Recent Posts Tagged With 'democracy'

• What is Democracy? (40): One man, One Vote, Ctd.

  Posted on Monday December 28th, 2009 at 06:26 in peace, democracy, equality, u.s., Senate, stability, proportional representation, great compromise, coexistence, what is democracy?, tyranny of the majority, permanent minorities

  (source, more Herblock) This is a follow-up from a previous post in this blog series. It is well known that states are overrepresented in the U.S. political system. For example, Wyoming has 0.2% of the U.S. population but has 0.6% of the Electora...

• Iconic Images of Human Rights Violations (36): Neda, Victim of Government Crackdown in Iran

  Posted on Thursday December 17th, 2009 at 02:15 in horror, freedom, elections, democracy, iran, protest, citizenship, human rights violations, neda, iconic images, iconic images of human rights violations

  A picture combo shows a screen grab posted on YouTube (L) of Iranian Neda Agha Soltani, who was reportedly killed when hit by a bullet during a protest in Tehran, along with an undated picture of her posted on the Internet on June 22, 2009. A video s...

• Why Do Countries Become/Remain Democracies? Or Don’t? (2): Education and Prosperity

  Posted on Sunday December 13th, 2009 at 04:26 in religion, education, poverty, income, Islam, democracy, statistics, foreign policy, political science, correlation, maslow, hierarchy of needs

  (This is a follow-up from a previous post). There aren’t many questions in political science that are more important than this one: which are the factors that determine whether a country becomes or doesn’t become a democracy, and that det...

• What is Democracy? (39): Something in Need of Innovation

  Posted on Thursday December 10th, 2009 at 02:40 in thinking, philosophy, law, democracy, fairness doctrine, governance, preferences, immanuel kant, direct democracy, deliberation, representative democracy, what is democracy?

  by Leo Cullum If we agree that democracy is something valuable, and that speaking about democracy means speaking about a “thick” democracy, a “deep” democracy, a “full” democracy or a maximalist version of democra...

• Human Rights Cartoon (146): Tyranny of the Majority

  Posted on Tuesday December 8th, 2009 at 02:50 in comedy, human rights, law, democracy, cartoon, human rights cartoon, what is democracy?, tyranny of the majority

  cartoon by Pavel Constantin (source) Read more… Posted in comedy, democracy, human rights cartoon, law, what is democracy? Tagged: cartoon, democracy, human rights, tyranny of the majority ...

• Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics (24): Mistakes in the Direction of Causation

  Posted on Monday December 7th, 2009 at 02:14 in education, global warming, gaming, Penguins, lies, democracy, statistics, violence, gdp, correlation, causation, lying with statistics

  Time for a more lighthearted post in this blog series. Suppose you find a correlation between two phenomena. And you’re tempted to conclude that there’s a causal relation as well. The problem is that this causal relation – if it ex...

• What is Democracy? (38): The Boundary Problem

  Posted on Wednesday December 2nd, 2009 at 01:40 in globalization, philosophy, border, palestine, democracy, immigrants, justice, apartheid, citizenship, federalism, escher, m.c. escher

  Most discussions about democracy take one thing for granted: that the composition of the group of people who (have to) govern themselves democratically is already fixed. The topics discussed are: how can these people govern themselves democratical...

• Election Protests in Iran

  Posted on Saturday November 28th, 2009 at 04:32 in politics, internet, Islam, freedom, elections, democracy, iran, protest, repression, twitter revolution, internet filtering, neda

  Six months ago, the people of Iran started their protests against the election results and the election fraud by the authoritarian regime. You can read more about the so-called Twitter-revolution here, and view some photographs of the events here. I...

• Human Rights Maps (71): Voting Rights for Felons in the U.S.

  Posted on Thursday November 19th, 2009 at 02:44 in map, elections, crime, law, democracy, maps, death penalty, prison, justice, u.s., vote, capital punishment

  (source, click on the image to enlarge) Taking away someone’s human rights can only be done for a good reason, for example if this is necessary in order to protect other people’s rights. So we can imprison people and take away their free...

• The Democratic Destruction of Democracy

  Posted on Tuesday November 10th, 2009 at 03:03 in politics, Opinion, philosophy, persuasion, truth, elections, democracy, free speech, hitler, association, weimar, plurality

  Hitler speaking in the Reichstag We’re all familiar with the phrase. Democracies allow so much freedom that anti-democratic forces can develop inside of them and ultimately destroy them from within, using the very tools that make democracy what...

• Thinking About Politics, and Doing Politics

  Posted on Thursday November 5th, 2009 at 03:46 in politics, science, thinking, Opinion, philosophy, truth, democracy, political science, knowledge, prejudice, what is democracy?

  What’s the status of thinking about political subjects? I think it’s fair to say that there’s no way of achieving something called “truth” or “scientific knowledge” when dealing with basic political concept...

