The 2011 Arab uprisings re-ignited global interest in the role that Islam and Islamist parties play in democratic transitions, especially with regard to women's lawful rights to share in governance and leadership. This book advances a theory of party religiosity to explain women's leadership across parties and countries, drawing on robust qualitative and quantitative findings from cross-national multiple cases and a case-study of Lebanon. The theory travels across 330 parties in 26 different countries - in Asia, Africa, and Europe. It is powerful and generalizable with explanatory and predictive powers.

This book offers a thoughtful analysis of the international and domestic political impact of the global war on terrorism through the prism of US security relations in the wake of September 11, 2001. While focused on regional and country-specific responses and consequences, the book redresses the balance between change and continuity in the international system brought about by the war on terror. The unusual meshing of wide-ranging views and perspectives represents the shared wisdom of an epistemic community emerging at the intersection of international relations, comparative politics and foreign policy analysis.

How do interstate actors negotiate their interests? What do 'common interests' look like from their historically and culturally contingent perspectives? What happens when actors work for their private, professional, public, personal or institutional interests? Honing in on the role of diplomats and lobbyists during negotiations for Turkey's contentious EU membership bid, this book presents intricate, backstage conflicts of power and interests and negotiations of compromises, which drove this candidate country both closer to and farther apart from the EU. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Brussels, this first book-length account of Turkish Europeanisation argues that public, private and corporate actors voicing economic, political and bureaucratic interests from all corners of Europe sought access to markets and polities through the Turkish bid instead of facilitating Turkey's EU accession, earning recognition & power. -- .

This book analyzes Spanish political parties and institutions in comparative theoretical perspective. Two primary themes are addressed: "institutionalization" and the "distribution "of institutionalization in the polity, and the relationship between "institutional design" and "representation."

The Westminster-stylized model of Parliamentary democratic politics and public service accountability is increasingly out of step with the realities of today's digitally and socially networked era. This book explores the reconfiguration of democratic and managerial governance within democratic societies due to the advent of technological mobility. More specifically, the traditional public sector prism of organizational and accountability - denoted as 'machinery of government', is increasingly strained in an era characterized by smart devices, social media, and cloud computing. This book examines the roots and implications of the tensions between machinery and mobility and the sorts of investments and initiatives that have been undertaken by governments around the world as well as their appropriateness and relative impacts. This book also examines the prospects for holistic adaptation of democratic and managerial systems going forward, identifying the most crucial directions and determinants for improving public sector performance in terms of outcomes, accountability, and agility.Accordingly, the ultimate aim of this initiative is to contribute to the formation of intellectual foundations for more systemic reforms of public sector governance in Canada and elsewhere, and to offer forward-looking trajectories for government adaptation in shifting from a traditional prism of 'machinery' to new organizational and institutional arrangements better suited for an era of 'mobility'.

This volume brings together a number of essays that citizens, academics, election officials, policy makers, and other stakeholders can read to become better informed about procedures that used today to audit elections and election administration, and to learn more about new approaches to improve existing election audit procedures.

The book is devoted to the subject of Venezuela's politics and the different dimensions of its longstanding crisis, with various researchers exchanging ideas on the current problems affecting the country. It is the first comprehensive overview on the dimensions of Venezuela's current crisis written in English, thus filling an important research gap. Especially the participation of international, well-known scholars make it a global enterprise. The book covers historical and theoretical facts surrounding the case of Venezuela and also focuses on the parties and actors that play decisive roles in the conflict. Subjects include the military, public administration, ideology, the opposition, the party landscape along with its crisis and Venezuela's oil policy. Furthermore the book touches upon international and regional aspects: Venezuela's diplomatic relations with the EU, the USA, Cuba and Colombia, respectively. The volume addresses a wider audience, such as scholars on Latin American and especially Venezuelan Politics, International Relations, as well as an interested public, including journalists and politicians.

The book analyzes the topic of judicial reforms in four countries of South-East Europe, focusing on two specific factors that have influenced the reforms in the past two decades: the role played by the European Union in light of the east Enlargement process and the legacies of the communist regimes. Specifically, the aim is to account for similarities and differences in the reform paths of Slovenia, Romania, Croatia, and Serbia. In each country, in fact, the influence of the EU policies has been differently mediated by national factors that, broadly conceived, may be considered as expressing the legacies of the past regimes. In some cases, these legacies challenged judicial reforms and inhibited the influence of the EU; in other cases, they were positively overcome by following the route suggested by the EU. Some explanatory factors for these differences will be proposed drawing from democratization studies, Europeanization literature, and comparative judicial systems.

