Journal articles on the topic 'Deliberative democracy – India'

This paper is contextualised around the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006 in India, which recognises both individual and community rights of the Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers relating to forest land and forest produce. The Forest Rights Act, along with the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act 1996, also recognises decision-making power of the Scheduled Tribes to make decisions regarding claims on forest land. The paper argues that the recognition of such participation rights, broadly understood as the right to participate in specific decisions that impact our other rights, can be an important means for strengthening democracy in India. This creates space for oppressed communities who may face exclusion in other institutions, to directly participate in decisions involving their substantive rights. It holds the potential to deepen a deliberative version of democracy, creating space for discussion and deliberation within communities while deciding questions regarding their rights, rather than a version of democracy based on interest-bargaining and power-play. Participation rights may also serve as an important tool for oppressed people to secure their substantive rights, such as the right to forest land. The paper therefore contributes to wider debates around democracy and rights. It explores what we understand by ‘democracy’, advocating for a deliberative view of democracy. It explores how democracy relates to rights, both participation rights and substantive rights. Lastly, it evaluates the design of existing participation rights - the Forest Rights Act and the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act 1996 - to examine whether these are designed to deepen deliberative democracy and secure substantive rights. It concludes that existing participation rights are flawed, but there is potential to interpret these in a manner that strengthens deliberative democracy, and the ability of participation right to secure substantive rights to forests, by relying on the Indian Supreme Court’s jurisprudence in Orissa Mining Corporation.

India faces extensive challenges of rapid urbanization and deficits in human well-being and environmental sustainability. Democratic governance is expected to strengthen public policies and efforts towards sustainability. This article presents a study in Pune, India, which aimed at exploring perceptions about public participation in urban governance and the potential of high-quality public deliberation to meet deficits. The research reveals disaffection of the public with government decision-making and government-led participation. Further, it shows that people are interested in participating in community life and seek to be partners in civic decision-making, but find themselves unable to do so. The study illustrates that high-quality public deliberations facilitated by an independent third party can provide a satisfactory space of participation, learning, and developing balanced outcomes. Citizens expressed readiness for partnership, third-party facilitation, and support from civic advocacy groups. Challenges with regard to government commitment to deliberative democracy will need to be overcome for a purposeful shift from conventional weak to empowered participation of ordinary citizens in civic decision-making. We anticipate that while institutionalization of high-quality public deliberations may take time, civil society-led public deliberations may help raise community expectations and demand for induced deliberative democracy.

Resolving urban challenges or ‘wicked problems’ is a dilemma for most governments, especially in developing countries, and India is a case in point. Collaborative, dialogue-based approaches have been posited as critical to addressing wicked problems. This would require a reform of Indian cities’ governance systems to enable citizens to be embedded in decision-making about complex issues. This article contends that while India’s traditional forms of civic participation can provide a strong foundation for reform, new forms of representative deliberative, influential public participation, that is, deliberative democracy, will be important. Traditional organic and induced participation examples in India are overviewed in terms of their strengths and gaps. Two deliberative democracy case studies in Pune, India, are described, and their potential for reform is assessed. Traditional, together with innovative, induced and organic participation in governance, will be needed to overcome significant pitfalls in governance if Indian cities are to become more capable of addressing urban sustainability challenges.

ABSTRACT Scholars of rhetoric have long held that there is such a thing as a “rhetorical tradition” and that that tradition began within the context of ancient Athenian democracy. Recently this tradition has been expanded to “traditions” that include “non-Western” approaches. Scholars of democracy have similarly dislodged the notion that democracy, broadly understood, developed only in ancient Greece. This essay expands our understanding of both rhetorical traditions and their relation to democracy by studying the interrelation of rhetorical and deliberative practices found in the history of India. Specifically, it explores how one highly influential school of Indian deliberation, Nyaya, grew alongside practices of public reasoning and self-rule in the gaṇa/saṁgha (so-called ancient Indian “republics”), revealing a similar, but unique, impulse to rhetoric beyond the Athenian/Western context. From this study we also gain insight into the current struggle for democracy worldwide.

Analyzing the relationship between collective action and civility within the world’s largest democracy, this essay argues that, rather than being a precondition for democratic participation or a quality of individual comportment or manners, civility can be analyzed as an effect of political recognition and of the existence of a responsive structure of authority. Using ethnographic examples of recent collective assemblies held in southern India, the essay demonstrates the limits of both deliberative democracy approaches (Dryzek, Habermas, Rawls, Benhabib, Cohen, Farrelly) and agonistic pluralist models (Mouffe, Connolly, Honig, Arendt) for understanding democracy. If individual speech action is understood to run the gamut from polite and constructive participation in deliberation to antagonistic incivility, collective action is framed by both models as inherently oppositional and adversarial, rejecting or resisting authority and protesting against it, running a narrower gamut from agonistic intervention, which frames others as adversaries, to antagonistic refusals that frame others as enemies (Mouffe). There appears no space within either deliberative or agonistic frameworks for approaching collective action as non-adversarial participation in the public sphere on par with individual participatory contributions to deliberation. The ethnographic examples presented in this essay illustrate examples of collective action as efforts to “hail the state” and be included in its decision-making processes. These examples demonstrate that collective action can function as amplification of earlier communicative efforts that have gone unheard or been silenced. Illustrating the failure of both models to capture the larger processes that result in collective action, I conclude by presenting an analytic approach from the perspective of a former British colony that offers deeper understandings of collective forms of action as they relate to civility not only in India, but elsewhere as well.

This study is an ethnographic investigation of a gram sabha (village assembly), the cornerstone of local democracy, in Soonaghalli, in the Mandya district of Southern Karnataka, India. Observation of the meeting and informal, open-ended conversations with the key actors illuminated how democratic policies that are conceived at the global level are practiced and experienced by local community members. The article speaks to the significance of moving beyond the prevailing politico-institutional framework of democracy that is dominated by concerns about formal regime shifts and focusing on informal practices that contribute to the making and unmaking of democratic governance. The findings shed light on the varied forms that deliberative processes take and on multiple meanings of deliberative cultures, emphasizing the need for a comparative sociological inquiry into democratic practices for a richer formulation of democratic theory.

By examining evidence from India, where quotas for women in local government were introduced in 1993, this article argues that institutional reform can disturb hegemonic discourses sufficiently to open a window of opportunity where deliberative democratic norms take root and where, in addition to the politics of recognition, the politics of redistribution also operates.

This paper opens the “black box” of real-world deliberation by usingtext-as-datamethods on a corpus of transcripts from the constitutionally mandatedgram sabhas, or village assemblies, of rural India. Drawing on normative theories of deliberation, we identify empirical standards for “good” deliberation based on one’s ability both to speak and to be heard, and use natural language processing methods to generate these measures. We first show that, even in the rural Indian context, these assemblies are not mere “talking shops,” but rather provide opportunities for citizens to challenge their elected officials, demand transparency, and provide information about local development needs. Second, we find that women are at a disadvantage relative to men; they are less likely to speak, set the agenda, and receive a relevant response from state officials. And finally, we show that quotas for women for village presidencies improve the likelihood that female citizens are heard.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) is generally seen as a regulatory body with the power to enforce rules for the efficient conduct of elections. The ECI performs a range of overlapping functions, not all of which are regulatory. The ECI has been actively engaged in framing rules that constitute both the procedural and substantive aspects of electoral democracy in India. Following successive court decisions, Article 324 has become a ‘reservoir of powers’ giving the ECI scope for the exercise of residuary powers in a variety of situations. The ‘legal doctrine of electoral exceptionalism’ during election time has made itself manifest in the Model Code of Conduct. Innovations in ‘voter education and awareness’, which are often seen through the lens of electoral ‘management’ and the framework of ‘electoral integrity’, have become part of the deliberative content of election alongside the quest for ‘procedural certainty’ and ‘democratic outcomes’.

Deliberative democracy has gained considerable momentum in India in recent years in the wake of a new drive for decentralisation and democratisation to promote good governance. The constitutional amendment made in India in 1992 sought to institutionalise this concept in villages through a body called Gram Sabha (village assembly). The amendment mandates the constitution of this institution at the Gram Panchayat level (usually a cluster of villages), the functional details of which have been left to the hands of the states. The Gram Sabha is now in place in all the states though it varies from state to state in location and functions. Some states like West Bengal, have taken a step further by creating another body down the line at the level of the electoral constituency. This article presents a case study of Gram Sansads, as known in West Bengal against a general review of the working of the Gram Sabhas in India.

