Search results

The aim of this paper is to create the nexus between political culture, citizens' perception of the political system and democratic order. In academic literature, one of the most important determinants of the democratic order is considered the cultural dimension. Beyond the political institutions and economic indicators, democracy is based on historical heritage, cultural patterns, political attitudes and behaviours. In correlation with all these premises, this article aims to (1) identify associations between social values and political participation; (2) estimate the impact of the political participation in creating premises for tolerance and democracy and (3) observe the relation between political beliefs, ideological position and political participation. Data are collected from secondary sources as World Values Survey, Wave 6. We use as research method the comprehensive case study for post-communist Romania. Empirical results demonstrate weak statistical correlations between personal values and active membership in political and civic associations (r = −0.150, p < 0.001). Traditional dimension of the Romanian post-communist society could be observed in three main variables which reflect personal values and preferences: family, work and religion. Low rates of tolerance are related with the inactivity in the social or political sphere, generating a syndrome of political apathy and alienation. In correlation with personal values, social implication and tolerance we have emphasize the respondents' cognitive bias regarding the meaning and directions of the democratic order.

Conflict resolution efforts have larger implications for democratic development: they provide a valuable discursive space where social change can be collectively conceptualized and negotiated to the benefit of democratic development, and where participants gain democratic experience, providing a constructive catalyst in the ongoing social transformation of values, norms, and political cultures. Through a fusion of discourse-based and democratic culture analysis of the Nigerian case, we explore how conflict resolution practices may better engage and catalyze public discourses that promote processes of constructive social change, and how conflict resolution practices can help to build democracy and good governance. We use the example of Nigerian discourses on democratic governance to investigate the broader importance of recognizing and engaging discursive realities. Secondly, we explore how transformative conflict resolution methods, such as workshop models, promote democratic values at the same time that they provide a valuable democratic experience.

Political institutions and contemporary workplaces operate according to different rules. The seeming contradiction between these two spheres, one democratic and the other something else, presents an opportunity for productive speculation about the possibilities for reconciliation. The purpose of this paper is to provide a guide for future research investigation of this perennial topic.

The discussion of whether the workplace can catch up with the democratic achievements of political life requires an understanding of the status quo, the prevailing frames or metaphors that govern our understanding of organizational life. Four metaphors are put forward to describe the prevailing spectrum of thought. In addition to metaphors, analogies are introduced as an interpretive tool to help guide the imaginative transition between political and workplace domains.

Democratic political cultures are supported by structures and institutions which encourage the expression of individual and collective voice. Workplaces, comprised of the same citizens who participate in the governance of communities, do not, with some important exceptions, offer the same opportunities for democratic participation. If a general analogy between political and workplace sphere is found persuasive, it should be possible to import and adapt democratic traditions from the former to the latter.

Discussions of workplace democracy often suffer from a certain naiveté, a bias against structure and toward informal consensus. Insofar as democratic workplaces are by definition smaller scale than political communities, this bias is defensible. This paper concludes however by asserting certain minimal “acid test” challenges to those who would promote the goal of workplace democracy.

Contextualizing its argument specifically into the role and impact of the traditional political culture on the process of modernization, this paper aims to examine the “culture matters” approach through the two‐century experience of the top‐down modernization of the Ottoman‐Turkish civilization in the realm of state‐labor relations.

The paper makes a comparative analysis of the interplay between the state and craft associations in the Ottoman Empire, and then the state and labor organizations in contemporary Turkey in terms of the influence of the rules, norms and institutions transferred by the bureaucratic élites from Western Europe.

The paper concludes that a substantive democratic setting for the interplay of the state and labor organizations could not be built up without a self‐supportive political culture in view of the fact that the process of top‐down modernization/Europeanization in the Ottoman‐Turkish context has given rise to a never‐ending center‐periphery dichotomy between both inter‐class and intra‐class relationships.

The paper sheds light on the labor relations part of the Ottoman‐Turkish political culture and reveals its impact on the never‐ending top‐down modernization initiative.

While the concept of legal culture has been receiving a growing attention from scholars, this research often overemphasizes the similarity of the opinions held by different segments of population. Furthermore, the relationship of migration and the change of legal-cultural attitudes has not received particular attention. Drawing on 70 in-depth interviews with the immigrants of the early 1990s from the former Soviet Union to Israel and the secular Israeli Jews, this chapter provides a comprehensive account of the various aspects of legal culture of these groups. The second important finding is the persistence of the legal-cultural attitudes and perceptions over time.

