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Various electronic voting channels have been introduced across a range of countries. In some countries these new channels have proved uncontroversial, while in others, they remain contentious and have even been abandoned. Relatively little is known about whether and why voters have confidence in new and old voting channels. Australia provides a useful case for researching these issues, since it is a mature democracy in which election processes and outcomes are widely accepted. The 2013 Australian Election Study results show that in this context, voters have most confidence in paper-based voting and least in voting via smartphones. Positive political attachments, ease of voting and familiarity with technology are all associated with higher levels of confidence in voting channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on Fatima Jinnah's politics in postcolonial Pakistan. Widely hailed as the 'Mother of the Nation' in contemporary Pakistan, Fatima Jinnah harbours immense symbolic significance. Her patriotism, however, came furiously under question when she campaigned against the military dictator Ayub Khan in the 1965 presidential election. Using unexplored Fatima Jinnah papers, this article reconstructs the story of the election. It argues that the figure of Fatima Jinnah needs to be firmly placed outside the reductive epithets of 'mother' and 'sister' to underscore her political agency. It unpacks her campaign to show how her advocacy for democracy contested Ayub Khan's interpretation of Pakistan's ideology. Ultimately, her politics of dissent saw her branded a traitor and became the battleground for questions of gender, Islam and political rights. This election deepens our understanding of women leaders in postcolonial Pakistan and South Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence (AI) policy, innovation, and practice are moving ahead in rapid fashion. There is a growing mismatch between technological innovations in AI, which are advancing at a rapid rate, and normative and regulatory frameworks, which are lagging, particularly when it comes to protecting democratic values and human rights principles. National governments and multilateral institutions are attempting to catch up. At least 175 countries, firms and other organizations have produced documents listing ethical principles for AI. These efforts have proceeded in a somewhat fragmented manner, yet there are emerging signs of consolidation as the United States, Europe, and other countries begin to coalesce around shared principles. Europe, in particular, has raced ahead to draft comprehensive legislation, the Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA), to oversee these technologies and systems. What has motivated the European Union to pursue this approach? And how will this effort influence AI norms globally? This paper describes how Europe's AI norm-building process represents an effort to ensure EU priorities are reflected in the AI governance landscape. Europe's approach faces uncertainty. While it is likely that the AIA will meaningfully influence global AI norms, several factors may hinder its global diffusion and adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, democracy has been facing increasing challenges. How has comparative regime research responded? Focusing on the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project, this paper argues that the perception of serious threats to democracy in general and liberal norms in particular has given rise to a convergence around the liberal conception of democracy, reversing a previous turn towards recognising its conceptual contestability. In tracing V-Dem's discursive turn from the contestation to the decontestation of democracy, the paper reconstructs two mechanisms that concern the ways in which academic research relates to the outside world and that have jointly pushed V-Dem scholars towards embracing unequivocally liberal conceptions of regime type and regime change. As a response to the crisis of democracy, this gradual abandonment of a pluralist conceptualisation of democracy is understandable but also deeply problematic as it contributes to downplaying the inherent limitations of liberal democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philosophy for Children is a pedagogical approach practised worldwide. Although well known for its contribution to democratic teaching and learning its contribution to critical research is relatively unknown. In this paper we present the use of a Community of Enquiry (CoE), as conceptualised in Philosophy for Children, as a qualitative research method that foregrounds participant voice. Framed through Freirean critical pedagogy and social transformation, we present research undertaken with primary pre-service teachers in England, exploring their emerging teacher identity, and detail the method of how a CoE was enabled. We conclude and advocate that a CoE aligns with a research axiology concomitant with ethical critical practices and argue for an environment that enables the researcher, and participants, to generate data collaboratively and collectively through democratic dialogue. Finally, our findings show that a CoE can have much to offer qualitative critical scholars beyond its originally intended pedagogical contribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we are interested in how ethnographic research can contribute to the promotion of public deliberation. We do not use ethnography only to study deliberative processes but rather we intend to interpret ethnographic research as a social practice, and we research conditions under which ethnographic research might have deliberative consequences. The paper summarizes the results of the multidisciplinary research project Stories of Drought, which combines natural and social sciences in its approach. The project aims to understand how people in Czech rural areas respond to localized effects of climate change, especially drought. Following a systemic approach to deliberative democracy, we study how ethnography contributes to fulfilling three deliberative functions: (1) the epistemic function; (2) the ethical function and (3) the democratic function. In the context of irrigation disputes in South Moravia, we map the arguments of main actors and critical tensions in local discourses. We conclude that ethnographic research, due to its hybrid position between different sources of knowledge, its institutionally recognized expertise and its ability to establish an ethnographer as a trustworthy actor, can outweigh local critical power imbalances blocking deliberative capacity in local policy systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of new voting channels, voting technologies and other voting innovations are often thought to improve voter participation