CIAO DATE: 04/2012
Volume: 7, Issue: 1
February 2012
The Issue Network as a Deliberative Space: A Case Study of the Danish Asylum Issue on the Internet (PDF)
Jacob Oermen
Through an analysis of the Danish asylum issue network on the Internet, this article discusses the possibilities of the online sphere as a deliberative space, where politics is happening. By assessing the hyperlink structure of the issue network and a subsequent content analysis of the claims presented by the various actors on the issue the study finds that even though the network contains the overall structures for a functioning deliberative space, the actual deliberation occurring between the actors is very limited. The issue network approach in this case study is seen to be a good way to identify relevant political issues online, but it does not manage to bring together the various antagonistic actors in one deliberative space online. In a triangulation of the results from the two separate analyses, the study further finds evidence, which suggests that the relationship between hyperlinks and deliberative activity is not as definitive as it is often assumed in network analysis.
Democracy and Economic Freedom: A Static Panel Data Analysis of South Asia (PDF)
M. Zakir Khan
Economic freedom leads to and maintains democracy – this hypothesis popularly known as Hayek-Lipset-Friedman hypothesis has been examined empirically in this study for South Asian region. Using data on economic freedom and political freedom (democracy) for a panel of five South Asian countries over the period 1995-2008, the Granger-causality test confirms that democratic society must be economically free, it does not happen other way round. Applying static panel data estimation technique this study also finds significant positive relationship between democracy and economic freedom and the degree of responsiveness of economic freedom on democracy is found less proportionate in South Asian countries. It is also found that economic prosperity fosters democracy in this region, whereas government spending does not have significant impact on the level of democracy in South Asian countries.
The Multiplicity of Truths about Human Trafficking: Beyond "The Sex Slave" Discourse (PDF)
Sule Tomkinson
Dominant anti-trafficking discourse adopts a single voice in presenting the victim of trafficking as a young, innocent and naïve woman who is deceived and coerced into the sex industry. She suffers physically at the hands of individual men: traffickers, procurers and clients. This is informed by a neo-abolitionist perspective. This article aims to serve as a critique of this discourse by presenting the polarization between two camps in trafficking literature: neo-abolitionists, who see human trafficking as a grave human rights violation that amounts to slavery and equates sex work with trafficking, and pro-rights that perceive it as something within unauthorized international migration, initiated by the women themselves who want to ameliorate their lives. Through a critical literature review, I echo the position of pro-rights group and note that trafficking must be understood and addressed within the larger framework of exploitation of undocumented workers that are vulnerable to exploitation, not from an isolated and distinct location that aims to identify and paternalistically protect “passive victims”.
Oana Pop
Although humanitarian intervention has been a recurrent issue in moral and
political philosophy for some years, much disagreement over its moral justifiability
persists among scholars. The common denominator of previous views is their
reliance on the assumption that solving the moral problem of humanitarian
intervention comes down to making a choice between preserving sovereignty or
protecting human rights. The present thesis follows a different strategy: it proceeds
from an understanding of the moral puzzle humanitarian intervention presents us
with by exploring the philosophical underpinnings of sovereignty and human rights. I argue that humanitarian intervention is morally justified when human rights violations are purposive, systematic, extensive, and preventing or ending them represents an emergency, because it aims to restore a genuine form of sovereignty, consistent with its moral rationale (the sovereignty-centered argument). Additional requirements deriving from this purpose further constrain the justifiability of humanitarian intervention.
Dylan Kissane
Successful negotiators, remarked author Jim Hennig, have formed the habit of doing those things that unsuccessful negotiators dislike and will not do. Armed with Alexander Mühlen’s new political negotiation manual, the student of international negotiation will at the very least know what is expected of a master of conciliation and, more likely, emerge from their reading with a deep understanding of negotiation tools, tactics and strategy. Heavy with specific and relevant examples from the international political and business spheres and including four detailed practical role play activities aimed at student and professional readers, Mühlen’s book could well serve as a core text for tertiary students in both Bachelor and Master’s degree programs.
Alexander Makulilo
The legislature remains an important institution of democracy worldwide. It is the home of the elected representatives of the people and often largely responsible for law making, budgeting as well as overseeing the powers of the executive. In Africa, as elsewhere in the Third World, parliaments have had a checkered history. The executive arm of the government, more often than not, has monopolized political space, normally through excessive ruling party discipline, thereby undermining the powers of legislatures. Yet some countries in the region have experienced a history of military coups with the consequence of halting democratic practices and the functions of legislatures. Nigeria is one country in which military coups became the order of the day. With the restoration of democratic governance in Nigeria, the newly instituted legislature is a clear symbol that distinguishes democratic governance from the authoritarian past. Perspective on the Legislature in the Government of Nigeria is a much needed study to understand how this institution functions in a nascent democratic nation like Nigeria.
