"A Democratic Audit of the European Union" provides a systematic assessment of democracy in the EU against clearly defined criteria. Christopher Lord offers a double challenge to generalizations about a democratic deficit in the EU. On the one hand, it shows that standards of democratic performance in the EU may vary across Union institutions and decision-making processes. On the other hand, it shows that they can vary across key dimensions of democratic governance, including citizenship, rights, participation, representation, responsiveness, transparency and accountability.

Policy issues have grown ever more complex and politically more contestable. So governments in advanced democracies often do not understand the problems they have to deal with and do not know how to solve them. Thus, rational problem-solving models are highly unconvincing. Conversely, the Multiple-Streams Framework starts out from these conditions, which has led to increasing interest in it. Nevertheless, there has not yet been a systematic attempt to assess the potential of such scholarship. This volume is the first attempt to fill that gap by bringing together a group of international scholars to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the Framework from different angles. Chapters explore systematically and empirically the Framework's potential in different national contexts and in policy areas from climate change and foreign policy to healthcare and the welfare state.

"This Thing Called Trust "provides a detailed theoretical analysis of the research about trust, civic society and society capital. The author takes a comparative approach, considering the variations in both interpersonal (social) trust and trust in governmental institutions in European countries and in the U.S. He uniquely provides a complementary empirical analysis which connects discussions of the individual psychology of trust with understandings of its cultural and institutional roots at more aggregate (state or country) level.

This book explores the relationship between the religious beliefs of presidents and their foreign policymaking. Through the application of a new methodological approach that provides a cognetic narrative of each president, this study reveals the significance of religion's impact on U.S. foreign policy.

This volume examines factors associated with success and failure of historical episodes of democratization in Europe, giving a historical and comparative approach. It focuses on a series of important case studies, including Britain and the Netherlands, the Weimar Republic, Spanish Second Republic, the German Federal Republic, and the post-Communist studies of East Europe and Russia.

The acclaimed author of The Power Worshippers exposes the inner workings of the “engine of unreason” roiling American culture and politics.

Why have so many Americans turned against democracy? In this deeply reported book, Katherine Stewart takes us to conferences of conspiracy-mongers, backroom strategy gatherings, and services at extremist churches, and profiles the people who want to tear it all down. She introduces us to reactionary Catholic activists, atheist billionaires, pseudo-Platonist intellectuals, self-appointed apostles of Jesus, disciples of Ayn Rand, women-hating opponents of “the gynocracy,” pronatalists preoccupied with the dearth of white babies, Covid truthers, militia members masquerading as “concerned moms” and battalions of spirit warriors who appear to be inventing a new style of religion even as they set about attacking democracy at its foundations.

Along the way, she provides a compelling analysis of the authoritarian reaction in the United States. She demonstrates that the movement relies on several distinct constituencies, with very different and often conflicting agendas. Stewart's reporting and comprehensive political analysis helps reframe the conversation about the moral collapse of conservatism in America and points the way forward toward a democratic future.

In "Russia after the Cold War "the editors provide an accessible and comprehensive survey of the state of Russia at the end of the twentieth century, as it seeks to come to terms with its new status in the world community, the pressures and tensions arising from economic and social change and with the problems of ensuring a democratic future. Written by a specially commissioned team of internationally respected experts on contemporary Russia, Russia after the Cold War is ideally suited as a main text for introductory courses on modern Russia within a politics, Area Studies or combined social science degree.
Contributors:
Alexei Avtonomov, Edwin Bacon, John Berryman, Christoph Bluth, Michael Cox, Nadia Davidova, Mark Galeotti, James Hughes, Roger E. Kanet, Julie A. Lund, Nick Manning, Andrew Patmore, Anthony Phillips, Richard Sakwa, Peter Shearman, Mark Webber, Stephen Webber, Stephen White, Matthew Wyman.

South Africa's 1994 election was widely hailed around the world as miraculous. In this book, Anthony Butler examines South African experiences to cast doubt on this celebratory attitude to democracy. Contemporary political analysis highlights the benefits that democracy can sometimes bring. Butler, by contrast, argues that democracy can be malign. He attacks the myth that democracy ended apartheid, and shows that democratic practices themselves contributed to its evils. The author also explores weaknesses in political science as a discipline. This book will be essential reading for specialists in South Africa, and will appeal to political theorists, students of comparative politics, and historians.

