Ruairidh Brown
Sovereignty is typically perceived to lie with those who can provide protection. Ruairidh Brown considers how the pandemic has tested and challenged the supra-national, national and sub-national levels in terms of the exercise of sovereign power. What might be the implications of these developments in the future? Read more
Ernesto Cruz Ruiz
Ernesto Cruz Ruiz argues that a Jean-Paul Gagnon’s democracy ‘data mountain’ will be of limited value if democracy is not also understood as a living entity which has evolved over time according to the impact of different environmental factors. To do this, he proposes a 'specimen drawer’ Read more
Sor-hoon Tan
Sor-hoon Tan explores the challenge that ‘Chinese democracy’ represents for Jean-Paul Gagnon’s democracy ‘data mountain’ project. She argues that exploring the Chinese case helps us establish the wide-ranging parameters to the project. It also identifies the theoretical issues we must confront for the project to succeed Read more
Kyong-Min Son
Jean-Paul Gagnon’s proposal to study democracy as a stable object obscures one of the most important aspects of democracy: its normative character. Kyong-Min Son argues that democracy’s ‘spirit’ animates its perpetual reinvention in defiance of all empirical forms Read more
Aline Bartenstein
Former Commission President Juncker proclaimed that 'solidarity is the glue that keeps our Union together'. But behind this general claim, the concept of solidarity remains nebulous. A federal perspective, argues Aline Bartenstein, helps us to understand the features of solidarity between member states, and why the counter-principle of subsidiarity is necessary Read more
Christian Ewert
Collecting democracy’s words is admirable, thinks Christian Ewert. Not because the collection will hold any meaning on its own, but because it invites us to share and learn Read more
Alexander Hudson
How we measure democracy matters, writes Alexander Hudson. For practitioners, measuring the component parts of democracy is just as important as using an integral concept of democracy Read more
Sandra Leonie Field
Scholars of democracy must look beyond received paradigms. With his democracy 'data mountain', Jean-Paul Gagnon is challenging us to do so. However, drawing on Francis Bacon's analogous project for natural science, Sandra Leonie Field wonders whether a database of adjectives is indeed the best method of reaching this goal Read more
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