Challenges Facing India, Myanmar and Thailand: The Future of Democratic Progress

In addition to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, India, Myanmar and Thailand face a myriad of crises that pose a serious challenge to each society's democracy, development and equality. The chapter probes into the influence external powers may have on the region's democratic progress by asking the following questions: What are the implications of China's rise for the rest of Asia, and in particular, India, Myanmar and Thailand? Has China or the US contributed to the recent illiberal trends in the region? In any case, the effect of US-China relations in the region's security, development and the respect of democratic values will have an enduring and profound influence on Asia after the pandemic. As the world moves towards meeting UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is up to India, Myanmar, Thailand and other countries in Asia to also uphold them, including democratic values. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022.

The immediate and long-term consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic on education in Portugal: An empirical exploration

The purpose of this article is to analyze how the Covid-19 pandemic contributed to the increase in the number of people in situations of vulnerability and, consequently, to the increase of social and economic inequalities that, historically, have thriven in Brazil. Therefore, it starts with an analytical reconstruction of the concepts of necropolitics and democratic legitimacy, proposed by Achille Mbembe and Pierre Rosanvallon, respectively. Thus, it seeks to show, preliminarily, how public policies and government management during the crisis contributed to the worsening of the post-pandemic chaotic scenario, with the resulting ratification and, even, resurgence of the invisibility of vulnerable groups, through the implementation of increasingly indifferent policies and, in some cases, refractory to the desires and needs of these groups, which will be considered mainly from the perspective of Achille Mbembe's necropolitics. Then, within the scope of this analysis, the forms of legitimacy (impartiality, proximity and reflexivity). Through this sophisticated conception of the democratic experience, viewed as irreducible to its electoral dimension (delegation democracy), an attempt will be made to explain the extent to which the increased vulnerability of various social groups in the context of the pandemic can be considered as an expression of greater democratic deficit in Brazil. © 2023: Author(s).

Europa y Japón: socios con valores comunes en un mundo incierto

En un escenario internacional cada vez más incierto, en el que todavía no se ha dejado atrás la pandemia de Covid-19, a lo que se suma la necesidad de gestionar la ilegítima invasión rusa de Ucrania, así como unas relaciones entre Estados Unidos y China cada vez más tensas, Europa y Japón han reafirmado sus vínculos históricos, económicos y políticos con dos acuerdos de asociación, uno de carácter económico y otro estratégico, en vigor desde 2019. El continente asiático se ha convertido, además, en el principal eje geopolítico del mundo, y Japón quiere tener un papel relevante en el nuevo escenario al que ha respondido mediante su iniciativa del Free and Open Indo-Pacific, a la que Europa ha respondido con ciertas reservas. ¿Deben Europa y Japón seguir profundizando en su relación? ¿Cuáles son los ámbitos susceptibles de mejora? El marco adecuado debe ser, en nuestra opinión, el "orden internacional basado en normas" del que ambos actores son claros defensores, y los valores comunes de democracia, Estado de Derecho y protección de derechos fundamentales que los unen.Alternate :In an increasingly uncertain international environment, in which we are still trying to put the Covid-19 pandemic behind us while trying to manage the illegitimate Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as the increasingly tense relations between the United States and China, Europe, and Japan have reaffirmed their historical, economic and political ties with two association agreements, one economic and the other strategic, in force since 2019. In addition, the Asian continent has become the geopolitical axis of the world, and Japan wants to play a relevant role through its Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) initiative, to which Europe has responded somewhat hesitantly. Should Europe and Japan continue to deepen their relationship? What are the areas for improvement? The appropriate framework, in our opinion, should be the "rules-based international order" of which the two actors are firm defenders, and the shared values of democracy, rule of law, and protection of fundamental rights that unite them.

