In The Law of Peoples, John Rawls defends the claim that ‘decent’ societies (non-liberal, non-democratic constitutional republics) deserve full and good standing in the international community. His defense of decent societies consists of two main arguments. First, he argues that the basic human right to political participation does not imply a right to democratic political institutions. This argument has been thoroughly discussed by commentators. Second, he argues that decent societies, if admitted to the international community, would pose no (...) special threat to the stability of that community. This argument has largely been ignored. My aim in this article is to analyze this second argument, which I call the ‘peace argument'. argumen. (shrink)

The Triumph of Liberal Democratic Peace and the Dangers of Its Success” provides an overview of the “liberal democratic peace theory” that is associated with Kant and has been developed by Doyle and other contemporary scholars. The chapter examines the problem of wars that are fought in the name of democracy and the way that the liberal democratic peace theory can end up encouraging military interventions. It argues that a careful understanding of the Kantian (...) democratic peace theory can resist the urge to intervene. It employs Galtung’s notion of cultural violence to provide a critique of interventionist peace action. It concludes by advising that we work to find a way to build bridges between democracies and non-democracies. (shrink)

The decline in organized violence in the period after World War II provides the promise of a more peaceful future. How can we move further in this direction? Democratic peace—the absence of armed violence between democracies and the domestic peace of mature democracies—may provide part of the answer. This phenomenon is a well-established empirical regularity, but its mechanisms and its limits remain a subject of continuing research. The key role of democracy in reducing violence has been challenged (...) by alternative explanations, such as the liberal peace, the capitalist peace, the developed peace, the organized peace, the quality of government peace, the feminist peace, and the civil society peace—but also by realism. In this essay, part of the roundtable “World Peace,” I argue that it is a social-democratic peace that provides the best basis for a lasting world peace. This formula includes democracy but incorporates additional elements, such as a market economy, an active and competent state, close international cooperation, and the reduction of discrimination and group-based inequality. Combining these elements would provide a solid basis for eliminating violence between, as well as within, states. The main limitation of such a program is its demanding nature. Few states and interstate relations as yet fulfill all these conditions, but the long-term trends are moving in the right direction. (shrink)

In recent times, ‘just war’ discourse has become unfortunately associated, in the minds of some, with the idea of the forcible promotion or imposition of democracy as a legitimate just cause. It would thus be understandable if supporters of just war theory were to disavow any particular linkage of its tenets with the democratic ideal. However, while certainly not endorsing the stated cause, this article contends that the theory in its most plausible and attractive form does exhibit certain biases (...) towards the ideal, in both jus ad bellum and jus post bellum. If these biases fall short of shackling the theory to claims such as ‘only democracies can fight just wars’, they may nevertheless place taxing justificatory burdens on a non-democracy's claim to have a war-waging right and on non-democratic conceptions of the just peace that should ideally follow a just war. (shrink)

The idea that peace prevails in the relations among liberal democratic states, given its first expression in Kant’s essay “Toward Perpetual Peace,” has gathered a great deal of attention in the post-Cold War period as both a testable hypothesis and a proposal for expanding peace through democratization. This article examines the explanations for how a democratic peace is achieved and sustained. It argues that, despite tendencies within democratic state relations toward peaceful conflict resolution, (...) such a peace is destabilized by continued adherence to a set of assumptions and practices which we might call, following Jane Addams and John Dewey, ‘the war system.’ In the context of the ideological and institutional supports of militarism, democratic states remain subject to the dynamics of conflict escalation that produce occasions for war. This war system is the undoing of the democratic peace. (shrink)

In The Law of Peoples, Rawls defends the stability of his proposed international order with the democratic peace thesis. But he fails to extend this thesis to decent peoples, which is curious, since they are a non-temporary feature of his law of peoples. This opens Rawls’s proposal to certain objections, which I argue can be met once we understand fully the nature of the democratic peace. Nevertheless, there is reason to worry about the stability of Rawls’s (...) proposed international order. This worry has little to do with decent peoples, though, and is generated by other features of his law of peoples. (shrink)

