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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political structure & processes > Democracy
This book addresses the challenge of reforming defense and military policy-making in newly democratized nations. By tracing the development of civil-military relations in various new democracies from a comparative perspective, it links two bodies of scholarship that thus far have remained largely separate: the study of emerging (or failed) civilian control over armed forces on the one hand; and work on the roots and causes of military effectiveness to guarantee the protection and security of citizens on the other. The empirical and theoretical findings presented here will appeal to scholars of civil-military relations, democratization and security issues, as well as to defense policy-makers.
Democracy, Agency, and the State aims to contribute to a
comparatively informed theory of democracy. Professor O'Donnell
begins by arguing that conceptions of 'the state' and 'democracy',
and their respective defining features, significantly influence
each other. Using an approach that is both historical and
analytical, he traces this relationship through the idea of legally
sanctioned and backed agency which grounds democratic citizenship.
From this standpoint he explores several aspects of the democratic
regime and of the state, distinguishing four constitutive
dimensions (bureaucracy, legality, focus of collective identity,
and filter). He goes on to examine the role played by the idea of
'the nation' or 'the people', and the ways in which the state
represents itself to different sections of society, especially in
countries marred by deep inequality and pervasive poverty.
Transcending the widespread concerns about deteriorating moral values in American society, this collection focuses on the common values of American society. Through the perspectives of philosophers, historians, political scientists, theologians, anthropologists, economists, and scientists, this book examines American social values and discusses how they are applied in current areas of public interest. American democratic ideals are not simply rooted in the conventional structural and institutional elements of a democracy, such as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. American democracy, in fact, could not survive without a strong basis of social values that support community, tolerance, and cooperation. Since social values form the common bonds of society, and may not be supported by individual members, they are determined through a complex cultural, legal, and political process, as one of the contributors points out. The contributors to this book were assembled from a variety of disciplines and professions to examine social values and analyze their application in specific areas of current controversy. Through the perspectives of philosophy, anthropology, history, economics, political science, biomedical ethics, and religion, these discussions cover not only disciplinary perspectives but cover topics such as the environment, intergenerational interaction, social welfare policies, gender, and genetic engineering.
For the first time in a single volume, the growing field of network analysis is systematically explored and assessed in terms of its ability to throw light on individual behaviour, social movements and political processes.
Voices of Liberation: Archie Mafeje should be understood as an attempt to contextualise Mafeje's work and thinking and adds to gripping intellectual biographies of African intellectuals by African researchers. Mafeje's scholarship can be categorised into three broad areas: a critique of epistemological and methodological issues in the social sciences; the land and agrarian question in sub-Saharan Africa; and revolutionary theory and politics (including questions of development and democracy). Noted for his academic prowess, genius mind, incomparable wit and endless struggle for his nation and greater Africa, Mafeje was also hailed by his daughter, Dana El-Baz, as a 'giant' not only in the intellectual sense but as a human being. Part I discusses Mafeje's intellectual and political influences. Part II consists of seven of Mafeje's original articles and seeks to contextualise his writings. Part III reflects on Mafeje's intellectual legacy.
The Dilemmas of Social Democracies seeks to advance the eradication of poverty and the ethical construction of social democracy and sustainable peace. Howard Richards and Joanna Swanger argue that the reason that capitalism resists transformation and that social democracy is so hard to achieve is because of the philosophical and institutional underpinnings the constitutive rules of capitalism; the book therefore explores the historical origins of these rules, their implications for blocking progress toward social justice, and how they can be improved.
This book gathers a series of studies by scholars who have dedicated these last few years to research in the field of participatory democracy. Their purpose is precisely to engage in a theoretical discussion about the value of participatory democracy in the 21st century. Part I deals with the challenge of antipolitics. This is one of the greatest challenges faced by contemporary democratic theory: How can it be possible to take into account in political decision-making processes those whose voices issue disagreement with the available alternatives in the exact same political decision-making processes, without simply excluding them provisionally from democratic participation? Part II focuses on challenges to deliberative systems. Deliberative democracy is probably the most important alternative conception of democracy in today's available literature on the topic, insofar as it responds to a sort of general uneasiness with mere preference aggregation by majoritarian voting, and instead seeks to incorporate the vast spectrum of heterogeneous interests in modern societies in the search for mutually acceptable policies. However, it is also subject to specific theoretical challenges that must be overcome if it is to be taken seriously as a viable alternative for providing better conditions of political participation. Part II deals with some of those challenges, even if in a sympathetic attitude towards deliberative decision-making. Finally, Part III approaches pluralism and cultural diversity in a shared public space. Its main challenge consists in promoting an idea of active citizenship that can meet the demands of a world increasingly defined by the processes of globalization. Ultimately, that is what will end up combining a valid notion of active citizenship with effective decision-making procedures in pluralistic democracies. More than a simple summary of research, Challenges to Democratic Participation is designed to be accessible and useful to a wide variety of audiences, from scholars and practitioners working in numerous disciplines and fields, to activists and average citizens who are interested in seeking a theoretical groundwork for democratic practices; it also intends to enhance current scholarship, serving as a guide to existing research and identifying useful future research.
