Maintaining the essential features of local democracy, representation and contestation, my theory allows for the representation of the interest of subpopulations in the global community by actors such as nongovernmental organization and intergovernmental organizations. I will begin by outlining what features are necessary for a theory’s consideration as democratic in nature. Then, relying upon democracy in a broad sense, it will be my aim to demonstrate that the right to democracy is universal human right. The following stage will provide the backing, by way of the moral progress of human rights, that the right to democracy is expressible by “importantly affected” subgroups in the global arena. The final stage of my conceptual defense will focus on the validation of representatives who have no institutional connection with the populations they represent. With such established, the paper will proceed into a practical defense, discussing how claims made by actors can be accepted or rejected by represented subpopulations. It will then become necessary to demonstrate that the paternalistic claims made by representatives are incorporable into a democratic theory without forgoing the essence of democracy. To show this is feasible, methods of appealing paternalistic claims by way of international human rights courts will be explained. Finally, possibilities to mediate general feasibility issues will be explored.

This thesis aims at critically examining the specific place of the &quot / critical&quot / and &quot / radical&quot / theories within both the theory of public administration and political theory, particularly in terms of the discursive participatory framework they offer. The fundamental question dealt with is whether or not the power and dependence analyses of these approaches (which are treated as &#039 / marginal&#039 / in the field) is convincing for an egalitarian, comprehensive and socially transformative democratic governance. Since a discussion of this sort essentially problematizes the reduction of political equality to a proceduralist and abstract philosophical equality, not to commit a similar fallacy of &quot / apriorism&quot / , the study incorporates the observations on LA-21 Turkey processes as a local governance program, in terms of a concrete contribution to theoretical discussion. In the light of direct observations, interviews and data obtained from secondary resources regarding the participatory practices, the level of organization and current capacity of political representation are inferred to be also decisive on the capacity to participate, owing this decisiveness substantially to the economic and social resources in the real social formation, hence the conditions of production of local knowledge are consequently identified as far from reflecting a democratic environment purified from power relations. Highlighting the risk for the notion of self-governance to gain a hegemonic functionality for bourgeoisie democracy concealing and perpetuating social inequalities, the thesis argues for shifting the inquire for the dominant class, from solely political-administrative sphere to civil society, and the maintainable and reproductive conditions and mechanisms of dominance between these two spheres.

<p>After the appointment of a new European Commission in 2004, “communication” was made a top priority on the agenda. The Commission presented a new communication policy, which would establish a dialogue with the citizens, thereby bringing more democracy to the union and bridging the gap to the citizens. Three documents containing the policy were published, namely an internal action plan for the Commission, Plan D which establishes the framework for national debates and a whitepaper on EU communication policy. These documents were met by mistrust and criticism from many different actors such as journalists and experts.</p><p>The aim of this master thesis is to examine this new communication policy from a deliberative democratic perspective. The thesis asks whether the new policy has a potential of contributing to deliberative democracy, by investigating the documents from a discursive point of view. Deliberative democracy focuses mainly on public discussions and the generation of a general will by public conversation where every one has a right to participate on equal terms. This thesis uses a discursive interpretation, as stated by the philosopher Jürgen Habermas, where the public sphere and political rights which constitutes the public area plays an important role. The theoretical perspective is used in the thesis to understand and assess the policy.</p><p>To be able to draw conclusions, the new communication policy is searched for discursive ideas and the occurrence is analyzed by a both qualitative and quantitative text analysis. The analysis shows that the policy includes a lot of actions that goes well along with a discursive perspective, as defined in the thesis, although some important considerations are missing. The new communication policy as presented by the European Commission has therefore a good potential of contributing to deliberative democracy in the Union.</p><p>The policy is also discussed in relation to the criticism that has been presented regarding the theory of deliberative democracy. The thesis shows that the communication policy includes actions which decrease the importance of this criticism, allowing for the policy to possibly contribute to European democracy and decreasing the democratic deficit.</p>