In The Law of Peoples, Rawls defends the stability of his proposed international order with the democratic peace thesis. But he fails to extend this thesis to decent peoples, which is curious, since they are a non-temporary feature of his law of peoples. This opens Rawls’s proposal to certain objections, which I argue can be met once we understand fully the nature of the democratic peace. Nevertheless, there is reason to worry about the stability of Rawls’s (...) proposed international order. This worry has little to do with decent peoples, though, and is generated by other features of his law of peoples. (shrink)

In this article, we extend the well-known ‘agreeing-to-disagree’ and ‘no-trade’ results from economics and game theory to international relations. We show that two rational countries should never agree to go to war when war is inefficient and when rationality is common knowledge. We argue that this result might provide one possible explanation for the empirical finding, often referred to as the ‘democratic peace’, that modern democracies rarely go to war with one another. We propose that the informational properties (...) of pluralistic institutions lead to better decision-making by democracies and that democracies are therefore more likely to be the rational actors necessary for the ‘no-war’ result. We discuss empirical evidence in support of this proposition. (shrink)

The author analyzes three waves of the crisis of democracy during the 20th and early 21st centuries. The first crisis of democracy in the early 20th century is caused by the emergence and development of public politics, which challenged the possibility to govern the masses having conflict potential, it balanced the power of the people and universal suffrage with the control of the media in order to maintain the stability of political system. The second wave of the crisis of democracy (...) (the last third of the 20th century) is associated with the destruction of the conventional world and the weakening of the nation-state; and its markers were: the imbalance between the branches of government, the domination of economics over politics, the predominance of equality over freedom, the problematic implementation of human rights, and, as a consequence, the inability to put into practice the national form of democracy. The third wave of crisis (early the 21st century) is accompanied by the transformation of democracy into post-democracy, in which the power of the people is replaced by the power of global capital, and the illusion of consent is reinforced by the prohibition of alternative points of view and the narrowing of the space of issues allowed for discussion in the name of public security. The crisis of the policy to achieve peace through the transformation of the balance of powers into a balance of interests called into question the principles of democracy. On the contrary, post-democracies justify the use of force to spread democracy around the world, and they take an active part in contemporary military conflicts, which can rightly be defined as hybrid proxy wars. Drawing on J. Habermas’s concept of communicative rationality, the author concludes that to overcome the crisis of democracy it is necessary to accept the very possibility of an alternative to this form of government and allow to discuss these previously marginalized issues as well as to maintain the return of the majority to genuine communication and politics, contribute to its enlightenment. (shrink)

In an era defined by events that continuously shake Fukuyama’s thesis according to which liberal democracy constitutes the end of History, there is need for a democratic ideal that puts the role of civic action at the heart of its justification. In this article, I argue that John Dewey’s democratic ideal understood as a matter of civic co-creation, where democratic pursuits are continually redefined by citizens through solving communal problems - not set by history, once and for (...) all - provides a valuable response to this need. To this end, this article reconsiders Deweyan democracy by:(1) presenting it as a transformational process, in opposition to liberal democracy; (2) discussing Dewey’s conception of active citizenship as requiring more than mere political participation; (3) articulating Dewey’s democratic ideal as a form of applied social intelligence; (4) making explicit the pedagogical consequences of Deweyan democracy; and (5) interpreting it as a form of peaceful conflict resolution aiming at balance in inter-personal relationships. (shrink)

This paper criticizes an empirical reading of On Perpetual Peace. It is also equally critical of the approach taken by philosophically minded scholars to give preference to Kant's philosophical outlook. Instead, it focuses on the peculiar oscillation between the philosophical and political aspects of the essay. Contrary to current concerns to update the conceptual framework of On Perpetual Peace—to rescue it from becoming obsolete—its salient irony, which mediates between both aspects, is singled out as a clue to an (...) interpretation which seeks to account for both of them. Thus, the essay can still be a source of inspiration for peace research. (shrink)

The article questions concepts of ‘democratic peace’ that presuppose an intrinsic relation between pacifism and democracy. This view lacks from both, empirical evidence and historical insight. Instead, pacifism as political and personal virtue can be better linked to the Deweyan idea of democracy as the basic way of life, that is, mutual cooperation and self-realisation. But not only pacifism but also warfare and aggressive conduct often are rooted and result in an ethos of solidarity and cooperation. Therefore, the (...) task for any realistic concept of democratic pacifism is at least two-fold: finding ‘moral equivalents’ to war and cultivating an ethos of self-criticism and self-restraint as already the Old Testament’s prophets have proclaimed. (shrink)