This book is the second of two studies which systematically explore territoriality of the vote in Europe. They investigate when and where voters treat regional elections differently from national contests and aim to increase our understanding of the dynamics of electoral competition, which have become increasingly multifarious and complex in many countries due to the establishment and strengthening of regional government. This volume brings together leading experts on elections who analyze differences between regional and national electoral outcomes in ten East European countries since 1990. Based on a common analytical framework, each chapter investigates congruence between regional and national elections and traces and explains second-order and regional election effects. The editors applied a similar analytical framework in Regional and National Elections in Western Europe (Palgrave, 2013) which focused on 13 West European countries, enabling the authors to compare regional electoral dynamics between Eastern and Western Europe and observe to what extent explanations for territorial heterogeneity in the vote in the West also apply to the East. This book will be of particular interest to advanced students and scholars in the fields of comparative politics, regional studies, Eastern-European politics, and democratization.
This book is the product of three years of empirical research, four years in politics, and a lifetime in a country experiencing three different regimes. Transcending disciplinary boundaries, it provides a fresh answer to a simple yet profound question: why has liberal democracy retreated? Scheiring argues that Hungary's new hybrid authoritarian regime emerged as a political response to the tensions of globalisation. He demonstrates how Viktor Orban's Fidesz exploited the rising nationalism among the working-class casualties of deindustrialisation and the national bourgeoisie to consolidate illiberal hegemony. As the world faces a new wave of autocratisation, Hungary's lessons become relevant across the globe, and this book represents a significant contribution to understanding challenges to democracy. This work will be useful to students and researchers across political sociology, political science, economics and social anthropology, as well democracy advocates.
This book examines the effectiveness and consistency of EU democracy promotion in its Eastern neighbourhood between 1991 and 2014. It concludes that the EU's democratization role in this region was, not surprisingly, weak within this time period. However, this weak role only took shape under four domestic and transnational conditions: (a) a higher cost-benefit balance of rule transfer, (b) a lower structural difficulty a given country would need to overcome on its way towards a democratic regime, (c) increased levels of authority distribution across branches of power, and (d) a higher extent of democratic diffusion resulting from regional interactions. In those countries where these domestic and transnational conditions were present, as in Moldova, Ukraine, and Georgia, the EU's democratizing influence was in causal terms only the tip of the iceberg. Most variation in regime dynamics remains to be explained by domestic and transnational contexts.
Hegemony and Education is written in opposition to the displacement of hegemony by recent post-Marxist scholarship from the historical materialist foundations that underpin Antonio Gramsci's own distinctive usage of the concept. The study centers upon the inevitable loss of the nuances of hegemony as a concept that highlights the problem of the pathological reach of a capitalist epistemology and ontology upon human identity. Author Deb J. Hill argues that it was precisely the impress of capitalism's economic and extra-economic aspect upon humanity's own cognitive and moral capacity-upon its relational and valuational capacity-that Gramsci's writings attempted to articulate. In this respect, Gramsci differentiated himself in Marxist circles by the depth of his insights into Marx's historical materialist method and the practical reasoning that this methodology simultaneously engendered. As Hegemony and Education reveals, Gramsci's entire written legacy reflects his historical materialist allegiance: the problem of "education" as no less than the educative-formative problem of practical reasoning.
This edited volume examines malaise with democracy within three middle-income Latin American countries - Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. In particular, the book focuses on the gap within public opinion on democratic system within the context of crisis of representation and breakdowns of democracy. Based on a study using comparative and systematic survey data, the contributors of this volume provide a solid analysis on the state of democracy in three Latin American countries, whose lessons are useful for all types of democracy, in the north and the south.
