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The editorial discusses the relevance of analyzing some problematic aspects of online participation in consideration of events that happened during the preparation of this thematic issue. It critically challenges the eponymous ‘dark participation’ concept and its reception in the field, and calls for a deeper exploration of epistemological questions — questions that may be uneasy and difficult to answer, as they also refer to the issue of balance and scientific positioning in the face of threats to public communication and democratic ideals.

PurposeIn the rational model of the democratic governing chain, intervening spaces at all levels are neglected in relation to the policy process. An intervening space is a group of persons with the power and responsibility to interpret policy at their level in an organization. The research question is as follows: How are democratic policy ideas visible in the intervening spaces of a governing chain in public schools?Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on two municipalities representing the 25 most populated cities in Sweden. The data are based on interviews with 66 informants with leadership roles on the district level and two schools in each municipality.FindingsLeadership is obviously more than making decisions. It is also about facilitating and creating trust, engagement, motivation and willingness to take responsibility. In this process, intervening spaces are central. They exist at all levels from the national ministry to the classroom. The empirical examples show the importance and challenges in how different leadership roles, relationships and interaction transform policy intentions to practice on the local level.Originality/valueThe authors contribute by highlighting the parallel interpretation processes that take place at various leadership levels locally. There are possibilities and challenges in aligning the intervening spaces into a rational governing chain. The findings indicate that intervening spaces and policy drift is vital to support, control and use professional competence in the process to transfer political ideas to classroom practice.

En este trabajo se reflexiona sobre algunos problemas institucionales de la gobernanza democrática y sobre cuál es el tipo de democracia deseable. En el artículo se evalúa la validez del diagnóstico pesimista de algunos autores –Caplan, Brennan, van Reybrouck, Mounk– basado en causas institucionales y disfunciones sociales. Desde perspectivas distintas señalan el debilitamiento de las democracias y la desconexión de las acciones políticas partidarias de los ideales democráticos, como expresión de una pérdida de legitimidad política puesta de manifiesto por los neopopulismos, This paper reflects on some institutional problems of democratic governance and on what kind of democracy is desirable. The article assesses the validity of the pessimistic diagnosis of some authors –Caplan, Brennan, van Reybrouck, Mounk– based on institutional causes and social dysfunctions. From different perspectives they point to the weakening of democracies and the disconnection of political actions in favour of democratic ideals, as an expression of a loss of political legitimacy manifested by neo-populisms

Many Americans are as enthusiastic about the idea of deliberative democracy as they are appalled by its actual practice, especially when it comes to local forums of civic life. In school board meetings, city council gatherings, and various public hearings across the United States, ordinary citizens have a tendency to botch, and sometimes abandon all together, the democratic ideals of reasoned debate and rational decision-making, resorting to more ordinary ways of speaking like chatter, gossip, and idle talk instead. This article explores one such example, paying special attention to the use of chatter, gossip, and idle talk for purposes of provocation, antagonism, and radical dissensus in local American civic life. Starting with a detailed qualitative case study, this essay works inductively from the specific rhetorical contours of a local public debate toward a broader philosophical perspective on the communicative practice of everyday talk, suggesting that there is always something extraordinary about ordinary civic discussion and debate.

COVID-19 has brought the world grinding to a halt. As of early August 2020, the greatest public health emergency of the century thus far has registered almost 20 million infected people and claimed over 730,000 lives across all inhabited continents, bringing public health systems to their knees, and causing shutdowns of borders and lockdowns of cities, regions, and even nations unprecedented in the modern era. Yet, as this Article demonstrates—with diverse examples drawn from across the world—there are unmistakable regressions into authoritarianism in governmental efforts to contain the virus. Despite the unprecedented nature of this challenge, there is no sound justification for systemic erosion of rights-protective democratic ideals and institutions beyond that which is strictly demanded by the exigencies of the pandemic. A Wuhan-inspired all-or-nothing approach to viral containment sets a dangerous precedent for future pandemics and disasters, with the global copycat response indicating an impending ‘pandemic’ of a different sort, that of authoritarianization. With a gratuitous toll being inflicted on democracy, civil liberties, fundamental freedoms, healthcare ethics, and human dignity, this has the potential to unleash humanitarian crises no less devastating than COVID-19 in the long run.

