*Review the Danzoll article (“West Georgia Community Mobilization Initiative”). Why did the U.S. government support this endeavor in a developing country?
*How successful, in your opinion, was the project? What reasons can you propose for its success or failure? How sustainable are its achievements and milestones likely to be for future communities?
OVERVIEW
Module 4 analyzes types of democratic governance present in different parts of the world. You will become familiar with best practices and lessons learned from variety of different geographic areas and also discuss culture specific challenges to the process of social action.
Democracy had its beginnings in Greece where the agora, the “gathering place,” was used by the Greeks to discuss the vital issues of war and peace, economy and culture. In the agora, citizens of a city state discussed issues and made decisions
that would affect the entire population of the citystate.
The Greek concept of deliberative democracy found a new
embodiment in medieval Europe. After William I of Normandy (usually called William the Conqueror) conquered England at
the Battle of Hastings in 1066, he established feudal governance over the AngloSaxon
tribes. He also formed an embryonic
form of a parliament in which landowners and members of the clergy could be consulted before laws were enacted. In 1215
a great step forward occurred with the Magna Carta. Drafted by English barons mainly concerned for the protection of their
own wealth, the Magna Carta required King John to gain the agreement of his subjects before levying taxes. The Magna
Carta can also be considered the first documented form of civil participation in support of particular interests. It was not until
the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the subsequent Bill of Rights (1689), however, that the contemporary form of
constitutional monarchy was established in England. Another revolution a century later (1789) changed the governing order
of France; the monarch King Louis XVI was deposed (and executed) and feudalism was abolished.
Other parts of the world adopted various forms of democratic governance. Slowly democracy replaced other types of social contracts and became an accepted norm. Changes occurred on institutional levels and followed the pace of normative “lifecycles,” which involved three stages defined by Finnemore and Sikkink as “norm emergence,” “norm cascade,” and  “norm internalization.” This change cycle starts with the appearance of a norm either from inside (the inception of civil participation the Magna Carta and the French Revolution) or it can be fostered from outside (postcolonial and postimperial governance transformations following systemic collapses). Gradually, the change of a norm in one sphere (for instance, in voting) leads to normative spillovers in other areas (healthcare, education, urban planning, social security, etc.) starting to
involve increased numbers of institutional actors. The final stage of the democratic normative lifecycle is when a democratic norm becomes a part of the political culture of a nation, an inherent component of its “moral fit” and the core of its national identity. This is the lengthiest process of all since it affects not only separate institutions of governance but also the whole plethora of institutional actors. (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998)
Quite different are the dynamics of deliberative democracy and civil participation in developing countries. There, it is not a matter of the evolution of democracy as a norm of governance, but rather the adoption of the externally proposed forms, structures, and institutional frameworks of democratic governance. Most developing societies that have emerged as a result
of imperial collapses do not try to reinvent the wheel. They tend to adopt already existing and tested governance frameworks, which are mostly democratic. Regime mimicry develops where the regime copies advanced democratic institutions of other countries (courts and the legal system, systems of human rights protection, election procedures; local self-governance agencies, etc.) and accepts externally implanted and not organically developed
rules, norms, and practices without the full
“lifecycle” of their socialization. These nations, in making the choice towards democracy, adopt the institutions of more
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democratically developed countries but without full grasp of their purpose and content.
In module 4 you will cover culturespecific
differences in the forms and types of deliberative democracy and civil participation
across the globe. You will examine the governance peculiarities in the European, Asian, Latin American, and African models
of civil participation. You will also review the phenomenon of regime mimicry and why it is important to transform this process
into normative democratic socialization.
References
Finnemore, M., & Sikkink, K. (1998). International Norm Dynamics and Political Change. International Organization, 52, 887917.
Useful References:
Journal Articles
Center for DP. (2012). Executive summary: The national deliberative poll in Japan, Augus