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Democratic Values (democratic + value)
Selected AbstractsCivic Education in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Alternative Paths to the Development of Political Knowledge and Democratic ValuesPOLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 3 2005Steven E. Finkel Despite the proliferation of civic education programs in the emerging democracies of Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe, there have been few recent evaluations of the effectiveness of civics instruction in achieving changes in democratic orientations among student populations. We present findings from a study conducted in 1998 that examined the impact of democratic civic education among South African high school students. Using a battery of items to gauge democratic orientations, including measures of political knowledge, civic duty, tolerance, institutional trust, civic skills, and approval of legal forms of political participation, we find that civic education had the largest effects on political knowledge, with the magnitude of the effect being approximately twice as large as the recent Niemi and Junn (1998) finding for the United States. Exposure to civic education per se had weaker effects on democratic values and skills; for these orientations, what matters are specific factors related to the quality of instruction and the use of active pedagogical methods employed by civics instructors. Further, we find that civic education changed the structure of students' orientations: a "democratic values" dimension coalesces more strongly, and in greater distinction, from a "political competence" dimension among students exposed to civic education than among those with no such training. We discuss the implications of the findings for our theoretical understanding of the role of civic education in fostering democratic attitudes, norms, and values, as well as the practical implications of the results for the implementation and funding of civic education programs in developing democracies in the future. [source] The EU and the Welfare State are Compatible: Finnish Social Democrats and European IntegrationGOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 2 2010Tapio Raunio This article examines how the Finnish Social Democratic Party has adapted to European integration. The analysis illustrates that the Social Democrats have successfully argued to their electorate that the objectives of integration are compatible with core social democratic values. Considering that Finland was hit by a severe recession in the early 1990s, discourse about economic integration and monetary stability facilitating the economic growth that is essential for job creation and the survival of domestic welfare state policies sounded appealing to SDP voters. Determined party leadership, support from trade unions and the lack of a credible threat from the other leftist parties have also contributed to the relatively smooth adaptation to Europe. However, recent internal debates about the direction of party ideology and poor electoral performances , notably in the European Parliament elections , indicate that not all sections within the party are in favour of the current ideological choices. [source] Agency in the Discursive ConditionHISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 4 2001Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth This article claims that postmodernity necessarily, and perhaps opportunely, undermines the bases upon which political democracy traditionally has rested; and that therefore some significant work must be done in order to redefine, restore, or otherwise reconfigure democratic values and institutions for a changed cultural condition. This situation presents the opportunity to explore the new options, positive openings, and discursive opportunities that postmodernity presents for political practice; for this the problem of agency provides a focal issue. The practices of postmodernity, taken together, represent substantial challenges, not just to this or that cherished habit, but to modernity itself and all its corollaries, including its inventions of objectivity, of "the individual" (miserable treasure), and of all the related values (project, capital, consensus and, above all, neutrality) which still underwrite so much of what we do as citizens, consumers, and professionals not to mention as more private persons, parents, and partners. Fortunately, postmodernity does not demolish all our most cherished beliefs, values, and practices; but it does require recognition of how those beliefs, values, and practices actually function and of what alternatives they suppress. [source] American Democratic Interventionism: Romancing the Iconic Woodrow WilsonINTERNATIONAL STUDIES PERSPECTIVES, Issue 3 2008Constance G. Anthony There is an American foreign policy tradition in respect to military interventions in the Third World, which validates the importance of democratic ideals as central to the success of the policy. Woodrow Wilson is the founding father of this tradition. While the normative commitments of Wilson made sense in Victorian America and can probably be considered innovative for his day, the manifest lack of success in transferring democracy through military intervention leads us to question the character of Wilson's interventions and the ideals that motivated them. This essay will consider the content of Wilson's democratic theory and its integration into ideals of national mission and destiny; how this became the philosophical basis for policies of military intervention; the assessments offered by historians of the success of this policy; and the role of racial paternalism in legitimating the policy at the time. In a contemporary respect, we are left with the question of whether we want such a philosophy of democratic interventionism to be the basis for transferring democratic values and practices to Third World countries today. [source] Reluctant Partners: Fighting Terrorism and Promoting Democracy in KenyaINTERNATIONAL STUDIES PERSPECTIVES, Issue 3 2008Beth Elise Whitaker Do fighting terrorism and promoting democracy go together, as policy