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The article discusses the Yellow Vest Movement in France, which began in 2018 as a protest against rising fuel taxes. The movement was characterized by a lack of clear political nature, with debates on whether it was about environmental justice or selfish motives. The Yellow Vests claimed to represent the sovereign people, reminiscent of the French Revolution's Sans-Culottes, demanding control over representatives and a moral renovation of democracy. The movement's use of revolutionary imagery and demands for popular control over elected officials reflect a resurgence of popular sovereignty in modern protests, challenging traditional forms of representation. [Extracted from the article]

Understanding progressive institutional change remains a central concern in development studies. This paper examines two such cases: constitutional change in Nepal, which broadened political rights, and the outlawing of metal mining in El Salvador, which redistributed resources. To understand institutional change, this paper proposes a cultural political economy approach to Khan's 'political settlements analysis'. Applying the proposed approach to these cases demonstrates how political movements organise around beliefs and identities as well as interests to achieve rights and status, not just material gain. Identifying cultural as well as material sources of power allows a fuller explanation of institutional change processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of civil liberties and political rights on environmental disclosure, and the moderating effect of board gender diversity on the relationship between civil liberties and political rights and environmental disclosure, have not to date been studied in detail, as evidenced by the previous literature available. Therefore, this study aims to analyse how these institutional factors affect corporate environmental disclosure practices across different countries. The firms in our sample operate in 36 countries, spread across all the continents, and the period covered is 2009–2019. The database used to collect economic, social, environmental and governance data is Thomson Reuters' ASSET4, while the items for measuring civil liberty and political rights scores come from the Freedom House organisation (https://freedomhouse.org). The method used for estimating the model is the generalised method of moments (GMM) proposed by Arellano and Bond. The main findings of the study show that levels of civil liberty and political rights in the countries where the firms operate are positively associated with environmental disclosure. Furthermore, according to our evidence, the presence of female directors on boards plays a positive moderating role in the relationship between the level of civil liberty and environmental disclosure and between political rights and environmental disclosure. Additional robustness analyses corroborate our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an overview of the concept of militant democracy and its paradoxes, with a focus on the ideas of Otto Kirchheimer. Kirchheimer analyzed the challenges faced by Weimar democracy in defending itself against legal revolutionaries and identified weaknesses in its defensive measures. The text discusses Kirchheimer's views on the German Basic Law and the use of political rights restrictions to counter antidemocratic organizations. It emphasizes the importance of recognizing and confronting antidemocratic organizations early on and the need for careful governance when implementing political rights restrictions. The article also acknowledges the potential for abuse and highlights the importance of addressing underlying socioeconomic issues. The text concludes by providing a list of academic resources on the topic for further research. [Extracted from the article]

This article examines the relationship between democracy, capitalism, and inequality in America. It discusses the arguments made by Angus Deaton, who claims that democracy is undermined by money's influence on the legislature and wealthy minorities blocking provisions for the less wealthy. However, the article presents counterarguments, suggesting that "deaths of despair" and income stagnation may not be as prevalent as Deaton suggests. It also challenges Deaton's claim that the rich drive policy, presenting evidence that the middle class often gets what it wants in terms of congressional votes. The article explores the undemocratic nature of the Senate and proposes reforms, but argues against them, stating that they misunderstand the divisions in America and that the Constitution was designed to create unity. The article concludes by cautioning against further expansion of executive power and majoritarianism, suggesting that federalism may offer a solution to accommodate the differing tribes in America. [Extracted from the article]

Within recent public policy and administration scholarship, there has been a growing focus on the concept of “administrative burden” to describe the learning, compliance and psychological costs incurred by citizens when trying to access services and exercise social and political rights. Specifically, in the context of activation and welfare‐to‐work programmes, scholars have highlighted the effects of administrative burdens on claimants' autonomy, dignity and well‐being. We bring critical social policy scholarship on administrative harm into conversation with Adam and Balfour's concept of “administrative evil” to highlight the underlying dynamics of masking, moral inversion and dehumanisation that facilitate street‐level workers to adopt dispositions of enforcement of administrative burdens. To illustrate the applicability of Adam and Balfour's work to understanding how experiences of administrative burden can be intensified by the practices and dispositions of street‐level workers, we draw on examples of from an ethnographic study of the delivery of welfare‐to‐work in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the relationship between political norms, legitimacy, and democracy through a radical realist lens, focusing on the establishment of politics and the deepening of democracy. It critiques Bernard Williams' concept of a "basic legitimation demand" and argues that the establishment of politics does not necessarily encompass the conditions for deepening democracy. The authors suggest that elite forbearance and acquiescence of the relatively powerless are key factors in politics, challenging the idea that legitimacy is the universal objective of politics. The article also discusses the implications of de-politicization and de-democratization in the current "crises of democracy." [Extracted from the article]

