"May the Best Man Win": Local Government Representatives

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Osnat Akirav
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Evaluation Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Political Leader ◽  
Local Council ◽  
Talented People

The research asks two questions related to each other. First, why do people who are successful in fields other than politics not want to become more active in politics? Second, what are the preferred characteristics of a political leader? In order to address these questions we conducted an action research involving changes in the patterns of political participation and used Dror’s (2008) model to determine the preferred characteristics of a political leader. The research, the first in its kind in the field of local government field, tried to create professional change and system change. Today, a year after the action research began; it deepens our understanding about how local council members work and allows us to implement changes based on an evaluation process in order to improve the decision-making process in the local government. Eventually, perhaps this process will attract talented people who have previously avoided political participation to engage more with the political process.

scholarly journals Gender And Political Participation In Pakistan: Issues And Constraints

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-164
Author(s):  
Rukhsana Hassan ◽  
Saima Keyani
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Human Resource Development ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Domestic Sphere ◽  
The Military ◽  
Women Participation

In order to achieve the objectives of poverty alleviation, sustainable development, and even human resource development it is imperative that women should be a part of governance and decision making bodies at all levels. In Pakistan too since independence, like other countries of the world, over the period of last six decades different regimes, both civil and military,have attempted to integrate women in the political process of the country. In the year 2000 under the patronage of the military regime, Pakistan has made significant progress in enhancing women’s political participation. In the local government ordinance of 2001 women representation in the different tiers of local government was raised to 33%. Regardless of this progress women access to the political institutions is not without constraints. Data for the research was collected, through interviews and close ended questionnaires, from 20 women parliamentarians. The major constraint, according to the respondents, is the mindset which women have to face in order to participate in the political process. The mindset is based upon the stereotypical division of roles and domain into male and female, which restrict women’s roles to domestic sphere and deter their participation in the public life. Although, women parliamentarian did acknowledge the role of family support in overcoming barriers to women participation in the political process, still in 21st century this support is not available to majority of women in Pakistani society. Apart from it role of media and the support of political parties are two other important dimensions which play an important role in creating barriers to women participation in the political process.

Women in Power and Decision making Positions : Conditions and Restraints

1970 ◽  
pp. 53-57
Author(s):  
Azza Charara Baydoun
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Policies And Procedures ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Slow Progress

Women today are considered to be outside the political and administrative power structures and their participation in the decision-making process is non-existent. As far as their participation in the political life is concerned they are still on the margins. The existence of patriarchal society in Lebanon as well as the absence of governmental policies and procedures that aim at helping women and enhancing their political participation has made it very difficult for women to be accepted as leaders and to be granted votes in elections (UNIFEM, 2002).This above quote is taken from a report that was prepared to assess the progress made regarding the status of Lebanese women both on the social and governmental levels in light of the Beijing Platform for Action – the name given to the provisions of the Fourth Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995. The above quote describes the slow progress achieved by Lebanese women in view of the ambitious goal that requires that the proportion of women occupying administrative or political positions in Lebanon should reach 30 percent of thetotal by the year 2005!

scholarly journals Political participation of the chinese youth in market economy and implication on communist youth league

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 2489-2498
Author(s):  
Rakesh Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Youth Organizations ◽  
Chinese Youth ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Communist Youth League

Political participation entails citizens’ engagement to exert influence on the political process and policies in a desired direction. Therein, participation of the youth has significance as a transient yet constantly receiving community with potential to shape the course of history in any society. The activities and functions of youth organizations have been pivotal in effecting changes in the twentieth century Asian socio-political and economic realms. Under the similar circumstances, the People’s Republic of China appears to be continuously evolving its social, economic, political and cultural regimes in response to the fluctuating demands of the citizens and the youth. This Essay fathoms changes in political participations of the youth in China, its implication on the Communist Youth League and how the Communist Youth League responds in the era of Market Economy.

scholarly journals Citizens local political participation in the Czech Republic: rural-urban comparison

2008 ◽  
Vol 53 (No. 1) ◽  
pp. 21-29
Author(s):  
J. Cmejrek
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Local Administration ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
The Public

The Velvet Revolution in November 1989 in the former Czechoslovakia opened the way to the renewal of the democratic political system. One of the most visible aspects of the Czech political development consisted in the renewal of the essential functions of elections and political parties. On the local level, however, the political process - as well as in other post-communist countries - continued to be for a long time influenced by the remains of the former centralized system wherein the local administration used to be subjected to the central state power. Municipal elections took hold in these countries, however, the local government remained in the embryonic state and a certain absence of real political and economic decision-making mechanism on the local level continued to show. The public administration in the Czech Republic had to deal with the changes in the administrative division of the state, the split of the Czechoslovak federation as well as the fragmentation of municipalities whose number increased by 50 percent. Decision making mechanisms on the local and regional level were suffering from the incomplete territorial hierarchy of public administration and from the unclear division of power between the state administration and local administration bodies. Only at the end of the 1990s, the public administration in the Czech Republic started to get a more integrated and specific shape. Citizens participation in the political process represents one of the key issues of representative democracy. The contemporary democracy has to face the decrease in voter turnout and the low interest of citizens to assume responsibility within the political process. The spread of democratising process following the fall of the iron curtain should not overshadow the risk of internal weakness of democracy. The solution should be looked for in more responsible citizenship and citizens’ political participation. The degree of political participation is considered (together with political pluralism) to be the key element of representative democracy in general terms, as well as of democratic process on the local and regional level. The objective of this paper is to describe the specifics of citizens local political participation in the Czech Republic and to show the differences between rural and urban areas. The paper concentrates on voting and voter turnout but deals also with other forms of citizens political participation.