The case of post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) provides an interesting lens through which to reflect on the interconnected and often conflicting challenges of implementation of internationally brokered peace agreements, external support to democratic transition and consolidation, and contemporary notions of sovereignty and state building. This chapter suggests that in the case of BiH, certain contradictions and tradeoffs have been and may still be necessary to ensure a foundation for future stability and democratic consolidation. The situation in (...) post-Dayton BiH can be described as a frozen conflict that has remained frozen in large part due to an international presence that ensures that an imperfect peace prevails while also providing a basis for incremental reform. The peace implementation process in BiH is briefly reviewed by looking at two reform strategies: the “soft” protectorate strategy used in BiH as a whole and the “hard” protectorate option exercised in the District of Brčko. The aim is to demonstrate that while a democratic end-state remains the goal in such transitions, the means toward getting there can include a number of contradictory policy options. (shrink)

Globalization cannot be stopped nor denied. Sometimes it may have not only a positive impact but also a negative one, as rivalry among nations may ensue. Economic and political rivalry leads to break up of the conducive environment of political security. Unresolved territorial claims and boundary disputes may become triggering factors. Superpowers’ interference may had to the conflict. The purpose of this article is to explain the possibilities of building up trust in peaceful and democratic One Asia Community by (...) systematically and effectively introducing educational programs to enhance awareness of cultural differences, teach conflict resolution techniques, and promote an ideal of ethical responsibility and unselfishness. (shrink)

We argue for peace education as a process of improving the quality of everyday relationships. This is vital, as children bring their habits formed largely by social and political institutions such as the family, religion, law, cultural mores, to the classroom (Splitter, 1993; Furlong & Morrison, 2000) and vice versa. It is inevitable that the classroom habitat, as a microcosm of the community in which it is situated, will perpetuate the epistemic practices and injustices of that community, manifested in (...) attitudes, beliefs, behaviours and actions that can limit the child’s ability to learn. The educational task then, is to create opportunities for children to problematize the very environment they inhabit. To this end, our concern is for peace education aimed at addressing epistemic violence; a form of harm brought about by a particular rationality of domination. -/- The classroom community of inquiry, initially developed by Matthew Lipman and Ann Sharp as the methodology for the Philosophy for Children (P4C) approach to education (Lipman & Sharp, 1978; Lipman, Sharp & Oscanyan, 1980), is often viewed as a solution to inequality in the classroom—an intellectually safe environment which allows students to explore, practice and internalize good reasoning through philosophy so that they can make school relevant to their lives. Traditionally, the teacher’s role is to take a ‘neutral stance’ in discussion during the conduct of a community of inquiry. However, we argue that it is misplaced to assume that the community of inquiry is a safe intellectual environment in which the teacher as co-inquirer also facilitates the discussion procedurally, letting the argument lead, which Lipman took as the guiding principle for his process of inquiry. For, as Paulo Freire (1987) put it: -/- ... the dominant ideology makes its presence in the classroom partly felt by trying to convince the teacher that he or she must be neutral in order to respect the student. This kind of neutrality is a false respect for students. On the contrary, the more I say nothing about agreeing or not agreeing out of respect for the others, the more I am leaving the dominant ideology in peace! (p. 174). -/- Teachers must be aware of the possibility of epistemic violence to be able to detect and disrupt it, in order to facilitate a peaceful inquiry. We do not consider peace in the negative, as the absence of conflict, but in the positive as the capacity to respond skilfully to conflict as a way of life. Therefore, we concentrate on peace education that prepares students to turn conflict into inquiry, rather than peace education as values education or character education that instils values of ‘fraternity and non-violence’ (Gregory, 2004, p. 277). The community of inquiry provides such a framework, however, we argue that it must be facilitated in a way that mitigates the effects of epistemic violence by creating an educational habitat in which multiple ways of knowing can flourish. (shrink)

Modern coverage of world events suggest that war and violence are key to contemporary society. History can convince us that it has ever been so, and many theorist of international relations argue that nothing is likely to change. Roy Weatherford argues that a profound change in social relations is imminent as national sovereignty yields to a democratic world culture, speaking a world language and living as a world wide family - the human family. For too long world peace (...) has seemed a noble but unattainable ideal. Weatherford shows that it is now both economically and politically possible and is therefore our moral duty. (shrink)

