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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political structure & processes > Democracy
This volume presents a wide range of literary and epigraphic sources on the history of the world's first democracy, offering a comprehensive survey of the key themes and principles of Athenian democratic culture. Beginning with the mythical origins of Athenian democracy under Theseus and describing the historical development of Athens' democratic institutions through Solon's reforms to the birth of democracy under Cleisthenes, the book addresses the wider cultural and social repercussions of the democratic system, concluding with a survey of Athenian democracy in the Hellenistic and Roman age. All sources are presented in translation with full annotation and commentary and each chapter opens with an introduction to provide background and direction for readers. Sources include material by Aristotle, Homer, Aristophanes, Herodotus, Thucydides, Cicero, Tacitus and many others. The volume also includes an A-Z of key terms, an annotated bibliography with suggestions for further reading in the primary sources as well as modern critical works on Athenian democracy, and a full index.
Leading scholars analyze three disruptions in the 2020 presidential campaign and election: disruptions to the status quo caused by the renewed quest for racial justice and greater diversity of candidates; pandemic disruptions to traditional campaigning; and disruptions to democratic norms. Democracy Disrupted documents the most significant features of the 2020 U.S. presidential election through research conducted by leading scholars in political communication. Chapters consider the coinciding of three historical events in 2020: a 100-year pandemic co-occurring with the presidential campaign, the reinvigorated call for social and racial justice in response to the killing of George Floyd and other Black men and women, and the authoritarian lurch that emerged in reaction to Donald Trump's norm-challenging rhetoric. The Democratic Party's campaign stood out because of the historically diverse field of presidential candidates and the election of the first female vice president. Chapter authors adopt diverse scientific methodologies and field-leading theories of political communication to understand the way these events forced candidates, campaigns, and voters to adapt to these extraordinary circumstances. Experiments, surveys, case studies, and textual analysis illuminate essential features of this once-in-a-generation campaign. This timely volume is edited by four scholars who have been central to describing and contextualizing each recent presidential contest. Indexes three historic events that coincided to make this an election that will be studied for generations: the pandemic, the insurrection at the capital, and the reinvigoration of the civil rights movement Utilizes the context of the COVID-19 pandemic as a natural experiment to examine long-untested assumptions about campaign effects Includes some of the most prominent and well-respected researchers in the area of political communication as well as emerging scholars who represent a wide range of academic programs Includes diverse studies from all methods of inquiry
An analysis of the transnationalization of politics in several societies concerned by programs of democracy promotion, the contributors to this book seek to understand how these new global norms and programs create forms of appropriation and resistance at the local level.
The abridged edition of the enduring masterwork--a classic portrait of America's culture and people Originally penned in the mid-nineteenth century by Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America" remains the most comprehensive, penetrating, and astute picture of American life, politics, and morals ever written, as relevant today as when it first appeared in print nearly two hundred years ago. This abridged edition by scholar and historian Scott A. Sandage includes a new introduction and editorial notes, and offers students and the general reader alike easy access to the preeminent translation by George Lawrence, widely recognized as the best translation based on the second revised and corrected text of the 1961 French edition, edited by J. P. Mayer.
Will China become a multiparty democracy? The author posits that the more that Chinese elite thinking on China's development and change reconciles the tension between Chinese nationalism and collectivist, family-like ethics on the one hand, and the western democratic ideals based on each self-seeking individual's subjectivity on the other hand, the greater the chance that China's political development will lead to a multiparty democracy. The author projects that within the next twenty years China will march on the path of democratization.
