This paper reviews the current literature on social accountability as a means to achieve good governance and increased public participation for improved public service delivery. After a brief discussion on concept and tools of social accountability, this paper illustrates that such innovations have led to improvements in the performance of state agencies and actors in varying contexts across th...

James Madison College is a residential college of public affairs and liberal education at Michigan State University, offering sophisticated multidisciplinary programs in the social sciences founded on a model of liberal education. The college prepares students for law school, graduate study, decision-making roles in public and private enterprise, and careers in government, media, politics, soci...

I n this article I want to address a number of issues thrust into the open by different manifestations of Islamist politics and the intersection of religion and identity politics in Western societies. This intersection should be read in conjunction with the emergence in Muslimmajority societies of forms of political activism that ground themselves in Islamic doctrines and invoke religious tradi...

Abstract The feminist movement in the United States like other countries has tried to establish equality for women. From the first attempts to gain constitutional right for vote, up to the current radical demands, feminists have struggled to make changes in the U.S. party politics and obtain their rights within the parties. One of the important issues in which women played a key role in party ...

This brief commentary discusses a recent paper by Speed and Mannion that explores “The Rise of post truth populism in liberal democracies: challenges for health policy.” It considers their assertion that through meaningful democratic engagement in health policy, some of the risks brought about by an exclusionary populist politics can be mediated. With an overview of what participation means in ...

After the disintegration of former Soviet Union in 1989, debate started among the intellectuals as well as policy makers in USA about the future shape of world politics and role of the US in it. In this regard, early voice was Francis Fukuyama’s “The End of History” which focused on political ideologies as the main unit of analysis. To him, after the end of cold war, western liberal democracy h...

This article gives an overview of 4 important lacunae in political liberalism and identifies, in a preliminary fashion, some trends in the literature that can come in for support in filling these blind spots, which prevent political liberalism from a correct assessment of the diverse nature of religious claims. Political liberalism operates with implicit assumptions about religious actors being...

The Liberal Democrats’ performance in the 2015 general election provides an opportunity to examine the only case in the post-war period of a national junior coalition partner in British politics. Comparative research highlights competence, trust and leadership as three key challenges facing junior coalition parties. This article uses British Election Study data to show that the Liberal Democrat...

in a recent article, gorik ooms has drawn attention to the normative underpinnings of the politics of global health. we claim that ooms is indirectly submitting to a liberal conception of politics by framing the politics of global health as a question of individual morality. drawing on the theoretical works of chantal mouffe, we introduce a conflictual concept of the political as an alternative...