Contrary to the dominant narrative of the historical formation of democracy in Denmark, which emphasises a smooth and gradual linear transition to democracy and modernity, this paper accentuates a discontinuous and contentious road towards democratisation. Based on quantitative and qualitative sources, this article identifies four major waves of popular mobilisation that paved the way for the introduction and expansion of political rights. The first wave of popular protest began in the 1830s and culminated in 1848 with the fall of absolutism and the transition to constitutional monarchy. The next protest wave from 1885 to 1887 arose from the so‐called 'constitutional struggle' and mobilised hundreds of thousands of ordinary Danes and contributed to the nationalisation and parliamentarisation of the political system. The third wave unfolded around the end of the Second World War, while the hitherto last wave of popular struggle erupted in 1968 with the youth rebellion. The analysis shows that 'democracy' was the central issue of contention in all four protest waves and supports the main thesis that periods of intense interaction between popular protest and the state have had a decisive formative influence on the genesis and further development of Danish democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, drawing on Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) and embracing the decentring agenda in European Union (EU) external relations, discusses the substance of human rights promotion in the negotiations of the Samoa Agreement. It documents how the EU has concentrated on civil and political rights, whereas Africa has advanced an innovative approach to economic, social and cultural rights underpinned by the right to development. More importantly, going beyond the 'heaven–hell binary', which draws neat lines between the good North and the bad South, and the 'one‐way traffic paradigm', which claims that human rights flow from the North to the South, it shows that the human rights corpus may be slowly evolving from its paradigmatic western orientation towards a truly universal project: the EU and Africa have started recognising each other as being holders of diverse yet legitimate perspectives on human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article combines the fields of deliberative theory and citizenship studies. Drawing from a deliberative experiment on foreigner political rights with almost 300 German citizens, we find that a short virtual deliberative treatment produced a clarification effect, whereby especially those with already negative views increased their scepticism. Participants in our deliberative treatment displayed higher levels of argument repertoire and integrative complexity, underlining that the treatment led to well-considered opinions. A qualitative analysis of participants’ substantive rationales unravels traces of what De Schutter and Ypi dub ‘mandatory citizenship’, implying that political rights must be attached to obligations. These results have wide ranging implications: They indicate that the practice of deliberation is not quasi-automatically programmed to progressive outcomes (as some have argued) but can have a communitarian dimension (where preferences are determined on the basis of existing communal values and self-understandings); this suggests that participatory practices may not always advance progressive reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the book "Decolonizing Palestine" by Mitri Raheb, a Palestinian theologian. Raheb aims to bring colonial theory into conversation with Palestinian theology and develop a contextual and decolonial Palestinian Christian theology. He argues that Western Christianity has supported settler colonialism in Palestine by weaponizing the Bible against the Palestinian people. The book explores the history of imperialism in the Holy Land, the role of Christian Zionism, the theology of land, and the biblical idea of election. Raheb's work offers a Palestinian perspective on the political history of the region and challenges Eurocentric and North American theology. [Extracted from the article]

The article explores the concept of peace in Assam, a state in North East India, which has experienced various conflicts. These conflicts are caused by factors such as development, resource control, identity assertions, inter-ethnic strife, immigration, and border disputes. The article highlights a book called "Making Peace Mutually: Perspectives from Assam," which suggests "conflict transformation" as a potential solution. The book includes interviews and essays from stakeholders involved in the crisis, such as administrators, academicians, journalists, and legal experts. The article also provides historical context, including the Ahom Kingdom's rule, British occupation, and the influx of immigrants. It concludes by discussing the fragmented and divided political scenario in Assam and emphasizes the importance of diverse perspectives in achieving peace and harmony. The text presents various perspectives on the conflict in Assam, focusing on the need for peace and the challenges faced in achieving it. The contributors emphasize the significance of inclusive nationalism and the need to address the grievances of different ethnic groups. They also discuss the impact of identity politics, power dynamics, and gender inequality on the conflict. The Assam Accord is examined as a potential solution, but questions are raised about its effectiveness and the definition of Assamese identity. The book aims to provide insights for policymakers, researchers, and social scientists in understanding and transforming the conflict in Assam. [Extracted from the article]

