The past decade has seen intensified calls for the reform of democratic political institutions in Canada, on the grounds that there is a “democracy deficit” at the level of federal politics. Some commentators have even begun to describe the country as a “banana republic,” or a “friendly dictatorship.” Yet any attempt to assess the state of democracy in Canada must naturally presuppose some theo...

Key institutions of the pre-modern Middle Eastern economy, all grounded in Islamic law, blocked the development of democratic institutions. This talk identifies three mechanisms that played critical roles. Islam's original tax system failed to produce lasting and credible constraints on governance. The waqfs (Islamic trusts) founded to provide social services to designated constituencies were p...

Scholars have identified numerous obstacles that appear to stand in the way of democracy taking root in Russia, including the country’s religious heritage. In an attempt to understand the role of Orthodoxy in Russian society more accurately, this article explores the civic, political, and democratic values of devout Orthodox Christians and more secular-leaning “cultural Orthodox.” The findings ...

The positive role that an active civil society plays in processes of democratisation is often highlighted in the literature. However, when it comes to the Middle East and North Africa, such activism is considered to be detrimental to democratisation because the predominant role is played by Islamist groups. The explanation for this rests with the perceived ‘uncivil ’ and undemocratic Islamist e...

In Science, Truth, and Democracy, Philip Kitcher develops the notion of well-ordered science: scientific inquiry whose research agenda and applications (but not methods) are subject to public control guided by democratic deliberation. Kitcher’s primary departure from his earlier views involves rejecting the idea that there is any single standard of scientific significance. The context-dependenc...