| 书目名称 | Democracy in Times of Crises | | 副标题 | Challenges, Problems | | 编辑 | Emmanouil M.L. Economou,Nicholas C. Kyriazis,Athan | | 视频video | | | 概述 | Discusses the current pressing issues of democracy worldwide.Presents solutions to current pending problems at the global level.Inspired by the democratic origins of the Greek naval victory at Salamis | | 图书封面 |  | | 描述 | .Inspired by the democratic origins of the Greek naval victory at Salamis, the book discusses the current pressing issues of democracy worldwide. In 12 carefully selected chapters, well-renowned scholars from around the globe discuss topics such as Brexit, Euroscepticism, or the rise of populism. The authors further analyze various aspects of democracy, as well as various types of democratic regimes, such as mixed government, direct democracy, and cases of quasi democracies. While doing so, they relate this discussion to the pivotal question of how the quality of democracy today can be improved, seeking answers and solutions to current pending problems at the global level. ..This book is the second out of two edited volumes as a sequel of an international academic conference titled .Salamis and Democracy: 2500 Years After. that took place between October 3rd and October 5th, 2020, on the occasion of the 2500th anniversary of the great historical event of the Battle of Salamis, which saved Greek culture and the newly founded democratic regimes throughout the Hellenic world during the Classical period (508-323 BCE). The book is a must-read for scholars and students of political scien | | 出版日期 | Book 2022 | | 关键词 | Populism; Brexit; Euroscepticism; Mixed government; Checks and balances; Democratic governance; Battle of | | 版次 | 1 | | doi | https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97295-0 | | isbn_softcover | 978-3-030-97297-4 | | isbn_ebook | 978-3-030-97295-0 | | copyright | The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerl |
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Front Matter |
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,Introduction: Democracy in Times of Crises, |
Emmanouil M. L. Economou,Nicholas C. Kyriazis,Athanasios Platias |
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This collective volume comes as a sequel to an international academic conference entitled . that occurred between October 3 and 5, 2020, on the occasion of the 2500th anniversary of the great historical event of the Battle of Salamis which saved Greek culture and the newly founded democratic regimes throughout the Hellenic world during the Classical period (508–323 BCE). According to renowned historians, Salamis changed the course of world history and, especially, that of the West. The Introduction explains the purpose of the book and describes in brief the chapters as provided by well-renowned scholars from around the globe, who discuss various topics that are related to democracy, such as Brexit, Euroscepticism and the rise of populism. The authors further analyze various aspects of democracy, as well as various types of democratic regimes, such as mixed government, direct democracy, and cases of quasi democracies. This discussion is related to the pivotal question of how the quality of democracy today can be improved at the global level.
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The Crisis of Democracy: A Self-Inflicted Wound |
Christopher H. Achen |
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One of the oldest propositions in political science is that a mixed government with checks and balances is superior to the alternatives. Once a commonplace among thoughtful observers, that proposition has come under critical attack in the last century from populists of many kinds, who have wanted to put more power into the hands of citizens to rule directly. As populist thinking has gained currency among theorists and politicians, its adherents in the United States and Britain have increasingly bent governmental structures to their will. The consequences of doing so, long predicted by mixed government theorists, have in fact occurred, resulting in bad policy decisions and bad leaders. Thus in the two oldest democracies, the “crisis of democracy” stems directly from misconceived democratic theories and their embodiment in current laws and institutional rules.
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Democracy Erodes from the Top: Public Opinion and Democratic “Backsliding” in Europe |
Larry M. Bartels |
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Observers have described a “crisis of democracy” in contemporary Europe, with “exploding” popular support for right-wing populist parties fueled by anti-immigrant sentiment, political distrust, and dissatisfaction with democracy itself. However, opinion surveys provide remarkably little evidence of such a “crisis” in public opinion. Across Europe, attitudes regarding immigration, European integration, political trust, and satisfaction with democracy have remained largely unchanged over the past two decades. In the two European countries where democracy has eroded significantly, Hungary and Poland, “backsliding” has been engineered by politicians and imposed from above, not in response to any mandate from voters. Public acquiescence in these developments seems more plausibly attributable to substantial improvements in subjective well-being under illiberal governments than to any popular hankering for authoritarianism.
