New Models Of Democracy

This ethnographic study investigates one of the most robust youth-adult school governance model, which was found to distribute leadership and trigger organizational change.  Chapters highlight youth and adult leadership practices and the supporting coursework.  This book advances both the fields of student voice and distributed leadership with a thorough/extensive literature review; chapter on how to study student leadership capacity building; chapter on preparing democratic citizens; and chapters on distributed leadership. You can find this book here: http://www.amazon.com/Student-Voice-School-Governance-Distributing/dp/113885154X

In establishing an anarchic framework for understanding public space as a vision for radical democracy, this article proceeds as a theoretical inquiry into how an agonistic public space might become the basis of emancipation. Public space is presented as an opportunity to move beyond the technocratic elitism that often characterizes both civil societies and the neoliberal approach to development, and is further recognized as the battlefield on which the conflicting interests of the world's rich and poor are set. Contributing to the growing recognition that geographies of resistance are relational, where the “global” and the “local” are understood as co-constitutive, a radical democratic ideal grounded in material public space is presented as paramount to repealing archic power in general, and neoliberalism’s exclusionary logic in particular.

Neoliberal economics have emerged in the post-Cold War era as the predominant ideological tenet applied to the development of countries in the global south. For much of the global south, however, the promise that markets will bring increased standards of living and emancipation from tyranny has been an empty one. Instead, neoliberalisation has increased the gap between rich and poor and unleashed a firestorm of social ills.

This book deals with the post-conflict geographies of violence and neoliberalisation in Cambodia. Applying a geographical analysis to contemporary Cambodian politics, the author employs notions of neoliberalism, public space, and radical democracy as the most substantive components of its theoretical edifice. He argues that the promotion of unfettered marketisation is the foremost causal factor in the country’s inability to consolidate democracy following a United Nations sponsored transition. The book demonstrates Cambodian perspectives on the role of public space in Cambodia's process of democratic development and explains the implications of violence and its relationship with neoliberalism.

Taking into account the transition from war to peace, authoritarianism to democracy, and command economy to a free market, this book offers a critical appraisal of the political economy in Cambodia.
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Reviews:

Gunn, G. C. 2013. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 43.1: 188-191.

Brickell, K. 2011. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 52.3: 372-374.

Percival, T. 2011. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 32.2: 270-272.

Christie, R. 2010. South East Asia Research, 19.2: 349-372.

Ordóñez de Pablos, P. 2010. International Journal of Asian Business and Information Management, 1.4: 65-66.

This paper sets out an ambitious critique of contemporary political scientists, political historians and others concerned with the history of democracy. It argues that overwhelmingly the history of democracy relies on an overtly Eurocentric narrative that emphasizes the keystone moments of Western civilization. According to this narrative, democracy has a clear trajectory that can be traced from ancient experiments with participatory government in Greece and to a lesser extent in Rome, through the development of the British parliament, the American Declaration of Independence and the French Revolution, and then finally onto the triumphant march of the liberal model of democracy across the globe over the last 200 years, particularly under Western tutelage. Histories of democracy that focus exclusively on these events not only privilege Europe and its successful colonies, but also miss the broader human story of the struggle for and achievement of democracy.

This presents us with a distinct challenge. For those whose heritage does not include a direct link to Greek assemblies, the American Congress or the French Revolution, the 'standard history of democracy' provides a distant and exclusive narrative, which limits one's ability to embrace democracy. This paper concludes by noting that, as democracy spreads out across the world today, political scientists not only need to break down the intellectual orthodoxy that democracy has exclusively Western roots, but also to embrace a more global view of democracy as a political practise that has been present at various times and in sometimes unfamiliar ways in the complex histories and rich cultural traditions of most of the people of the earth.

The word ‘democracy’ too often has been used to justify actions
which seriously contradict the democratic ideal. We wish to help restore a real, practical meaning – and value – to the word and the concept of ‘democracy’ because it is important to us in Trinidad and Tobago. Around the world, ‘democracy’ is regularly used to legitimate unpopular and repressive authority, used interchangeably with the ‘will of the people’ (embodied in the government or ruling party), ‘rule of law’, ‘majority rule’, ‘advancement of freedom’, or ‘end of tyranny’. Indeed, ‘democracy’ is so abused on all sides of the political prism that it seems to have little real meaning any longer. Unfortunately, the misuse of the word ‘democracy’ occurs not only for dishonourable reasons. It occurs also because of genuine misunderstanding and confusion by well-meaning people who have acquired simple, formulaic, but commonly expressed, understandings of democracy. The lack of clarity on what democracy precisely is, allows other less laudable – and occasionally sinister – goals to be advanced, sometimes unintentionally.