Does liberal democracy require a strict separation between state and religion? In Anglophone liberal political theory, the separationist model of the First Amendment of the US Constitution has provided the basic template for the rightful relationship between state and religion. Yet this model is ill-suited to the evaluation of the secular achievements of most states, including India. This article sets out a new framework, minimal secularism, as a transnational framework of normative comparison. Minimal secularism does not single out religion as special, and it appeals to abstract liberal democratic ideals such as equal inclusion and personal liberty. Actual debates about secularism in India are shown to revolve around these ideals. The study of recent Indian controversies—about the Uniform Civil Code, the status of Muslims, and the rise of BJP nationalism—also sheds light on some blind spots of Western secularism and the conception of sovereignty and religion it relies on.

When Javier Sicilia’s son was killed by cartel assassins in 2011, he transformed into a civic activist, with a mass following sufficiently large for Time Magazine to recognize him in 2011 as one of its “Protestors of the Year.” His very success mobilizing public opinion against cartel violence overshadows his more fundamental role as an advocate for deliberative democracy in the Americas. Sicilia’s historical importance lies in his recognition that only civic dialogue within the transnational public sphere that includes Mexico and the United States can heal the social pathologies unleashed by globalization and by the war on drugs. His ultimate achievement has been to dramatize what would be required of citizens to realize the democratic ideals that both countries profess as the foundations of their national identities.

This paper provides critical reflections on higher education for sustainable development (HESD) from a philosophical perspective. A theoretical framework is developed, based on John Deweys thoughts on the aim of democracy and the critical role of education herein, and with specific focus on two constructs: initiative and adaptability and values and virtues. This theoretical framework is used to analyze HESD in Flanders, from a historical and socio-political perspective. The Flemish case shows a gradual evolution from a focus on environmental management on campus, followed by a normative interpretation of what HESD should look like, and a more transformative approach in light of citizenship and democratic ideals. The case also shows considerable exchange of information between Flanders and the Netherlands, in which Dutch models and instruments were used in the Flemish context. The philosophical perspective provides a theoretical grounding of the field of HESD, which enables us to further develop the field, with a specific focus on initiative and adaptability on the one hand, and the importance of a virtues perspective on the other.

Over the last two decades, the inclusion of patient voices and public values in the field of health care through deliberation has become increasingly emphasized, by patients as well as policy-makers. This is achieved not only through individual patient participation but also through patient interest organizations. Geographical representation within national interest organizations is especially important in a decentralized, multilevel policy field such as Swedish health care, allowing representation from all regions to be present in national advocacy. Using Pitkin’s conceptualization of political representation, this study aims to characterize the shaping of representation among Swedish federative patient organizations, in a time of professionalization and centralization of civil society. The results show that patient organization representation has functioning mechanisms for all studied aspects of representation; however, the nature of the substantive representation seems to contain a challenge from a democratic perspective. This leads us to a discussion about management, rooted in democratic ideals but simultaneously strongly characterized by more managerial ideals, and the contradiction of democracy and actionable management.

Evidence suggests that Erich Meyerhoff was one of the first practitioners of democratic librarianship throughout his long and productive life. This essay defines democratic librarianship in the context of democratic ideals and social justice and posits actions that the profession should be taking to thrive and lead in a multicultural environment, including being a place for active engagement, crucial conversations, and debate. Democratic librarianship is broader than social justice but incorporates social justice ideals in promoting a socially just and democratic society. Libraries…are essential to the functioning of a democratic society;…and libraries are the great tools of scholarship, the great repositories of culture, and the great symbols of the freedom of the mind. [1]-Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The subject of the paper is evaluating and comparing the activity of using digital technologies for the realisation of democratic values by students of Polish and Ukrainian higher educational establishments: rights to freedom of access to information; tolerant communication with other people; awareness of the values of solidarity, equality.The study was carried out at Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin (Poland), The Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce (Poland), Radom Academy of Economics (Poland), Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (Ukraine), Poltava V.G. Korolenko National Pedagogical University (Ukraine). Based on the survey results, the quantitative and qualitative analysis of digital technologies used in the development of democratic ideals and social activity of youth are carried.The results obtained are typologically common for students of both Polish and Ukrainian higher educational establishments.The paper provides recommendations for teachers of higher educational establishments on the use of digital technologies to support the development of students’ democratic values in formal and non-formal learning and draws attention to the problem of forming digital critical competence of students.