South Pacific media face a challenge of developing forms of journalism that contribute to the national ethos by mobilising change from passive communities to those seeking change. Instead of the news values that have often led international media to exclude a range of perspectives, such a notion would promote deliberation by journalists to enable the participation of all community stakeholders, ‘including the minorities, the marginalised, the disadvantaged and even those deemed as “deviant’” (Romano, 2010). Critical deliberative journalism is issue-based and includes diverse and even unpopular views about the community good and encourages an expression of plurality. In a Pacific context, this resonates more with news media in some developed countries that have a free but conflicted press such as in India, Indonesia and the Philippines. This has far more relevance in the Pacific than a monocultural ‘Western’ news model as typified by Australia and New Zealand. Early in the millennium, this author examined notions of the Fourth Estate in the South Pacific. These were applied through a ‘Four Worlds’ news values prism in the global South that included the status of Indigenous minorities in dominant nation states (Robie, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2009b). This article explores how that has been modified over the past decade and its implications for media and democracy in the Pacific.

Governance of innovation needs to cater in a democratic way for heterogeneity of knowledges. Many initiatives in the democratisation of innovation aspire to some sort of consensus among relevant actors. However, consensus tends to silence dissenting voices, typically those of marginalised groups. In situations of high epistemic and epistemological diversity, this problem can be expected to aggravate. Against consensus-seeking theories of deliberative democracy, Chantal Mouffe has proposed the aspiration to grant the possibility of contestation. While one central principle in many theories of democracy is that it should never silence dissenting or minority positions, Mouffe elevates contestation, rather than the pursuit of consensus, to be the linchpin of democracy. I will explore what a contestation-oriented view of democratisation could mean in the case of governing innovation, specifically in the case of biogasification of rice straw. The latter is commonly presented as a potentially beneficial use of rice straw, which is currently considered waste and (illegally) burned by farmers on the Indian countryside. However, our research has shown that this view indeed unduly suppresses valuable yet marginalised knowledges. Lessons for frameworks such as Responsible Research and Innovation, and particularly an alternative to the dominant aim of democratising innovation through deliberation, will be drawn.

In 2016, we witnessed two shocking political decisions in stable democracies: the election of Donald Trump as American president and the United Kingdom’s referendum to exit the European Union membership. After the scandal of Cambridge Analytica mining Facebook data to influence the 2016 U.S. elections, a public conversation began to question the role of data use, surveillance practices, and especially of social media companies such as Facebook in shaping democracies. Siva Vaidhyanathan’s book, Antisocial Media. How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy (Oxford UP, 2018), paints the larger picture of the logics by which Facebook operates. It encourages readers to understand not only political outcomes such as Brexit and the U.S. elections, but also the erosion of democracy globally (from India to Poland and Hungary) as the result of media logics of audience fragmentation, narrowcasting, and discursive polarization.

The world's largest democracy with a population of over 1.27 billion people, India is home to a burgeoning media landscape that encompasses a motley mix of traditional and contemporary media. Drawing from the theoretical framework of the networked public sphere, this extensive case study focuses on the role of social media in India's media landscape. Results indicate that new social media entities complement traditional media forms to inform, educate, connect, and entertain people from diverse social, ethnic, religious, and cultural origins. The author concludes that social media enable Indian citizens to actively deliberate issues and ideas, increase their civic engagement and citizen participation, and thus enrich India's democratic society.

Este artigo expõe brevemente como o debate sobre a compatibilidade entre os ideais de liberdade e igualdade e os princípios da democracia deliberativa foi tratado na teoria política. O texto discute como autores clássicos trataram da questão da legitimidade para em seguida mostrar como autores contemporâneos colocaram esse aspecto no centro da democracia deliberativa, juntamente com a ideia de razão pública. O debate está longe de ser concluído, como se pode notar nos questionamentos que autores contemporâneos apresentaram aos pressupostos centrais da teoria deliberativa. Tudo indica que a teoria democrática ainda deverá enfrentar o problema da compatibilidade tanto em termos teóricos como em termos da prática democrática.

Este artigo objetiva investigar o uso de mecanismos deliberativos democráticos junto a políticas públicas marcadas pela participação de sujeitos rurais. Como horizonte empírico investigativo, foi tomada a Política Pública de Mecanização Agrícola implementada e avaliada no Município de Viçosa-MG, a partir de processos deliberativos engendrados em seu Conselho Municipal de Desenvolvimento Rural Sustentável - CMDRS. Sendo assim, questiona-se se pode a deliberação pública qualificar as políticas públicas para o meio rural a partir de processos formais de participação política, marcados pelo diálogo público e sistemático entre sujeitos rurais e instituições. A fundamentação teórica é composta por abordagens acerca das noções de democracia deliberativa e avaliação de processos deliberativos formais. A abordagem principal foi inspirada na teoria de Archon Fung (2006), que indica três grandes critérios para avaliar a participação: seleção participante; modos de comunicação e decisão; autoridade e poder. No que se refere aos métodos, foram realizadas entrevistas e observação não participante na arena do CMDRS de Viçosa-MG. Os principais resultados apontam que existem processos deliberativos embrionários deflagrados por sujeitos rurais na implementação e avaliação da política pública destacada, pois há concreta consideração por parte do executivo pelas falas e reclamações dos mesmos. No entanto, não há o desenvolvimento público de preferências, não levando ao debate e à criação de pautas em conjunto, nem à ampliação das controvérsias públicas na arena do CMDRS no que se refere às experiências dos sujeitos rurais.

Abstract When in 1962 Habermas formulated his theory of the public sphere as “a society engaged in critical debate” he sought to describe something he felt was unique to the modern liberal democratic Western world. Yet the creation of discursive spheres where people across lines of social difference debate questions of the common good, mutual interest, and forms of equality long predates the modern era and flourished well outside the “Western” world. This essay adapts Habermas’ influential concept to highlight the emergence of a nascent public sphere at the earliest layers of Marathi literary creation in 13th century India. At this inaugural stage of a regional language’s full shift to writing, we see traces of a debate in the language of everyday life that struggled over the ethics of social difference, a public deliberation that might presage key aspects of Indian modernity and democracy today.

This paper draws on "China and India: Macroeconomic prospects and problems." China and India had similar development strategies prior to their breaking out of their deliberate insulation from the world economy and the ushering in of market-oriented economic reforms and liberalization. China began reforming its closed, centrally planned, non-market economy in 1978. India always had a large private sector and functioning markets, which were subject to rigid, state control until the hesitant and piecemeal reforms of the 1980s. These became systemic and far broader after India experienced a severe macroeconomic crisis in 1991. The political environment under which reforms were initiated and implemented in the two countries and their consequences were very different. India continues to be an open, participatory, multiparty democracy, while China has an authoritarian, one party regime, though it is liberalizing policies. China and India have a lot to gain, both from trading with each other and cooperating in the WTO. Each can learn from the other's policies, their successes and failures. This paper discusses a subset of economic issues common to both countries without touching on others, such as privatization of SOEs, reforms of the labour market (e.g., dealing with the "hokou" system in China and labour laws in India), financial sector reforms and, above all, political reforms. Although it may sound chauvinistic and naive, there is no doubt that China can learn a lot from the functioning of a vibrant, but somewhat chaotic, multiparty participatory democracy in India. After all, as the Chinese become richer and economically free, they are likely to demand personal and political freedoms. Hopefully, the Communist Party of China will anticipate and accommodate such demands, as it seems to have started doing already.

El presente artículo resalta la importancia de un espacio público de alta calidad deliberativa y epistémica para garantizar la estabilidad de la democracia mexicana en el sexenio de 2018-2024. En este sentido, sostiene que dicha calidad depende de la puesta en práctica de condiciones comunicativas en el espacio público mexicano: lasituación ideal de la expresión, el diálogo cívico y la ética del discurso. Posteriormente, discute evidencia que indica que México está experimentando desafíos serios para desarrollar un espacio público de calidad, así como para garantizar la justa agrupación de preferencias en decisiones electorales y políticas. Por último, el presente artículo sugiere medidas para mejorar la calidad deliberativa y epistémica del espacio público mexicano, así como la legitimidad democrática de los procesos de toma de decisiones electorales ypolíticas dentro del Estado constitucional mexicano.

New Muslim movements in South India, such as the Solidarity Youth movement, re-formulated Muslim priorities towards human rights, democracy, development, environmental activism, and minorities. I read Solidarity Youth Movement as proposing an ethic of Islam’s conception of justice, while also drawing inspiration from the influential Islamist Abul A’la Maududi. Focusing on jurisprudential debates, I look at the ways in which Maududi’s intervention informs the praxis of Solidarity Youth Movement. This paper seeks the possibility of examining their activism as an instance of juristic deliberation, linked to the revival of maqāṣid al-sharī’ah in the latter part of the twentieth century. I suggest a reading of their maqāṣid approach, born out of praxis in a Muslim minority context, as potentially informing the development of fiqh al-aqalliyah.

