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Articles 1 - 14 of 14
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Policy Stringency, Political Conditions, And Public Performances Of Pandemic Control: An International Comparison, Dan Chen, Yong Li, Jiebing Wu
Policy Stringency, Political Conditions, And Public Performances Of Pandemic Control: An International Comparison, Dan Chen, Yong Li, Jiebing Wu
Political Science Faculty Publications
What factors might explain the cross-country variations in COVID-19 public performances and what lessons can be drawn to be better-prepared for future pandemics? This study focuses on the effects of policy stringency on COVID-19 public health outcomes to gain insights into national-level state responses to COVID-19 and the conditions for their effectiveness. Using data from 136 countries comprising 91.4% of the global population, we find that more stringent policies lead to lower infection and death rates. More importantly, the negative effects of restrictive policies on infection and death rates are moderated by political trust and democracy levels, possibly through the …
[Introduction To] Community Wealth Building And The Reconstruction Of American Democracy: Can We Make American Democracy Work?, Melody C. Barnes, Corey D. B. Walker, Thad Williamson
[Introduction To] Community Wealth Building And The Reconstruction Of American Democracy: Can We Make American Democracy Work?, Melody C. Barnes, Corey D. B. Walker, Thad Williamson
Bookshelf
"How can we create and sustain an America that never was, but should be? How can we build a truly multiracial democracy in which everyone is valued and possesses the needed political, economic and social capital so that democracy becomes a meaningful way of life, for all citizens? By critically probing these questions, the editors of Community Wealth Building and the Reconstruction of American Democracy seize the opportunity to bridge the gap between our democratic aspirations and our current reality. In a moment of democratic disappointment and anxiety, politicians, policy officials, scholars and citizens desire an effective response. This book …
Aristotle On Democracy And Democracies, Kevin M. Cherry
Aristotle On Democracy And Democracies, Kevin M. Cherry
Political Science Faculty Publications
It is a commonplace that Aristotle, like his teacher Plato, was a critic of democracy. This is, to a certain extent, true: Plato and Aristotle both saw democracy, at least as practiced in Athens, as prone to tumultuousness and imprudence. The failed Sicilian expedition, the execution of Socrates, the failure to heed Demosthenes's warnings about Philip of Macedon and Aristotle's own reported flight from Athens all highlighted the weaknesses of Athenian democratic institutions. Yet Aristotle's understanding of political science requires him to consider not only what the simply best regime might be, as Socrates purports to do in the Republic, …
Egypt's Civic Revolution Turns 'Democracy Promotion' On Its Head, Sheila Carapico
Egypt's Civic Revolution Turns 'Democracy Promotion' On Its Head, Sheila Carapico
Political Science Faculty Publications
Did western political aid agencies encourage the 25 January uprising with their civil society promotion projects? Did they encourage mass mobilization against the regime, or perhaps tutor dissidents in how to organize grassroots opposition? At the same time as the United States and other NATO powers were providing economic and military assistance to the Egyptian regime, did they also foment popular defiance? Some people seem to think so; different narratives about foreign provocation of Egypt's uprising circulated in Arabic and in English.
Putting Experts In Their Place: The Challenge Of Expanding Participation While Solving Problems, Thad Williamson
Putting Experts In Their Place: The Challenge Of Expanding Participation While Solving Problems, Thad Williamson
Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications
This essay critically examines possibilities for expanding democratic participatory governance in light of Mark Bevir's treatment of the subject in his book Democratic Governance. The essay argues that a theory of participatory governance should retain an explicit role for expert analysis, and that the appropriate scope given to such analysis will vary by policy area. The essay also argues that the present organization of capitalist economies mandates a heavy reliance on experts, and that a full-blown account of expanding participatory governance thus must be paired with an account of how to achieve a more democratic political economy. Such an account …
Changing The People, Not Simply The President: The Limitations And Possibilities Of The Obama Presidency, In Tocquevillian Perspective, Thad Williamson
Changing The People, Not Simply The President: The Limitations And Possibilities Of The Obama Presidency, In Tocquevillian Perspective, Thad Williamson
Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications
Attempting to elucidate what precisely Alexis de Tocqueville would have made of either Barack Obama the politician or the astonishing political phenomenon that swept the nation's first African-American president into office in 2008 is a fruitless endeavor. In Democracy in America, Tocqueville devotes relatively little attention to the presidency as an institution, and still less to the merits and accomplishments of particular presidents. In his account, what made American democracy unique and functional was neither its federalist institutional arrangements nor the virtues of its national leaders, but its culture of political participation in local democratic institutions. Tocqueville recognized the power …
Democracy Knocking: First-Time Candidate Works The Sidewalks With A Smile And A Handshake, Thomas J. Shields
Democracy Knocking: First-Time Candidate Works The Sidewalks With A Smile And A Handshake, Thomas J. Shields
School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications
Tom Shields is director of the University of Richmond’s Center for Leadership in Education, a partnership between the School of Continuing Studies and the Jepson School of Leadership Studies. He has taught courses at the Jepson School and is also an instructor at the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia. Dr. Shields holds a Ph.D. in public policy from Virginia Commonwealth University, where he also received his master’s degree in teaching. Shields was a candidate in 2009 for the House of Delegates in Virginia’s 73rd District, running against incumbent Delegate John O’Bannon.