LEADERSHIP AS A FACTOR OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIETY: RUSSIAN AND FOREIGN RESEARCHES

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 12-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Комлева ◽  
Valentina Komleva
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Leader ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Function Integration ◽  
The Individual

Events of recent years have shown the importance of the individual political leaders in choosing the ways and models of development of different societies, the ability to successful governance. The article investigates the political leadership and its role and place in the sustainable development of society, domestic and foreign theories and approaches to the study of this phenomenon are analyzed. The author discusses features, problems and trends in the study of political leadership, which is understood as the political capital of the company in most modern Western research, as a condition of its successful development; and a political leader (in terms of importance for the sustainable development of society) as a significant person of the political process, to make political decisions, exercising public political activity, function integration and consolidation of the social forces that specifies the activity of state and / or public institutions, political movements to influence policy situation. The research results suggest that the specificity of the present stage of the study of political leadership is to increase the attention of scientists to the subject of the crisis of political leadership, the needs of leaders by modern society who influence the members of society positively, develop the state effectively.

The Dynamics of Coercion in the Malaysian Political Process

1985 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 797-822 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Barraclough
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Democratic Values ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Direct Bearing ◽  
Control And Management

The study of coercion and how it is applied within a political system is useful for a number of reasons. As a strategy of control and management it is in itself worthy of investigation. Moreover, an examination of how coercion is applied can tell us much about the nature of a particular polity. Indeed, as Weber emphasized, the state itself is distinguished from other political systems to the extent that it successfully upholds the claim to the legitimate application of force. The willingness of a regime to use coercion against opponents or dissidents, or to regulate the political participation of the ordinary citizenry, has a direct bearing upon such questions as human rights, democratic values, authoritarianism, and the degree of consensus within a given polity.

scholarly journals Social Capital and Political Participation: Understanding the Dynamics of Young People's Political Disengagement in Contemporary Britain

2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 467-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt Henn ◽  
Mark Weinstein ◽  
Sarah Hodgkinson
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Young People ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Nationwide Survey ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Issues

Only 37 per cent of young people voted at the 2005 British General Election, seemingly confirming the oft-cited view that this generation is becoming increasingly disconnected from the political process. Results from a nationwide survey, however, indicate that their withdrawal from formal politics is more a result of their scepticism of the way the political system operates, than apathy. Furthermore, they are diverse in their political (dis)engagement. Results from an examination of the relative effects of socio-economic location and social capital are inconclusive, although the data indicate that government social policy aimed at mobilising social capital and addressing socio-economic issues may increase civic engagement.

scholarly journals “I’m with her” or “we’re with her”? Personal versus group leader-based identities and types of political participation

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 49-79
Author(s):  
Emily B. Carty
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Group Leader ◽  
Personal Identification ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Leader ◽  
Collective Identification ◽  
Partisan Identification ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
The Relationship

In a region where personalistic politics and charismatic leaders have long been a characteristic of the political landscape, there has been little research exploring the relationship between individuals’ identification with leaders and its relationship with political participation. Using original survey data from Argentina in 2016, the findings from this study demonstrate a few key points. Firstly, that identities form around political leaders and that identification plays an important role in political participation. Secondly, while personal identification with a leader is related with atomized and collective participation, the relationship between collective identification that is shared with other supporters of the political leader and both types of participation is even stronger. Additionally, these identification measures are more strongly associated with political action in support of a leader than frequently used variables such as partisan identification and ideology. This suggests that the study of political participation, especially in those contexts with more personalized political systems such as are often found in Latin America, should not ignore the role of personal and especially group leader-based identity.

scholarly journals South Africa’s democracy: The Quality of Political Participation over 25 Years Victoria Graham

2020 ◽  
pp. 28-51
Author(s):  
Victoria Graham
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Considerable Progress ◽  
The Political ◽  
Active Citizenship ◽  
Quality Of Democracy ◽  
The People

South Africa has made considerable progress since 1994 in institutionalising and consolidating the quality of its democracy. However, serious and persistent governance and socio-economic related problems have angered and frustrated the people and motivated increased protest action through both conventional and less conventional channels. The opportunity for citizens to participate in the political process is essential for a healthy democracy, therefore it is important that appropriate procedures and mechanisms are in place to facilitate this participation. Using quality of democracy methodology, the paper addresses several important questions, namely: how developed are the opportunities for conventional participation in South Arica, and to what extent are these taken up? and, what non-conventional forms of participation exist and what is government’s response? In addressing these questions, this paper explores the link between active citizenship and political participation over the last 25 years with a view to ascertaining the quality of South Africa’s political participation.

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