Political Science

It has been claimed that the Web 2.0, the open source movement, and the emerging mode of peer production have inaugurated a new era of debate about openness, participation, and cooperation as bedrocks for rebuilding the civilizations of the modern world. By way of introducing the concept of wikipolitics, this paper examines whether, and if so how, politics and democracies can benefit from this emerging participatory spirit and modern ICTs, and to document possible dangers of such a shift in the democratic process

The neoliberal economic reforms in India since 1991 have significantly impacted the discourse of democratic federal governance in India. Democratic politics and neoliberal reforms have witnessed (i) the rise the clout of the capitalist classes, and (ii) the rise of political parties of ethnic identities. The policy shifts relating to bureaucratic deregulation, privatization, and globalization have unsettled the preexisting regime of state-directed economic development entailing unprecedented political and economic corruption, including electoral malpractices and criminalization of politics. The decline and atrophy of the party system is being partly compensated by judicial activism, investigative journalism, civil society movements against corruption, and new social movements on environment and ecology, gender justice, quality of life and services, rights of children and the old,  etc. Privatisation and globalization have considerably reinforced the trend of political federalization challenging the prior trend of parliamentary centralism. Economic reforms have pushed up the GDP growth rate to higher points than ever before, but it is not accompanied by redistributive justice. Class as well as regional economic disparities have tended to increase to distressing levels. The increased emphasis on governance in the neoliberal discourse on capitalist development is caught in a dilemma between emphasis on accountability, transparency, efficiency and effectiveness, and rule of law, on the one hand,  and the tendency to subordinate democratic rights of the people of the imperative of corporate development and governmentality, on the other.

The Reliance Party was formed in 1967 by a group of dissident deputies removed from the Republican People’s Party who were disturbed by the party’ move towards the left. Most scholars observing the split in the Republican People’s Party have focused on the problems pushing the party towards the left but have undermined the influence of the opportunity structure decreasing formation costs for new parties and increasing benefits of office which conditioned both the party leadership and dissident deputies. Besides, paths available for the dissident deputies have been overlooked. While acknowledging the importance of the factors pushing the Republican People’s Party towards the left, we argue that opportunity structure conditioning the conflicting factions, position of the party leadership during the conflict and paths followed by the conflicting factions as well as the party leadership is important.

Oprindelig  publiceret hos Afrika360.dk i 2013. Det er en ganske hurtig analyse af Ghanas Højesterets afgørelse, hvor de støttede Præsident Mahama, at han vandt valget i 2013. Den beskriver også hvordan den tabende part og dennes supportere modtog dommen.

Sagen startede d. 16. april, og sluttede d. 29. august, 2013.