspective on the process by which a voter chooses a proxy. Second, it examines the model from an axiomatic perspective, proving (a) a proxy vote analogue of May's Theorem and (b) an impossibility result concerning monotonicity properties in a proxy vote setting. Third, it explores the topic of manipulation in transitive proxy votes. Two forms of manipulation specific to the proxy vote setting are defined, and it is shown that manipulation occurs in strictly more cases in proxy votes than in classical votes.

Twentieth‑century Venezuela has characteristics that make it different in terms of the ways of conducting politics in the traditional way. Political parties of the twentieth century inaugurated a new political period. One reason for this may be found in the long dictatorship of General Gómez which lasted for more than three decades and which obliterated all vestiges of nineteenth century politics to the point that students will be called to establish innovative proposals. The mode of policy‑making shows a difference in style between the military and non‑military along with irreconcilable difference in the perception of democracy which they showed. One mentoring system will come increasingly into a conflict with another, in which there is an attempt to make the citizens bear republican responsibilities in order to feed a state that at times runs the risk of collapse due to the unmet requirements of the people, together with other requirements of the time.

In Razionalismo in politica il saggio Le masse nella democrazia rappresentativa occupa poche pagine. Ma le dimensioni ingannano, e molto: in uno spazio angusto, con una forza e una lucidità davvero notevoli, Oakeshott condensa una storia dell’individuo e dei suoi nemici dal tardo Medioevo al ventesimo secolo, e la costella di dettagli illuminanti. Ora, un saggio così ricco può essere affrontato in molti modi. Se ne potrebbero rintracciare gli ascendenti intellettuali, ad esempio. Lo si potrebbe collocare nel dibattito della sua epoca, visto che in quegli anni di quei temi si occupavano in tanti, e non dei meno brillanti. O potrebbero definirsene il posto e il ruolo nella produzione dell’autore. Qui non farò nulla di tutto questo, sia perché lo ha già fatto Giorgini nell’introduzione al volume, sia – e soprattutto – perché non ne ho le competenze. Mi concentrerò invece sul nucleo centrale dell’argomentazione del saggio e sul valore notevole che può avere ancora oggi, a sessant’anni dalla sua prima pubblicazione.

Rainer Knopff's scholarship on Canadian constitutionalism has offered some of the most trenchant criticism of the exercise of judicial review under the Charter, yet his theory has largely been misunderstood (as has that of his frequent co-author F. L. Morton). This article exposes two prominent critiques of Knopff's constitutional writings as straw man arguments and provides a republican account of his constitutional theory. The first straw man argument is that Knopff supports a majoritarian or populist conception of direct democracy. This claim is belied by Knopff's embrace of representative democracy and institutions structured to encourage reflexive deliberation. The second straw man argument is that Knopff is a moral rights skeptic. Knopff's rights skepticism is a legal skepticism about the determinacy of many rights that is merely a function of his inclusive legal positivism. The article concludes by reflecting on the republican lessons that Knopff's constitutional scholarship continues to offer, including how holding legislatures responsible for settling reasonable disagreements about legally indeterminate Charter rights might help counteract the twin threats of populism and juristocracy.