Native scholars offer clearly written coverage of the relationship between political parties and democracy in the Arab World and neighboring states. Political Parties and Democracy: Volume V: The Arab World is the fifth volume in this five-volume set. It offers clearly written, up-to-date coverage of the political parties of this diverse region from the unique perspective of distinguished indigenous scholars who have lived the truths they tell and, thus, write with unique breadth, depth, and scope. Presented in two parts, this volume overviews parties in the Arab states, then discusses the realities on the ground in Egypt, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria. This is followed by two chapters on political parties in Israel and Turkey, neighboring states with important Arab political organizations. Throughout, contributors explore the relationship between political parties and democracy (or democratization) in their respective nations, providing necessary historical, socioeconomic, and institutional context, and clarifying the balance of power among parties—and between them and competing agencies of power—today.

El Diccionario de la Democracia contiene la teor a y la ideolog a de los reg menes democr ticos: sus antecedentes; or genes; principios; modalidades de deliberaci n y leyes; sus instituciones clave y variedades, acorde con la clase social que los dirija y el arreglo institucional correlativo. Asimismo compara sus principios, leyes e instituciones con otros reg menes, particularmente con sus opuestos, las oligarqu as o gobiernos de pocos, pero tambi n con la rep blica, la tiran a y la realeza; las razones de Estado que permiten su conquista, conservaci n y estabilidad; las fuentes internas y externas que los amenazan; las maneras de corromperse y las revoluciones que los afectan. Trata tambi n de los usos, costumbres y caracteres democr ticos; inventar a los rasgos ticos de la vida democr tica, por s mismos y comprobados con los de los ricos, las clases medias y los tiranos, hasta detallar las relaciones que sostienen entre s dirigentes y dirigidos, hombres y mujeres, viejos, j venes, maestros y alumnos, ciudadanos y animales..., por el impacto que la libertad e igualdad popular tienen en la vida p blica y privada de sus pueblos. Parte medular del mismo es la exposici n de las doctrinas, dogmas, leyes e instituciones del modelo liberal moderno de la democracia; un credo que se analiza en calidad de justificaci n del nouveau r gime por parte de sus ide logos modernos m s destacados y l cidos, quienes desv an el significado de las palabras democracia y liberal atribuidas sin m s a los Estados modernos.

Why do activist groups get stuck in routine ways of talking and acting? And why are these so hard to change? Kathleen Blee provides a provocative answer: that the way grassroots groups start can hamper their ability to invigorate political life and change society for years to come. Important for both scholars and activists, it shows how grassroots activism can better live up to its potential, and pinpoints the pitfalls that activist groups should avoid. Based on observing more than 60 grassroots groups in Pittsburgh for three years, Democracy in the Making is an unprecedented look at how ordinary people come together to change society. It gives a close-up look at the deliberations of activists on the left and right as they work for animal rights, an end to the drug trade in their neighbourhood, same-sex marriage, global peace, and more. It shows how grassroots activism can provide an alternative to civic disengagement and a forum for envisioning how the world can be transformed. At the same time, it documents how activist groups become mired in dysfunctional and undemocratic patterns that their members dislike but can't fix. By following grassroots groups from their very beginnings, Blee traces how their sense of what is possible and appropriate shrinks over time as groups develop a shared sense of who they are that forecloses options that were once open. At the same time, she charts the turning points at which options re-open and groups widen their sense of possibility.

The biggest contemporary challenge to democratic legitimacy gravitates around the crisis of democratic representation. To tackle this problem, a growing number of established and new democracies included direct democratic instruments in their constitutions, enabling citizens to have direct influence on democratic decision-making. However, there are many different empirical manifestations of direct democracy, and their diverse consequences for representative democracy remain an understudied topic. Let the People Rule? aims to fill this gap, analysing the multifaceted consequences of direct democracy on constitutional reforms and issues of independence, democratic accountability mechanisms, and political outcomes. Chapters apply different methodological approaches to study the consequences of direct democracy on democratic legitimacy. These range from single in-depth case studies, like the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, to cross-national comparative studies, such as the direct democratic experience within the European Union.

