Democratization and Discontents

Studies on Latin American hyper-presidentialism typically stress the personalism that dominates the region's executives. However, the literature does not discuss in depth the institutional settings or arrangements within the Executive that facilitate these personalist constitutional architectures to flourish. As a result, scholars overemphasize constitutional asymmetries between the different branches of government or extra-institutional aspects as the main causes of hyper-presidentialism. Building on this gap in the literature, the thesis of this essay is simple, suggestive, and controversial: at the core of Latin American presidential systems lies a complex web of patronage networks. To borrow Gargarella's famous image, the first step in understanding one of the most problematic aspects of Latin American constitutionalism is to recognize the constitutional dimension of government employment and the central role it plays in executive personalism.

As both religion and constitutionalism gain prominence across the globe, a question that emerges is how non-state sources of law make their way into the constitutions, laws, and judicial decisions of particular nations. By comparing Shari‘a law with natural law, various mechanisms of influence for higher law become clear. Shari‘a‘s influence on law and politics is direct and concrete. Natural law‘s influence, taking place through fewer mechanisms, is more indirect and abstract. These different manners of influence are a product of the different, though facially similar, nature, scope, and content of the two laws. These differences are, in turn, a product of how the two laws handle the question of sovereignty. The varying ways in which these two higher laws address God's sovereignty determine the different content and structure of the laws and therefore the manner in which they make their way into law and politics, presenting helpful insights in resolving the emerging clash of orders.

The AKP government displays a textbook definition of right-wing populism in Turkey. Nonetheless, its criticism bears a superficial interest in comparative analysis. Notwithstanding all the shortcomings of the current government, there is still mistrust towards the opposition, stemming from a discourse reminding the ghosts of the past – discourse and ghosts - i.e., they are not entirely true - but that‘s exactly the point if we aim for a functioning a democracy. Can there be a democracy without actual public support? Can electoral politics, in its realpolitik, be enough for redesigning the constitution for a sustainable future? The current government has been able to maintain public support thus far. It is easy to distrust or look down upon the populus from an elitist perspective, but what counts in a real democracy, is to win her and maintain a constitutional government. Turkey, has been an example of the former, and can be of the latter - if she is to learn from it and up to the task.

As America was undergoing a serious crisis at the time of Great Depression,many artists were influenced by political movements,which viewed modernism as elitist and focused on finding a way to redefine the language of art in order to express “the people“.Such an environment encouraged the rise of a movement called musical populism.Its main representative was Aaron Copland.He composed in a style described as “imposed simplicity“ which is characterized by the combination of tradition and musical modernism.“Imposed simplicity“ reflected Copland‘s radical political agenda concerning democratization of music.His inner desire was not only to discover a modern music for the masses but to use musical education as a means to create democratic audiences.Given that in times of Coronavirus democracy is in severe crisis,I support that democratization of music today may help to overcome the challenges posed either by authoritarian regimes or by liberal democracies that adopt authoritarian polices.