The presumption that a liberal media landscape and associated press culture strengthens good governance and human development has approached orthodoxy in the western world. Consistent with this, journalism training has been a central component of media aid strategies in the Global South. This research examines how normative assumptions about journalism roles can interact with ideas about democracy in a training environment and the possible implications of this. It explores parallels between programme elements relating to democracy facilitation and particular role conceptualisations of journalists trained by these programmes, with a specific interest in how this process is borne out in countries where democratisation processes are ongoing. A qualitative-based methodology, using journalism training in Cambodia as a case study, finds some correlations between democracy-related emphases at training level and specific normative orientations among working journalists who participated in these programmes. However, we find that these democratic norm-related orientations of practitioners contain subtle, but key differentiations from those advocated by programme facilitators. A vocational, advocacy-oriented approach to journalism programmes may have contributed to this outcome in a Cambodian context.

When analysing support for democracy, researchers tend to assume that ‘democracy’ is a concept that travels across countries. This paper argues that democracy is not the same thing for every citizen, because collective and individual socialization experiences strongly shape the criteria citizens expect a democracy to fulfil. Based on the literature on varieties of democracy, I suppose that individual expectations of democracy are influenced by regime‐specific socialization, and depend on the democratic history, authoritarian legacies, and the prevalent democratic model. Due to socialization and democratic learning, individuals acquire democratic preferences and value those dimensions more which they experience in their own democracy. Using data from the European Social Survey (ESS) and the Democracy Barometer, I test how the national democratic context in 26 European democracies influences these individual democratic ideals. I find evidence for both socialization and participation effects of the democratic context on citizens’ democratic expectations.

As white nationalists have come to increasing prominence in recent decades, their presence presents a significant challenge to democratic societies. Motivated by a sense of racial imperilment, and opposed, sometimes violently, to core democratic ideals, white nationalists cannot be meaningfully incorporated into the political life of societies which promote inclusiveness and pluralism without threatening those values. Yet democratic theory, which seeks to offer ideal visions of what democratic societies could look like, provides no means for contending with the active presence of white nationalism in contemporary democratic societies. This article uses the concept of voice to explore these shortcomings in several theories of democracy, including deliberative, agonistic, and empowerment theories. In doing so, it draws on a wealth of white nationalist media, both physical and digital, to demonstrate how attitudes regarding racial imperilment, often articulated in terms of a ‘white genocide’, foreclose on any possibility of incorporating white nationalist voices into democratic societies. Moreover, an examination of white nationalists’ ongoing project to shift the boundaries of what is permissible in popular discourse, a process which is amplified by digital media technologies, suggests that they are nevertheless a pressing problem for democratic societies which should be addressed. In doing so, it is important to move beyond the focus on voice which underlays much democratic theory, exploring instead the experiences of social life to which white nationalist voices speak so that we might gain a better understanding of what motivates white nationalist voice and, potentially, how it might be addressed.

Taking sociological and psychological functions of humor seriously, this chapter explores the cultural psychology of political cartoon in contemporary Egypt. Political cartoon is approached as a form of art and resistance, in which the artists speak for a ‘cherished community’. In a political system that aspires to democratic ideals, but bears features of an authoritarian system, political cartoonists assume the role of activists. By analyzing what they are fighting for (the constitution), whom they are fighting for (the citizen), and how they picture themselves (as inseparable from their subject matter), we arrive at a view of Egyptian cartoonists as socio-psychoanalysts, who link past, present, and potential futures, share in the pain of their cherished community, and transform it, if only for a moment, into laughter.