Events in the post Cold War era have challenged the notions of realism and realpolitik, with an upsurge in intrastate conflicts involving other actors than just the state. During this period, the international community has witnessed the limitations of the tenets of realism for addressing disastrous civil wars or ethno-political conflicts internal to the states. Largely because of this, and alongside the emerging field of conflict resolution in western countries, transitional conflict resolution mechanisms emerged with characteristic multi-track diplomacy orientations for solving national problems within African countries. By the end of the 1980s and early 1990s, several African countries, including South Africa, Burundi and Sierra Leone resorted to either a Truth and Reconciliation Commission or an international tribunal to handle violence and restore peace and justice. In the same period, other African countries opted for what was called 'national conference' to solve their national problems and transform conflict into an opportunity for structural change. In February 1990, the Republic of Benin, a small nation-state in West Africa, achieved peace through a national conference. The national conference in Benin was a national gathering for crisis resolution through social debates on critical issues facing the nation, and political decision making for constructive changes. As a pioneer, Benin led the political change movement of the national conference and was later followed by eight other African countries namely, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Gabon, Mali, Niger, Togo, the Central African Republic, and the former Zaire, now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo. To date, most of the existing literature on the subject explores the phenomenon of national conference as something of a prelude to political transition to multipartyism and democracy. Part of the literature depicts the national conference as a civil coup d'etat, and recommends its institutionalization as a system for democratic transitions. This book takes a different approach by conceptualizing the national conference phenomenon as a multi-track diplomacy tool or as a process for conflict transformation and peacemaking. Building upon theories of conflict and conflict resolution, the author analyzes the national conference as a unique diplomatic approach to transforming national crisis, which expands the scope of strategies for peacemaking. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacques KOKO is an Adjunct Professor in the Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University, New Jersey, USA, where he teaches "Peacemaking and peacekeeping," "Conflict and Displacement in Africa," and "Ethnopolitical conflict." A Beninois, Professor Koko has worked as a Senior Social Analyst with the Institut Africain pour le Developpement Economique et Social (INADES) in Abidjan (Ivory Coast) and as an Associate Researcher with the Universite Nationale d'Abomey Calavi in Cotonou (Benin). Correlatively with his teaching position at Seton Hall University, he currently serves as a Senior Political Analyst for Americans for Informed Democracy. He publishes in both English and French.

Russian democracy in the post-totalitarian era is intimately bound up with the fate of its representative institutions. In Russia's Road to Democracy, Victor Sergeyev and Nikolai Biryukov assess why the Congress of People's Deputies, and the other newly elected institutions founded under perestroika, not only failed to prevent, but also seemed to speed up and provoke, the disintegration of the Soviet Union. By studying the early history of the Congress, the book seeks insights on the prospects for democracy in Russia.Following an inquiry into the roots of Soviet political culture and the implications for future representative institutions, the book then examines the genesis of the Congress of People's Deputies and attempts a hermeneutical reconstruction of the deputies' models of social reality, as expressed in the texts of their parliamentary debates. The authors argue that the adoption of the concept of sobornost - a belief in society's organic unity - as the basic model for this institution proved utterly inadequate to the challenges the country faced. Including substantial new source material which is being made available in English for the first time, Russia's Road to Democracy presents an in-depth analysis with conclusions that contradict the hitherto prevailing theoretical assumptions.

This book captures Malaysia's foreign policy over the first fifty years and beyond since the date of the country's formal independence in 1957. The author provides "macro-historical" narratives of foreign policy practices and outcomes over distinct time periods under the tenures of the five prime ministers. One chapter delves into relations with immediate neighbouring states and another chapter analyses the political economy of foreign policy. A postscript deals with the transition of foreign policy beyond the fifth decade. The concluding chapter suggests that Malaysian middlepowermanship has been in the making in foreign policy practice being particularly evident since the Mahathir years. Employing a critical-constructivist approach throughout the study, the author posits that foreign policy should be appreciated as outcomes of socio-political-economic processes embedded within a Malaysian political culture. In terms of broad policy orientations, Malaysian foreign policy over five decades has navigated over the terrains of neutralism, regionalism, globalization and Islamism. However, the critical engagement of civil society in foreign policy construction remains a formidable challenge.

