Democracy's limited impact on innovation: Panel data evidence from developing countries.

This study investigates the relationship between democracy and innovation across 61 developing countries from 2013 to 2020, utilizing data from Global Innovation Index. Employing the Freedom House Index and Polity2 indicators as proxies for democracy, research employs Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Fixed Effects and SystemGMM techniques to analyze their impact on innovation. The findings of the study reveal no statistically significant relationships between democracy and innovation in developing nations within specified timeframe. Through empirical analysis, including various econometric approaches, it is observed that the level of democracy as measured by these indicators, does not appear to exert a discernable impact on the innovation landscape of these countries. These results carry important implications for public policy. While the promotion of democracy remains a crucial goal, especially for societal development and political stability, this study suggests that solely focusing on enhancing democratic institutions might not necessarily yield immediate direct improvements in the innovation capacities of developing nations. Policymakers and stakeholders involved in fostering innovation ecosystems in these regions may need to consider a more nuanced approach, encompassing factors beyond the scope of democratic governance to effectively spur innovation. Understanding the nuanced relationship between democracy and innovation in developing countries has significant implications for designing targeted policies aimed at enhancing innovation capacities, economic growth and overall societal development in these regions.

Assessing the interplay between political globalization, social globalization, democracy, militarization, and sustainable development: evidence from G-7 economies.

Sustainable development can act as a catalyst in boosting environmental sustainability and human welfare by alleviating unsustainable production and consumption practices. Political globalization emerges as indispensable in increasing global environmental governance. In addition, social globalization, militarization, and democracy can also affect sustainable development. In light of the overlooked impacts of these crucial variables on sustainable development within prior research studies, this study investigates the heterogeneous effects of political globalization, militarization, social globalization, and democracy on sustainable development from 1990 to 2019 in the G-7 panel. The results obtained from the application of the methods of moment quantile regressions reveal that a one-percentage-point increase in political globalization yields a significant enhancement in sustainable development, ranging from 0.015 to 0.017% across the 10th to 90th quantiles. Contrarily, sustainable development exhibits a decline within the range of 0.025 to 0.028% across the 10th to 90th quantiles, on account of a 1% increase in social globalization. Likewise, militarization hampers sustainable development with a slightly increasing effect from the 10th to 90th quantiles. Gross fixed capital formation decreases sustainable development while the relationship between democracy and sustainable development indicates a negative correlation, which has not achieved statistical significance across the majority of quantiles. These novel outcomes are also verified by using some other regression tests. Subsequently, a detailed policy framework is presented for the purpose of fostering sustainable growth within the G-7 group.

Estimating the value of democracy relative to other institutional and economic outcomes among citizens in Brazil, France, and the United States.

How much do citizens value democracy? How willing are they to sacrifice their liberties and voting rights for growth, equality, or other social outcomes? We design a conjoint experiment in nationally representative surveys in Brazil, France, and the United States in which respondents choose between different societies that randomly vary in their economic outcomes (country income, income inequality, social mobility), political outcomes (democracy, public health insurance), and the level of personal income for each respondent. Our research allows us to estimate the respondents' willingness to trade off democracy for individual income (as well as other societal attributes). We find that, on average, individuals are strongly attached to democracy and a robust welfare state. They prefer to live in a country without free democratic elections only if their individual income multiplies by at least three times and in a country without public health insurance only if their individual income more than doubles. After estimating these preferences at the individual level for all respondents, we show that, although there is an authoritarian minority in all three countries, forming a nondemocratic majority (by offering more income and/or other goods to respondents) is very unlikely. Our findings imply that, contrary to a growing discussion about the crisis of democracy, liberal democratic values remain substantially robust in high and middle income democracies.

Leadership education as democracy-in-action: In pursuit of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

With the world growing in complexity and interconnectedness, the demand for leaders equipped to solve compound problems will only increase. Higher education is called upon to develop leadership in students and needs to engage relevant tools and techniques to prepare students for the tasks ahead. Democratic engagement-from voter education and engagement to critical service learning-and leadership development are powerful vehicles for student development. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are effective and compelling tools to support student learning in academic and cocurricular arenas as part of democratic engagement and leadership education and development. The authors will explore some of the implications and considerations in advancing these initiatives and using these means to advance our local and global communities.

Democracy, information, and communication technology infrastructure and environmental quality.

