Democratic Dialogue and Distress
Post-Globalization and New Challenges to Democracy
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Dmitry Ivanov
Globalization promising structural homogeneity and cultural unity is over and post-globalization as the growth and decoupling of super-urban enclaves of globality becomes the newest challenge to sociology. In such metropolitan areas as New York, London, Hong Kong, or São Paulo, people experience globality as borderless, mobile, and multicultural life because there they are in hubs of transnational material, human, and symbolic flows. Concentrating wealth and cultural power, the largest cities threaten equal rights and institutional unity of democratic nation-state. Brexit and Trump’s campaign have showed sharp social and political divides between enclaves of globality and surrounding areas. Voters in small towns and rural areas less involved into transnational networks and flows are against globalist political agenda supported by super-urban population. Large cities and megacities are more cosmopolitan and liberal than more conservative majority of nation supporting new populism. Recent turn from globalist trends to localization of globality and to the rise of post-globalization is challenging liberal democracy as a dominant paradigm. This paper focused on the turn from neoliberal globalization to post-globalization rises a set of questions addressing new trends challenging democracy. What is social and political meaning of post-globalization? What role, positive or negative, is played by super-urban enclaves of globality in development of democracy? How can we compare traditional democracy (popular rule and the majority power) with an inclusive democracy promoting diversity and rights of minorities and migrants? What are the causes of electoral successes of anti-globalist and anti-liberal populism?
Corruption and Violence in Nigeria - a Critical Analysis
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Salome Charles Nworuh
Many areas in Africa have gone through a lot of violent conflict in recent. Nigeria and many other Africa countries have several similarities that stem from grand corruption. The vast systemic grand corruption is evidenced by the use of state violence, including massacres, other human rights violations, structural violence, the repression of the media, the repression of minorities, controversial land acquisitions, and the collusion of organized crime and the state, leading to state capture. The high levels of impunity, weak structures, and weak judicial systems have contributed to the continuation of systemic corruption and state violence. The paper explores the causal link between corruption, state capture, and state terror. It also explores the role of weak institutions, structural violence, and other factors that play an important role in since the military passed the Nigerian government to civilians in 1999.