There is a growing narrative that the outcome of the UK referendum on European Union membership was the product of disenfranchisement and disillusionment wrought by the uneven consequences of economic restructuring in different UK regions, cities and communities. Those most likely to vote ‘leave’ were concentrated among those ‘left behind’ by globalisation, whilst those voting ‘remain’ were clustered within more affluent areas and social groups. These uneven geographies of leave and remain voting have been taken to reveal two diametrically opposed groups in British politics, obscuring the messy and contradictory ways in which votes are cast. In seeking to bring these complexities to light, this paper explores the motivating factors behind the Brexit vote amongst older working-class white men in Sunderland, England. The paper shows how economic stagnation and the experience of different forms of marginality led to a nostalgia for times past and a mistrust of political elites amongst this cohort. The paper documents how the feelings expressed by research participants became linked to the European Union project and its real and perceived impacts on the local area. In doing so, it shows that the referendum shaped and changed the electorate by asking them to align themselves with those either for or against Britain’s membership of the EU. The paper concludes by reflecting on the possibilities for creating an inclusive form of politics that treats different responses to the referendum question as the basis for an open conversation about democracy and democratic ideals.

Digital technologies have been considered as generating new opportunities to enhance democratic politics. However, political parties have generally been latecomers in appropriating digital media in their every day life. The case of the Italian Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S) represents an interesting example of innovative use of digital technologies in politics. Adopting a mixed-method research design, this article contrasts the democratic vision of the M5S with its online participatory platform. First, the discursive production of its leaders on democracy is analysed and complemented with an examination of a law proposal focusing on direct democracy. The core elements of the M5S’ democratic conception are identified in a criticism of representative democracy and the elaboration of a cyberutopian narrative. Second, the concrete realization of democratic ideals through online instruments of participation is taken into consideration. Sixty-five online ballots and 326 discussions of draft laws that took place on the Rousseau platform between 2012 and 2017 are critically inspected and discussed, singling out explanations of a continuing decline in participation over time.

Initiatives designed to increase transparency have become a tool for improving governance and fighting corruption in the natural resource sector. The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is an international organisation that administers a voluntary standard for natural resource revenue transparency. In line with liberal democratic ideals, EITI aims to empower citizens through the dissemination of information supporting governance improvements, public scrutiny and accountability in the sharing of benefits from resource extraction. Adopting a critical lens to transparency, the article examines EITI's efforts to disseminate natural resource revenue data in rural Liberia. By focusing on how transparency is performed through dissemination workshops, the article creates a nuanced understanding of transparency by analysing how it is operationalised and practiced in encounters with people in areas where resource extraction takes place. The paper begins with an overview of relevant research and the conceptual framing of the study focusing on the performance in and of transparency and continues with a discussion of EITI internationally and in Liberia. Then follows a discussion of the ethnographic approach - travelling with the Liberian EITI-team on their dissemination trip. Through the analysis the article enables an understanding of the workings of transparency by examining how practitioners perform transparency through the performance in the workshops: the structure and orchestration of the workshops; and the performance of transparency by understanding the ways in which the workshops become spectacles that help to legitimise, rationalise and camouflage the fragmented and contradictory realities of extractive industries and their implications for people.

This chapter engages with three important themes of the larger report: the meaning of progress, its uneven nature, and obstacles to future progress. It also considers a number of political and economic alternatives aimed to overcome these obstacles, emphasizing the need for diverse strategies, open-minded experimentation, and scientific assessment. While it may be impossible to ever reach agreement, the effort to calibrate different interpretations of progress remains an important exercise for political deliberation about how to make the world a better place. The very hope of moving forward implies some agreement on a destination. All of us must take responsibility for the future. Our discussion emphasizes the complexity and multidimensionality of the interpretive debate, but also calls attention to its ideological character. Social actors-individuals, groups, and even academic disciplines-tend to define progress in ways that serve their own interests. In a way, distributional conflict undermines our very efforts to better understand and mediate such conflict. The uneven character of progress is manifest in many different domains. Increases in the global reach of formally democratic institutions have been accompanied by growing concerns about their stability, efficacy, and consistency with democratic ideals.