The Frontiers of Democracy offers a comprehensive examination of restrictions on the vote in democracies today. For the first time, the reasons for excluding people (prisoners, children, intellectually disabled, non-citizens) from the suffrage in contemporary societies is critically examined from the point of view of democratic theory.

Volume three concerns political action on the margins of conventional political participation in a democracy: extremist, protest, and social movements. This theme covers a huge spectrum, ranging from pro-democracy movements in authoritarian regimes to anti-democratic extremist. The volume is organised in four sections: first, a theoretical paper linking the social movements literature to the literature on democratization; second, a series of comparative studies; third, essays on the United States and western Europe; and finally, a set of studies of successful or failed democratic transition in Yugoslavia, South Africa and the Philippines. The first section presents an ambitious synthesis of social movement theories with the 'political interactionist' theories of democratization associated with Guillermo O'Donnell, Philippe Schmitter, Adam Przeworski and others. The second section contains comparative studies, examining whether recent right-wing extremist voting in western Europe represents a real shift to the right. Two dimensions of nationalism in eastern Europe are examined and another chapter looks at two contextual factors affecting political protest in western democracies: mobilization by collective organizations and national political and socioeconomic conditions. Finally Karl-Dieter Opp examines the prospective role of political protest in the European unification process. Four papers pursue the analysis of contemporary far right in France, Germany and Austria. What are the characteristics of French National Front voters? Focus is also placed on right-wing violence in unified Germany and racism and anti-semitism in Austria. Two potential threats to democracy are studied: Basque terrorism and nazism in interwar Germany. Finally in this, there is an examination of the rise to power of the Nazy Party in Germany.

This book highlights the rightful role of citizens as per the constitution of the country for participation in Governance of a smart city using electronic means such as high speed fiber optic networks, the internet, and mobile computing as well as Internet of Things that have the ability to transform the dominant role of citizens and technology in smart cities. These technologies can transform the way in which business is conducted, the interaction of interface with citizens and academic institutions, and improve interactions between business, industry, and city government.

Representative democracy in Britain does not work. Or more accurately, its critics argue that it does not work as theories of representative democracy would lead us to expect. If the starting point for understanding is taken to be a 'standard model' of representative democracy then that model does not get us very far. Yet it is precisely such a model that modern British governments continue to use to legitimate their actions. Democratic Incongruities explains why the standard model is deficient, why recent 'reconceptualisations' of democracy and representation come with their own problems, and why theory and political practice have to address the 'inclusion-exclusion paradox' at the core of representative democracy. The fundamental question posed in this book is of the compatibility - both ideationally and practically - of representation with democracy. The answers are found in an examination of a series of 'problems' associated with this paradox in the context of British politics: of 'the people', of the representational transmission of power; of elected representatives; of representative government (specifically the Westminster model); and of citizen participation.

Local school boards in the United States spend almost $600 billion of the public's money and employ millions of Americans. They have a prime role, along with the home, in shaping the future for the country's young. Yet the more than 14,000 boards of education are obscure and most people have not the vaguest notion of how they operate and what impact they have. "School Boards in America" aims to provide a wide audience - educators and college students, board members, policymakers, parents and other taxpayers, and just about anyone interested in public affairs - with an inside view that will forever affect the ways in which they look at public schools and how they are governed.

The project of European integration now spans Europe, but in becoming bigger and broader the European Union has broughtry on itself significant criticism. As the EU becomes deeper, nd wider, and more ambitious, so opposition and scepticismnd become more prominent for citizens and more problematic for elites. Concerns about a 'democratic deficit' and theomestic distance between European elites and publics have come to be a common feature of European politics. As a consequence Euroscepticism has become a part of the terrain of conflict between political parties across Europe.
Opposing Europe? provides the first comprehensive review of party-based Euroscepticism across the breadth of contemporary Europe and the first in-depth comparative academic study of Euroscepticism. This, the second of two volumes, is made up of comparative chapters which address different aspects of Euroscepticism. The volume looks across Europe and includes EU member states and candidate and non-member states in order to draw out comparative lessons that relate to the nature of political parties, party systems, and the domestic politics of European integration.
Opposing Europe? is a groundbreaking, 'state of the art' book that provides a definitive review of a key issue in European politics. It is also one of the few attempts to integrate the fields of EU studies with both West European and East European studies in order to draw lessons about the way in which the EU interacts with domestic politics in both member and non-member states. Examining the way that parties position themselves and compete on the European issue provides powerful lessons for the trajectory of the European integration project more generally, and on the prospects for the emergence of a European political system and polity.