in elections and democracy. However, it frequently happens at the expense of administrators, who needs to deliver even more complex elections. This article traces how the introduction of a new voting channel, Internet voting, affects frontline administrators through a qualitative in-depth case study of the 2017 local elections in Estonia. Findings show that the local election administration plays a substantial role in delivering Internet voting, despite the centralized election hierarchy. The case shows little evidence to support the expectation that Internet voting decreases the administrative burden of local election officials. The article outlines the vulnerabilities in Internet voting administration, resulting from the complexity of delivering multi-channel elections, particularly the ones integrating Internet- and paper-based voting channels. The article makes important recommendations for improving the implementation of electronic voting and improving the quality of elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Should refugees govern refugee camps? This paper argues that they should. It draws on normative political thought in consulting the all-subjected principle and an instrumental defense of democratic rule. The former holds that all those subjected to rule in a political unit should have a say in such rule. Through analyzing the conditions that pertain in refugee camps, the paper demonstrates that the all-subjected principle applies there, too. Refugee camps have developed as near distinct entities from their host states. They have formed their own economic, legal and even political systems within which refugees are subjected to political rule. The paper then demonstrates that democratic rule should be preferred over any other decision-making procedure. No amount of experts can replace the institutions that would lead to the accountability of decision-makers and to the incorporation of refugees as situated and epistemically diverse knowers of the problems they face and the solutions that would work best. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While public consultation is a signature process of democratic policy formulation, many governments manoeuvre to refract citizen's opinions or conduct it perfunctorily. Using the case of a medium of instruction policy in Hong Kong, this article unveils the strategies that the state and citizens employ to put their opinion through to the final policy text, during a public consultation process. Recent literature has identified the mechanisms through which individual actors or organisations contribute to broad policy agenda-setting or policy programme development. However, yet to be investigated is how they – sometimes with conflicting interests – collectively negotiate a policy with the state via public consultations. This paper investigates this very phenomenon, building on previous work conducted in the public policy field, analysing 51 government-generated documents through both thematic content analysis and critical discourse analysis. The paper uncovers four strategies adopted by administrations (non-commitment, case closure, disengagement for irrelevance, and placation) to evade citizens' equity-oriented demands and stakeholders' three counter strategies (mobilising other stakeholders into a coalition, reopening the case pointing out a new problem, and appealing by affirming relevance). The state's discrete refusals and stakeholders' conjoint reengagement tactics draw our attention to the complexity and subtlety involved in negotiation via public consultations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies polarization of attitudes toward immigration in Norway from 2001 to 2019. The paper studies polarization along five dimensions: dispersion, bimodality, consolidation, constraint, and sorting. Empirical analyses were based on two Norwegian longitudinal, cross-sectional surveys. The findings suggested that, first, overall attitudes toward immigration did not become more polarized in terms of dispersion and bimodality. There was, however, a tendency toward increased polarization of attitudes toward Islam and a decreased polarization of attitudes toward refugees. Second, there was an increasing generational gap in attitudes toward immigration, especially with respect to Islam. Third, attitudes toward immigration were more closely linked to attitudes toward other political issues and to party preference. Although these changes should not be overestimated, finding increased tendencies of consolidation, constraint, and sorting in a consensus-based democracy like Norway indicates the wider existence of polarizing trends similar to those in the UK and US. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I discuss the power of corporations as epistemic agents. Corporations need to hold certain forms of knowledge in order to develop and produce goods and services. Intellectual property is meant to incentivize them to do so, in ways that orient their activities towards the public good. However, corporations often use their knowledge strategically, not only within markets, but also in the processes that set the rules for markets. I discuss various historical examples, including the so-called 'tobacco strategy' of creating doubt about scientific evidence, and argue that as long as corporations are set up as profit-oriented entities, it is a dangerous strategy to provide them with too much epistemic power. I suggest various policies for reigning in this form of corporate power, for example regulations on PR activities. I then turn to the power of digital corporations, which is based on their collection and analysis of data. These kinds of companies, and the technologies they use, make the control of corporations as epistemic agents all the more urgent for democratic societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than a decade of multi-actor conflict in Syria has resulted in a complex patchwork of legal identity documentation issued by state and non-state actors. This paper considers the legal identity practices pursued by the Kurdish-led Self Administration governing large swathes of territory in the north of the country. Specifically, the paper studies the forms of identity documentation the Self Administration does and does not provide to people present under its control. Beyond this, the paper focuses on how this system coexists with that of the central state, reflective of the Self Administration's broader approach of compromise combined with competition, to operate as a de facto authority respecting the overall sovereignty, yet challenging specific policies, of the central state. Against the backdrop of somewhat contradictory accusations of collaborating with the Syrian government and simultaneously seeking independence from it, the Self Administration has refrained from mimicking the