The continued controversy over the presence of American bases in Okinawa has once again raised the question of whether the issue will ultimately be resolved by the Japanese courts. An examination of the history surrounding the judiciary’s involvement in previous base-related disputes in mainland Japan suggests that the court is itself deeply conflicted over its proper role in mediating these cases, leading to continued uncertainty over the ultimate legal status of the U.S. military presence. Unwilling to take a strong position in support of either the state or of increasingly active local officials, the court’s rulings have repeatedly given way to stalemate, which has ultimately benefitted local opponents to the bases. Local politicians such as mayors and prefectural governors have successfully used anti-base rhetoric to their advantage, promoting local resistance as legitimate expressions of Japan’s postwar democratic ideals, and local and national identities of peace.

O tema central deste artigo é o investimento crescente no combate ao terrorismo pelas democracias contemporâneas, o que contribui para consolidar, ao menos no Ocidente, a figura do “Estado punitivo”. Inserido nas recentes reflexões sociológicas de Noam Chomsky, Loïc Wacquant, David Garland e Zygmunt Bauman, entre outros, esse tema é ainda pouco discutido pela comunidade acadêmica brasileira. O atual arranjo capitalista generaliza-se quase que instantaneamente em todo o globo atrelando, de forma paradoxal, a defesa dos ideais democráticos com a necessidade de políticas autoritárias de controle social. A defesa constante da “guerra contra o terrorismo”, agindo como elo hegemônico consensual, amplia a defasagem entre o formal e o real, bem como a utilização meramente simbólica dos instrumentos jurídicos de controle. Nesse contexto, marcado pela incessante busca da “tranqüilização da vida social”, o que se verifica é a consolidação de uma democracia sem cidadania, de um cidadão sem direitos.

The most important benefits of international comparisons are the indications that make hidden national characteristics visible and shed new light on the system in each country. From a comparative perspective, this article explores what Swedish and Norwegian preschool teachers emphasise as important to preschool student teachers about preschool as an arena for children’s language learning. The theoretical framework of the study is based on ecological system theories (Bronfenbrenner in The ecology of human development, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1979; Bronfenbrenner in Dev Psychology 22(6):723–742, 1986) and socio-cultural theories concerning language learning (Vygotsky in Thought and language, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1986). The data are produced through interviews with 69 Swedish and 35 Norwegian preschool teachers. The analyses focused on what the preschool teachers stated to be the most important elements to work with concerning children’s language learning, how and why they worked like this, and what rationales may have led to their pedagogy. The two countries seem quite alike in terms of the values embedded in early childhood education and political ideas concerning a rich childhood based on play and democratic ideals. By comparing the two countries, the results reveal differences that can lead to a deeper knowledge of cultural concepts that are often taken for granted, such as pedagogical approaches, and how these create different conditions for children’s preschool language learning.

There is growing recognition that critical decisions concerning investments in new health care technologies and services should incorporate society’s values along with the scientific evidence. From a normative perspective, public engagement can help realize the democratic ideals of legitimacy, transparency, and accountability. On a more pragmatic level, public engagement can help stakeholders understand the degree of popular support for policy options, and may enhance public trust in decision-making processes. To better understand public attitudes and values relating to priority setting in health care, researchers and decision-makers will have to employ a range of quantitative and qualitative approaches, drawing on different disciplines and methodological traditions.

本稿では,ナイジェリアにおける教育と民主主義的理想について理論的観点より述べる.特に,ナイジェリアの教育における民主主義的理想の哲学,ナイジェリアの教育についての伝統的および進歩的見解,民主主義的教育の理想,グローバル教育,そして現在のナイジェリア政治体制の中での教育の未来と民主主義的理想に触れる.精神を解放せず,教育を受けた者や社会全体に自由を与えることのできない教育,そして社会的,経済的,政治的に貢献できない教育は,社会変革のために十分な役割を果たさず,進歩的とは言えない.むしろ,それは本質的に伝統的で非民主主義的であると考えられよう.教育の重要な役割は人々の意識を高めることによって社会悪を(生み出すのでなく)是正する点にあることから,教育行政者はこのような点を考慮に入れたグローバルな人材を生み出す教育システムを見据えなければならない.教育指導者として学校運営者は民主主義的理想とその考えを支持し押し進める責任がある.ナイジェリアの教育と民主主義的理想は,ナイジェリア国内の個人や国民全体だけに有益なのではなく,グローバルな展望を持った教育システムを支え,他国と関わりを持ちながら世界規模で貢献できる人間の輩出にも寄与するだろう.

