The recent revival of democracy across much of the globe, and the fragility of many of the new regimes, has inspired renewed interest in the origins of dictatorship and democracy in modern times. Assembling renowned specialists on Eastern and Western Europe, the U.S., Latin America and Japan, "The Social Construction of Democracy" explores the reasons for the success and failure of democracies over the past 100 years. With its sharp portraits of nations on four continents, George Reid Andrews and Herrick Chapman shed light on the historical process by which state institutions and social movements interact to create political systems based on the principle of popular sovereignty.

This book addresses one of the most relevant challenges to the sustainability of the European Union (EU) as a political project: the deficit of citizens' support. It identifies missing elements of popular legitimacy and makes proposals for their formal inclusion in a future Treaty reform, while assessing the contribution that the EU may make to global governance by expanding a credible democratic model to other international actors. The contributors offer perspectives from law, political science, and sociology, and the 15 case studies of different aspects of the incipient European demos provide the reader with a comprehensive overview of these pertinent questions. The edited volume provides a truly interdisciplinary study of the citizens' role in the European political landscape that can serve as a basis for further analyses of the EU's democratic legitimacy. It will be of use to legal scholars and political scientists interested in the EU's democratic system, institutional setup and external relations.

Democracy should enable citizens to play an informed role in determining how power is exercised for their common wellbeing, but this only works if people have the understanding, skills and confidence to engage effectively in public affairs. Otherwise, any voting system can be subverted to serve the interests of propagandists and demagogues. This book brings together leading experts on learning for democracy to explore why and how the gap in civic competence should be bridged. Drawing on research findings and case examples from the UK, the US and elsewhere, it will set out why change is necessary, what could be taught differently to ensure effective political engagement, and how a lasting impact in improving citizens' learning for democratic participation can be made.

This edited volume follows up from Global Perspectives on US Foreign Policy: From the Outside In in providing unique perspectives on US foreign policy from citizens of countries affected. This approach allows the voices of those less commonly heard to be presented as part of the broader debate about US democracy assistance policies around the globe. Contributions from experts in the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, and Eastern Europe are included to ensure the most pressing issues of international relations in our time are addressed. This book should be read by anyone interested in the United States and global politics as it provides a fuller view of the world.

In the twenty-first century, democracies across the globe are in crisis. The strength of basic democratic institutions and core enduring political principles and values are eroding in key regions and countries. Authoritarian regimes are rising and populist leaders are emerging. Democracy in Crisis across the World weaves threads of history and politics in two parts to analyze how long this trend may last and what the future may bring. By first examining the state of democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa, the second part of the collection highlights to democratic trajectory of India, China, Russia, and the United States. Ending with a look at how the world's governments have responded to the coronavirus pandemic, contributors argue that unless democracy is defended with resolution and nurtured with resilience, it will fall.

Ten leading scholars and practitioners of politics, political science, anthropology, Israel studies, and Middle East affairs address the theme of continuity and change in political culture as a tribute to Professor Myron (Mike) J. Aronoff whose work on political culture has built conceptual and methodological bridges between political science and anthropology. Topics include the legitimacy of the two-state solution, identity and memory, denationalization, the role of trust in peace negotiations, democracy, majority-minority relations, inclusion and exclusion, Biblical and national narratives, art in public space, and avant-garde theater. Countries covered include Israel, Palestine, the United States, the Basque Autonomous Region of Spain, and Poland. The first four chapters by Yael S. Aronoff, Saliba Sarsar, Yossi Beilin, and Nadav Shelef examine aspects of the conflict and peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, including alternative solutions. The contributions by Naomi Chazan, Ilan Peleg, and Joel Migdal tackle challenges to democracy in Israel, in other divided societies, and in the creation of the American public. Yael Zerubavel, Roland Vazquez, and Jan Kubik focus their analyses on aspects of national memory, memorialization, and dramatization. Mike Aronoff relates his work on various aspects of political culture to each chapter in an integrative essay in the Epilogue.

