The media are a much-discussed subject in both the scientific and the public debate on the functioning of democracy. Nevertheless, there is relatively little empirical research on the effects of media on the most fundamental aspect of politics: the legislative process. However, this type of research is important because it helps us gain insight into the influence journalists exert. This study analyses the influence of media attention for bills on the legislative process in the Netherlands. A quantitative analysis of the newspaper coverage for recently discussed bills indicates that the parliamentary process is influenced by this coverage. This first study of media-effects on the Dutch legislative process suggests that more media-attention leads to the introduction of more amendments by both members of government and members of parliament.

Little is known about views on democracy of adolescents. In this article we describe results of our interview study with forty adolescents of fourteen years old on their views of democracy and decision making. The study focuses on the daily lives of adolescents and decision making within local contexts, such as the classroom. The adolescents’ views on decision making appear to correspond to the models of democracy as we know them, that is majoritarian democracy (the largest group), consensual democracy or deliberative democracy. However, only some of the adolescents have an explicit understanding of the concept of democracy and most have limited political knowledge. For these students, the experience or feeling of being part of a political democracy is still something ‘far away’ and not something of any relevance in their daily lives.

This article analyzes the US internal justification to invade Iraq in 2003 through a study of the ‘Bush Doctrine’ of 2002, several Congressional acts and resolutions on Iraq, and Presidential speeches before and during the mobilization of US forces. It argues that in order to find domestic support, regime change was one of the main goals, despite the references the US made to UN resolutions. Second, this paper uses Rawls’ ideas to analyze the US decision to democratize Iraq. The results of this study show how political philosophy can be used and abused to shape foreign policy. Rawls’ theory could have provided the US with a moral justification based on the liberal peace assumptions that were underlying their foreign policy. However, the US did not make a consistent appeal to those assumptions and acted like a Rawlsian ‘outlaw state’ instead. Therefore, this paper argues, the US lost the liberal justification to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime in favor of democracy.