state while expanding its own de facto 'jurisdictional subjecthood'. Practices of legal identity consequently help to elucidate necessary nuance in understanding the relations between the Self Administration and the government in Damascus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within political philosophy and particularly in the work of Chantal Mouffe and Hannah Arendt, "agonism" has been described as representing the notion of being able to challenge and dissent in a productive way. However, little is known about how agonism is used in the educational literature, other than some applications relevant to democratic education. This paper considers the use of agonism in the educational literature drawing on the findings of a systematic scoping review exploring how it has been used in the context of education. Five databases were searched for literature published using agonism within the context of education to map the existing body of work in a systematic fashion, and to explore how agonism has been differently conceptualised and utilised by researchers in the field of education. The findings suggest that there have been a range of attempts to apply agonistic principles in different educational sub-fields (including, citizenship education, early years education, initial teacher training, arts education and international education), and different interpretations of such principles into education based on different philosophical underpinnings (dissociative and associative approaches). As agonism is mostly explored in a theoretical way, we also discuss the potential of abstract theoretical agonistic principles from different philosophical traditions to be translated into meaningful practical applications for education in order to inform curriculum development, infuse democratic principles into classroom practice, and help to negotiate deep-running tensions amongst key stakeholders in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The three social practices – democracy, philosophy and sport – are more similar than we might initially suspect. They can be described as 'essentially agonistic social practices', that is, they are manifestations of 'agon' (contest). The possibility to participate in agonistic social practices derives from the human condition, i.e. from the necessity to care for one's existence, which requires ongoing attention and decision-making, and which sometimes means going against others. We call this character of human existence by the ancient Greek term 'polemos' (struggle), which can be manifested through various types of agon. If society cherishes agonistic social practices, it enables its citizens to compete to prove themselves and achieve goals (e.g. to push through a persuasive argument, or to win in sport) in a respectful, peaceful and productive way. Believed to have played a significant role in ancient Greece, agon presents itself in both intellectual and physical forms – in philosophy, democratic politics and sport – suggesting that the relationship between these practices is deep-rooted and significant. This paper explores the idea that developing our understanding of polemos and agon can enhance our experience of agonistic social practices and enable our existence to proceed in a more free, pro-social and enriching way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efforts to rewrite Iceland's constitution have attracted significant attention, being heralded as the world's first 'crowdsourced constitution' and a pioneering example of deliberative democracy. Such claims fit into a wider pattern of what this paper terms progressive borealism: exoticising Iceland as a progressive utopia at once both part of and removed from Europe, predicated on the systematic exclusion of marginalised groups. The aims of this paper are twofold. Firstly, it describes the phenomenon of progressive borealism, which relies on the reimagination of colonial-era depictions of Iceland's liminality, purity and wildness. Essential to this notion is the importance ascribed to whiteness and racialisation of ethnic minorities. Secondly, it considers how progressive borealism has impacted Iceland's constitutional reform process. Data is taken from a deliberative poll which formed the basis of recommendations to the Icelandic Parliament. The data demonstrate a diversity deficit, meaning that the most marginalised residents are unable to participate in debates over Iceland's future, challenging the claim that social diversity is irrelevant in democratic processes such as deliberative polling. The analytical framework draws insights from theories of intersectionality and superdiversity to reveal that the lack of inclusivity is a product of structural forces generating and perpetuating systematic exclusion of marginalised communities. The paper closes by considering the prospects for meaningful constitutional change in this context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contends that rural communities in the United States and Europe broadly have been mainly studied as a dichotomy to their urban counterparts. The focus on cities and urban centers and an inculcation of myths and assumptions regarding ruralness have led to knowledge gaps, misperceptions, and missed opportunities in public administration and policy studies. This paper interrogates misconceptions about ruralness and refutes them. It identifies a gap in research agendas, knowledge, and scholarship about ruralness; explores issues with the design of policies and, therefore, policy implications concerning rural communities; and describes how the misconceptions, the lack of scholarly knowledge, and policy implications coalesce to drive a feeling of marginalization and exclusion in rural communities, fuelling a "culture war" dynamic. The conclusion offers potential directions for establishing a research agenda that prioritizes studying rural society as a subgroup with unique needs and belief systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The GameStop saga aroused the emotion and indignation of a large part of the financial community. This paper accounts for this reaction by exposing the conflict of expertise at the heart of the saga: the Bloomberg Terminal of market professionals and the forum of retail investors supported antagonistic perceptions of events. It then generalizes these findings by characterizing the framing operated by the Terminal mobilized by traders, and by underlining its essential divergences from the framing of the internet forum. Through their selection, weighting and ranking operations, these devices offer different points of view on the financial markets. This pluralization of the informational bases guiding investors' decisions allows this paper to address the issue of the democratization of finance, its conditions of feasibility and