Direct Democracy at the Local Level in Switzerland

Switzerland's more than 2,200 municipalities enjoy a high degree of autonomy and strongly developed direct democratic rights. The diversity of communal forms of direct democracy is correspondingly large. This chapter aims to trace the basic structures of these local democracies. One important distinction is at the centre of the argument. While the majority of municipalities are organised in direct democratic assemblies, the parliamentary system dominates in the larger cities and in many municipalities in French- and Italian-speaking Switzerland. However, equating parliaments with representative democracy and municipal assemblies with radical, direct democracy falls short of the mark. In fact, the local level reveals a vibrant and diverse mix of models of democracy. Depending on the cultural area and the situation of the individual municipalities, different approaches are taken to involve the voters in democratic decision making.

The Legitimacy of Presidential Threshold Towards Indonesian Citizens’ Democracy and Constitutional Rights

A presidential threshold or a threshold for presidential candidacy dramatically hinders a person's democratic rights. This is because a person can rightfully nominate and elect themselves through a political party, which must be limited due to this system. The Presidential Threshold could eliminate the fundamental rights of the people in the constitution, where every citizen has the right to be elected and to vote. This statement is stated in Article 28(D) paragraph 3 of the 1945 Constitution, later revealed to be Law No.39 of 1999. With the existence of this presidential threshold, it is feared that it could injure the law's mandate. The research aims to determine whether the presidential threshold injured democracy and the mandate of the 1945 constitution. This research uses a normative approach. The research will focus on the principles, comparisons and history of law. The presidential threshold will close the space for political parties to carry the best presidential and vice-presidential candidates for the community. This automatically kills democracy, political parties' constitutional rights, and the people's right to choose the best and quality, leaders.

The Impact of COVID-19: Democracy in the Time of a Pandemic

The recent spread of the delta variant of the COVID-19 pandemic in many countries, though uneven, has once again set alarm bells ringing throughout the world. Nearly two years have passed since the onset of this pandemic: vaccines have been developed and vaccination is underway, but the end of the campaign against the pandemic is nowhere in sight. This drive has merely attempted to adjust and readjust, with or without success, to the various fresh challenges that have kept emerging from time to time. The pandemic’s persistence and its handling by the governments both have had implications for citizens’/peoples’ rights as well as for the systems which were in place before the pandemic. In this symposium domain experts investigate, with a sharp focus on India, the interface between the COVID-19 pandemic and democracy, health, education and social sciences. These contributions are notable for their nuanced and insightful examination of the impact of the pandemic on crucial social development issues with special attention to the exacerbated plight of society’s marginalised sections. In India, as in several other countries, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected democracy. The health crisis came at a moment when India was already experiencing democratic backsliding. The pandemic came in handy in imposing greater restrictions on democratic rights, public discussion and political opposition. This note provides an analysis and commentary on how the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic impacted governance, at times undermining human rights and democratic processes, and posing a range of new challenges to democracy.

Waitangi Park: Public Land in Competition

<p>This thesis looks at Wellington's Waitangi Park, through the specifics of the Chaffers Park Design Competition, in order to explore the repercussions mistrust can have on social vision and political response. In examining aspects of this competition over a piece of public land, and comparing various accounts of events leading up to it, an interpretative impasse is reached that factual explanations alone cannot minimise. Because the search for truth proves elusive, other forms of evidence must be relied upon as sources of knowledge. In this instance, an analysis of experiences demonstrates the effect differing expectations has on human interaction, ones that are shown to have a significant impact on placemaking processes and organizational structures. When debates over public land degenerate into power struggles, the issue of control is brought to the forefront of attention. It raises questions concerning who owns public land, whether it properly belongs to local authorities or the public itself. Who gets to designate how these spaces are used, and select what ought and ought not to go on these sites? Here, the issue of representation is troublesome because so many different groups claim to speak for the public's interest, leaving the reader wondering whose interpretation to believe and place trust in. Where the perception is that democratic rights are being undermined, then doubt in the principles underpinning consultation processes soon emerges. And once mistrust becomes entrenched, organizational tinkering is not sufficient in itself to reverse a negative state of affairs; only joint satisfaction will do. But if satisfaction proves unforthcoming, then a withdrawal from engagement can be anticipated as committed individuals quit the field in disillusionment. This in turn causes a narrowing of vision and leads to uncreative political responses traits associated with acts of obliviousness.</p>

Waitangi Park: Public Land in Competition

<p>This thesis looks at Wellington's Waitangi Park, through the specifics of the Chaffers Park Design Competition, in order to explore the repercussions mistrust can have on social vision and political response. In examining aspects of this competition over a piece of public land, and comparing various accounts of events leading up to it, an interpretative impasse is reached that factual explanations alone cannot minimise. Because the search for truth proves elusive, other forms of evidence must be relied upon as sources of knowledge. In this instance, an analysis of experiences demonstrates the effect differing expectations has on human interaction, ones that are shown to have a significant impact on placemaking processes and organizational structures. When debates over public land degenerate into power struggles, the issue of control is brought to the forefront of attention. It raises questions concerning who owns public land, whether it properly belongs to local authorities or the public itself. Who gets to designate how these spaces are used, and select what ought and ought not to go on these sites? Here, the issue of representation is troublesome because so many different groups claim to speak for the public's interest, leaving the reader wondering whose interpretation to believe and place trust in. Where the perception is that democratic rights are being undermined, then doubt in the principles underpinning consultation processes soon emerges. And once mistrust becomes entrenched, organizational tinkering is not sufficient in itself to reverse a negative state of affairs; only joint satisfaction will do. But if satisfaction proves unforthcoming, then a withdrawal from engagement can be anticipated as committed individuals quit the field in disillusionment. This in turn causes a narrowing of vision and leads to uncreative political responses traits associated with acts of obliviousness.</p>

