The purpose of this study is to find what sound practices are available for the promotion of democratic living in the secondary school, and to determine how these practices can be applied to a program of action.

The aim of this study is to investigate wether the participatory democracy is a threat or a complement to the representative democracy. To achieve my purpose I will focus on two different lokal councils, the civil council in Hovsjö and the youth council in Västra Skogås, which have been objects of the urban policy in 1998. The theoretical framework on which this study is based consists of the participation democratic theory, representative democratic theory and implementation theory. By problemizing these theoretical frameworks in comparison with eachother I will mapp how these two lokal councils were implemented. The research question is: In what way was the civil council and the youth council a complement or threat to the representative democracy? In which way was it difficult to implement them? The method used for this purpose is a qualitative comparative case study. In this study I derive an ideal type to be able to compare the participatory and the representative democratic theory. Four contrasts between the theoretical frameworks are being studied to investigate whether the two councils has functioned as threats or complements to the representative democracy. The main result of the study is that these two councils met several problems in the implementationprocess. The participation democracy were not able to function as a complement to the representative democracy. In many ways it was a threat but also the actors in the representative democracy were not willing to delegate power and decisions to the citizens.

This thesis reassesses the significance of the prominent journalist and political thinker Walter Lippmann within the intellectual history of American democracy in the early twentieth century. It argues that he shaped this history more distinctively and more contingently than the existing scholarship allows. Contesting the elitist vision of technocratic government associated with him by scholars since the 1980s, the thesis contends that he became influential because his democratic theory provided his contemporaries with a demanding account of political culture. By combining the conceptual resources of liberal constitutionalism with social psychology, Lippmann developed a particular kind of democratic theory, which explained opinion formation through the political dynamics of existing cultural environments, and which animated a particular mode of political thought in the early twentieth century. This mode made him into one of the leading theorists of American democracy in the 1910s and especially the 1920s. It also exposed him to sustained criticism during the economic and international crises of the 1930s and 1940s. At stake in this mode were the possibilities and difficulties of explaining politics in a modern democracy through cultural concepts.

This thesis offers an alternative of political leadership through a literature review of democratic theory as categorized into three models: classical, elitist, and egalitarian. The three models considered an ethical, an institutional, and an economic institutional postulate of political elites and their relationships. Still, the democratic elitist model emerging as the dominant model has been challenged by the egalitarian model enforcing economic institutional elites to be accountable to mass interest. As a competing idea, the egalitarian democratic model has been analyzed for its desirability over the democratic elitist model. This study is worthwhile in instigating an underscored concern surrounding economic institutional elites in the scope of accountable political elites, and in calling forth a further study on the preferred alternative, democratization of economic institutional elites.

This dissertation looks at the challenges that deliberative democratic theory encounters when it tries to offer a rich account of inclusion yet refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of external protest. While sympathetic to deliberative democracy’s goals, I challenge this focus upon the deliberative group as the theory tries to satisfy requirements of inclusion and legitimacy. In response I offer a normative account of protest within a larger deliberative framework – one that offers a more comprehensive account of democratic inclusion. I look at critiques of deliberative democracy, particularly in terms of the theory’s ability to account for pluralism, and I argue that in order to meet this challenge we need to offer a normative justification of protest. Moreover, we need to do this not only to achieve full and effective inclusion but also to deal with the lack of efficacy that marginalized deliberants may encounter even when requirements of formal and effective inclusion are met. As I address these challenges I offer a theory of protest-as-deliberation in which I develop a normative justification of protest and set out the conceptual changes that allow this justification to be normatively and practically viable. My account takes protest, as something outside of and in opposition to the deliberative group, seriously and extends the deliberative framework to include protest; importantly, it does this without co-opting protestors. Drawing from previous critiques, I develop the normative and practical links that are necessary in order to facilitate a deliberative dialogue between protestors and the deliberative group. The conceptual changes that are necessary in order to realize protest-as-deliberation require that we re-evaluate the impact that deliberative criteria of reason-giving has upon effective inclusion and people’s efficacy and that we change these criteria accordingly. Additionally, we need to revisit the democratic capacity of the public sphere, reconceptualized as the deliberative polity in which the process of protest-as-deliberation takes place. When we do this we ought to place a greater emphasis upon available public spaces, both physical and conceptual, that deliberants and protestors need in order for effective deliberation and contestation to occur. / Thesis (Ph.D, Political Studies) -- Queen's University, 2008-12-01 14:58:51.95