Media Policies and Practices in Zimbabwe's ‘New Dispensation'

Mnangagwa's ascendancy into the presidency in November 2017 came with significant promise for Zimbabweans who were tired of the long autocratic rule of President Robert Mugabe. Touting itself as the ‘New Dispensation' and Zimbabwe's ‘Second Republic', the new regime promised to lead Zimbabwe into prosperity, underpinned by respect for democratic principles and the rule of law. Significantly, Mnangagwa's regime reached out to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, promised to restore relations with the international community and declared that Zimbabwe was ‘open for business'. In this chapter, I argue that the Second Republic's declared intentions have not been matched by its actions, with specific reference to the media. Since the general elections in July 2018, Zimbabweans have experienced various forms of repression that have included violent disruption of demonstrations and the brutal and public killing of civilian protestors by the army. This assault on civic spaces and basic liberties has been accompanied by similar efforts targeting opposition political parties and spaces. The new regime has also used different tactics, including co-optation, to control the media and emasculate communicative spaces. I conclude that, under Mnangagwa, there has been more continuity than change from the old media policies and practices of Robert Mugabe. Because of this, the significance of Mnangagwa's formative project should be seriously doubted. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Parliamentarism in the Pandemic: Contemporary Challenges

Parliamentary democracy has been stress-tested in the COVID-19 pandemic. The Parliament, as the representation of the people, must be able to work and make unpopular decisions to protect society. Only in a transparent and legitimate decision-making process is it possible to win the support of the people. Parliamentarism in the pandemic must function effectively and safely. Also important is a legally secure election of the parliament in times of crisis to have a legislator legitimised by the people. In times of crisis, a functioning parliamentary system is particularly important for a democracy. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies to Restore Individual and Collective Well-Being

This essay begins with Nikole Hannah-Jones's assessment of the solidarity that has sustained African Americans' hope that our country can still make good on the promise of democracy. This social resilience has sustained BIPOC communities through the pandemic in ways that demonstrate how personal well-being is rooted in collective wellness. Research on students' understanding of social resilience has examined how feelings of dignity and self-sufficiency foster hope and enable collective agency. This dynamic is vital to culturally sustaining pedagogies that help students engage with the lifeways that help them feel connected and hopeful. We discuss critical hip hop pedagogy as an example of culturally engaged teaching that can cultivate students' social resilience by acknowledging the dignity of their communal experiences and traditions in ways that can sustain hope and enable collective action.

The "human ethical profile" (HEP) and the ethics of care: requirements for returning to school in Mexico facing the new normal

The pandemic has forced governments to implement emergent actions to help the population return to their "normal” activities, such as returning to face-to-face school activities. In this work, it was sought to determine the need, or not, of a synergy between educational authorities and the student population that allows students to return to face-to-face classes at the basic and intermediate levels. A contextual review of the pandemic caused by COVID-19 was carried out in relation to the possibilities of safe return to classes in Mexico, and the features that configure a "Human Ethical Profile” (HEP), derived from the "ethics of care”, were analyzed to contrast them with government actions. The foregoing, through a documentary review in the official media of the Ministry of Health, to know the behavior of the epidemiological traffic light regarding the institutional actions used by the Mexican government and the population response in terms of prevention measures. As a result, it was obtained that both the HEP and the minimum ethics, are essential requirements to achieve mutual care derived from actions between the government and citizen spheres for a safe return to face-to-face classes. © 2023, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana. All rights reserved.

Vulnerability and Democracy: social vulnerability as a factor in increasing the democratic deficit in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil

The purpose of this article is to analyze how the Covid-19 pandemic contributed to the increase in the number of people in situations of vulnerability and, consequently, to the increase of social and economic inequalities that, historically, have thriven in Brazil. Therefore, it starts with an analytical reconstruction of the concepts of necropolitics and democratic legitimacy, proposed by Achille Mbembe and Pierre Rosanvallon, respectively. Thus, it seeks to show, preliminarily, how public policies and government management during the crisis contributed to the worsening of the post-pandemic chaotic scenario, with the resulting ratification and, even, resurgence of the invisibility of vulnerable groups, through the implementation of increasingly indifferent policies and, in some cases, refractory to the desires and needs of these groups, which will be considered mainly from the perspective of Achille Mbembe's necropolitics. Then, within the scope of this analysis, the forms of legitimacy (impartiality, proximity and reflexivity). Through this sophisticated conception of the democratic experience, viewed as irreducible to its electoral dimension (delegation democracy), an attempt will be made to explain the extent to which the increased vulnerability of various social groups in the context of the pandemic can be considered as an expression of greater democratic deficit in Brazil. © 2023: Author(s).