Environmental degradation is an urgent global concern. While previous studies acknowledge the substantial effects of both democracy and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on environmental quality, their joint effects remain underexplored. Addressing this gap, our research investigates the individual and synergistic effects of democracy and ICT infrastructure on environmental quality. Utilizing the system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator, we assess a panel dataset from 152 countries between 2003 and 2019. Our results indicate that both democracy and ICT infrastructure advancements substantially improve environmental quality. Furthermore, an enhanced ICT infrastructure augments the positive effects of democratic practices on the environment and vice versa. However, when ICT infrastructure is insufficient, the positive influence of democratic systems on the environment becomes negligible, and similarly, without a solid democratic foundation, the benefits of ICT infrastructure on environmental quality are diminished. This underscores a synergistic relationship between democracy and ICT in fostering sustainable environmental progress. Consequently, our study offers significant insights into the multifaceted interplay between democracy, ICT infrastructure, and the environment.

Interdependent Determinants of Health and Death? Examining the Linkages between Health Equity, Human Rights, and Democracy during COVID-19.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has been characterised by health inequities in differential rates of COVID-19-related morbidity and mortality and differential access to essential COVID-19-related health care interventions such as vaccines. Inequities through the pandemic have deeply illuminated the interdependence between health inequities, human rights, and democratic leadership and the imperative to delve more deeply into these key determinants of health, illness, and death. Methods: In this paper, we consider what COVID-19 suggests we should be learning about the relationships between democracy, human rights, and health equity. We first elaborate on the growing prominence of the framework and discourse of health equity. We turn to elaborate on a longer-standing trend of democratic backsliding and populist leadership during COVID-19. We consider human rights violations and domestic and global inequities that have characterised COVID-19 and COVID responses. Findings and conclusions: The pandemic has illustrated how rights-violating, negligent, and inequitable political leadership can deeply determine health outcomes. It has equally shown how democratic norms and institutions, including human rights and equity, offer discourse, standards, and tools that can be effectively used to challenge inequitable leadership on health. More fundamentally, it underscores how great the need is for approaches to public health emergencies rooted in human rights, equity, and good governance, including through a pandemic treaty in negotiation.

The roles of renewable energy, globalization, population expansion and deliberative democracy on Sustainable Development in South Asia.

South Asian region is extremely vulnerable to climate change which hampers its attainment of the sustainable development goals (SDGs). This study explores how sustainable development of South Asian nations is affected by the clean or renewable energy consumption, globalization, population growth and deliberative democracy. To tackle the effects of shocks within the cross-sectional units as well as to account for endogeneity, this study utilizes Common Correlated Effects Mean Group-Generalized Method of Moments (CCE-GMM) estimation technique proposed by Neal (2015). Common Correlated Effects Mean Group (CCE-MG) of Pesaran 2006 and Augmented Mean Group (AMG) by Eberhardt and Teal (2010) and Eberhardt and Bond (2009) techniques are also utilized as robustness checks. The empirical results reveal that the consumption of renewable or clean energy can significantly and positively affect sustainable development, implying that deploying clean energy technologies is helpful to achieve SDG agenda in South Asia. Population growth is found to be hampering sustainable development while deliberative democracy ensures this development. The impact of globalization on sustainable development was found to be negative yet insignificant. Bidirectional causal relationship was discovered between sustainable development and renewable energy, between population and sustainable development, between deliberative democracy and sustainable development and between deliberative democracy and globalization. Finally, the study provides policy directions to achieve sustainable development in South Asia via enhanced integration of renewable energy in the region's energy mix.

Energy justice, democracy and deforestation.

This paper contributes to the debate on the determinants of deforestation, a menace that is posing threat to sustainable development particularly in tropical developing regions. Specifically, the paper focuses on the effect of energy justice and democratization. The main contribution to the literature hinges on the emphasis on energy justice - operationalized as rural-urban equality in access to electricity and clean fuels and technologies for cooking - and its interaction with democracy. Using a panel data of 47 sub-Saharan African countries over the period 2000-2020 and the dynamic two-step generalized method of moment estimator, the results generally indicate that improvement in rural-urban equality in access to electricity and clean fuels and technologies for cooking is associated with a reduction in deforestation. Democracy is similarly found to be associated with reduction in deforestation. The conditional effect analysis largely depicts an intensified reducing effect of energy justice on deforestation in the presence of improved democratic practices. The results though robust to an alternative estimator, the Driscoll-Kraay estimator, differ when sub-regional analysis is considered. The paper aligns with the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goals 7, 13, 15 and 16.

Changes in environmental degradation parameters in Bangladesh: The role of net savings, natural resource depletion, technological innovation, and democracy.

