Documents democracy 917 results

"Radical-right behavior is increasing across Western democracies, often very quickly. Previous research has shown, however, that political attitudes and preferences do not change as quickly. Vicente Valentim argues that the role of social norms as drivers of political behavior is crucial for understanding these patterns. Building on a norms-based theory of political supply and demand, he argues that growing radical-right behavior is driven by individuals who already had radical-right views, but who did not act on those views because they thought that they were socially unacceptable. If these voters do not express their preferences, politicians can underestimate how much latent support there is for radical-right policy. This leaves the radical right with less skilled leaders, who are unable to mobilize even radical-right voters to support them. However, if politicians realize that there is more private support for radical-right policy than is typically observable, they have an incentive to run for politics with a radical-right platform and to mobilize silent radical-right views. Their electoral success, in turn, leads to radical-right individuals becoming more comfortable in displaying their views, and impels more politicians to join the radical right. The book's argument makes us rethink how political preferences translate into behavior, shows how social norms affect the interaction of political supply and demand, and highlights how a political culture that promotes inclusion can be eroded."

"Scholars studying democracy are just beginning to investigate the specifically political consequences of rising socio-economic inequalities. This paper analyses whether the degree of political inequality between social groups is shaped by features of the welfare capitalist system. Specifically, we hypothesize that more labour protection and social support decrease participatory inequality via more evenly distributed resources and engagement between high- and low educated citizens. Our regression analyses combining micro- and macro-level data from 37 capitalist democracies over the past 20 years provide evidence that some protective and supportive elements of welfare capitalism reduce education-based participatory inequality. Our fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis identifies three functionally equivalent types of welfare capitalism that all produce low participatory inequality via increased protection, support or both. Finally, we empirically demonstrate that the mechanisms behind this link are, indeed, a more equal distribution of resources and engagement across low- and high educated citizens."

"In the 21st century myriad earth systems – atmospheric systems, ocean systems, land systems, neo-Liberal capitalism – are in crisis. These crises are deeply related. Taking diverse and multiple forms, they have diverse and multiple consequences and are evidenced in such things as war, everyday violence, hate and extremism, global flows of millions of the dispossessed and homeless; and in the precarious, uncertain, and marginal existence of millions more.
Rethinking Young People's Marginalisation is concerned with the experience, affect, and effects of these earth systems crises on:
• young people's life chances, life choices, and life courses
• young people's engagement with education, training, and work
• the character of young people's being and becoming, their gendered
embodiment, their participation in cultures of democracy, their resilience,
and their marginalisation.
Indeed, in setting out to rethink young people's marginalisation, this insightful volume makes a contribution to troubling key concepts in Youth Studies, primarily: structure and agency; transitions and pathways; gender and embodiment, citizenship, risk, and resilience. It does this by drawing on a variety of critical, theoretical traditions, including Bauman's engagement with the ambivalence of the human condition; Foucault's studies of mentalities of government and genealogies of the subject; the critique of the politics of disposability and violence of neo-Liberalism undertaken by Giroux, and the authors of Kilburn Manifesto;
Braidotti's vitalist posthumanism; and Haraway's figure of the Chthulucene.
Analysing the ways in which young people engage in and develop new cultures of democracy, Rethinking Young People's Marginalisation will appeal to postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers interested in fields such as Youth Studies, Youth Sociology, Education Studies, and Critical Social Theory."

"Op school leer je kritisch denken. Opkomen voor je eigen mening. Voor nogal wat mensen stopt dat van zodra ze beginnen werken. Acht uur per dag doen wat je baas zegt: de gevolgen ervan zinderen ook na in hun vrije tijd. Werknemers van autoritaire bedrijven of van ondernemingen zonder vakbond, zo vertelt elk onderzoek, geloven doorgaans minder in democratie. Maar het omgekeerde blijkt ook: zaai je democratie op het werk, dan oogst je democraten in de samenleving. Tegenwoordig leggen maar weinig mensen de link tussen de vloer en de politieke democratie. Ooit was dat anders. Tijdens de opmars van het fascisme geloofden sommige denkers zelfs dat de sleutels om haar te redden juist daar te vinden waren. ‘Zonder democratie op het werk', zo klonk het, ‘geen democratie in de samenleving.'
Vandaag lijken de hiërarchische, kapitalistische organisatiemodellen wel religie. Mondige burger, stille werker? gaat tegen de goddelijke orde in. Een enthousiasmerend verhaal over het draagvlak voor verandering, publieke verbeelding, de vakbond als politieke emancipatiemachine en aanjager van zeggenschap."

"With the European Parliament comprising politicians from many different countries, cultures, languages, national parties and institutional backgrounds, one might expect politics in the Parliament to be highly-fragmented and unpredictable. By studying more than 12,000 recorded votes between 1979 and 2004 this 2007 book establishes that the opposite is in fact true: transnational parties in the European Parliament are highly cohesive and the classic 'left-right' dimension dominates voting behaviour. Furthermore, the cohesion of parties in the European Parliament has increased as the powers of the Parliament have increased. The authors suggest that the main reason for these developments is that like-minded MEPs have incentives to form stable transnational party organizations and to use these organizations to compete over European Union policies. They suggest that this is a positive development for the future of democratic accountability in the European Union."

"Galten Gewerkschaften lange Zeit als Reformbremsen, erfahren sie heute eine steigende Akzeptanz und sind zu gefragten Gesprächspartnern der Politik geworden. Die größte Einzelgewerkschaft IG Metall verzeichnet Mitgliedergewinne, stattliche Tarifabschlüsse führen zu Reallohnzuwächsen. Dieses Comeback der Gewerkschaften koinzidiert ausgerechnet mit der schwersten Wirtschaftskrise der Nachkriegszeit. Die Autoren erörtern die Frage, ob die gewerkschaftliche Erneuerung eine nachhaltige Entwicklung ist. Neben betrieblichen Praktiken betrachten sie die Wiederbelebung gewerkschaftlichen Interessenhandelns im internationalen Vergleich."

"In this article, we investigate legislative controls on the ability of workers and their organizations to take strike action, which raise fundamental questions relating to the application of democratic principles in a workplace setting. We trace the introduction of legislative provisions in Australia and the UK which sought to impose 'majoritarian' forms of democracy on trade union structures, by requiring ballots before such action could be taken. We recognize that these statutory pre-conditions are problematic both in terms of their aims and effects. Yet, what is arguably more worrying is the new institutionalization of deliberative pre-conditions for industrial action in the workplace. In Australia, this has taken the form of a requirement that a ballot applicant has 'genuinely tried to reach agreement', a requirement that continues to apply during any actual industrial action. In the UK context, the scope of protection from unfair dismissal (beyond a twelve-week period) will be affected by whether the union has complied with procedures established by an applicable collective or other agreement, offered or agreed to commence or resume negotiations, and has not unreasonably refused a request that conciliation or mediation services be used. In both countries, there seems to be growing pressure in policy terms for strikes to be very much a last resort, as statutory support for bargaining in good faith becomes stronger. We argue that these deliberative democratic controls of strike action are misguided. A richer understanding of deliberative democracy should, in our view, offer greater space for workers to voice their opposition in negotiations with employers."