Suchergebnisse

"What does a deliberative democracy look like in a divided society? What obstacles and opportunities are there for the promotion of a deliberative democracy at the institutional and citizen levels? Through case-analysis and cross-sectional assessment of nine countries, this unique and important collection provides a detailed and insightful exploration into these problematic questions. A roll call of leading experts on deliberative democracy explores some of the most deeply divided societies in the world today, ranging from Northern Ireland to Nigeria and Belgium to the Basque Country, specifying conditions under which deliberative democracies could realistically emerge in unpropitious contexts. This collection is recommended reading for students and scholars of deliberative democracy and of politics in divided societies"--

This article describes the political challenges faced by post-conflict societies, using both normative and empirical perspectives. After a conceptual discussion on the system-, group-, and individuallevel challenges, referred to institutional reform, reintegration of excombatants, reconciliation, and participation, it focuses on developing an operative definition of political reintegration. Afterwards, it presents a descriptive analysis of the first results of a political deliberation excercise among ex-combatants from guerrilla and paramilitary groups. Not only do results offer insights on the politiclal behavior of those who had resorted in the past to the use of violence, but they also present an assessment of how feasible would be promoting deliberative politics as a strategy for democracy-deepening in post-conflict settings.

¿Por qué discutir en Colombia el modelo de democracia deliberativa? Una respuesta preliminar a esta pregunta, desde el punto de vista académico, sería la necesidad de poner a prueba los supuestos teóricos deliberativos en un contexto diferente al Euroatlántico, en donde se han originado. Desde esta perspectiva, Colombia ofrece una oportunidad de explorar si la política deliberativa debe ser confinada a sociedades occidentales post-industriales, o si hay espacio para su promoción en otros espacios. Pero, ¿qué hace a Latinoamérica, y a Colombia, tan diferentes? Las singularidades históricas de la construcción de la democracia en la región, la desigualdad socioeconómica estructural de sus países, y recientes antecedentes de violencia social y política ponen en cuestión si el modelo deliberativo es el apropiado en esta parte del mundo. Sin embargo, existe una respuesta aún más provocadora a nuestra pregunta inicial. Al menos desde la teoría, la política deliberativa podría contribuir a solucionar los problemas de inestabilidad política que amenazan con detener el proceso de apertura y consolidación de la democracia regional. Tal sugerencia demanda abrir una discusión aterrizada sobre cómo luciría una democracia deliberativa latinoamericana, y cómo ayudaría a navegar los desafíos que presentan las crisis institucionales y la violencia. La siguiente sección describe el contexto histórico-político en el que habría que desarrollar una discusión latinoamericana sobre política deliberativa. Luego, el artículo se concentra en describir en particular el caso colombiano, agregando una breve discusión sobre el conflicto armado como condición excepcional bajo la cual los modelos deliberativos no han sido aún puestos a prueba. La sección final argumenta cómo el debate deliberativo en Colombia y la región no solo aporta al conocimiento de la comunidad académica, sino que además puede contribuir a resolver los desafíos políticos locales.

"What does a deliberative democracy look like in a divided society? What obstacles and opportunities are there for the promotion of a deliberative democracy at the institutional and citizen levels? Through case-analysis and cross-sectional assessment of nine countries, this unique and important collection provides a detailed and insightful exploration into these problematic questions. A roll call of leading experts on deliberative democracy explores some of the most deeply divided societies in the world today, ranging from Northern Ireland to Nigeria and Belgium to the Basque Country, specifying conditions under which deliberative democracies could realistically emerge in unpropitious contexts. This collection is recommended reading for students and scholars of deliberative democracy and of politics in divided societies"--

Ex-combatants, war victims, and violence-affected community members are typically forced to live together as neighbors in post-conflict settings. Cases all over the world accumulate evidence on the fact that living together after war is a far from a harmonic endeavor, and individuals usually rely on contention mechanisms to keep on with their daily lives while in proximity of former and present-day antagonists. While decades-long academic research has unveiled a series of favorable conditions under which interactions might generate positive effects on intergroup dispositions, they usually prescribe focusing less on touching upon divisive issues, and more on emphasizing in potentially bonding commonalities. By means of a randomized controlled experiment with former war antagonists in Colombia, we set to explore whether avoidance or addressing of the most sensitive issues affecting intergroup relations yield better results in terms of attitude change under favorable conditions. Experimental effects show that perspective-giving protocols are capable of containing polarization tendencies in intergroup discussions even when participants are incentivized to directly address their co-existence problems, while qualitative analysis points out at silences and other avoidance mechanisms as the participants' key strategies to contain conflict when contentious topics flare up during discussions.