Se analizan  las distintas formas y espacios para la incorporación de los sectores populares organizados y de los movimientos sociales,  la evolución de sus prácticas, las lógicas que orientan sus  acciones frente  al Estado, la forma en que tales lógicas se construyen y transforman y las consecuencias en términos de la inclusión, principal objetivo de la democracia nolivariana:  ¿en qué medida el modelo de democracia participativa venezolano que discursivamente debería romper con la lógica del modelo neo-liberal y de la democracia representativa ha contribuido al  reconocimiento-inclusión-y participación de los sujetos excluidos tales como los sectores populares, los indígenas y las mujeres, entre otros,  sin excluir a los sujetos previamente incluidos?,

Includes Lukács' book Literature and Democracy (1947) in full, along with five supplementary essays and lectures published between 1946 and 1948; with introduction, annotations, and biographical and historical glossary.  These appear for the first time in English; many have not been translated even into German; several pieces are "occasional" works published only in pamphlets or other ephemeral form.

¿De qué muere México?

Junto a las miserias modernas, nos agobia toda una serie de miserias heredadas, fruto de la supervivencia de tipos de producción antiquísimos y ya caducos, con todo su séquito de relaciones políticas y sociales anacrónicas. No sólo nos atormentan los vivos, sino también los muertos. (Marx, 1867)

Si tuviésemos la oportunidad de mirar a México desde algún punto del futuro, seguramente nos estremeceríamos al ver el remolino de contingencias en el que se hunde, y con dolorosa urgencia nos preguntaríamos ¿por qué ocurrió así?

Pero, hoy, el problema es comprender nuestra situación desde el punto de vista que nos es accesible: el presente. Y, desde este punto de vista, lo cierto es no sólo que nuestros días se encuentran tensados por la pobreza, el desempleo y la violencia, sino más todavía, que desde la perspectiva ciudadana parecería no haber solución si no nos dotamos de otra clase política: la actual carece de entereza moral, de inteligencia estratégica, de responsabilidad y vocación pública para sacar al país del hundimiento.

“México frente a la escoria ladrona” es un estudio sobre la indignante situación que padece nuestro país. Se trata de las ilegalidades sistemáticas efectuadas por los gobernantes en contra invariablemente de sus ciudadanías. Se trata de un entramado institucional que establece los privilegios depredatorios para la coalición gobernante. Se trata, inequívocamente, de una “isla despótica” que mantiene, acentuadas, todas las lacras autoritarias e ilegales del Estado mexicano, con efectos profundamente lesivos para el bienestar público. Como si su reloj histórico se hubiese detenido antes de ajustarse con el de Occidente, y la hora de la modernidad quedara en una inalcanzable promesa.

Este libro describe la expoliación sistemática y paralizante con la que se enfrenta la sociedad mexicana. Sin embargo, para su autor, Álvaro de Regil, pensar el problema de México sólo como una cuestión de orden moral equivale a considerar que los expoliadores, la escoria ladrona, tendrían que humanizar su trato hacia los ciudadanos y ser honestos con la cosa pública. Esto es, en efecto, ir en contra de la naturaleza del actual régimen el querer inyectarle moralidad. Además, una estrategia de este tipo no acaba con la ingobernabilidad y el desgobierno, porque la expoliación se ha recrudecido y reproducido bajo su pervertida modalidad
estatalizada.

De Regil tematiza amplia y críticamente este sistema institucional y su incapacidad para procesar los desafíos planteados por el entorno. Más aún, el autor lleva su reflexión allende la mera crítica de los efectos perversos del neoliberalismo, y explora un terreno escabroso y silenciado: las tareas pendientes de la ciudadanía. En este campo, puntualiza las notas del concepto moderno reclamando sus condiciones fundamentales: participación, derechos y pertenencia. Esto es, somos lo que somos, en virtud de nuestra participación (activa o pasiva) en la vida general de nuestra sociedad. De ahí que su propuesta final sea un
llamado a la acción para desprendernos como ciudadanos de las miserias heredadas, como diría Marx, que mantienen a México en agonía.

En afinidad con ello, “México frente a la escoria ladrona” reconstruye dimensiones reveladoras sobre el trasfondo de los procesos políticos y su significación en el debate nacional e internacional. Comprender el carácter y el “telos” de esta situación en la que está atrapado el país nos permitirá evaluar nuestro ser ciudadano y saber hacia dónde nos dirigimos.