Youth participation in environmental sustainability: insights from the Lisbon participatory budget

PurposeThis article poses the question on whether and how youth participation in environmental sustainability makes a difference within participatory budgets (PBs). This is a question worth asking because PBs have pursued, from the very beginning, goals of social sustainability through the inclusion of social groups that struggle to make their voices heard, as in the case of the youth. As young people show an increasing capacity to self-organise around environmental issues, a knowledge gap emerges as to the contribution that youth can give to environmental sustainability within PBs.Design/methodology/approachThe 2021 edition of the Lisbon PB (2021PB) has been analysed through desk research - document analysis using the city council's website as the main source of information, and fieldwork - an organisation of one two-day workshop with 20 young students through a partnership between the local authority and the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon. Methods were applied to retrieve findings on youth participation in environmental sustainability in the 2021PB.FindingsThe youth show a relative increase of participation in the 2021PB and emerge as a key target group in funded proposals. Convergence with student proposals suggest shared awareness on the role of youth in the pursuit of social sustainability. The success of health-related proposals confirms ownership of (young) citizens over the concept of environmental sustainability, which further relies on the various scopes of funded proposals at both city and neighbourhood levels. In the workshop, students did not stick to specific themes and struggled to connect present criticalities and future imaginaries.Research limitations/implicationsFocus on one case study necessarily limits the generalisation of findings. Nevertheless, the 2021PB illuminates pathways of research on youth participation in environmental sustainability through participatory budgeting that are worth clearing in the future, such as the role of digital participation, dynamics induced by extreme events as the COVID-19 pandemic and PBs' capacity to intercept environmental activism.Practical implicationsDecision-makers and practitioners can take advantage of findings to acknowledge the potential of youth participation in PBs to reframe the take of environmental sustainability.Social implicationsThe article provides new inputs for future developments in the operationalisation of social and environmental sustainability through participatory budgeting.Originality/valueThis article examines original data retrieved from the 2021PB. Data analysis is backed by the literature review of key democratic challenges in social and environmental sustainability within participatory budgeting.

Still Muted: The Limited Participatory Democracy of Zoom Public Meetings

Recent research has demonstrated that participants in public meetings are unrepresentative of their broader communities. Some suggest that reducing barriers to meeting attendance can improve participation, while others believe doing so will produce minimal changes. The COVID-19 pandemic shifted public meetings online, potentially reducing the time costs associated with participating. We match participants at online public meetings with administrative data to learn whether: (1) online participants are representative of their broader communities and (2) representativeness improves relative to in-person meetings. We find that participants in online forums are quite similar to those in in-person ones. They are similarly unrepresentative of residents in their broader communities and similarly overwhelmingly opposed to the construction of new housing. These results suggest important limitations to public meeting reform. Future research should continue to unpack whether reforms might prove more effective at redressing inequalities in an improved economic and public health context. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Urban Affairs Review is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Constitutional Resilience and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Perspectives from Sub-Saharan Africa

This book explores the resilience of constitutional government in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, connecting and comparing perspectives from ten countries in sub-Saharan Africa to global trends. In emergency situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, a state has the right and duty under both international law and domestic constitutional law to take appropriate steps to protect the health and security of its population. Emergency regimes may allow for the suspension or limitation of normal constitutional government and even human rights. Those measures are not a license for authoritarian rule, but they must conform to legal standards of necessity, reasonableness, and proportionality that limit state action in ways appropriate to the maintenance of the rule of law in the context of a public health emergency. Bringing together established and emerging African scholars from ten countries, this book looks at the impact government emergency responses to the pandemic have on the functions of the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary, as well as the protection of human rights. It also considers whether and to what extent government emergency responses were consistent with international human rights law, in particular with the standards of legality, necessity, proportionality, and non-discrimination in the Siracusa Principles. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

