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This article explores reactions to the practice of polygyny in Denmark over the last 30 years. While bigamy was listed in the criminal code, the public approach to marital choices up until the 1990s was generally one of non-interference. In the face of immigration from non-Western countries, the clause on bigamy becomes an instrument to criminalise polygyny and limit access to residence permits. Unpacking this rationale through the study of the political and public discourse surrounding four occurrences of polygyny in Denmark and their legal consequences, we flesh out the underlying values that structure private relations and personal choices in Danish liberal democracy. We demonstrate how the criminalisation of certain non-monogamous unions must be negotiated within a liberal approach to marriage, religious belief, and right to privacy. Here, women's rights and equality, in an increasingly multicultural Denmark, become a trope activated to problematise this practice. The rejection of divergent cultural practices such as polygyny, we argue, serves both to reaffirm the superiority of Danish values and to produce more restrictive migration laws. The criminalisation of pologyny thus, serves as a case study to examine the scopes and limits for pluralism in Western liberal democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the author's journey from political science to sociology due to issues within the discipline, focusing on the teaching of Iris Marion Young's work on social justice in Scotland. It highlights the importance of understanding social justice in a broader context beyond redistribution, especially in the Scottish welfare state. The text also delves into the challenges of addressing race, gender, and sexuality in Scottish politics and the limitations of liberal democracy in tackling systemic oppression. Ultimately, it calls for a reevaluation of democratic institutions to achieve true social justice. [Extracted from the article]

Student participation has become a relevant topic in the international debate on education. However, the conceptions of the meaning of participation and its practical implications are very heterogeneous. This article reviews how educational policies have conceived student participation in Western countries. Having conceptualised student participation, the role of the liberal model in shaping school democracy and student participation is explored. It is suggested that this model is in crisis due to two main factors. On the one hand, the organisation of democratic processes in schools has well recognised limitations. On the other hand, the pressure of the neoliberal agenda on standardisation and the emphasis on individual success omit any interest in democratic aims. The evolution of education policies concerning student participation is illustrated with reference to a case analysis of Spanish state educational legislation. The future of student participation is reflected on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political culture literature asserts that congruence between the existing democratic system and citizens' views and expectations of democracy is crucial for democratic stability. Consequently, citizens' conceptions of democracy not only influence political attitudes or vote choice, but also the endurance of democracy. For the German case, research has shown that differences in political socialization in East and West have caused differences in what conceptions of democracy citizens hold, suggesting that attitudes of young generations socialized in re-unified Germany are converging. However, persistent disparities between East and West and a surge in support for the right-wing populist AfD, especially in East Germany, raise the questions of how sustainable political socialization effects are, and how a populist conception of democracy might be related to political socialization. Using ESS 10 data, the article tests cohort effects on a liberal, a social democratic, and a populist understanding of democracy in Germany. The results show that cohorts socialized in a socialist system are more committed to a socialist, but also to a populist conception of democracy, while attitudes of young people are indeed converging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the dynamics of democratic governance in South Africa and Ethiopia within the framework of Africa Agenda 2063 (AA2063), including how political polarisation and populism shape the democratisation process. Design/methodology/approach: A mixed-methods approach integrates quantitative analysis using the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) data set with qualitative case studies from South Africa and Ethiopia. Cohort analysis, comparative analysis and descriptive statistics revealed patterns and trends in democratic transformation, how groups evolve over time and the momentum needed for both countries to achieve the goals of AA2063. Findings: This study found that the political landscapes of South Africa and Ethiopia are significantly shaped by the emergence of democracy, political polarisation and populist parties. Considering the 10-year expected outcomes outlined in AA2063, the findings show that South Africa achieved 84% of its 10-year democratic governance policy goals, whereas Ethiopia reached only 25%. South Africa, despite demonstrating a strong commitment to clean elections, has experienced significant political polarisation and the rise of populist movements. In Ethiopia, the shift towards one-man governance has significantly diverted the country's trajectory from liberal democratic aspirations to undemocratic practices. Practical implications: The findings provide actionable policy recommendations aimed at building resilient democracy against political polarisation and populism. Social implications: This study highlights the vital role of informed citizens in safeguarding democratic practices. Originality/value: This study makes a significant contribution through a rigorous comparison of democratic practices in South Africa and Ethiopia by elucidating the critical factors that shape their differing levels of democratic maturity. The analysis uncovers the impact of political polarisation and populism on governance by