Graham Smith, Democratic Innovations: Designing Institutions for Citizen Participation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
Daniela Sirinic
Resurgence and reappraisal of democracies and democratic ideals in the 21st century has surely received its due share of academic attention. However, growing discontent with the existing forms and practices of representative democracy has facilitated the emergence and revival of ideas of deliberative and direct democracy. As a critical examination of the existing practices of ‘democratic innovations’, Graham Smith’s book is a systematic and coherent collection of previously disengaged thoughts, practices and criticisms that were under-analyzed in the literature. Moreover, as a unique amalgam of democratic theory and new practices, it is the first comprehensive study of the different forms of democratic innovations.
Karina Shyrokykh
Diversity of opinions, claims and actions are an undeniable fact of any society. There were many books devoted to the discussion of the ways in which diversity should be treated. Kantian and Neo-Kantian philosophers appealed to universality of reason and higher-order values, Rawls appealed to equality and justice. The authors of the book claim that both arguments are not enough to provide a background for the interpersonal framework, they see a solution of the problem in liberal-pluralism which essentially combines Kantian and Rawlsian arguments. They argue that the key to the problem is reasonability which should be based on principles of equality, justice, rights, fairness, cooperation, reciprocity, and tolerance.
Viktoria Potapkina
Public spaces have for centuries played an important role in the formation and development of societies, both as a physical space for gathering and debating, as well as a symbolic notion representing the core values of democracy. Such places have developed in a way that reflects the beliefs, public values, as well as the culture and a sense of community for the inhabitants of many areas. Public spaces remain a crucial concept in many developed and developing societies, as well as a vital component of the more traditional communities around the world. Nevertheless, as our ever more globalizing and liberalizing planet continues on its path of economic commercialization, privatization and subtle fragmentation, public spaces begin taking on new appearances.
Imre Szabó
Human imagination is more easily captured by spectacular, one-off events than by more long-term, but equally important processes. Social scientists cannot completely escape this fascination with sudden changes and ruptures either. Usually they are more concerned with revolutions and rapid overhauls of social systems (like the Thatcherite reforms) than with “longue durée” phenomena. Their bias is reinforced by practical considerations as well: when studying interruptive events, it is easier to distinguish between new and old, between “innovators” and “conservatives”. When it comes to long-term transformational dynamics, it may be difficult to recognize change at all. Boundaries between the old and the new are often blurred, and traditional and newly emerging institutions may coexist. What can be even harder is to explore the causes of the change and the role that different political actors played during the process. Despite all these difficulties, there are a few promising works that deal with long-term transformations of socio-political systems.
Abrajano, Marisa A. and Michael R. Alvarez, New Faces, New Voices: The Hispanic Electorate in America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010).
Ksenia Krauer-Pacheco
In recent years, politicians and researchers in the United States have become more aware of the importance of the Hispanic electorate because of the ever increasing Latino population. This, in turn, has spurred a growing interest in its political behavior and preferences. In this context, Marisa A. Abrajano and R. Michael Alvarez’s most recent book represents a good analysis of the largest minority group in the United States. New faces, new voices: the Hispanic electorate in America resulted from a research project aimed at understanding the political behavior of Hispanics in the United States since the late 1990s. Two main goals were successfully achieved in the pages of the book: firstly, to demonstrate why the Hispanic electorate is such a diverse and complex group, particularly when compared to other ethnic and racial minority groups in the United States; and secondly, to dispel some of the pieces of conventional wisdom about the Hispanic electorate, many of which have affected the way in which campaigns, elected officials, the media, and even the average American voter, perceive this group.
Bonnie Honing, Emergency Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009). (PDF)
Martino Bianchi
A wide debate about emergency politics in democracy is particularly welcome in a period in which long-lasting concern about security in the Western world is now coupled with an economic crisis whose effects are still not clear and whose development are unforeseeable. This new contribution, written by Bonnie Honig, is hence highly interesting as it tries to disclose the links between the normal democratic politics and the discretionary politics which occurs in emergency situations.
Ivana Tomovska
Romani communities throughout Western, Eastern and Southeast European countries experience poverty, socio-economic marginalization with additional increasing intolerance and discrimination by the majority population. The marginalization involves exclusion from labour markets, exclusion and segregation within the education system, difficult access to services including healthcare services, extreme forms of spatial segregation; in a word, exclusion from the right to exercise active citizenship. In addition, Romani people experience very concrete security issues such as: police brutality, racism, intolerance and violent outbursts against them. With Romani issues on the raise one cannot help but wonder what politics and policy actions are taking place around those issues. Who is creating the politics, what are the roles and degrees of influence by internal movements within the Romani constituencies as well as external influences? Many of these questions are addressed in Nidhi Trehan's and Fernando (Nando) Sigona's Romani Politics in Contemporary Europe.
Ana Dinescu
For Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, both the EU and NATO integration processes were considered as the ultimate guarantee of a definitive status quo in the European and trans-Atlantic community. As members of the two main international organizations, the danger of possible aggression from the part of the Russian Federation was significantly diminished. But, instead of a likely normalization process of the relations between each of the three Baltic States and the Russian Federation, the regional foreign affairs agenda registered consistent moments of tension. How the situation might be explained using the current repertoire provided by theories of international relations.