I argue that Friedrich Nietzsche provides us with a political philosophy that deserves serious consideration as a uniquely anti-democratic position within the canon of modern political theory. Beyond recent attempts to democratise Nietzsche's thoughts on power and self-creation, I provide an analysis of Nietzsche's anti-democratic impulse that demonstrates how the elements of hierarchy and philosophy form the core of an antidemocratic and anti-universalist political project in Nietzsche's mature thought. Hitherto, many of Nietzsche's interpreters have assumed that his thought yields no unambiguous political philosophy because he fails to present his ideas in a systematic way. Yet it may be argued that Nietzsche's political thought does reveal a significant, if skeletal, structure that is built upon consistent ideas, however unsystematically presented. The overall aim of this thesis is to determine the best way to characterize what is uniquely political in Nietzsche. I claim that the political in Nietzsche has to do with the relationship between politics as hierarchy and philosophy as independent value creation. I present my thesis in three parts. Firstly, I develop my argument within a critique of recent democratic interpretations of Nietzsche. Secondly, I illustrate the relationship between hierarchy and philosophy through an original exegesis of Nietzsche's texts. And finally, by engaging in a comparative analysis of Hannah Arendt's political theory, I offer an example of how Nietzsche's anti-democratic project may be employed as a tool in the ongoing consideration of important issues in political theory.

Debates about the use of torture in order to protect democracy have become increasingly prevalent in the wake of September 11, 2001 and the war on terror. This thesis examines pro-torture arguments based on considerations of national security. Recently these arguments have had the most traction when advanced within the republican mode of democratic theory. I argue that torture undermines democratic legitimacy because of the secrecy it involves when used for interrogational purposes. Publicity about acts committed in the name of the demos is an essential aspect of democratic legitimacy. For interrogational torture to be effective, major features of its use must be kept secret. This secrecy is incompatible with classical republicanism and the theory of collective responsibility it entails because it interferes with the ability of the people to participate meaningfully in democracy, which is an essential feature of republicanism. / Graduate

The scholarly debate on Venezuela's democratic character has become tremendously polarized since the election of Hugo Chavez in 1998. This starkly divided debate has demonstrable impact on the policy realm, as well as the scholarly literature on democratic theory. This debate has run along ideological lines and has focused on differing conceptualizations of normative democracy, namely representative and participatory avenues of democratic engagement. Beyond providing an impactful analysis of this academic debate, this thesis works to supply an Arendtian defense of participation as a potential lense to assess Venezuela's democratic character. I will effectively argue that scholars should return to traditional conceptualizations of democratic theory, such as Arendt's, in order to provide richer and more substantial empirical assessments of democratic performance in light of the multitude of recent experimentations in democratic praxis that has swept the world. This project is relevant to both the scholarly community, as well as the policy realm. / Master of Arts