makers suggest, or do they conflict in practice? This paper explores these dynamics in the case of Kenya, a transitional democracy that has been the victim of several terrorist attacks. Based on an examination of recent areas of cooperation and contention between the United States and Kenya, the paper argues that democratic pressures can make it difficult for newly elected governments to cooperate publicly in the "war on terror," though private cooperation often continues behind the scenes. This suggests the need for an approach among American policy makers that recognizes the domestic political constraints faced by foreign partners and seeks common ground between internal and external priorities. While the goals of promoting democracy and fighting terrorism may conflict in the short term, the development of shared democratic values could pave the way for closer partnerships in the future. [source] Fostering Civic Engagement by Building a Virtual CityJOURNAL OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION, Issue 3 2006Marina Umaschi Bers This article focuses on the design and use of networked technologies to create learning environments to foster the civic engagement of youth. First, we briefly describe the Zora three-dimensional multiuser environment that engages children in the design of a graphical virtual city and its social organization. Anecdotal data are then used to help define different aspects of civic engagement, namely civic actions and civic discourse. Finally, we present descriptive results from a pilot study of young people using Zora in the context of a multicultural summer camp for youth. During this experience, children developed a virtual community that became a safe space for experimenting with decision-making, self-organization, and civic conversations, as well as for testing democratic values, behaviors, and attitudes. Using Zora as a case study, this article shows the potential of networked technologies to facilitate different aspects of young people's civic development. [source] The Legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court in a Polarized PolityJOURNAL OF EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUDIES, Issue 3 2007James L. Gibson Conventional political science wisdom holds that contemporary American politics is characterized by deep and profound partisan and ideological divisions. Unanswered is the question of whether those divisions have spilled over into threats to the legitimacy of American political institutions, such as the U.S. Supreme Court. Since the Court is often intimately involved in making policy in many issue areas that divide Americans,including the contested 2000 presidential election,it is reasonable to hypothesize that loyalty toward the institution depends on policy and/or ideological agreement and partisanship. Using data stretching from 1987 through 2005, the analysis reveals that Court support among the American people has not declined, nor is it connected to partisan and ideological identifications. Instead, support is embedded within a larger set of relatively stable democratic values. Institutional legitimacy may not be obdurate, but it does not seem to be caught up in the divisiveness that characterizes so much of American politics,at least not at present. [source] Correlates of Levels of Democracy in Latin America During the 1990sLATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 2 2006Cynthia McClintock ABSTRACT Does the conventional wisdom about the relationships between economic, cultural, and political party variables and democracy stand up in the Latin American experience of the 1990s? This study, utilizing new data sets for the region, finds that some traditional hypotheses are upheld better than others. It sustains the conventional wisdom that economic development, economic growth, democratic values, and (with a two-year lead) education correlate positively with the level of democracy. Surprisingly, however, neither social trust nor the number of political parties is significantly correlated with the level of democracy. The study suggests various possible explanations for the weak or nonexistent relationships for social trust and number of parties, in the hope that these surprising results will stimulate further research. [source] Going beyond ADR: A federal sector mission- and work life-centered approach to building collaboration and democratic values on the jobALTERNATIVES TO THE HIGH COST OF LITIGATION, Issue 9 2005Judy Cohen Judy Cohen, of New York, reports on potential adaptations of collaborative approaches to structuring workplaces in describing her work at the Federal Aviation Administration. [source] Civic Education in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Alternative Paths to the Development of Political Knowledge and Democratic ValuesPOLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 3 2005Steven E. Finkel Despite the proliferation of civic education programs in the emerging democracies of Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe, there have been few recent evaluations of the effectiveness of civics instruction in achieving changes in democratic orientations among student populations. We present findings from a study conducted in 1998 that examined the impact of democratic civic education among South African high school students. Using a battery of items to gauge democratic orientations, including measures of political knowledge, civic duty, tolerance, institutional trust, civic skills, and approval of legal forms of political participation, we find that civic education had the largest effects on political knowledge, with the magnitude of the effect being approximately twice as large as the recent Niemi and Junn (1998) finding for the United States. Exposure to civic education per se had weaker effects on democratic values and skills; for these orientations, what matters are specific factors related to the quality of instruction and the use of active pedagogical methods employed by civics instructors. Further, we find that civic education changed the structure of students' orientations: a "democratic values" dimension coalesces more strongly, and in greater