employing a comprehensive array of democratic indicators to provide a nuanced understanding of these dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractConsidering the June 2024 general parliamentary election results in India, this article undertakes a broad discursive analysis of the parliamentary Communists, tracing their trajectory from the inception of independent India to the present day. It argues that the Communists have continued to oscillate between liberal and neo-liberal notions of “governmentality,” constrained by its perpetuation of “capitalo-parliamentarian” hegemony. Drawing parallels with B.R. Ambedkar’s dichotomies on liberal democracy, the article highlights that the shifts in capital–labour dynamics have further deepened this ideological vacillation of the Communists. The article suggests that to move forward, Indian Communists must choose between constitutional governmentality and extra-parliamentary interventions rooted in transformative class politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article interrogates the contradictions of neoliberal multiculturalism as the newly hegemonic model for race relations in the United States. Neoliberal multiculturalism emerged in the 1990s as a model of governance that incorporates historically racialized, and or excluded groups into the political, social, and cultural institutions of power to create a more inclusive, equitable, and democratic society. It is in response to an aging White population that was rooted in historically specific regimes of racial domination, and an ever more diverse working-age population. Nonetheless, like all measures to resolve capitalist crisis, neoliberal multiculturalism has generated new contradictions. The most important being that multiculturalism alone could not resolve the principal tensions between capitalism and labor, the environment, and liberalism. Drawing on examples from ongoing research from the Inland Empire, I argue that the convergence of these historic contradictions has put multiculturalism as a project of the left at a historic impasse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines a long-standing doctrine in charities law – that if an organisation's main purpose is political then it cannot be charitable. This doctrine is not without controversy because it has the potential to exclude many worthwhile organisations from charitable status, and fetter worthwhile advocacy by those that do have status. While no jurisdiction remains unwaveringly committed to the orthodox political purpose doctrine, we argue that none so far have confronted the public benefit – and detriment – of political advocacy adequately. This paper proposes a way of assessing the public benefit of political advocacy in liberal democratic societies. It argues that political advocacy can give rise to clear public benefit: this is an indirect or process benefit associated with advocacy itself regardless of the end advocated for. However, recognising political advocacy purposes as charitable should still be subject to two constraints: the altruism requirement (reflected in the 'public' aspect of public benefit); and consistency with liberal democratic values (as part of the 'benefit' aspect). These constraints are needed because, while political advocacy can generate benefit, detriments may also be associated with political advocacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A vague and loosely defined concept, 'populism' allows understanding the nature of present day's challenges encountered by liberal democracy better than any of the finely defined concepts that have currently gained widespread currency would allow. Bulgaria is no exception. There are several key moments that have effectively led to transforming populism into a norm. One has connection with the formation of the party system, the exhaustion of the transition cleavages, and the transformation of party politics into symbolic politics. The second concerns the way the market economy was built in the country, with the merging of economy and state, the disintegration of social systems and the distancing of citizenry from institutions and the political overall. The third is associated with the role of the media and the digital turn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liberal public security is the internal security of the country formed in the interaction of the state and society, based on the requirements of the rule of law and the protection of human rights. The necessary conditions for the establishment of liberal public security are the political regime of liberal democracy and the corresponding dispositive legal regulation. However, these prerequisites are not sufficient, as societal groups must engage in the creation of liberal public security. This creative interaction between state institutions and society groups takes place when the liberalization of classic institutions of social behavior and the self-creation of civil society organizations take place in parallel. In this process, members of society are "liberated from the shackles of morality and religion". This enabled the liberal democratic state to transform law into a modern tool of political power. The separation of law from morality and customs ultimately leads to its actual disappearance in the consciousness of many citizens. 21st century at the beginning, globalization processes intervened in the process of liberalizing democracy and creating a civil society. The growth of the economic, political and socio-cultural bonding of states and the expansion of cross-border migration of natural and legal persons led to multi-faceted processes of globalization. In their context, the changes in the structure of liberal democratic society and the recovery of dictatorial regimes after the end of the Cold War took place. The establishment of moral relativism led to new social consequences: the individualistic expression of the freedom of physical and legal persons spread, instrumental thinking was formed, the field of politics narrowed to situational politics. Globalization processes lead to growing opportunities for dictatorships to destabilize liberal legal systems. This, in turn, encourages a trend of increasing state control and shrinking liberal public