“Our western standards must be tempered by the cultural and social experiences […] We ought to lower our expectations” – Lt. Gen. Bouchard, Commander of Canadian Operations in Libya http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/02/13/libya-canada-nato-commander.html It seems that we, as the West, have learned from out democratization efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Instead of toppling an autocratic regime […]

This is a link to the .docx file. The full text is a bit too long to become the face of this blog, but here is the first figure showing how some of the categorical variables are not able to fully capture political rights. Measures of Democracy – Post Soviet Europe

This post will compare the rating systems used to evaluate individual online sellers. These are often of critical importance to buyers in order to avoid scammers online. Usually, the higher the number of ratings of a seller, and the higher those ratings, the more likely they will be legitimate. It sucks to buy an Xbox […]

  As a citizen of a democratic country, I own my sovereign self, and have the right to have this sovereignty expressed through democratic institutions. The actions of government, wars, economic policies, and ultimately laws, should all have a basis in the democratic process. We elect our representatives and they accomplish these things on our behalf, and […]

  Mohamed Nasheed, the highly acclaimed president of the Maldives ‘resigned’ from office recently amid protests surrounding his rule. He was well known for his environmental policies and his international fight against climate change. He was also well known to be a highly moral man, and apt politician. Before his political career, he was held […]

For my empirical analysis of democratic regimes, I chose to focus on Post Soviet Europe. Post-Soviet Europe Belarus Bulgaria Moldova Romania Russia Ukraine I find these measures of democracy very interesting from a foreign policy perspective. I hope to find relationships between increasing levels of democracy and the existence of historical external pressure to democratize. […]

Well auntie Gertrude I am glad you asked that question. This is a question which a good portion of the course I am taking focuses on. The fact of the matter is that throughout history and across countries and disciplines there are thousands of definitions and conceptions of what democracy actually is. This is even […]

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/usa/Obama-Praises-Georgia-as-Model-of-Democracy-138359529.html This article is basically a fluff piece which covers President Obama giving Georgia a pat on the back for its democratic reforms. Essentially the country has engaged in many anti-corruption programs, and a policy of ‘institution building’ designed to increase the ‘democraticness’ of domestic politics. The 2003 Rose Revolution was enormously important for the establishment of […]

As we all know, or more accuratley, what some of us know, the UBC AMS elections occurred this past week. The elections are an admirable attempt to make the relationship between the student body and the UBC administration more democratic, allowing anyone with a CWL to cast their vote as easily as it is to log […]

Participatory Democracy http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Participatory+democracy+quiet+revolution/6059122/story.html This is a very interesting article which meshes well with some of the themes of the Collier and Levitsky article. Essentially it calls into question the efficacy of representative democracy in that representatives no longer has a firm grasp of the will of their constituents. The article frames this with the Occupy […]