Search Results (47)

Our time is one of permacrisis, affecting the economy, the environment, and everything in between. In this context, UK higher education faces an existential crisis, where the university sector has been transformed into a marketplace, turning students into consumers and limiting the critical potential of education. In moving beyond these limits, this article explores Democracy in Action (DinA), a final-year undergraduate module offered in a UK university that creates spaces for critical and transformative education through democratic theory and practice. Grounded in traditions of transformative learning, community-based pedagogies, academic activism, and prefiguration, DinA positions students as democratic agents working in solidarity with staff and the wider community. Drawing on in-depth interviews with students, we analyse the interplay between theory and practice to understand how learning can be understood as a form of democratic participation. The article makes an original contribution to the fields of democratic education and critical university studies by offering a novel framework for integrating academic activism, community-based learning, and prefiguration in higher education. We show how students’ experiences of building community, campaign planning, and prefiguring change generate not only deep transformative learning but also new forms of civic agency and collective action. We argue that, through community organising, students embark on a process of learning that involves three key transformative moments: effecting a perspectival shift from the individual to the common, foregrounding the activist dimensions of democratic politics, and envisioning the world we want through prefiguration. This pedagogical model demonstrates that higher education can become a space of lived democratic possibility, where hope, critique, and collective transformation are not only imagined but enacted. Full article

Over the last decade, AI has increasingly been adopted by newsrooms in the form of different tools aiming to support journalists and augment the capabilities of the profession. The main idea behind the adoption of AI is that it can make journalists’ work more efficient, freeing them up from some repetitive or routine tasks while enhancing their research and storytelling techniques. Against this idea, and drawing on the concept of “hype”, we employ a critical reflection on the lens often used to talk about journalism and AI. We suggest that the severe sustainability crisis of journalism, rooted in growing pressure from platforms and major corporate competitors, changing news consumption habits and rituals and the growing technologization of news media, leads to the obsessive pursuit of technology in the absence of clear and research-informed strategies which cater to journalism’s civic role. As AI is changing and (re)shaping norms and practices associated with news making, many questions and debates are raised pertaining to the quality and plurality of outputs created by AI. Given the disproportionate attention paid to technological innovation with little interpretation, the present article explores how AI is impacting journalism. Additionally, using the political economy framework, we analyze the fundamental issues and challenges journalism is faced with in terms of both practices and professional sustainability. In the process, we untangle the AI hype and attempt to shed light on how AI can help journalism regain its civic role. We argue that despite the advantages AI provides to journalism, we should avoid the “shiny things perspective”, which tends to emphasize productivity and profitability, and rather focus on the constructive synergy of humans and machines to achieve the six or seven things journalism can do for democracy. Otherwise, we are heading toward “alien intelligence” which is agnostic to the core normative values of journalism. Full article

The climate crisis is an urgent issue that requires immediate and significant international action and is tightly connected to several other global problems such as biodiversity loss, economic inequality, and countercurrents to democracy. Therefore, enabling the construction of an agentive role in relation to the crisis is a crucial task for education. According to the national core curriculum, Finnish social studies teaching should aim for active democratic citizenship. The article analyses the linguistic construction of agency in relation to climate issues in social studies textbooks from a discursive perspective, examining the rhetoric of positioning and addressing the reader as an active agent. The article draws an overall image of agency regarding the climate in textbooks and examines its implications. Four categories of orienting to the crisis and constructing agency in relation to it are identified: (1) constructing agency against the crisis; (2) stating the unsustainable nature of the current system; (3) enlisting ways of making an impact in general; and (4) representing the absence of crisis. Based on the findings, this article suggests that textbooks do not fully utilise their status as a forum for imaging our capacity to act to stop the climate crisis and, therefore, fall short of the goals set in the curriculum. Full article

This article examines how British philosophers of the 1930s grappled with the relationship between reason, emotion, and democratic citizenship in the context of a perceived “crisis of democracy” in Europe. Focusing especially on Bertrand Russell, Susan Stebbing, and John Macmurray, it argues that philosophers working from diverse philosophical perspectives shared a sense that the crisis of democracy was simultaneously a crisis of reason and one of emotion. They tended to frame this crisis in terms of three interrelated concerns: first, as a problem of balancing or integrating reason and emotion; second, as a problem of the relationship between emotions and democratic citizenship; and third, as a problem of how to properly train or educate the emotions. Significantly, British philosophers addressed these issues most directly in writings for a non-professional audience, as they sought to translate their professional expertise into popular works that might rejuvenate democratic citizenship. This historical episode is a reminder of how philosophers were deeply engaged in the cultural politics of the interwar period and is a telling example of how personalist concerns were central to philosophy even as the “analytic revolution” was gathering steam. Full article