security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the current polycrisis, Andreas Reckwitz suggests that instead of emphasizing progress, Western liberal democracies should cultivate resilience. The question is: which resilience? The prevailing theory of democratic resilience focuses on securing the "invariant core" of democratic institutions. This article shows why this approach is insufficient and discusses the advantages of the multisystemic approach. Democracy is here understood as a quality of the lived relational environment and a regime with social and ethical aspirations. Developing resilience in this context means nurturing the sources of democratic subjectivity and consistently opposing the inner and institutional violations in the society. As such resilience has nothing to do with invulnerability or protection against external threats. Instead it supports the resistance against the double binds caused inside democratic regimes by the neoliberal paradigm in the name of cultivating democratic agonism and transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cadernos de Dereito Actual is the property of Asociacion Xuristas en Accion and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Local government studies was born as a sub-division of public administration, but was progressively cross-fertilised with a range of disciplines, notably political geography and urban studies. This buffeted what had been normative foundations of the field, notably liberal democracy, and challenged meanings of key concepts from its lexicon, including the 'local', democracy, government, place and scale. These cherished concepts have been re-imagined and are now more than ever 'up for grabs'. Subsequently, normative theorising about the local government waned. This paper argues that we need to meet the challenge set by these new insights and ask what would a defence of local government look like if we took them into account? In doing so, we should recognise both their value and limitations; engaging in the challenge will reveal the need to re-visit some long-held assumptions about not only the value of local democratic institutions but also their continuing fundamental relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The commentary looks at the two landmark judgements delivered by the Supreme Court in recent months on the electoral process in India which is the lifelines of liberal democracy. The judgements deal with the appointment of CEC and other election commissioners along with the funding of elections. In the Anoop Baranwal case, The Supreme Court has tried to insulate the election commission from control of the government of the day in order to make it a neutral institution. In the Electoral Bond case, the court has tried to create a level playing field among political contestants during the election. But the judgements have not been able to plug all holes in the electoral process as many lacunae remains. The judgements of the Supreme Court will go a long way in ensuring free and fair election in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there has been a steady increase in interest in the works of Fr. Sergius Bulgakov, both in the Russian-speaking and in the Western academia. As one would expect, this sometimes leads to Bulgakov being approached by theologians who defend opposing positions and are in polemics among themselves. One example of this state of affairs is, in particular, the polemics between two contemporary theologians working inter alia in the field of political theology — the Anglican theologian and founder of the Radical Orthodoxy movement John Milbank and the American Orthodox theologian Aristotle Papanikolaou. With regard to political theology, Milbank and Papanikolaou take opposite positions, parting ways in their attitude towards liberal democracy. If Milbank believes that Christianity is absolutely incompatible with the liberal state growing out of secular modernity, Papanikolaou in his turn supports a different view, defending the compatibility of Christianity (and Eastern Orthodoxy in particular) with liberal democracy and the rights and freedoms that go along with it. At the same time, what is of interest here, is that when constructing their own arguments, both theologians rely largely on Bulgakov’s works and appeal to his ideas. The purpose of this article is to acquaint the Russian-speaking reader with the polemics among two important contemporary theologians, in which a significant, although often not explicitly expressed place is given to Bulgakov. The article will analyze how both theologians read and interpret Bulgakov. I will show that both of their readings suffer from excessive polarization, since both read Bulgakov selectively, exposing him as a supporter of their respective positions. In fact, although Bulgakov supported the dignity of the individual asserted by liberalism and recognized individual freedom as the highest value, he believed that any political regimes are of relative, and not absolute, nature and serve only as historical means to achieve extra-historical ideals. In a similar ambivalent way Bulgakov also treated the separation of church and state, finding in such a separation both pros and cons.

This article aims to outline a theory of political boredom based on the concept of the liberal temporal dispositive. According to this concept, modern politics is characterized by the reduction of political time consumption to enable the growing temporal autonomy of the individual. However, individuals may experience considerable stress in their pursuit to utilize this free time effectively. Boredom arises when individuals fail to “fill” their available time with meaningful actions. Political crises of boredom occur as attempts by individuals to relieve the pressures accompanying temporal autonomy, sometimes restarting political temporality on a new, massive scale. Furthermore, the article examines modern political philosophy as inherently rooted in the liberal temporal dispositive. Through several historical examples, it is discussed how political philosophy may either contribute to imbuing politics with a desire for meaning or abstain from it in an attitude of serene resignation. It is proposed that liberal democracy requires a temporal ethics based on the latter.