The text discusses two books, "Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities" by Mahmood Mamdani and "Development, (Dual) Citizenship and its Discontents in Africa: The Political Economy of Belonging to Liberia" by Robtel Neajai Pailey. Mamdani's book explores citizenship and subjectivities in various contexts, while Pailey's book focuses on the political economy of belonging in Liberia. Mamdani examines settler colonialism and race, while Pailey emphasizes development and market forces. Both texts address the issue of citizenship from different perspectives, with Mamdani looking at settler colonialism globally and Pailey examining Liberia's exclusionary black immigrant settler paradigm. The texts highlight the complexities of citizenship and the need to address the legacies of colonialism. [Extracted from the article]

On 25 January 2017 then‐President Trump issued Executive Order 13,767 "Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvement" which designated dozens of new miles of barrier construction in Hidalgo County and surrounding municipalities in the Texas Rio Grande Valley (RGV). In response, a multitude of political organizations known as the No Border Wall Coalition (NBWC) mobilized in an effort to demilitarize their communities. Our analysis focuses on three organizations within the NBWC—the RGV Sierra Club, Texas Civil Rights Project, and the South Texas Human Rights Center. These organizations, and others, are calling for an end to encroaching physical walls, a proliferation of surveillance technologies, and an expansion of military‐police enforcement personnel. Using a triangulation of qualitative methods, we identify three campaigns of resistance used by the NBWC: protecting the environment, defending landowner rights, and preventing migrant deaths. Our analysis reveals how each of these campaigns helps bring together a diverse set of political organizations and interests into a collective web and narrative structure, and underscores the common formation of what we designate as a multitude. We show how this multitude transforms RGV communities "from below," as the NBWC reckons with environmental degradation, the suspension of civil and political rights, and humanitarian harms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Politicians and mainstream media in the EU, UK, and US regularly emphasize the need for highly skilled migrants, but, over the last few decades, the terms and conditions for these highly skilled migrants have changed drastically. As part of the neoliberal migrant control regime, highly skilled migrants are brought to countries under very restrictive conditions. They work and contribute taxes but have few to no political rights. Based on data on highly skilled Indian migrants in the US during the pandemic, we argue that highly skilled "nonimmigrants" are placed within a thicket of laws and policies that act as enclosures, but these seemingly neutral enclosures remain "hidden in plain sight" because of the silence about their near‐indentured life conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Politicians and mainstream media in the EU, UK, and US regularly emphasize the need for highly skilled migrants, but, over the last few decades, the terms and conditions for these highly skilled migrants have changed drastically. As part of the neoliberal migrant control regime, highly skilled migrants are brought to countries under very restrictive conditions. They work and contribute taxes but have few to no political rights. Based on data on highly skilled Indian migrants in the US during the pandemic, we argue that highly skilled "nonimmigrants" are placed within a thicket of laws and policies that act as enclosures, but these seemingly neutral enclosures remain "hidden in plain sight" because of the silence about their near‐indentured life conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electronic government innovations have been a critical development in public administration in recent years. Many countries have implemented e‐government policies to enhance efficiency and transparency and combat corruption. This paper examines the impact of e‐government on corruption using longitudinal data for more than 170 countries from 2002 to 2020. The empirical results suggest that e‐government serves as a deterrent to corrupt activities. We analyse which e‐government domains affect corruption, which types of corruption are more affected by e‐government and the circumstances under which e‐government is more effective in reducing corruption. The empirical results suggest that online service completion and e‐participation are important features of e‐government as an anticorruption tool. Evidence suggests that e‐participation reduces corrupt legislature activities, public sector theft, executive bribery, and corrupt exchanges. The potential of e‐government to deter corruption is higher in countries where corruption is moderate or high and economic development is lower. Higher levels of GDP per capita, foreign direct investment, and political rights are also associated with lower levels of corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indeed, it is well worth asking whether this authoritarian regional regime, that operated as an enclave within national political system (and as a powerful minority in the Democratic Party), so distorted national politics as to make the United States itself a hybrid regime or as a recent book puts it, a "Southern Nation" (Bateman et al., [4])? Instead of viewing the political form constructed by populist government as a qualified democracy or as a qualified authoritarian regime, I argue that populist governments when fully in control constitute a distinct hybrid regime that wields together elements from democracy and authoritarianism but is neither one nor the other. Descriptively, some populist regimes may fit the competitive authoritarian label insofar as they are hybrid regimes; they are not subtypes of authoritarian regimes. I disagree with those who want to situate the regime type populist governments erect as "qualified" - illiberal, "semi", or "delegative" democracy - but also with those who see populism in government as a subtype of authoritarianism (competitive or electoral) or populism as "the government" as outright autocracy. [Extracted from the article]