This is first book in English dealing with the history of the Socialist International-the international alliance of social democratic parties-during the presidency of former German Chancellor Willy Brandt from 1976-1992. This book is based on thorough studies in numerous European and Latin American archives. It tries to avoid a Eurocentric view, giving equal importance to the Latin American and the European actors. It takes a fresh look at party diplomacy, a new kind of international diplomacy that was introduced by Willy Brandt in the field of international relations in the 1970s and 1980s. This study brings new insights in European as well as Latin American history of this time. It has a special focus on the role of Social Democrats (European as well as Latin American) in the civil wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980s, and on its repercussions on domestic policies in Germany, Venezuela etc., and on the relations of those countries with the U.S. government.

Compare any two political maps, one from the early twentieth century and one from the present, and you will notice that the world now contains more democracies than it used to. How and why did democracy spread around the world? How do we recognize democracies when we see them? And what does the future of democracy look like? This book shows you how to define and measure democracy, and to identify what democracies have in common. It evaluates important recent trends in democratization and the challenges that face it including: - Democratic decay - Populism, authoritarianism and the far right - Threats posed by global terrorism and sectarian violence - The rise of 'illiberal democracies' - Declining civic participation. Analysing economic development, education, industrialization and other factors, Democratization shows you the internal political, economic and social conditions that help or hinder democratization. Looking at globalization, political aid, military intervention and the 'neighbourhood'-effect, it also explains how external factors put pressure on democratic reform. Covering key theories, such as modernization and democratic peace theory, and with case studies from Indonesia to the Zapatista movement, this is the ideal text for those studying democratization for the first time.

The concept of the political legacy, despite its importance for institutionalist and historically-minded political analysts more generally, remains both elusive and undeveloped theoretically. This book seeks to address that oversight by building on existing studies which have approached the notion of a legacy to offer a clear definition and operationalisation of the term which might be used to inform future research. Legacies we view as traces of the past in the present; the claim to the existence of a legacy is both a causal and a counter-factual claim. We propose, in the light of this, a multi-dimensional approach to gauging political legacies, reflecting on some of the theoretical, analytical and methodological concerns which need to be addressed in establishing credible claims to their existence. These we develop and illustrate with respect to the literature on Thatcherism.

Reformulating a problem of both constitutionalism and liberalism discussed in the works of Ernst-Wolfgang Boeckenfoerde, Hannah Arendt, and Alexis de Tocqueville, the book examines one generally overlooked manifestation of constitutionalism: the role of the courts in shaping democratic politics and the inter-relationship between citizens and state. Drawing on constitutional history, law, and political theory, David Miles argues that constitutionalism cannot be seen merely as an institutional mechanism to limit government, as it also has a crucial civic dimension upon which the liberal state depends. Utilising the works of Boeckenfoerde, Arendt, and Tocqueville, constitutionalism is conceived in the book as part of a broader system of communal norms which sustains representative democracy and liberalism. Through an analysis of judicial interventions in the electoral processes of the United States and Germany, Miles explores the role of civil society actors in transforming constitutionalism through legal challenges to oligarchical or exclusionary practices. He assesses how, in adjudicating these cases, the US Supreme Court and the German Constitutional Court have mediated the tension between threats to stability and the imperative of democratic renewal. Democracy, the Courts, and the Liberal State will be of interest to scholars, students, and practitioners interested in comparative politics, political theory, and constitutional law and history.

The State of the nation 2016 volume uses multiple research lenses to analyse the dynamic interface of power and authority structures that characterises the state and South African society as a dynamic constitutional democracy. The volume projects these dynamics in the context of heightening contestations around structural economic, social and political problems such as unemployment, inequality, poverty and land redistribution. Is the state indeed in charge of the country’s economy and development and to what extent is the government able to effectively drive its publicly pronounced developmental state agenda? When does `leading’ become `controlling’? What are the roles of the private sector and civil society in development? To whom is the state accountable and how is it held accountable? What are the definitive signs that the South African state has been hollowed out in the interests of a market-led economy rather than functioning as a developmental or capable state? From the state’s point of view, which external role players, forces and powers are preventing the state administration and agencies from fully achieving its goals? In the context of such constraints, a range of changing dynamics—financial, constitutional, political and economic—and with a focus on the lingering remnants of the apartheid state —State of the nation 2016 analyses South Africa and how power impacts on mandates, accountability and contestations in the South African state by asking: Who is in charge?

