Lijphart’s spectrum of democracies – recently expanded by Jack Nagel to a sub-majoritarian sphere of pluralitarian systems which use disproportional electoral systems in order to manufacture majority governments from minorities in the electorate – is based on only one dimension: inclusion of preferences. Political scientists in the Lijphartian tradition wrongly assume that inclusion of preferen...

Despite the huge number of possible seat distributions following a general election in a multiparty parliamentary democracy, there are far fewer classes of seat distribution sharing important strategic features. We define an exclusive and exhaustive partition of the universe of theoretically-possible n-party systems into five basic classes, the understanding of which facilitates more fruitful m...

In recent decades, many countries have adopted, to various degrees, the ideologies of commercial and republican liberalism. One salient aspect of the spread of commercial liberalism in the world has been the growth in international trade. The spread of republican liberalism has manifested itself by the rise in the level of democracy in countries over time. What are the implications of trade and...

Theoretical arguments and empirical evidence are advanced to bolster the claim that direct political participation via referenda and initiatives constitutes an advanced form of democracy with beneficial effects on Transition Countries. Direct democracy raises trust and honesty and improves social outcomes. Per capita incomes and subjective well-being are raised. Standard arguments against direc...

The major predecessor to Ringen's and my own efforts to measure democratic quality in terms of the purpose of democracy is Robert Dahl's seminal book Polyarchy (1971). Measuring the quality of democracy requires two prior judgments: (1) making sure that, in terms of institutional characteristics, a country is sufficiently democratic, and that, as a minimum, it has universal suffrage, and (2) th...

Throughout its short history, federal relations in Russia have been dominated by extra-legal political and economic relations rather than constitutionalism and the rule of law. The Russian Federation’s unique blend of constitutional, socioeconomic, and political asymmetry, far from promoting democracy, has bolstered authoritarian regimes in the regions. Federalism and regional democracy have al...

Upper limb fractures are prevalent injuries. An essential element of fracture healing is to maintain the bones alignment. However there are lots of complications associated with traditional ways of treatment, such as compartment syndrome and stiffness due to immobility for long time. Also evaluation and observation of the limb under the casts for potential infections and skin issues are n...

The main objective of the present study is to investigate the relationship between the levels of self-actualization of people and their attitude of democracy. In this regard it has investigated the relationship among 384 Yazd university students in 2013-14 by survey method. Thus, after collecting data, through SPSS and statistical tests including Pearson Correlation, ANOVA and etc., the data ha...