The aim of this thesis is to investigate, explain, compare and to a degree criticize the two theories Global Stakeholder Democracy by Terry Macdonald and Transnational Discursive Democracy by John Dryzek and their respective arguments for a global democracy, by using the method of an internal idea analysis. The two main questions of the thesis are: -  With what arguments do Macdonald and Dryzek legitimize their respective form of global democracy? -  What similarities as well as differences can be found in their argumentation for their respective theory and is it possible to see any potential internal problems in their argumentation? The results show that both Global Stakeholder Democracy and Transnational Discursive Democracy can be interpreted to share the same basic way of legitimizing democracy through a liberal value and notion of autonomy. Because of the current democratic deficit on a global level, this value is threatened. Both theories therefore try to solve this problem by promoting a pragmatic theory to democratize the global political system. The study recognizes some potential problems regarding the way both Macdonald and Dryzek argue for a global democracy. In MacDonald’s theory, the potential problem concerns mainly the lack of a clear definition of the theory’s fundamental part, what a stakeholder is. The potential problems with Dryzek’s theory derive from the fact that he might put to much trust in the concept of reflexive modernization, whether his theory will be able to actually influence discourses despite a lack of formal institutions, and finally if the theory will be able to guarantee political equality in the decision making process.

In the mid-20th century the assignment of nurturing democratic citizens in Swedish schools, was first proposed and implemented. Since then, the democratic assignment has been put aside by the schools´ second assignment: communicating knowledge. The aim of this essay is to once again bring light on this forgotten assignment. I have gathered the material for this essay by interviewing five teachers of upper secondary school. By the use of three ideal types of democratic theory I then analyze the material to determine the teachers´ views on school democracy and their ways of using it in their teaching. The ideal types are participatory democracy, discursive democracy and representative democracy. The results show that the interviewed teachers share very similar views on school democracy, close to the ideal type participatory democracy. In their use of school democracy in teaching traces of both participatory and discursive democracy, can be found.

This thesis argues that pluralism and diversity pose a more fundamental challenge to liberal constitutionalism than is sometimes recognised by liberal political theorists. While the challenges presented by moral pluralism at the philosophical level, and by cultural diversity at the socio-cultural level, have received a great deal of attention in recent political thought, the background within which these themes become salient has not always been fully acknowledged. What is new in the modern world is not so much diversity of lifestyles, but the disintegration of frameworks that traditionally provided an unproblematic basis for political authority. What this modern challenge forces us to confront then, is the idea that ‘the people’ who are subject to law, are also, as citizens, the ultimate source of political authority. I consider in detail the work of two contemporary political theorists who have provided among the most sustained and far-reaching attempts to respond to this challenge, Charles Taylor and Jürgen Habermas. Both make a significant contribution to responding to the contemporary situation of pluralism by taking on board the ‘dialogical’ nature of identity, and the role of the ‘people’ as the ultimate source of political power. However each places a heavy reliance on a privileged standpoint that may shield political judgement from the full implications of modern pluralism: Habermas, by appealing to ‘post-conventional morality’ and Taylor, by appealing to an incipient teleology.

After the appointment of a new European Commission in 2004, “communication” was made a top priority on the agenda. The Commission presented a new communication policy, which would establish a dialogue with the citizens, thereby bringing more democracy to the union and bridging the gap to the citizens. Three documents containing the policy were published, namely an internal action plan for the Commission, Plan D which establishes the framework for national debates and a whitepaper on EU communication policy. These documents were met by mistrust and criticism from many different actors such as journalists and experts. The aim of this master thesis is to examine this new communication policy from a deliberative democratic perspective. The thesis asks whether the new policy has a potential of contributing to deliberative democracy, by investigating the documents from a discursive point of view. Deliberative democracy focuses mainly on public discussions and the generation of a general will by public conversation where every one has a right to participate on equal terms. This thesis uses a discursive interpretation, as stated by the philosopher Jürgen Habermas, where the public sphere and political rights which constitutes the public area plays an important role. The theoretical perspective is used in the thesis to understand and assess the policy. To be able to draw conclusions, the new communication policy is searched for discursive ideas and the occurrence is analyzed by a both qualitative and quantitative text analysis. The analysis shows that the policy includes a lot of actions that goes well along with a discursive perspective, as defined in the thesis, although some important considerations are missing. The new communication policy as presented by the European Commission has therefore a good potential of contributing to deliberative democracy in the Union. The policy is also discussed in relation to the criticism that has been presented regarding the theory of deliberative democracy. The thesis shows that the communication policy includes actions which decrease the importance of this criticism, allowing for the policy to possibly contribute to European democracy and decreasing the democratic deficit.