American citizens face an epistemic crisis that threatens their liberal-democratic political order: They lack a shared standard of truth for distinguishing facts from falsehoods. Schools have an obvious role to play in solving the problem, for teaching the truth about the world and how to find it are at the heart of their mission. Careful curriculum decision-making is needed to accomplish this aim, and my contribution to this symposium is to suggest that Durkheim and Bernstein’s sociology of education, as articulated by Young and Muller in the two keynote articles and across the past twenty-five years, takes us in a useful direction. I briefly sketch two curricula that are responsive to the crisis and will serve, in substance and method, as specimens of that direction. I then reflect on them and make a civic argument for centring disciplinary content and skills in the curriculum. Next, I join Young, Muller, and their colleagues in suggesting that a popular ‘critical’ discourse limits educators’ ability to accomplish the aim of teaching truth and truth-finding because it turns their attention away from knowledge and curriculum. I conclude with an Arendtian warning of what is at stake in this crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political scientists heavily rely on standard survey questions referring to "democracy" when they study citizens' attitudes toward (liberal) democracy. However, we only know little about the way in which citizens respond to these questions. This article focuses on two frequently highlighted issues: social desirability and the consistency between citizens' understanding and researchers' understanding of the term "democracy." To address these issues, I collected novel survey data via YouGov from 14,000 British, French, German, and Italian respondents. I use a list experiment to show that respondents do not feel socially pressured to misreport their support for democracy. However, what citizens have in mind when they claim to support democracy only reflects norms and institutions of minimal conceptions of democracy. Overall, this encourages the usage of questions regarding citizens' support for democracy widely, although this should not be interpreted as the support for anything going beyond minimal conceptions of democracy (providing freedom and allowing for citizens' influence on political decisions). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses various conceptualizations of illiberalism and adopts a definition that equates the concept with the negation of three liberal democratic principles: limited power, a neutral state, and an open society. The second part of the article explores the implications of this definitional strategy for empirical research, describes the relationship between populism, authoritarianism, and illiberalism, and identifies nine distinct routes to illiberalism: authoritarian, traditionalist, religious, libertarian, nativist-nationalist, populist, paternalist, materialist-technocratic, and left-wing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elected leaders increasingly undermine liberal democratic institutions with the support of their voters, openly challenging liberal democratic institutions in election campaigns. However, political scientists thus far have lacked the theoretical and empirical tools to study the role of elections in democratic backsliding. This article theorizes the degree to which democracy in general and liberal democracy more specifically can and should be conceptualized as valence and positional issues in multiparty electoral competitions of established liberal democracies. By investigating how German citizens and parties of the postwar period spoke about democracy per se and liberal democracy in their regional and national election manifestos, this article shows that democracy per se and liberal democracy, in particular, have been issues of different qualities in German postwar elections. While parties have used references to democracy in general as a mixed issue, showing both signs of valence and positional issues, parties' emphasis on liberal democracy is shaped by a positional logic. Social and direct democracy have also been positional issues. Studying democracy and its various conceptions as electoral issues will help us address many important questions concerning the stability of democracies, shifting researchers' focus to the competition of parties over citizens' support for reforms that undermine or stabilize liberal democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hans Kelsen was one of the most important legal thinkers of the 20th century, and he is known for mounting an elaborate defense of liberal party democracy at a time when the latter was hardly the most popular form of regime. This article examines how Kelsen responded to two major political movements he experienced in his intellectual prime: political Catholicism, which he was confronted with in interwar Austria, and Christian Democracy, which became a hegemonic political force in Western Europe after World War II, when Kelsen was already in exile. The article reconstructs Kelsen's complex critique of these two religious movements and ends by reflecting on what we can learn from his arguments about current attempts to revive Christian political thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A legitimate expectation in a liberal democracy is that public officials enforce the law regardless of its content; when they don't do so, their actions tend to be publicly condemned. This expectation puts street-level bureaucrats in a moral dilemma when they consider that a certain law is unjust: either they don't enforce the law and violate their duties to the citizenry, or they enforce it and become