Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Social And Adversarial Varieties Of Democracy: Which Produces Fewer Criminals?, Devin K. Joshi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article explores the relationship between two prominent varieties of democracy and the size of a country’s prison population. Theoretically, it proposes that social democracies increase social and economic equality which reduces both the “demand for crime” and the number of criminals. Adversarial democracies, on the other hand, generate higher levels of inequality and insecurity that lead to higher levels of crime. Utilizing a structured, focused comparison of Nordic social democracies and Anglo-American adversarial democracies complemented by cross-sectional multiple regression analysis of twenty industrialized democracies, I find empirical support for both of these conjectures. A major implication of this study …

On The Social Construction Of Hellenism Cold War Narratives Of Modernity, Development And Democracy For Greece, Despina Lalaki

Publications and Research

Hellenism is one of those overarching, ever-changing narratives always subject to historical circumstances, intellectual fashions and political needs. Conversely, it is fraught with meaning and conditioning powers, enabling and constraining imagination and practical life. In this essay I tease out the hold that the idea of Hellas has had on post-war Greece and I explore the ways in which the American anti-communist rhetoric and discussions about political and economic stabilization appropriated and rearticulated Hellenism. Central to this history of transformations are the archaeologists; the archaeologists as intellectuals, as producers of culture who, while stepping in and out of their disciplinary …

Review Of Common Sense: A Political History, Don Herzog

Reviews

This is a completely charming book: smart, literate, subtle, putting pressure in all the right places. Rosenfeld wants to show that surprisingly much of modern political history--the rise of democracy; its anxious and baleful critics; the turn against priestcraft, statecraft, and babbling intellectuals-- is distilled in invocations of common sense. She's calmly and confidently in control of disparate and illuminating material, from England to Amsterdam, Philadelphia to Paris, the seventeenth century to the twentieth. Even readers not persuaded of some of her central claims will enjoy feasting on the often hilarious primary sources she lays out.

Making American Places: Civic Engagement Rightly Understood, Ted Mcallister

School of Public Policy Working Papers

Modern democracy is not conducive to freedom, but America has a long tradition of freedom that is attached to rich local participation in politics. Because American rights and freedoms did not emerge out of nature or natural rights but through long experience from local, particularized, political freedom, the key to maintaining our freedom is civic engagement rightly understood. Civic engagement rightly understood requires that citizens accept the need for neighbors, in both political systems and voluntary associations, in order to become self-reliant. Individualism--which is what happens when citizens are separated from the various associations that roots their lives in particular …

The Post-Communist Way: Negotiating A New National Identity In Hungary, Sarah Fabian

Honors Scholar Theses

The riots of 2006 were the most violent clash between civilians and the state that Hungary witnessed since the 1956 Revolution. Why is Hungary still struggling with political legitimacy and economic structural problems twenty years after the 1989 democratic transition to democracy and free-market economy?

Building on the model of partial reform equilibrium proposed by Joel Hellman, I argue that Hungary’s “negotiated revolution,” ironically failed to negotiate a new national identity and complete the transition, as vested interest groups were successful in blocking needed political, economic and social reforms. The former Communist elite who were still in key government posts …

Teaching And Service Partnerships At The Center For Community Democracy And Democratic Literacy, Judith Kurland, Center For Community Democracy And Democratic Literacy, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The initial work of this McCormack Graduate School center focuses on the seven major placed-based initiatives within Boston, creating a Community of Practice to extend and expand best practices throughout the city; and provides expert strategic, design, policy and program advice in the creation of the Boston Promise Initiative led by the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI), one of the initial twenty-one projects in the nation awarded by the Obama administration.

The Fukushima Disaster And Japan’S Occupy Movement, Hiro Saito

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

On October 15, 2011, OccupyTokyo protests took place in three different districts: Hibiya,Shinjuku, and Roppongi. Before the rallies began, protesters gathered in parkswhere organizers and participants gave speeches. They expressed solidarity withthe worldwide Occupy movement, criticized a widening economic gap in Japan, anddemanded a more just world. Protesters then took to the streets with theirplacards, drums, and megaphones to shout slogans to reclaim society for “the99%.”

Journalism Education And Children's Rights: New Approaches To Media Development In Cee/Cis Countries, Michael Foley, Noirin Hayes, Brian O'Neill

Articles

This article gives the background to a project entitled Children's Rights and Journalism Practice, which was carried out for UNICEF in university journalism faculties in CEE/CIS countries

By focusing on journalism in the context of the academy and raising awareness of children’s rights from a journalistic perspective, the project seeks to provide a relatively safe space for critical engagement with journalistic ethics and values. Children are targets of, or are implicated in, nearly all aspects of public policy, yet are largely invisible in news-media coverage, and rarely have their voices heard in matters affecting them. By using the UNCRC as …

Aboriginal Fractions: Enumerating Identity In Taiwan, Jennifer A. Liu

Aboriginal Policy Research Consortium International (APRCi)