• Political Graffiti (70): Our Dreams Do Not Fit In Ballot Boxes

  Posted on Wednesday November 4th, 2009 at 01:43 in politics, elections, democracy, vote, political graffiti

  Here’s more on the things made possible by democracy. And here is more political graffiti. Posted in democracy, political graffiti Tagged: democracy, elections, political graffiti, politics, vote ...

• Political Graffiti (68): Democracy Promotion

  Posted on Tuesday October 27th, 2009 at 02:55 in politics, elections, democracy, foreign policy, vote, intervention, political graffiti, democracy promotion

  More on democracy promotion here, here, and here. More political graffiti here. Posted in democracy, intervention, political graffiti Tagged: democracy, democracy promotion, elections, foreign policy, intervention, political graffiti, politics, vot...

• Why Do We Need Democracy?

  Posted on Monday October 26th, 2009 at 03:48 in philosophy, human rights, poverty, peace, democracy, prosperity, Virtue, instrumental, economic growth, justification, repression, participation

    Regular readers will know that I see democracy as a human rights issue. The standard human rights texts (declarations, treaties and constitutions) all provide a right of the people of a nation to take part in the government, choose representative...

• Iconic Images of Human Rights Violations (27): Equal Political Rights for Women

  Posted on Thursday October 22nd, 2009 at 02:17 in gender discrimination, democracy, equality, women's rights, vote, universal suffrage, political rights, one man one vote, discrimination and hate, iconic images of human rights violations

  (source) More on equal voting rights for women here. And here is something on democracy as a human right. More iconic images of human rights violations are here. Posted in democracy, discrimination and hate, equality, iconic images of human rights ...

• Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics (16): Measuring Public Opinion in Dictatorships

  Posted on Wednesday October 21st, 2009 at 11:35 in lies, freedom, democracy, statistics, survey, tyranny, poll, approval, public opinion, dictatorship, authoritarian, measurement

  In earlier posts (here and here) I described the specific difficulties faced by those wanting to measure respect for human rights in dictatorial countries. Measuring human rights requires a certain level of respect for human rights (freedom to trav...

• What is Democracy? (37): Freedom of Information

  Posted on Tuesday October 20th, 2009 at 10:10 in freedom, law, democracy, accountability, war on terror, torture, publicity, control, secrecy, transparency, freedom of information, waterboarding

  The infamous of interrogation-related document "released" by the U.S. government, in redacted form, in response to Freedom of Information Act litigation by the ACLU; the only words still readable on the document are ...these enhanced techni...

• Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics (15): Measuring Public Opinion But Leaving Out a Chunk of the Public

  Posted on Sunday October 18th, 2009 at 02:44 in politics, bush, obama, lies, democracy, statistics, survey, misleading, public opinion, presidential approval, what is democracy?, lying with statistics

  There seems to be no end to the number of battles in our war against the abuse of statistics. Take a look at this graph: (source) A poll of presidential approval ratings is a public opinion poll, so one expects to see the diverse opinions of the ent...

• Human Rights Facts (156): A Country’s Responsibility to Promote Democracy Abroad

  Posted on Saturday October 17th, 2009 at 02:29 in globalization, democracy, morality, foreign policy, u.s., governance, intervention, public opinion, self-interest, democracy promotion, human rights facts, universal democracy

  I believe that there are many good reasons why countries should be democracies (see examples of these reasons here, here, here, here and here), but does this imply that powerful countries such as the U.S. can/should promote democracy in certain o...

• Limiting Free Speech (36): Are Restrictions on the Financing of Political Campaigns a Violation of Freedom of Speech?

  Posted on Monday October 5th, 2009 at 01:04 in politics, fundraising, law, democracy, equality, free speech, influence, campaign finance, mccain-feingold, campaign finance laws, party funding, what is democracy?

  (source, more cartoons by Herblock) Whether or not, to what extent and it which manner the law should regulate the financing of political parties, candidates and campaigns, is a difficult question for democracies. Two democratic values -  freedom o...

• Human Rights Facts (147): Decreasing Levels of Violence

  Posted on Friday September 25th, 2009 at 08:41 in war, Security, globalization, philosophy, human rights, history, peace, democracy, statistics, torture, violence, state

  (source) Violence is obviously a human rights issue. Violent actions, either by the state or by fellow citizens, violate our physical integrity and personal security. Several articles of the Universal Declaration protect us against different forms o...

• Political Graffiti (62): China Out Of Tibet

  Posted on Thursday September 24th, 2009 at 03:32 in politics, china, human rights, democracy, independence, Tibet, intervention, self-government, self-determination, political graffiti

  More about Tibet. More political graffiti. Posted in democracy, intervention, political graffiti Tagged: china, human rights, independence, political graffiti, politics, self-determination, self-government, tibet ...