O presente artigo apresenta um conjunto de indicadores para a análise de conversações realizadas na internet à luz das teorias de democracia deliberativa. O modelo que se propõe é composto por um exame da estrutura de um fórum online, a avaliação dos atores envolvidos no debate, o ponderamento do contexto da discussão e pela análise da "deliberatividade" das mensagens em si, em que se toma os princípios de Habermas para a esfera pública. Finalmente, o modelo descrito de deliberação online é aplicado a mensagens retiradas do fórum online do Orçamento Participativo Digital de Belo Horizonte. A aplicação do modelo indica que a discussão apresentou bons resultados de deliberatividade, especialmente no que tange à justificação das mensagens e ao respeito pelos outros usuários. Ao fim, evidencia-se que o modelo pode ser amplamente aplicado em discussões online em diferentes plataformas ou, com certas adaptações, em outros meios discursivos, como mídias maciças ou parlamentos presenciais.

The year 2002 saw a consolidation of power within the ruling State Peace and Democracy Council that resulted in the confidence to free Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest. This resulted almost immediately in a thawing, but certainly not any significant melting, of relations with the international community with respect to Burma (Myanmar). Despite her release, however, Aung San Suu Kyi has not given her approval for any significant non-humanitarian assistance to be given to the government. Positive developments in the reconciliation process are necessary before any significant lifting of sanctions, and thus overall development in the nation, will be possible; to date it appears that this process will be very slow and deliberate and will be undertaken according to the timetable of the government. In the interim, the economy of Burma teeters close to collapse and Burma continues to be the poorest country in the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Asia overall. Despite these problems, the fact that Burma lies at the crossroads of Asia and is being wooed by China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and several ASEAN members gives the nation recognition beyond its size and economy. The overall future is not clear, but the "Dawn of a New Burma" may be breaking.

Este artigo discute a necessidade da abordagem da formação de docentes como objeto de estudo da política educacional. Parte-se do processo de aprovação do Plano Nacional de Educação (Lei 13.005/2014) que determina, em sua meta 15, providências necessárias à formação de professores. O foco é a discussão sobre o papel do regime de colaboração e da participação social na construção de estratégias de formação de professores. A primeira parte do argumento afirma que a história de formação de professores no país passou por muitos percalços, em especial em relação ao papel da colaboração entre os entes federados para tanto. Num segundo momento, observa-se como o debate parlamentar para a elaboração da meta 15 indica que a formação de professores necessita de uma política nacional, denotando o forte embaraço entre o papel da União e dos demais entes federados – como já percebido nas avaliações do Plano Nacional de Educação - PNE 2001-2010 - e na elaboração e efetivação do Plano de Desenvolvimento da Escola (PDE). Finalmente, discute-se como o regime de colaboração apresenta demandas de participação da comunidade escolar, da sociedade civil, em processos de gestão do ambiente escolar. O artigo oferece algumas conclusões heurísticas para o estudo do objeto em pauta.

This essay, addressed to the intelligentsia of the country, on the one hand, and the nation's political class, on the other, makes a case for a ‘National Dialogue’ for taking stock of the record of the post-independence Indian State, yet a work-in-progress in many ways, in a forward-looking perspective by bringing together three key constituencies of the national polity: political activists (and others from civil society, business, commerce, and media circles) working at the grassroots level apex level State functionaries expert observer-media analyst-academic-scholar ‘commentariat’. Such a deliberation can, drawing lessons from experience, throw up an agenda for structural reform that goes beyond mere governance issues and identify (people-centred) pathways for rendering the institutions of the Republic more functional and efficacious in translating its elegantly egalitarian founding vision, enabling an environment of opportunity, into reality more substantially and substantively. It could make an exploration, in other words, of possibilities of corrective intervention at the base of the ‘structure strategy processes behaviour outcome’ (performance determinant) model posited in organizational theory and ‘strategic management’ literature, extrapolated to a State setting. And, in the process, attempt an eclectic revisiting of the grand Nehruvian poser about a structural-strategic stance seeking (to craft) a “just State by just means”, albeit more from an efficacy (i.e. ‘raison d'etat’) standpoint now (in the light of experience). With fine-tuning of the apparatus of the Republic for maintenance of socio-political stability in the country in the face of new mega-trends in the global politico-diplomatic arena — international terrorism, the emerging binding constraint of global warming, the global turn to neo-liberalism sans serious striving for equitable global governance mechanisms and other challenges stemming from the global geo-political and geo-economic dynamics — as the critical consideration. The (radical or other) reform options examined would need to build upon the gains of firm grounding of political pluralism and constitutionalism, and flowering and deepening of democracy — on the social emancipation and political empowerment fronts, above all � made in the first six decades, while bracing up for the future: the challenge of conceptualizing (structural) change conducive for ‘coherent synergizing’ of the institutions of the State and spawning of an alternative politics evocative of the transformative ethos of the early post-independence years.

O artigo aborda a participação social em instituições participativas, com foco no Conselho das Cidades (ConCidades), criado em 2004 no âmbito federal. O trabalho objetiva analisar o desenho institucional do conselho, seus potenciais, limites e alcances, no que se refere aos avanços na construção das políticas urbanas no período 2004-2010. Coloca-se em questão se os elementos do desenho participativo do ConCidades favorecem ou não a realização dos potenciais de inclusão e de democratização das políticas urbanas.O desenvolvimento da pesquisa, realizada em 2010-2011, partiu de aportes no campo da democracia participativa, com ênfase nas instituições participativas, seus potenciais e elementos de variação. Destacando que a participação depende de fatores contextuais, de sua trajetória, do perfil da sociedade civil, do comprometimento do governo e dos desenhos institucionais, dirige-se a atenção para este último aspecto. O modelo analítico ancora-se em Fung (2004; 2006) e estrutura-se em três eixos: (i) participantes, (ii) formas de tomada de decisão e (iii) vinculação das decisões às políticas. A metodologia empregou recursos quali-quanti, realizando levantamentos documentais relativos ao Ministério das Cidades, às políticas urbanas no período e às Conferências das Cidades; neste último caso examinando e sistematizando as atas de suas reuniões e suas resoluções. A pesquisa indica o potencial democrático de o ConCidades engendrar avanços nas políticas urbanas e seus marcos legais, com variações ao longo da trajetória de sua atuação. Em relação ao desenho, salienta-se que a composição e a forma de escolha de representantes, dentre outros elementos, favorecem a inclusão politica e a participação. Evidenciam-se, também, limitações, principalmente seu caráter consultivo em relação às decisões da política, que tem sido objeto de questionamentos societários e propostas de alteração. Para além do desenho participativo, mudanças no âmbito institucional no Ministério e processos de participação na sociedade civil afetaram as práticas participativas e seus desdobramentos. Neste útimo sentido, destaca-se influência dos atores coletivos que integram o Fórum Nacional de Reforma Urbana, por meio de vários processos e repertórios de atuação. De uma perspectiva geral, o trabalho situa-se nos debates sobre as instituições participativas particularmente conselhos , enfatizando o desenho institucional como elemento que pode favorecer ou desfavorecer a participação deliberativa e seus efeitos nas políticas. De forma especifica, contribui ao focalizar uma experiência recente de participação nas políticas urbanas federais, ainda relativamente pouco abordada, passível de aprimoramento.