The transformative impacts of digitalization on society are visible both within nation states and across borders. Information and communication technologies are typically considered beneficial for democracy. Nevertheless, this book explores the challenges that technology brings to democracy, and in so doing advances our understanding of this crucial digital, social and political phenomenon. It contributes to the broader discussion of the relationship between international, national and sub-national norms, institutions and actors in an increasingly connected world. Insightful and current, this book offers a wide variety of perspectives in an area where there is still not yet an extensive body of research. It considers, for example: the extent to which new forms of digital political engagement change traditional democratic decision-making; how receptive national governments and authorities are to digital democratic movements; how governments can uphold the values of democratic society while also ensuring flexibility with regard to the private sector; and how we should judge these developments in light of the cross-border effects of digitalization. Understanding the influence of digitalization on democracy is crucial. As such, this book will appeal to a broad audience including, but not limited to, social scientists, policy makers, legal researchers, NGOs, governments, students and lawyers. Contributors include: M. Adams, A. Banerjee, E. Bayamlioglu, C.L. Blake, J. Cudmore, C. Cuijpers, A. Dumas, C.R. Farina, M.-J. Garot, T. Gylfason, H.L. Kong, E.A. Lazzari, P.L. Lindseth, N. Luka, A. Meuwese, L.F.M. Moncau, C. Nam, M. Newhart, U. Pagallo, I. Pernice, C. Prins, R. Radu, M.S.G. Rosina, R. Weill, K. van Aeken, B. Zhao, N. Zingales

This original and ambitious work looks anew at a series of intellectual debates about the meaning of democracy. Clive Barnett engages with key thinkers in various traditions of democratic theory and demonstrates the importance of a geographical imagination in interpreting contemporary political change. Debates about radical democracy, Barnett argues, have become trapped around a set of oppositions between deliberative and agonistic theories - contrasting thinkers who promote the possibility of rational agreement and those who seek to unmask the role of power or violence or difference in shaping human affairs. While these debates are often framed in terms of consensus versus contestation, Barnett unpacks the assumptions about space and time that underlie different understandings of the sources of political conflict and shows how these differences reflect deeper philosophical commitments to theories of creative action or revived ontologies of "the political." Rather than developing ideal theories of democracy or models of proper politics, he argues that attention should turn toward the practices of claims-making through which political movements express experiences of injustice and make demands for recognition, redress, and re pair. By rethinking the spatial grammar of discussions of public space, democratic inclusion, and globalization, Barnett develops a conceptual framework for analyzing the crucial roles played by geographical processes in generating and processing contentious politics.

Providing an insightful diagnosis of what went wrong and prescriptions for a cure, this book is a must-read for angry and confused middle-class Americans who want to understand the forces that are undermining their prosperity and economic security. The Middle Class Fights Back: How Progressive Movements Can Restore Democracy in America presents an unapologetic and coherent analysis of American state capitalism. Is there a way to stop politicians, corporate CEOs, and predatory investors from plunging the entire world further into a new economic dark age? According to author, teacher, and political scientist Brian D'Agostino, PhD, the answer is "yes." His book identifies the policies undermining middle class prosperity, demolishes their protective ideologies, and offers a visionary but pragmatic agenda of policy and institutional reforms that will encourage and fuel progressive movements of the 21st century. Part I of the book exposes the national security and neoliberal policies that are deindustrializing America and undermining the middle class, as well as the ideologies that deceive and confuse ordinary people about what is occurring. Part II provides a manifesto of policy strategies and institutional reforms that can restore American democracy and prosperity, enabling the United States to once again lead the world by example as it once did in the 18th-century struggle for political democracy. New, winning ideas for reframing progressive policies A reliable roadmap to a green New Deal An indispensable resource for activists, politicians, and policy analysts Self-contained chapters suitable for college course readings in peace studies, American politics, economics, and education. A unified critique of the conservative ideologies and policy agenda

