Mutual accountability mechanisms are adapting to an evolving development landscape

2019 ◽  
pp. 81-89
Keyword(s):  
Mutual Accountability

The Priority of Public Reasons and Religious Forms of Life in Constitutional Democracies

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 45
Author(s):  
Cristina Lafont
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Difficult Question ◽  
Political Deliberation ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Right ◽  
Mutual Accountability

In this essay I address the difficult question of how citizens with conflicting religious and secular views can fulfill the democratic obligation of justifying the imposition of coercive policies to others with reasons that they can also accept. After discussing the difficulties of proposals that either exclude religious beliefs from public deliberation or include them without any restrictions, I argue instead for a policy of mutual accountability that imposes the same deliberative rights and obligations on all democratic citizens. The main advantage of this proposal is that it recognizes the right of all democratic citizens to adopt their own cognitive stance (whether religious or secular) in political deliberation in the public sphere without giving up on the democratic obligation to provide reasons acceptable to everyone to justify coercive policies with which all citizens must comply.

Out of the Whirlwind Reconsidered

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Michael Berkowitz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Personal History ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
Holocaust Literature ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mutual Accountability ◽  
Union College

This article argues that Albert Friedlander’s edited book, Out of the Whirlwind (1968), should be recognised as pathbreaking. Among the first to articulate the idea of ‘Holocaust literature’, it established a body of texts and contextualised these as a way to integrate literature – as well as historical writing, music, art and poetry – as critical to an understanding of the Holocaust. This article also situates Out of the Whirlwind through the personal history of Friedlander and his wife Evelyn, who was a co-creator of the book, his colleagues from Hebrew Union College, and the illustrator, Jacob Landau. It explores the work’s connection to the expansive, humanistic development of progressive Judaism in the United States, Britain and continental Europe. It also underscores Friedlander’s study of Leo Baeck as a means to understand the importance of mutual accountability, not only between Jews, but in Jews’ engagement with the wider world.

scholarly journals Bridging research integrity and global health epidemiology (BRIDGE) statement: guidelines for good epidemiological practice

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (10) ◽  
pp. e003236
Author(s):  
Sandra Alba ◽  
Kristien Verdonck ◽  
Annick Lenglet ◽  
Susan F Rumisha ◽  
Martijn Wienia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Research Integrity ◽  
Epidemiological Studies ◽  
Global Health Research ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Protocol Development ◽  
Development Data ◽  
Collection Data ◽  
Mutual Accountability

BackgroundResearch integrity and research fairness have gained considerable momentum in the past decade and have direct implications for global health epidemiology. Research integrity and research fairness principles should be equally nurtured to produce high-quality impactful research—but bridging the two can lead to practical and ethical dilemmas. In order to provide practical guidance to researchers and epidemiologist, we set out to develop good epidemiological practice guidelines specifically for global health epidemiology, targeted at stakeholders involved in the commissioning, conduct, appraisal and publication of global health research.MethodsWe developed preliminary guidelines based on targeted online searches on existing best practices for epidemiological studies and sought to align these with key elements of global health research and research fairness. We validated these guidelines through a Delphi consultation study, to reach a consensus among a wide representation of stakeholders.ResultsA total of 45 experts provided input on the first round of e-Delphi consultation and 40 in the second. Respondents covered a range of organisations (including for example academia, ministries, NGOs, research funders, technical agencies) involved in epidemiological studies from countries around the world (Europe: 19; Africa: 10; North America: 7; Asia: 5; South-America: 3 Australia: 1). A selection of eight experts were invited for a face-to-face meeting. The final guidelines consist of a set of 6 standards and 42 accompanying criteria including study preparation, protocol development, data collection, data management, data analysis, dissemination and communication.ConclusionWhile guidelines will not by themselves guard global health from questionable and unfair research practices, they are certainly part of a concerted effort to ensure not only mutual accountability between individual researchers, their institutions and their funders but most importantly their joint accountability towards the communities they study and society at large.

Assessing 30 Years of Neoliberal Environmental Management in Chile

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javiera Barandiarán
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Management ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Environmental Policies ◽  
Environmental Impact Assessments ◽  
Water Ecosystem ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
Mutual Accountability

Neoliberal environmental policies operate through markets, including for carbon, water, ecosystem services, or—as in contemporary Chile—for environmental scientific knowledge. Chile illustrates how markets for science operate, such as for monitoring data or environmental impact assessments, and their negative impacts on public trust in science and on the state’s regulatory efforts. In a society governed by a market for science, environmental scientists cannot escape the suspicion that conflicts of interest compromise their independence and the credibility of their work. Chile’s neoliberal 1980 Constitution sustains this market for knowledge but will be reformed following national demonstrations in 2019. The health of Chile’s environment depends on a new constitution that democratizes both democracy and science. Rights of nature doctrines, as in Ecuador’s 2008 Constitution, can provide the constitutional foundation for strong mutual accountability between science, the state, society, and nature.

The Council

2020 ◽  
pp. 117-149
Author(s):  
Vivien A. Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Member State ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
European Council ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Many ◽  
Mutual Accountability ◽  
Two Sides ◽  
Input Legitimacy

Chapter 5 discusses the pathway to legitimacy of the European Council (and the Council), with a special focus on Germany’s predominance through “one size fits one” rules. The chapter begins with an analysis of the Council’s particular sources of power and grounds for throughput legitimacy in Eurozone governance. It questions member-state leaders’ assumptions about their representativeness (input legitimacy), then asks if they meet the requirements of deliberative mutual accountability (throughput legitimacy) or even whether Germany fits the criteria expected of a benevolent hegemon. Next the chapter discusses the Janus-faced public perceptions of Council crisis governance. These are divided between views of the Council as an unaccountable (German) dictatorship or as a mutually accountable deliberative body (in the shadow of Germany). This part first presents the Council as an unaccountable dictatorship by detailing the ways in which Germany was predominant on its own and/or in tandem with a weaker France. It then counters with a discussion of the Council as a mutually accountable deliberative body, by charting not only the many instances in which member states agreed with German preferences but also where Germany acquiesced to those of other member states. The chapter ends with an examination of the actions of the Council (in particular the Eurogroup of Finance Ministers) and the Troika (IMF, Commission, and ECB) with regard to the program countries. This can be seen as two sides of the same coin: harsh dictatorship (especially the third Greek bailout) or deliberative authoritarianism (eg, Ireland, Portugal, Cyprus and Greece in the second bailout).

Disclaiming Responsibility, Voicing Disagreements, and Negotiating Boundaries

2021 ◽  
pp. 283-306
Author(s):  
Carla Bagnoli
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Third Party ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Political Empowerment ◽  
Attributions Of Responsibility ◽  
Mutual Accountability ◽  
Normative Powers

This chapter introduces the novel category of ‘disclaimers’—distinctive normative acts which challenge third-party attributions of responsibility in a community governed by norms of mutual accountability. While the debate focuses on evasive and wrongful refusals to take responsibility for one’s wrongs, this chapter argues that disclaimers are fundamental modes of exercising normative powers, whose main functions are demanding recognition, responding to wrongs, voicing disagreement, exiting alienating conditions, and calling for a fair redistribution of specific responsibilities. In particular, understood as disclaimers, denials of responsibility are shown to be key modes of ethical and political empowerment, which play a significant role in producing normative changes and directing societal transformations.

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