Suchergebnisse

It is argued that as capitalism has advanced & been transformed in the face of economic crises, democracy has been redefined in accordance with increasingly rationalized conditions & requirements. Invariably, this redefinition has meant a narrowing of the concept of democracy. It is claimed that the shift from the liberal to the elitist notion of democracy, the subsequent rise of a neoconservative "crisis of democracy" argument, & the emerging effort to remedy the crisis with a corporatist definition of democracy gain clarity when viewed in terms of the expansion of capitalist rationalization. AA

What do citizens and political leaders have in mind when they think about democracy? This article deals with the relationship between different conceptions of democracy and the level of support for democracy among both ordinary citizens and political elites in two post-Soviet countries, Russia and Ukraine. Data collected through personal interviews in 1992 and 1995 reveal that the mass and elite in these post-socialist countries hold different conceptions of democracy. The elite tend to emphasize law and order and the rule of law, whereas the citizens stress freedoms in their understanding of democracy. Involvement in politics, especially in a political party, has a significant influence on the meaning of democracy as well as on the consistency among attitudes reflecting support for democratic principles. Different conceptions of democracy are also found to affect the perceived extent to which the current regime fits with the individual's idea of what a democracy should be like. (Britisch Journal of Political Science / FUB)

Focuses on the rule of law versus an emphasis on freedoms; also discusses the level of support for democracy among ordinary citizens and political elites; based on personal interviews, 1992-95; Russia and the Ukraine.

The term democracy has an overwhelmingly positive connotation for most people (Diamond & Plattner, 2008), yet it is a contested, fluid, and evolving concept that represents many different things to different people. This article presents our analysis of conceptions of democracy among groups of adolescents (n=2,848, ages 13-19) in the Czech Republic, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, and the United States. This study focused on students' responses to one open-ended item on a written questionnaire. Our inquiry is significant because the ability to provide a meaningful definition of democracy has been shown to be associated with support for democratic institutions, and more complex understandings of democracy have been associated with greater political involvement and commitment to democracy (Bratton, Mattes, & Gyimah-Boadi, 2004; Miller, Hesli, & Reisinger, 1997). We found that the vast majority of the students gave acceptable definitions of democracy and that students were most likely to describe democracy in terms of freedoms and rights and least likely to mention civic equality as an aspect of democracy. Additionally, we found that demographic characteristics, students' level of political engagement, and students' perception of classroom climate sometimes impacted the complexity of the students' conceptions of democracy.

Das Forschungsprojekt "Conceptions of democracy and preferences over democratic procedures" untersucht Demokratiekonzeptionen in der deutschen Bevölkerung sowie die Determinanten von Präferenzen über Entscheidungsverfahren in der Demokratie. Drei mögliche Bestimmungsfaktoren werden untersucht: normative Demokratiekonzeptionen, Verteilungsinteressen und Persönlichkeitsmerkmale.Als empirische Grundlage zur Beantwortung dieser Fragen sollen einige Items im ersten Halbjahr 2015 in einer Welle des GESIS Panel mitlaufen. Zur Vorbereitung dieser Befragung sollen insgesamt 12 dieser Items unter methodischen und fragebogentechnischen Aspekten einem kognitiven Online-Pretest unterzogen und aufgrund der Testergebnisse überarbeitet werden. ; Quotenauswahl. Die Testpersonen wurden aus dem Online-Panel "GESIS Online Panel Pilot" rekrutiert. Insgesamt wurden 130 Testpersonen zur Befragung eingeladen, wobei wir von einer Beendigungsquote von ca. 70 bis 80 Prozent ausgegangen sind. An der Befragung haben letztendlich 101 Testpersonen teilgenommen.Die Auswahl der Testpersonen erfolgte nach den Quoten Alter (18 - 40 Jahre; 41 Jahre und älter), Schulbildung (Fachhochschulreife/ Abitur; kein Abitur) und Geschlecht:8 Frauen und 7 Männer, 18-40 Jahre, weniger als Abitur13 Frauen und 12 Männer, 18-40 Jahre, Fachhochschulreife/ Abitur12 Frauen und 14 Männer, 41+ Jahre, weniger als Abitur13 Frauen und 22 Männer, 41+ Jahre, Fachhochschulreife/ Abitur ; Kognitiver Online-Pretest

Previous research has found evidence of an almost universal public desire for democracy, even in autocratic regimes. However, a single word may evoke different associations for different people. As such, the term democracy is unlikely to trigger the same or equivalent associations between different people. Inspired by the Anchoring Vignettes Approach, I qualify people's stated desire for democracy with their representative, direct, social, or authoritarian perception of democracy. Using the Analytical Hierarchy Process, I obtain idealized priorities of institutional configurations to determine the membership a specific perception has with regard to a procedural-liberal, participatory-liberal, or social-liberal normative benchmark. I perform a mixed-model analysis on World Values Survey Wave 5 data to test the empirical consequences of my conceptual calibration concerning explanatory factors for people's democratic desires. Popular support for representative democracy has been consistently overstated, particularly in nondemocratic countries. The design of political institutions is the most important factor in predicting a person's actual desire for democracy.