Social networks change the way users relate on the Web. One type of social network is the virtual community, which has a social structure that connects citizens and the government. Integrating consultation and deliberative environments for popular participation in democratic issues and creating virtual communities to enhance member relationships makes it possible to model decision-making proces...

The “democratic peace” is not only a fancy idea of academia, most prominently advanced by the philosopher of Enlightenment Immanuel Kant in his famous essay on “Perpetual Peace” (1795), but two hundred years later, is established as a liberal research program in the U.S. International Relations discipline. The famous statement “democracies do not fight each other” seems so far to represent a re...

The democratic critique of judicial review by constitutional courts has prompted its defenders to counter that courts have democratic qualities as good as, and in certain respects even stronger than, conventional democratic politics. This article offers a critical analysis of three arguments favouring this approach. The first argues that constitutional courts operate as exemplars of democratic ...

As a democratic and economically developed country, with interests that do not differ from those of Western democracies, the Republic of Croatia may well represent a decisive factor in future efforts to stabilize Southeast Europe. Croatia plays a very important role in the regional geopolitical configuration and can potentially influence the future development of neighboring countries and other...

The problems of weak state structures, including state territoriality, in the South Caucasus has highly influenced political developments and the building of a democratic state. This paper explains the difficulty of recovering statehood in the cases of Armenia and Georgia, both in the context of post–Soviet state transformation and post–conflict state-rebuilding. It argues that recovering state...

The accountability for reasonableness (AFR) concept has been developed and discussed for over two decades. Its interpretation has been studied in several ways partly guided by the specific settings and the researchers involved. This has again influenced the development of the concept, but not led to universal application. The potential use in health technology assessments (HTAs) has recently be...

Long-run development (in income) causes a large fall in the share of agriculture commonly known as the agricultural transition. We confirm that this conventional wisdom is strongly supported by the data. Long-run development (in income) also causes a large increase in democracy known as the democratic transition. Elsewhere we have shown that it is almost as strong as the agricultural transition...

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is highly diverse. It is also divided. The most striking example is the development divide that separates ASEAN’s newer members of Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, and Viet Nam—the CLMV countries—from the organization’s original members, or ASEAN-6. More rapid growth in Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, and Vie...

This paper thus addresses two primary issues. What is the relationship between the types of electoral systems that have been used to govern initial elections in the democratizing states of Africa and the degree to which party systems volatility has emerged? What other factors impact on the levels of volatility? I examine the above questions using data from 31 African countries. I find that most...

Despite a long-standing controversy about aid-effectiveness in general and the impact of aiddependency on governance in particular, little is known on the effect of donors policies on civic agency for democratization in aid dependent autocratic regimes. In this study it is argued that the long-term effects of double-talk of donors, who openly promote democracy and freedom but covertly follow ov...