The important theories of Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Touraine, discussed in this book, seek to explain and resolve the "crisis of democracy." They start from a critique of structural inequality in political, economic and social fields - so much in contrast to democratic principles. But their theoretical perspectives and social conclusions diverge. Bourdieu insists on the radical overthrow of dominant institutions and their control of knowledge ("symbolic power"). Touraine advocates reformist cooperation as well as contestation between social movements and political institutions. Their different approaches provide compelling insights into the "democratic deficit" of modern society, that is, inability to overcome the widespread discrimination affecting women, the weaknesses of the environmental movement, persisting educational inequalities and the precarious nature of work in a global economy.

This collection examines the current stage of multicultural challenges and their influence on democracy in 12 countries of Europe and East Asia. Contributors draw out the differences between European and East Asian approaches to universalizing locality and localizing global norms regarding human rights and democratic individuality.

What are the prospects of the liberal democratic form of state spreading throughout the world? "Democracy and the Global System" analyzes the relationship between liberal democracy and the international system while developing a critique of liberal internationalism. Fabian Biancardi examines some of the key questions of modern politics and the major ideas of a number of significant authors and texts. While sympathetic to the aim of spreading liberal democracy, he demonstrates the many tensions and contradictions involved in achieving this outcome.

This up-to-date collection analyzes Romania's experiences of the transition form the harsh realities of the Ceausescu dictatorship to the uncertainties of the efforts to consolidate democracy and introduce a market economy. This volume focuses on Romania's progress in coming to terms with the legacy of its communist past, the realities of pluralism, the introduction of a market economy, and the challenge of European integration.

This book reexamines classical issues in the relationship between indifferent forms of democratization, civil, political and social--in Chile's transition to democracy during the 1990's. It highlights the lasting institutional limits tosocial democratization in countries that are democratizing in the context ofradical market reforms and provides an account of the politics of limiting social deepening in the crucial early years of Chile's transition, including a detailed examination of the influence of local union history and labor relations.

The analysis in this book disputes entrenched interpretations of the comparative political economy of industrialized democracies. It questions, in particular, the widely-held assumption that social democratic governments will defend the interests of labor. The evidence shows that labor has become split into two clearly differentiated constituencies: those with secure employment (insiders) and those without (outsiders). The book focuses on three policy areas: employment protection (representing the main concern of insiders), and active and passive labor market policies (the main concern of outsiders). The main thrust of the argument is that the goals of social democratic parties are often best served by pursuing policies that benefit only insiders. The implication of the book's insider-outsider model is that social democratic government is associated with higher levels of employment protection legislation but not with labor market policy. The book also argues that there are factors can reduce insider-outsider differences and weaken their influence on social democratic governments. These hypotheses are explored through the triangulation of different methodologies. The book provides an analysis of surveys and macrodata, and a detailed comparison of three case-studies: Spain, the UK and the Netherlands. Its reinterpretation of the challenges facing social democracy will represent a significant contribution to the comparative politics and political economy literatures.

"The Democratization of Albania "describes" "a multi-year project designed to promote democracy in Albania through the country’s entire educational system. Instructional materials were developed, including a basic manual, to introduce open and interactive teaching by a network of almost 3000 teachers and educators, who were trained through the project on the proper application of the materials developed. To sustain the network, five democratic civic education centers were established in as many universities throughout the country. Success with young people led the author to go beyond describing the project and propose in the book a new model for accelerating the process of democratization. This can be achieved by empowering ordinary citizens through education to actively participate in building their country’s democracy.

This book offers an innovative framework for understanding the role of civil society in regional and global policymaking. Using political economy analysis, Gerard demonstrates that ASEAN's people-oriented agenda builds legitimacy, while sidelining its detractors.

Since the end of the Pinochet regime, Chilean public policy has sought to rebuild democratic governance in the country. This book examines the links between the state and civil society in Chile and the ways social policies have sought to ensure the inclusion of the poor in society and democracy. Although Chile has gained political stability and grown economically, the ability of social policies to expand democratic governance and participation has proved limited, and in fact such policies have become subordinate to an elitist model of democracy and resulted in a restrictive form of citizen participation.