Between militant democracy and citizen vigilantism: Using citizens’ assemblies to keep parties democratic

The essential role of parties in democracies makes it important to keep them democratic. This article argues for sortition-based citizens’ assemblies (CAs) organized in and by civil society to formulate democratic standards for political parties to follow, to evaluate them individually and to criticize them publicly if they do not. This is a third and potentially complementary way to keeping parties democratic, placed between militant democracy on the one hand and citizen vigilantism on the other. Militant democracy is challenged by the fact that few democratically problematic parties are ostensibly anti-democratic and therefore likely to fall under the legal criteria for issuing party bans and other legal sanctions. Militant democratic measures are also likely to be ineffective and are vulnerable to abuse. Citizen vigilantism, whereby active democratic citizens take on the responsibility for protecting democracy, deals better with the ambiguous nature of democratically problematic parties but suffers from a lack of democratic authorization and clear standards of critique. While not perfect, the proposed model remedies many of the shortcomings of both approaches. Contributing to an emerging literature on CAs as instruments in the protection of democracy, the article evaluates the model’s normative justifiability, feasibility and likely effectiveness

A new approach for centerline extraction in handwritten strokes: an application to the constitution of a code book

International audienceWe present in this paper a new method of analysis and decomposition of handwritten documents into glyphs (graphemes) and their associated code book. The different techniques that are involved in this paper are inspired by image processing methods in a large sense and mathematical models implying graph coloring. Our approaches provide firstly a rapid and detailed characterization of handwritten shapes based on dynamic tracking of the handwriting (curvature, thickness, direction, etc.) and also a very efficient analysis method for the categorization of basic shapes (graphemes). The tools that we have produced enable paleographers to study quickly and more accurately a large volume of manuscripts and to extract a large number of characteristics that are specific to an individual or an era

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Er friheden taget ud af friskolen?

The article investigates the last 15 years’ changes in the Danish law regarding private schools and asks to what extent the ideological and pedagogical freedom of the private schools have become more restricted. It traces the changes back to general concerns with integration of cultural and religious minorities and with the academic quality of schools, the latter in light of the international competitiveness of Danish society. e article nds that the freedom of the schools has become more limited and discusses whether the e orts to limit their freedom go beyond what is legitimate from a liberal democratic point of view. e article nds that it is legitimate for a liberal democratic state to presuppose ability for political autonomy among its citizens, but it is controversial for the state to demand that schools instill speci c values and loyalties into their students.

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INTERNET SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGIES AND THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY: AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Scanning Electron Microscopy of the Human Thyroid Gland and its Disorders

The characteristic scanning electron microscopic features of the normal thyroid gland, benign thyroid lesions such as nodular (adenomatous) and colloid goitre, adenomas and thyroiditis, and malignant tumors such as papillary carcinoma, follicular carcinoma, anaplastic carcinoma and medullary carcinoma are described. One or more cilia are present in the center of the follicular surface of almost every epithelial cell in the normal thyroid gland as well as in most goitres. Their number is reduced in adenomas and differentiated carcinomas. Medullary carcinomas and anaplastic carcinomas usually lack cilia. Variation in distribution and appearance of microvilli seems to be related to functional differences in the normal thyroid and goitres. In neoplastic conditions the abundance of microvilli steadily decreases from ordinary papillary carcinomas to follicular variants of papillary carcinoma and to follicular carcinoma. Most of the cells in medullary carcinoma and anaplastic carcinoma have few or no microvilli. Benign and neoplastic Hürthle cells have a very characteristic appearance. Distinct, smooth-surfaced cells are interspersed among cells rich in microvilli. The literature is reviewed. Our own experience from examinations of 264 thyroid specimens is included

Dansk statsborgerskab: en gave der ikke er givet

For strammerne i diskussionen om tildeling af dansk statsborgerskab er statsborgerskabet ikke en menneskeret eller noget, man kan gøre sig berettiget til ved at indfri et bestemt sæt af krav. Det er en gave eller et privilegium, som tildeles udlændinge på baggrund af folketingsmedlemmernes gode vilje, hvis og når sidstnævnte føler sig overbeviste om, at førstnævnte genuint bekender sig til de danske værdier og ikke udgør en trussel for demokratiet. I forsvaret for demokratiet og de liberale frihedsrettigheder skal lovgiverne kunne agere suverænt og suspendere alle principper. Derved gentager strammernes position det militante demokratis dilemma: Transformerer forsvaret af demokratiet det til dets modsatte