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.

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.

Anyone who is touched by public education - teachers, administrators, teacher-educators, students, parents, politicians, pundits, and citizens - ought to read this book, a revamped and updated second edition. It will speak to educators, policymakers and citizens who are concerned about the future of education and its relation to a robust, participatory democracy. The perspectives offered by a wonderfully diverse collection of contributors provide a glimpse into the complex, multilayered factors that shape, and are shaped by, education institutions today. The analyses presented in this text are critical of how globalization and neoliberalism exert increasing levels of control over the public institutions meant to support the common good. Readers of this book will be well prepared to participate in the dialogue that will influence the future of public education in United States, and beyond - a dialogue that must seek the kind of change that represents hope for all students. As for the question contained in the title of the book - The Phenomenon of Obama and the Agenda for Education: Can Hope (Still) Audaciously Trump Neoliberalism? (Second Edition) -, Carr and Porfilio develop a framework that integrates the work of the contributors, including Christine Sleeter and Dennis Carlson, who wrote the original forward and afterword respectively, and the updated ones written by Paul Street, Peter Mclaren and Dennis Carlson, which problematize how the Obama administration has presented an extremely constrained, conservative notion of change in and through education. The rhetoric has not been matched by meaningful, tangible, transformative proposals, policies and programs aimed at transformative change, and now fully into a second mandate this second edition of the book is able to more substantively provide a vigorous critique of the contemporary educational and political landscape. There are many reasons for this, and, according to the contributors to this book, it is clear that neoliberalism is a major obstacle to stimulating the hope that so many have been hoping for. Addressing systemic inequities embedded within neoliberalism, Carr and Porfilio argue, is key to achieving the hope so brilliantly presented by Obama during the campaign that brought him to the presidency.

An empirical assessment of whether participatory governance reforms within the EU enhance or endanger democracy. Many consider allowing civil society to take an active role in EU policy-making to offer the most effective means of enhancing democracy in the EU, whereas others argue that such attempts deepen the EU's democratic deficit.

In 1970, the Red Army Faction declared war on West Germany. The militants failed to bring down the state, but this book argues that the decade-long debate they inspired helped shape a new era. After 1945, West Germans answered long-standing doubts about democracy's viability and fears of authoritarian state power with a 'militant democracy' empowered against its enemies and a popular commitment to anti-fascist resistance. In the 1970s, these postwar solutions brought Germans into open conflict, fighting to protect democracy from both terrorism and state overreaction. Drawing on diverse sources, Karrin Hanshew shows how Germans, faced with a state of emergency and haunted by their own history, managed to learn from the past and defuse this adversarial dynamic. This negotiation of terror helped them to accept the Federal Republic of Germany as a stable, reformable polity and to reconceive of democracy's defence as part of everyday politics.

The thesis of this original and provocative book is that representative government should be understood as a combination of democratic and undemocratic, aristocratic elements. Professor Manin challenges the conventional view that representative democracy is no more than an indirect form of government by the people, in which citizens elect representatives only because they cannot assemble and govern in person. The argument is developed by examining the historical moments when the present institutional arrangements were chosen from among the then available alternatives. Professor Manin reminds us that while today representative institutions and democracy appear as virtually indistinguishable, when representative government was first established in Europe and America, it was designed in opposition to democracy proper. Drawing on the procedures used in earlier republican systems, from classical Athens to Renaissance Florence, in order to highlight the alternatives that were forsaken, Manin brings to the fore the generally overlooked results of representative mechanisms. These include the elitist aspect of elections and the non-binding character of campaign promises.

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.

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.

The success of fascist and communist regimes has long been explained by their ability to turn political ideology into a type of religion. These innovative essays explore the notion that all forms of modern mass-politics, including democracies, need a form of sacralization to function.