The Future Museums Project Group was created under the Portuguese Ministry of Culture with the mission of proposing recommendations for a 10-year public policy for museums, palaces, and monuments, considering sustainability, accessibility, and innovation issues and their relevance in society. Against this background, museums were understood as agents of change with a role to play in achieving a more sustainable future, and culture as a fundamental pillar for democracy and sustainable development. This study discusses the findings of the project, focusing on three features that highlight the approach adopted to sustainability, which included collections management, participation, and mediation. Drawn from empirical research, a series of concrete recommendations, both for policy makers and museums, are discussed. The study concludes by arguing that cultural policies must place sustainability at the core of their strategy in order to function as a framework to drive and implement sustainable development practices in museums and heritage. Furthermore, within the scope of post-pandemic recovery plans, climate emergency, and the energy crisis, it is even more pressing that cultural policies provide support for museums and heritage and ensure that they have the conditions and resources to be able to move forward in a more integrated manner, thus contributing to a sustainable future. Full article

Food security is one of the main concerns in the context of a global crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The reduction in people’s mobility determined changes in consumers’ behavior and underlined the need for the re-organization of the food supply chains. This paper aims to summarize the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global, Romanian and mountain food markets, as well as to discuss the mountain agriculture potential and the food democracy model. The trend in the post-pandemic era is heading toward the digitalization of agriculture and food distribution, with great attention on product sustainability. People are more and more aware of healthy food and the environmental impact of this sector. Many studies revealed the need for specific policies to counteract the effects of the pandemic on food quality and security and on the economic welfare of people. In the post-pandemic period in mountain areas, there is a need for the valorization of food products that originate from here since they have great health and financial potential. Supporting mountain agriculture could ensure the production of high-value products, which are generally preferred by consumers. The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the re-orientation of consumers towards local and organic foods. Future research regarding the efficiency of the programs and policies implemented in some mountain areas after the pandemic is necessary. Full article

This theoretical article argues that megachurches are an inadequately problematised factor in the Zimbabwean crisis and uses, as examples of violent and corrupt megachurch leaders, Emmanuel Makandiwa, Uebert Angel, and Passion Java. As Zimbabwe moves towards elections in 2023, ZANU-PF has resorted to using megachurches to enact propaganda, create voter empathy, and stir up violence, dividing the religious electorate along party lines in the process. The article is couched in decoloniality theory to position megachurch leaders within instability and as thwarting democracy in Zimbabwe. I respond to two questions: how do Makandiwa, Angel, and Java contribute to thwarting democracy while promoting corruption and violence? And, how can religion be approached from the perspective of decolonial thinking to reverse the crisis that has been created by prophets in Zimbabwe? I end by arguing that the Zimbabwean crisis takes various forms and that the role of megachurch leaders in finding a solution and in reconstructing narratives of peace and good governance in Zimbabwe cannot be ignored. Full article

In this article, I present a Foucauldian analysis of the speeches made by the then Prime Minister of Australia (Mr. Scott Morrison) in March 2020. This analysis sets out to explore the political rationalities that assembled COVID-19 as a particular type of ‘problem’ that warranted unprecedented governmental intervention into the everyday lives of citizens. I believe that the insights provided by such an analysis are relevant to ongoing examination of governing in liberal democracies both during a crisis and afterwards. Full article

Local journalism has suffered major transformations as traditional business models collapse and habits of news consumption change. A lack of funding and successive economic crises have brought about, on a global scale, the shutdown of many news outlets in smaller territories. These areas are becoming “news deserts”, a phenomenon that has been mapped in Brazil and Portugal. Territories without news could see an uptick in social problems such as disinformation, populism, and democratic crises, especially because of voting abstention. Background: This paper aims to analyze the relationship between news deserts and democracy, focusing on how news deserts correlate with voting abstention rates in Brazil and Portugal. Methods: A literature review was carried out including data from news deserts in both countries. The abstention rates in this analysis concern national elections held in 2022. A correlation analysis using binary logistic regression was deployed comparing municipalities with the highest and the lowest abstention rates. Results: In both countries, it was not possible to assess whether there was a correlation between abstention rates and the existence of news deserts. Conclusions: While the absence of media outlets is not correlated with the mobilization of citizens to vote, other variables may be affecting voters’ abstention behaviors. Full article

