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Attitudes Among the Youth
Although democracy is a widely held value, concrete measurement of it is elusive. Gerardo L. Munck’s constructive assessment of the methods used to measure democracies promises to bring order to the debate in academia and in practice. Drawing on his years of academic research on democracy and measurement and his practical experience evaluating democratic practices for the United Nations and the Organization of American States, Munck's discussion bridges the theories of academia with practical applications. In proposing a more open and collaborative relationship between theory and action, he makes the case for reassessing how democracy is measured and encourages fundamental changes in methodology. Munck’s field-tested framework for quantifying and qualifying democracy is built around two instruments he developed: the UN Development Programme’s Electoral Democracy Index and a case-by-case election monitoring tool used by the OAS. Measuring Democracy offers specific, real-world lessons that scholars and practitioners can use to improve the quality and utility of data about democracy.
Questions surrounding democracy, governance, and development especially in the view of Africa have provoked acrimonious debates in the past few years. It remains a perennial question why some decades after political independence in Africa the continent continues experiencing bad governance, lagging behind socioeconomically, and its democracy questionable. We admit that a plethora of theories and reasons, including iniquitous and malicious ones, have been conjured in an attempt to explain and answer the questions as to why Africa seems to be lagging behind other continents in issues pertaining to good governance, democracy and socio-economic development. Yet, none of the theories and reasons proffered so far seems to have provided enduring solutions to Africa’s diverse complex problems and predicaments. This book dissects and critically examines the matrix of Africa’s multifaceted problems on governance, democracy and development in an attempt to proffer enduring solutions to the continent’s long-standing political and socio-economic dilemmas and setbacks.
Freedom in the World, the Freedom House flagship survey whose findings have been published annually since 1972, is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. The survey ratings and narrative reports on 195 countries and fifteen territories are used by policymakers, the media, international corporations, civic activists, and human rights defenders to monitor trends in democracy and track improvements and setbacks in freedom worldwide. The Freedom in the World political rights and civil liberties ratings are determined through a multi-layered process of research and evaluation by a team of regional analysts and eminent scholars. The analysts used a broad range of sources of information, including foreign and domestic news reports, academic studies, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, individual professional contacts, and visits to the region, in conducting their research. The methodology of the survey is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and these standards are applied to all countries and territories, irrespective of geographical location, ethnic or religious composition, or level of economic development.
With a new and comprehensive account of the South African Constitutional Court's social rights decisions, Brian Ray argues that the Court's procedural enforcement approach has had significant but underappreciated effects on law and policy, and challenges the view that a stronger substantive standard of review is necessary to realize these rights. Drawing connections between the Court's widely acclaimed early decisions and the more recent second-wave cases, Ray explains that the Court has responded to the democratic legitimacy and institutional competence concerns that consistently constrain it by developing doctrines and remedial techniques that enable activists, civil society and local communities to press directly for rights-protective policies through structured, court-managed engagement processes. Engaging with Social Rights shows how those tools could be developed to make state institutions responsive to the needs of poor communities by giving those communities and their advocates consistent access to policy-making and planning processes.
The global movement toward democracy, spurred in part by the ending of the cold war, has created opportunities for democratization not only in Europe and the former Soviet Union, but also in Africa. This book is based on workshops held in Benin, Ethiopia, and Namibia to better understand the dynamics of contemporary democratic movements in Africa. Key issues in the democratization process range from its institutional and political requirements to specific problems such as ethnic conflict, corruption, and role of donors in promoting democracy. By focusing on the opinion and views of African intellectuals, academics, writers, and political activists and observers, the book provides a unique perspective regarding the dynamics and problems of democratization in Africa.
The Oxford Handbook of Kenyan Politics provides a comprehensive and comparative overview of the Kenyan political system as well as an insightful account of Kenyan history from 1930 to the present day.
Political parties and the party system that underpins South Africa’s democracy have the potential to build a cohesive and prosperous nation. But in the past few years the ANC’s dominance has strained the system and tested it and its institutions’ fortitude. There are deeper issues of accountability that often spurn the Constitution and there is also a clear need to foster meaningful public participation and transparency. This volume offers a different and detailed assessment of the health of South Africa’s political system. This study intends to unravel the condition of the party system in South Africa and culminates in the question: Do South African parties promote or hinder democracy in the country? The areas of the party system that are known to require continued work are the weakness of democratic structures within parties, the perceived lack of responsibility of elected parliamentarians towards voters, non-transparent private partner financing structures and a lack of attractiveness of party-political commitment, especially for women. Experts in the respective fields address all of these areas in this book.
A radical new approach to understanding Africa's elections: explaining why politicians, bureaucrats and voters so frequently break electoral rules.