The main purpose of this article is to tackle the problem of living together – as dignified human beings – in a certain territory in the field of social philosophy, on the theoretical grounding ensured by some remarkable exponents of the Austrian School − and by means of the praxeologic method. Because political tools diminish the human nature not only of those who use them, but also of those who undergo their effects, people can live a life worthy of a (...) human being only as members of some autarchic or self-governing communities. As a spontaneous order, every autarchic community is inherently democratic, inasmuch as it makes possible free involvement, peaceful coordination, free expression and the free reproduction of ideas. The members of autarchic communities are moral individuals who avoid aggression, practice self-control, seek a dynamical efficiency and establish a democratic public discourse. (shrink)

This comment reflects on how the Women, Peace and Security agenda has been translated into policy and put into practice by the European Union and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Although the WPS agenda has enabled many gains by women peacebuilders, this comment identifies important challenges from these two very different contexts. First, situating WPS policy areas within a broader feminist political economy analysis demonstrates how little influence the WPS agenda has across government. Second, the WPS agenda is (...) being used to promote heteronormative, patriarchal understanding of ‘gender’, stripped of any power dynamics and excluding any gender identities that do not conform. The result, then, is that WPS policies and practice are adrift in the patriarchal policy mainstream. (shrink)

Modern coverage of world events suggest that war and violence are key to contemporary society. History can convince us that it has ever been so, and many theorist of international relations argue that nothing is likely to change. Roy Weatherford argues that a profound change in social relations is imminent as national sovereignty yields to a democratic world culture, speaking a world language and living as a world wide family - the human family. For too long world peace (...) has seemed a noble but unattainable ideal. Weatherford shows that it is now both economically and politically possible and is therefore our moral duty. (shrink)

It is evident that the international order has been changed at the beginning of the twenty-first century after the terrorist attacks of September 2001. Peace is the essential end of every constitutional democracy, internally -in the relationships that its members maintain among themselves-, as well as externally -those relations that a society sustains with others. The problem arises especially in the relation of constitutional democracies with other political regimes. Whereas Kant defended that the best means to achieve peace (...) was the expansion of the republican regime, Rawls’ defense of liberal democracy did not envisage its expansion. The relations of a constitutional democracy with other societies, whether democratic or not, necessarily require a limitation of sovereignty in their exercise abroad. However, the relations among different sovereigns remain underdeveloped, practically at the mercy of the good or bad will of each of them, without a praetor with the capacity to establish the universal will that should prevail in the relations among states. (shrink)

Popkin analyzes the role of international actors, notably the United States and the United Nations, and the contributions and limitations of international assistance in efforts to establish accountability and reform the justice system in El Salvador. The author discusses the essential role of civil society in attempts to establish accountability and an effective justice system for all, and looks at the reasons for and the consequences of the limited role played by Salvadorean civil society. She also addresses the challenges facing (...) democratic reform efforts in the context of a postwar crime wave. _Peace Without Justice_ grew out of Margaret Popkin’s extensive experience working as a human rights advocate in El Salvador during the armed conflict and interviews with a variety of Salvadorans and others involved in justice reform and in negotiating and implementing the peace accords. (shrink)

Democratic politicians face pressures unknown to the prerogative rulers of the early modern period when toleration was first formulated as a political ideal. These pressures are less often expressed as demands by groups or individuals for the permission of practices they dislike than for their restraint or outright prohibition; tolerant dispositions are less politically clamorous. The executive structure of toleration as a virtue, together with the ‘fact of reasonable pluralism’, make conflicts over toleration peculiarly intractable. Political conflicts are apt (...) to take the form of mutual allegations ofintolerance; indeed, the problem of ‘tolerating the intolerant’, far from being a marginal case, is central to the theory and practice of toleration. Toleration thus exemplifies a category mistake committed in much contemporary political theory, particularly in its contractualist versions: the threshold of the political lies precisely where rational agreement proves impossible. The main prospects for democratic toleration are thus pre-emptive. The main way in which this can happen is by cultivating executive dispositions: in other words, encouraging people to detach themselves from strong evaluative commitments, so that toleration does not become politically contentious to start with. But this involves losses as well as gains. The gains in civil harmony and peace are obvious. The cost for tolerant political actors is alienation from what they have good reason to value. (shrink)