The book focuses on countries having different status vis-a -vis the EU and differently involved, in term of timing, in the EU accession process: some of them are new member states entered in 2004 (Slovenia) or in 2007 (Romania); others were, until recently, acceding countries (Croatia) or candidates to the membership (Serbia). This comparison allows investigation of the power of EU conditionality in different phases of the EU enlargement process.vis-a -vis the EU and differently involved, in term of timing, in the EU accession process: some of them are new member states entered in 2004 (Slovenia) or in 2007 (Romania); others were, until recently, acceding countries (Croatia) or candidates to the membership (Serbia). This comparison allows investigation of the power of EU conditionality in different phases of the EU enlargement process.

This book examines the Europeanisation of party politics in Malta. It evaluates the influence of Europeanisation on the political system, which is based on two party-system, polarisation, and clientelism. Malta is the smallest European Union (EU) member state, which joined the EU in 2004. The road toward membership was fraught with contentious and emotionally charged debates. This book explores the relationship between Maltese political parties and the EU, the politicisation and framing of the European Union by political parties, and the impact of the European Union on Malta's political system. The book further discusses more contentious recent events which made headlines at the EU level, including the Panama Papers scandals, the Individual Investment Programme, and the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. The book will appeal to students, scholars, and researchers of political science and international relations interested in a better understanding of electoral studies, Europeanisation, European integration, as well as the Maltese political system, and party politics.

The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism - the first of its kind - offers a systematic and wide-ranging survey of the scholarship on regionalism, regionalization, and regional governance. Unpacking the major debates, leading authors of the field synthesize the state of the art, provide a guide to the comparative study of regionalism, and identify future avenues of research. Twenty-seven chapters review the theoretical and empirical scholarship with regard to the emergence of regionalism, the institutional design of regional organizations and issue-specific governance, as well as the effects of regionalism and its relationship with processes of regionalization. The authors explore theories of cooperation, integration, and diffusion explaining the rise and the different forms of regionalism. The handbook also discusses the state of the art on the world regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, Eurasia, Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Various chapters survey the literature on regional governance in major issue areas such as security and peace, trade and finance, environment, migration, social and gender policies, as well as democracy and human rights. Finally, the handbook engages in cross-regional comparisons with regard to institutional design, dispute settlement, identities and communities, legitimacy and democracy, as well as inter- and transregionalism.

This study examines conflicts arising from the dual processes of Europeanization and post-socialist transformations, from gaining independence in 1991 to facing the current economic crisis. Through an in-depth comparison of Estonia and Slovenia over time, it shows how elite actors within these two very different welfare capitalist states resisted EU pressures to change their cohesive and successful national models.

The role of the visual in politics is gaining momentum in scholarly work concerned with the current social media landscape. It is widely acknowledged that the production, dissemination and consumption of visual products in the Global South is powerfully shaped by geo-politics and a power dynamics in which the Global North dominates the South (the cultural imperialism argument). However, scant attention has been paid to theoretical, methodological, and empirically grounded approaches to visual politics produced by scholars working in the Global South. Little is known about the ways in which scholarship in the Global South might challenge and resist western approaches to the study of the visual. Against this background, this project aims to examine visual politics in the Global South through theoretically driven, and empirically grounded case studies, which focus on the role of the visual in formal politics (e.g., political campaigns, the relation between state and citizens) and public and everyday politics (e.g., social movements, activism, grassroots politics, civil society initiatives). This volume examines visual politics in the Global South through theoretically driven, and empirically grounded case studies, which focus on the role of the visual in formal politics (e.g., political campaigns, the relation between state and citizens) and public and everyday politics. It will be of interest to both researchers and students interested in the study of visual politics from various disciplinary lens (media and communication, anthropology, politics, and sociology).

A comparison of Singapore and Taiwan presents an interesting case study for those wishing to understand how small states struggle to overcome their strategic disadvantage. Since their independence, Singapore and Taiwan have faced numerous challenges resulting from their relative strategic disadvantage. They have struggled to overcome vulnerable bases, an unformed conception of state, and weak governmental institutes for defence. While territorial borders are difficult to change, both states have focused on nation building, economic growth, and military build-up in order to overcome their predicaments. During the Cold War, both states employed similarly authoritarian policies to preserve their survival. However, in the post-Cold War era, Taiwan has experienced political and economic weakness in the face of the rising China, while Singapore, with its polity of one-party domination, has continued to strengthen its hard and soft power. This book examines the unique context for each case, drawing comparisons and offering analysis of their distinct approaches.

This book analyzes the link between economic and political inequalities and investigates the mechanisms that lead to economically rooted inequalities in the political representation of citizens' policy preferences. Focusing on the case of Switzerland and evaluating data from the post-electoral survey, Selects 2007, the author demonstrates that the policy preferences of members of the Federal Assembly best reflect those of rich citizens. This pattern is explained by differential levels of political participation and knowledge across income groups, party finance, the fact that representatives tend to come from higher economic strata, and the failure of the party-system structure to reflect the complexity of policy preferences among citizens.