Democracies come in many different forms with significant variations in their institutional architecture, and some supposedly well-functioning democracies have no (or very weak) constitutional courts (e.g., the Scandinavian countries; see Larsen, [52]; Wind, [79]).[2] Arguably a useful general account of democratic backsliding must be able to explain deteriorations of democracy in such "nonconstrained" democracies, too. The system of rights is an abstract framework for positive democratic constitutional law that, as Ingeborg Maus puts it, is intended to leave room for the "political autonomy of constitutional lawmaking and law-giving citizens who first develop rights from their own vantage point, bring them historically to consciousness, and enact them into positive law" (also see Habermas, [26], pp. 160-162; Habermas, [27], p. 90). Much recent political commentary suggests that a "backlash", "revolt", or "counter-revolution" is unfolding against liberal constitutional democracy (e.g., Eatwell & Goodwin, [18]; Galston, [23]; Mounk, [58]; Norris & Inglehart, [61]; Zielonka, [82]). So long as citizens' rights to an equal opportunity to participate in political law giving are protected in other ways,[7] Habermas' system of basic rights does not even require that democracies hold elections. I speak of a "particular species of regressions" because the relevant regressions concern those fundamental constitutional rights that correspond to the basic rights Habermas sketches in the system of rights: as I will explain more below, at issue is either the outright suspension of those rights or that the exercise of those rights is obstructed without them being suspended. [Extracted from the article]

The manifesto extends the argument and proposes that institutionalized workplace democracy, generalized across entire value chains, would be a major step toward a redemocratization of society at large, and thereby an essential condition for social justice and decisive environmental action. Early in 2020, three leading theorists of work, Isabelle Ferreras, Julie Battilana, and Dominique Méda, submitted an op-ed to the French newspaper I Le Monde i to highlight the significance of work as the pandemic was revealing it. [Extracted from the article]

Changing models of party organization and party democracy: the emergence of the cartel party. The Politics of Party Funding: State Funding to Political Parties and Party Competition in Western Europe. Moreover, party reliance on private donations could also be argued to attenuate the ties between parties and their grassroots, and the introduction of public funding could be seen as a way of freeing up party activists from fundraising so they could do more political work on the ground (Briffault, [11]; Christiano, [15], p. 258; Ewing, [27], p. 133). Canada's union-allied New Democratic Party (NDP) agreed to reforms that severely restricted the funds that trade unions could donate to it on the grounds that, as stated by one of the party's spokespeople, "the only people who should be allowed to contribute to political parties are those who are actually eligible to vote at election time" (cit. [Extracted from the article]

On July 19, 2022, the recorded temperature in London topped 40 degrees Celsius, the highest temperature ever recorded in the United Kingdom. In Chapter 4, Darian-Smith turns to the disproportionate impact of wildfires and climate change on marginalized communities. Whether authoritarianism has deep historical roots in a country or is ushered in by antidemocratic leaders who are voted in by democratic electoral processes, the implementation and maintenance of free-market authoritarianism involves various interconnected processes and strategies. [Extracted from the article]

Plato and Aristotle place opinion intermediate between knowledge and ignorance with all opinions under the suspicion of error. Kant summarized that opinion is a consciously insufficient judgement, subjectively and objectively. Belief is subjectively sufficient, but is recognized as being objectively insufficient. Only knowledge is subjectively and objectively sufficient. Despite this philosophically doubtful value of opinions, thinkers such as Milton, Locke, Montesquieu and Mill maintain that the freedom of opinion and speech are the basis of open societies but find limits when it represents a definite risk of damage, either to an individual or to the public. Also the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights proclaims the right to hold opinions without interference provided that it respects the rights or reputations of others and does not interfere with the protection of public health. Hate speech and propaganda for war are expressively prohibited. Postwar US politicians formulated the position that every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts. The impact of this discussion on opinions about control measures of the COVID‐19 pandemic is explored in this editorial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

However, the close-knit cooperation in the 16th and 17th centuries between commoners and priests employed as local state officials and the systematized and state-regulated use of petitions to legitimize rule also stand out as Scandinavian traits. We learn from I Bringing the People Back In i that state and society need not be enemies since, in Scandinavia, state officials often communicated or even encouraged and supported the popular petitions. How did state and society co-evolve historically in the Western world, and how did patterns of state-society interactions shape the development of liberal democracy and the state's propensity to deliver desired public goods?. [Extracted from the article]

