Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Selected Works

2012

Democracy

Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Unbordered Borders, Winston Langley Jul 2012

The Unbordered Borders, Winston Langley

Winston E. Langley

Many have taken on the task of purportedly advancing the cause of human rights by abstractly reciting them and clamoring for their implementation. Some speak about one’s right to free speech and democracy, for example, with a convenient forgetting of the right to education, which can promote the type of dialogical encounter that is sponsoring of liberatory, integrative construction and reconstruction of self and human societies. Others champion the right to freedom, but not the right to food, careless of the fact that the hungry are un-free, left as they are to the crushing dictates of their bellies; and still …

Go to article

Technical Relevance And Social Opposition To E-Voting, Fernando Barrientos Del Monte Jun 2012

Technical Relevance And Social Opposition To E-Voting, Fernando Barrientos Del Monte

Fernando Barrientos Del Monte

This paper makes an assessment of the technical and social motivations that drive some governments to promote and implement e-voting mechanisms. Success stories mentioned, especially those in Latin America, and contrasted with those cases where e-voting implementation has failed, as has happened in some European countries. Finally, the relationship between new technologies that promote e-voting and the nature of the elections as a part of democracy is analyzed. It could be argued that voting is not solely a technical exercise, it is an element that merges different political and social elements that e-voting promoters should not ignore.

Go to article

Does Democracy Explain Gender Differentials In Education?, Arusha V. Cooray Apr 2012

Does Democracy Explain Gender Differentials In Education?, Arusha V. Cooray

Arusha Cooray

This study shows that despite a strong empirical association between gender differentials in enrolment ratios and democracy, that democracy alone does not explain gender differentials in education in Africa and Asia. The results indicate that income, employment in agriculture, religious heterogeneity and colonialism also help explain the under-representation of girls in education in these regions. Countries in which the duration of suffrage has been longer tend to perform better on average in terms of gender equality in education.

Go to article

Op-Ed: Banning Protesters An Attack On Democracy, Stephen D'Arcy Apr 2012

Op-Ed: Banning Protesters An Attack On Democracy, Stephen D'Arcy

Stephen D'Arcy

A defence of academic freedom at Western U.

Go to article

Challenges Of The Cooperative Movement In Addressing Issues Of Human Security In The Context Of A Neoliberal World: The Case Of Argentina, Stefan Ivanovski Mar 2012

Challenges Of The Cooperative Movement In Addressing Issues Of Human Security In The Context Of A Neoliberal World: The Case Of Argentina, Stefan Ivanovski

Stefan Ivanovski

The response of some Argentine workers to the 2001 crisis of neoliberalism gave rise to a movement of worker-recovered enterprises (empresas recuperadas por sus trabajadores or ERTs). The ERTs have emerged as former employees took over the control of generally fraudulently bankrupt factories and enterprises. The analysis of the ERT movement within the neoliberal global capitalist order will draw from William Robinson’s (2004) neo-Gramscian concept of hegemony. The theoretical framework of neo-Gramscian hegemony will be used in exposing the contradictions of capitalism on the global, national, organizational and individual scales and the effects they have on the ERT movement. The …

Go to article

Direct (Anti-)Democracy, Maxwell L. Stearns Mar 2012

Direct (Anti-)Democracy, Maxwell L. Stearns

Maxwell L. Stearns

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 …

Go to article

The Impact Of Insecurity On Democracy And Trust In Institutions In Mexico, Luisa Blanco Dec 2011

The Impact Of Insecurity On Democracy And Trust In Institutions In Mexico, Luisa Blanco

Luisa Blanco

Using survey data from the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) and Encuesta Nacional Sobre la Inseguridad (ENSI) for Mexico during the period 2004-2010, this paper analyses the impact of insecurity and crime victimization on support and satisfaction with democracy and trust in institutions. With the LAPOP data, perceptions about higher insecurity decrease support and satisfaction with democracy. Perceptions of insecurity and crime victimization have a negative significant effect on trust in institutions, and this finding is robust to using LAPOP and ENSI data. Perceptions of insecurity and crime victimization have a larger negative effect on trust in institutions that …

Go to article