Media System, Public Knowledge and Democracy

Democracy and Public Health.

Public Service and Liberal Democracy

The debate on television’s "public service"obligations can only make full sense if integrated in the broader context of the debate on the best political model for society. In fact, the classic "public service"rationale is based in a normative conception of good and in a suspicious view of the average citizen that is largely tributary of a Platonic or Elitist approach to the political organizati...

Direct Democracy and Public Employees

In the public sector, employment may be inefficiently high because of patronage, and wages may be inefficiently high because of the strength of public employee interest groups. This paper explores whether the initiative process, a direct democracy institution of growing importance, can control these political economy problems, as proponents and some research suggests. Based on a sample of 500+ ...

Constitutional Democracy and Public Judgements

This paper proposes a new conceptual framework of a liberal social order, which emphasizes the freedom of action in social interaction and the freedom of participation in social rule-making process. Our articulation of public decision-making process can be interpreted as a formal way of capturing the essence of constitutional democracy, which is an impure mixture of constructivist rationalism a...

New Media and the Changing Public Sphere in Uganda: Towards Deliberative Democracy?

This chapter gives an exploratory overview of the emergence and growth of new media in Uganda and how the alternative nature of new media is scaffolding the notion of citizenship and deliberative democracy. The chapter also suggests that despite the new found vigour, it is too early to say whether the Ugandan new media landscape have so far become a true alternative or complementary participato...