The Inter‐American Court of Human Rights has recently changed its approach to the protection of environmental rights, which are now treated as autonomously and directly justiciable, thus without having to first establish a breach of any related civil or political rights. Lhaka Honhat v Argentina is the first contentious case the Court adjudicates based on the right to a healthy environment. The judgement issued in this case, and the opportunities and challenges presented by direct justiciability of environmental rights within the Inter‐American system, are critically appraised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has long been hypothesized that democracy benefits the poor, yet solid empirical evidence for this assertion is scarce. This article provides new global evidence regarding the poverty‐reduction effect of democracy, which we refer to as the Sen Hypothesis. A difference‐in‐differences estimation using cross‐national panel data of over 100 countries from 1995 to 2015 shows that democracy reduces poverty, although the size of the effect varies by the poverty line chosen. The results also show that the effects are channeled by entitling more political rights, increasing freedom of speech and the size of middle classes, and improving governmental quality, and are heterogeneous over time and democratization types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords: classical tolerance; democracy; identity politics; political freedom; postmodern tolerance EN classical tolerance democracy identity politics political freedom postmodern tolerance 237 241 5 06/24/22 20220601 NES 220601 INTRODUCTION In his paper "The meanings of tolerance", Maykel Verkuyten (2022) deals with the case of a student who posted comments on Facebook that expressed his disapproval of homosexuality and same sex marriage because it was considered a sin and abomination in his Christian belief. Classical tolerance, democracy, political freedom, postmodern tolerance, identity politics In his study Verkuyten distinguishes "classical tolerance" and a different, "modern" understanding of the term tolerance. CLASSICAL TOLERANCE Despite a long history of the term tolerance its traditional meaning can be summarized as follows: Classical tolerance is understood as enduring and putting up with issues one dislikes and even may disapprove of. [Extracted from the article]

Objectives: Despite the broad appeal of abstract notions of political tolerance, people vary in the degree to which they support the political rights of groups they dislike. Prior research highlighted the relevance of individual differences in the cognitive domain, claiming the application of general tolerance ideals to specific situations is a cognitively demanding task. Curiously, this work has overwhelmingly focused on differences in cognitive style, largely neglecting differences in cognitive ability, despite compelling conceptual linkages. We remedy this shortcoming. Methods: We explore diverse predictors of tolerance using survey data in two large samples from Denmark (N = 805) and the United States (N = 1,603). Results: Cognitive ability was the single strongest predictor of political tolerance, with larger effects than education, openness to experience, ideology, and threat. The cognitively demanding nature of tolerance judgments was further supported by results showing cognitive ability predicted tolerance best when extending such tolerance was hardest. Additional small‐sample panel results demonstrated substantial 4‐year stability of political tolerance, informing future work on the origins of political tolerance. Conclusions: Our observation of a potent role for cognitive ability in tolerance supports cognitively oriented accounts of tolerance judgments and highlights the need for further exploration of cognitive ability within the political domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we build on qualitative data from 37 in‐depth interviews with Venezuelan immigrants in Chile, collected in 2017 and 2018, to explore how they make sense of sudden immigration policy changes made by the Sebastián Piñera government in mid‐2018. Linked to these perceptions, we explore our interviewees' attitudes towards other immigrant groups. We contend that, while immigrant participation in policymaking often is a normatively desired form of inclusion, immigrant perceptions of other immigrants and of immigration policy are not uniform. We find that immigrants can have very negative perceptions of other immigrants, favouring restrictive policies. Immigrants influence the contexts of reception for newcomers, and—in the case of Chile—they have voting and political rights that places them in a position of casting some influence over immigration policies. Studying the Venezuelan case is particularly illuminating, as this immigration was considered a desirable or acceptable immigration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is interested in Syrian and Syrian refugees' ties of belonging to their country in times of war and displacement. By looking at individuals, the paper follows a micro‐level approach to research societal ties of belonging to a country that has slipped into war. It argues that during conflicts, the meaning and boundaries of national identity are grasped in individuals' re‐imagination of their country in either more "civic" or "ethnic" terms. As a result of this process, national identity may gain an inclusive, civic meaning based on the idea of citizenship or a more exclusive content based on the narrower confines of ethnicity and sect. Empirically, 100 Syrians and 100 Syrian refugees provided their vision of a future Syrian state in online interviews. The findings show that the majority of respondents' visions of Syria follows a civic rationale, with most survey participants linking their belonging to a future Syria with the broader ideas of citizenship, political rights and participation, rather than identifying the country in ethnic/sectarian terms. Combined with the theories, these results offer a glimpse into the societal formation of a new Syrian "we" amid an ongoing war and continuing waves of displacement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The closest case to a variant of commuters' franchise is the City of London, wherein different bodies, ranging from churches, hospital trusts, and shops to big corporations, are given the right to appoint commuters to vote in the local elections. According to the same logic, it will be difficult to argue that commuters hold additional political powers if a commuter's work city and home city are part of a regional particular-role governance institution. He argues against a commuters' franchise, claiming that commuters' interests should be looked after by the state government or parliament rather than the work city, because the latter is responsible for the well-being and interests of "its own people and only its own people" (p. 92). According to this claim, including commuters in both the work and home city demoi undermines political equality between citizens of the state by giving commuters greater political rights than their counterparts. [Extracted from the article]