This doctoral thesis examines the political and democratic implications of transformations in nuclear power policy, with a focus on the formalised spaces of public engagement situated in three ‘eras’ of nuclear power development. The research is particularly focussed upon the Planning Act 2008, designed to speed up the planning process around large-scale infrastructure including nuclear power. To date the political consequences of the Act have received little academic attention. Building upon key debates in Geography and Planning situated around notions of ‘post-politics’ as well as other conceptualisations of ‘contentious’ political and democratic interventions including STS and state-theoretical perspectives, this thesis examines the consequences for political contestation around nuclear power, in relation to spaces of consultation. These new forms of public engagement are based around a ‘rescaled and segmented’ policy framework created by the Planning Act. A central argument of this is thesis is that the Planning Act cannot be viewed in isolation however. Rather it should be understood in relation to tensions regarding the spatial politics and political opportunities present in previous forms of public engagement around nuclear power, as well as the contradictions created between particular ideological underpinnings of government, and simultaneous commitments to certain ‘objects of governance’, in this instance, nuclear power. Three eras of nuclear power development form the foci of the research. Firstly, an examination of the ‘forgotten inquiry’ between 1988-1989 into the construction of Hinkley C nuclear power station, which was never built due to the collapse of the economic case for nuclear due to privatisation. Through archival research and interviews, this chapter traces empirically how ‘political opportunities’ were enacted and created by campaign groups within the inquiry setting, and how various spatial strategies were utilised to politicise the inquiry. The second empirical chapter addresses the participatory era of New Labour, where new collaborative experiments were developed to negotiate nuclear issues. Through analysis of policy documents and interview data, the ways in which the enthusiasm towards participatory governance was problematised through the return of new nuclear power onto the policy agenda is explored, with particular attention to ‘object-focussed’ state theory. Thirdly, the effects of the ‘rescaled’ consultative framework of the Planning Act are explored through interviews, policy documents, and ethnographic research. Situated within the context of the second attempt to construct Hinkley C, this chapter provides fertile ground for comparative analysis with the 1980’s Inquiry. I argue that the Act attempts to solve some of the key tensions of previous policy, attempting to speed up the planning process whilst maintaining commitments to collaborative forms of public engagement through consensus-based decision-making. The spatial framing of the Act is seen as key to processes of post-politicisation however, where substantial concerns regarding the profound uncertainties of the UK nuclear revival are displaced to other forms of engagement beyond planning. This attempt to ‘solve political dissensus through space’ has ‘unintended consequences’ however which are explored in the conclusion. This thesis brings empirical attention to the’ where’ of politics in different policy settings. Theoretical discussions regarding the relationship between spatial politics, and more nuanced understandings of post-politics and the political are developed through this thesis.

This thesis argues that ‘democracy’ can better be understood in terms of a conceptual diarchy of ‘isonomia’ (equal political rights) and ‘isegoria’ (equal speech rights), rather than the conventional diarchy of ‘will’ and ‘opinion’ that originated in the era of absolute monarchy. As the proposed diarchy has its origin in classical Greece, the thesis starts with a brief overview of the institutional changes in sixth-, fifth- and fourth-century Athenian democracy that implemented the distinction in different ways, and examines some of its dysfunctions. The particular aspect of Athenian democracy under focus is sortition – the random selection of citizens for public office – viewed in antiquity as democratic, whereas election was viewed as an aristocratic or oligarchic selection mechanism. The thesis takes issue with Bernard Manin’s claim that the ‘triumph of election’ was on account of the natural right theory of consent, arguing that sortition-based proxy representation is a better way of indicating (hypothetical) consent than preference election. The thesis then seeks to clarify the concept(s) of representation – essential to the implementation of the democratic diarchy in modern large-scale societies – and to study how the diarchy has been reincarnated in modern representative democracies, along with an examination of the pathologies thereof. Consideration is given as to what the deliberative style of assemblies selected by lot should be, alongside evaluation of the epistemic potential of cognitive diversity and the ‘wisdom of crowds’. Given the need for both isonomia and isegoria to assume a representative form in large modern states, Michael Saward’s Representative Claim is adopted as a theoretical model to extend the reach of political representation beyond elections. The thesis concludes with tentative proposals as to how the fourth-century reforms (delegation of the final lawmaking decision to randomly-selected nomothetic courts) might be used as a template for modern institutions to resolve some of the problems of mass democracy.