Guadalupe Lizárraga
Periodista y escritora independiente


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What is Mexico dying of?

Next to the miseries of modernity, a whole series of inherited miseries distress us, a by-product of the resilience of ancient forms of production already outdated, with all their entourage of anachronistic political and social relations. Not only those alive besiege us, but also the dead. (Marx, 1867)

If we had the chance to look at Mexico from a point in the future, surely we would shudder at seeing the whirlwind of contingencies in which it sinks, and with painful urgency we would ask ourselves, why did it happen this way?

Yet today the problem is to understand our situation from the point of view that we have access to: the present. And, from this vision, the truth is not only that daily we are stressed out by poverty, unemployment and violence, but, all the more, by, from the citizen’s perspective, the lack of solutions, unless we endow ourselves with another political class: for the current one lacks moral stature, strategic intelligence, public responsibility and vocation to lift the country from its sinking.

"Mexico vis-à-vis the Robber Scum" is an assessment of the outrageous situation endured by our country. It is about the systemic illegalities executed by those in government invariably against the citizenry. It is about an institutional edifice that establishes predatory privileges for the coalition in power. It is about, unequivocally, a “despotic island” that maintains, exacerbated, all the authoritarian and illegal depravities of the Mexican State, with repercussions deeply damaging of our social wellbeing; as if its historical clock had stopped before adjusting to the West, and the time of modernity remained an unreachable promise.

This book describes the systematic and paralysing plundering that Mexican society is facing up to. Nonetheless, for its author, Álvaro de Regil, to think about Mexico’s problems just as a matter of moral order is tantamount considering the predators, the robber scum, would need to humanise how they deal with the citizenry and be upright with the public matter. For this, to infuse morality, is indeed to go against the nature of the current regime. Moreover, a strategy of this kind does not end with the ungovernability and misgovernment, for the plundering has been exacerbated by the institutionalisation of a perverse method.

De Regil compartmentalises comprehensively and critically the institutional system and its incapacity to process the challenges posed by today’s environs. Even more, the author ponders beyond the mere critique of the perverse effects of neoliberalism, and explores a grim and subdued terrain: the pending responsibilities of the citizenry. In this area, he underscores the issues of the modern concept of democracy, demanding the fundamental conditions: participation, rights and empowerment. That is, we are what we are, by virtue of our participation (active or passive) in the public life of our society. Hence his final proposal is a call to action to get rid of, as citizens, the inherited miseries, as Marx would say, that keep Mexico in agony.

In sync with this vision, "Mexico vis-à-vis the Robber Scum" puts together quite revealing dimensions of the undertones of the political process and their meaning in the national and international debate. To grasp the character and the motives of this agony in which Mexico is trapped will allow us to assess our life as citizens and to know where we are heading.

Guadalupe Lizárraga

Independent journalist and writer

Referring to the Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry’s call for repudiation of criminal elements amongst the political parties followed by the statement of Interior Minister Reman Malik revealing the fact that the target killers arrested in Karachi have close ties with the political parties, which give rise to the ethics of democracy putting the political parties under an obligation of self assessment to adopt more transparent and inclusive internal procedures where there is an extensive lack of expectation from the politicians and parties, and where there is growing interest in democratic self-determination. In these circumstances, changes made by the parties for their own benefits are regarded as in the best interests of the wider society. These transparent internal procedures adopted by the political parties are also beneficial for the stability and legitimacy of a democratic country.

En este documento se analiza el papel que tiene la iniciativa ciudadana en México. Se argumenta que este mecanismo de participación es más exitoso para posicionar algunos temas en la agenda legislativa que para lograr que las reformas o leyes se aprueben idénticas a como las propone la ciudadanía. El texto se divide en tres secciones: en la primera se aborda el diseño institucional mexicano en la materia; en la segunda se describe el proceso político en el que se desarrolló cada una, y, finalmente, se compara la aplicación de este instrumento con sus contrapartes en América Latina.

ORGANIC PHILOSOPHY

Abortion is used in the text as an example for exploring the development of an Organic Philosophy.  Abortion, as a social issue unsettles Americans in fitful ways, some of which are highly confrontational and even violent on occasion.  It is, in the reality of the American culture, just one of several highly sensitive social issues that have several commonalities.  Whether it is abortion, euthanasia, the “death penalty,” or gun “control,” they all provide gross evidence that the American culture is still immature, incomplete, and unworkable as it has existed in the last 60 years. 