The Pandemic as an Idiosyncratic Case of a State of Exception

One of the characteristics of constitutionalism is that it usually flourishes in societies experiencing a state of normality. It is telling that its worldwide ascendance during the last two and a half centuries went hand-in-hand with a long-term mitigation of the use of mass organized violence in international as well as in national politics. COVID-19, however, is an asymmetric threat for humankind which could prove itself to have consequences comparable to those of a war. Whether this or eventual future pandemics might be enough to jeopardize the constitutional acquis is still an open question. Our aim shall be to show that the answer to such questions is not so much a matter of constitutional theory as of historical reality. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Democracy after Covid: Challenges in Europe and Beyond

This book, one of the first of its kind, explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on modern Western democracies from a comparative constitutional law and policy perspective. Through 11 scholarly contributions, it tackles cutting-edge topics for the liberal state, such as emergency legislation, judicial scrutiny of COVID-19 measures, parliamentarism and executive decision-making during the pandemic. The book examines these topics both from a microscopic national constitutional angle, with a focus on European states, and from a macroscopic regional and comparative angle, on par with the American example. The COVID-19 pandemic is thus treated as an international state of emergency that has enabled far-reaching restrictions on essential human rights, such as freedom of movement, freedom of religion or even major political rights, while giving rise to the ‘administrative state.' This edited volume explores each of these pressing themes in this exceptional context and evaluates different liberal states' responses to the pandemic. Were these responses reasonable, effective and democratic? Or is the COVID-19 pandemic just the beginning of a new era of global democratic backsliding? How can liberal democracies manage similar crises in future? What lessons have we learned? The institutional knowledge gained turns out to be the key for the future of the rule of law. © The Editor(s) (ifapplicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

COVID-19 and the Case Against Neoliberalism: The United Kingdom's Political Pandemic

This book seeks to better understand the meaning and implications of the UKs calamitous encounter with the COVID-19 global pandemic for the future of British neoliberalism. Construing COVID-19 as a political pandemic and mobilising a novel applied political philosophy approach, the authors cultivate fresh intellectual resources, both analytical and normative, to better understand why the UK failed the COVID-19 test and how it might ‘fail forward' so as to strengthen its resilience. COVID-19 they argue, has intercepted the UK government's decades-long experimentation with neoliberalism at what appears to be a threshold moment in this model's life course. Neoliberalism has served as a key progenitor of the country's vulnerability: the pandemic has cruelly unveiled the failings of neoliberal logics and legacies which have placed the country at elevated risk and hampered its response. The pandemic in turn has attenuated underlying systemic maladies inherent in British neoliberalism and served as a great disruptor and potential accelerant of history;a consequential episode in the tumultuous life of this politico-economic model. To meaningfully ‘build back better', a true renaissance of social democracy is needed. Drawing upon the neorepublican tradition of political philosophy, the authors confront neoliberalism's hegemonic but parochial concept of human freedom as non-interference and place the neorepublican idea of freedom as non-domination in the service of building a new UK social contract. This book will be of interest to political philosophers, political geographers, medical sociologists, public-health scholars, and epidemiologists, to stakeholders engaged in the public inquiry processes now gathering momentum globally and to architects of build back better programmes, especially in western advanced capitalist economies. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

The Key Role of Social Movements in Protecting the Health of People and the Planet Comment on "Ensuring Global Health Equity in a Post-pandemic Economy"

In his recent article, titled "Ensuring Global Health Equity in a Post-pandemic Economy," Ronald Labonte addresses a key challenge the world is facing, trying to 'build back' after the global crisis related to the COVID-19 pandemic. He explores and critically examines different policy options, from a more inclusive 'stakeholder model' of capitalism, to a greater role of states in shaping markets and investing in the protection of health and the environment, to more radical options that propose to reframe the capitalist mantra of growth and look at different ways to value and center our societies around what really matters most to protect life. Social movements are key players in such transformation, however the political space they move in is progressively shrinking.

Living in a Democracy as a Fallen People: A REVIEW ESSAY

Rather, it would be more correct to say that Donald Trump found a ready audience for nationalism and postliberal thinking in the United States and rode a seemingly unlikely wave into the White House by semi-miraculously navigating the twists and turns of the Electoral College. COVID-19, of course, has proved to be a breeding ground of predominantly right-wing conspiracy theories, including regarding vaccines even though they were the result of a Trump-led program. [...]he made an argument that Vice President Mike Pence would be able to refuse to certify the election results. Tocqueville approached democracy as a young aristocrat from a family that had suffered in the French Revolution.