desirability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1989, councils involving young people have become widespread, both in developed and developing countries. However, these councils are said to reflect the hierarchical nature of parliamentary and representative democracy, leading to tokenistic participation. Studies on the formal structures of youth participation have tended to focus on their failings and reveal little about structures and processes that might encourage youth participation. To address this gap, this paper examines three youth councils in Denmark and argues that the structures of these youth councils – referred to as 'dialogic democracy' in this paper – are what encourage effective participation, ensure the fairness of decision-making processes and develop young people's citizenship skills so that they can have agency in the arena of local policy. Crucially, dialogic democracy can be seen as a form of informal learning, with peer learning being central. Lessons can therefore be drawn for developing citizenship education programmes in other national contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep disagreements are those involving a disagreement about (relatively) fundamental epistemic principles. This paper considers the bearing of testimonial injustice, in Miranda Fricker's sense, on the depth of disagreements, and what this can teach us about the nature and significance of deep disagreements. I start by re-evaluating T. J. Lagewaard's recent argument that disagreements about the nature, scope, and impact of oppression will often be deepened by testimonial injustice, since the people best placed to offer relevant testimony will be subject to testimonial injustice, pushing the disagreement into one about the bearing of certain epistemic sources on the original debate. I take issue with this last step, but I build on the argument to bring attention to unappreciated and worrying ways in which prejudices can make a disagreement deep in ways that can be hidden from one or more of the participants and from observers. Finally, I revisit some of the ways that deep disagreement has been thought to be problematic for the proper functioning of a democracy, and I examine whether the kinds of hidden deep disagreements I argue for in the paper make these problems any worse, concluding that they likely do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid-2000s, democratization has slowed, stopped, and even reversed across the world. At the same time, societies have become more oriented toward free markets as measured by indexes of economic freedom. Relying on a panel sample of 141 developed and developing countries between 2006 and 2017, this paper is the first to investigate whether the two phenomena are related by employing economic freedom data. It finds that there is no net-negative relationship between aggregate economic freedom and democracy in this time-period. Instead, mixed findings of both an overall positive and overall neutral (but not negative) association are uncovered in between-country and within-country analyses, respectively. In between-country analyses, using the disaggregated index shows that the legal system/property rights component drives most of the positive relationship between aggregate economic freedom and democracy in the developed world. The same between-country analyses in the developing world show that freedom of international trade is positively associated with democracy, while modest regulation has a negative relationship. However, additionally controlling for omitted variable bias using country-fixed effects, the paper does not find evidence for either a positive or negative relationship between subsequent changes in levels of economic freedom and democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the importance of, and variations in, political alignment within African regimes. Political alignment is how leaders establish sufficient political support across elites: we posit that formal appointments are the primary way that leaders manipulate political coalitions in order to secure their collective authority and tenure. Appointments, individually and collectively, can take on multiple characteristics: they can create inclusive or exclusive coalitions, transactional or loyal support, volatile or stable elite networks. Appointment powers have greater salience since governments institutionalized and formalized in governance systems across democratic and autocratic states. Manipulating who holds and secures power at the subnational and national levels, rather than repressive control or state capacity, underpins the stability, security, and survival of modern African regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 16 January 2024, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE ODIHR) published its Guidelines on Democratic Law-making for Better Laws. The creation of the Guidelines was driven by the acknowledgment that strengthening democratic institutions and processes is essential in the era of democratic and constitutional erosion and decay and the recognition that contemporary law-making displays several weaknesses. Based on its decades of experience in assessing legislation and legislative processes in the OSCE participating states, ODIHR intended to provide an overview of the guiding principles of the law-making process that ensure that both the process and the resulting laws comply with the requirements of democracy, the rule of law and human rights commitments. The Guidelines offer a new and rich source of inspiration for scholars devoted to strengthening democracy. This paper identifies new(er) avenues for research in democratic erosion and revival, institutional protection of the democratic legislative process, constitutional change, and the impact of constitutional rights. Further, based on some non-OSCE participating states related examples, it shows how the potential inspirational reach of the Guidelines and the research paths it potentially encourage might go beyond the geographic scope of the OSCE participating states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper explores the intersection of age bias and gender bias in relation to female leadership. “Cheat codes” is a term originally applied to computer and video games to describe a code that, when used, allows the player to access features, level skips, or capabilities not otherwise available (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). As a metaphor, the term is meant to suggest a shortcut in decision-making toward a desired conclusion or outcome. In the context of this article, “faulty cheat codes” refer to society’s use of misinformed and unfair stereotypes as specious shortcuts to judge the abilities or qualifications of individuals based on their age, leading to incorrect conclusions or inappropriate actions. This piece highlights