complicit in injustices. This paper argues for the legal permission of public officials to disregard legal mandates for moral reasons. Call it official disobedience. Contrary to common intuitions, I show that official disobedience would foster the principles of and improve governance in liberal democracies: it accommodates public officials' personal autonomy and yields three main democratic benefits. First, information about the outcomes of the law would become available for lawmakers; second, in the aggregate, it would protect citizens from injustices; third, it would improve the moral character of bureaucrats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Marmara University Journal of Political Science / Marmara Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilimler Dergisi is the property of Marmara University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Amme Idaresi Dergisi is the property of Public Administration Institute for Turkey & the Middle East (TODAIE) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries face significant challenges in achieving democratic consolidation amid geopolitical tensions, authoritarian tendencies and regional conflicts. This paper examines the resilience of civiliarchic democracy as a framework to understand and address these challenges. The study employs a mixed methods approach including comparative analysis and the Civiliarchy Index to explore the interplay between European integration, democratic resilience and anti-civiliarchic forces. To identify the main principles of EU foreign policy in the EaP countries and its normative component, a qualitative targeted content analysis of official EU documentation was used. Additionally, the method of discourse analysis was used to consider the narrative regarding the participation and lobbying from the EU and European institutions and values within the EaP countries, as well as prepare for the negotiations with EU and EU member states for the interests of EaP countries. Europeanization and democratization determine both the political and social prospects for sustainable development of the EaP countries, as well as the hybrid challenges of strategic security and the dichotomy of inter-integration conflicts. The paper analyzes the gaps in European political integration in the EaP countries for the period from 2013 to 2023. The authors rely on studies on Europeanization and European political integration in the tradition of neo-institutionalism, as well as on the resilience of the EaP countries. The findings of the paper imply that the civiliarchic democracy the EaP countries face is thwarted by internal instability, external pressures and shortcomings in EU policies. But EU’s strategic and engagement can in some extent tackle authoritarian trends and improve democratic institutions. Theoretical and practical insight into the concept of civiliarchic democracy and its resiliency in light of the democratization literature is the main contribution of the study. Policy and scholarly implications of the findings in support of improving democratic institutions and further inclusive European integration in the EaP region are suggested.

In the context of the current polycrisis, Andreas Reckwitz suggests that instead of emphasizing progress, Western liberal democracies should cultivate resilience. The question is: which resilience? The prevailing theory of democratic resilience focuses on securing the “invariant core” of democratic institutions. This article shows why this approach is insufficient and discusses the advantages of the multisystemic approach. Democracy is here understood as a quality of the lived relational environment and a regime with social and ethical aspirations. Developing resilience in this context means nurturing the sources of democratic subjectivity and consistently opposing the inner and institutional violations in the society. As such resilience has nothing to do with invulnerability or protection against external threats. Instead it supports the resistance against the double binds caused inside democratic regimes by the neoliberal paradigm in the name of cultivating democratic agonism and transformation.

A liberal-democratic society (from a political theory perspective) is self-governing in the sense that people, through their directly elected representatives, exercise sovereignty and decision-making authority. Through this process, elected officials should have the power and the responsibility to decide all policy matters. In the real world, however, this is not so easy since public policy is made by bureaucrats and not by elected officials. With the birth of the Welfare State, in fact, the question of how much control representatives elected by citizens should exercise over the Public Administration (PA) has become a topic of relevance. The presence of permanent officials in relevant administrative roles corrects some of the major shortcomings of democratic governance and contributes significantly to the success and stability of liberal democratic States. It is therefore necessary to begin a reflection that can give relevance to the normative dimension of the executive power with a deontological analysis on the role of the civil servant/public official. This paper aims to underline the importance of PA in a liberal-democratic political system and explain which are the limits of democratic legitimacy for public officials fulfilling their functions. In addition to this, an alternative approach will be proposed. A vocational model of accountability based on the neutrality of the public function and on a set of liberal values (efficiency, liberty and equality) as a healthy corrective to populism and illiberal democracies and an alternative to the democratic legitimacy.