This book is a topical study of populist constitutionalism and illiberal democracies,exploring their roots in constitutional imagination as well as their normativeentrenchment and performance in political reality. It provides insightful analysis ofrepublican constitutionalism, focusing on the role of people in radical democracyand revolutionary constitutional reform. Furthermore, the outlook, adequacyand performance of constitutional principles in times of democratic ruptures areassessed. The contributors examine the rise of populist constitutionalism and themain trends that have led to the current, ongoing crises in liberal democracy. Thebook includes original analyses of populist constitutionalism from the viewpointof emotions and constitutional imagination, as well as a special chapter devotedto the challenges posed to constitutional democracy by COVID-19. Combiningtheoretical contributions, comparative typologies and important case studies, thespread of populism and illiberal democracy in Europe is critically explored.Populist Constitutionalism and Illiberal Democracies is a timely contribution to thelively discussion surrounding constitutional law, comparative constitutional law,comparative constitutionalism and political science regarding the rise and spreadof illiberal democracies, authoritarian political regimes and revolutionary, radicaldemocratic and populist constitutionalism.
The vast literature on globalization integration and supranational bodies such as the EU dwells mainly on the problems which such processes pose for the nation-state. States are seen as needing to provide responses to these new challenges, but parties within those states are equally challenged. David Hanley examines how parties address those challenges and the manner in which parties act at supranational level.
Recent events throughout Latin America have placed issues of democracy on centerstage. Collected here for the first time are articles that evaluate different models of democracy, challenging the realities and myths of the practice of democracy in various countries throughout the region. This is a provocative and revealing study of the critical issues in the struggle for democracy and current events in the Third World and the United States. Through the writings of leading Latin American and U.S. scholars, including James Petras, Pablo Gonzalez Casanova, and Max Azicri, the book addresses such important topics as whether Washington's model democracies are truly democratic, and how Guatemala's civilian regime compares to Nicaragua's revolutionary democracy. By covering countries as diverse as Cuba, Argentina, and Guatemala, the collection adds to an understanding of different models of democracy and challenges traditional methodologies used to evaluate them. Several essays put the issue of democratization in the context of economic crisis, resulting in political redefinitions, and the emergence of the new social movements. The book includes a foreword and introduction by the editors, and concludes with a comprehensive index. It will be a useful resource for courses in political science and Latin American history, and an important addition to college, university, and public libraries.
In the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution, the government of the Islamic Republic initiated a stringent anti-drug campaign that included fining addicts, imprisonment, physical punishment, and even the death penalty. Despite these measures, drug use was, and is still, commonplace. Based on her most recent fieldwork, Janne Bjerre Christensen explores the mounting problems of drug use in Iran, how treatment became legalized in 1998, how local NGOs offer methadone treatment in Tehran and face continuous political challenges in doing so, and how drug use is critically discussed in Iranian media and cinema. "Drugs, Deviancy and Democracy in Iran" is thus a unique account of Iran's recent social and political history, drawing important conclusions about the complexity of state power, and the growing impact of civil society, vital for all those interested in Iran's history, politics, and society.
Profound social changes have made governance and political leadership more challenging than ever. The result is that politics in the democratic world faces a crisis in the 21st century. The revised edition of this highly successful text reassesses the gap between citizen expectation and the realities of government in light of new developments.
From its origins in Porto Alegre, Brazil, the diffusion of participatory budgeting to other parts of the world has been met with varying degrees of success despite its label as a product of democratic innovation. Drawing on in-depth empirical and theoretical analysis, this book sheds light on the diffusion dynamics of participatory budgeting and the processes of its framing and adaptation in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. It explores the question of participatory budgeting's national characteristics and potential for realising a more democratic society. Thus, the volume engages in a theoretically innovative and empirically grounded overview and critical assessment of participatory budgeting initiatives in three European countries. The double focus on frames in the diffusion and implementation of single cases and the systematic evaluation of their results offers a deeper understanding of "success factors" and results of participatory budgeting and other institutional processes of citizen participation.
Tadjoeddin uniquely explores four types of violent conflicts pertinent to contemporary Indonesia (secessionist, ethnic, routine-everyday and electoral violence), and seeks to discover what socio-economic development can do to overcome conflict and make the country's transition to democracy safe for its constituencies.
