Sciences,politics, and associative democracy: democratizing science and expertizing democracy

Relations between science and politics are under pressure because urgent problems create an increasing external demand on sciences while inside sciences the old idea that “science speaks truth to politics” is increasingly seen as unfeasible and undesirable. We are not forced to choose between such an objectivist and a skepticist model. Associative democracy provides more fruitful interactions between sciences and politics in order to “democratize science/expertise” and to “expertize democracy” compared with the outworn institutional alternative of parliamentary democracy – incapable of solving risk-decisions because of limited and misguided information, lack of qualification and practical knowledge – and neo-corporatist “shifts from government to governance” – suffering from rigidity, exclusion of legitimate stakeholders, intransparency and lack of democratic legitimacy. It introduces contest where it matters most and where it is most productive: in the framing of issues, in the deliberation/negotiation on alternatives, and in the implementation and control of the chosen problem solving strategy.     

Gender,globalisation, and democracy

This article discusses the link between gender, globalization and democracy in relation to women?s empowerment. Analyzing gender relations within the processes of development planning involves five approaches: 1) welfare, 2) equity, 3) anti-poverty, 4) efficiency, and 5) empowerment. In addition, a new approach, which combines efficiency and empowerment, must be added to highlight the problematic nature of the direction of causality assumed by traditional theory of development. The rise on women's representation in national parliament can be attributed to the increase of women's economic power and women's political struggles. However, promotion of globalization produces new opportunities for feminist politics, as well as difficulties, which include: the emergent position of productive engagement in which an efficient economy and democratic society are seen as interdependent; and increase in parliamentary representation correlates with increased paid employment for women. In conclusion, the author underscores that globalization is a gendered process which is restructuring social relations on a large scale and the challenges it bring provide opportunities for women in development.     

The press,the market and democracy

The newspaper press in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe is currently being re‐organized on market lines. This will produce a much greater reliance upon advertising revenues. The evidence from developed market economies demonstrates that such a press is sharply stratified with regard to the provision of public information. The resulting imbalance produces severe problems for theories of democracy. In order to lessen the impact of these problems, some countries in Europe, for example Sweden, have managed to adopt a policy subsidy without endangering the freedom of the press.     

The early institutionalists on industrial democracy and union democracy

Conclusion  Today the term “industrial democracy” has a rather quaint sound, at least in the U.S., and is seldom encountered in either academic or practitioner industrial relations. Likewise, the work of the early institutional economists is infrequently cited by modern IR scholars and even less often read. So, one may ask, why re-plow this intellectual ground when it has so long lain fallow?     

Constitutions, voting and democracy: A review

This review of William Riker's work suggests that his interest in rational choice theory was based on his desire to understand profound constitutional transformation in U.S. political history. Although he argued that “anything can happen in politics,” his use of the notion of heresthetic allowed him to focus on key contingent events. Indeed his later work added depth to his inductive generalizations on the nature of “federal bargains” and coalition formation.  Recent work by Austen-Smith and Banks, Merrill and Grofman, and Lijphart is also discussed in the light of Riker's earlier ideas on voting and democracy. Received: 25 February 2000/Accepted: 16 March 2000     

Philanthrophy and democracy

Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism, by Joan Roelofs. Albany, N.Y., State University of New York Press, 2003. 269 pp., $29.95 paper.     

Commentary: new technologies,public relations,and democracy

This commentary is based on Hiebert's keynote address given to BledCom 2004, the 11th International Public Relations Research Symposium on “New Concepts and Technologies for Public Relations, Public Affairs, and Corporate Communication,” Bled, Slovenia, July 2, 2004. It suggests that the new communication technologies can save democracy by restoring dialogic and participatory communication in the public sphere, thus preserving a role for public relations as two-way communication rather than propaganda and spin. However, the pathway ahead for public relations is strewn with landmines.     

Soil, blood and identity

Modern nations are products of nationalism, and can be defined only as such, rather than by their own distinctive traits - which anyway vary over an extremely wide range. Nationalism was, sociologically, an attempt made by the modern elites to recapture the allegiance (in the form of cultural hegemony) of the ‘masses’ produced by the early modern transformations and particularly by the cultural rupture between the elites and the rest of the population by the ‘civilizing process’, whose substance was the self-constitution and the self-separation of new elites legitimizing their status by reference to superior culture and knowledge. In the same way in which the modern state needed nationalism for the ‘primitive accumulation’ of authority, nationalism needed coercive powers of the state to promote the postulated dissolution of communal identities in the uniform identity of the nation. In the practice of both, there was an unallayed tension between the ‘inclusivist’ and ‘exclusivists’ prongs of the nation-state project; hence the never fully effaced link between nationalism and racism, nationalism being the racism of the intellectuals, and racism - the nationalism of the masses. Currently our part of the world undergoes the process of the separation between state and nation, effected by lesser reliance of state power on culturalist legitimation and a degree of de-territorialization of communal affiliations, which fills the efforts of nation-building, invention of heritage, tribal integration etc. with a new urgency and may lead to the sharpening of either of the two prongs of the nationalist project.     

The identity curation game: digital inequality,identity work,and emotion management

ABSTRACT

The research examines an understudied facet of digital inequality: how digital inequality impacts identity work and emotion management. The analysis reveals how unequal access to digital resources shapes how well youths are able to play what I call the identity curation game. Digital resources determine youths’ ability to succeed in this game that is governed by three implicit rules: (1) constantly update or be sidelined, (2) engage in constant reciprocated identity-affirming interactions, and (3) maintain a strategy of vigilance to remove traces of failed identity performances. This article draws on Symbolic Interactionism and pays particular attention to Hochschild’s theory of emotion management. Drawing on these frameworks, the findings reveal how under-resourced youths experience connectivity gaps that disrupt their ability to play the identity curation game, as well as the resulting emotional consequences. Under-resourced youths manage distinctive negative emotions arising from connectivity gaps that hinder their digital identity work, as well as engaging in distinct kinds of suppressive work to police their own emotions including longing, envy, shame, frustration, and stigmatization. In making these linkages, the research reveals the cascading effects of digital inequality among youths where constant connectivity is the sine qua non of social inclusion.     

The revolutions of 1989: Socialism,capitalism, and democracy

Many journalists and scholars will look for the correlation of that chain of spectacular transformations that changed, as if at one blow, the fates of tens of millions of individuals and the hitherto firm bipolar picture of the modern world ... Today, many people are talking and writing about the role of the intellectuals, students, and the theatre, or the influence of the Soviets' perestroika, and economic difficulties. They're right. I myself as a playwright would also add the influence of humour and honesty, and perhaps even something beyond us, something maybe even unearthly.Vaclav Havel, Preface to Gwyn Prins (editor),Spring in Winter: The 1989 Revolutions.