Electoral Democracy and Working-Age Mortality.

Policy Points The erosion of electoral democracy in the United States in recent decades may have contributed to the high and rising working-age mortality rates, which predate the COVID-19 pandemic. Eroding electoral democracy in a US state was associated with higher working-age mortality from homicide, suicide, and especially from drug poisoning and infectious disease. State and federal efforts to strengthen electoral democracy, such as banning partisan gerrymandering, improving voter enfranchisement, and reforming campaign finance laws, could potentially avert thousands of deaths each year among working-age adults. CONTEXT: Working-age mortality rates are high and rising in the United States, an alarming fact that predates the COVID-19 pandemic. Although several reasons for the high and rising rates have been hypothesized, the potential role of democratic erosion has been overlooked. This study examined the association between electoral democracy and working-age mortality and assessed how economic, behavioral, and social factors may have contributed to it. METHODS: We used the State Democracy Index (SDI), an annual summary of each state's electoral democracy from 2000 to 2018. We merged the SDI with annual age-adjusted mortality rates for adults 25-64 years in each state. Models estimated the association between the SDI and working-age mortality (from all causes and six specific causes) within states, adjusting for political party control, safety net generosity, union coverage, immigrant population, and stable characteristics of states. We assessed whether economic (income, unemployment), behavioral (alcohol consumption, sleep), and social (marriage, violent crime, incarceration) factors accounted for the association. FINDINGS: Increasing electoral democracy in a state from a moderate level (defined as the third quintile of the SDI distribution) to a high level (defined as the fifth quintile) was associated with an estimated 3.2% and 2.7% lower mortality rate among working-age men and women, respectively, over the next year. Increasing electoral democracy in all states from the third to the fifth quintile of the SDI distribution may have resulted in 20,408 fewer working-age deaths in 2019. The democracy-mortality association mainly reflected social factors and, to a lesser extent, health behaviors. Increasing electoral democracy in a state was mostly strongly associated with lower mortality from drug poisoning and infectious diseases, followed by reductions in homicide and suicide. CONCLUSIONS: Erosion of electoral democracy is a threat to population health. This study adds to growing evidence that electoral democracy and population health are inextricably linked.

Thinning the Herd: COVID-19 and the Rhetoric of Trumpian Catastrophe

As COVID-19 infections spread in early 2020, the term herd immunity drew the Trump administration's attention as a remedy for redressing the pandemic. However, scientific experts warned the Trump administration against adopting herd immunity as a pandemic response. The Trump administration was unmoved. I argue that understanding the Trump administration's incongruous pandemic response is impossible without theorizing the deeper catastrophic formations uniting herd immunity and the political Right. Drawing evidence from the Trump administration and its allies, I analyze herd immunity as a reflection of a catastrophic form of social Darwinism emerging from the Trump administration's coronavirus messaging. By exploring the Trump administration's general enthusiasm for catastrophe, I offer a fresh scholarly contribution at the intersection of rhetorical studies, public address, and health, political, and scientific communication, ultimately illuminating larger theoretical and political lessons for the discipline and beyond.

How Electoral Integrity Matters in an Era of Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic: Experience from Ghana's Eighth General Election

This article examined whether, in the pandemic, the conduct of Ghana's 2020 general elections conformed to acceptable international standards or not? Analysing data drawn from 120 respondents based on face-to-face and telephone interviews, the study established that the measures for pre-election and polling day activities guaranteed the integrity of the elections. The electoral laws and system, the mechanics for voter registration, polling, and balloting were fair, transparent, and inclusive. The fair application of the electoral laws, openness, and stakeholders' active participation in the electoral process obviated fraud. Both domestic and international observers validated the election result declared by the EC because the processes satisfied the standards for free and fair elections even though Ghanaian diasporas were disenfranchised, and a few administrative and technical challenges occurred. Hence, electoral reform targeting efficient management, enlargement of the franchise to capture diasporas' votes, and an electoral system that supports proportional representation albeit a possibility of proliferation of parties, would improve electoral integrity for deepening democratic development.