The American culture is changing.  The traditional philosophies that sustained the early beginnings of this democratic nation are no longer sufficient alone to resolve new social, political, and economic problems as they arise.  While the humanistic political philosophies of early America solved many of the problems associated with a new nation moving from a monarchical form of governance to an immature, universal form of democratic governance, there has not come into existence a universal, humanistic social philosophy to guide the resolution of existent and newly emerging social problems. 

The Organic Philosophy described here uses abortion as an example of a national social problem that can be healed peacefully using the functional components of this philosophy.  The seven organic motivator-values that are innate to the human genome, and their subsequent ethic and morality  provide the components of the Organic Philosophy, and the means of decision-making that will enable citizens to approach sensitive social issues without taking ideological positions.  The functional concern is to heal sensitive social issues that threaten social stability, while also providing positive incremental steps for a democratic society’s evolution. 

The characteristics of those motivator-values include that they are universal to our species, timeless as our species is timeless, irreducible in that more basic motivators do not underlie these motivator-values.  Further, they are immutable in that they do not change, i.e., they are constant. 

This brief paper outlines the Organic Philosophy as a means to transform tragic social and societal problems by objectively assessing those problems as being truly solvable.  It moves this and similar social problems from being ideological hand grenades to potential sources of incremental social evolution.

Demosthenes, I’ll show, has a realistic, non-ideological sense of the elemental flaws of democracy: The ambition and cunning of the few (politicians, etc.)(F1); the want of courage and smarts in the many (ordinary citizens)(F2); the general imprudence and equal fallibility of all (F3); the basic lack of human self-sufficiency (F4). Given the last two, he would find the idea of basing politics on the sufficiency of either moral virtue or expertise dangerous—blue-eyed anyway. Because the first two could be said to be inherent traits in all majorities and elites, any straightforwardly authoritarian or paternalistic scheme is ruled out in fact. Instead, the defects are to be counteracted by making sure all citizens have the best information available and by strengthening their basic capacity for critical thinking and ethical choice. Demosthenes is that rarest of creatures: An intellectual who actually believes popular rule is better than other forms of government.

This paper is an enquiry into the extent to which institutionally designing Pakistani democracy, so as to optimally accommodate the challenges posited by the tribal regions through the implementation of participatory democracy, would advance the cause of democracy. Its speculative nature is validated and adequate given the failure of the only other ideological and axiomatic rival to liberal representative, the Great Experiment. Dearth of competition in real system terms posits the danger of democratic stagnation or decline in the face of undisputed dominance without incentive to innovate and improve. Schumpeter’s view of democracy as method rather than end demands the refining and revising of its methodology though ever-evolving and inclusionary institutional design to make it individually enabling and emancipatory. Democracy must  submit to a far more rigorous test, at both the normative level of democratic theory and in the world of practice , in keeping up to the “ordinary citizens’” expectations ‘long subordinated ideals of equality, participation, accountability, responsiveness and self-realization’.
Why have I targeted the Tribal Areas?
The Pakistani tribal areas stretch from Chitral in the northeast to Balochistan’s Mt. Suleiman’s southwest end and the Afghanistan-Pakistan 2430 km Durand line frontier, which is porous owing to the tribe’s preserved ancient ethno-tribal links and lifestyle. The centralist nature of the Pakistani state is out of touch with the tribal dimension and needs to incorporate it accommodatingly.
It would be wise to pre-empt tribal secessionist movement through regional equitable growth instead of the current unsustainable growth model that I call urban explosion, which could happen through a participatory system. 
The tribal region’s volatility owes its origin to the Cold War-era US-instigated Afghan expulsion of the USSR through using madarasahs to create radical fighters called mujahedeen. Participatory democracy would neutralize this.
There is a military anti-terror operation in Waziristan  which has led to retaliatory suicide bombs in Pakistan’s cities. The US not only supplies Pakistan with military hardware but is interested in a strategic partnership in civil sectors,  showing the US would not ipso facto be opposed to democratising the tribal areas for which the money exists in the form of the $7.5 billion Kerry Lugar aid bill to help the Pakistan balance ‘democratic imperatives with security requirements.’ 
The tribal areas have been notoriously troubled as they are thought of as non-governable, but troubles arise because the tribes feel disenfranchised.

Wikipedia and e-democracy projects have in common the establishment of a mass-scale decision process. The Wikipedian method to discuss and reach consensus is described in this article by Sylvain Firer-Blaess, using the theoretical frame of Michel Foucault and Jurgen Habermas. Can this method be applied to various e-democracy projects? In part, provided that building a free encyclopedia is not the same as living the life of the city.

