Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to synthesize work in the emerging field of how accounting and accountability can be reoriented to better promote pluralistic democracy which recognizes and addresses differentials in power, beliefs and desires of constituencies. An agenda for future research and engagement is outlined, drawing on this and insights from other papers in this special issue o...

Information Technology, IT, may play an important part in any community as a supporting tool in the democratic process. The conditions for that to happen are primarily a genuine wish of the community members to take democratic action, having access to the technology and the skills to use it. The purpose of this paper is to establish the “Democratic Functions of IT” in what we call “The Swedish ...

The level of trust inherent in a society is important for a wide range of microeconomic and macroeconomic outcomes. This paper investigates how individuals’ attitudes toward social and institutional trust are shaped by the political regime in which they live. The German reunification is a unique natural experiment that allows us to conduct such a study. Using data from the German General Social...

How should open agent societies be organized? Should they be democracies, and, if so, what types of democracy? We present three normative models of democracy from political philosophy and consider their relevance for the engineering of open multi-agent systems: democracy as wise rule by an elite; democracy as the exercise of rational consumer choices by voters; and democracy as deliberative dec...

Two opposing predictions about the fate of social democracy developed in the nineties. The first argued that, freed of the Stalinist (sometimes also extended to 'Marxist') incubus, social democracy would now flourish, at least in its European homeland. The second held the project of reforming capitalism was likely to enter a period of steep decline with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ...

Synopsis: Many theorists have long emphasized the importance of civic society and voluntary associations as vital to the lifeblood of democracy. Interest in this perennial topic has been revived by Putnam’s theory of social capital claiming that rich and dense associational networks facilitate the underlying conditions of interpersonal trust, tolerance and cooperation, providing the social foun...

The following is a speech delivered at the conference on “Social Activism and SocioEconomic Rights: Deepening Democracy in South Africa, convened by the Institute for Democracy in South Africa, Cape Town, August 11-13, 2003, on the occasion of ten years since the defeat of apartheid. The speech was delivered on August 11 before some 100 South African government and ANC officials, trade unionist...

Over the past decade, a large number of developing countries have made the transition from authoritarian rule to democracy. The rebirth of civil societies, the achievement of new freedoms and liberties have all been celebrated with due enthusiasm. But now that the euphoria of these transitions has passed, we are beginning to pose the sobering question of what difference democracy makes to devel...

This thesis examines the role of the indigenous movement in Ecuador on the ongoing process of democratization in that country. My study demonstrates that a comprehensive social movement such as Ecuador’s indigenous movement has great potential for having a positive impact on democracy. However, these movements are not without their shortcomings which are clearly demonstrated by some of the acti...