What Does It Mean, "Promoting Democratization"?, Sheila Carapico
What Does It Mean, "Promoting Democratization"?, Sheila Carapico
Political Science Faculty Publications
Political speeches and even policy analysis from Washington, Ottawa, and the capitals of Europe in the past two decades about promoting democratization tend towards generalities and platitudes. This research asks what Western and international agencies actually do, on the ground in the Middle East, by way of fomenting democracy. Taking my inspiration from the sociologist Albert Hirschman who decades ago observed that projects are “privileged particles”[i] of socio-economic development assistance, I’ve collected well over twelve hundred examples.[ii] This summary table illustrates the aggregate finding that most projects cluster around electoral representation, legal or judicial development, and support for …
Property-Owning Democracy And The Demands Of Justice, Thad Williamson, Martin O'Neill
Property-Owning Democracy And The Demands Of Justice, Thad Williamson, Martin O'Neill
Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications
John Rawls is arguably the most important political philosopher of the past century. His theory of justice has set the agenda for debate in mainstream political philosophy for the past forty years, and has had an important influence in economics, law, sociology, and other disciplines. However, despite the importance and popularity of Rawls's work, there is (rather surprisingly) no clear picture of what a society that met Rawls's principles of justice would actually look like.
[Introduction To] Inventing Leadership: The Challenge Of Democracy, J. Thomas Wren
[Introduction To] Inventing Leadership: The Challenge Of Democracy, J. Thomas Wren
Bookshelf
The tension between ruler and ruled in democratic societies has never been satisfactorily resolved, and the competing interpretations of this relationship lie at the bottom of much modern political discourse. In this fascinating book, Thomas Wren clarifies and elevates the debates over leadership by identifying the fundamental premises and assumptions that underlie past and present understandings.
Comment On Benhabib's "Dismantling The Leviathan": A Republican-Liberai Perspective, Richard Dagger
Comment On Benhabib's "Dismantling The Leviathan": A Republican-Liberai Perspective, Richard Dagger
Political Science Faculty Publications
Those who think of themselves as republican or civic liberals, as I do, will surely be of two minds about Seyla Benhabib's "Dismantling the Leviathan: Citizen and State in a Global World" [Spring 2001 ]. In some respects, Professor Benhabib' s thoughtful essay is quite congenial to republican liberalism. She insists on the importance of human rights, for instance, and she looks for ways to expand political participation. Her indictment of "civic republicanism," however, requires a republican-liberal response.
Mission: Democracy, Sheila Carapico
Mission: Democracy, Sheila Carapico
Political Science Faculty Publications
Incumbent national leaders invite foreign election monitors only when it is in their interest to do so. Rarely is significant financial assistance "conditional" on holding elections, although it does improve a regime's image abroad to do so. For governments being observed, the trick is to orchestrate the process enough to win, but not enough to arouse observers' suspicions.
Introduction To Part One, Sheila Carapico
Introduction To Part One, Sheila Carapico
Political Science Faculty Publications
The end of the Cold War brought with it a temporary euphoria about prospects for a worldwide "third wave" of democratization to sweep the globe. If civil society had triumphed in the former Soviet bloc, perhaps political liberalism would spread elsewhere. No sooner had the sweet taste of victory over communism subsided, however, than Western observers turned their attention to another, allegedly uniquely, antidemocratic current- Islam-whose civilizational values seem to clash with Western liberalism even more fundamentally than Marxism. Whereas people in other parts of the world crave civil society, so the argument goes, political openings in the Muslim world …
Computers, Cables, And Citizenship: On The Desirability Of Instant Direct Democracy, Richard Dagger
Computers, Cables, And Citizenship: On The Desirability Of Instant Direct Democracy, Richard Dagger
Political Science Faculty Publications
Mulford Sibley is not the sort of scholar who makes a career of elaborating variations on a theme. There are recurring themes in his work, however, and I want to sound two of them, participatory democracy and technology, in this essay. These themes may be joined in a number of ways, but here I shall take up only one - the possibility that advances in communications technology may actually promote democracy by extending and enhancing opportunities for political participation.