Treating counter-disinformation activities as a discursive practice producing knowledge in specific cultural and historical contexts, this article brings a vital cultural studies perspective to an incipient Critical Disinformation Studies agenda. At the same time, it cautions against inadvertently aligning that agenda with the ‘bad faith’, right-wing populist critique of counter-disinformation practices, acknowledging their genuine potential to enhance democratic culture. It proceeds by interrogating the communicative strategies informing the proliferating Western counter-disinformation initiatives which have mushroomed in response to what is widely perceived to be one of democracy’s most potent threats, and which border on a ‘moral panic’ serving to conceal key ideological tensions. Grounded in Critical Discourse Analysis methods, a close reading of mission statements and related materials from the websites of four leading counter-disinformation units demonstrates how these texts interweave three functions – identity construction, performativity, and representation – to generate the overarching ‘discursive formation’ or ‘articulation’ constituting counter-disinformation as modern liberal democracy’s core, but also exposing its fault lines. Specifically, it shows that a failure to reconcile competing accounts of truth (as scientific rationality and normative value) indexes deeper contradictions pitting the liberal emphasis on individual freedom and capitalist efficiency against the democratic prioritizing of popular power, dispassionate observation against civic participation, and the promotion of transparency against the creeping power of surveillance. It concludes that the absolutist epistemology – a vestige of disinformation’s Cold War conceptual origins – designed to cover over these paradoxes masks the complex roles played by truth and deception in politics, thereby hindering the emergence of alternative, oppositional forms of knowledge capable of embracing truth in its radical contingency and plurality and facilitating democratic renewal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the progress and challenges in the democratic landscape of Africa within the framework of the Africa Agenda 2063 (hereafter AA2063). Initiated in 2013, the Agenda signifies Africa's commitment to an integrated, prosperous, and peaceful continent. Despite these aspirations, Africa faces persistent challenges, including political instability, socio-economic inequalities, and health crises. This study triangulates data from Afrobarometer public perception surveys, Varieties of Democracies expert insights, and the Ibrahim Index of African Governance to provide a broad understanding of the ten-year trend in democratic governance in Africa. The study found an increased demand for democracy, contrasted with a continuous decline in the supply of democracy. The study observed that, based on the average democratic performance over the decade, measured at 45% using V-Dem indices and 44% using IIAG percentage, Africa needs to score more than twice the current performance every year to align with the democratic aspirations of AA2063. This study underscores the need for targeted reforms to bridge the gap between current democratic performance and the envisioned goals of AA2063. It identifies key areas for improvement, including the separation of powers and checks and balances, citizens' active participation, accessibility to state-owned media, and the independence of election monitoring bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with Workers' Party supporters in Northeast Brazil, and analysis of electoral campaign materials, I show that left-wing populist discourse can activate aspects of a traditional and apparently illiberal political culture that are compatible with liberal democracy, particularly the principles and ideals of representation, accountability and redistribution of economic growth. By political culture, I refer to the intersection between, on the one hand, cultural aspects such as religion, power relations rooted in history and life trajectories dictated by political and economic constraints, and, on the other hand, political discourses, leaders and policies. Moreover, I show that Workers' Party voters are not irrational actors, as some scholars of populism argue, but vote for politicians and parties that radically transformed their lives. Using Northeast Brazil as a case study, the paper contributes to debates about the relationship between populism and liberal democracy, showing how the two are not incompatible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely feared that the onset of populism poses a threat to democracy, as citizens' support for democracy is essential for its legitimacy and stability. Yet, the relationship between populism and democratic support at the citizen level remains poorly understood, particularly with respect to support for liberal democracy. Data measuring citizens' populist attitudes in conjunction with a comprehensive range of measures of democratic support have been lacking. Using unique data from the Netherlands, we study the relationship between individuals' populist attitudes and their attitudes towards democracy in three studies. We examine the association between populism and support for democracy and satisfaction with democracy (Study 1), populism and support for liberal democracy (Study 2), and populism and support for majoritarian conceptions of democracy (Study 3). We find that while citizens with stronger populist attitudes are dissatisfied with how democracy works, they are no less supportive of the principle of democracy. Contrary to most theorizing, we find that citizens with higher populist attitudes not less supportive of key institutions of liberal democracy, but reject mediated representation through political parties. At the same time, individuals with stronger populist attitudes are highly supportive of forms of unconstrained majoritarian rule. These findings suggest that the relationship between populism and support for (liberal) democracy is more complicated than commonly assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous concerns about new democracies, as in the wake of the Arab Spring, have now been turned inside Western liberal democracies. These appear under siege because of populist movements which give vent to harsh economic and national identity claims. Among