Do superpower interventions to install and prop up political leaders in other countries subsequently result in more or less democracy, and does this effect vary depending on whether the intervening superpower is democratic or authoritarian? While democracy may be expected to decline contemporaneously with superpower interference, the effect on democracy after a few years is far from obvious. Th...

In this essay, we outline a cognitive approach to democracy. Specifically, we argue that democracy has unique benefits as a form of collective problem solving in that it potentially allows people with highly diverse perspectives to come together in order collectively to solve problems. Democracy can do this better than either markets and hierarchies, because it brings these diverse perceptions ...

In 2010 the Croatian Constitution was changed to lower the requirements for the implementation of direct democracy at the national level, in order to save the referendum on Croatia’s EU membership from possible failure. Since then, Croatia has witnessed a sharp increase in people’s initiatives that have managed to block a number of the government’s reform proposals. Therefore, the newly discove...

An increased number of public organizations engage in E-Democracy projects to improve their capability to communicate on democratically issues. Such efforts are often complex due to lack of experiences from earlier projects and the complex nature on the communication taking place. This article addresses two major problems identified from the E-Democracy literature and a conducted case study in ...

Good health is crucial for human and economic development. In particular poor health in childhood seems to be of utmost concern since it causes irreversible damage and have implications later in life. Recent research suggests globalization is a strong force affecting adult and child health outcomes. Yet, there is much unexplained variation with respect to the globalization effect on child healt...

Various categorizations have emerged to describe the growing number of ineffective democracies in the hybrid zone between blatant autocracy and fully effective democracy. Despite differences in terminology, scholars agree that state failure in the enforcement of rule of law is the key factor separating effective from ineffective democracies. Applying this distinction, categorical approaches pre...

Promotion öf democracy in post-war and post-conflict societies became a hot topic during the 1990s. External actors Iinked their peace-building efforts to the promotion of democracy. FoUl' modes of promotion of democracy by external actors can be distinguished: first , enforcing democratization by enduring post-war occupation (mode 1); second, restoring an elected government by military interve...

The paper discusses the state of Czech democracy and current research agendas on democracy in the Czech Republic, focusing in particular on the role of political parties. It considers Czech democracy both in relation to Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and in the light of the evolving relationship between CEE and Western Europe. It suggests that current CEE states such as the Czech Republic gra...

This essay explores the relationships between political performance profiles and major types of democracy from a comparative perspective. The article focuses attention mainly on the political performance of majoritarian and non-majoritarian government, democracies with small and large numbers of veto players, hybrid regimes, presidentialism and parliamentary government, referendum democracy and...

This paper argues that a fundamental antagonism between democracy and nondemocracy organises lay thinking on global issues. We review key findings of a long-standing experimental research programme that examined the “Democracy-as-value” hypothesis across a variety of political and social contexts. This hypothesis contends that democracy is an ideological belief system that provides value to dem...