When are inequalities in political power undemocratic, and why? While some writers condemn any as a deviation from the ideal of democracy, this view is vulnerable to simple objection that representative democracies concentrate hands elected officials rather than distributing it equally among citizens, but they no less democratic for it. Building on recent literature interprets democracy part br...

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...

Democracy as a political form of social organization offers humanity its best prospect for freedom and peace. Today, it faces deliberate threats from totalitarian movements that rely on terrorist tactics. Democracy also faces threats from its own leaders because of the consequential nature of their judgment and decision making. This article examines how threats to democracy are perceived and ma...

To most theorists of democracy in the West, India is an embarrassing anomaly and hence largely avoided. By most theoretical stipulations India should not have survived as a democracy: ƒ it's too poor ƒ its citizens largely rural and uneducated ƒ its civic institutions rather weak. ƒ It is a paradox even for those who believe in a positive relationship between economic equality or social homogen...

The paper will explore the key benefits and challenges in advancing e-Government for democratic participation and social inclusion, particularly from a Middle Eastern regional perspective (i.e., Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan). The use of online Internet services for applying e-democracy is studied with many clarifying comments and obstacles. The authors suggest that the implementation of e-Democr...

the concept of shoura (council), and the relationship between shoura and democracy, has a key role in development of religious modernist debates in muslim world. the “general theory of shoura” is one of these theories on islamic democracy that provided and developed by dr. towfiq mohammad al-shavi(birth, 1918/egypt). the three aspects of his theory are: 1) the religious basis of shoura that pro...

Conventional views of African politics imply that Africans’ political opinions are based either on enduring cultural values or their positions in the social structure. In contrast, we argue that Africans form attitudes to democracy based upon what they learn about what it is and does. This learning hypothesis is tested against competing cultural, institutional, and structural theories to explai...

since land reform in iran, rural studies and rural sociology have been concentrated on rural society as economical and political phenomena; therefore mostly traditional systems of production and power were noted in researches. one issue that was not addressed in this academic discourse was rural religion. religion as a core of culture and the main context to reproduce social integration has a k...

Social theory today is in crisis. During the 1960s, a variety of new theoretical paradigms emerged which put in question the prevailing quantitative, empiricist, and positivist conceptions of social theory and social research. Growing dissatisfaction with the dominant methodologies and theories produced by the mainstream promoted a search for alternative methodologies and conceptions of social ...