Most researchers consider CO2 emissions to be the primary indicator of environmental degradation. Similarly, ecological footprint appears to be a significant proxy for environmental degradation in recent research due to its multifaceted impact on the natural environment. With this in mind, this study investigates fluctuations in CO2 emissions and ecological footprint as indicators of environmental degradation in Bangladesh from 1980 to 2020, and how they are influenced by net savings, natural resource depletion, technological innovation, and democracy. The non-linear ARDL (NARDL)-based asymmetric analysis finds that positive changes in net savings, natural resource depletion, and democracy positively impact both parameters of environmental degradation in the long run. On the other hand, a positive change in technological innovation reduces these parameters in the long run. Likewise, negative changes in net savings and technological innovation reduce environmental degradation. In contrast, negative changes in natural resource depletion and democracy exacerbate these two parameters and degrade environmental quality in the long run. However, there are some variations in the short-run influence of the predictors on the predicted variable. Overall, the findings of this study suggest that policymakers must strategically exploit natural resources, net savings, technology diffusion, and democratic principles to preserve the natural environment in Bangladesh.

The Healthy Democracy Kit: design, implementation, uptake, and impact of a novel voter registration toolkit for healthcare settings.

BACKGROUND: Access to voting is increasingly recognized as a social determinant of health. Health equity could be improved if healthcare workers (HCWs) routinely assessed the voter registration status of patients during clinical encounters and helped direct them towards appropriate resources. However, little consensus exists on how to achieve these tasks efficiently and effectively in healthcare settings. Intuitive and scalable tools that minimize workflow disruptions are needed. The Healthy Democracy Kit (HDK) is a novel voter registration toolkit for healthcare settings, featuring a wearable badge and posters that display quick response (QR) and text codes directing patients to an online hub for voter registration and mail-in ballot requests. The objective of this study was to assess national uptake and impact of the HDK prior to the 2020 United States (US) elections. METHODS: Between 19 May and 3 November 2020, HCWs and institutions could order and use HDKs to help direct patients to resources, free of cost. A descriptive analysis was conducted to summarize the characteristics of participating HCWs and institutions as well as the resultant total persons helped prepare to vote. RESULTS: During the study period, 13,192 HCWs (including 7,554 physicians, 2,209 medical students, and 983 nurses) from 2,407 affiliated institutions across the US ordered 24,031 individual HDKs. Representatives from 604 institutions (including 269 academic medical centers, 111 medical schools, and 141 Federally Qualified Health Centers) ordered 960 institutional HDKs. Collectively, HCWs and institutions from all 50 US states and the District of Columbia used HDKs to help initiate 27,317 voter registrations and 17,216 mail-in ballot requests. CONCLUSIONS: A novel voter registration toolkit had widespread organic uptake and enabled HCWs and institutions to successfully conduct point-of-care civic health advocacy during clinical encounters. This methodology holds promise for future implementation of other types of public health initiatives. Further study is needed to assess downstream voting behaviors from healthcare-based voter registration.

La democratización de los servicios de salud odontológicos / The democratization of dental health services

Introducción: el proceso de democratización en los servicios de salud en odontología y en todo el campo de la salud parte del acceso a la atención de la población, así como de la libertad de contar con información científica adecuada y suficiente para que la población cuide de su salud. Es compromiso del estado, de acuerdo con la constitución, poder contar con las condiciones políticas, económicas y sociales para el cumplimiento del mandato constitucional. Conclusiones: el sistema de salud no ha logrado desarrollarse en la población vulnerable porque requiere buena infraestructura, personal de salud, medicamentos, etcétera. Le corresponde al estado impulsar iniciativas para acercar y dar acceso a dicha población sin importar lo alejada que se encuentre, por lo que deberá apoyarse en el uso de tecnologías que le faciliten y permitan cumplir con la obligación constitucional que representa el derecho a la salud y con ello la democratización de la salud (AU)

Introduction: the process of democratization in health services in dentistry and in the entire field of health starts from the access to care for the population, from the freedom to have adequate and sufficient scientific information for the population to take care of their health. It is a commitment of the state according to the constitution to be able to have the political, economic and social conditions for the fulfillment of the constitutional mandate. Conclusions: the health system has not been able to develop in the vulnerable population requires good infrastructure, health personnel, medicines, etc. It is up to the state to promote initiatives to provide access to this population regardless of its remoteness, to rely on the use of technologies that facilitate and allow the fulfillment of the constitutional obligation that represents the right to health and thus democratize health (AU)

Chapitre 4. La « démocratie Internet ¼, une disparition sociale des corps ?

