Andrew Feenberg’s political philosophy of technology uniquely connects the neo-Marxist tradition with phenomenological approaches to technology. This paper investigates how this connection shapes Feenberg’s analysis of power. Influenced by De Certeau and by classical positions in philosophy of technology, Feenberg focuses on a dialectical model of oppression versus liberation. A hermeneutic rea...

The objective of this paper is to explore questions of human agency and democratic process in the technical sphere through the example of "virtual community." The formation of relatively stable long term group associations community in the broad sense of the term is the scene on which a large share of human development occurs. As such it is a fundamental human value mobilizing diverse ideologie...

This article explores how the Russia-Belarus relationship has countered external forces that have been shown to promote democratization. It seeks to answer the following questions: According to the democratization literature, what external factors make democratization more likely? How have RussiaBelarus ties countered these factors? And, how best can the United States and the European Union pro...

Scholars continue to grapple with the question of the relationship between economic development and democratization; prominent recent research has focused on the effects of economic inequality. Boix suggests that democratization is likelier when inequality is low, whereas Acemoglu and Robinson argue that democratization is likelier when inequality is at middling levels. Both assume that democra...

the goal of this research is to study the policy of democratization of culture and is trying to find out whether democratization of museums leads to democratization of art or its only result is accumulation of artistic behaviors. deploying pierre bourdieu’s theory who believes that “the love of art” is the result of cultural capital and utilizing surveys with the method of quantity evaluation a...

Perestroika was the most dramatic chapter in the political history of the world in the late twentieth century. Yet, it did not fulfill what was arguably its loftiest promise—to lay firm foundations for lasting popular rule in Russia. The failure of democratization in post-Soviet Russia may be traced in part to two fateful shortcomings in perestroika: the tepidity of Gorbachev’s economic reforms...

While standard political economy theories suggest a moderating effect of democratization on income inequality, empirical literature has failed to uncover any such robust relationship. Here we take yet another look at this issue arguing first, that prevailing ideology may be an important determinant of inequality and, second, that the democratization effect “works through” ideology. In societies...

A rich dictatorships more likely than poor dictatorships to collapse and be replaced by democracies? Consider, for example, Chile, which in 1985 had a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of $3,400 and was under dictatorship, and Benin, which in the same year had a per capita income of about one-third of Chile’s, $1,108, and was also under dictatorship. Setting aside other differences betwee...

This article examines the effectiveness of UN peacebuilding missions in democratizing war-torn states, emphasizing those missions that include democracy promotion components in their mandates. Based on a multinominal logistic regression, we reveal that democratization is significantly more likely if a UN peacebuilding mission is deployed. Furthermore, regimes categorized as more liberal at the ...

Ward and Gleditsch (1998) showed that democratization reduces war proneness; as contemporary polities become more democratic, the probability that they will be involved in interstate war declines. This research reexamines and extends the previous work on the “dangerous democratization” versus “democratizing for peace” hypotheses in two major ways. First, we examine the claim that major powers h...