Identity politics: Universality and particularity Theorizing identity politics as a democratic instantiation or application of biopolitics first necessitates a working definition of identity politics itself. As a regime that explicitly opposes democracy's commitment to collective participatory governance, liberalism was frankly constructed as an "art of government" that strives "to limit the exercise of government power" (Foucault, 2008, p. 27). The overall lesson Foucault tried to teach us, then, was to be critical of the manifold processes of administration, management, regulation, and normalization at work within the I dispositifs i that constitute the modern state, whether this management is facilitated through an "anatomo-politics" of the individual body Foucault calls discipline, or through the "regulatory controls" of the population Foucault calls biopolitics. (2003, p. 141) By articulating contemporary identity politics as a form of democratic biopolitics, I am not just erecting a conceptual parallelism between the demographic-based logic of identity politics and the population-based logic of biopolitics (though I am doing this too), but I am more fundamentally suggesting that, perhaps, many of the concepts through which Foucault critiqued modern power no longer operate in quite the same manner as they once did. [Extracted from the article]

Political tolerance, defined as a willingness to grant civil liberties to disliked groups, has historically been viewed as necessary for liberal democracies. Canada is known as a tolerant country, but very little research exists on political tolerance in Canada. Using the "least‐liked" measure of political tolerance, I show that Canada has lower levels of political tolerance than the U.S., and that religiosity—particularly committed and conservative religiosity—is unrelated to political tolerance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current research explores the role of financial sector development on the control of corruption in a global sample of 140 countries. Using annual data from 1996 to 2015, this study makes use of system generalized method of moments technique to identify the determinants of corruption across the full sample, low and lower middle‐income countries and, upper middle and high‐income countries. Our empirical findings show that financial development plays an important role in controlling the growth of corruption across the full sample, low and lower middle‐income countries and upper middle and high‐income countries. Similarly, per capita income has a significant positive impact on control of corruption in upper middle and high‐income countries, while education plays a similar role in low and lower middle‐income countries. On the contrary, the per capita income, trade openness, government expenditure, political rights and civil liberty are the major factors, which promote the growth of corruption in low and lower middle‐income countries, whereas trade and civil liberty play the same role in high‐income countries. Given these findings, our study makes number policy recommendations and adds new knowledge to the empirical literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ahmed Tantawy, a prominent political opposition leader in Egypt, was imprisoned on May 27th after an appeals court upheld a one-year sentence against him and his supporters. The court also barred Tantawy from running in national elections for five years. Tantawy and his campaign adviser were initially sentenced to one year in prison for their peaceful campaign to collect public endorsements for Tantawy's presidential run. Human Rights Watch has criticized the Egyptian authorities for their zero tolerance towards peaceful activism and called for Tantawy's release. The court ruling is based solely on Tantawy's political activism and his campaign's efforts to collect support statements, which the authorities deemed an electoral offense. Human Rights Watch has documented numerous unlawful arrests and prosecutions against potential candidates and their supporters, effectively preventing any meaningful competition in the December 2023 presidential election. The use of Law No. 45 of 2014 to restrict activists' ability to collect support statements is seen as a violation of freedom of expression and association. Human Rights Watch has called for the immediate and unconditional release of all those arrested without credible evidence of an offense. [Extracted from the article]

