Throughout Latin America the conservative terms established at the outset of democratization, which often limited the scope of democracy for the preservation of stability, have been exhausted. Coinciding with the emergence of the Latin American left, the initial terms of democracy are being redefined through the reconstitution of the state and the renegotiation of the role of the state in the economy. These phenomena are presently and precipitously unfolding in Bolivia. Bolivia’s failure to establish substantively democratic institutions resulted in a political-economy orientation incongruent to the preferences of the electorate. The electorate was forced to push their interests by means of increasingly assertive social movements, which coalesced, forming viable leftist party alternatives. Seeking to redefine the parameters of the state, the actualization of the left’s nationalization agenda reversed decades-old policies of privatization that had been maintained through pacted executive legislative relations. In redefining Bolivian democracy, the left has confronted a resistant opposition, which has thrust the country into a political impasse, the outcome of which has yet to be determined. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

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The study explores the plausibility of the democratic peace as an approach to world peace in the information era by analysing causality and deductive structures associated with the variables world peace, democracy and information technology as found in text. It also pursues a normative objective, namely to propose ways in which information technology can be employed to further democracy and world peace. The advent of the information era challenges scholars of International Relations to evaluate theories and concepts of International Relations within the framework of information technology. Traditionally placed within the realm of liberal internationalism, the democratic peace contends that democracies are unlikely to wage war with one another because they perceive one another to be constrained by norms and institutions unique to their democratic nature. The spread of democracy will thus enhance world peace. Information technology contributes to the spread and institutionalisation of democratic norms by providing access to abundant information through channels difficult to bring under government control, facilitating the mobilisation and organisation of pro-democracy movements and creating unprecedented opportunities for civil participation in the political process. Through deductive reasoning it can therefore be argued that the democratic peace and thus world peace, are likely to be enhanced in the information era. This conclusion is based on a neo-liberal definition of world peace, that is, the absence of lethal violence between states amounting to battle fatalities of at least I 000. In the information era, such a definition is too limited to underlie a comprehensive approach to peace. Most wars are no longer fought between states or at the state level. They are protracted, deeply structural conflicts that involve a mix of state and non-state actors, private interests, professional armies or mercenaries and ethnic or religious factions. World peace is thus better defined along human security as opposed to national security lines, namely to remove the institutional obstacles and promote the structural conditions that will facilitate the growth of socio-cultural, economic and political trends to achieve conditions congruent with peace values such as security, non-violence, identity, equity and well-being. It is possible to expand the democratic peace approach theoretically to achieve world peace thus defined, by drawing on the Kantian origins of democratic peace theory. Kant emphasised that individuals are citizens of a universal state of mankind governed by universal morality. Such a cosmopolitan interpretation of the democratic peace grasps the interconnectedness and interdependencies of the information era, going beyond the state level and state actors. The approach is plausible because information technology enables global civil society through the help of the global media, to promote and institutionalise democratic norms such as security, freedom, justice and community. Civil society movements expose information about the often hidden interests or structural factors characteristic of wars. By mobilising public opinion and putting pressure on governments, international organisations and the private sector to act in ways congruent with democratic values, they promote global democracy and globalise the democratic peace. The plausibility of this approach to world peace is conditioned on the extent to which Internet governance and civil society are democratised, the digital divide bridged and the global media oriented towards promoting peace. / Dissertation (MA (International Politics))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Political Sciences / unrestricted

Since the establishment of Venezuela's democratic arrangement in 1958 with the signature of the Punto Fijo Pact the country democratic practises have been marked by the dependency of the exploitation of crude oil and the overt involvement of the private mass media as guard of the interest of the political elites. Although the Punto Fijo Pact represent the Venezuela's first step towards democratisation, it paved the way for the institutionalisation of clientelism as feature of the country's political tradition. By the late 1980s the population grew tired of inability of the political elites to redistribute evenly the country's oil revenues, thus starting a period of political reconfiguration that saw the decline of the traditional party system and rise of the Bolivarian movement as major political force that pledged the reconstruction of Venezuela's democratic system under a participatory arrangement. The election of Hugo Chávez as the Bolivarian movement candidate in 1998 saw the realignment of Venezuela's political forces, in particular the withdrawal of traditional political parties and the emerge of the private mass media, in particular the television networks, as a major political actor. The main argument of this dissertation is that from 1998 up to the parliamentary elections of 2010, the private television stations in Venezuela took on the role of opposition providing the population with the means to voice their criticisms of the Bolivarian government policies. The stand taken by the private television networks, as the de facto political party, was possible due to the deterioration of the Venezuelan party system and the constriction of the liberal rights of the citizenry, producing, amongst other things, the enactment of the Ley Resorte, to restrict the involvement of the private television networks in the political sphere as well as to control the flow of information. To be able to study why the private television networks were perceived by the Bolivarian movement as de facto political party and why the Bolivarian movement introduced legislation to constrain its participation in the political sphere, this thesis will examine from a historical perspective the role that the private mass media have had in Venezuela's political system and to what extent the Bolivarian movement perception that they were the de facto opposition was an adequate characterisation of the role that private television networks had up until 2010 when the opposition political parties presented themselves again to election to the Venezuela National Assembly after a hiatus of more than five years without representation in the legislative branch.

