https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/46392 2026-04-05T06:18:53Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/46714 Title: Tunisia after the revolution : democracy between stalling and collapsing Abstract: On December 17th, 2010 a perfectly unknown man, who was named Mohamed Bouazizi and who lived in a little-known small town in the centre of Tunisia called Sidi Bouzid, decided to set himself on fire in front of the Governor’s office. Unable to get a steady job of any kind, he tried to eke out a living for himself and his family by selling few vegetables that he carried around on a cart, but the police kept confiscating his cart and vegetables because he did not have a licence to be a street vendor. On that particular day, the same scenario was replayed once again, and once again he went to the Governor’s office to try to recuperate his belongings and/or get a licence for his trade. But once again, they would not even let him into the building. So he decided to burn himself. 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/46692 Title: Human rights, political representation and democracy : some reflections Authors: Grech, Omar Abstract: One of the many issues that arose in the context of the uprisings in North Africa refers to the relationship between human rights and democracy. It was suggested during and immediately after the uprisings that the authoritarian regimes that were displaced were not representative of the peoples over which they governed. The new dispensations that were to be established should follow the principles of representative government, democracy and human rights. However, the relationship between these concepts is not as straight forward as is, sometimes, imagined. 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/46691 Title: From apartheid to democracy in South Africa Abstract: South Africa’s democratic settlement is generally viewed as a particularly successful transition from authoritarian government. The settlement in 1994 did bring political violence to an end and it established new institutions which have now been in place for nearly two decades. This success was partly the outcome of fortuitous conditions – of good luck, even. But it was also the product of the skills, capacities and predispositions that the main parties in the settlement brought to the negotiations. This paper will explore the developments and processes that helped South African peacemaking. Subsequently it will address political progress since the transition. 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/46436 Title: Democratic transitions : trends, patterns, challenges Abstract: We live in a time of infinite possibility where change and transition have become the norm for the vast majority of the world’s population. In the past five decades, we have witnessed profound change; the ending of the pernicious Apartheid state in South Africa; the collapse of hard line communism and its associated repression(s); the emergence of widespread support for the women’s movement worldwide and for the rights of women; a massive upsurge in basic literacy, health and nutrition and a revolution in information and communications. Today, the proportion of people unable to realise their basic physical needs is smaller than at any previous time in history and our capacity to meet such needs has never been greater. Yet, we also live in a time where inequality is greater than ever before; where the percentage of people with exponentially more than they need (or could ever productively use) is also greater; where much of science and progress is harnessed for the benefit and control of a small minority and where, despite the explosion of information and communication, our ‘understanding of the world and our place in it’ remains deficient. It seems that ‘the more we come together, the more we grow apart’. On the one hand, recent history has highlighted the actual scale and depth of increased democratic transition worldwide while also illustrating its profound limitations and elitism. Description: This document contains Table of Contents, Preface by Professor Stephen Calleya, Director MEDAC, and Introduction by Dr Omar Grech, Editor. 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z