This article explores the role of conflict in fostering equality within the decision-making processes of the alterglobalization movement. I argue that movement actors treat conflict as constructive because it helps create “diversity.” Movement actors transform conflict from adversarial to constructive through a continuous process of decentralizing power referred to as “horizontality.” This decentralization of power is achieved through network-based decision-making structures that reject unity through agreement in
favor of connections between differences. Drawing on over 8 years of ethnographic research into movement decision-making practices, I argue that these movement practices show that although diversity leads to conflict, adversarial conflict is not caused by this flow of diversity; adversarial conflict arises only when these flows are blocked. Movement practices demonstrate that conflict can be productive if it is given space for expression. [alterglobalization movement, conflict, democracy, decision making, diversity, networks]

The EU is a structure positioned “in-between” hierarchically organized nation-state governing structures and heterarchically structured global governance structures. Thus, the EU is a hybrid which relies partly on governing and partly on governance. This two-dimensionality is a central reason why the question of the constitutional character of the EU remains fundamentally unresolved. Thus, it is proposed that the EU should aim for developing a constitutional form aimed at alleviating the tensions inherent in the European construction through a conflict of laws approach. In order to respect the hybridity of the Union, such an approach, however, will have to be based on a three-dimensional conflict of laws concept. It would have to take account of horizontal conflicts between territorial units, vertical conflicts between the EU and its member states, and also horizontal conflicts between the functionally differentiated structures of the wider society.

This article is a chapter of the book "Hope for Democracy", lauched in 2018, with 32 case studies about participatory democracy experiences. It is a reflection about the changes in Porto Alegre Participatory Budget over the years. The whole book can be downloades at:
https://www.oficina.org.pt/hopefordemocracy.html

Una asociación lineal y poco fundamentada atribuye a la izquierda la potestad sobre la participación ciudadana. Esto es un mito. Ni toda la izquierda promueve la participación, ni la derecha por definición la bloquea. Cabe identificar algunos matices. Hablar de la promoción pública de la participación es hablar de mecanismos más o menos regulados formalmente, desde los presupuestos participativos al referéndum. Su activación combina estrategias político-partidarias (vencer a los adversarios apelando al electorado, movilizar a las bases) con valores (ampliar la democracia). Mientras algunos proyectos de izquierda, una vez en el gobierno, poco han hecho por profundizar la participación (el Partido de los Trabajadores en Brasil, el Frente Amplio en Uruguay), otros lo han hecho a costa de subordinar su valor democrático a la estrategia partidaria (el Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela en Venezuela, Alianza País en Ecuador), hasta prácticamente eliminar al primero. Entonces, ¿pueden las fuerzas progresistas articular un discurso en torno a la participación?

It is undeniable that the handling of the pandemic in almost all countries in the world has been framed by Joseph Alois Schumpeter's conception of procedural democracy, which focuses on procedural elements in the formulation of the common good. One of the reason is because the majority of countries in the world choose to handle the pandemic in a monocentricprocedural method, thus ignoring society participation and initiatives. In fact, it is the society who, in many situations, have an idea of handling the pandemic more practically. Therefore, taking the practice of handling the pandemic in Indonesia as an example, this paper is here to dissect the implementation of the procedural democratic conception in the field. Through a qualitative literature study and guided by the research question: "how is the practice of limiting procedural democracy in handling the pandemic in Indonesia?", this paper then comes to the following conclusions. First, it is true that procedural democracy has become a crucial framework for the country in dealing with the pandemic. Second, however, procedural democracy also has the potential to produce a negative impact on the relationship between demos and kratos. Third, therefore, the limitations on procedural democracy are urgently needed.

The main purpose of the book is to create a model of the presidential election campaign in South Korea. The research questions included both those regarding the content of the campaign itself and, more broadly, its organization. The collected materials, posted on Facebook and Twitter accounts by the three most important candidates in the campaign, were analyzed using mixed (qualitative and quantitative) research methods. In addition to describing the results of empirical research, the book provides a broader context regarding political communication in the Republic of Korea. Because of that, the work can be useful for students of political science, international relations, communication studies, as well as Korean studies.

