Journal of Democracy最新文献

{"title":"Documents on Democracy","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/jod.2023.a907699","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2023.a907699","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135324036","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Meddling Kingdom","authors":"Theresa Fallon","doi":"10.1353/jod.2023.a907698","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2023.a907698","url":null,"abstract":"The Meddling Kingdom Theresa Fallon (bio) Beijing Rules: How China Weaponized Its Economy to Confront the World. By Bethany Allen. New York: Harper, 2023. 336 pp. For far too long, the story of America's approach toward the People's Republic of China (PRC) was based on what I like to call \"hopium\"—the belief that bringing Beijing into global markets and institutions would expose them to liberal-democratic values, thereby paving the way to the country's democratization. It was a convenient story, especially for the probusiness lobby that eyed the PRC as a place with cheap labor, scant environmental regulations, and no unions. Of course, the net sum from this strategy was something very different. Instead, it created a near peer competitor to the United States, delinked trade from human rights, and inadvertently created a serious challenge (and sometimes spoiler) to the institutions of global governance. The West's addiction to \"hopium\" had another cost: It bought Beijing time. Axios journalist Bethany Allen's new book, Beijing Rules: How China Weaponized Its Economy to Confront the World, examines how Beijing has used economic coercion, the promise of its vast market, and strategic positioning inside key international institutions such as the World Health Organization and the United Nations to leverage its position as \"it faced a short window of strategic opportunity to pull ahead of a distracted West\" (p. xvii). According to Allen, trends have now emerged that suggest that \"the era of morality-free trade in the international sphere and the blind veneration of corporate profits in the domestic sphere may not continue indefinitely.\" [End Page 171] In particular, the economic and political shock of the covid-19 pandemic led to the West's realization of the danger of being overly dependent on PRC supply chains. Similar to the OPEC oil embargo of 1973, the Chinese Communist Party's decision to weaponize masks was a wakeup call for world leaders to stop relying on Beijing and start diversifying supply chains. \"The global rush for PPE [personal protective equipment] was perhaps the first time the full impact of highly motivated Chinese diaspora communities could be felt in such a tangible way,\" as people in cities around the world \"could not find masks in their local pharmacies\" after Chinese diaspora communities bought them up to send back to the PRC, Allen explains. \"In January and early February [2020], it was difficult for anyone to foresee that the entire world would soon be starving for PPE and that the individual efforts of people in overseas Chinese communities, when spurred by the top-down guidance of globe-spanning party organizations, would result in $1.2 billion worth of PPE sent back to China within a period of less than two months,\" writes Allen (p.23). Allen describes the CCP's use of China's diaspora communities as a \"dual-function strategy.\" She writes: Party leaders choose to use—abuse, in fact—legitimate organizations for their own po","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135324028","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Authoritarian Data Problem","authors":"Eddie Yang, Margaret E. Roberts","doi":"10.1353/jod.2023.a907695","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2023.a907695","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: As the race to develop artificial intelligence (AI) accelerates, access to more and higher quality data is becoming increasingly crucial for AI systems. Yet the search for more data for AI facilitates information flow between authoritarian and democratic states in a way that has important implications for the behavior and output of AI. In particular, the homogenization of data, through institutions such as censorship and propaganda in authoritarian regimes can influence the output of AI developed in democracies. On the other hand, data from democracies provide valuable information for AI that is used for repressive purposes in authoritarian regimes. The authors call for greater scholarly and policy attention on the dual effect of the two-way AI-mediated data flow between democratic and authoritarian states and lay out a research agenda that would enable us to better understand the political influences on AI.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135324029","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Democracy's Devout Defenders","authors":"Kate Baldwin","doi":"10.1353/jod.2023.a907687","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2023.a907687","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This article examines church activism for liberal democracy in sub-Saharan Africa in recent decades. The article seeks to explain churches' high levels of activism compared to a) other civil society organizations, specifically trade unions, and b) churches' varied commitments to democratic activism. The argument emphasizes the protections liberal-democratic institutions offer churches to spread their ideas without being curtailed by an all-powerful ruler. The extent to which churches need these protections depends on the degree to which their activities are vulnerable to appropriation by the state, with churches that have historically invested in schools as a method of evangelization being those most likely to advocate for liberal democracy.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135324035","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Rise of Theocratic Democracy","authors":"Nilay Saiya","doi":"10.1353/jod.2023.a907688","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2023.a907688","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Many scholars and prodemocracy organizations have documented a global democratic recession that has been occurring since the mid-2000s. Yet the reason for this democratic decay remains disputed. This article argues that the global democratic recession has coincided with, and can be largely attributed to, the emergence of an antidemocratic form of religious majoritarianism that has swept across the world since the turn of the century. The author calls this development \"theocratic democracy.