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The structure of the financial system refers to the way funding is shared between banks and financial markets. This paper investigates the determinants of the financial structure variability across emerging economies. It particularly seeks to study the effects of democratic versus autocratic political regimes on the financial system structure. The results provide evidence that democracy is associated with higher market‐based financial systems. In this line, democracy tends to promote financial systems where stock markets are more active and efficient than banks. Therefore, policymakers are recommended to strengthen democratic institutions through reinforcing political rights and civil liberties, as part of a strategy of stock markets development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Displacement is urbanizing. Urban violence increasingly contributes to displacement while a growing number of displaced people across the globe seeks refuge in cities. This article builds on original research in four Somali cities to explore the link between violence, displacement and urbanization. It identifies and comparatively explores three types of urban settlements of displaced people: urban camps at cities' outskirts, inner‐city squatter settlements, and relocation areas. The focus of the analysis is on the political economy that underpins the establishment, maintenance and, at times, destruction of these settlements. The article shows that settlements of displaced people are embedded in varied practices of rent seeking which contribute to the commercialization of land and housing and lead to further land speculations. Urban reconstruction accelerates rent seeking and goes hand in hand with (mass‐scale) evictions of displaced people. The article also shows how land ownership is mobilized to retain political rights and citizenship. The findings outline the multiple ways urban land relations are intertwined with practices of sovereignty and citizenship, and attest to observations of a globally expanding rent economy. They also underscore the arbitrariness and violence imbricated in property relations. Displacement and urban resettlement generate their own political economy which defines options for settlements and determines their spatial forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global diffusion of regulatory reforms in telecommunications has prevailed in many countries, engendering major institutional changes and entailing the establishment and/or reform of regulatory agencies. Although the triggers and timing of such agentification processes have been more or less similar, agency independence displays significant cross‐country variation. Seeking to explain such variation based on a sample incorporating middle‐income countries (MICs), this paper examines the impact of political‐institutional settings in which the agencies operate, in addition to the impact of economic parameters. Regression analysis reveals that political rights appear as the central parameter, while their impact is more robust in MICs than in advanced countries. The results underscore considerable cross‐national variation in regulatory governance, along with a noteworthy decoupling between MICs and advanced countries. Concurring with the regulatory regionalism perspective, the paper delineates distinct regional clusters, albeit remaining agnostic about the determinants of such clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the response from the writers about the human rights. Topics include assigning human rights to people as citizens and not as humans; explaining the analysis in making the people think that human rights being in fact fundamental political rights; and essential human rights to freedom of expression and freedom of association not necessarily apply to non citizens.

The 1826 Maryland Jew Bill was the most protracted and heated fight over Jewish political rights in the United States. For eight years, in the legislature, in newspapers, and in elections, Marylanders debated whether Jews should be allowed to hold government office or positions of public trust, a struggle that garnered journalistic coverage from throughout the country. Historians have not explained why Maryland, a state with very few Jews in the early nineteenth century, was the site of the country's largest debate over their legal status. This study argues that Unitarianism, which did not claim many adherents in Maryland at the time of the Jew Bill but occupied an outsized role in the state's debates about religious rights and Christian orthodoxy, is a key part of the story of Jewish rights in Maryland; the state's unique experience with Unitarianism is one of the causes of the state's unique place in the story of Jewish rights in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perry Schmidt‐Leukel has proposed a "fractal" theory to correlate factors which are replicated across religious traditions. His aim is to develop notions of religious and theological pluralism which have become locked into a somewhat sterile conflict with "inclusivism." A wide range of thinkers from a variety of religious traditions respond to his initiative, some applauding it, others criticising it as being too abstract to do justice to the particularity of religious phenomena. A highlight is Francis X. Clooney's defence of his comparative theology project as an alternative to pluralism. In reply, Schmidt‐Leukel generously accepts a number of criticisms while reasserting his proposal that on the basis of fractal theory a truly interreligious theology is possible. It remains to be seen how widely fractal theory applies to concrete religious phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam converted thousands of African American men to Islam during the height of the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement. Muhammad's men neither protested for Civil Rights nor subscribed to the militancy of the Black Power Movement. Indeed, they construed both to be fundamentally flawed routes to justice, freedom, and equality. Nation men, or Fruit of Islam (FOI) as they are more commonly known, believed that through Islam, racial separation, and community building initiatives they could ultimately reclaim their freedom, self‐respect, and manhood. The NOI provided men with a newfound sense of self and purpose and in doing so imbued them with a deep‐rooted appreciation for Islam, as taught by Elijah Muhammad. Rank‐and‐file male members of the faith community remain largely overlooked in the extant scholarship on the NOI. This article seeks to recover the stories of rank‐and‐file FOI. It assesses the organisation's appeal to men, the varied means by which it challenged them and the burdens the community placed on FOI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1938 and 1956, an estimated 1,147 children were sent from the United Kingdom to Australia through child migration initiatives delivered by Catholic organisations. Whilst experiences of child migrants varied, there has been a growing public recognition over the past thirty years of the trauma experienced by many. Although the suffering of child migrants occurred in the context of wider policy failures, this article argues that there was a particular pattern of systemic failures characteristic of these Catholic schemes. After providing an overview of the complex organisational structure through which Catholic child migration operated, the article identifies six systemic failures in this work relating both to organisational processes and the institutional conditions to which child migrants were sent. It goes on to argue that these occurred in a framework of religious legitimation which emphasised the unique role of the church as a mediator of salvation, the need to safeguard children's faith, the child as a member of a corporate body more than as an individual and the relative moral authority of the church over secular institutions. Within this framework, these systemic failures were either unrecognised or seen as tolerable in the context of wider organisational and theological priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