-Charles V. Carnegie, W. Jeffrey Bolster, Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the age of sail. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. xiv + 310 pp.-Stanley L. Engerman, Wim Klooster, Illicit Riches: Dutch trade in the Caribbean, 1648-1795. Leiden: KITLV Press, 1998. xiv + 283 pp.-Luis Martínez-Fernández, Emma Aurora Dávila Cox, Este inmenso comercio: Las relaciones mercantiles entre Puerto Rico y Gran Bretaña 1844-1898. San Juan: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, 1996. xxi + 364 pp.-Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, Arturo Morales Carrión, Puerto Rico y la lucha por la hegomonía en el Caribe: Colonialismo y contrabando, siglos XVI-XVIII. San Juan: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico y Centro de Investigaciones Históricas, 1995. ix + 244 pp.-Herbert S. Klein, Patrick Manning, Slave trades, 1500-1800: Globalization of forced labour. Hampshire, U.K.: Variorum, 1996. xxxiv + 361 pp.-Jay R. Mandle, Kari Levitt ,The critical tradition of Caribbean political economy: The legacy of George Beckford. Kingston: Ian Randle, 1996. xxvi + 288., Michael Witter (eds)-Kevin Birth, Belal Ahmed ,The political economy of food and agriculture in the Caribbean. Kingston: Ian Randle; London: James Currey, 1996. xxi + 276 pp., Sultana Afroz (eds)-Sarah J. Mahler, Alejandro Portes ,The urban Caribbean: Transition to the new global economy. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1997. xvii + 260 pp., Carlos Dore-Cabral, Patricia Landolt (eds)-O. Nigel Bolland, Ray Kiely, The politics of labour and development in Trinidad. Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago: The Press University of the West Indies, 1996. iii + 218 pp.-Lynn M. Morgan, Aviva Chomsky, West Indian workers and the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica, 1870-1940. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996. xiii + 302 pp.-Eileen J. Findlay, Maria del Carmen Baerga, Genero y trabajo: La industria de la aguja en Puerto Rico y el Caribe hispánico. San Juan: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, 1993. xxvi + 321 pp.-Andrés Serbin, Jorge Rodríguez Beruff ,Security problems and policies in the post-cold war Caribbean. London: :Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's, 1996. 249 pp., Humberto García Muñiz (eds)-Alex Dupuy, Irwin P. Stotzky, Silencing the guns in Haiti: The promise of deliberative democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. xvi + 294 pp.-Carrol F. Coates, Myriam J.A. Chancy, Framing silence: Revolutionary novels by Haitian women. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997. ix + 200 pp.-Havidán Rodríguez, Walter Díaz, Francisco L. Rivera-Batiz ,Island paradox: Puerto Rico in the 1990's. New York: Russel Sage Foundation, 1996. xi + 198 pp., Carlos E. Santiago (eds)-Ramona Hernández, Alan Cambeira, Quisqueya la Bella: The Dominican Republic in historical and cultural perspective. Armonk NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1996. xi + 272 pp.-Ramona Hernández, Emilio Betances ,The Dominican Republic today: Realities and perspectives. New York: Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere studies, CUNY, 1996. 205 pp., Hobart A. Spalding, Jr. (eds)-Bonham C. Richardson, Eberhard Bolay, The Dominican Republic: A country between rain forest and desert. Wekersheim, FRG: Margraf Verlag, 1997. 456 pp.-Virginia R. Dominguez, Patricia R. Pessar, A visa for a dream: Dominicans in the United States. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1995. xvi + 98 pp.-Diane Austin-Broos, Nicole Rodriguez Toulis, Believing identity: Pentecostalism and the mediation of Jamaican ethnicity and gender in England. Oxford NY: Berg, 1997. xv + 304 p.-Mary Chamberlain, Trevor A. Carmichael, Barbados: Thirty years of independence. Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers, 1996. xxxv + 294 pp.-Paul van Gelder, Gert Oostindie, Het paradijs overzee: De 'Nederlandse' Caraïben en Nederland. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 1997. 385 pp.-Roger D. Abrahams, Richard D.E. Burton, Afro-Creole: Power, Opposition, and Play in the Caribbean. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1997. x + 297 pp.-Roger D. Abrahams, Joseph Roach, Cities of the dead: Circum-Atlantic performance. New York NY: Columbia University Press, 1996. xiii + 328 pp.-George Mentore, Peter A. Roberts, From oral to literate culture: Colonial experience in the English West Indies. Kingston, Jamaica: The Press University of the West Indies, 1997. xii + 301 pp.-Emily A. Vogt, Howard Johnson ,The white minority in the Caribbean. Princeton NJ: Markus Wiener, 1998. xvi + 179 pp., Karl Watson (eds)-Virginia Heyer Young, Sheryl L. Lutjens, The state, bureaucracy, and the Cuban schools: Power and participation. Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1996. xiii + 239 pp.

Public participation in governance is regarded as a key element in enhancing urban sustainability. While there is a wealth of participation efforts in Indian cities, there are inadequate processes for regular, inclusive, egalitarian, informed and well-structured democratic participation that provide a real say to citizens in public decision-making. ‘Deliberative democracy’ has emerged as one way to improve effective public participation in decision-making, though it is mostly prevalent in developed countries. An action research initiative was implemented over several years in Pune, India. It used mixed methods to introduce and assess the applicability to the Indian urban context of high-quality public deliberations. This article presents a case study of a deliberative democracy initiative, framing the transformative public involvement needed to address sustainability problems. It also shows how the integration of the mixed methods approach in the action research to design and facilitate deliberative participation processes, helped to broaden and deepen understanding, and enhanced the transformative capacity of the research design.

An analysis of 40,000 tweets that trended after the Tarun Tejpal acquittal in India showed that the nature of the debate around issues of molestation and rape exhibited attributes of deliberation and demonstrated that Twitter in India, in certain cases, has strong potential to emerge as a space for deliberative feminist activism. Discussions gave impetus to advocacy around sexual molestation. While the word “victim” was used in more instances rather than the human rights–based term “survivor,” Twitter debates were supportive toward survivors of assault. There was minimum trolling and patriarchy was called out as was a legal system that sided with the influential man of power. Although city-bred English-speaking voices dominated, conversations were intersectional in nature acknowledging how the horror of physical assault was perceived by different women belonging to disparate socio-economic strata and how legal systems exacerbated gender related crimes.

Background: While an estimated 14-20% of young adults experience mental health conditions worldwide, the best strategies for prevention and management are not fully understood. The ubiquity of smartphone use among young people makes them excellent candidates for collecting data about lived experiences and their relationships to mental health. However, not much is known about the factors affecting young peoples’ willingness to share information about their mental health. Objective: We aim to understand the data governance and engagement strategies influencing young peoples’ (aged 16-24) participation in app-based studies of mental health. We hypothesize that willingness to participate in research is influenced by involvement in how their data is collected, shared, and used. Methods: Here, we describe the MindKind Study, which employs mixed methods to understand the feasibility of global, smartphone-based studies of youth mental health. A pilot 12-week app-based substudy will query participants’ willingness to engage with remote mental health studies. Participants will be randomized into one of four different data governance models designed to understand their preferences, as well as the acceptability of models that allow them more or less control over how their data are accessed and used. Enrolees will receive one of two different engagement strategies. A companion qualitative study will employ a deliberative democracy approach to examine the preferences, concerns and expectations of young people, with respect to remote mental health research. We also detail our engagement with young people as co-researchers in this study. This pilot study is being conducted in India, South Africa and the United Kingdom. Conclusions: This study is expected to generate new insights into the feasibility of, and best practices for, remote smartphone-based studies of mental health in youth and represents an important step toward understanding which approaches could help people better manage their mental health.

Background: While an estimated 14-20% of young adults experience mental health conditions worldwide, the best strategies for prevention and management are not fully understood. The ubiquity of smartphone use among young people makes them excellent candidates for collecting data about lived experiences and their relationships to mental health. However, not much is known about the factors affecting young peoples’ willingness to share information about their mental health. Objective: We aim to understand the data governance and engagement strategies influencing young peoples’ (aged 16-24) participation in app-based studies of mental health. We hypothesize that the willingness to participate in research is impacted by their ability to be involved in how their data is collected, shared, and used. Methods: Here, we describe the MindKind Study, which employs mixed methods to understand the feasibility of global, smartphone-based studies of youth mental health. A pilot 12-week app-based substudy will query participants’ willingness to engage with remote mental health studies. Participants will be randomized into one of four different data governance models designed to understand their preferences, as well as the acceptability of models that allow them more or less control over how their data are accessed and used. Enrolees will receive one of two different engagement strategies. A companion qualitative study will employ a deliberative democracy approach to examine the preferences, concerns and expectations of young people, with respect to remote mental health research. We also detail our engagement with young people as co-researchers in this study. This pilot study is being conducted in India, South Africa and the United Kingdom. Conclusions: This study is expected to generate new insights into the feasibility of, and best practices for, remote smartphone-based studies of mental health in youth and represents an important step toward understanding which approaches could help people better manage their mental health.

There is growing acknowledgment that state interactions must take place in a democratic context. This has been accompanied by attempts to foster forms of democratic governance that provide scope for citizen participation in the development process. However, due to vast inter- and intra-country differences, no single model has emerged for countries to follow, even if each effort has contributed to further deliberation and discussion. A major challenge to successful implementation has been the absence of an effective and practical framework to ensure decentralization. In the state Madhya Pradesh of India, the democratic reform has progressed from conceptualization to mobilization to institutionalization. For the first time in Madhya Pradesh's development history, state government has shown the courage to interact with communities in making village-level development plans. The Madhya Pradesh Planning Commission has created a tangible plan for working more closely with communities. This paper outlines the nature of this initiative and analyses the adequacy of the framework for decentralizsation and the mechanism of governance adopted by the Madhya Pradesh government for achieving the goal of participatory democracy. In particular, the paper assesses the state model of decentralized planning, its operational framework, and ongoing efforts. It also presents the status of village-level planning in the state, including how villages are interacting with one another and with government entities outside the state.

