This article intends to clarify views regarding important challenges that have originated from the political, social, cultural and geopolitical structures in the elections systems of Persian Gulf Arab countries. Challenges that determine the compatibility levels of elections systems of these countries with the world’s democratic systems. An efficient elections system is the prerequisite for the...

  Every society has oriented itself towards a governing method concerning the socio-cultural conditions and with the inclusion of different historical-ideological periods and has accepted it as its governmental plan. Iranian society is not an exception to this general rule. Throughout different historical stages, such as the government of Safavid, the Constitution Movement, and despotic g...

This article describes and evaluates civic networks in Europe and the USA. These are seen as attempts to use new media technology, particularly the internet, to improve participation in local democratic processes. Various aspects of democratic communication are examined, including information access, preference measurement, deliberation and group mobilization. A wide variety of city-based exper...

How does aid impact democracy in sub-Saharan Africa? Drawing on existing literature, this study elaborates on the various channels, direct and indirect, through which development and democracy aid has influenced transitions to multi-party regimes and democratic consolidation within the region. The study’s findings are at least threefold. First, development aid was effective at promoting democra...

Democratic decentralisation is often presented as the sine qua non of rural poverty reduction. But there is little evidence that either democracy or decentralisation is necessary for poverty reduction in rural or urban areas, and indeed some evidence that they are counter-productive. There are success stories to report, however. They are cases where three conditions have been met: an appropriat...

Using a disaggregated measure that allows us to examine the distribution of state and local tax burdens between high and low income groups better, this research finds that in many models, Democratic control is positively associated with a lower relative tax burden on the poor. The results are stronger for average Democratic strength in the state government than for unified Democratic strength. ...

This article locates the frequent call for public participation in the governance of technology within a theory of democratic representation. The article examines several modes of representation—symbolic, formal, delegate, trustee, and descriptive—in light of their potential contribution to a democratic theory of publicly representative technology. Publicly representative technology depends on ...

The Double Majority rule in the Treaty is claimed to be simpler, more transparent and more democratic than the existing rule. We examine these questions against the democratic ideal that the votes of all citizens in whatever member country should be of equal value using voting power analysis considering possible future enlargements involving candidate countries and then to a number of hypotheti...