EDITOR’S NOTE

By Dr. Tanja Porčnik*

After the decades-long global momentum toward constitutional democracy, we have seen its reversal in recent years as institutional and constitutional constraints on government have been weakened, and human rights have been afforded less protection. In addition, the coronavirus pandemic exigencies have put constitutional democracy to yet another test.

It is with great pleasure that I present Issue 7 of The Visio Journal which explores the grounds of concern with the resilience and robustness of constitutional democracy which has led scholars to speak of “democracy in retreat”, “democratic backsliding”, “democratic recession”, “democratic deconsolidation”, “constitutional retrogression”, “constitutional failure” and “constitutional rot”. The Journal features four papers analyzing the degree institutional and legal frameworks of liberal democracies are resilient to attacks on the rule of law, open society, and human rights.

Finally, I recognize the generous contribution of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom for supporting the journal that is before you.

* Dr. Tanja Porčnik is President of Visio institut and editor of The Visio Journal.

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The Industrial Revolutionizing of the Social Contract: 4.0 Generation Prospects

By Octavian-Dragomir JORA* and Mihaela IACOB**

For a “materialistic” person, the social contract is a bizarre “mental” product, close to alien/UFO mythologies: many people complain that they found themselves speaking of it without ever seeing it; frustrating is that it is supposed to have been signed before being spoken of; on top of that, it was presumably sealed prior of being properly signed. Described (as well as prescribed) by generations of theorists as a (necessary) agreement between the ruled or between the ruled and their rulers, defining the rights/liberties and duties/obligations of each, the social contract is a functional fiction that maintains human society lawful and orderly. In addition to the stress tests (passed and failed, across times and territories) due to the vagaries of the human nature, the imprint of technological (r)evolutions on the social contract is intriguing. Does technology smoothen or rather sharpen the imbalanced positions of the “signatory parties”? What about enforceability? Or about legitimacy? The present paper delves into this techno-political topic with the lenses of the political economist. Firstly, an outline of the core conceptions regarding the social contract theory and its crossroads with the perspectives on direct versus representative democracy is made. At this very junction reside the assessments on both the righteousness and the practicality/efficiency of the social order. Secondly, the inquiry continues with surveying the impact of the waves of industrial/technological shifts upon the general social behaviour and related political processes. The main costs and benefits that economically digested technologies imposed on the democratic life are then noted. Thirdly, the analysis ends up with investigating the capacity of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, with its information processing and communication toolkit, not only to be more inclusive for the citizen, yet in weak democratic routines, but to reset and start anew an empowering social contract.

Key words: political philosophy, political economy, social contract, democracy, industrial revolution, efficiency.

* Dr. Octavian-Dragomir Jora is Professor at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies, the Faculty of International Business and Economics, founder and editor of The Market for Ideas magazine and editor-in-chief of the Œconomica journal.

** Dr. Mihaela Iacob is Associate Professor at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies, the Faculty of Finance and Banking.

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The Church and Democracy in Times of Crisis

By Athanasios GRAMMENOS*

Contemporary European political culture entails robust reliance on the Enlightenment assumptions of positivism and logic. On this basis, the ethics of secularism are associated with reason, while religious tradition, although institutionally respected, is mostly linked with some sort of despotic anachronism. After 9/11, positive ethics considered political Islam as incompatible with liberal democracy, but lately, also Christian faiths are treated with caution, if not reservation within western societies and any involvement in public affairs is received with unease. Be that as it may, in recent years, constitutional democracy faces strong challenges, social and natural. Political developments in the periphery, such as the Syrian civil war and the consequent refugee crisis, economic disparities, environmental concerns, and more recently the pandemic, have dropped participation levels, raised concerns about the efficacy and legitimacy of restrictive measures and, failed to prevent conspiracy theories from gaining ground. In this historical context, religion has played an overlooked role, backing government policies based on humanitarian principles and protecting the common good. The present study examines the engagement of religion with politics in critical cases for human rights when democratic institutions face intense skepticism. Focusing on the recent European experiences, the research traces the normative causes for democracy’s alleged setback and, avoiding the narrowness of the secular rationale, will analyze whether religion could be a sustainable pillar of democratic tradition by supporting constructive citizenship in modern society. The first part will present the updated academic discussion on contemporary democracy and its relationship with religion, while the second will study the empirical evidence on the practices and principles of religious organizations in case studies with protracted controversies. The analysis will answer whether democracy could use (political) support from religion to correct previous political fallacies and win the trust of citizens.

Key words: church, religion, democracy, refugee crisis, COVID-19 pandemic, Orthodox Christianity, Roman Catholicism, politics.

* Dr. Athanasios Grammenos is Research Fellow at the School of Theology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

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State Institutions as a Playground for Populism: Case Study of Western Balkans

By Admir ČAVALIĆ* and Haris DELIĆ**

The paper focuses on the concept of populism in practice in the countries of the Western Balkans, mostly in Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the use of state institutions and government-controlled media to propagate populist narratives. The basic research question relates to the nature of this populism, in the context of the theoretical framework of the given term, as well as the future challenges of the region. In order to answer the research questions, scientific methods of description, comparison, and classification were used, along with an extensive collection of available data. Through research and a comparative analysis of the nature of populist policies in the Western Balkans, it can be seen that these policies are basically very similar – they are multi-year populist policies that trace their roots back to the 1990s and the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, and that the most important path for these countries is their integration into the European Union, which, although very slow, is still possible, however, a more serious approach to state policies and more significant support from the European Union is needed for a bigger step forward. Paper concludes that there are also other temporary alternatives to institution building and the fight against populism, like Open Balkans initiative or upgrading the CEFTA agreement (Central European Free Trade Agreement). These would be increasing the living standards in Western Balkans countries.

Key words: populism, western Balkans, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, populist leaders.

* Admir Čavalić, PhD student at University of Tuzla, is economic analyst and the founder of Association Multi in B&H.

** Haris Delić, MA in law studies, is a Senior Officer at University of Tuzla and member of Association Multi in B&H.

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Quality of liberal democracy and COVID-19 pandemic restrictions: Did liberal democratic institutions manage to protect civil liberties?

By Constantinos SARAVAKOS* and Giorgos ARCHONTAS**

This paper seeks to explore the relationship between liberal and democratic institutions, and the COVID-19 governments’ policy responses restricting the fundamental individual and civil rights. We use a sample of 111 countries during 2020 and we employ eight indicators of the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker as proxies of the right to assemble, the right to move freely and to work and to attend school/university. Through a Kruskal-Wallis test we examined if there is a significant difference in the degree that the governments’ policy responses restricted those rights, depending on the quality of their liberal and democratic institutions (using the Varieties of Democracy dataset). Our results suggest that countries with a higher quality of liberal and democratic institutions restricted less the rights of their citizens regarding school and universities closures, the requirements to stay at home, and the closure of public transportation. Our results also indicate that countries with better quality of liberal and democratic institutions restricted fewer workplaces, public events, gatherings, internal movement, and international travel; however, the differences recorded in these areas, compared to the ones from the other Liberal Democracy groups, are not statistically significant.

Key words: COVID-19 effects, liberalism, liberal democracy, individual rights restriction, COVID-19 policy responses.

* Constantinos Saravakos is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the University of Macedonia and Research Coordinator at the Center for Liberal Studies – Markos Dragoumis (KEFiM).

** Dr. Giorgos Archontas is Head of Educational Programs at the Center for Liberal Studies – Markos Dragoumis (KEFiM).

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