O propósito do artigo é realizar um estudo da participação pública promovida pelo site eDemocracia (http://edemocracia.camara.gov.br/), da Câmara dos Deputados, a partir dos referenciais teóricos de deliberação online. O artigo se desenvolve por meio de uma avaliação descritiva do site e de uma análise do teor dos conteúdos das participações cidadãs. Aos referenciais teóricos e descritivos, alia-se uma análise empírica da Comunidade Legislativa Participativa (CLP) “Política Sobre Drogas”, hospedada no referido site, observando, em alguns termos, os seus aspectos refletidos no relatório final da Comissão Especial sobre o mesmo tema. Como apontamentos da pesquisa, indica-se que o site cumpre, por meio de suas ferramentas, o papel de aproximar os cidadãos do processo legislativo e de formar um espaço público virtual potencialmente deliberativo. Destaca-se também a identificação das características específicas da participação do público em um site governamental, visto que existem outras experiências de participação online criadas e administradas independentemente de alguma ligação com um ente governamental. Essa ligação pode ser positiva com manutenção de um nível argumentativo de debate, mas pode, em contrapartida, afastar outros cidadãos que não se sintam amadurecidos satisfatoriamente para expressar seus pontos de vista. O artigo aponta para uma constatação de oferta de ferramentas de significativo potencial participativo pelo site, mas que, de fato, os usos dessas ferramentas e os níveis de interação entre os participantes ainda são insatisfatórios, com um pequeno número de interagentes para uma proposta de alcance nacional. Dois elementos ainda podem ser indicados como carentes nesses processos de participação online: a necessidade de estruturas político-administrativas mais porosas e realmente abertas à participação; e uma verdadeira gestão do conteúdo apresentado pelos cidadãos para que sintam que sua participação gera uma interferência no campo político.

India is one of the few democracies in the world that does not have a witness protection law in spite of such high crimes rates. The incompetence of the bureaucratic setup of democracy condemned the criminal justice system to being reduced to a mere namesake. This article attempts to provide an understanding of the condition of a witness in the criminal justice system. Without any witness protection laws, the courts have suffered from having to afford security and protection to the citizens that present themselves to testify before the court. Witnesses turn hostile in such a large number of cases and are exposed to threats and manipulation in the course of any criminal proceedings. The legislative efforts in the past have largely failed to provide any solution to this problem. While it is undoubtedly contented that witness protection is non-dispensable for a fair trial, this article explores the avenue of whether witness protection could be a judicial function. While most jurisdictions across the world run witness protection programmes through the executive, these programmes are wildly transparent and directly answerable to the government. However, in India, given the vast population of the land and the already available infrastructure of the courts and the concerns regarding a full-fledged witness protection programme expressed by various sources from the government over time, it takes considerable deliberation to vest power in the judiciary for an efficient criminal justice system. Nonetheless, at present, the 2018 scheme of witness protection is the only legislative entity available to the criminal justice system which is inexecutable and offers little relief to the problems.

Indonesia is one of the largest countries that embraces a democratic system after the United States and India. As a democratic country, of course, Indonesia gives freedom of opinion in public in accordance with the Law of the Republic of Indonesia Number 9 of 1998 concerning freedom of expression in public. Politics is one issue that steals the public's attention. Elections (Elections) are a concrete manifestation of the application of democracy in Indonesia. However, it is not uncommon in the arena of political contestation, expressions of hatred are often used by certain parties to bring down political opponents as well as attract public sympathy to win politics (detik.com, 2018). According to Cherian George, professor of media studies from the University of Hong Kong, hate spin is a deliberate attempt by hate rappers to invent or fabricate hate (which actually does not exist). The hate speech has been happening a lot in social media as a fast means of disseminating information. Furthermore, the factors that led to the rise of political hate speech, on social media are the presence of buzzers, influencers and followers. based on the Notes of a Number of Surveys released by PolMark (2018) there is an increased potential for the destruction of social harmony during the 2014-2017 democratic party. This is certainly a concern among all parties to cooperate with each other in overcoming utterances of hatred about politics for the sake of maintaining the unity of the nation and state.

