Boundary Struggles: Contestations of free speech in the Norwegian public sphere

Midtbøen, Arnfinn H.; Steen‐Johnsen, Kari; Thorbjørnsrud, Kjersti

doi:10.23865/noasp.16

Cited by 14 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 79 publications

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“…If not, the flow of information would take on a chaotic nature. This delegation, however, raises strong requirements in regard to the professional ethic of editors and journalists, who nevertheless are met with low trust in the public (Moe, Thorbjørnsrud, & Fladmoe, 2017).…”

Section: Democracy In the Media Institutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At the same time, the social media indirectly bring challenges to the freedom of expression, not in a legal but in a social sense. While the internet has opened up for a plurality of voices, it has also opened up for the distribution of fake news and unfounded rumours along with hateful interventions, with the consequence of scaring away prospective participants from internet debates (Nadim & Fladmoe, 2017). The implication is a decline in the freedom of expression.…”

Section: Democracy In the Media Institutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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2 Social Institutions and the Quality of Democracy

Engelstad¹

2018

Democratic State and Democratic Society

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and the Quality of Democracy Democracy as a form of government comes in many forms. Even though supported by most citizens in democratic states, what they cherish are widely different systems. This plurality is crucial when the quality of democratic governance is to be evaluated; it is not a given what the ambitions of a specific system are to be measured against, and accordingly what the relevant variables to be assessed are. However, variation not only concerns strictly political systems as such but also the relationship between political institutions and the social institutions that are not directly part of political processes. Specifying how social institutions constitute a part of democracy is the aim of this chapter. Despite the plurality of democratic forms the present discussion does not take a systematic comparative approach but rather concentrates on the model of democracy common to the Nordic countries, with most empirical specifications taken from the Norwegian context. This does not imply that these societies are exemplary but rather that they represent a special case of well-established democratic governance with a long history of continuous political reformism. The analysis is based on the presumption that in the absence of a comparative study, a strategic study of one case may throw light on other, different cases as well. The chapter concentrates on two properties of Nordic democracy, its institutional and normative aspects. Nordic democracy is discussed by Aakvaag (this volume) with mostly non-normative perspectives on the institutional preconditions for individual freedom, whereas the present chapter sets its focus on democratic norms and the space for democratic deliberation within social institutions. Three basic institutions are surveyed: economy/working life, the welfare state and the media; together they constitute the main components of the general version of the Nordic model (Engelstad, Larsen, & Rogstad, 2017). By contrast, two prominent contributions within what may be termed the mainstream model of the quality of democracy serve as a starting point. The first is the set of criteria listed by Robert Dahl in Democracy and Its Critics (1989, pp. 108ff.): effective participation, voting equality, enlightened understanding and control of agenda constitute the ideal elements of citizens' equal political opportunities. Despite their obvious value, these criteria are limited in two respects: they concern only political institutions and only implicitly take into account the functioning of these institutions. Recently, Larry Diamond made a salient contribution to the assessment of democracy with In Search of Democracy (2016), with broader and more precise measurements. By synthesizing three well-established measurements of democracy under the headings of political and electoral rights, civil liberties, rule of law and the functioning of government, Diamond and co-workers distil 19 sub-criteria (Diamond, Green, & Galley, 2016, p. 65). Here, a clear focus is set on the functioning of political

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Section: Democracy In the Media Institutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Democracy In the Media Institutionmentioning

confidence: 99%