the detrimental effects of age bias on prominent female politicians, including Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and emphasizes the need for authentic conversations about cognitive abilities. The paper challenges the use of age as a flawed measure of competence and advocates for retiring negative stereotypes about aging. It also discusses the delayed entry of women into political office and the compounding effects of age and gender biases. By promoting positive narratives about aging and addressing ageism in our political discourse, society can create a more fair and inclusive political landscape that values the capabilities of individuals of all ages. The paper concludes by urging a shift in focus toward substantive political discussions and away from shallow indicators of competence based on age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philosophical theorizing on democracy typically assumes away the existence of nonhuman animals – even though animals are systematically affected by democratic decisions in morally relevant ways. This paper inspects under which circumstances, if at all, this omission can be justified. First, I distinguish between two possible explanations of this neglect: (i) that animals are neglected by democratic theorists due to speciesist biases, according to a debunking account, or (ii) that animals are deliberately idealized away, on a reconstructive approach. Largely, this paper is devoted to assessing when assuming away animals can function as a theoretically productive or practically helpful idealization when theorizing about democracy. In particular, I identify three different aims that may be served by idealizing animals away in democratic theory: (i) to understand what makes democracy valuable, legitimate, or authoritative, (ii) to assess how the pitfalls of really existing democracies might be fixed and (iii) to isolate what robust agents owe each other in democratic societies. I then argue that, whereas the third goal might be usefully advanced by idealizing animals away, the first two goals can only be suitably tackled if we take into account how democracies affect animals’ interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At a time when there are renewed expressions of concern about how our societies are organised and the health of our democracies, this paper focuses on the role of education in a democracy. Informed by John Dewey's and Martin Buber's accounts of what it is to be educated, and Homi Bhabha's concept of third space work, the paper presents the case for a progressive education for democratic citizenship. Adopting an ethnologically-informed approach, the paper provides an in-depth look at two Catalan and two English schools, focussing on the ways in which they look to provide a democracy enabling education. The findings reveal how and why mutual cooperation, collaboration and dialogue in relationships are key elements in the modelling of an education for democratic citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1950, exiles from all across Latin America met in Havana for a congress. The event's purpose was to unite those striving for a democratic Latin America, free from US imperialism and Soviet totalitarianism. This current of opinion was not marginal: it was enthusiastically backed by millions of voters in largely free elections across the continent. However, very little has been written on democracy in Latin America, particularly during the period explored in this paper, 1940–1960. Recent scholarship on the period has instead focused on the ideological struggle between capitalism and socialism. In this paper, I highlight two democratic congresses held in Latin America in 1950 and 1960, under the title Conferencia Interamericana Pro Democracia y Libertad. The conferences served as a forum to delineate a common definition of democracy for the continent, and to explore how it could take hold in Latin America. This paper thus reveals an ideological current independent from the superpowers, which tried to democratise the region against what participants identified as the twin evils of imperialism and totalitarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the cultural imperatives to determining democratic survival in Nigeria. It observes that the general notion that cultural inequality may systematically obstruct democratic participation by the members of subordinated groups is trite. It argues rather that the current crisis faced by democracy is linked essentially to the lack of a space capable of dealing with both social complexity and cultural pluralism. The paper is a desk study borrowing heavily from secondary sources of data and review of extant literature. While not pretending about the potential for ethno-cultural and religious violence imminent in Nigeria's attempt at democratic consolidation, findings, however suggest that in a multicultural society like Nigeria, democracy has the potential to flourish if the different cultural groups understand and tolerate one another by enlarging the space for public participation and debates naturally encapsulated in the principle of popular rule. It recommends that a practical engagement with federal democracy, rooted in the principle of federalism, remains an attractive model for the survival of Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Doctoral researchers are our present and future knowledge-makers. Social justice requires democratic opportunities for knowledge creation, and to this end doctoral supervision theory and practice have become increasingly inclusive, flexible, culturally responsive, and person-centred over time. However, consideration of trauma and trauma-informed practice has remained absent from this work. This conceptual paper signals the need to recognise that doctoral cohorts will include those with lived experiences of trauma. The paper then presents a rationale for developing trauma-informed approaches to doctoral supervision, theorising this approach in relation to wider inclusive education efforts in higher education, Universal Design for Learning, and the social model of disability. Intersections with current trends in doctoral supervision literature and practice are considered, and core principles of trauma-informed practice are identified that can inform work in the specific context of doctoral supervision. The paper offers a fresh perspective on inclusive doctoral education and directions for future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Events of recent years both in the United States and around the globe have highlighted the fragility of democracy. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has prompted educators to seek evidence-based civic engagement methods for helping students understand the invasion and its implications. This paper offers a set of recommendations on how to teach the war in Ukraine through the lens of civic engagement education. Over the years, a sizeable body of scholarship has developed addressing the critical role civic education plays in safeguarding democracy and producing effective pedagogical approaches for instilling democratic knowledge, skills, and dispositions. Using this scholarship as a starting point, this paper offers recommendations on how educators in a variety of settings and across disciplines might modify these civic learning models to address the war in Ukraine. Based on my experience as a scholar-practitioner-educator at an institute of politics focused primarily on American democracy, I also offer suggestions on how to integrate teaching the war in Ukraine using these practices to enhance appreciation of civic engagement and the role of the citizen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democracies are under attack from various sides. In recent years AI-powered techniques such as profiling, targeting, election manipulation, and massive disinformation campaigns via social bots and troll farms challenge the very foundations of democratic systems. Against this background, demands for regulating AI have gotten louder. In this paper, we focus on the European Union (EU) as the actor that has gone the furthest in terms of regulating AI. We therefore ask: What kind of instruments does the EU envision in their binding and non-binding documents to prevent AI harm to democracy? And what critique can be formulated regarding these instruments? To address these questions, the article makes two contributions. First, by building on a systematic understanding of deliberative democracy, we introduce the distinction between two types of harm that can arise from the widespread use of AI: rights-based harm and systemic harm. Second, by analysing a number of EU documents, including the GDPR, the AI Act, the TTAP, and the DSA, we argue that the EU envisions four primary instruments for safeguarding democracy from the harmful use of AI: prohibition, transparency, risk management, and digital education. While these instruments provide a relatively high level of protection for rights-based AI harm, there is still ample space for these technologies to produce systemic harm to democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on the concept of affective atmospheres to theorize how democracy and democratic education take hold and circulate in classrooms and schools. The paper asks under which circumstances affective atmospheres are experienced or even 'engineered', encompassing affective and material features that (de)legitimate democracy, democratic education and right-wing populism. The aim is to render the concept of atmosphere tractable through a line of theorizing that recognizes the affective force of democracy and right-wing populism and asks how democratic education may respond by paying careful attention to democracy as affectively produced and transmitted. The paper also examines what it would take to reinvigorate the affective atmospheres of democratic education in schools in light of the rise of right-wing populist affectivity. The analysis makes a contribution to the challenge of asking how right-wing populist affectivity might be resisted in the context of democratic education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of automated decision-making systems is increasing in education. While the potential impacts of ADM are becoming widely known amongst experts, the perspectives of those impacted by ADM remain peripheral. To broaden expertise and participation, this paper proposes that ADM needs to be considered as a sociotechnical controversy, as part of a technical democracy approach that utilises hybrid forums. Following Callon and colleagues, in this paper, technical democracy refers to the process of learning through uncertainty about sociotechnical controversies, and hybrid forums refer to the specific sites of democratisation. This paper first identifies key uses and concerns with ADM in education. Second, it proposes that restricted capacity for participation can be addressed through technical democracy. Last, it proposes that hybrid forums can create moments of democratisation through shared uncertainty, material politics, and collective experimentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on democracy and disagreement has argued that the principle of respect for judgement requires that disagreement within democracy is resolved by a democratic decision. This paper raises the question what the principle of respect for judgement requires when there is disagreement on democratic inclusion. The paper argues that not all, but some, disagreements on democratic inclusion must be resolved by a democratic decision. Three reasons for when it need not are distinguished, issue-related reasons, people-related reasons, and judgement-related reasons. When parties disagree on democratic inclusion because they disagree on basic principles, the disagreement need not be resolved by a democratic decision, for issue-related or for people-related reasons. When, instead, parties disagree on democratic inclusion despite agreeing on basic principles, the disagreement must be resolved by a democratic decision if the judgements of the disagreeing parties are reasonable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an increasingly global society, public administration and public policy students must be equipped to respond to policy issues in culturally and contextually appropriate ways. It is also essential that MPA and PhD programs produce engaged global citizens with an understanding of public administration systems across boundaries. This paper presents an experiential learning method for achieving these goals. The special topics course Public Administration, Civil Society, & Democracy has been adopted by the Master of Public Administration (MPA) and the PhD in Public Administration and Public Policy (PAPP) programs at Auburn University. The course embraces a comparative perspective by physically positioning the students in global contexts, enhancing their awareness of cultural and administrative similarities and differences. Student learning objectives include research (international fieldwork), teaching (short courses and workshops for local partner organizations), and service/outreach (international service-learning projects). Although the course has been facilitated in several African countries, this paper focuses on Liberia during summer 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains the circumstances where economic growth increases the likelihood of interstate war. Optimism created by high and sustained economic expansion permeates a state, increasing elite and mass optimism for the use of deadly force. Without relief, such unbridled sanguinity can lead states to