This study established an intellectual profile of Albert Gallatin through his vision of government's role in a democratic republic and the republic's role in the community of nations. Only through a comprehensive analysis of Gallatin's political and diplomatic activities can the student of history learn to see his actions as expressions of clearly formulated principles. Gallatin was much more involved in the shaping of administrative policy than has been recognized. Moreover, he followed his unique Gallatinian approach to domestic policy as well as international diplomacy, always in pursuit of one paramount objective: the preservation of individual liberty within the context of a republic.
The book puts into plain words a changing dimension of politics in a traditional regime and offers an insight into the emerging transition to royal, semi-authoritarian democracy in Bhutan. Bhutan represents a political system which coalesces the rhetorical acquiescence of democracy with illiberal authoritarian attributes under the former royalist shadow. Royal democracy is a myth and only paints the frontage of democracy. The smokescreen of this kind of authoritarian regime is not yet democracy but is instead a new form of semi-authoritarian rule. The political reforms in Bhutan were orchestrated by the "traditional regime and elites in a traditional society" as a tightly controlled, top-down process without devolution of power outside the regime. Royal Democracy can best be understood as an attempt to construct a political regime that impersonates democratic institutions but works outside the logic of political representation and seeks to repress any vestige of genuine political pluralism. Exploring the authoritarian logic behind the democratic rhetoric is especially important for Bhutan, which is today glorified by the UN as "The Mecca of Gross National Happiness" and depicted by many as a model of top down democracy on popular media and in academia. Holding State controlled elections alone does not create a cure for deeper political, economic, and social predicaments besetting Bhutan and does not create a solid foundation for democratic transition. The glitter of royal, semi-authoritarian democracy is a "Jigmecracy," an old Jigme's system with new labels, a classic case of transition from a traditional regime in a traditional society.
Native scholars offer clearly written coverage of the relationship between post-Soviet and Asian political parties and democracy in their nations. Political Parties and Democracy: Volume III: Post-Soviet and Asian Political Parties is the third volume in this five-volume set. It offers clearly written, up-to-date coverage of post-Soviet and Asian political parties 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 post-Soviet parties, then discusses the realities on the ground in Georgia, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine. Likewise, the book offers an introduction to Asian political parties, followed by chapters on China, India, Japan, Malaysia, and South Korea. 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.
This work deals with the political transition in Spain from authoritarianism to democracy and its impact on business. It addresses the fundamental questions of how business was affected by the transition and how business, in turn, influenced the course of democratization, through collective action, and how it influenced the marketplace through the aggregate of individual business decisions. The work has a strong empirical base. Data was collected from the chief executive officers of 260 Spanish companies and the managing directors of over one hundred affiliates of the top-ranked business association, the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (the "CEOE"). The work is particularly timely in light of the transitions occurring in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Unlike many earlier political transitions to more open systems, in Latin America and Southern Europe, the dynamics of economic change concurrent with political change is getting much greater attention in the East European transitions. The East European systems are attempting simultaneous political transitions with movement from command to market economies. Some East Europeans have studied the Spanish experience to garner lessons for their own efforts.
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.
This book addresses various issues that have arisen in the practice of democracy in Nigeria since 1999, focusing on the Obasanjo years (1999-2007). Nigeria's return to democratic rule has been marked by developments such as the implementation of reforms to address perceived economic problems and corruption. The introduction of democracy in the country has also witnessed many challenges, including the difficult relationship between some political chief executives and their deputies; intriguing intergovernmental relations; the rise and resurgence of sub-national groups that pose serious threat to the hegemony of the state; precarious inter-ethnic/inter-sectional relations; attempts to perpetuate the tenure of chief executives through constitutional amendments; and developments in electoral politics and conflicts. The book provides incisive analysis into these issues.
This book analyzes the concept "true federalism" to examine whether there are definable dimensions of power-sharing that make 'true federalism.' The author takes a critical look at dimensions on political restructuring in Nigeria, which have been termed "true federalism." The work fills a significant gap in the existing literature on the theory and practice of federalism. The project will be useful to the students and professors of African Studies, political science, Nigeria federalism, public administration and policy. Additionally, the monograph will be interesting to the general public who seek to know more about contemporary issues in Nigeria.