The recent COVID-19 health crisis has shone a spotlight on disinformation as the circulation of false information became more and more prominent. What the World Health Organization (WHO) has defined as an ‘infodemic’ poses a great risk for democracies and for society in general. In this context, public television channels, with their regional scope, actively participate in the fight against misinformation. This research aims to identify and classify the different verification initiatives and technological tools, as well as the different strategies and codes used in fact-checking tasks by European broadcasters belonging to the CIRCOM network. The methodology undertakes an exploratory approach and employs a questionnaire that is applied to a sample of the members of the network. Managers and professionals with executive profiles were asked about the management, operation and strategies used in the verification process. In light of the results obtained, it can be concluded that the current verification processes are based on human efforts, rather than technological tools, amounting to a total dependence on content curation by the writing teams in the newsroom. Thus, it is evidenced that in most cases, there is neither a specific department for verification, nor sufficient resources, despite the fact that all those surveyed regard disinformation as a priority issue, a threat to democratic integrity and a responsibility of public service media. Full article

This paper looks at the distribution of disposable income by deciles to indicate how specific mitigating measures have influenced income groups and considers the effectiveness of different combinations of containment measures in the European Union. Simulations using the EUROMOD tax-benefit microsimulation model imply that the mitigating effects of the simulated measures are regressive, with a bigger influence on the bottom part of the income distribution. It is also observed that old democracies benefit from these measures more than new democracies. Surprisingly, our results further reveal that for the two highest decile income groups, the COVID-19 containment measures are stronger in new democracies. Finally, a qualitative comparative analysis of 19 EU countries suggests that each country should apply mixes of containment measures that fit its own context. Although there is no one-size-fits-all policy, old democracies seem more successful at handling the consequences of the COVID-19 crisis than new democracies. This study complements the literature as it shows how COVID-19 measures have influenced household income groups, and second, it adds to earlier studies by clarifying that only specific context-dependent combinations of containment measures are successful at preventing the loss of people’s living standards, thereby giving policymakers the necessary leeway to formulate effective policies. Full article

Populism has been at the center of recent debates in political science and international relations scholarship. Recognized as a contested concept and framed as a new global phenomenon, populism emerged in the context of liberal democracies, where political actors inflate social antagonisms by putting the people against the elite. Facing a global health crisis where a sense of threat, uncertainty, and emergency has pushed normal politics into the realm of politics of crisis, populists have actively engaged in creating a spectacularization of failure—of science, institutions, experts, governments—vis-à-vis the new Coronavirus, and in creating doubts about and devaluing scientists, experts and governments. Issues such as mask mandates, lockdown measures, compulsory vaccination, medicine effectiveness, and vaccine certificates became politicized. That is, they have been taken from normal politics and made contingent and controversial in order to deepen already existing political divisions and polarization. Exploring the case of Germany and Brazil, we will show how populists tried to use the pandemic to forge divisions between the people and the elite (represented by scientists, health experts, and the press). This conceptual-empirical paper wishes to make a contribution to the debate on how populists brought scientific public health issues into their black-and-white, antagonistic vision of society and hence instrumentalized COVID-19 for their own political gain. Full article

Post-apartheid South Africa, almost three decades into the democracy, is a society in crisis, facing burgeoning economic and social challenges. Religion is seen as a potential force in supporting social cohesion and nation building. Theological education in its handling of diversity and decoloniality reveals complicity and avoidance. A significant task is to embrace the ‘other’ and to affirm the equality and dignity of all people, bearing in mind there is sufficient theological impetus for this. A key question for this study is how theological education can engage in an intercultural ideal towards authentic participation in the development of society. This article reveals the resources and process of embodied formative education within a mediated learning environment to create a hospitable space for learning about differences. It also allows for antiracist pedagogies to be realised within this safer community. Attention is also given to on how epistemological justice and decolonisation is engaged, envisioning a less domineering approach to theological education that makes space for other voices. This contextual case study affirms African identity, revealing humanising education that can support political change at an interpersonal level, as well as at a geo-political level, in its decolonial agenda of creating an engagement of equals. Full article

The COVID-19 crisis is arguably the most important development of the 21st century so far and takes its place alongside the great eruptions of the past century. As with any crisis, the current pandemic has stimulated visions and proposals for post-COVID-19 societies. Our focus is on narratives—both predictive and prescriptive—that envisage post-COVID-19 political societies. Combining narrative analysis with thematic analysis, we argue that societal changes conditioned by the pandemic have accelerated a turn toward five inter-related developments: A renaissance in rationality and evidence-based science; a return to social equality and equity, including wage equity and guaranteed incomes; a reimagining of the interventionist state in response to crises in the economy, society, the welfare state, and social order; a reorientation to the local and communitarian, with reference in particular to solidaristic mutual aid, community animation, local sourcing, and craft production; and the reinvention of democracy through deep participation and deliberative dialogical decision making. The empirical focus of our work is an analysis of predominantly legacy media content from the Canadian Periodicals Index related to life after the pandemic and post-COVID-19 society. Full article