distinction, from a "political competence" dimension among students exposed to civic education than among those with no such training. We discuss the implications of the findings for our theoretical understanding of the role of civic education in fostering democratic attitudes, norms, and values, as well as the practical implications of the results for the implementation and funding of civic education programs in developing democracies in the future. [source] Are Nativists a Different Kind of Democrat?POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 4 2001"Outsiders" in Japan, Democratic Values This paper combines three elements: a discussion of democratic values and the status of outsiders in Japanese political culture, the development of new measures to examine sensitive issues of nativism and foreigner perception in Japan, and an empirical exploration of the relationship between democratic values and antipathy toward outsiders. Two forms of democratic orientation were investigated in a sample of about 1,000 university students in Japan: a defensive version, which adheres to the formalistic requirements of democracy but is exclusionary and illiberal, and a universalist version that is liberal and tolerant. A defensive orientation is associated with greater chauvinism, a greater sense of threat emanating from foreigners, and a heightened anxiety about economic competition. A universalist orientation is associated with low perceived threat and low chauvinism, a lack of fear of economic competition, and a positive view of the cultural contributions of outsiders. Nativism may indeed be compatible with democratic values, but only with the defensive, exclusionary form. In short, the defensive form is democracy for xenophobes. Such an orientation is not unique to Japan, but is likely to be found in developing democracies as well as in advanced democracies that feel threatened. [source] Is Rule by Majorities Special?POLITICAL STUDIES, Issue 1 2010Hugh Ward One way of making decisions is for political associates or their representatives to vote on each issue separately in accordance with the majority principle and then take the cumulative outcomes of such majority decision making to define the collective choice for public policy. We call such a system one of majorities rule. Thought of in spatial terms, majorities rule is equivalent to the principle of making decisions according to the issue-by-issue median of voter preferences. If popular control and political equality are core democratic values, they can be rendered as requirements on a collective choice rule, involving resoluteness, anonymity, strategy-proofness and responsiveness. These requirements entail that the collective decision rule be a percentile method. If we then add a requirement of impartiality, as exhibited in a collective choice rule which would be chosen behind a veil of ignorance, then the issue-by-issue median is uniquely identified as a fair rule. Hence, majorities rule is special. Some objections to this line of reasoning are considered. [source] Collective representations and social praxis: local politics in the Norwegian welfare stateTHE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, Issue 4 2002David B. Kronenfeld We consider an attempt , within an economy under pressure to stay competitive in an increasingly integrated global economic system , to reconcile the contradictory pressures of democratic values versus managerial efficiency, and of the desire for an effective social welfare safety net versus the need for budgetary responsibility. We focus on a local welfare committee's experimental attempt to improve morale and productivity through a combination of added resources and greater autonomy. The better but more expensive service produced by the experiment triggered the paradoxical conclusion that what was needed was tighter administrative oversight. The experiment and its evaluation became a kind of self,fulfilling prophecy. We explore the conceptual, ideological, and economic factors that shape the government's reaction, and then offer a theory of word meaning, usage, and power in public discourse that accounts for the discussion and the actions that flow from it. [source] Do Committees Ru(i)n the Bio-Political Culture?BIOETHICS, Issue 4 2003On the Democratic Legitimacy of Bioethics Committees Bioethical and bio-political questions are increasingly tackled by committees, councils, and other advisory boards that work on different and often interrelated levels. Research ethics committees work on an institutional or clinical level; local advisory boards deal with biomedical topics on the level of particular political regions; national and international political advisory boards try to answer questions about morally problematic political decisions in medical research and practice. In accordance with the increasing number and importance of committees, the quality of their work and their functional status are being subjected to more and more scrutiny. Besides overall criticism regarding the quality of their work, particular committees giving political advice are often suspected of being incompatible with democratic values, such as respect for affected parties, representation of diverse values and transparency in the decision-making processes. Based on the example of the German National Ethics Council, whose inauguration caused a still ongoing debate on the aims and scopes of committees in general, this paper discusses: (1) the requirements of modern democratic societies in dealing with complex scientific-technical problems; (2) the composition and organisation of committees working as political advisory boards; and (3) the appointment procedures and roles of laymen and experts, and here in particular of ethicists, who may legitimately be taken on by a committee. I will argue that bioethics committees do not necessarily endanger democratic values, but can considerably improve their realisation in democratic decision-making procedures , if, and only if, they do not act as substitutes for parliamentarian processes, but help prepare parliamentarian processes to be organised as rationally as possible. [source] | |||||||||||||