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On the Limits of Democracy |
Geoffrey M. Hodgson |
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This essay discusses the practical limits to democratic participation in decision-making. While defending representative democracy, it looks at some experiments with deliberative, participatory, or direct democracy which reveal a number of problems. Among these are establishment of incentives for voters to become adequately informed on issues, including the many questions that require specialist knowledge and skilled judgement. Contemporary advocates of ‘maximum’ or extensive democracy have overlooked the evidence we have about the difficulties involved. There is danger that reckless extensions of democratic participation will fail and help to undermine democracy itself.
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The Battle of Salamis and the Future of Democracy |
George C. Bitros |
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The . heeded to the pleas of Themistocles in 483/2 BCE and committed enough resources from the Laurion silver mines to build 200 triremes. Three years later, the triumph in the Battle of Salamis proved that the Athenian democracy could act prudently, when the common good was at high stake. By contrast, while the United States ought to remain strong in view of China’s uprising, it nurtures two deficits, one in the public finances and another in the quality of democracy, which by growing almost out of control place democracy in the United States, and hence in the world, in harm’s way. Thus, thinking ahead, the best act of prudence would be to introduce a bold reform by replacing the ., which suffers from several irreversible drawbacks, with . This model of self-government is superior because, first, it is free from unpalatable deficiencies and, second, it is endowed with several distinct advantages. In particular, it matches policy choices to citizen preferences. It offers institutional flexibility and efficiency. Citizens as shareholders of the state engage and take responsibility for the institutions of democracy, and the problems of asymmetric information and management coordinati
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Policy Making by Randomly Selected Citizens: The Perspective of Elected Politicians |
George Tridimas |
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An institutional reform proposal which recently seems to have gained currency is to introduce at least in some areas policy making by citizens’ assemblies, that is, population samples whose members are selected from the public by lot. Analysts and commentators offer an array of sound arguments in support of this reform. However, short of enacting this institutional change by revolution, its adoption relies on elected politicians-legislators accepting it. But policy making by randomly selected assemblies of ordinary citizens decreases the domain of policy areas decided by politicians, and consequently it reduces their authority and prestige. Under what circumstances, if any, would politicians consent to such a change in policy making? This is the issue investigated here. The paper explores a model of institutional choice under uncertainty and examines the payoffs of politicians-legislators under different policy rules. Using the spatial decision framework, it identifies circumstances where an elected politician may be willing to grant policy making powers to a randomly drawn assembly of citizens. The choice is found to depend on the interplay of the following factors: the probabilit
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Legislature by Lot: A Way Out of the Problems of Modern Democracy or Just Another Unrealistic Approa |
Spyridon Vlachopoulos |
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What is the connection between sortition parliament and modern democracy? Debate on what democracy means and how it should be implemented has been, and still continues to be, broad. The roots of the sortition parliament notion are already found in the Homeric epics and in ancient Greece. Moving to the present, several movements in favor of sortition parliaments have appeared in Europe, Canada, and the USA. Furthermore, the idea of public officers selected by lot, as part of reworking the state, has been elaborated in the political theory. After all these, we have to answer the question: Should we introduce a sortition parliament in modern democracy? Of course, like in every topic, there are arguments in favor and against it. What would be the conclusion that follows after pointing out the advantages and the disadvantages of legislature by lot? Perhaps the time has come to think “out of the box” and combine the advantages of the traditional representative democracy with elements of alternative models.