Faced with falling social cohesion governments have sought to revitalise society by trying to reconstruct local communities, civil society and citizenship. As a result, civil society is increasingly brought within the realm of public management, subject to accountability and embedded in hierarchies the impact and origins of which this book explores
Hu seeks to explain China's failure to establish a democratic system. He demonstrates both continuity and change in China's democratization process. Modern China regards power and wealth as primary goals and treats a strong state as a major means to these ends. Such a preference puts democracy on a back burner. Employing a theoretical framework which consists of five factors--historical legacies, local forces, the world system, socialist values, and economic development--Hu shows that, while all of these factors were at work in all eras, each assumes a special significance in a particular period. Traditional China before the 1911 Revolution attempted to adjust itself to a new, Western-dominated world. In the Republican era, the control of local forces topped the political agenda. Nationalist China sought to survive and develop in the world system, while Maoist China set for itself the task of building a socialist state. And, of course, economic development has been the priority of the Deng era. As Hu shows, these five factors have had determining impacts on the long struggle for democracy in China.
The contributors to this edited volume analyze and compare different kinds of citizens' initiatives, including both full scale initiatives and agenda initiatives, in eleven European democracies and the EU. The book provides a comprehensive account of the practices of citizens' initiatives in each case, including a description of the historical background of the citizens' initiatives and the political system in which they operate. Particular attention is paid to the institutional design of citizens' initiatives which largely explains how they function in different political contexts. Citizens Initiatives in Europe sheds light on issues relevant to democracy, for example, how citizens' initiatives influence patterns of political agenda-setting in representative democracies and how they contribute to the aspirations of participatory democracy.
An original investigation of the nature of the forces that make members and representatives both loyal and beneficial to a contemporary political party, this book combines theoretical reflection with interview and archive material to provide a unique perspective on power, arguing that it is more complex and nuanced than is frequently assumed.
Since the fall of long-reigning President Soeharto, in 1998, Indonesia has been in an era of transition, away from an authoritarian regime, and on a "quest for democracy." This quest started with decentralization laws implemented in 2001, which gave greater autonomy to the regions, and continued with the direct elections for the national and local legislatures and the President in 2004. The latest development in this democratization process is the implementation of a system for the direct election of regional leaders, which began in 2005; the first round of elections across the nation for all governors, mayors and district heads was completed in 2008. Authors of the chapters in this volume, the result of a workshop in Singapore in 2006, present data from across the archipelago for these first direct elections for local leaders and give their assessment as to how far these elections have contributed to a "deepening democracy."
This work is a collection of essays relating to social and economic, leadership, and ethics, ecological and religious issues that are facing the world today in order to understand the course of history that has led humanity to its present condition and then arrive at positive solutions that will lead to better outcomes for all humanity. It surveys the development and decline of major empires throughout history and focuses on the creation of American Empire along with the social, political and economic policies that led to the prominence of the United States of America as a Superpower including the rise of the political control of the neo-con political philosophy including militarism and the military industrial complex in American politics and the rise of the religious right into and American Theocracy movement. This volume details, through historical and current events, the psychology behind the dominance of western culture in world politics through the "Superpower Syndrome Mandatory Conflict Complex" that drives the Superpower culture to establish itself above all others and then act hubristically to dominate world culture through legitimate influences as well as coercion, media censorship and misinformation leading to international hegemony and world conflict. This volume also details the financial policies that gave rise to American prominence in the global economy, especially after World War II, and promoted American preeminence over the world economy through Globalization as well as the environmental policies, including the oil economy, that are promoting degradation of the world ecology and contribute to the decline of America as an Empire culture. This volume finally explores thefactors pointing to the decline of the American Empire economy and imperial power and what to expect in the aftermath of American prominence and how to survive the decline while at the same time promoting policies and social-economic-religious-political changes that are needed in order to promote the emergence of a beneficial and sustainable culture.