From small-scale experiments, deliberative mini-publics have recently taken a constitutional turn in Europe. Iceland and Ireland have turned to deliberative democracy to reform their constitutions. Estonia, Luxembourg and Romania have also experienced constitutional process in a deliberative mode. In Belgium the G1000, a citizen-led initiative of deliberative democracy, has fostered a wider societal debate about the role and place of citizens in the country's democracy. At the same time, European institutions have introduced different forms of deliberative democracy as a way to connect citizens back in. These empirical cases are emblematic of a possibly constitutional turn in deliberative democracy in Europe. The purpose of this book is to critically assess these developments, bringing together academics involved in the designing of these new forms of constitutional deliberative democracy with the theorists who propagated the ideas and evaluated democratic standards.
Throughout World War II, Detroit's automobile manufacturers accounted for one-fifth of the dollar value of the nation's total war production, and this amazing output from ""the arsenal of democracy"" directly contributed to the allied victory. In fact, automobile makers achieved such production miracles that many of their methods were adopted by other defence industries, particularly the aircraft industry. In Arsenal of Democracy: The American Automobile Industry in World War II, award-winning historian Charles K. Hyde details the industry's transition to a wartime production powerhouse and some of its notable achievements along the way. Hyde examines several innovative cooperative relationships that developed between the executive branch of the federal government, U.S. military services, automobile industry leaders, auto industry suppliers, and the United Automobile Workers (UAW) union, which set up the industry to achieve production miracles. He goes on to examine the struggles and achievements of individual automakers during the war years in producing items like aircraft engines, aircraft components, and complete aircraft; tanks and other armoured vehicles; jeeps, trucks, and amphibians; guns, shells, and bullets of all types; and a wide range of other weapons and war goods ranging from search lights to submarine nets and gyroscopes. Hyde also considers the important role played by previously underused workers-namely African Americans and women-in the war effort and their experiences on the line. Arsenal of Democracy includes an analysis of wartime production nationally, on the automotive industry level, by individual automakers, and at the single plant level. For this thorough history, Hyde has consulted previously overlooked records collected by the Automobile Manufacturers Association that are now housed in the National Automotive History Collection of the Detroit Public Library. Automotive historians, World War II scholars, and American history buffs will welcome the compelling look at wartime industry in Arsenal of Democracy.
This book investigates how changing norms of sovereignty may promote better governance in Africa. It begins by tracing the evolution of the concept of sovereignty and how, in the post-Cold War era, sovereignty has been redefined to emphasize the responsibility of the state to manage conflict and protect human rights. African Reckoning includes assessments of how state actors in Africa measure up to the norms inherent in the notion of sovereignty as responsibility. The book also examines the question of accountability at the regional and international levels. The authors conclude that since the power of oppressed people to hold their governments accountable is very limited, the international community has a responsibility to provide victims of internal conflict and gross violations of human rights with essential protection and assistance. Accordingly, the book expounds on the normative principles of responsible sovereignty, international mechanisms and strategies for their enforcement, and empirical evidence about the performance of governments as measured by the requirements of responsible sovereignty. Contributors include Richard Falk, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, James Rosenau, Goran Hyden, Michael Chege, and John D. Steinbruner.
Do authoritarian regimes manage ethnic pluralism better than democracies? Is the process of democratization itself destructive of inter-ethnic accomodation? The notable contributors to Democratization and Identity explore and challenge such arguments as they introduce the experiences of East and Southeast Asia into the study of democratization in ethnically (including religiously) diverse societies. This insightful volume views political regimes and ethnic identities as co-constitutive: authoritarianism, democratization, and democracy are interconnected processes of (re)producing collective (including ethnic) identities and political power, under the influence of entrenched and evolving sociopolitical relations and forms of economic production. Democratization and Identity suggests that the risk of ethnicized conflict, exclusion, or hierarchy during democratization depends in large part on the nature of the ethnic identities and relations constituted during authoritarian rule. This collection's theoretical breakthroughs and its country case studies shed light on the prospects for ethnically inclusive and non-hierarchical democratization across East and Southeast Asia and beyond.
Why is it that government debt in the developed world has risen to world war proportions in a time of peace? This can largely be attributed to governments maintaining welfare expenditures beyond what tax revenues allow. But will these governments refrain from doing what is necessary for economic growth for fear of losing their electorate? |
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