From Rebellion to Reform: Representations of Regional and Civic Improvement in the Aberdeen Journal, 1747–85

The role of the Aberdeen Journal in facilitating the commercial modernization of Aberdeen and the northeast of Scotland in the four decades after the Battle of Culloden is an understudied aspect of the city's and region's social, economic and cultural history. This article examines the way improvement initiatives from key regional and civic stakeholders like the Board of Trustees for Fisheries, Manufactures and Improvements in Scotland, the Aberdeenshire Society for the Encouragement of Agriculture and Manufactures, the Commissioners of Supply, Aberdeen Town Council, and Marischal College were represented in the newspaper. In particular it highlights how James Chalmers 2 and James Chalmers 3—the Aberdeen Journal's proprietors during its first forty years—developed Scotland's first newspaper north of Edinburgh as an informational hub to integrate the city and region into key currents of Scottish and British capitalist modernization in the second half of the eighteenth century, from linen manufacturing and processing, to land reform and agricultural improvement. The social and economic transformation facilitated by the newspaper led to demands for political reform by those new commercial stakeholders, like John Ewen and Patrick Barron, who had profited from this regional modernization, and the article argues that the Aberdeen burgh reform movement of the early 1780s that utilized the Aberdeen Journal as a principal periodical platform was an essential consequence of this trajectory of regional and civic improvement, and a key test for translating it into a tangible expansion of democratic rights.

SOCIAL MEDIA, PUBLIC SPHERE AND THE POLITICAL TRAGEDIES OF CONTEMPORARY ETHIOPIA

Ethiopia since 1991 G.C has been adopting democracy and federalism as constitutional frameworks of the state. The core objective to maintain the two political cultures is the presence of multiple cultural identities within the state and the actual need for an intersubjective discussion on the public sphere. And one of the major areas of public sphere is the social media. As per the Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia citizens of Ethiopia have the democratic rights of Thoughts, Opinion and Expression (Art. 29), so in social media it is natural to expect that individuals talk on the different affairs of the state ‘freely’. Basically the social media is serving as an instrument in maintaining discursive talk among individuals. However, it has been also producing considerable social turmoil across the world. The same is what is encountering in Ethiopia today; on the one hand, social media as a communication platform allows people to communicate effectively with sharing alternative views, attitudes and forming democratic consensus on the social anomalies and responses, and on the other hand, the media is the sphere of communicative maladjustment where misunderstanding, extremism and miscommunication is producing. In the present Ethiopian context the basic source of communication and miscommunication in the social media is the ‘pluriversal identities’ of the cultural horizon. Taking this as a crucial object, this article will discuss the connection between democracy, federalism and social media in the current Ethiopia. On the top of this, the study aims at exploring the following issues: the social media sphere in Ethiopia, the modern and postmodern challenges of social media in Ethiopia and alternatives for the social media reconstruction.

The changing political trends in erstwhile FATA: a study of the last three elections

This study investigates the changing political trends in erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Analysis of the last three elections (2008, 2013, 2018) shows a substantial change in the region. The tribal structure, local traditions, power arrangement and electoral practices have changed significantly over a decade. The extension of the Political Parties Order to the region and its merger with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa stimulated political activities in the area that increased the political awareness of tribal people. The results of the 2013 and 2018 elections highlight the changes. Electoral activities, women participation and voter turnout increased with every election. Tribal youth joined existing political forums to demand their democratic rights. A significant percentage of the young, educated Pashtuns joined the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement in its demand for improved governance.

My school is my nation project: paths for the construction of school identity

This study presents and discusses the actions for the implementation of a project. The project was started in a school unit in the State Education Network in the state of Sao Paulo in the Integral Education [PEI], located in the city of Piracicaba – SP, as a way to guarantee the expansion of democratic management within the school, The objective of this work was to present and discuss the relationship between the constitution of the project in a comprehensive way, with the results of the actions that have already been carried out at the school. The school’s documents were analyzed, as well as the legal documents and the relevant bibliography. These all have a purpose to theoretically support the project, giving it a well-founded basis for its implementation. The purpose is to expand the democratic rights within the unit to allow Class Assemblies, corroborating with the democratic management, which will provide the school with a path towards its own identity. Along with the studied literature, the school’s internal documents and the results of the actions already carried out at the school, all validate the project’s viability. There is legal support for its implementation by meeting these proposals. Positive results corroborated the continuity of the successful practices by the analysis of data and the actions already carried out at the school which gives the full implementation of the project.

Legal Approaches to Responding to Emergencies: Covid-19 as a Case Study

During the Covid-19 pandemic, numerous countries invoked different constitutional provisions and laws to respond to the unexpected health crisis. Constitutional INSIGHTS No. 6 examines the use and non-use of state of emergency powers by countries across Asia and the Pacific in response to the COVID 19 pandemic, and the implications for other democratic rights and processes.