The author discusses the theory of liberal nationalism of the prominent Canadian political theorist Will Kymlicka. According to Kymlicka, liberal nationalism is a necessary ingredient of developed liberal democracy, because social justice, deliberative democracy and individual freedom are most efficiently achieved within national political units. Kymlicka defines his theory as liberal culturali...

According to numerous recent cross-national studies of public support for democracy, citizens of both well-established and newer democracies continue to share a strong commitment to the ideals and principles of representative democracy. Paradoxically, however, these same citizens are increasingly ‘critical’ of and ‘dissatisfied’ with the performance of their national democratic institutions. On...

The ethical, social and political dimensions of legislative regulations of issues concerning the citizens’ health are generally recognized to be of increasing significance in modern deliberative democracies. However, nanotechnologies in health have raised extra difficulties in deliberative democracies’ procedural justice arrangements. Could a deliberative model of democracy based on substantive...

In its thirteenth annual report to the Congress’ the Social Security Administration reaflirms its conviction that favorable economic conditions, such as those prevailing today, ogler an exceptional opportunity to develop a comprehensive program that will provide the basic essentials of social security for all persons in all parts of the Nation, A Nation with an annual income in excess of 6200 b...

Williams, D. (2007). The impact of time online: Social capital and cyberbalkanization. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 10(3), 398-406. Williams, D. (2006a). On and off the 'net: Scales for social capital in an online era. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(2), article 11. Putnam, R.D. (1995). Bowling alone: America's declining social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6(1), 65-78. Williams,...

An influential thesis often associated with De Tocqueville views social mobility as a bulwark of democracy: when members of a social group expect to join the ranks of other social groups in the near future, they should have less reason to exclude these other groups from the political process. In this paper, we investigate this hypothesis using a dynamic model of political economy. As well as fo...

Broadly defined, deliberative democracy aspires the decision-making legitimacy by deliberation of equal citizens. As a response to the growing discontent with the representational governance, the normative and empirical development of the deliberative democracy theory addresses the increasing desiderata of public engagement beyond party politics and constituencies. Generating knowledge for the ...

The issue of justice figures prominently m various stages of democratization yet the topic is still understudied in the broad literature of democratization. The handling of transitional justice is crucial to the successful transition from authoritarian rule to democracy. However, the type of transition (e.g., transformation vs. replacement) also significantly shapes the approach toward transiti...

While calls for, and work toward, energy democracy have been entrenched in social movements, and the concept has a burgeoning posture in academic discourse, perhaps the most significant implication for its development is the potential for its implementation at the local governance scale. In order for municipal efforts to be wholly democratic, energy policy must be accessible and responsive to t...