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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Unequal Democracies: Economic Sanctions' Impact On Human Rights In Democratic Systems, Daniel Partin
Unequal Democracies: Economic Sanctions' Impact On Human Rights In Democratic Systems, Daniel Partin
Masters Theses
In the past, research into the field of human rights has treated regime as a dichotomous variable and divided the type of governmental structure into either autocracies or democracies. By lumping all democracies into one category, all variation between different categories of governmental composition is discarded and it is difficult to examine the differences between types of democratic governments and their human rights capacities. Due to their tendency to accrete power centrally, presidential democracies are thought to repress the rights of citizens more often and severely than parliamentary systems. Further, an exogenous shock to the political system, such as the …
Making African Civil Society Work: Assessing Conditions For Democratic State-Society Relations In Rwanda, Fiacre Bienvenu
Making African Civil Society Work: Assessing Conditions For Democratic State-Society Relations In Rwanda, Fiacre Bienvenu
FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation offers a single case in-depth analysis of factors precluding civil society from democratizing African polities. Synthesizing existing literature on Rwanda, I first undertake an historical search to trace the origins and qualities of civil society in the colonial era. This effort shows, however, that the central authority—commencing before the inception of the Republic in 1962—consistently organized civil society to buttress its activities, not to challenge them. Next, using ethnographic research, I challenge conventional economic and institutional accounts of civil society’s role in democratization. I show that institutional change and the economic clout of organized groups are marginal and …