war. However, other forces reduce the probability of war. Regional democracy, bilateral trade, and trade openness slow down the process where states go to war. This paper hypothesizes that key factors raise the temperature of disputes, increasing the likelihood of a political dispute combusting to war, while other attributes inhibit the process to war. Economic growth catalyzes such reactions, while regional and joint democracy impede the probability that a war sparks. This paper produces monadic and dyadic results demonstrating that economic growth increases the likelihood of war, while other factors such as interstate trade openness, bilateral trade, dyadic democracy, and regional democracy slow down the process of war, making war less likely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades, South Africa has experienced a consistent wave of local protests rooted in impoverished residential areas. Given the centrality of ideas about community within these protests, and building on Gramsci and Katznelson, this paper characterizes low-income residential areas as the "community trenches" of contemporary working-class struggle. Drawing on 29 months of ethnographic fieldwork and 287 interviews, I probe the meaning of community within local protests and its relationship to possibilities for building democracy from below. I argue that current manifestations of community have both benefits and limits: they help protesters to build solidarity across division and infuse their struggles with moral weight, but they also encourage localization, geographic isolation, and internal conflict. With reference to both historical and contemporary South African examples, the paper offers three possible rearticulations of community that—when woven together through interscalar connections—may facilitate democracy from below: community as participatory democracy; community as a right to the city; and community as national citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The density, proximity and anonymity that are characteristic of urban life are often thought to make their spaces conducive to people learning those skills necessary for democracies to function effectively. However, in circumstances where trust between members of a democracy is in short supply, there is also the need to think about how cities can be designed to help manage distrust in ways that are compatible with commitments to democratic forms of government. In this paper, I critically examine a range of strategies that propose to balance trust and distrust through the design, use and management of urban environments. I argue that across this range of strategies—from the privatized security forces operating within gated communities to approaches conceived of as open enough to be described as anarchistic—there is an unexamined and unquestioned assumption that the institution of the police is compatible with democracy. More specifically, these strategies assume that police, adequately reformed and constrained, can help manage distrust between members of a democracy in a way that is compatible with democratic commitments. In contrast, this paper takes seriously the abolitionist argument that authentic democracy requires both a wholesale and complete rejection of the police as an institution and a commitment to develop alternative forms of community safety infrastructure that are used to manage and reduce the effects of distrust within urban space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the gap between people and rule (demos and kratos) in democratic societies by exploring the history and practice of broad-based community organising, as applied by London Citizens, United Kingdom (UK). The paper outlines the origins of this model of politics and how it has been translated from the United States to London and the UK. The paper highlights the power of mobilising the demos to put pressure on the decision-making governance structures that determine the kratos. While London Citizens does this through kratos-at-a-distance, the article goes on to explore how hyper-local, neighbourhood-scaled governance structures—'community councils'—could provide a powerful tool to further connect demos to kratos. Such councils could underpin a democratic revival that combines representation and participation at the scale at which people still live their lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent moves for local government reform in several states of Australia have focused in part on a perceived need for more effective civic leadership, and in particular the role of mayors. Proposed legislation in New South Wales and Victoria would expand the responsibilities of mayors in several areas, such as community engagement, partnerships with key stakeholders, strategic planning and providing guidance to the chief executive officer. In 2012 the Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government (ACELG) published a discussion paper that canvassed these issues as well as the way in which mayors are elected. That paper elicited a strongly adverse critique by Grant, Dollery and Kortt, now published as an article in this issue of Local Government Studies. Regrettably their critique failed to offer a constructive contribution to the debate sought by ACELG, and the article contains a number of significant errors and misleading statements that demand a response. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper calls for greater scrutiny of data journalism as a practice in the semi-authoritarian context of Zimbabwe. Based on in-depth interviews with practising journalists in Zimbabwe, this paper answers two main questions: In what ways is data journalism practised in the Zimbabwean context? To what extent are newsrooms in Zimbabwe "tooled" and capacitated for data journalism practices? We note that data journalism is widely understood by individual journalists in this country but paradoxically less practised due to many challenges. By answering these two questions, we sustain an argument that data journalism appropriation in semi-authoritarian contexts can be instrumental in promoting monitorial democracy and reversing media decadence. In such a political context, which suffers from a democratic deficit, data journalism can cushion journalists from state-sanctioned harassment by "presenting facts to authorities" and reinvigorating "persecutory" practices like investigative journalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shena Simon (1883–1972), a leading English socialist and educationist, actively called for the reform of secondary education in the 1930s and 1940s in order to bring the ideal of ‘equality of opportunity’ into the English educational system. This paper explores the continuity and changes in Simon’s proposed reforms in relation to her ideals of social democracy from the appearance of the Spens Report (1938) to the publication of her book,Three Schools or One?