This book tackles the question of why the United States is so resistant to radical change towards economic justice and peace. Taking full stock of the despair that launched the popular support for Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, Swanger historicizes the political paralysis of post-1974 United States that deepened already severe economic inequalities, asking how the terrain for social movements in the early twenty-first-century US differs from that of the 1960s. This terrain is marked by the entrenchment of neoliberalism, anti-intellectualism, and difficulties paradoxically posed by the ease of social media. Activists now must contend with a paralyzing "post-factual" moment. Alain Badiou's thought informs this book on breaking through contemporary political paralysis.

This Pivot explores the mechanism of election manipulation in ostensibly democratic but essentially authoritarian systems called the hybrid regime, using the 2018 parliamentary elections in Bangladesh as an example. The 2018 election has delivered an unprecedented victory to the incumbent Bangladesh Awami League. Elections pose serious dilemmas for the leaders of hybrid regimes. While contested elections bolster their claims of democracy and augment their legitimacy, they can also threaten the status quo. Faced with the challenge, the incumbents tend to hold stage-managed elections. This book offers incisive examination of Bangladesh's political environment, rigorous scrutiny of the roles of state institutions including the law enforcing agencies, and meticulous analysis of election results. It also fills in a gap in the extant hybrid regime literature which seldom explores the strategies of engineered elections.

International Aid and Democracy Promotion investigates the link between foreign aid and the promotion of democracy, using theory, statistical tests, and illustrative case studies. This book challenges the field of development to recognize that democracy promotion is unlike other development goals. With a goal like economic development, the interests of the recipient and the donor coincide; whereas, with democratization, authoritarian recipients have strong reasons to oppose what donors seek. The different motivations of donors and recipients must be considered if democracy aid is to be effective. The author examines how donors exercise their leverage over aid recipients, and, more importantly, why, using selectorate theory to understand the incentives of both aid donors and recipients. International Aid and Democracy Promotion will be of great interest to academics and students of development and democratization, as well as policy makers with authority over foreign aid allocation. "The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003050438, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. Open Access for this book is generously supported by the Ashoka University.

This book offers transdisciplinary scholarship which challenges the agendas of and markers around traditional social scientific fields. It builds on the belief that the study of major issues in the global cultural and political economies benefit from a perspective that rejects the limitations imposed by established boundaries, whether disciplinary, conceptual, symbolic or material. Established and early career academics explore and embrace contemporary political sociology following the 'global' and 'cultural' turns of recent decades. Categories such as state, civil society, family, migration, citizenship and identity are interrogated and sometimes found to be ill-suited to the task of analyzing global complexities. The limits of global theory, the challenges of global citizenship, and the relationship between globalisation and situated and mobile subjects and objects are all referenced in this book. The book will be of interest to scholars of International Relations, Political Science, Sociology, Political Sociology, Social Theory, Geography, Area studies and European studies.

This handbook advances the interdisciplinary field of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) by identifying thirty-five topics of ongoing research. Instead of focusing on historically significant texts, it features experts talking about current debates. Individually, each chapter provides a resource for new research. Together, the chapters provide a thorough introduction to contemporary work in PPE, which makes it an ideal reader for a senior-year course. The handbook is organized into seven parts, each with its own introduction and five chapters: I. Frameworks II. Decision-Making III. Social Structures IV. Markets V. Economic Systems VI. Distributive Justice VII. Democracy The "Frameworks" part discusses common tools and perspectives in PPE, and the "Decision-making" section shows different approaches to the study of choice. From there, parts on "Social Structures," "Markets" and "Economic Systems" each use tools from the three PPE disciplines to study and distinguish parts of society. The next part explains dominant theories and challenges to the paradigm of "Distributive Justice." Finally, a part on "Democracy" offers five challenges to current democratic practice.

