One condition for the stability of democratic systems is the development of a political culture that is congruent with the implemented structure. As the presented data shows, in unified Germany this kind of congruence exists only in West Germany. In East Germany a majority of citizens is supporting democracy as well, but have a rather skeptical attitude toward the liberal democracy of Germany. ...

Promoting democracy and ‘good governance’ in developing countries have become core objectives of official development agencies, both bilateral and multilateral. Three main sets of questions arise from such ‘assistance’. Analytically, what is the underlying motive in promoting political reform, and what is the assumed relationship between such measures and economic liberalisation? Contextually, ...

The correlation between social ties and political participation has been evident for some time, though very little attention is devoted to examining the causal mechanisms producing this relationship. This paper moves the literature in this direction by examining how an important feature of social networks – levels of political expertise – affect the attitudes underlying involvement. After outli...

In many parts of the world there is a growing demand for participation in public policy decision making. This demand could be satisfied by the design and deployment of webbased group decision support systems to aid large groups of, possibly, non-sophisticated, users in participating in such decisions. After describing several mechanisms for participatory democracy, we provide a framework for de...

T o evaluate whether public involvement on a national forest district fairly represents the public's values, this article proposes four hypothesis tests. First, it is hypothesized that public-invo1l)ement programs operute according to a participatory democracy logic, in which broad cross sections o f the public participate in public involvement opportunities. A second hypothesis is tested that ...

The British House of Lords is generally seen as an unimportant political actor. It is unelected and has a formal veto over only very limited forms of legislation. According to Lijphart this gives the UK a system of ‘weak bicameralism’, and contributes to its position as a majoritarian democracy. The alternative classification system offered by Tsebelis treats the UK as essentially unicameral, w...

Studies of the relationship between political democracy and economic inequality have produced diverse findings. This study attempts to mitigate some conceptual and methodological problems inherent in such studies by using multi-indicator concepts of inclusive democracy and economic inequality. Data from the five major historically and culturally homogeneous South Asian countries covering 1980-2...

1Department of Dermatology, Mersin Medical School, University of Mersin, 33079, Mersin, Turkey 2Department of Dermatology, Bovenij Ziekenhuis, Statenjachtstraat 1, 1034 CS Amsterdam, Postbus 37610, 1030 BD Amsterdam, The Netherlands 3Department of Dermatology, University of Florence, Via della Pergola 60, 50132 Florence, Italy 4Rheumatology Research Center, Shariati Hospital, Kargar Avenue, Teh...

1 Tissue Repair Laboratory, Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics (IBB), University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran, 2 Research Center for Neural Repair (RCNR), University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran, 3 Department of Orthopedic and Trauma Surgery, Shariati Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, 4 Joint Reconstruction Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran,...

Department of Gastroenterology, Imam Khomeini Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Digestive Disease Research Center, Shariati Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Department of Radiology, Imam Khomeini Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Department of Pathology, Imam Khomeini Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Scie...