Whether the revolutions in North Africa are Marxist or democratic, they sure have Marxist touch in that they grew out of people’s frustration with unemployment, elitist corruption, high cost of food, human right abuses, lack of freedom of speech and general poor living conditions. Although they are inspired by democratic desires and supported by democratic influences, which are curiously excessive, they nonetheless exhibit elements of Marxism. This paper aims at three things: to provide a Marxist interpretation to the revolutions in North Africa, to point out the influence which democracy or the democratic ideals had on them, and to extrapolate on the unintended consequences of excessive democratic influence.

After more than a decade of giving online news away for free, legacy newspaper organisations in many Western countries have recently begun charging audiences for access to online journalistic content. Focusing empirically on a Danish case, this article uses one survey (n = 1054) and two focus groups to examine audiences’ attitudes toward paying for online news. The analysis suggests that audiences’ general principles regarding paying for online news influence their willingness to pay more than the size of the subscription fee. Furthermore, the analysis shows that younger audiences’ willingness to pay increases if they can combine content from different news providers and thereby individualise their news products. The latter in particular can have practical implications as it presents a way forward for economically challenged legacy newspaper organisations, but it might also compromise the democratic ideals of journalism.

California’s Top Two Primary and the Challenge of Making Real Change Sharon Cornu Imagine you are reading an article online—maybe this one—and you come to the end. Im- mediately below flash alarming photos and headlines about belly fat, mortgage rates, and cat videos. They call that clickbait. It’s how I feel about the Top Two: it’s not going to improve your health, your finances or your productivity. The Top Two is reform of our political system in the same way that clickbait ads are reform of your lifestyle. We’re talking about California’s “jungle” primary, which sends the top two vote-getters in a primary regardless of party registration to the November general election. It’s just as bad as eve- ryone predicted for three reasons. First, it allows reporters to use the word “jungle” in political coverage, which is disturbing. Second, it often requires candidates to double their fundraising, increasing the influence of money in politics. Third, arguing about the Top Two takes up time and resources that could be spent actually fixing our political system. Like many other proposed and implemented reforms, it fails to address the real cause of our political problems and points us down a rabbit hole—like a clickbait ad leading to an unending series of cat videos. You’ve noticed that I ignored proponents’ main argument: bridging our political divide by electing moderates. Supporters of the Top Two system argued it would elect more moderate can- didates, and more moderate candidates would solve our current crises. They would act nice, so- cialize together, and compromise. They would usher in the Shangri-la era of legislative accom- plishment. Hogwash. The crisis in Washington and Sacramento is caused not by equivalent polarization, e.g., by two political parties moving equally to their respective corners. It’s caused by the Repub- lican Party falling off a far-right cliff and too many (not all, but too many) Democrats trying to balance them by moving right themselves. Paddle a little on the left, paddle a little on the right may work in calm waters, but it’s dan- gerous when the water is rough. Turbulent waters demand bold strokes, which historically come from the people, not politicians. The movie Selma, today’s #BlackLivesMatter movement, Fight for $15 and Our WalMart campaigns remind us that it’s street heat by people that leads leaders to change. We need change: we’re scared, and rightly so, that extreme wealth has overcome democratic ideals. We’re scared that corporate interests budget for buying legislation like acquiring property. After Obama, we’re scared about the world’s greatest democracy having the world’s lowest voter turnout.