"An excellent analysis of the complex dynamics of inclusion in post-conflict societies: theoretically grounded, empirically rich, and with a well-informed set of policy-relevant insights and recommendations with implications far beyond the cases of Kosovo and Northern Ireland."Stefan Wolff, University of Birmingham, UK "Does the promotion of political accommodation between the contending parties in an ethno-nationalist conflict disadvantage other groups in society? This important question is at the heart of Michael Potter's nuanced study of post-settlement parliaments in Kosovo and Northern Ireland, in which he probes their record of representativeness, focusing on gender and ethnicity. His meticulous research, drawing on extensive fieldwork, shows that the domination of the parliaments by parties aligned to the conflict does indeed tend to marginalise other identities. His findings provide plenty of food for thought for practitioners in the field of conflict resolution. In particular, they underline the need for care in the design of institutional arrangements for deeply divided societies, so as to minimise potentially negative consequences that priority for accommodation and reconciliation may have for other issues and for the practice of inclusion."Adrian Guelke, Queen's University Belfast, UK "Identity is a central organising principle of politics in the 21st century. In this impressive book Michael Potter shows that a focus on gender and minority ethnic identities in newly-formed post-conflict assemblies provides a unique litmus test of the robustness of democratic politics. He analyses the cases of Kosovo and Northern Ireland with rigour and considerable insight. This book makes a highly original and lasting contribution to theory and practice in post-conflict settings world-wide."Yvonne Galligan, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland This book examines inclusion in post-conflict legislatures, using Northern Ireland and Kosovo as case studies and gender and minority ethnicity as indicators. The analysis uses an adapted framework developed by Yvonne Galligan and Sara Clavero to measure inclusion across a range of factors associated with deliberative democratic principles. The logic is that political systems designed to accommodate communities in conflict will prioritise certain identities over others. The aim of the book is to investigate how identities not directly associated with a conflict fare in a political system designed to manage identities in conflict. The book looks comparatively at the conflicts in Kosovo and Northern Ireland, then discusses approaches to conflict management, describing how political institutions were designed in those contexts. The themes of women and minority identities in those conflicts are then explored with a view to examining the extent of inclusion in the Northern Ireland and Kosovo Assemblies.

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.

Political constitutions alone do not guarantee democracy; a degree of economic equality is also essential. Yet contemporary economies, dominated as they are by global finance and political rent-seekers, often block the realization of democracy. The comparative essays and case studies of this volume examine the contradictory relationship between the economy and democracy and highlight the struggles and visions needed to make things more equitable. They explore how our collective aspirations for greater democracy might be informed by serious empirical research on the human economy today. If we want a better world, we must act on existing social realities.

The common assumption is that the path to democratisation is, once begun, near impossible to reverse. Particularly where democratic transition has been properly consolidated conventional wisdom and empirical evidence both suggest that no democracy should follow the example of Classical Athens or Germany's Weimar Republic and return to despotism. Starting from the premise that democracies are often deeply implicated in their own downfall, Theorising Democide challenges this conventional view by showing how democratic collapse is symptomatic of the inherent logic of democracy. Democide, in some cases, can thus be understood as a kind of ideological suicide with the tenets and devices of democracy being somehow intrinsic to its own collapse. In other words democide denotes the capacity that democracy has to come undone, to risk its own safety, to take its own life while doing what it was intended to do.

"Representative Bureaucracy and Performance: Public Service Transformation in South Africa is a first-rate blend of quantitative and qualitative analysis of one of the major transitions in modern governance. Fernandez makes a major theoretical contribution to the literature on representative bureaucracy in demonstrating how descriptive representation translates into both active representation and better performance. His discussion of the crucial role of language and communication brings new insight to the literature on public administration and democracy."-Kenneth Meier, Distinguished Scholar in Residence, American University "This study of public sector transformation goes beyond the descriptive qualitative research largely found in South African public administration historiography by undertaking sophisticated quantitative analysis to show that representation of previously historically disadvantaged groups, under certain circumstances, can improve the performance of public organizations. This is an excellent contribution, not only to public administration scholarship in South Africa, but also to the sparse literature on public organizations in developing countries. The book should be of great value to scholars and practitioners of public administration, as well as to students of political science and organizational studies."-Robert Cameron, Professor, University of Cape Town "This book provides an excellent analysis of the theory of representative bureaucracy in the context of South African post-apartheid government. South Africa is an important and fascinating case. The work adds substantially to the literature on representative bureaucracy and will be of interest to all who are concerned with the effectiveness of government organizations."-J. Edward Kellough, Professor, University of Georgia Governments throughout the world seek to promote employment equity and ensure that bureaucracies are representative of the citizenry. South Africa offers a rare and fascinating case for exploring what happens to bureaucracies as they undergo demographic transformation. Grounded in the theory of representative bureaucracy and using a mixed methods approach, this book explores how major changes in the demographics of the South African public service have affected the performance of the institution. The empirical analysis offers compelling evidence that representative bureaucracies perform better. As public organizations become increasingly representative by hiring historically disadvantaged persons, especially Africans, their performance improves, controlling for a range of factors. Evidence indicates representative bureaucracies perform better because they empathize with and advocate for historically disadvantaged communities, are equipped with linguistic and cultural competencies to serve a diverse citizenry, and can induce compliance, cooperation, and coproduction.