The article discusses the impact of the digitalisation of politics on the place of bodies in the political and social life of liberal democracies. The author intends to show that the promise of the disappearance of bodies from the public space has only been partially fulfilled, and that ’surveillance capitalism’ has instead given new vigour to new forms of mobilisation characterised by the instrumentation of bodies for political purposes.

The impact of democracy and income on CO2 emissions in MINT countries: evidence from quantile regression model.

This study analyses the relationship between democracy and environmental pollution in the MINT countries using a panel data spanning 1971-2016. It also investigates the interactive effect of income and democracy on CO2 emissions. We used various estimation techniques for the analysis, ranging from the quantile regression, OLS-fixed effect and GLS-random effect regressions with Driscoll-Kraay standard errors to control for cross-sectional dependence while a panel threshold regression is used for robustness check. The results showed existence of long-run relationship between CO2 emissions and the explanatory variables. The quantile regression results for interaction model indicate that economic growth, democracy and trade openness promote environmental pollution via their positive effects on CO2 emissions. Primary energy however reduces pollution across the lower and middle quantiles but enhances it in higher quantiles. The interaction effect is negative and statistically significant across all quantiles. This implies that democracy has a significant role in moderating the impact of income on CO2 emission in the MINT countries. It thus follows that if the MINT countries radically strengthen democracy and enhance income, it would be possible for them to achieve greater economic development and reduce CO2. In addition, a single threshold model is used to identify the asymmetry in response to CO2 emissions at lower and upper levels of democratic regimes. The results showed that once the degree of democracy is above the threshold level, an increase in income would reduce CO2 emissions but once it is below the threshold level, the effect of income becomes insignificant. Based on these results, the MINT countries need to strengthen democracy, enhance income level and relax trade barriers.

Entrenching Inequity, Eroding Democracy: State Preemption of Local Housing Policy.

Housing is a fundamental right and a vital determinant of health. Health equity is not possible without widespread access to safe, affordable, high-quality housing. Local housing policy is a central conduit for advancing such ends. However, preemption of local law is a powerful institutional mechanism that state legislatures sometimes deploy to inhibit or nullify municipal efforts to address housing-based inequities. Local housing policies often have high stakes, are ideologically laden, and are politically salient. This makes them a clear target for preemptive action. Political science research to date has focused on broadly explaining the causes of preemption, with scant emphasis on its consequences and minimal attention to the implications for racial and economic equity. This article highlights the political repercussions of state preemption. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews, the article examines how local tenant organizations that work to build power within racially and economically marginalized communities perceive and respond to state preemption. The findings demonstrate how both the reality and the threat of state preemption prompt tenant organizations to adjust (and often minimize) their policy goals and to adapt their political strategies in ways that strain their capacity. By burdening local organizations that are crucial power resources in marginalized communities, state preemption of local housing policy risks entrenching inequity and eroding democracy.

Crises contemporâneas: retrocessos sociais, políticas de saúde e desafios democráticos / Contemporary crisis: social regressions, health policies, and democratic challenges

Resumo No contexto da globalização, é recorrente a menção às crises contemporâneas da democracia, da ciência, econômico-sociais, sanitárias e ambientais. No Brasil, essas crises se agravam em função da estrutura histórico-social que carrega profundos problemas não resolvidos, bem como em função de governos que têm desgastado as instituições nacionais que foram arduamente reconstruídas no processo de redemocratização do país. Neste editorial, refletimos sobre o contexto de crise nacional experimentado no Brasil nos últimos anos, situando retrocessos sociais resultantes de políticas neoliberais e conservadoras levadas à cabo pelos últimos dois mandatários do governo federal, e posicionando alguns desafios a serem enfrentados pelo país, a partir de um movimento de retomada da democracia.

Abstract In the context of globalization, mentioning contemporary democracy, science, social-economic, sanitary, and environmental crises is recurrent. In Brazil, these crises have worsened due to historical-cultural structures that carry deep unresolved problems and due to governments that have worn down the national institutions that were reconstructed with hard work during its re-democratization process. In this editorial, we reflect on the national crisis context experienced in Brazil in the last years, situating social regressions resulting from neoliberal and conservative policies carried out by the last two heads of the federal government and placing some challenges to be faced by the country beginning by a movement to retrieve democracy.