This chapter explores the specificities of learning and teaching on European Union politics, in the context of higher education, and in particular to students who are not graduating in politics or international relations. It is the author’s contention that a core issue to tackle is motivation, that is, the answer to the question: “What is it that makes a student, probably a young person, want to learn about politics?” and, if the teaching–learning activity occurs in a context where the course is compulsory and motivation scarce, then “How to reach the student, in order to raise his/her interest on the topic?” The deep roots of the answers to these questions lie in issues of political socialization, political culture and democratic participation. Where such culture is already embedded, class work can be based mostly on tackling up-to-date topics of public discussion, and in the reinforcement of framework knowledge. However, when politics is not a topic perceived as relevant by the students, raising their awareness becomes the first task. This chapter describes teaching strategies that can act as triggers for involving students in debates on politics and for increasing their curiosity on issues concerning the European Union. In times of Brexit and multiple crises, this may become a tricky process, since a lot of information is available in the public space, but a substantial part of it is negative on the EU itself. Furthermore, in a context of ever-growing technological sophistication, the abundance of new tools also requires from the teacher new skills to reach the students. This chapter is constructed with reference to the relevant literature and on the basis of the author’s own teaching experience and ends with a reflection on the possibility of teaching a democratic political culture, notably on the matter of the European Union.

As the democratic world debates and in some cases replaces physical voting with postal ballots and on-line voting, it is important to refrain from advocating a generic approach to the issue and in particular to distinguish between consolidated and unconsolidated democracies.

The paper argues that unconsolidated democracies are not fit for the introduction of non-physical (postal ballot and on-line) voting methods, which rather than broadening the scope of democracy may in actual fact be derailing it. The key reason for this distinction is the lack of political consensus for constitutional rules, the weakness of the rule of law and persistence of parochial and subject-based political cultures in many countries of the region, including Poland.

Replacing physical voting with postal ballot, attempted during Presidential elections in the summer 2020 in Poland, eventually failed and was replaced with conventional physical vote. However, the Polish case demonstrates that in the system with weak checks and balances, postal ballot could be used to consolidate illiberalism not democracy.

The paper demonstrates that further research on defining consolidated and unconsolidated democracy is needed. In particular there is a need to factor in the research on political culture into the definitions of democratic consolidation.

EU membership for Poland and some other Central European states – such as Hungary – failed to prompt the process of democratic consolidation. In fact the opposite happened as the impact of EU conditionality lost relevance. It is important that any change of electoral law in Poland and other rule of law violators in the region is viewed with great care and scrutiny.

The paper’s conceptual approach rests on the definition of consolidated democracy as put forward by Przeworski (1991) and developed by Linz and Stepan (1996). According to these definitions, Poland is not yet a consolidated democracy and as argued in the paper, it has actually experienced an expansion of illiberalism in recent years. The paper also posits that the concept of “consolidated democracy” should be augmented to include the existence of civic political culture as a necessary condition for the maintenance of a healthy democracy.

This paper explores the sociological, economic, and political reasons for the collapse of Venezuela's 40-year “pacted” democracy, the eight-year conflict between the country's new president and the opposition, where this conflict has led Venezuela, and what its prospects are for the near future. It proposes that the collapse of Venezuela's “ancien regime” can best be understood by an examination of the impact the rise and fall of oil prices had on its economy, society, and polity. A 20-year economic decline led to the election of Hugo Chavez, a radical outsider, who refused to play along with the country's old political class. This class, in turn, refused to accept Chavez as the legitimately elected president and launched the country on an eight-year roller-coaster ride of counter-revolution and radicalization, which recently ended with the reelection of Chavez and a massive popular endorsement for the establishment of “21st century socialism” in Venezuela. Exactly what such a project means is still unclear, but it so far involves state support for self-managed workplaces and an anti-capitalist and participatory democratic state in the midst of a still functioning capitalist economy. With the apparent defeat of obstacles that are external to the Bolivarian movement, as the pro-Chavez movement is called, such as the domestic opposition and U.S. intervention, the movement is now forced to confront its internal obstacles, such as clientelism, corruption, and personalism, if it is to succeed in the long run.