(1948). In addition, Simon’s transnational visits to the Soviet Union, the USA and Scotland, as well as the impact of her international and comparative perspectives on different educational systems on her policy agenda, are also examined. It concludes that as many policy issues shown in the current paper continue to be debated, Simon’s democratic ideals and discourses are still relevant in the present and suggest implications for the future of secondary education in England. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One key achievement of European colonialism is the attempt to introduce the institutions of Westphalia-model state to Africa. However, deprived of the imperative necessities for the development of a sound national spirit required for nations which have only recently come to self-consciousness, the modern state structure is not serviceable in Africa. Despite all that has been written about it, the failings of state-building in Africa remain widely misunderstood. Some, in particular the governments in the African state and their apologists, attribute it almost exclusively to external debacles. Others attribute it, almost entirely, to developmental policy failure. The paper argues, from the emblematic cases, that it is the product of an explosive mix of the two. The paper concludes that the unprogressive nature of the African state mirrors, among others, citizens’ selective inaction but now, to move the continent forward, the African peoples must take proper ownership of their societies to forge responsive nation-states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do people in the world's largest democracy consume news online? In this paper, I aim to answer this question by conducting a quantitative assessment of the online news consumption behavior of a large sample of Indian internet users (N≈50,000) over a period of 45 months. In doing so, I contribute to theoretical debates about global news media use, by systematically appraising the prominence and trends in audience share of different types of news sources, thereby shedding light on the digital news consumption landscape of a crucial, but understudied context. Theoretically, I engage with the displacement-complementarity hypothesis and find no evidence that digital-born media have contested the hegemony of legacy media in India online. Next, I investigate the regional-national media divide and find that regional, vernacular media have suffered significant declines in their audience shares over time. This begs the question whether the notion of 'polycentrism' – the idea that the Indian media environment is comprised of national and regional media of equivalent weight – is at all applicable online as it is offline. These findings also run counter to claims of 'internet vernacularization' that have been touted in the past. Finally, I propose the concept of audience mobility, and use it to identify qualitatively distinct dynamics in how vernacular audiences in India have migrated to national vis-à-vis international outlets. The findings and their implications are discussed in light of contemporary changes in Indian society that is characterized by rapid digitization and increasing literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decline of democracy in the US entails the surge of authoritarianism, ascendency of demagoguery, dispersal of the democratic majority, and weakening of public reason. Dissent, envisioned as a rhetorical practice of democratic deliberation, resists authoritarianism by advancing democratic values. Accordingly, this paper examines democracy as a minority voice, explores the deliberative capacity of dissent, and identifies the rhetorical properties of deliberation. The paper argues that dissent, in its fugitive aspect, is dispersed across an array of modest sites, guided by a deliberative ideal partially realised, and framed by democratic values. Dissent functions in this capacity as an itinerant, recurring source of democratic renewal on occasions of political crisis. It is an adaptation to structural constraints that provides a nurturing aspiration to prompt political agency, establish realistic expectations, and sustain vigilance. While the immediacy of the authoritarian threat and corresponding questions about the role of democratic communication are addressed in terms of the 2024 general election in the US, the democratic challenge in the US is indicative of the abiding immediacy of the authoritarian threat to other democracies and suggestive of deliberative adaptations for restoring the vitality of democratic communication and culture. Complacency in democratic theory and practice is counter-indicated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democratic institutions were seriously challenged across Europe between 1917 and 1939. In 1920, most European states were parliamentary democracies, by 1939 the majority had become authoritarian. However, some states weathered the crises they faced and successfully maintained democracy. There is a significant literature on democratic breakdown, but considerable attention has now been given to those that survived. This paper revisits the question of democratic survival by focussing on the Irish Free State and its experience when compared with other European states. It argues that while the Irish Free State was fragile in a comparative context, sharing many of the challenges associated with breakdown, it also showed considerable resilience. Various factors associated with survival and breakdown are critically assessed to explain the positive Irish outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the changing Sudanese political landscape in the wake of the uprising, which toppled the Islamist regime in Sudan after 30 years in power. It provides an overview of various determinants that would propel shifts in the country's political map and the balance of political forces in any future democratic elections. The purpose of this conceptual study is to deliberate impact factors that will largely influence the Sudanese democratic political environment. These significant issues include the changing demography, decline of traditional forces, fragmentation of political forces, emergence of new actors and the loss of interest in political parties. The article is based on thematic review of these issues, and argues their dynamics underpin the contention upcoming electoral map in Sudan would be different. It discusses the potential scenarios in the political arena as a result of the ensuing impact of these factors. The fragmented electoral map could prompt continuous instability in the democratic system. The paper highlights the transitional period offers the prospect for energising the political forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]