This book examines how 'citizen art' practices perform new kinds of politics, as distinct from normative (status, participatory and cosmopolitan) models. It contends that at a time in which the conditions of citizenship have been radically altered (e.g., by the increased securitization and individuation of bodies etc.), there is an urgent drive for 'citizen art' to be enacted as a tool for assessing the 'hollowed out' conditions of citizenship. 'Citizen art', it shows, stands apart from other forms of Art by performing 'acts of citizenship' that reveal and transgress the limitations of state-centred citizenship regimes, whilst simultaneously enacting genuinely alternative modes of (non-statist) citizenship. This book explains how 'citizen art' can make citizenship manifest in ways that do not reify or valorize the nation-state, status rights, or cosmopolitan imaginaries. It shows instead that the outcomes of 'citizen art', such as the institutions of solidarity, assembly and interventions, reconfigure the 'tools' of politics in the act of 'doing politics' that, in turn, perform new and nascent modes of (non-statist) citizenship. This book offers a new formulation of 'citizen art' - one that is interrogated on both critical and material levels, and as such, that remodels the foundations on which citizenship is conceived, performed and instituted.

The Quadruple Innovation Helix concept is the synthesis of top-down policies and practices from Government, University and Industry balanced and shaped by bottom-up initiatives and actions by Civil Society. In addition, of significance is the complementary expansion and completion of the Quadruple Innovation Helix by the concept of the Quintuple Innovation Helix, to which an all-encompassing fifth dimension was added, namely, the Environment. This book expertly defines the impact of public policies and productive public expenditures on innovation and economic growth in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Economic growth is managed by the creation of differentiated productive units that interact with each other and complement each other in the production of continuous innovation. This book provides a theoretical model of economic growth to demonstrate the importance of governments in promoting innovation. It is a seminal read which scholars, governments, and NGOs will find greatly beneficial.

In Citizenship After Trump, political theorists Bradley S. Klein and Scott G. Nelson explore the meaning of community in the context of intense political polarization, the surge of far-right nationalism and deepening divisions during the coronavirus pandemic. With both Trumpism and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic greatly testing American democracy, the authors examine the political, economic and cultural challenges that remain after the Trump Administration's exceedingly inept leadership response. They explore the promise and limits of democracy relative to long-standing traditions of American political thought. The book argues that all Americans should consider the claims of citizenship amidst the forces consolidating today around narrow conceptions of race, nation, ethnicity and religion-each of which imperils the institutions of democracy and strikes at the heart of the country's political culture. Chapters on the media, political economy, fascism and social democracy explore what Americans have gotten so wrong politically and considers what kind of vision can, in the years ahead, lead the country out of a truly dangerous impasse. Citizenship After Trump is an invaluable and timely resource for self-critical analysis and will stimulate focused discussions about as yet unexplored regions of America's political history.

Drawing on the personal experience of a leading international jurist, this book provides insights into the workings of international law and human rights from a global perspective that transcends the traditional divide between the West and the East, and the Global South and Global North. The work follows the author's remarkable journey from a simple village in Nepal to becoming an international jurist acclaimed for his innovative academic and influential practical legal work and nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. It offers insights into the powers bearing on international policymaking, the dynamics of human rights negotiations with governments, and the effects of their outcomes on the lives of their citizens. While much has been written on international human rights law, this inspirational memoir casts a new light on the working of human rights, law, and justice through the eyes of a leading actor. It provides a valuable contribution to the study of justice and human rights and the importance of individual action. As such, the book presents an accessible source for current debates around the development and effectiveness of international law and human rights and practices for decolonising these debates. The book will provide inspiration and practical guidance for students, academics, international lawyers, jurists, and human rights advocates.