In the last twenty years, British governments have promoted user, citizen and public centred planning processes. To this end they have encouraged local service providers to respond to the views of the participating public. What the government means by responsiveness is not always clear. Sometimes it takes responsiveness to mean state agencies acknowledging the viewpoint of the public, i.e. ‘we have heard what you have said'. Other times responsiveness is used to mean acknowledging what the public have said and agreeing to act in accordance with it. The government suggests that responsive government can be secured by establishing deliberative forums between local people and local authorities. This claim relies on the first sense of responsiveness for its coherency. If the second sense is being used, then the claim relies on the questionable assumption that service providers automatically act on the views of the public. This article tests that assumption by reviewing 53 empirical studies on participation in the UK between 1989 and 2001. The review suggests that more often than not the participating public does not influence local state agencies. It is argued that this is because the democratic nation state tends to be influenced only by groups that possess resources that the state wants and cannot get at less cost or at all, that threaten the state and its projects, and/or that are made up by a large number of voters. Because the participating public rarely constitutes one of these three groups, it rarely influences local state agencies or the government. It is concluded that the government's ambition of responsive local state agencies requires more than 'encouragement'. The participating public must be enabled or empowered to make decisions at the local level. Two corresponding models of participation are offered. This article starts by describing participation in health and social services under the Conservatives between 1979 and 1997 and under New Labour between 1997 and 2002.

This paper was first published as Chapter 18 in “Bulgaria, terra europeansis incognita,” ISBN 978-954-91584-3-4         
(http://www.dukaty-books.com/DUKATY-BOOKS/Bulgaria,_terra_europeansis_incognita.html). The book has been written in the timeframe October 2002 – August 2009, and appeared out of print at the end of 2010. This particular chapter has been completed in late 2007 – early 2008.

Why have Seattle, Prague, Quebec and Genoa exploded against globalisation? What are its implications? In 1998 the world's 225 richest people had a combined wealth of $1 trillion. That is equal to the combined annual income of the world's 2.5 billion poorest people. The combined wealth of the three most well-to-do individuals now exceeds the combined GDP of the 48 least developed countries. In 1996 the UNDP reported that 100 countries were worse off then than 15 years earlier. Three decades ago, the people in the well-to-do countries were 30 times better off than those in countries where the poorest 20% of the world's population live. By 1998, this gap had widened to 82 times. One must suffer from a complete lack of social conscious not to find these comparisons insulting. We should ask ourselves if there is any trace of fairness in a system where 0.00000004% of the world's population has as much wealth as the poorest 42% of the world's population. So why is this occurring, and what is society doing about it?

Like The Crisis of Global Capitalism of George Soros or The Post-Corporate World of David C. Korten, The Neo-Capitalist Assault denounces the tremendous injustices of global neoliberal Capitalism and the empowerment of corporations to impose market Democracy upon the civil societies of the world. But, unlike these works, it proposes solutions conceived to benefit both developed and developing nations.

This series of seventeen essays was prepared between 1999 and 2001.  If you click the link you can access the menu for each essay, or you can look for each of them on the author's space in Academia (essays will be added periodically).

We may affirm that in the former communist regimes differences are assumed and accepted mainly by the high educated segment of population, and rejected or ignored by the large public (but we must don’t forgot that the situation is different for the diverse countries). For this reason realizing conditions necessary for an intercultural education ought to have a large priority. Roughly speaking, pupils are different by the point of view of culture, race, ethnicity, religion or gender, and sometimes teachers are not really prepared to give a good account of oneself in difficult or yet unusual situations. More that, it is not exaggerate to affirm that in the closed societies (like those former communists), only the particular characteristics of teachers, his / her personal abilities (created by himself or herself or innate) are able to supply the lack of an intercultural educational strategy. But it is more as evident that these personal abilities, just by their insularity, are not at all sufficient. Happily for Romanian education, the problem of multicultural education was already raised both at a pragmatic level (and especially in the academic domain, in humanities field, where curricula assemble frequently disciplines like gender studies or European interculturalism) and at theoretical level too.

The material here comprises discussion points and some reference links for a diverse group of people in Brisbane, Australia, who fancy themselves as “gentle thinkers”, and who meet from time to time to talk things over. All kinds of things. The topic on hand, “The Democracy Problem”, is probably of interest to thoughtful individuals in many latitudes, so I am putting it online as a general stimulus for some creative discussion. Any opinions expressed in this piece are entirely my own, and may be dissected without mercy.

This paper was first published as Chapter 38 in “Bulgaria, terra europeansis incognita,” ISBN 978-954-91584-3-4         
(http://www.dukaty-books.com/DUKATY-BOOKS/Bulgaria,_terra_europeansis_incognita.html). The book has been written in the timeframe October 2002 – August 2009, and appeared out of print at the end of 2010. This particular chapter has been completed in late 2007 – early 2008.