all liberal democracies the EU needs a re-elaboration of its core principles to gain more support from its peoples. I propose to examine a conservative view that preserves the core of liberal-democratic principles, while relying on an idea of 'Transnational European Civic Ethos' (TECE) that crosses national boundaries. TECE can overcome the lack of a common European demos, limiting its claims to segments of the European population that have something in common and can fruitfully deliberate together. TECE can defuse part of the populist threats that I take as expressing conservative attitudes without a response in contemporary liberal democracy. Final normative considerations from the model of the 'reasonable citizen' come to support the TECE proposal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on everyday life, where people feel affected both economically and health-wise by the spread of the novel virus, regardless of whether they have contracted it or not. At the same time, we know that populist attitudes influence how people perceive their individual situation, the political environment, and available policy solutions. Are these two factors interrelated? This article examines the role that populist attitudes play (a) in subjective feelings of being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and (b) in choosing policies to counteract its spread. Populist attitudes may lead people to reject the policy-making process during the COVID-19 pandemic, shaped primarily by experts. The article argues that this should increase the sense of concern among people with populist orientations and lead to a rejection of commonly discussed policies to contain the virus. To test this connection empirically, we conducted a representative survey in Austria in September 2020. Our analysis shows a significant and substantive correlation between populist attitudes and the subjective feeling of being affected by the crisis in the areas of health and the economy. Similarly, we find evidence that populist attitudes affect the acceptability of policies to combat the spread of COVID-19. These findings indicate that populist attitudes have such strong effects on individuals' perception of the world that they even influence the perception of the globally shared challenge of a pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Friedrich Hayek presents a demarchic conception of democracy as a solution for what he takes to be the inherently corrupt and totalitarian nature of liberal democracy. While still preserving the label 'liberal representative democracy', this Hayekian demarchy precludes parliamentary and governmental institutions from providing positive laws and policies on behalf of their constituents where this would require the transfer of the private property of individuals. Such laws and policies would, on this demarchic conception of liberal democracy, undermine individuals' free usufruct. I argue that demarchy's detachment from any concern with the well-being of many of its citizens is an illiberal and anti-democratic (sub)version of liberal democracy that increases populism and risks crushing liberal democracy between the pseudo- and anti-liberal support of a totalitarian majoritarian people's sovereign power and a minoritarian anti-democratic elite. As such, liberal democracy conceived of in Hayekian demarchic terms is itself an oppressive totalitarian political theory incapable of preventing an increase in illiberal and anti-liberal political forces. Moreover, I argue that it is imperative that we acknowledge and appreciate the extent to which demarchy undermines, rather than strengthens, liberal democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Politiikka is the property of Finnish Political Science Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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Many thinkers lament the decline of liberal democracy. Some argue that, to rejuvenate it, we must think big. Thinking big involves generating new ideas about how to achieve an unprecedented level of social transformation aimed at cultivating solidarity, empowering citizen efficacy, and promoting the common good. We propose that fundamental to such a transformation must be a radical change in how people speak to one another. To this end, the primary objective of this paper is to offer a framework for understanding how speech currently erodes democratic engagement. The central idea is that much of speech today both reflects and perpetuates a culture of wilful incommensurability. The core features of this culture are totalizing safetyism, expressive safetyism, dismissive intransigence, and polarized alienation, all of which have been worsened by the current trajectory of social media. The result is that people are increasingly prone to engage in degraded free speech, which is characterized by a pervasive aversion to reach out, identify points of unity, benefit from diverse perspectives, and discover truth in all its potential complexity. In view of this diagnosis and the response of those who advocate for freedom of speech, a second objective of this paper is to introduce the concept of attentive free speech. Attentive free speech has similarities with civil discourse but is specifically characterized by discernment and thoughtfulness and is imbued with key dispositions such as courage, reverence, and love. We end by inviting future research into how such speech can promote the social and spiritual health of the public sphere and freedom itself at a practical level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This symposium essay offers some generalized theoretical propositions on the connection between authoritarianism and legality. It suggests that there are least some sociopolitical contexts in which authoritarian regimes may be even more strongly motivated to pursue legality than their democratic peers. This conjecture comes in three steps: first, authoritarian regimes fear organic social mobilization significantly more than their democratic peers. This incentivizes them, especially in larger, more diverse societies with less predictable sociopolitical landscapes, to pursue the atomized governance of society. Second, legality is, at its core, an institutional design that both responds to and produces social atomization. Not only is law a necessary ordering device in stranger-oriented societies where communal