Western Liberal Democracy: The Struggle of Muslims for Freedom,Equality and Dignity

The increasingly multicultural fabric of Western liberal democracies has given rise to the issue of the presence of Muslim minorities in the West, as rising hatred and hostility toward Islam and Muslims in the West undermine the three guiding principles of freedom, equality and dignity that underpin the foundation of liberal democracy, human rights and multiculturalism. Today, Muslims in the West struggle for freedom, equality and dignity to ensure their ethnocultural survival and full and equal participation within the mainstream society. Therefore, it would be quite correct to say that the endurance of liberal democracy, human rights and multiculturalism built on the Western civilization depends on the eradication of Western Islamophobia.     

The Logic of A Co‐Operative Economy and Democracy 2.0: Recovering the Possibilities for Autonomy,Creativity, Solidarity,and Common Purpose

Over the past 30 years, the collectivist‐democratic form of organization has presented a growing alternative to the bureaucratic form, and it has proliferated, here and around the world. This form is manifest, for example, within micro‐credit groups, workers’ co‐operatives, nongovernmental organizations, advocacy groups, self‐help groups, community and municipal initiatives, social movement organizations, and in many nonprofit groups in general. It is most visible in the civil society sector, but demands for deeper participation are also evident in communities and cities, and the search for more involving and less bureaucratic structures has spread into many for‐profit firms as well. Building on research on this form of organization, this article develops a model of the decisional processes utilized in such organizations and contrasts these “Democracy 2.0” standards for decision making from the Democracy 1.0 (representative and formal) standards that previously prevailed. Drawing on a new generation of research on these sorts of organizations, this article and this special section discuss: (a) how consensus decisional processes are being made more efficient; (b) how such organizations are now able to scale to fairly large size while still retaining their local and participatory basis; (c) how such organizations are cultivating a more diverse membership and using such diversity to build more democratic forms of governance; (d) how such organizations are combatting ethnoracial and gender inequalities that prevail in the surrounding society; and (e) how emotions are getting infused into the public conversations within these organizations and communities.     

Gezi Park and EuroMaidan: social movements at the borders

Both Turkey and Ukraine are located at the external borders of the European Union (EU), and are seen as important partners of the EU, especially in terms of economic relations and strategic partnership. Both countries experienced en masse protest events in 2013: the Gezi Park protests and EuroMaidan, starting, respectively, in May 2013 and November 2013. Although these protests started initially for different reasons – the brutal eviction of a sit-in organized for protecting the trees in Taksim Gezi Park and the Ukrainian government's abandonment of EU trade agreement talks – and seem spatially, temporally and ideologically separate, they both include claims related to a “more just and transparent system”. Such claims are not purely political and are closely linked to a social dimension, especially in terms of local and European space-making. This article aims to understand the importance of Gezi Park and EuroMaidan within the framework of new social movements in terms of space-making and the perception of human rights, democracy, justice, identitarian politics and consensual social relations as Euro-concepts or European ideals.     

Discourses of service user involvement in meeting places in Norwegian community mental health care: a discourse analysis of staff accounts

In previous research, meeting places have been favourably addressed by service users, but they have also been contested as exclusionary. In this participatory explorative study, we sought to perform a contextual analysis of meeting places in Norway based on a discourse analysis of three focus group discussions with 15 staff members. We asked the following question: how do meeting-place employees discuss their concrete and abstract encounters with service users and their experiences? We focused on service user involvement, which was largely analysed as neoliberal consultation and responsibilisation. Service users were positioned as resisting responsibility trickling down and defending staffed meeting places. Social democratic discourse was identified in the gaps of neoliberal discourse, which is noteworthy given that Norway is a social democracy. This relates to global concerns about displacements of democracy. We suggest that meeting places appear to hold the potential for staff and service users to collaborate more democratically.     

论法治的妥协性

法治是利益妥协的产物,而个体的分散意志经过妥协形成的法律是对各方利益的均衡。故阶级斗争思维与法治精神相去甚远。民主是多数人的政治,但多数人的权利亦须受到制约,这是由法治的妥协机制所决定的。以权利制约权力、分权制衡体现了法治的妥协性,同时法治的妥协性还体现为对传统的尊重和让步。     

论艾伦·伍德对资本主义民主的批判

艾伦·伍德基于历史唯物主义对经济和政治的连续性的分析,以民主为切入点,借鉴古雅典经济民主和政治民主相统一的洞见,揭示了资本主义民主的虚假性。伍德的观点既有助于我们认识资本主义民主的本质,也有助于我们从经济民主和政治民主相统一的维度重新思考社会主义民主,建构社会主义民主制度。     

教育民主的内涵、路径及限度

教育是实现民主社会最根本、最有效的途径，民主是教育的基本原则。学校是民主社会的“雏形共同体”，民主生活是学校日常化的生活方式。教育目的是民主，是培养共同体生活的民主社会的公民，教育过程、手段和方法等也都应该是民主的，通过非民主的方式实现民主，这既不可取也不可能。当前我们应该创造公平的受教育机会，剔除教学中专制的形式权威，消解教育管理中的命令化和行政化方式，促进教育走向民主，社会走向和谐。     

论新儒家的民主理论

自19世纪中叶以来,传统儒家便面临着一个现代转化的问题,新儒家在重建中国文化的价值系统过程中选择了民主作为由"内圣"开出"新外王"的核心工作。民主包括两个层面的意思:在制度层面上,古代中国的君主世袭制度无法摆脱一治一乱的循环局面,要打破这一局面,唯有系于民主政治制度的建立;在文化层面上,中国传统文化包含民主思想的因子,而只有发展民主制度才能使人们真正树立起其道德主体的地位,儒家所倡导的天下为公、人格平等的理想才能真正实现。新儒家剥离掉传统制度而强调心性之学的重要性,认定中国文化为一活的"客观的精神生命",这正是由"内圣"开出"新外王"思想的根本所在。     

Deliberative street politics and sacralized dissent: Morocco’s 20 February movement and the Jamaa Al Adl Wal Ihsane

During a wave of protest in 2011, Morocco was home to its own uprisings, spurred on by the 20 February movement. Unlike its neighbors to the east, the Moroccan regime was never dismantled. So, what was the sociopolitical significance of the 20 February movement? This profile examines the landscape at the time of uprisings and presents brief interview data to make the case that these protests facilitated a political articulation and a new deliberative street politics.     

The Promethean role of Europe: changing narratives of the political and scholarly left

ABSTRACT

The gradual abandoning of the ‘socialism in one country’ doctrine during the post-war period and the intensive transformation of European social democracy in the 1990s pushed social democratic politicians and intellectuals into the front line of advocates of a unified and powerful Europe. They contributed to the inclusion of social democratic and environmentalist values in the EU’s official narrative. The success of European integration and George W. Bush’s presidency created the narrative of the Promethean role of Europe. Scholars with a social democratic or environmentalist background created this narrative and it was also shaped by authors’ national contexts.