From Cairo to Occupy Wall Street, from Istanbul Gezi Park to DANS protests in Sofia, in recent public sphere movements we have witnessed the emergence of a new wave of creative protest. The surge of creative forms of political action brings to the fore the question of democratic potential of creative political protest. This paper explores in what ways creative protest could deepen democracy. I argue that creative political protest nurtures democracy by generating a peaceful culture of resistance and (...) by providing a peaceful way of responding to politics of intolerance and polarization. (shrink)

In this article, we begin from the assertion that global war does not affirm itself as an imperial ordering power without `opacifying' every regulative idea of peace, which is thereby reduced to the status of a deceptive illusion. `Postmodern' peace, which is absolutely contemporaneous with war, is deduced from war in the guise of the `post-democratic' institution of a permanent state of exception, of a continuation of war by other means, and of a reduction of sovereignty to (...) the imbalance of terror, in accordance with the principle of distinction that opposes friend and enemy. Once war, peace and barbarism interact with no rule other than the common sense of the unworldly squalor, only Combat against War can destroy the sensorial evidence of a false social peace and open on to the construction of a World that is once again possible for the singularities that we are in common. Whence derives the character of social threat that marks out contemporary art when it focuses on the mediatic world-image by putting to work a new transversalist aesthetic paradigm, exposing itself to the tearing asunder of the sensible in the over-exposition of peace to war. This could be art's new address, tracing its difference in a creative machination of affects that can no longer find support in any remembrance of the being of peace. (shrink)

Will we have more or fewer deadly wars in the new few decades? Until recently it has been very hard to say much about what makes wars more more frequent or deadly. It doesn't seem to have much to do with levels or changes in population density, whether the economy is booming, how dependent a nation is on trade, or on the number of great powers around. Wars seems only weakly if at all correlated across space and time, seeming for (...) example to be a bit more deadly when they are less frequent. More democratic nations may if anything be more likely to fight wars, though perhaps they less often fight each other, and perhaps join wars more often just after an election [1]. (shrink)

This article is an attempt to develop a theory of peace education through an examination of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. It examines why Japan did not avoid this terrible nuclear disaster. This is an educational issue, because one of the major impacts of Fukushima's catastrophe is that it indicates the failure of peace education. In order to reestablish a theory of peace education, the concept of domestic tranquility is discussed. This article questions whether the Japanese public (...) order is consistent with democratic principles. Jane Roland Martin's examination of the concept of domestic tranquility is shown relevant. Martin's language analysis helps to distinguish whether or not Japanese domestic tranquility under nuclear crisis is democratic. I propose that post-Fukushima disaster peace education should be reformed as consistent with two democratic principles: acceptance of the diversity of peace and continuous negotiation among these different narratives. (shrink)

The ideal of the United Nations was first put forward by Immanuel Kant in his 1795 essay Perpetual Peace. Kant, in the tradition of Locke and Rousseau is a liberal who believes that relations between individuals can either be based upon law and consent or upon force and violence. One way that such the ideal of world peace could be achieved would be through the creation of a single world state, of which every human being was a citizen. (...) Such an ideal was advocated by a number of eighteenth century liberals. Kant, however, rejects this ideal and instead argues that the universal rule of law can be achieved through the establishment a federation of independent states. I examine the relevance of Kant’s arguments today, focusing on two questions: Firstly, as advocates of the rule of law, why advocate a federation of independent nations rather than a single world state. Secondly, is this ideal realizable? Is Kant right to think that republics are natural and are likely to live peacefully with one another? Kant’s arguments on this issue have been taken up again in recent decades by defenders of the theory of the “democratic peace”, the theory that democracies are more likely to live at peace with one another. (shrink)