The thesis aims at analyzing the consequences of centralization policies in Russia and its impact on the quality of democracy in the country. Centralization is believed to strengthen states' political power by increasing the effectiveness of governance and proliferation of secession movements. However centralization is also very often associated with antidemocratic governance because it implies the limitation of local authorities' power which can lead to decrease of local official's responsiveness, people participation etc. Thus there should be taken into account many factors when assessing whether the centralization policy is necessary or not.

This paper is an attempt to show how classroom teachers can translate democracy into action. By the use of a few carefully selected experiences and situations, the writer has hoped to make clear some of the commonly accepted principles underlying the American way of life and to illustrate methods by which teachers can realize the educational objectives of a democratic society. Although it is realized that the principles of democratic living and the principles of growth are not confined to any one age period, the emphasis of this paper is centered on the elementary grades. / Typescript. / "August, 1951." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of M. A." / Advisor: Elizabeth Hamlin, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 87-90).

Magister Legum - LLM / Kenya has embarked on a constitutional making process that is hoped to ensure a transition to democracy. The current constitution making process is not the first of its kind in post independence Kenya.1 Since the Lancaster House Conference2 that gave Kenya its very first constitution after independence, constitution making processes have been fraught with controversies.3 The periods after independence saw the Kenyans glamour for constitutional change and reforms.4 A number of amendments have been effected to the Kenyan, constitution since independence. The clamor for constitutional review gradually grew leading to the repeal of section 2A of the Constitution in 1991 which restored multi-parties.s The pressure from civil society organizations in 1997 led to the enactment of the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission Act6 and this was considered as the formal beginning of the Constitutional Review Process in Kenya.7 The next major constitutional review process came in after the end of the term of President Daniel Arap Moi in 2002. A review process, commonly known as the

The thesis "Virtual Democracy: Information Technology, Modern Society and Digitized Elections" has the ambition of approaching the theoretical debate of the relatively new koncept of e-democracy. New technologies in combination with modern society have great potencial in changing the political space not only as a medium, but also the character of the actors of the process. In the first plan the thesis deals with the practical usage of electronic devises on the basis of new technologies in the area of voting egality, knowledgeable understanding, control of agenda setting and efficient participation. In the second plan it deals with the main circumstances for the implementation of new technologies, and in the end examinates the normative dimension of these new technologies in enduring or weakening of democracy. Due to the fact, that the topic of new technologies in democracy lies between today and the future, the thesis occupies itself also by the expectations of their impact on the future of politics. An indivisible part of virtual democracy is the poll digitalization, who's form and role will be also a part of the thesis's preoccupation. Keywords elections, democracy, e-democracy, digitalizacion, information technology, virtual democracy

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The imposition and promotion of democracy through military force is an idea that has been discussed throughout U.S. history since the end of World War II. Military interventions—coupled with nation building—serve as a pivotal point of discussion as the United States continues it efforts to establish democratic states in regions all across the world. This thesis examines three unique case studies post-WWII, arguing that democracy cannot, in fact, be forced. This argument arises from historical research as well as democratic evaluation tools such as Freedom House. Democracy must be tied to the culture and people of a given society in order to achieve substantive and enduring change; conducting an election is not sufficient to establish a truly democratic nation.

The advent of faster, cheaper, and more powerful computer hardware has led to the widespread integration of GIS technologies into decision making processes within local governments. Most GIS literature has focused on the models and benefits that the technology can produce and not on the impacts that GIS has on the organization. This research explores the political and administrative implications of utilizing a GIS to address a resource allocation problem within the Fire Service Administration of the City of Norfolk, VA. A network model is employed to allocate rescue resources throughout the city in various configurations. The goal of NFPS (Norfolk Fire and Paramedical Services) is to be able to cover the entire City of Norfolk within five minutes of travel time. City and NFPS administrators evaluate various models based upon a provided questionnaire that focuses on the administrative and political viability of each of the models produced. / Master of Science