Notions of identity in Taiwan are configured in relation to numbers. I examine the polyvalent capacities of enumerative technologies in both the production of ethnic identities and claims to polit- ical representation and justice. By critically historicizing the manner in which Aborigines in Taiwan have been, and continue to be, constructed as objects and subjects of scientific knowledge production through technologies of measuring, I examine the genetic claim made by some Taiwanese to be ‘‘fractionally’’ Aboriginal. Numbers and techniques of measuring are used ostensibly to know the Aborigines, but they are also used to construct a genetically unique Taiwanese identity …

Direct (Anti-)Democracy, Maxwell L. Stearns

Faculty Scholarship

Legal scholars, economists, and political scientists are divided on whether voter initiatives and legislative referendums tend to produce outcomes that are more (or less) majoritarian, efficient, or solicitous of minority concerns than traditional legislation. Scholars also embrace opposing views on which law-making mechanism better promotes citizen engagement, registers preference intensities, encourages compromise, and prevents outcomes masking cycling voter preferences. Despite these disagreements, commentators generally assume that the voting mechanism itself renders plebiscites more democratic than legislative lawmaking. This assumption is mistaken.

Although it might seem unimaginable that a lawmaking process that directly engages voters possesses fundamentally antidemocratic features, this Article …

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.

Election Law As Applied Democratic Theory, James A. Gardner

Journal Articles

Democracy does not implement itself; a society’s commitment to govern itself democratically can be effectuated only through law. Yet as soon as law appears on the scene significant choices must be made concerning the legal structure of democratic institutions. The heart of the study of election law is thus the examination of the choices that our laws make in seeking to structure a workable system of democratic self-rule. In this essay, written for a symposium on Teaching Election Law, I describe how my Election Law course and materials focus on questions of choice in institutional design by emphasizing election law’s …

Fear Factor: The Role Of Fear In A Liberal Democracy, Sasha Stillman

Featured Research

What is the most appropriate role of fear in contemporary democratic politics? Political figures and institutions harness and even create public fear for power and for maintaining order and structure. This thesis explores the moral dimensions of the use of fear in politics. I expected to find that not all politically premeditated uses of fear are undesirable. Could it be morally acceptable then, or even praiseworthy to use politically-motivated fear in certain cases? In certain situations, public fear may, in fact, be used to enhance democracy. This essay clarifies situations in which the political use of fear is both desirable …

Two Cheers For Burma’S Rigged Election, Neil A. Englehart

Political Science Faculty Publications

Burma’s recent election was clearly not free and fair. However, it can also be seen as improving a uniquely unrepresentative government, creating greater pluralism, and institutionalizing differences within the ruling junta. Even the rigged election may have created opportunities for further opening in the future.

Political Efficacy And The Use Of Local And National News Media Among Undecided Voters In A Swing State: A Study Of General Population Voters And First-Time College Student Voters, Louisa Ha, Fang Wang, Ling Fang, Chen Yang, Xiao Hu, Liu Yang, Fang Yang, Ying Xu

School of Media and Communication Faculty Publications

News media play a crucial role in democracy by serving as the watchdog of government and a distributor of political information and campaign messages to the general public. In the U.S., commercial media dominate the market, and they receive monetary support during the electoral campaign season via political advertising. In the 2012 presidential campaign, U.S. television media received 75% of the $1.1 billion dedicated to campaign advertising (Wilner, 2012). So much money is spent because the votes of undecided citizens in swing states are crucial to winning presidential elections. Most recently, the Democratic Party successfully targeted and won key swing …

The Polarities Of Democracy: A Theoretical Framework For Building A Healthy, Sustainable, And Just World. Chapter Seven, William J. Benet

Polarities of Democracy Collection

No abstract provided.

The Politics Of Human Development In India And China: It Pays To Invest In Women And Children, Devin K. Joshi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article explores the attainments of China and India on measures of basic human development as ingredients of a long-term economic development strategy. It proposes that major differences in ideology and state capacity explain in part why India has fallen behind China. The analysis suggests that these relatively hidden political factors play an important role in transforming and advancing human development not only within India and China but also in other developing and emerging economies. The findings also support the notion that public investments in the capabilities of women and children have significant social and economic payoffs in both the …

Institutionalizing Democracy In Africa: A Comment On The African Charter On Democracy, Elections And Governance, Patrick J. Glen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article provides an exegesis of the recently entered-into-force African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance. Democracy has a decidedly mixed history in Africa and, despite a concerted effort by the African Union (AU), it has made only halting inroads in those states that are nondemocratic or struggling to consolidate democracy. That may change as more states ratify and implement the Charter, a comprehensive regional attempt to promote, protect, and consolidate democracy that entered into force in February 2012. This Charter, the culmination of two decades of African thinking on how democracy should develop on the continent, represents the AU’s …