self-governance and self-regulation is unlikely to be effective, but it also produces reliance effects that render social relations more distant. Third, combining these two arguments, in very large, very diverse societies, authoritarian regimes may have even stronger incentives to pursue law-centric modes of sociopolitical ordering than do democratic ones. This does not necessarily mean that they will always act upon such incentives, but it does offer a deeper explanation for why the Chinese regime in particular is very unlikely to decisively abandon its current legalistic trajectory at any point in the foreseeable future. This is very much a thought experiment, but hopefully, one that offers useful ideas for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Security is one of the most important human needs, which can only be satisfied by other people, and only from the outside. It lacks leads to human frustration and resistance (A. Maslow). Before the war in Ukraine, the development of European societies took place in peaceful conditions. Therefore, the war in Ukraine caused by the Russian Federation actualized the problems of meeting the security of liberal democratic societies. The subject of this study is the internal tensions inherent in liberal democracy, which can intensify when insecurity spreads in society. The purpose of the research is to reveal the socio-cultural vulnerability of the security of liberal democracy. The satisfaction of security is explained based on the closely parallel evolution of the human mind and community (F. Hayek), in which the culture of being of human groups was formed - common rules of behavior and groups turned into communities. This sociocultural evolution has weakened in liberal democratic societies. The socio-cultural vulnerability of the security of liberal democracy is caused by the formation of "new individualism" and consumer society. In the process of formation of a new individualism and consumer society, the concept of security is transforming from general security to individual security. In this process, the socio-cultural nature of common security inevitably weakens. When the development of society takes place in a state of peace and there is no external threat to national security, we hardly notice the transformation of general security towards individual security. However, the growth of external threats to the nation forces us to turn to common security, which is developed by fostering the sociocultural ties of society members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the future of the Western-led liberal international order? This paper makes four arguments. First, over the last two centuries, liberal democracies have pioneered a tradition of international order building, the essential impulse of which has been to create an environment—a sort of cooperative ecosystem—in which liberal states can manage interdependence, protect their values and interests, and aggregate capabilities to defend against threats and challenges to their global position and way of life. Second, liberal democracies have used institutions as tools and mechanisms to respond to dangers and opportunities in the global system, focused on the problems of anarchy, hierarchy, interdependence, liberal openness, and geopolitical vulnerability. Third, the most dramatic forms of liberal order building have occurred after major wars, when liberal democracies found themselves in war and geopolitical competition with rival and threatening illiberal great powers. Finally, liberal internationalism and the liberal project still have a future in that they offer cooperative solutions the core problems of twenty-first century world order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions about the future of US supremacy, the global spread of liberal democracy, and liberal international economic institutions create what we call 'international regime uncertainty': doubts about the fundamental principles, rules, norms, and decision-making procedures that govern areas of international affairs. This includes both probabilistic assessments of the risk that prevailing principles and institutions cease to function but also fundamental uncertainty over what alternative institutional arrangements and governing principles may emerge. Irrespective of actual systemic change, international regime uncertainty can affect transnational economic and political activities by increasing structural policy uncertainty and the probability of bargaining failures. The political uproar over energy transition policies that seemingly violate core principles of the international trade regime illustrates these points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Afghanistan is a country with diverse ethnic minorities that have been in conflict with each other, without much emphasis on nationalism. Lack of social cohesion has led to the dominance of tribal leaders in the country. On the other hand, modern nation-state building has been introduced through the French Revolution and colonization in India. These two ideologies have resulted in a cultural shock, tug of war between tradition and modernity, and violence in Afghanistan. Nationalism, which introduces traditional values into modern clothing, is in conflict with liberalism, which emphasizes postenlightenment ideology and development in Europe, but has not been able to bring development to Afghanistan. Nationalism has led to division and animosity between the various cultures and ethnic groups in Afghanistan, resulting in social conflicts, weak nationalism, and underdevelopment. Armed uprisings, the emergence of terrorist groups, foreign intervention, the destruction of infrastructure, and the collapse of the developmental mindset are some of the consequences of this underdevelopment. This sociologicalhistorical research aims to answer the question of how the delay in the formation of nationalism affected the development and led to the collapse of the developmental mindset in Afghanistan. The hypothesis is that the delay in the formation of civic nationalism, weak separation of private and public spheres in the eighth constitutional law, lack of historical background to liberal teachings, the non-sociological function of global society, and continuous ethnic nationalism without regard to the past have contributed to this collapse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]