This book explains the growing empowerment of the Colombian Constitutional Court in the early years of the 21st century and develops the concept of the deliberative judge. Taking the case of the Colombian Constitutional Court and drawing on neoinstitutional theory to explain the relationship between political crisis and institutional reforms, the book challenges the notion of rational choice institutionalism that agents act strategically. It indicates the limits of path dependence and argues instead that discursive institutionalism is the most appropriate method for analyzing processes of institutional learning. Combining theoretical and empirical research, it builds the argument that judicial independence promotes the case for deliberative democracy over rational choice or strategic action approaches. Finally, the book suggests that by introducing communicative and cognitive variables in our understanding of key actors and processes, we are more capable of bridging institutional origin and legacy. The work will be a valuable resource for academics, researchers, and policy-makers in Constitutional Law, Constitutional Politics, and Constitutional History.

Based on in-depth interviews conducted with British politicians, this book analyses the different impacts of leaving political office. Representative democracy depends on politicians exiting office, and yet while there is considerable interest in who stands for and gains office, there is curiously little discussed about this process. Jane Roberts seeks to address this gap by asking: What is the experience like? What happens to politicians as they make the transition from office? What is the impact on their partners and family? Does it matter to anyone other than those immediately affected? Are there any wider implications for our democratic system? This book will appeal to academics in the fields of leadership, political science, public management and administration and psychology. It will also be of interest to elected politicians in central, devolved and local government (current and former), policy makers and political commentators, and more widely, the interested general reader.

This book examines and investigates the legitimacy of the European Union by acknowledging the importance of variation across actors, institutions, audiences, and context. Case studies reveal how different actors have contributed to the politics of (re)legitimating the European Union in response to multiple recent problems in European integration. The case studies look specifically at stakeholder interests, social groups, officials, judges, the media and other actors external to the Union. With this, the book develops a better understanding of how the politics of legitimating the Union are actor-dependent, context-dependent and problem-dependent. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of European integration, as well as those interested in legitimacy and democracy beyond the state from a point of view of political science, political sociology and the social sciences more broadly.

This book reveals how the critique of the domination of capitalism inaugurated by the Frankfurt School becomes pluriversal, motivating the historical Critical Theory of Coloniality (CTC) dialogue between the Global South and the Global North. CTC expresses the emergence and historical actuality of a set of intellectual fields aimed at denouncing domination and promoting emancipatory ideas at the borders of colonial capitalism. The book argues that the actuality of the CTC relies on the importance of valuing theoretical and methodological pluralism in the context of the necessary redefinition of the directions of global society. It reveals a plural reflection of scientific, moral, and aesthetic character in different areas of former planetary colonisation such as Asia, Africa, and America but also on the borders of Europe. This book is aimed at researchers and students in the social sciences as well as in interdisciplinary studies. It is attractive to those who are interested in the plural development of theoretical criticism outside the European universe and who seek to understand how capitalist power has metamorphosed with planetary coloniality. Considering this book implies important reflections on topics such as development, modernity, tradition, imperialism, dependency, and democracy, it is interesting to specialists in development issues, international relations, and policymakers.

Gaudiopolis (The City of Joy) was a pedagogical experiment that operated in a post-World War II orphanage in Budapest. This book tells the story of this children's republic that sought to heal the wounds of wartime trauma, address prejudice and expose the children to a firsthand experience of democracy. The children were educated in freely voicing their opinions, questioning authority, and debating ideas. The account begins with the saving of hundreds of Jewish children during the Siege of Budapest by the Lutheran minister Gabor Sztehlo together with the International Red Cross. After describing the everyday life and practices of self-rule in the orphanage that emerged from this rescue operation, the book tells how the operation of the independent children's home was stifled after the communist takeover and how Gaudiopolis was disbanded in 1950. The book then discusses how this attempt of democratization was erased from collective memory. The erasure began with the banning of a film inspired by Gaudiopolis. The Communist Party financed Somewhere in Europe in 1947 as propaganda about the construction of a new society, but the film's director conveyed a message of democracy and tolerance instead of adhering to the tenets of socialist realism. The book breaks the subsequent silence on "The City of Joy," which lasted until the fall of the Iron Curtain and beyond.