State building and democratization in Africa rarely attract the attention they deserve. Few have grappled with the relationship between state building (nation-building) and democratic experiments in Africa. This collection consciously corrects this shortcoming in African political studies. Among the issues raised: Does democracy facilitate state building or does it exacerbate ethnic conflicts? Are certain modalities of democratization more likely to facilitate state-building than others? Has the era of democracy created the need for new state building strategies? Does the objective of state building require significant modifications in the essence and form of democracy? This collection combines theoretical explorations with empirical case studies. It looks at both anglophone and francophone countries of sub-Saharan Africa. While the contributors have written extensively on African issues, there is no consensus among the authors; most argue that integrating ethnic groups that already face discrimination and often are engaged in conflict requires compromise, political settlements, and new terms of incorporation into the state. These compromises, in turn, involve new arrangements in how democracy is perceived and instituted. An important collection for scholars, students, and other researchers involved with African political, social, and economic development.
The Emergence of the two-party system in the 1830s led to the democratization of the nation and to decades of heated dispute about democracy. In Democratizing the Old Dominion, the first comprehensive study of antebellum Virginia politics, William G. Shade demonstrates that Virginia typified the nation more closely than did any other state both in the emergence and development of the two-party system and in economic development. Shade places the antebellum debate over slavery and states' rights in the context of early discussion on these subjects by Jefferson and Madison. He shows how the diversity of opinion on these issues was shaped by politics. Discussing the many conflicts within Virginia and the South, he debunks the myth of the unique South and argues that the similarities between North and South were more numerous than the differences. The author also provides a thorough analysis of Virginia's many regional cultures, looking at them comparatively as well as in the context of national party conflicts.
Robert Weatherley examines the role of nationalism in Chinese thinking on democracy and human rights spanning four successive periods: the late Qing, the Republic, Mao's China and post-Mao China. During this time, many of the debates in China about democracy and rights have been tied to the question of how to make China strong. The trigger is usually a perceived threat from foreign imperialism. Following the outbreak of the First Opium War in 1839, this imperialism took a military form, leading many Chinese reformers to embrace a system of democracy and rights in order to protect China from further foreign encroachments. In more recent years, the perceived threat has come from cultural imperialism, most apparent, Beijing claims, when the West criticises China for its poor record on democracy and human rights. This has led to the evolution of a distinctively Chinese model of democracy and rights that differs significantly from that deriving from the West.
We live in a world governed by states whose enduring importance and domination of contemporary politics has been strikingly underlined by their renewed activism in the face of a global economic crisis. Yet the very nature of states remains deeply contested, with a range of competing theories offering very different views of how they actually do or should operate. In the past this competition has lead to deep ideological conflict - and even to war. In this major new work, John S. Dryzek and Patrick Dunleavy provide a broad-ranging assessment of classical and contemporary theories of the state, focusing primarily on the democratic state form that has come to dominate modern politics. The authors' starting point is the classical theories of the state: pluralism, elite theory, Marxism and market liberalism. They then turn to the contemporary forms of pluralism prevalent in political science, systematically exploring how they address central issues, such as networked governance, globalization, and changing patterns of electoral and identity politics. They proceed to analyse a range of key contemporary critiques of modern states and democracy that have emerged from feminism, environmentalism, neo-conservatism and post-modernism. Each approach is carefully introduced and analysed as far as possible in relation to a common set of issues and headings. Theories of the Democratic State takes the reader straight to the heart of contemporary issues and debates and, in the process, provides a challenging and distinctive introduction to and reassessment of contemporary political science.
In the sixty-four days between November 3 and January 6, President Donald Trump and his allies fought to reverse the outcome of the vote. Focusing on six states - Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - Trump's supporters claimed widespread voter fraud. Caught up in this effort were scores of activists, lawyers, judges and state and local officials, among them Rohn Bishop, enthusiastic chairman of the Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin, Republican Party, who would be branded a traitor for refusing to say his state's election was tainted, and Ruby Freeman, a part-time ballot counter in Atlanta who found herself accused of being a 'professional vote scammer' by the President. Working with a team of researchers and reporters, Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague uncover never-before-told accounts from the election officials fighting to do their jobs amid outlandish claims and threats to themselves, their colleagues and their families. The Steal is an engaging, in-depth report on what happened during those crucial nine weeks and a portrait of the heroic individuals who did their duty and stood firm against the unprecedented, sustained attack on the US election system and ensured that every legal vote was counted and the will of the people prevailed. |
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