The article considers the modern meaning of Kant’s doctrine of war. The author examines the context and content of the key provisions of Kant’s concept of perpetual peace. The author also reviews the ideological affinity between Kant and previous authors who proposed to build alliances of states as a means of preventing wars. It is noted that the French revolution and the wars caused by it, the peace treaty between France and Prussia served as the historical background for (...) the conceptualization of Kant’s project. In the second half of the 20th century, there is a growing attention to Kant’s ethical and political philosophy. Theorists of a wide variety of political and ethical schools, pay attention to Kant’s legacy and relate their own concepts to it. Kant’s idea of war is reconsidered by Michael Doyle, Jürgen Habermas, Ulrich Beck, Mary Kaldor, Brian Orend. Thus, Doyle tracks democratic peace theory back to Kant’s idea of the spread of republicanism. According to democratic peace theory, liberal democracies do not solve conflict among themselves by non-military methods. Habermas, Beck, Kaldor appreciate Kant as a key proponent of cosmopolitanism. For them, Kant’s project is important due to notion of supranational forms of cooperation. They share an understanding that peace will be promoted by an allied authority, which will be “governing without government” and will take responsibility for the functioning of the principles of pacification of international relations. Orend’s proves that Kant should be considered as a proponent of the just war theory. In addition, Orend develops a new area in just war theory – the concept of ius post bellum – and justifies regime change as the goal of just war. (shrink)

This paper compares different normative and institutional paradigms of journalism with respect to peaceful conflict resolution and democratic communication. It begins with the problematic but still dominant 'regime of objectivity,' and then considers three contemporary challengers: peace journalism, alternative media, and media democratization/communication rights movements. The paradigms are compared in terms of such factors as public philosophy, epistemological assumptions, characteristic practices, institutional entailments, relationship to dominant institutions and power structures, allies and opponents, and antagonisms and synergies between them. (...) I conclude that while peace journalism is a promising initiative, it could gain traction by exploring synergies with the other challenger paradigms. (shrink)

This paper addresses a recent wave of criticisms of liberal peacebuilding operations. We decompose the critics’ argument into two steps, one which offers a diagnosis of what goes wrong when things go wrong in peacebuilding operations, and a second, which argues on the basis of the first step that there is some deep principled flaw in the very idea of liberal peacebuilding. We show that the criticism launched in the argument’s first step is valid and important, but that the second (...) step by no means follows. Drawing a connection between liberal peacebuilding and humanitarian intervention, we argue that the problems that the critics point to are in fact best addressed within the framework of liberal internationalism itself. Further, we argue that the development of the notion of human security marks a dawning awareness within liberal internationalism of the kinds of problems that the critics point to, however difficult it may still be to embody these ideas in practice. (shrink)

India has a long, rich, and diverse tradition of philosophical thoughts, spanning some two and a half millennia and encompassing several major religious traditions. India’s democracy can be said to rest on the foundation of religious practice due to the practice of multi-religions and different sects in its continent. Religious practices ties among citizens that generate positive and democratic political outcomes if we see it from the ideals of any religious doctrine as per their written scripture. But in society (...) religious practices (not religious doctrine) do not show equality and usually go against their own religious doctrine as preached in their religious places. It is also evident that religious denomination (Catholic, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh etc.) comes as a barrier when we practice democratic ideals in society and make social situation worst. How these religious practices contribute for a society where we can discuss the ideals of freedom, equality and brotherhood for a Just Society and become mean of interreligious dialogue in multi-religious society? this is a big question to think . The objective of this paper is to study the dimensions of religious practices in Indian society and how these practices can contribute in interreligious dialogue to make atmosphere of peace, understanding and harmony in the society. (shrink)

Shortly following the Second World War, and under the medical direction of ex-army psychiatrist T. F. Main, the Cassel Hospital for Functional Nervous Disorders emerged as a pioneering democratic ‘therapeutic community’ in the treatment of mental illness. This definitive movement away from conventional ‘custodial’ assumptions about the function of the psychiatric hospital initially grew out of a commitment to sharing therapeutic responsibility between patients and staff and to preserving patients’ pre-admission responsibilities and social identities. However, by the mid-1950s, hospital (...) practices had come to focus pre-eminently on patients’ relationships with family members, and staff had developed a social model of mental health that focused on the family as the irreducible unit of mental treatment. By the late 1950s, this culminated in the in-patient admission of entire families for mental treatment, even when only one family member was exhibiting symptoms. At the heart of this growing post-war social-psychiatric preoccupation with the family was a new emphasis on the close relationship between mental health and individuals’ successful development toward mature responsible adulthood. The family came to be conceived as the quintessential space where both were forged. This article examines the process through which the Cassel’s social-psychiatric commitment to ‘therapeutic community’ became focused on the family as a key therapeutic site. While the family had become a central point of focus in social, political and psychological discussions of the foundation for stable democratic culture and political peace in post-war Britain, the Cassel Hospital actively experimented with these connections in therapeutic practice. This article thus illuminates the important, but frequently overlooked, role of psychiatric practices in the development of a post-war psychopolitics that established important links between the nuclear family, mental health and democratic social life. (shrink)