British‐Israelism was a significant movement in British culture in the twentieth century. At its high‐point in the mid‐twentieth century, card‐carrying members of the British‐Israel World Federation numbered in the tens of thousands. Several members of the royal family — including King George VI — publicly declared their adherence to British‐Israelist doctrine. They have shared this belief with lawmakers and generals, poets and television personalities. British‐Israelists believe that the descendants of the biblical polity of Israel are the Anglo‐Saxon people of Britain. As such, the British occupation of Jerusalem in 1917 was seen by British Israelists as an event of incomparable prophetic significance. This article explores the ways in which British‐Israelists responded to the changing status of Palestine over the course of the short twentieth century. Drawing on the insights of Zygmunt Bauman and of Andrew Crome, I contend that British‐Israelism — at times philo‐Semitic, at times anti‐Semitic — is fundamentally allosemitic in its attitude towards Israel and the Jews. As such, to paraphrase Crome, British‐Israelists can "never interact with Israel on its own terms." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examines whether a host country's institutional environment of immigrant integration influences immigrant youth's integration into its educational system. Ensuring immigrant youth are well integrated into the educational system bears paramount societal significance because the educational pathways of these youth will determine not only their own life trajectories but also the future of society as an integrated whole. Based on a dataset that links PISA 2015 with MIPEX 2010, a series of cross‐national multilevel analyses has been conducted for 227,028 children in 34 OECD countries. Two important patterns stand out in the results. First, the academic performance of immigrant children tends to be more comparable to that of their non‐immigrant peers in countries characterized by a more egalitarian distribution of civic rights. Second, the performance gap for immigrant children appears smallest in countries characterized by a medium level of sociopolitical promotion of group‐based cultural rights. These patterns suggest that policy efforts toward balancing between diversity and unity combined with systemic levers for egalitarian civic rights may contribute to the macro‐level institutional environment in which social disadvantages of immigrant students can be mitigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we draw on the literature on political property rights, political accountability, and strategic management and entrepreneurship to propose a cost neutral reform aimed at promoting long‐run economic prosperity. We propose replacing politicians' defined benefit pensions with a financial contract that is tied to economic performance. In particular, we propose a contract that pays out a lump sum to a politician 30 years after their election if real gross domestic product per capita is above some preset benchmark. Furthermore, we show that the contract can be priced such that it is cost neutral in terms of present value with a defined‐benefit pension. We argue that this contract provides a net benefit to society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation: Foreign land acquisitions (FLA) is a hot issue in development policy, but empirical work is scant, mostly because of the lack of official and consistent cross‐country data. Although transparency is a necessary ingredient to avoid FLA's most negative effects, no articles currently address this issue. Purpose: We examine transparency in the release of information on FLA by (a) measuring the degree of government transparency; (b) exploring the extent to which transparency depends upon democratic and governance features; and (c) discussing how the dissemination of information by non‐state actors can positively affect data disclosure. Approach and methods: First, we check the information source (including companies, non‐government organizations (NGOs) and research) and then compute an original index of transparency and the free flow of information on FLA for 78 countries. Finally, we discuss the relationship between transparency, free flow of information on FLA and political and institutional variables in the host country. Findings: With regional variations, institutional quality, democracy and the free flow of information overall are positively related to government transparency on FLA. Countries with a higher degree of information disseminated by non‐state actors tend to have higher data disclosure on FLA. The system of land governance contributes to explaining counter‐intuitive behaviour at the country level. Policy implications: The role of NGOs, research institutions and companies in providing information on FLA can contribute to improving government transparency. Researchers and activists emerge as important agents of change, especially when civil and political rights are restricted and local communities disempowered. Activists can help research on land governance by collecting data; the data disseminated by researchers can affect government transparency and improve land governance and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]