Escola sem partido e conservadorismo moral: instrumentalização da religião, sexualidade e gênero / School without party and moral conservatism: the instrumentalization of religion, sexuality and gender / Escuela sin partido y conservadurismo moral: la instrumentalización de la religión, sexualidad y género

Este artigo tem por objetivo identificar e discutir alguns estratagemas psicológicos utilizados por movimentos conservadores e autoritários recentemente difundidos no Brasil - em especial, pelo Movimento Escola sem Partido -, em relação a temas como sexualidade e gênero, que atualmente foram incluídos como essenciais à formação escolar. Com esse propósito, empenhamo-nos em compreender a perspectiva cultural em que se apoiam e o modo como a articulam, ideologicamente, para inviabilizar o debate sobre eles. A partir da análise dos Projetos de Lei 246/2019 e 1859/2015, identificamos estratégias conservadoras que, autoritariamente, deslegitimam sua inclusão na formação escolar. Dentre elas, pareceu-nos urgente investigar a instrumentalização da religião, pois favorece a subordinação da crença religiosa, sobretudo associada ao conservadorismo moral imbricado na tradição cristã brasileira, ao discurso político autoritário. Assim como os movimentos fascistas que, nos Estados Unidos da década de 1930, reivindicavam um ordenamento autoritário e opressor da sociedade por meio do apelo a conteúdos religiosos instrumentalizados para esse fim, atualmente, o discurso religioso também é utilizado como forma de suscitar adesão ao conservadorismo social e político e de justificar preconceitos arraigados. Constatamos que a instrumentalização da religião é uma forma de justificar a permanência de valores conservadores na escola e na sociedade, bem como de reiterar o modelo de família heterossexual monogâmica e a ordem patriarcal. Por meio de estratagemas como esses, os movimentos conservadores e autoritários, articulados em função da negação da diversidade sexual e de gênero, impedem que a escola se constitua como espaço democrático e diverso.(AU)

This paper identifies and discusses the psychological ploys employed by recent conservative and authoritarian movements in Brazil, particularly the School without Party movement, against topics like sexuality and gender, which are currently included as essential to school education. To do so, we sought to understand their cultural basis and how they are ideologically articulated to prevent school debate around these topics. By analyzing Bills 246/2019 and 1859/2015, we identified some conservative strategies that authoritatively delegitimize their inclusion in school education. Chief among them is the instrumentalization of religion, since it favors subordinating religious belief, mainly associated with traditional Christian moral conservatism, to authoritarian political discourse. Similar to the fascist movements in the 1930s United States that claimed an authoritarian and oppressive ordering of society by appealing to religious content, religious speech is currently instrumentalized to encourage social and political conservatism adherence and to justify deep-seated prejudices. Religion instrumentalization is used to justify upholding conservative values at school and in society, as well as to reiterate the monogamous heterosexual family model and patriarchy. Through such ploys, authoritarian and conservative movements, articulated around denying sexual and gender diversity, prevent the school from becoming a democratic and diverse environment.(AU)

Este artículo tiene por objetivo identificar y discutir algunas de las estratagemas psicológicas que utilizan los movimientos conservadores y autoritarios, difundidas recientemente en Brasil, en particular por el Movimiento Escuela sin Partido, con relación a temas como sexualidad y género, que actualmente se incluyeron en la formación escolar. Con este propósito, se pretende comprender la base cultural en la que se han apoyado y cómo la articulan ideológicamente para hacer inviable el debate sobre ellas. A partir de análisis de los Proyectos de Ley 246/2019 y 1859/2015, se identificaron estrategias conservadoras que, autoritariamente, deslegitiman la inclusión de estos temas en la formación escolar. Entre ellas, parece urgente analizar la instrumentalización de la religión, porque favorece la subordinación de la creencia religiosa al discurso político autoritario, sobre todo asociada al conservadurismo moral presente en las vertientes del cristianismo brasileño. Al igual que los movimientos fascistas en los Estados Unidos en los años 1930 que reivindicaban una planificación autoritaria de la sociedad mediante un llamado a contenidos religiosos instrumentalizados, actualmente se utiliza el discurso religioso como forma de promover la adhesión al conservadurismo social y político y de justificar los prejuicios. Se constata que la instrumentalización de la religión es un modo de justificar la permanencia de valores conservadores en la escuela, así como de confirmar el modelo de familia heterosexual monógama y el orden patriarcal. Estos estratagemas que son utilizados por los movimientos conservadores y autoritarios, articulados en función de la negación de la diversidad sexual y de género, impiden que la escuela sea democrática y diversa.(AU)