The UN-HABITAT III conference held in Quito in late 2016 enshrined the first Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) with an exclusively urban focus. SDG 11, as it became known, aims to make cities more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable through a range of metrics, indicators, and evaluation systems. It also became part of a post-Quito 'New Urban Agenda' that is still taking shape. This paper raises questions around the potential for reductionism in this new agenda, and argues for the reflexive need to be aware of the types of urban space that are potentially sidelined by the new trends in global urban policy.
The Arab world stands out as a region for its limited progress toward democracy. At the same time, eight national surveys in six Arab countries between 2000 and 2004 show that 90 percent or more of those interviewed would like to see a democratic political system in their country. This does not necessarily imply support for secular democracy, however. Roughly half of the respondents who support democracy also believe that Islam should play an important role in political affairs. It remains to be seen whether popular support for democracy, coupled with recent, albeit limited political openings in some Arab countries, will lead to sustained democratic transitions.
Diversity has been blamed for poor public goods provision in a number of different contexts. It is associated with reduced spending on services, meager rates of tax collection, and poor policies. I argue in this paper, however, that in semidemocratic or authoritarian countries, where political parties are weak, diversity can be an important source of electoral competition, leading to better services. In diverse communities where multiple identity groups are politically mobilized, candidates are forced to seek the support of voters outside of their group, who are more likely to vote based on qualifications than on group affiliation, resulting in better public officials who provide superior services. Moreover, I find internal group fragmentation to be important in understanding the impact of heterogeneity on public goods provision: candidates in areas where only one identity group is politically mobilized but where that group is politically fragmented will also seek votes from other groups within the community similar to candidates in locations with "multigroup" mobilization, leading to improved public goods provision. These arguments are confirmed through the analysis of tribal mobilization and public goods across Jordan's municipalities.
Abstract:Why do some political actors nominate women more than others in the Muslim world? This article argues that certain social groups have an instrumental demand for female candidates because they believe such candidates will enhance their electoral chances in the wake of gender quotas' adoption. Looking at Jordan, it hypothesizes that small tribes can make big gains by nominating women due to the design of the country's reserved seat quota. This argument complements existing perspectives on women's (under-)representation in the Muslim world, which emphasize the role of features of the culture, economy, or religion. The analysis of original data on Jordan's local elections and tribes supports the argument. The article's findings have implications for our understanding of women's representation, tribal politics, and authoritarian elections.
Using recent survey data from Jordan, the Palestinian Territories and Algeria, the authors examine the interrelationship among six normative and behavioural orientations emphasised in the literature on democratic transitions: support for gender equality, tolerance, interpersonal trust, civic participation, political interest and political knowledge. Factor analysis indicates that these orientations form two distinct and independent conceptual clusters, one involving gender equality and tolerance, described as a pluralism dimension; and the other involving interpersonal trust, civic participation, political interest and political knowledge, described as an involvement dimension. The dichotomisation and juxtaposition of these two independent dimensions creates a four‐category typology of the political culture orientations of ordinary citizens: democratic – high on both dimensions; indifferent – high on the pluralism dimension and low on the involvement dimensions; activist – low on the pluralism dimension and high on the involvement dimensions; and parochial – low on both dimensions. In addition to offering this typology as a way to map norms and behaviour patterns that are important for democracy, the study compares the distribution of Jordanian, Palestinian and Algerian citizens across the four categories of political orientation and offers insights about the reasons for differences among the three countries.
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