(Views of Major General S B Asthana,SM,VSM, (Veteran), Questioned by Jiangtao Shi of South China Morning Post on 29 August 2017.Question 1 (SCMP)Are you surprised that the over 70-day military standoff ended all of a sudden just days ahead of PM Narendra Modi’s trip to China for the BRICS summit? The deliberate ambiguity in both sides’ statements seems to indicate that both sides were willing to make some kind of concessions in a bid to end the dispute in a mutually acceptable face-saving manner. What are the main reasons and factors behind the seemingly peaceful solution for China and India respectively? (For China , BRICS and the 19th party congress? For India, domestic political support and economic reform?)Answer 1 by Major General S B AsthanaI am not really surprised that the over 70-day military standoff ended all of a sudden just days ahead of PM Narendra Modi’s trip to China for the BRICS summit. As you have rightly pointed out, both sides (China and India) were looking for an opportunity for a face saving resolution, without appearing to be weak domestically. The likelihood of absence of PM Modi in BRICS Summit, and its resultant political and diplomatic cost, triggered that opportunity. In my opinion, the main reasons behind such a sudden resolution were:-Any escalation beyond the point of standoff as on 28 August could have been cost prohibitive in terms of economical engagement, political and diplomatic cost, human casualties, without any worthwhile gains for both sides. Prolonging it was not in the national interest of either of the country.Success of BRICS is important for all member countries including China. China refusal to talk without precondition of Indian withdrawal and repeated provocative statements was exhibiting its arrogance. This wasn’t going well with global community, besides giving an indirect message to all including BRICS, about its hegemonic intentions and poor diplomatic acumen. Even US and Japan, who were not involved with Doklam, chose to state that both must talk to resolve it. The fact that China did not accept ICA verdict, continued aggressive posturing in South China Sea, violated 2012 Agreement in Doklam Triangle, and was seen as not doing enough to implement UN obligation against North Korea. It was affecting its global image adversely, hence some midcourse correction was needed, which has been done through this adjustment.An India China conflict, besides shattering dreams of economic prosperity of both countries, could have escalated to international dimensions, more so with ongoing problems of North Korea and South China Sea, and turbulence in Af- Pak Region. The fact that both are nuclear states cannot be discounted in strategic calculus of escalation dynamics.Militarily the escalation dynamics was not thought through. If war gamed properly, the escalation would have resulted in stalemate, which would have damaged the image of President Xi Jinping and reduced his chances for getting favourable people in 19th Party Congress in his second term and any possible prospects of his third term.From Indian perspective also, escalation of this standoff wasn’t in its National Interest. India needs China’s market for its growth in future, even if the balance of trade is not in its favour today. Now that India is on ‘Make in India’ path, as fastest growing economy to bring prosperity to its people,it may not like to slow down due to such meaningless disruptions.There was no domestic pressure on Indian Government, as all political parties,Security forces and public were determined to check Chinese encroachment and arrogance, at any cost.Question 2(SCMP)While an “expeditious disengagement” in Doklam brought an end to the border standoff and ease tensions between the two countries, do you think it could fuel nationalist sentiment, mistrust and hostility in both nations and cast a long shadow over the longstanding border dispute between China and India and their relations? What are the immediate and long-term implications of the border standoff on bilateral relations, especially considering the strategic competition and rivalry for dominance in the region between the nuclear-armed Asian giants? Will it have a long-term impact on the regional geopolitical landscape?Answer 2 by Major General S B AsthanaDoklam standoff is neither the first, nor the last, and not even the longest standoff between India and China. Many strategists argue that Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are strong leaders, leading their nations with patriotic sentiments. The nationalist self-confidence from both sides may ignite a heated rivalry in which bilateral relations could deteriorate, because an “expeditious disengagement” in Doklam is only a temporary answer to the bigger problem of longstanding border dispute between both.Out of 14 countries with which China had border issues, it has resolved with 12 except India and Bhutan. With India, China has been delaying settling the border issue on some pretext or the other, and with Bhutan it has been shifting its claim lines many times. I understand that permanent resolution of Border Dispute is the ultimate solution, which needs to be expedited. It is a complex problem, as both sides read history in a manner that it supports their claims. This was the reason for both countries to have signed various agreements to ensure peace and tranquillity along the borders, which have been reasonably successful, as no bullet has been fired amongst both Forces in last four decades.Even if resolution of boundary is considered to be a complex problem, the demarcation, delineation and defining of Line of Actual Control (LAC), (which is not a mutually accepted line as of now), is an inescapable necessity. This is do-able by cooperative political intent, to be followed by intense diplomatic efforts. This action cannot be postponed further if the two neighbours have to live peacefully in future without further standoffs’. It needs to be understood that with un-demarcated LAC, troops of both sides will patrol as per their own perceptions of LAC; some areas will be common which both sides will patrol to be its own. Every such patrol will be called as intrusion by the other side, hence such face-offs will continue tillit’s demarcated, and the identification of its demarcation is made known to troops manning the borders. The short term impacts of standoffs were the anxiety among people, possible temporary setback to trade, tension on borders, non attendance of important events like BRF/BRICS if not resolved. The long term impact could have been hardening of varying stand on border resolution, aggressive strategic competition, and growth of interest based strategic partnerships to balance each other.Being neighbors, most populated, developing countries and significant trading partners of future, China and India have convergence of interests in many areas.Our economical engagements, mutual cooperation can proceed with strategic divergences, and this has been demonstrated adequately in past.Question3(SCMP)What are messages for other Asian nations caught between the increasing rivalry between China and India? What are the main takeaways for countries like Bhutan , Sri Lanka , Vietnam , Myanmar , Japan , Singapore and Mongolia ?Answer 3 by Major General S B AsthanaI do not subscribe to the idea of growing rivalry between China and India. The extension of economical and strategic space by large growing countries like China and India, to fulfil their genuine needs is natural and may not necessarily be a rivalry. In case some Asian nation is caught between contradictory needs of China and India, in my opinion it should look after its own national interest.The main message which comes out loud and clear from Doklam episode is that in today’s world no country can afford to be arrogant to bully smaller sovereign nation, if the smaller Nation is determined to stand up for its national interest. If Cuba could stand up to US, Bhutan could stand up to China, Vietnam could stand up to China as well as US, then smaller countries should also look after their national interest, without worrying about the size and might of any power, trying to push them or manipulate their genuine strategic choices.In my perception, the DoklamPlateau was presumably chosen by China for road construction to violate 2012 Treaty at this point of time because:-India and Bhutan boycotted Belt and Road Forum (BRF) for International Cooperation, the Doklam ingress could embarrass both the countries simultaneously.Stressing on 1890 Treaty by China takes away the logic of Tibet, as a player in dealing with India, thus a subtle message to Dalai Lama that he is not a stake holder in Tibet.Test the depth of Indo- Bhutanese security relationship.The area being too close to Siliguri Corridor/Chicken’s Neck, India had to be concerned and had to decide whether to intervene or otherwise in India’s own national interest, thereby conveying a message of standing up or not standing up to a challenge from Beijing in future too.As the construction activity was in Bhutanese Territory, a strong Indian reaction was not expected.In case India takes action, China can proclaim itself as an innocent victim and blame India to be an aggressor.China was however surprised by an unexpectedly strong Indian reaction, and then it realized that the point chosen was such, where it had strategic and tactical disadvantages for her in escalating it. China was also surprised that in multiparty democracy like India, all parties are on the same page as far as stand on sovereignty and Doklam Issue was concerned.The end result was that China was extremely disturbed about it, and churning out fresh provocative statements almost on daily basis, launching psychological and propaganda war, war of words, and resorting to every possible means short of war to put pressure on India to withdraw its troops. The Indian side on the other side has been relatively balanced, but firm in its stance, making very few statements, and was globally appreciated for its diplomatic maturity. No one bought the idea of India being an aggressor. India proved that it could physically resist China when its national interest demands so, and it also honors the security arrangement promised to Bhutan by physical action.Chinese efforts to establish bilateral talks with Bhutan, including financial allurement (Purse Diplomacy) did not materialize. India and Bhutan stood by each other and could resist Chinese aggressive activity. Chinese efforts to involve Nepal also resulted in response from their Deputy Prime Minister expressing unwillingness to take sides. Japanese Ambassador in New Delhi also said that there should be no attempt to change status quo on the ground by force.Vietnam has stood up earlier against China as well as US for its national interest. The Doklam episode will encourage countries like, Mongolia (Visit of Dalai Lama), Singapore( trade issues), Srilanka ( Hambantota Port), Myanmar( Dam construction), and Japan( East China Sea/Senkakuislands) to stand up to China for various issues of divergences, and cause others like Philippines, to reconsider their options to give away their strategic choices.China in last few years has been on island grabbing spree using ‘Incremental Encroachment’ as part of ‘Active Defence’ Strategy’, with its economic and military clout, using ‘Purse Diplomacy’ with some countries and ‘Infrastructure Diplomacy’ with others. In some cases the disagreements amongst some countries have become quite pronounced due to unfair deals. Singaporehad a strong interest in ensuring navigation in South China Seas is not restricted. Mongolia displayed the temerity of hosting the Dalai Lama, despite Chinese opposition.The bigger lesson is that no sovereign country should be pushed to take sides, and if it is done aggressively by any stronger power, the nation which is being pushed will be forced to seek security and other interests elsewhere, in terms of various other partnerships.Question 4 (SCMP)With India insisting that China should respect the 2012 understanding on tri-junctions, which specifically said “the tri-junction boundary points between India, China and third countries will be finalised in consultation with the concerned countries,” do you think it will further delay the border talks between China and Bhutan? Does it mean India will have to be directly involved as the third party in Sino-Bhutanese border talks in the future?Answer 4 by Major General S B AsthanaAs per the lay of the ground, the resolution of border dispute of China and Bhutan especially at triangle/ junction points, is closely linked and cannot be done in isolation. At Doklam plateau the location of Tri-junction as per India supported by Bhutan is Batang La, whereas China contends it to be at Gyemochenon Jampheri Ridge, which amounts to an encroachment of 7-8 km. These issues cannot be resolved in isolation. If there is political will to resolve it, then meeting of three delegation will not take any time. The delay is only in making political decision and directing the diplomats to resolve it in time bound manner.Additional PointAlthough there is a contradiction in the manner in which each country has reported it perhaps to amuse their domestic audience, and both sides can claim it to be a diplomatic achievement. It is a welcomed step towards peace and tranquilityalong the borders, hence which side blinked first or had an upper hand is not relevant, although both will claim it. This resolution has ensured that there has been no exchange of bullets, and India and China as responsible nations have been able to resolve their differences peacefully on Doklam Standoff. It also ensured that both the countries found a peaceful solution, with a face-saving gesture to ease tension, without disturbing the core interest of either.