El Diccionario de la Democracia contiene la teor a y la ideolog a de los reg menes democr ticos: sus antecedentes; or genes; principios; modalidades de deliberaci n y leyes; sus instituciones clave y variedades, acorde con la clase social que los dirija y el arreglo institucional correlativo. Asimismo compara sus principios, leyes e instituciones con otros reg menes, particularmente con sus opuestos, las oligarqu as o gobiernos de pocos, pero tambi n con la rep blica, la tiran a y la realeza; las razones de Estado que permiten su conquista, conservaci n y estabilidad; las fuentes internas y externas que los amenazan; las maneras de corromperse y las revoluciones que los afectan. Trata tambi n de los usos, costumbres y caracteres democr ticos; inventar a los rasgos ticos de la vida democr tica, por s mismos y comprobados con los de los ricos, las clases medias y los tiranos, hasta detallar las relaciones que sostienen entre s dirigentes y dirigidos, hombres y mujeres, viejos, j venes, maestros y alumnos, ciudadanos y animales..., por el impacto que la libertad e igualdad popular tienen en la vida p blica y privada de sus pueblos. Parte medular del mismo es la exposici n de las doctrinas, dogmas, leyes e instituciones del modelo liberal moderno de la democracia; un credo que se analiza en calidad de justificaci n del nouveau r gime por parte de sus ide logos modernos m s destacados y l cidos, quienes desv an el significado de las palabras democracia y liberal atribuidas sin m s a los Estados modernos.

How can the seeds of accountability ever grow in authoritarian environments? Embedding accountability into the state is an inherently uneven, partial and contested process. Campaigns for public accountability often win limited concessions at best, but they can leave cracks in the system that serve as handholds for subsequent efforts to open up the state to public scrutiny.
This book explores the how civil society "thickens" by comparing two decades of rural citizens' struggles to hold the Mexican state accountable, exploring both change and continuity before, during, and after national electoral turning points. The book addresses how much power-sharing really happens in policy innovations that include participatory social and environmental councils, citizen oversight of elections, local government social investment funds, participation reforms in World Bank projects, community-managed food programs, as well as new social oversight and public information access reforms. Meanwhile, efforts to exercise voice unfold at the same time as rural citizens consider their exit options, as millions migrate to the US, where many have since come together in a new migrant civil society.
Since explanations of electoral change do not account for how people actually experience the state, this book concludes that new analytical frameworks are needed to understand "transitions to accountability." This involves unpacking the interaction between participation, transparency and accountability.
Oxford Studies in Democratization is a series for scholars and students of comparative politics and related disciplines. Volumes concentrate on the comparative study of the democratization process thataccompanied the decline and termination of the cold war. The geographical focus of the series is primarily Latin America, the Caribbean, Southern and Eastern Europe, and relevant experiences in Africa and Asia. The series editor is Laurence Whitehead, Official Fellow, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.

This book explores why democratization processes in Sub-Saharan Africa have made so little progress despite more than two decades of multi-party politics on the subcontinent. By applying multiple linear regression analyses to a new data set on multi-party elections in Sub-Saharan Africa, the study investigates the relationship between political mobilizations and electoral competitiveness. It finds that the more societal groups engage in political mobilizations, such as protests and strikes, the more competitive elections become. Based on these results, the author argues for a change in the policies of international democracy assistance programs. The study's findings suggest that efforts to promote democracy would likely be more successful if international donors focused their support on organizations that have active constituencies and are willing to use their mobilization capacity to address ruling elites with political or socio-economic grievances.

Vital Democracy outlines a theory of democracy in action, based on four elementary forms of democracy--pendulum, consensus, voter and participatory democracy--that are thoroughly analyzed, compared and related to both the literature and the real world of democracy. Just like a few primary colors produce an array of shades, a few basic models of democracy appear, the author argues, to constitute a wide range of democratic variants in real life.
Focusing on tried and tested democratic institutions, Frank Hendriks shows that the four models of democracy--with their divergent patterns of leadership, citizenship and governance, their inherent strengths and weaknesses--are never purely instantiated. He argues that wherever democracy is practiced with some level of success, it is always as hybrid democracy, thereby challenging those democratic reformers and theorists that have inspired the quest for democratic purity.
Vital Democracy builds on Arend Lijphart's well-known work which distinguishes between majoritarian and consensual democratic countries but also goes well beyond it, urging attention to non-national, non-formal, and non-representative expressions of democracy as well.

Exploring the EU's Legitimacy Crisis provides a profound analysis of the causes and the consequences of the EU's growing legitimacy problem. Since the onset of the eurozone crisis the EU's governance has been narrowly driven by the semi-hegemonial leadership of Germany - manifesting itself in functionalist and technocratic policy reforms concentrated on strengthening economic governance coordination. Other crucial policy areas have been neglected as member states show decreasing solidarity and a growing emphasis on national interests in response to mounting external challenges. This book examines these developments in detail by scrutinising the EU's ability to maintain legitimacy through political leadership, democratic accountability and governance efficiency. This state-of-the-art exploration of the EU's internal and external challenges, including the eurozone and the migration crisis, provides critical analysis of the EU's leadership in the context of diverging national interests. The author outlines the essential background to understanding the rise in euroscepticism in the EU and provides an insightful analysis of the 2014 European Parliament election Spitzenkandidaten system. A comprehensive critical analysis of the latest developments in the EU's major policy areas in terms of their problem-solving capacity and democratic legitimacy is also included. This timely exploration of the reality of the EU's governance in light of persistent crises will appeal to students, academics and practitioners interested in the development of the EU, its member states and European politics more generally.