Since the importation of liberal democracy by African postcolonial states in the 1990s mainstream political science scholarship has mainly represented the outcome as a pathologically ethnicized disfiguration of a universal model of politics upon which many had invested much hope for political empowerment and accountability. This article draws from a recent anthropological theoretical position on democracy as a work of cultural construction as well as on ethnographic material on an ethno-regional elite organization in Southwestern Cameroon called SWELA to provide an alternative reading of the ethnicity-elite-democracy nexus in postcolonial Africa. I suggest that while ethnicity is a major idiom through which the politics of democracy is practiced in Africa where most states are very patrimonially organized, this need not be seen as unproductive to the democratic ideals or expectations of effective political participation, deliberation (voice), and political accountability. Taking the case of Cameroon, I argue that in complete reversal of the situation under the one-party state, the historical shift from the one-party state to multiparty politics in 1990 and vernacularization of democracy in Cameroon along a cultural politics of ethnic identities have provided political spaces to the elite that were previously inexistent. I explore how South-West political elites successfully articulate personalized and collective interests on the state through various ethno-regional modes of political action that range from lobbying to threatening memoranda to the regime. These successful strategies by South-West elites indicate how ethnic and patrimonial politics by political elites can link up to democratic expectations in quite surprising ways, suggesting the need for a more cautious interpretation of democracy as a culturally enfolded and enfolding formation subject to local political conditions.

This article interrogates the bureaucratization of war, incarnate in the covert lethal drone. Bureaucracies are criticized typically for their complexity, inefficiency, and inflexibility. This article is concerned with their moral indifference. It explores killing, which is so highly administered, so morally remote, and of such scale, that we acknowledge a covert lethal program. This is a bureaucratized program of assassination in contravention of critical human rights. In this article, this program is seen to compromise the advance of global justice. Moreover, the bureaucratization of lethal force is seen to dissolve democratic ideals from within. The bureaucracy isolates the citizens from lethal force applied in their name. People are killed, in the name of the State, but without conspicuous justification, or judicial review, and without informed public debate. This article gives an account of the risk associated with the bureaucratization of the State’s lethal power. Exemplified by the covert drone, this is power with formidable reach. It is power as well, which requires great moral sensitivity. Considering the drone program, this article identifies challenges, which will become more prominent and pressing, as technology advances.Keywords: bureaucracy; covert lethal drones; Central Intelligence Agency; democracy; terrorism; war(Published: 13 December 2013)Citation: Ethics & Global Politics, Vol. 6, No. 4, 2013, pp. 245-260. http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/egp.v6i4.21850

This article explores Die Antwoord's blackface politics to question whether the concept of citizenship has any value in a context where marginal artists’ attempts to represent themselves on their own terms are overshadowed by the global reach of corporate entertainment media monopolies, and by the legacy of racism and sexism in the music industry. It analyses the work of Die Antwoord, Lupé Fiasco and Angel Haze to contend that global capital undermines the nation-state's ability to secure its citizens’ economic or cultural interests. Using Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's concept of Empire, the author argues that corporate globalisation undermines the sovereignty of the nation-state, effectively compromising democratic ideals. The global appeal of Die Antwoord tells us a great deal about the extent to which diverse cultural expressions are marginalised, as well as the extent to which colonial conceptions of race, gender and class endear in public discourse – specifically in light of the continuing appeal of blackface in the mainstream entertainment industry.

This study investigated the perceived strategies used to deal with mixed ability classes of four English teachers, two working at a year 4-9 compulsory school, and two at an upper secondary school in Sweden. The same teachers were asked about their attitudes towards and experience of ability grouping. The findings of the latter part of this investigation were discussed in reference to research concerning the field of ability grouping.Semi structured interviews were used. Strategies used by teachers included grouping devices, issues of communication, giving individual attention inside and outside the classroom and encouraging self- and peer reviewing. Two teachers in the 4-9 school used ability grouping sparingly but clearly and had experienced an ability grouping of a year nine class which was perceived to have predominantly positive results in academic terms and both positive and negative results in social areas. The teachers of upper secondary school did not use ability grouping – either on democratic grounds or because it was perceived to be unacceptable in the particular school climate. Because the research in ability grouping is diverse, many of the teachers’ attitudes could be supported, and refuted in the research. The teachers using ability grouping felt themselves to be going against research made, but were confident in the decisions they made. Further investigations about maximum numbers of students in heterogeneous classes and time spent with an extra teacher contra own teacher were encouraged.