“There is nothing more public than privacy.” (Berlant and Warner, Sex) How did it come to this? How did it happen that a one-off, two-hour event at a public swimming pool in a suburb of outer Melbourne ignited international hate mail and generated media-fanned political anguish and debate about the proper use of public spaces? In 2010, women who attend a women’s only swim session on Sunday evenings at the Dandenong Oasis public swimming pool asked the pool management and the local council for permission to celebrate the end of Ramadan at the pool during the time of their regular swim session. The request was supported by the pool managers and the council and promoted by both as an opportunity for family and friends to get together in a spirit of multicultural learning and understanding. Responding to criticisms of the event as an unreasonable claim on public facilities by one group, the Mayor of the City of Greater Dandenong, Jim Memeti, rejected claims that this event discriminates against non-Muslim residents of the suburb. But here’s the rub. The event, to be held after hours at the pool, requires all participants older than ten years of age to follow a dress code of knee-length shorts and T-shirts. This is a suburban moment that is borne of but exceeds the local. It reflects and responds to a contemporary global conundrum of great political and theoretical significance—how to negotiate and govern the relations between multiculturalism, religion, gender, sexual freedom, and democracy. Specifically this event speaks to how multicultural democracy in the public sphere negotiates the public presence and expression of different cultural and religious frameworks related to gender and sexuality. This is demanding political stuff. Situated in the messy political and theoretical terrains of the relation between public space and the public sphere, this local moment called for political judgement about how cultural differences should be allowed to manifest in and through public space, giving consideration to the potential effects of these decisions on an inclusive multicultural democracy. The local authorities in Dandenong engaged in an admirable process of democratic labour as they puzzled over how to make decisions that were responsible and equitable, in the absence of a rulebook or precedents for success. Ultimately however this mode of experimental decision-making, which will become increasingly necessary to manage such predicaments in the future, was foreclosed by unwarranted and unhelpful media outrage. "Foreclosed" here stresses the preemptive nature of the loss; a lost opportunity for trialing approaches to governing cultural diversity that may fail, but might then be modified. It was condemned in advance of either success or failure. The role of the media rather than the discomfort of the local publics has been decisive in this event.This Multicultural SuburbDandenong is approximately 30 kilometres southeast of central Melbourne. Originally home to the Bunorong People of the Kulin nation, it was settled by pastoralists by the 1800s, heavily industrialised during the twentieth century, and now combines cultural diversity with significant social disadvantage. The City of Greater Dandenong is proud of its reputation as the most culturally and linguistically diverse municipality in Australia. Its population of approximately 138,000 comprises residents from 156 different language groups. More than half (56%) of its population was born overseas, with 51% from nations where English is not the main spoken language. These include Vietnam, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, India, China, Italy, Greece, Bosnia and Afghanistan. It is also a place of significant religious diversity with residents identifying as Buddhist (15 per cent) Muslim (8 per cent), Hindu (2 per cent) and Christian (52 per cent) [CGD]. Its city logo, “Great Place, Great People” evokes its twin pride in the placemaking power of its diverse population. It is also a brazen act of civic branding to counter its reputation as a derelict and dangerous suburb. In his recent book The Bogan Delusion, David Nichols cites a "bogan" website that names Dandenong as one of Victoria’s two most bogan areas. The other was Moe. (p72). The Sunday Age newspaper had already depicted Dandenong as one of two excessively dangerous suburbs “where locals fear to tread” (Elder and Pierik). The other suburb of peril was identified as Footscray.Central Dandenong is currently the site of Australia’s largest ever state sponsored Urban Revitalisation program with a budget of more than $290 million to upgrade infrastructure, that aims to attract $1billion in private investment to provide housing and future employment.The Cover UpIn September 2010, the Victorian and Civil and Administrative Appeals Tribunal (VCAT) granted the YMCA an exemption from the Equal Opportunity Act to allow a dress code for the Ramadan event at the Oasis swimming pool that it manages. The "Y" sees the event as “an opportunity for the broader community to learn more about Ramadan and the Muslim faith, and encourages all members of Dandenong’s diverse community to participate” (YMCA Ramadan). While pool management and the municipal council refer to the event as an "opening up" of the closed swimming session, the media offer a different reading of the VCAT decision. The trope of the "the cover up" has framed most reports and commentaries (Murphy; Szego). The major focus of the commentaries has not been the event per se, but the call to dress "appropriately." Dress codes however are a cultural familiar. They exist for workplaces, schools, nightclubs, weddings, racing and sporting clubs and restaurants, to name but a few. While some of these codes or restrictions are normatively imposed rather than legally required, they are not alien to cultural life in Australia. Moreover, there are laws that prohibit people from being meagerly dressed or naked in public, including at beaches, swimming pools and so on. The dress code for this particular swimming pool event was, however, perceived to be unusual and, in a short space of time, "unusual" converted to "social threat."Responses to media polls about the dress code reveal concerns related to the symbolic dimensions of the code. The vast majority of those who opposed the Equal Opportunity exemption saw it as the thin edge of the multicultural wedge, a privatisation of public facilities, or a denial of the public’s right to choose how to dress. Tabloid newspapers reported on growing fears of Islamisation, while the more temperate opposition situated the decision as a crisis of human rights associated with tolerating illiberal cultural practices. Julie Szego reflects this view in an opinion piece in The Age newspaper:the Dandenong pool episode is neither trivial nor insignificant. It is but one example of human rights laws producing outcomes that restrict rights. It raises tough questions about how far public authorities ought to go in accommodating cultural practices that sit uneasily with mainstream Western values. (Szego)Without enquiring into the women’s request and in the absence of the women’s views about what meaning the event held for them, most media commentators and their electronically wired audiences treated the announcement as yet another alarming piece of evidence of multicultural failure and the potential Islamisation of Australia. The event raised specific concerns about the double intrusion of cultural difference and religion. While the Murdoch tabloid Herald Sun focused on the event as “a plan to force families to cover up to avoid offending Muslims at a public event” (Murphy) the liberal Age newspaper took a more circumspect approach, reporting on its small vox pop at the Dandenong pool. Some people here referred to the need to respect religions and seemed unfazed by the exemption and the event. Those who disagreed thought it was important not to enforce these (dress) practices on other people (Carey).It is, I believe, significant that several employees of the local council informed me that most of the opposition has come from the media, people outside of Dandenong and international groups who oppose the incursion of Islam into non-Islamic settings. Opposition to the event did not appear to derive from local concern or opposition.The overwhelming majority of Herald Sun comments expressed emphatic opposition to the dress code, citing it variously as unAustralian, segregationist, arrogant, intolerant and sexist. The Herald Sun polled readers (in a self-selecting and of course highly unrepresentative on-line poll) asking them to vote on whether or not they agreed with the VCAT exemption. While 5.52 per cent (512 voters) agreed with the ruling, 94.48 per cent (8,760) recorded disagreement. In addition, the local council has, for the first time in memory, received a stream of hate-mail from international anti-Islam groups. Muslim women’s groups, feminists, the Equal Opportunity Commissioner and academics have also weighed in. According to local reports, Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne, Shahram Akbarzadeh, considered the exemption was “nonsense” and would “backfire and the people who will pay for it will be the Muslim community themselves” (Haberfield). He repudiated it as an example of inclusion and tolerance, labeling it “an effort of imposing a value system (sic)” (Haberfield). He went so far as to suggest that, “If Tony Abbott wanted to participate in his swimwear he wouldn’t be allowed in. That’s wrong.” Tasneem Chopra, chairwoman of the Islamic Women’s Welfare Council and Sherene Hassan from the Islamic Council of Victoria, both expressed sensitivity to the group’s attempt to establish an inclusive event but would have preferred the dress code to be a matter of choice rather coercion (Haberfield, "Mayor Defends Dandenong Pool Cover Up Order"). Helen Szoke, the Commissioner of the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, defended the pool’s exemption from the Law that she oversees. “Matters such as this are not easy to resolve and require a balance to be achieved between competing rights and obligations. Dress codes are not uncommon: e.g., singlets, jeans, thongs etc in pubs/hotels” (in Murphy). The civil liberties organisation, Liberty Victoria, supported the ban because the event was to be held after hours (Murphy). With astonishing speed this single event not only transformed the suburban swimming pool to a theatre of extra-local disputes about who and what is entitled to make claims on public space and publically funded facilities, but also fed into charged debates about the future of multiculturalism and the vulnerability of the nation to the corrosive effects of cultural and religious difference. In this sense suburbs like Dandenong are presented as sites that not only generate fear about physical safety but whose suburban sensitivities to its culturally diverse population represent a threat to the safety of the nation. Thus the event both reflects and produces an antipathy to cultural difference and to the place where difference resides. This aversion is triggered by and mediated in this case through the figure, rather than the (corpo)reality, of the Muslim woman. In this imagining, the figure of the Muslim woman is assigned the curious symbolic role of "cultural creep." The debates around the pool event is not about the wellbeing or interests of the Muslim women themselves, nor are broader debates about the perceived, culturally-derived restrictions imposed on Muslim women living in Australia or other western countries. The figure of the Muslim woman is, I would argue, simply the ground on which the debates are held. The first debate relates to social and public space, access to which is considered fundamental to freedom and participatory democracy, and in current times is addressed in terms of promoting inclusion, preventing exclusion and finding opportunities for cross cultural encounters. The second relates not to public space per se, but to the public sphere or the “sphere of private people coming together as a public” for political deliberation (Habermas 21). The literature and discussions dealing with these two terrains have remained relatively disconnected (Low and Smith) with public space referring largely to activities and opportunities in the socio-cultural domain and the public sphere addressing issues of politics, rights and democracy. This moment in Dandenong offers some modest leeway for situating "the suburb" as an ideal site for coalescing these disparate discussions. In this regard I consider Iveson’s provocative and productive question about whether some forms of exclusions from suburban public space may actually deepen the democratic ideals of the public sphere. Exclusions may in such cases be “consistent with visions of a democratically inclusive city” (216). He makes his case in relation to a dispute about the exclusion of men exclusion from a women’s only swimming pool in the Sydney suburb of Coogee. The Dandenong case is similarly exclusive with an added sense of exclusion generated by an "inclusion with restrictions."Diversity, Difference, Public Space and the Public SphereAs a prelude to this discussion of exclusion as democracy, I return to the question that opened this article: how did it come to this? How is it that Australia has moved from its renowned celebration and pride in its multiculturalism so much in evidence at the suburban level through what Ghassan Hage calls an “unproblematic” multiculturalism (233) and what others have termed “everyday