In spite of America's identity as a liberal democracy, the vile act of lynching happened frequently in the Southern United States over the course of the nation's history. Indeed, lynchings were very public events, and were even advertised in newspapers, begging the question of how such a brazen disregard for the law could have occurred so freely and openly. Liberalizing Lynching: Building a New Racialized State seeks to explain the seemingly paradoxical relationship between the American liberal regime and the illiberal act of lynching. Drawing on legal cases, congressional documents, presidential correspondence, and newspaper reports, Daniel Kato explores the federal government's pattern of non-intervention regarding lynchings of African Americans from the late nineteenth century through the 1960s. Although popular belief holds that the federal government was unable to address racial violence in the South, this book argues that the actions and decisions of the federal government from the 1870s through the 1960s reveal that federal inaction was not primarily a consequence of institutional or legal incapacities, but rather a decision that was supported and maintained by all three branches of the federal government. Inaction stemmed from the decision not to intervene, not the powerlessness of the federal government. To cement his argument, Kato develops the theory of constitutional anarchy, which crystallizes the ways in which federal government had the capacity to intervene, yet relinquished its responsibility while nonetheless maintaining authority. A bold challenge to conventional knowledge about lynching, Liberalizing Lynching will serve as a useful tool for students and scholars of political science, legal history, and African American studies.

Following the Arab Uprisings, new ways of understanding sectarianism and sect-based differences emerged. But these perspectives, while useful, reduced sectarian identities to a consequence of either primordial tensions or instrumentalised identities. While more recently ‘third way’ approaches addressed the problems with these two positions, the complexity of secatarian identities within and across states remains unexplored. This book fills the gap in the literature to offer a more nuanced reading of both sectarian identities and also de-sectarianization across the Middle East. To do so, the volume provides a comparative account, looking at Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. It examines the ways in which sect-based difference shapes regional politics and vice versa. The book also contributes to burgeoning debates on the role of protest movements in sectarianism. Chapters are split across three main sections: the first looks at sects and states; the second traces the relationship between sects and regional dynamics; and the third examines de-sectarianization, that is, the contestation and destablization of sectarian identities in socio-political life. Each section provides a more holistic understanding of the role of sectarian identities in the contemporary Middle East and shows how sectarian groups operate within and across state borders, and why this has serious implications for the ordering of life across the Middle East.

Throughout history, the right to vote has been extended to landowning men, the poor, minorities, women, and young adults. In each case, the meaning of democracy itself has been transformed. The one major group still denied suffrage is the third of humanity who are under 18 years of age. However, children are becoming increasingly active in political movements for climate regulation, labor rights, gun control, transexual identity, and racial justice. And these have led to a growing global movement to eliminate minimum ages of enfranchisement. This book argues that it is time to give children the vote. Using political theory and drawing on childhood studies, it shows why suffrage cannot legitimately be limited according to age, as well as why truly universal voting is beneficial to all and can help save today's crumbling democratic norms. It carefully responds to a wide range of objections concerning competence, knowledge, adult rights, power relations, harms to children, and much more. And it develops a detailed childist theory of voting based on holding elected representatives maximally responsive to the people's different lived experiences. The book also introduces the concept of proxy-claim voting, wherein parents or guardians exercise proxy votes for non-competent persons, both child and adult, until whatever time those persons wish to claim or reclaim the exercise of their vote for themselves. Ultimately, the book maps out a new vision of democratic voting that, by equally empowering children, is at last genuinely democratic.

The proper role of government is among the most politically contentious issues of our time. Behind the legal technicalities of recent reforms and disputes in the courts lie issues of profound significance for local democracy. This book shows how fundamental disagreements over the nature of local government and politics permeate the law and how law, in turn, shapes and influences local politics.