\" Theocratic democracy results when religious groups and holders of state power strike an unspoken grand bargain: Political leaders back majoritarian religious groups, and these groups in return use their spiritual authority to back the political leaders. The rise of theocratic democracy has had devastating consequences for democracy.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135324037","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Constitutionalization of Democracy","authors":"Tom Ginsburg, Mila Versteeg","doi":"10.1353/jod.2023.a907686","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2023.a907686","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Recent decades have seen a sharp rise in constitutional provisions regulating core aspects of democracy, including the rules about parties, voting, and elections. The trend is apparent in both democracies and nondemocracies, although democracies tend to constitutionalize slightly more matters. Constitutionalization can help democracy by tying the hands of politicians. Looking at cross-national data, we find that constitutionalizing democracy is correlated with higher levels of democracy. However, some rules have the potential to undermine democracy, particularly in contexts where the military plays a major role in politics. The essay illustrates these dynamics with the case studies of Kenya and Thailand.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135324040","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Danger of Runaway AI","authors":"Tom Davidson","doi":"10.1353/jod.2023.a907694","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2023.a907694","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: We must reduce harms from current AI systems while also looking ahead to harms that may occur soon. Experts worry that runaway AI could cause extreme harm in the next five to twenty years. The risk is that we develop superhuman AI systems that surpass humans in domains like persuasion, strategy, hacking, and research and development; that we design these systems to pursue goals autonomously; that we accidentally give them unintended goals; and that humans lose control of these superhuman systems. Without regulation, the actions of a small number of elite AI developers could pose massive risks to the rest of society. The risk is not specific to any particular deployment context, but is inherent to the technology itself. So, in addition to regulating specific AI products, we should also regulate the development of frontier AI systems. We should develop safety standards and empower a regulatory authority to enforce them. These regulations would apply only to a small number of frontier AI developers. The risk from runaway AI could emerge very suddenly, especially if advanced AI itself has accelerated the pace of AI progress. If we wait to see the problem before responding, the regulations may come into force too late. So we should regulate proactively, requiring a government license for frontier AI developers.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136079919","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"How Oppositions Fight Back","authors":"Laura Gamboa","doi":"10.1353/jod.2023.a900435","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2023.a900435","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Around the globe, democratically elected leaders are eroding democracy by legal means, a strategy that often averts domestic and international backlash. To counter this erosion, oppositions may deploy radical, extra-institutional opposition strategies which risk backfiring and strengthening autocracy. Safer options are moderate, institutional strategies that maintain opposition legitimacy and work within democratic frameworks, an approach exemplified by the Colombian opposition during President Álvaro Uribe’s tenure. However, the success of moderate strategies hinges on strong domestic and international support for democracy. Global apathy towards democracy can combine with an autocrat’s use of a democratic façade to produce rapid democratic backsliding, as in the case of El Salvador's transition to competitive authoritarianism under President Nayib Bukele.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48623061","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The End of Village Democracy in China","authors":"Ben Hillman","doi":"10.1353/jod.2023.a900433","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2023.a900433","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Since Xi Jinping became China’s paramount leader in 2012, his top domestic priority has been the strengthening of the Chinese Communist Party’s power over government, economy, and society. This extends to village life, where a decades-long experiment with direct elections is being unwound by new efforts to establish Party control at the rural grassroots level. This essay draws on first-hand observation and Chinese sources to examine the ongoing CCP strategy for reestablishing party dominance over village affairs.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49502447","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Kuwait’s Democratic Promise","authors":"Sean Yom","doi":"10.1353/jod.2023.a900432","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2023.a900432","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Kuwait is a democratic outlier in the Middle East. In this oil-rich Muslim Arab state, the ruling Sabah monarchy claims considerable executive authority, but it also coexists with a powerful, elected parliament and well-mobilized civil society. This oft-overlooked hybrid system is rooted in liberal norms of pluralism and openness, and enables opposition blocs to advance democratic reforms and rebuff the threat of repression. A transition towards parliamentary democracy, a rarity in the Arab world, is possible. However, this will require overcoming intense cleavages within the royal family, across social groups, and between the royal autocracy and society itself.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43223117","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}