multiculturalism” (Wise and Velayutham). Local cosmopolitanisms are often evinced through the daily rituals of people enjoying the ethnic cuisines of their co-residents’ pasts, and via moments of intercultural encounter. People uneventfully rub up against and greet each other or engage in everyday acts of kindness that typify life in multicultural suburbs, generating "reservoirs of hope" for democratic and cosmopolitan cities (Thrift 147). In today’s suburbs, however, the “Imperilled Muslim women” who need protection from “dangerous Muslim men” (Razack 129) have a higher discursive profile than ethnic cuisine as the exemplar of multiculturalism. Have we moved from pleasure to hostility or was the suburban pleasure in racial difference always about a kind of “eating the other” (bell hooks 378). That is to ask whether our capacity to experience diversity positively has been based on consumption, consuming the other for our own enrichment, whereas living with difference entails a commitment not to consumption but to democracy. This democratic multicultural commitment is a form of labour rather than pleasure, and its outcome is not enrichment but transformation (although this labour can be pleasurable and transformation might be enriching). Dandenong’s prized cultural precincts, "Little India" and the "Afghan bazaar" are showcases of food, artefacts and the diversity of the suburb. They are centres of pleasurable and exotic consumption. The pool session, however, requires one to confront difference. In simple terms we can think about ethnic food, festivals and handicrafts as cultural diversity, and the Muslim woman as cultural difference.This distinction between diversity and difference is useful for thinking through the relation between multiculturalism in public space and multicultural democracy of the public sphere. According to the anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen, while a neoliberal sensibility supports cultural diversity in the public space, cultural difference is seen as a major cause of social problems associated with immigrants, and has a diminishing effect on the public sphere (14). According to Eriksen, diversity is understood as aesthetic, or politically and morally neutral expressions of culture that are enriching (Hage 118) or digestible. Difference, however, refers to morally objectionable cultural practices. In short, diversity is enriching. Difference is corrosive. Eriksen argues that differences that emerge from distinct cultural ideas and practices are deemed to create conflicts with majority cultures, weaken social solidarity and lead to unacceptable violations of human rights in minority groups. The suburban swimming pool exists here at the boundary of diversity and difference, where the "presence" of diverse bodies may enrich, but their different practices deplete and damage existing culture. The imperilled Muslim woman of the suburbs carries a heavy symbolic load. She stands for major global contests at the border of difference and diversity in three significant domains, multiculturalism, religion and feminism. These three areas are positioned simultaneously in public space and of the public sphere and she embodies a specific version of each in this suburban setting. First, there a global retreat from multiculturalism evidenced in contemporary narratives that describe multiculturalism (both as official policy and unofficial sensibility) as failed and increasingly ineffective at accommodating or otherwise dealing with religious, cultural and ethnic differences (Cantle; Goodhart; Joppke; Poynting and Mason). In the UK, Europe, the US and Australia, popular media sources and political discourses speak of "parallel lives,"immigrant enclaves, ghettoes, a lack of integration, the clash of values, and illiberal cultural practices. The covered body of the Muslim woman, and more particularly the Muslim veil, are now read as visual signs of this clash of values and of the refusal to integrate. Second, religion has re-emerged in the public domain, with religious groups and individuals making particular claims on public space both on the basis of their religious identity and in accord with secular society’s respect for religious freedom. This is most evident in controversies in France, Belgium and Netherlands associated with banning niqab in public and other religious symbols in schools, and in Australia in court. In this sense the covered Muslim woman raises concerns and indignation about the rightful place of religion in the public sphere and in social space. Third, feminism is increasingly invoked as the ground from which claims about the imperilled Muslim woman are made, particularly those about protecting women from their dangerous men. The infiltration of the Muslim presence into public space is seen as a threat to the hard won gains of women’s freedom enjoyed by the majority population. This newfound feminism of the public sphere, posited by those who might otherwise disavow feminism, requires some serious consideration. This public discourse rarely addresses the discrimination, violation and lack of freedom experienced systematically on an everyday basis by women of majority cultural backgrounds in western societies (such as Australia). However, the sexism of racially and religiously different men is readily identified and decried. This represents a significant shift to a dubious feminist register of the public sphere such that: “[w]omen of foreign origin, ...more specifically Muslim women…have replaced the traditional housewife as the symbol of female subservience” (Tissot 41–42).The three issues—multiculturalism, religion and feminism—are, in the Dandenong pool context, contests about human rights, democracy and the proper use of public space. Szego’s opinion piece sees the Dandenong pool "cover up" as an example of the conundrum of how human rights for some may curtail the human rights of others and lead us into a problematic entanglement of universal "rights," with claims of difference. In her view the combination of human rights and multiculturalism in the case of the Dandenong Pool accommodates illiberal practices that put the rights of "the general public" at risk, or as she puts it, on a “slippery slope” that results in a “watering down of our human rights.” Ideas that entail women making a claim for private time in public space are ultimately not good for "us."Such ideas run counter to the West's more than 500-year struggle for individual freedom—including both freedom of religion and freedom from religion—and for gender equality. Our public authorities ought to be pushing back hardest when these values are under threat. Yet this is precisely where they've been buckling under pressure (Szego)But a different reading of the relation between public and private space, human rights, democracy and gender freedom is readily identifiable in the Dandenong event—if one looks for it. Living with difference, I have already suggested, is a problem of democracy and the public sphere and does not so easily correspond to consuming diversity, as it demands engagement with cultural difference. In what remains, I explore how multicultural democracy in the public sphere and women’s rights in public and private realms relate, firstly, to the burgeoning promise of democracy and civility that might emerge in public space through encounter and exchange. I also point out how this moment in Dandenong might be read as a singular contribution to dealing with this global problematic of living with difference; of democracy in the public sphere. Public urban space has become a focus for speculation among geographers and sociologists in particular, about the prospects for an enhanced civic appreciation of living with difference through encountering strangers. Random and repetitious encounters with people from all cultures typify contemporary urban life. It remains an open question however as to whether these encounters open up or close down possibilities for conviviality and understanding, and whether they undo or harden peoples’ fears and prejudices. There is, however, at least in some academic and urban planning circles, some hope that the "throwntogetherness" (Massey) and the "doing" of togetherness (Laurier and Philo) found in the multicultural city may generate some lessons and opportunities for developing a civic culture and political commitment to living with difference. Alongside the optimism of those who celebrate the city, the suburb, and public spaces as forging new ways of living with difference, there are those such as Gill Valentine who wonder how this might be achieved in practice (324). Ash Amin similarly notes that city or suburban public spaces are not necessarily “the natural servants of multicultural engagement” (Ethnicity 967). Amin and Valentine point to the limited or fleeting opportunities for real engagement in these spaces. Moreover Valentine‘s research in the UK revealed that the spatial proximity found in multicultural spaces did not so much give rise to greater mutual respect and engagement, but to a frustrated “white self-segregation in the suburbs.” She suggests therefore that civility and polite exchange should not be mistaken for respect (324). Amin contends that it is the “micro-publics” of social encounters found in workplaces, schools, gardens, sports clubs [and perhaps swimming pools] rather than the fleeting encounters of the street or park, that offer better opportunities for meaningful intercultural exchange. The Ramadan celebration at the pool, with its dress code and all, might be seen more fruitfully as a purposeful event engaging a micro-public in which people are able to “break out of fixed relations and fixed notions” and “learn to become different” (Amin, Ethnicity 970) without that generating discord and resentment.Micropublics, Subaltern Publics and a Democracy of (Temporary) ExclusionsIs this as an opportunity to bring the global and local together in an experiment of forging new democratic spaces for gender, sexuality, culture and for living with difference? More provocatively, can we see exclusion and an invitation to share in this exclusion as a precursor to and measure of, actually existing democracy? Painter and Philo have argued that democratic citizenship is questionable if “people cannot be present in public spaces (streets, squares, parks, cinemas, churches, town halls) without feeling uncomfortable, victimized and basically ‘out of place’…" (Iveson 216). Feminists have long argued that distinctions between public and private space are neither straightforward nor gender neutral. For Nancy Fraser the terms are “cultural classifications and rhetorical labels” that are powerful because they are “frequently deployed to delegitimate some interests, views and topics and to valorize others” (73). In relation to women and other subordinated minorities, the "rhetoric of privacy" has been historically used to restrict the domain of legitimate public contestation. In fact the notion of what is public and particularly notions of the "public interest" and the "public good" solidify forms of subordination. Fraser suggests the concept of "subaltern counterpublics" as an alternative to notions of "the public." These are discursive spaces where groups articulate their needs, and demands are circulated formulating their own public sphere. This challenges the very meaning and foundational premises of ‘the public’ rather than simply positing strategies of inclusion or exclusion. The twinning of Amin’s notion of "micro-publics" and Fraser’s "counterpublics" is, I suggest, a fruitful approach to interpreting the Dandenong pool issue. It invites a reading of this singular suburban moment as an experiment, a trial of sorts, in newly imaginable ways of living democratically with difference. It enables us to imagine moments when a limited democratic right to exclude might create the sorts of cultural exchanges that give rise to a more authentic and workable recognition of cultural difference. I am drawn to think that this is precisely the kind of democratic experimentation that the YMCA and Dandenong Council embarked upon when they applied for the Equal Opportunity exemption. I suggest that by trialing, rather than fixing forever a "critically exclusive" access to the suburban swimming pool for two hours per year, they were in fact working on the practical problem of how to contribute in small but meaningful ways to a more profoundly free democracy and a reworked public sphere. In relation to the similar but distinct example of the McIver pool for women and children in Coogee, New South Wales, Kurt Iveson makes the point that such spaces of exclusion or withdrawal, “do not necessarily serve simply as spaces where people ‘can be themselves’, or as sites through which reified identities are recognised—in existing conditions of inequality, they can also serve as protected spaces where people can take the risk of exploring who they might become with relative safety from attack and abuse” (226). These are necessary risks to take if we are to avoid entrenching fear of difference in a world where difference is itself deeply, and permanently, entrenched.ReferencesAmin, Ash. “Ethnicity and the Multicultural City: Living with Diversity.” Environment and Planning A 34 (2002): 959–80.———. “The Good City.” Urban Studies 43 (2006): 1009–23.Berlant, Lauren, and Michael Warner. “Sex in Public.” Critical Inquiry 24 (1998): 547–66.Cantle, Ted. Community Cohesion: A Report of the Independent Review Team. 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