Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

On The Relationship Between Regime Approval And Democratic Transition, Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado, Gregory A. Petrow

Political Science Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

Democratic transition scholars find a large number of factors associated with the likelihood of non-democratic regimes transitioning to democracy. Of these, three factors appear to be among the most potent: economic development, economic crisis, and the type of non-democratic regime (e.g. Geddes 1999, Brownlee 2009). However, another type of factor may matter as well - public approval of the regime. The chief limitation that prevents scholars from addressing this factor is the absence of data. However, we have access to the largest repository of international public opinion data that is comparable for all nations - the Gallup World Poll. The …

Multiparty Democracies And Rapid Economic Growth: A Twenty-First Century Breakthrough?, Devin K. Joshi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This essay examines whether developing countries with competitive multiparty democracies may be just as capable of sustaining rapid economic growth as single-party states. It begins with a literature review identifying political stability and the ability to mobilize labor and capital production inputs as key factors behind sustained rapid growth. It then develops the hypothesis that under certain conditions, multiparty democracies may be strong in these dimensions, but ceteris paribus, single-party states are likely to have an advantage. I test this hypothesis by exploring historical trends in rapid growth over the last five decades. Statistical regression analysis confirms that most sustained …

Anonymity And Democratic Citizenship, James A. Gardner

Journal Articles

Many aspects of modern democratic life are or can be performed anonymously – voting, financial contributions, petition signing, political speech and debate, communication with and lobbying of officials, and so forth. But is it desirable for citizens to perform such tasks anonymously? Anonymity frees people from social pressures associated with observation and identifiability, but does this freedom produce behavior that is democratically beneficial? What, in short, is the effect of anonymity on the behavior of democratic citizens, and how should we evaluate it?

In this paper, I attempt a first pass answer to these questions by turning to both democratic …

Marcuse On The Two Dimensions Of Advanced Industrial Society And The Significance Of His Thought Today, Michael C. Hartley Mr.

Senior Honors Projects

Herbert Marcuse was a philosopher and social theorist who wrote extensively about the dynamics of social change in the technologically advanced societies of the Western world. Motivated by the desire to see humanity develop societies that would allow for individuals to live a free and happy existence, Marcuse critiqued the existing societies of his time. Although Marcuse’s main work, One-Dimensional Man, is over forty years old, it can continue to offer us new insights today. I believe that Marcuse’s thought offers a powerful framework for analyzing our contemporary society. In this project I distill this framework, what could be …

An Empirical Study Of Whistleblower Policies In United States Corporate Codes Of Ethics, Richard Moberly, Lindsey Wylie

Academic Publications

We often think about democracy only as a political system where we elect those who will make laws that affect us. Yet everyday decisions taken in all kinds of organisations impact on us just as much. Therefore we have to know when decisions taken in organisations are going to affect us in ways that differ from the official organisational discourse. Whistleblowing plays a role in providing that knowledge and thus is a means to democracy. This book is a collection of essays on recent organisational and legal developments on whistleblowing in the US, UK, Europe, and Australia.

Chasing After Huntington's Third Wave Of Democratization: The Middle East Under Change, Reem Awny Abuzaid

Papers, Posters, and Presentations

Escaping Huntington's three waves of democracy, the Middle East has become a phenomenon. Ever since, the Middle East scholars attempted extensively to rationalize the prevailing authoritarian regimes over the past four decades; a number of theories were proposed to address such a paradox. Studying authoritarianism has denied the Middle East academic society the chance to predict the current wave of political change that is being witnessed in the region. A draw back that could be believed to have left researchers with limited theoretical explanations for the on going experience, but that could always remain superficial. in fact a number of …

Is Egypt Ready For Democracy?, Nivin Abdel Meguid

Papers, Posters, and Presentations

In the early phases, revolutions are expected to be intensely focused on achieving political goals. Over the long term, however, “revolutions cannot be described as such unless they are able to produce deep permanent political transformations” (Bahaa Eldin, 2011). These political conversions can be counted complete according to their ability to go beyond direct political and social gains. I believe that it is time for the January 25 revolution, which has already realized a great part of its political targets, to leverage its grassroots popularity to get the best use of Egypt's social capital in passing the critical period of …

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

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 …

Populism And Human Rights In Theory And Practice: Chavez's Venezuela And Fujimori's Peru, Joseph P. Braun

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Despite ample literature on the topic of populism itself, much less has been written on the specific relationship between populism and human rights. First, I discuss the relationship between populist ideology and human rights in theory. I argue that populism is inconsistent with human rights accounts because of its rejection of pluralism and vilification of the ‘other.’ Second, I explore the relationship between populism as a political strategy and its impact on human rights under two Latin American regimes. I argue that despite its tendency to produce short-term gains in economic and social development, a review of the two cases …