Citizenship under Fire examines the relationship among civic education, the culture of war, and the quest for peace. Drawing on examples from Israel and the United States, Sigal Ben-Porath seeks to understand how ideas about citizenship change when a country is at war, and what educators can do to prevent some of the most harmful of these changes.Perhaps the most worrisome one, Ben-Porath contends, is a growing emphasis in schools and elsewhere on social conformity, on tendentious teaching of history, (...) and on drawing stark distinctions between them and us. As she writes, "The varying characteristics of citizenship in times of war and peace add up to a distinction between belligerent citizenship, which is typical of democracies in wartime, and the liberal democratic citizenship that is characteristic of more peaceful democracies."Ben-Porath examines how various theories of education--principally peace education, feminist education, and multicultural education--speak to the distinctive challenges of wartime. She argues that none of these theories are satisfactory on their own theoretical terms or would translate easily into practice. In the final chapter, she lays out her own alternative theory--"expansive education"--which she believes holds out more promise of widening the circles of participation in schools, extending the scope of permissible debate, and diversifying the questions asked about the opinions voiced. (shrink)

This article is an attempt to discuss possible causal relationships between ‘war’ and ‘democracy’. One can ask: What is the impact of wars on democracies – and what is the effect of a state’s democratic nature on its behaviour with respect to war? If we add the distinction between ‘socialization’ and ‘selection’, we realize that four key questions arise. All four questions are discussed here on the basis of theoretical reflections taken from the history of social thought and with (...) reference to contemporary developments. (shrink)

Although democratic innovations are spread all over the world, there is little research on the institutional outcomes of implementing such innovations in governmental organisations. To remedy this, it is important to focus on cases where DIs have been implemented and formally connected to the policymaking process over a longer period. Reykjavik provides such a case. Drawing on observations and interviews with key stakeholders over a period of three years, this study analyses how the institutional logic of DIs influenced the (...) local government in Reykjavik. The study presents two conclusions: First, it is clear that one equilibrium has not been replaced by another. Second, there is no peaceful co-existence between the two, but instead the outcome is an organisation in ‘a state of flux’. There are several factors contributing to this outcome, but three stand out: a populist power-shift, dissatisfaction with theworking of the implemented DIs and deliberative ambiguity. In the final part of the article, the institutional outcome is discussed in relation to overall consequences for the political system. (shrink)

This paper addresses the problem of the strategies and theories of democratic participation in Nigeria that breed institutional marginality and bad governance due to shortfalls in pursuing the values of justice and empowerment as core democratic characteristics. The same democratic principles such as voting, parliament, constitution, judiciary, that are suggestive of gains such as responsible use, and peaceful transfer of power may not have translated fully into sociopolitical empowerment for responsibility and representation in evolving democratic practice (...) in Nigeria due to problems of agency and political ideology. Democratic theorizing and participation in Nigeria has defied orthodox presuppositions seen in the disrespect for basic rights and the disregard for the rule of law in democracy that allow for fair play within and among the elites and political grassroots. Thus this study investigates the Nigerian predicament as a model or case study, raising questions about the reasons for the systematic disempowerment of groups. (shrink)

In public political deliberation, people will err and lie in accordance with definite patterns. Such discourse failure results from behavior that is both instrumentally and epistemically rational. The deliberative practices of a liberal democracy cannot be improved so as to overcome the tendency for rational citizens to believe and say things at odds with reliable propositions of social science. The theory has several corollaries. One is that much contemporary political philosophy can be seen as an unsuccessful attempt to vindicate, on (...) symbolic and moral grounds, the forms that discourse failure take on in public political deliberation. Another is that deliberative practices cannot be rescued even on non-epistemic grounds, such as social peace, impartiality, participation, and equality. To alleviate discourse failure, this book proposes to reduce the scope of majoritarian politics and enlarge markets. (shrink)