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.

This book interrogates Africa's pursuit of the Democratic Developmental State model by drawing on the experiences of Mauritius, Ethiopia, and Rwanda. It comprises of five parts: Part I, consisting of two chapters, outlines the key conceptual and theoretical approaches used throughout the book's discussions. The proceeding parts II, III and IV critically analyses the three case studies under review. Each part is subdivided into two chapters wherein a historical state-societal approach is employed in interrogating the extent to which Mauritius, Ethiopia, and Rwanda have been able to successfully achieve democratic development, on the one hand, and, conversely, inclusive economic growth and development, on the other. Part V, and Chapter 10 debuts the concept and model of the Developmental Civil Society.

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.

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.

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

In one of the first attempts to link the expanding field of leadership studies with classic works in political theory, Kenneth Ruscio places the study of political leadership squarely within the field of democratic thought and argues that claims about the legitimate duties and responsibilities of leaders depend upon claims about principles of democracy.It is impossible to imagine effective democracies without effective leaders. Yet leaders are often seen as the problem democratic governance is designed to solve, not the solution. Through a careful but lively critique of some of the classic works in modern democratic thought - from Machiavelli to Locke and from The Federalist Papers to Rawls - The Leadership Dilemma in Modern Democracy explains what is meant by effective political leadership in a system and culture of government where the power and discretion of leaders are severely limited. A compelling and provocative study, this volume will be of interest to scholars of leadership studies, political scientists, democratic theorists, and all those interested in concepts of democracy and the challenges faced by leaders.

Democratic Ideals and the Politization of Nature introduces the feral citizen as a response to a perceived need to revitalize the disruptive, critical, and exploratory nature of democratic culture. By learning from the traditions of aimless walking and by embracing a consciously feral method of political engagement, radically-democratic citizens can prompt political moments that create conditions where the primacy of the political can be performed, realized and defended. Ultimately, this book seeks not to solve the problems and paradoxes of democracy but to assist in unleashing and celebrating them. Garside concludes that using the methodology of feral citizenship - inspired by environmentalism and democratic articulation - to reprioritize the political within the green public sphere, citizens can reclaim necessary (and welcome) tensions between representations of nature and political citizenship.

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.

, The papers in this collection, written by a cross-regional group of experts, provide insights into the causes of declining levels of citizen participation and other distinct forms of civic activism in Europe and explore a range of factors contributing to apathy and eventually disengagement from vital political processes and institutions. At the same time, this volume examines informal or unconventional types of civic engagement and political participation corresponding to the rapid advances in culture, technology and social networking. The volume is divided into three interrelated parts: Part I consists of critical essays in the form of theoretical approaches to analysing weakening political participation and citizen estrangement; Part II is dedicated to an exploration of the role and deployment of technologically advanced media, such as the internet, as determinants of changing patterns of political participationist behaviour. Finally, Part III presents findings of empirical research on the issue of political participation. Combining theoretical and empirical perspectives, the book contributes towards a better understanding of the disquieting trend of voter apathy and disenchantment with politics in the context of the ongoing process of European integration, and offers a variety of analytical tools for decoding both the emergence of alternative conceptualizations of citizenship and other forms of meaningful civic and political engagement.

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.