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Asymmetric Information, Social Choices, and Democracy |
Emmanouil M. L. Economou,Nicholas C. Kyriazis |
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A crucial premise of most neoclassical models is that perfect markets (e.g., in microeconomics) cannot function unless all the involved have perfect and . information. This premise has been challenged and modified by the research of George Akerlof, Jean Tirole, and many others. A similar problem applies in the political sphere concerning the . of ordinary citizen-voters as against “experts” or politicians in modern representative democracies. This inhibits their smooth functioning and facilitates the rise of populist parties on the right and left, as well as bringing about wrong decisions in referenda (e.g., the Brexit in 2016). We analyze the issue of asymmetric information in representative democracies and compare it to ancient Greek direct democracies, especially Athens. We show that the institutional setup of the Athenian Assembly of citizens disseminates the knowledge of the expert to all participating citizens, thus providing common and shared symmetric information as a basis for decision-making. Then we present our proposals to ameliorate the present situation.
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Democracy in Ancient and Modern Times: About the Relevancy of the Ancient Greek Experience for Our O |
Guy Féaux de la Croix |
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The paper argues that the Battle of Salamis was a victory for freedom and self-determination which paved the way for democracy to evolve in classical times. It directly addresses the question of its relevancy for our own times. The paper reviews the literature for relevancy studies and builds towards a normative interpretation of Athenian democracy. It raises a series of key intertemporal issues, such as the relationship between freedom and democracy and freedom and equality. It further refers to present-day democratic worries in the light of the ancient experience: Modern democracies show increasing inequality and a degeneration of formal democracy towards de facto oligarchy. Elites seem discredited. In addition to the above, the paper raises a series of further pivotal issues such as (i) the lack of political competence of citizens necessary for participation, (ii) a democracy of populism and of group interests rather than one of democratic values, (iii) the effectiveness of democracy in securing a sustainable future for its people and (iv) quintessential problems that plague modern democracies, such as a lack of cultural education, which could prove to be the Achilles heel of ou
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Europe in Modern Greece: The Constant Navarino |
Kevin Featherstone |
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Greece has defined ‘Europe’ in many and diverse ways. But Europe—in the form of the Great Powers and/or the European Union (EU)—has also structured so much of Greece’s developmental path. Historically, the Great Powers—Britain, France and Russia—were drawn in to determine the fate of the emergent modern nation, but their intervention drew back from supportive actions that would enable the country to prosper. Their motivation was, primarily, one of the strategic interests, rather than the normative pull of Philhellenism. Latterly, the country’s quest for a ‘catch-up’ with Europe has been something of a psycho-drama: with a modernising elite never quite reaching its ‘Ithaca’. Today, it is a moot point whether member states like Greece can achieve sufficient domestic reform without the EU developing new mechanisms for intervention and support. And, with a more heterogeneous EU, Greece today defines Europe’s incompleteness—the limits on the EU’s capacity to act. This may prove consequential for both the EU and Greece in the future.
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Democracy and Social Rights |
Joaquim de Sousa Ribeiro |
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It is argued that deprivation of basic goods not only obstructs the full exercise of liberties and the free development of personality, but it also distances people from the public sphere and the deliberative processes that take place there. Democracy presupposes equal opportunity for all to participate in the political affairs. To have that possibility, people need to enjoy a minimum of material conditions for a dignified life. By providing citizens in need with the goods and services necessary to satisfy that interest, social rights contribute to a successful approach to the democratic ideal.
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Public Confidence and the Judiciary in a Democratic Society |
Michail N. Pikramenos |
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The judiciary guarantees the fundamental principle of the rule of law and ensures the legal protection of every person by the courts which are responsible for the proper application of the law in an impartial, just, fair and efficient manner. Judicial independence and impartiality are essential prerequisites for the operation of justice. Courts are accepted by the public as being the proper forum for the ascertainment of legal rights and obligations and the settlement of disputes. The ECHR has declared the prominent place among state organs that the judiciary occupies in a democratic society. The court has emphasised the special role in society of the judiciary, which, as the guarantor of justice, a fundamental value in a law-governed state, must enjoy public confidence if it is to be successful in carrying out its duties, and in this framework, judges have more duties and responsibilities than the ordinary civil servants.
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Back Matter |
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发表于 2025-3-21 19:05:26