The debate on governance originates in the OECD world. At the latest since the postcolonial debate, we know that we need to "test" our assumptions under radically different conditions. This book offers an extended perspective of local self-governance by examining cases from South Asia, Africa, and Latin America, together with a study of militias in the USA. The chapters present a wide variety of local actors who pursue different notions of order legitimized by local traditions based on hierarchy or deeply rooted communalism, Islamic theology, or grassroots democracy. Some local actors claim a state-like authority and challenge the territorial state. In such cases, there is no longer "a shadow hierarchy" but opposition to the state. Different violent actors fight for supremacy, and the state is just one actor among others. The empirical studies presented in this book show how different kinds of local self-governance are combined with varieties of statehood, and thus contribute to an understanding of the notion of governance in a fundamental sense that goes beyond the special case of the OECD world.

"Theories of Democratic Network Governance" aims to renew and refocus the political and scholarly debate on the use of governance networks in public policy making by raising and answering a series of questions about the dynamics of governance networks, the conditions for governance network success and failure, the forms and functions of metagovernance (defined as the regulation of self-regulating networks) and the democratic implications of network governance. In an attempt to answer these pressing questions, the contributors draw on a wide range of theoretical approaches within governance network theory, institutional theory and democratic theory.

This book covers critical issues in Nigeria's external relations since 1960. As an independent nation, Nigeria has stood out as the most populous black country in the world and contributed immensely to the search for solutions to pressing international issues, notably in Africa affairs. Nigeria has also participated actively in global affairs and used the platform of international organisation to advance her national interests, cognisant also of its regional and global obligations and responsibilities. Contributors to this thought-provoking book make a strong case for Nigeria to press for a foreign policy that puts Nigerian people at the centre. One of the strong points also emanating from the contributors of this book is the imperative for Nigeria to address domestic challenges that continue to impinge on the country's external image.

Since the end of the Cold War, Europe has been the stage of a large-scale project of international socialization. European regional organizations such as the OSCE, the Council of Europe, NATO, and the EU assumed the task of inducting the transition countries to the liberal-democratic standards of the Western international community. How and when have Western organizations had an impact on the transformation of Europe? Why have they been successful in some countries but not in others? How can we adequately analyze and theorize international socialization in Europe? In a comparative analysis of nine countries, the book tests theoretical conditions and mechanisms of international norm promotion and shows that successful socialization has been a result of credible EU and NATO membership conditionality as well as moderate political costs of compliance for the target governments.

This book provides an in-depth analysis of the 'technocratic shift' in ministerial recruitment, measuring its extent and variations over time in fourteen European countries. It addresses the question: who governs in European democratic regimes? Just a few decades ago, the answer would have been straightforward: party-men and (fewer) party-women. More recently, however, and in varying degrees across Europe, a greater proportion of non-politicians or experts have been recruited to government, as exemplified by the 2017 election of Emmanuel Macron to the French Presidency. These experts, frequently labelled "technocrats", increasingly occupy key executive positions and have emerged as powerful actors in the decision-making process. This edited collection explores the contemporary debates surrounding the relationship between technocracy, democracy and political leadership, and will appeal to scholars and advanced students interested in these fields.

The Nordic welfare states have found themselves in the firing line of post-industrial developments, resulting in fundamental changes in societal institutions at all levels. In particular, changes in the labour market and family, reinforced by processes of migration and international market integration, have presented the welfare states with new social needs to attend to. This book critically explores responses to changing social risks across areas such as structural unemployment, entrepreneurship, immigration, single parenthood, education and health. It explores critical changes in the structure of the Nordic welfare states and the social policy strategies for alleviating social risks. While the Nordic countries are shining in most international comparisons, such changes and their wider implications have often been overlooked in the literature. The book raises the question whether certain risks are even being evoked actively through new social policies instating incentive structures concomitant with policy goals in order to encourage certain behaviour among citizens.

A cross-country comparison of recent Labour Party governments in New Zealand, Britain, and Australia, and an exploration of how those countries' labour movements responded to their parties' neoliberal policies in power.

This book explores the extent to which a transformation of public employment regimes has taken place in four Western countries, and the factors influencing the pathways of reform. It demonstrates how public employment regimes have unravelled in different domains of public service, contesting the idea that the state remains a 'model' employer.

The first comparative study to examine the role of religion in the formation of Greek and Turkish nationalisms, this book argues that the shift to an increasingly religious paradigm in both countries can be explained in terms of the exigencies of consolidation and the need to appeal to grassroots elements and account for diversity.

Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, or geography that determines prosperity or poverty? As Why Nations Fail shows, none of these factors is either definitive or destiny.

Drawing on fifteen years of original research, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is our man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or the lack of it). Korea, to take just one example, is a remarkably homogenous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created those two different institutional trajectories.

Acemoglu and Robinson marshal extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, the Soviet Union, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today.